1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles cycling, and 13.1 miles running. This is how I spent Sunday 13 July 2008, participating in the Amica Ironman 70.3 triathlon. Swim at Roger Wheeler Beach in Narragansett, ride to Providence, and run through the city.

There were 14 starting groups with the first group starting at 6AM. I was in the Men 30-34 Last Names A-K. That should give you an idea of how large my age group was. Our group was 4th to start, and we got started at 6:20 AM. The course was a rectangle, marked by yellow buoys. Orange buoys were used to indicate the turns. Swim out past the yellow buoys, hang a left at the orange buoy, hang another left and the second orange buoy, and back to the beach.

Since the waves were relatively small, it was relatively easy to find space to swim right from the start. I got into a comfortable rhythm right away. I passed 5 yellow buoys, wondering when I would see the orange one indicating the turn. Finally came upon it and made the left turn. The next orange buoy was not too far away, and after that turn, I am on my way back to shore. The rest of the swim was relatively uneventful, and when I emerged from the water, I looked at my watch and saw 37 minutes for the 1.2 mile swim. I had planned for a 40-45 minute swim. I am elated, felt great and moved on to the transition area.

Friends of mine came down to watch, and encouraged me from outside T1. Calmly I removed my wetsuit, put on my helmet and bike shoes, and started biking about 10 minutes ahead of my plan. I felt great, and was eager to get moving on the bike course.

We hit the first aid station at about mile 17 or so, and I stopped to use the rest room. At this point I feel fantastic, legs are firing, and I figured a quick potty break is fine. I definitely have enought fluid in me if I need to pee. I got back on track and found my first sign of trouble at about the 20th mile. My rear tire went soft. I stopped and made a quick decision. Fill it back up with one of the two CO2 cartridges I had. If the leak was slow enough, I could avoid changing the glued on tire. A quick inflate and I was on my way again. About 10 miles later, the tire was soft again. I had one CO2 cartridge left, and really had no choice. I had to change the tire. I would not make it to T2 otherwise.

I give a lot of credit to the guys at Niantic Bay Bicycles. They REALLY know how to glue on a sew up and make it stick. I wrestled with that tire for a long time before I got it off. I seated my spare tire on the rim, inflated it and got going again. That stop took between 20 and 30 minutes. What a bummer. My goal time of 5:30 has gotten away from me. Oh well, you can't predict or prevent these things and it is wasted energy to worry about it. I got back on the bike and rode very conservatively the rest of the way. Did I mention that this was the first time I changed a tubular tire? All the more reason for my conservative approach.

The rest of the ride was a lot more hilly than I anticipated, and the toll of the activity plus the stress of the mechanical problem started to get to me a little. Wind gusts seem to come from no where to knock us around. I was more eager to finish the bike ride as opposed to enjoying the bike ride. As I finished the ride, in the back of my mind I knew that my bike split was unacceptably slow. What can you do?

My buddy Michael greeted me at T2 and I told him what happened. He figured as much and offered additional encouragement. At this point, only 13.1 miles to go, and I had concentrated my training on the run. Here was the test.

After the first half mile, I was confronted with a hill steeper than anything I had ever run. I ran up a third of it, and walked the rest. I was not making any more progress running than walking, I so figured I would save the energy. At the top of the hill, things flattened out, and the course became more of a rolling up and down. I settled into a nice groove. Run comfortably between aid stations, walk through the aid station, taking water, gatorade, and a sponge to cool off. It was warm, but mostly breezy.

It was a two loop run course, and at the return from the first lap, I found my friends in the crowd. My wife and daughter had joined them and that gave me an exta boost, and I came to the turn around to start the second lap. I again attacked the big hill, but found myself walking about a third of the way through. Once over the top, I stayed nice and steady, running between stations and walking through them.

A mile or so from the finish, my legs were toast. I felt like I was going to fall down. But the finish line was in site.

Entering the finishing shoot was an unbelievable feeling. I have no idea how many people were there, but they were all in a frenzy, cheering us on. When I crossed under the finish banner, my arms went up like I won the race. Volunteers helped me along, gave me a finishers medal and finisher's gap. Photograhers took my picture in from of an Ironman 70.3 backdrop. It was a fantanstic feeling and an wonderful experience.

So, here are the performance stats.

Swim: 36:59
T1: 4:07
Bike: 3:25:48
T2: 1:48
Run: 2:11:30
Overall: 6:20:12 894th out of 1296 starters

A far cry from the 5:30:00 that I aimed for. But several stops of the bike for mechanical problems killed any hopes for that time. A lot of time and energy lost.

No worries though. There is always next year. :) More honestly, I can't wait to do this event next year.

Post race analysis...another local guy did this race and did very well, something like 65th overall. Young kid and fast. We both did a sprint earlier this year, and I used his overall bike time relative to mine in that event to scale what my bike time might have been in this event.

Turns out, theoretically I might have finished in 5:23:00 or so.

I know those analytical games don't really work, but it gives me confindence for future events.