Ironman Texas 70.3 2013

 

I left for Galveston with my girlfriend Calley and my roommates Kyle and Stephanie. I usually get excited about going back this race but I'm beginning to have second thoughts on that as the last 3 years haven't worked out so well, but more on that later. I was also surprising Calley with a small surprise as this was our big 3 month anniversary of dating, this is a big milestone. We got to the room  late Friday night and I was waiting on her to quit talking and do her thing so I could set up for her surprise without her noticing. 

 

 Once she wasn't looking I was able to whip out the the cupcakes, picture frame, and the rest of the pictures from some of our adventures. I believe she liked the surprise and was impressed I found a way to sneak everything in without her noticing. Sneaky, sneaky.

The next morning we both did our bike rides along the sea wall, we had some minor difficulties getting both of our bikes together as both chains had kinks in them, but once we got going I captured these shots of the ocean on the way back from my ride as I was just cruising in loosening up the legs.

 

For lunch we both picked up a baked potato from McAlister's Deli and walked across the street and I had lunch out on the beach. As we both started started throwing our scraps for the birds. I found out they loved the baked potato but they didn't like the tomato's that were on it. They wouldn't even touch that.

  

While I was taking a short dip in the ocean, Calley was able to not only draw this out but take a picture of it without me noticing and surprise me with it on facebook.

 

That night we went to search for dinner but found out the wait times were ridiculously long. We drove further down the seawall thinking maybe some of the triathletes wouldn't go out this way and we were wrong. We experienced some of the worst customer service ever at Mario's but we had great company as we ran into Clay Emge from Tyler and his girlfriend Kimberly. Clay would go off and have a great race finishing in 4:13.

Taking a hit off the crack pipe.

Race morning well lets just say things started looking rough from this picture above. I went to pump up my tires and I noticed my crack pipe had fell out of my pump and I had to borrow one at tech support, I'm glad they even had one. I would find my afterwards and as it must have fell into my transition bag.

Calley and I making our way down near the start and we spotted Stacy McKinney!

 I was the first person to enter the water for my age group as I cannon balled in before our start with 217 other guys. I didn't think my swim was too bad overall but towards the end a lady had cut in front of me and started swimming left. I reached over her and continued my swim but she got a good kick to my ribs, that I didn't really feel at the time until the next morning I was wandering why our my ribs sore and remembered I was kicked there. Still my swim didn't represent of what I know I'm capable of actually it was very sub-par.

Trying to get out of the water and rip a fast transition.

          

  Once I got my wetsuit off my garmin had snapped off too, I guess that is better than loosing in the water. I need a simple repair on it now though. I only ran back to get it because I realized how expensive it was, if my tri shorts had fallen off I might would have even noticed. You can see my Garmin at the bottom of the photo above.

 

Things got worse. Running through T1 there were so many bikes I passed up mine a couple of times before I finally slowed down enough to find it and  yes I knew my number. 

 

 Hopping on the bike my legs feel pretty great and I was going Garmin-less. It wasn't long later I get passed by a speedy 21 year old kid and that is encouraging me to go with him. I hung with him easily for a few minutes but started wandering why I was loosing ground all of sudden. Then I could feel something in my rear wheel that something wasn't right. I kept thinking I would know for sure if it was a flat. Then I could feel the wheel start going side to side. I said that's it I need to check this out. Sure enough, I was getting flat just shy of the 15 mile marker.  I had Vittoria Pit Stop to use for flats, I never used it in a race before and I wasn't sure how I was going to get to the stem that was up in the disc. Once I got some air in noticed I that the disc had ants on it then I noticed I was getting bit. I started running down the road and jumped on the bike and got I was able to reach it just fine and get going down the road but that only lasted for about 5 miles before I was flat again. This was it, I was out of Pit-Stop. I just took the wheel off thinking that a mechanical crew would come by someday. Nope, never happened. I flagged down a race support vehicle and they couldn't reach anybody in mechanical due to a poor signal. They were going to go up the road and find tech support to help me out if not they would give me a ride back. I finally sat down on the side of the leaned up against someones trash can and watched the race go by. A lot of friendly racers were asking if they could help, finally a stranger threw me another can of pit-stop and I was able to get going again. Not long later I grab a water hand out at the same time a kid also drops one into the road and I'm heading right towards it....I run right over and was able to stay on the bike At the turn around I commit that I'm going to hammer the last 28 miles as hard as I can. I lasted for maybe 20 miles before I noticed that I'm getting pretty tired from that. I also could tell I was getting low on air again, hoping to make it back back to T2 time in before I do. Coming back into Moody Gardens I ran over those speed bumps pretty hard and that just knocked everything completely out I pull up and started walking to the transition.While I know I didn't have much air in my tire most of the time I was riding, based on the results I would have still been way behind. I'm taking immediate attention to this and hoping to get this corrected soon.

Somehow I'm still feeling, but deep down I'm not too happy with this end result.

 I didn't hustle for time through transition like I normally do. My legs were shot through time trialing the last half.  I set a moderate pace on the run once I got going then I another 24 year old kid passes me on the run and I go with him and started encouraging him to keep going and telling him he had this as we would pass guys in his age group. I had some highs and lows on the run, the cola kept me going and I would try to get it every chance I could. It tasted sooo good at the time.

On the drive back Calley was there to cheer me up with her singing some of her favorite tunes. Finally, I passed out on the drive back.

Well it wasn't the race I was hoping for it's back to the drawing board. I still have some amazing people and an awesome Lord who is always there for me.  In the meantime, I'm resting up and will be getting ready for the Kemah triathlon soon. Thanks again for reading.