Done.

I made it!

First of all I want to thank Guest Blogger Ben for giving you all the updates yesterday. Apparently his posts were very popular and well-liked and therefore he'll never be allowed to post here again. (In addition to winning the Best Road Rash at the Lake Arrowhead Tri last year, Ben did his first Ironman in Brazil last month in a stunning 11:01. Not too shabby.)

There is so much to report so rather than doing one huge race report I'll be throwing many random smaller entries over the next few days. Here's the quick summary:

The lake was 59.5 degrees when we started. A little chilly but the temperature was a complete non-issue. I had a great swim and started the bike 10 minutes ahead of where I thought I would be. I loved the first 40 miles or so of the bike ride. I had a pretty decent pace going and the scenery was beautiful. But then the winds picked up. It was pretty bad at times and it deflated me more emotionally than physically. I did a lot of mental struggling for about 30 miles or so but managed to recover. My legs felt pretty good starting the run, but I was having stomach problems caused by eating way too many Shot Bloks. My stomach pretty much destroyed the second half of the first marathon loop but I came back pretty strong for the second loop.

Here's something pretty amazing about my Ironplan:

On May 24th, I said "My best guess is I'll take the golden path and come in at 14:45."
My finishing time was 14:45:39.

Not to take anything away from my incredible supporters in Coeur d'Alene, but I DID make it pretty easy for them to see me. To simplify things, before the race I made some mental changes to the chart and told them "just remember '2-7-6'. I want to start the bike 2 hours after the swim, I want to start the run 7 hours after that, and I want to finish the race 6 hours after that."

I started the bike 1:47 after the race began (13 minutes early).
I started the run 6:58:34 later (86 seconds faster than predicted).
I finished the marathon in 5:59:40 (20 seconds faster than predicted).

If you don't mind, I'll give myself some credit for being able to make adjustments during the race to really meet those target times so closely.

You'll often hear people say "it's fun to go vacation, but after a while you just want to go home." Maybe it's the lake, or the trees, or the Spirit of Ironman still lingering in the air but I've been here 5 days and I'm not ready to leave.