RACE REPORT IRONMAN COEUR d'ALENE

Highlights
Bike speed ave. over 20 mph
Even splits on the bike
Run pace under 8 min miles
Neg. splits for the marathon

These were also my main goals for the race. My execution was spot on there. It's so cool when this happens. I think this is only the second marathon I've neg split, so yeah, I'm still psyched.

Low lights
The 35 and 40 min swim spilts. Difficult conditions with wind, waves and
40 something deg. air temp. There was no real chance to warm up for the
swim and with a beach start you hit the water running. Very rough, contact
collision swim. The first 1000 meters were shoulder to shoulder, hands to
feet, elbow to head kind of swimming. And that part was faster than the
more open water second half.?

Transitions were long for me. Had to pee in T1 after taking in like a
gallon or more of lake water. Had a single spell of intestinal distress
in T2, so another porta pottie stop. Each of these added a couple minutes
to transitions but there was no choice. Ya gotta go than ya gotta go.

Nutrition went well with Gu's. Powerbar pieces, gatoraid and cola on the run. Plus my fav. for halfway on the bike, a PB&J sandwich. Even if I don't want or couldn't take anything else I can allways eat and keep down a PB&J.

The consensus here was that the cold made for a lot of misery. Coming from Maine I just didn't feel it that way. I thought the swim was warmer that any lake swimming back home right now, the hills were tamer and similar cooler breezes off the water (ocean On MDI), and cloudy, 50-60deg with light showers is perfect marathon weather in my book. The headwinds were discouraging at times but the out and back courses rewarded you with tailwind easier sections.

I passed on sighing up for Cd'A next year and ended up ~15 min. and 9 places out from a Hawaii slot. Oh well. Im very happy with a 50 min Improvement on my PR. Plus I won't need to find a Fall Marathon to try for a Boston time since 3:29 will get me a number next April. Yea.