Ironman Arizona Race Report

In the words of Austin Powers, "that really hurt!" I wanted to feel some pain, and I did. I gave it my all this time and so although my time was slower than IMFL, I felt much more satisfied crossing the finish line.

On the swim, I swam as hard as I could. I still didn't go any faster than IMFL. So my swim obviously is not that good and I plan to work on it a lot for next year. (I'll write about my goals in a different post).

Total Swim: 1:09:57

On the bike, I started out by averaging 248w for the first 1 hour and 20 minutes. I felt good, but not great. I then realized that there was a huge headwind going out and huge tailwind coming back. I was spinning out my gears back into town. So my strategy then became to push hard into the wind, and let up a little coming back. I averaged 253w for the first 2 hours 20 minutes. Once I got to the 70 mile marker, however, I started to feel the cumulative fatigue. I knew then that just finishing the race was going to be difficult. From that point on until the end of the race, I was just battling to get to the finish line. I kept questioning why I was still doing the race. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that my oldest brother flew out to watch me. My average power for the entire ride was 232w.

Total Bike: 5:03:46

Once I got onto the run, my plan was to start out running 8:20-8:30s and then pick it up after mile 4. I stuck to that plan, but was nevertheless really tired. I suddenly got a second wind at mile 7. At that point, I though I could maybe have a decent run. But then I completely crashed at mile 12. From then on, I was in a lot of pain and couldn't turn over my legs. I saw my brother at mile 20 and he told me that if I run 10min/mi, then I could still go under 11 for the race; I couldn't. I landed up walking pretty much all of miles 12-26. My splits are below:



Total Run: 4:38:53

I definitely gave it my all this time. I may have overestimated my fitness and underestimated the recovery time I needed, but I was ecstatic to cross the finish line, especially considering how much I was hurting throughout the day. Overall, the day was much more rewarding and fulfilling than IMFL.

Total Time: 11:03:46

Here is a video of the race that my brother put together.