With three half-distance tris under my belt, Ironman Arizona on Sunday was my first full distance. My goals were:
A: Finish
B: 15:52 (My brother-in-law did 15:53 at Cozumel 2013)
C: 13:30 (From all-goes-well estimates of 1:30 swim, 6:30 bike, 5:00 run, plus transitions)
TLDR: I finished in 13:43:01, which put me 136th out of 234 finishers in my division. Given the conditions on the day, I’m very happy with that result. (Of people who started, 14.8% DNF’d this year, which is the highest percentage since at least 2015; Competition Search: arizona | Endurance Data )
Training: My training was guided by the 80/20 Endurance Level 1 Ironman plan, plus home strength sessions from Matt Dixon’s Fast-Track Triathlete. My compliance was high. I only missed a few workouts, and the only big session I missed was a long ride + run four weeks before the race that ended early in a crash. (Fortunately, I had time to fully recover from that before this race.)
Leadup: Followed a pretty standard taper and felt good going into the race. I haven’t altered my diet much for previous halves, but I cut the fiber and spice out a few days from the full. I was a little jealous the night before the race when my family were eating delicious Thai food and I was eating brown rice and chicken seasoned just with soy sauce. 
A big attraction of this race is convenience. It’s only a couple hours from my home, and lodging and race-day parking are abundant. So checking in and getting to the site on race morning all went smoothly.
Swim - 1:29:19, 158th in division, Activity | TrainingPeaks
This man-made lake is shallow, so its temperature changes rapidly, and some years have been cold. But this year the water temperature was 64.2 F, pretty perfect in my sleeved wetsuit. It was also partly cloudy which was nice since much of the swim is straight into the rising sun. Overall, it went well, although I definitely felt the longness mentally. That might be a side effect of doing all my pool swims with music.
T1 - 17:04
I took this slow and thorough. I double sunscreened and made sure I got all my nutrition, etc.
Bike - 6:49:15, 161st in division, Activity | TrainingPeaks
It was a tough day on the bike, and this certainly drove the relatively high DNF rate. The course is three out-and-back laps onto the Beeline Highway, with the out being gradually uphill. Every lap we faced a headwind during the uphill. When I was on laps two and three, National Weather Service records put the wind at a steady 15 mph, with gusts of 25 mph, right into our faces. So maintaining aero discipline was key. But I really struggled with that on lap 2. By then my feet and undercarriage were painful, and I was bargaining with myself to spend 5 minutes in aero before each break to sit up. I blame those pains partially on the road quality, with lots of expansion joints and other bumps. I picked my long training ride roads to be pretty smooth and pleasant, and that left me a bit unprepared for the bumpiness here. My pain did lessen substantially after I got off the bike for a couple minutes at Special Needs and loosened my shoes. The downhill back into town was a bit wild, hitting 30 mph without pedaling was a bit scary because of the bumps plus general fatigue. Remarkably, I felt hotter cruising downhill than I did slogging uphill, because downhill the air was relatively still around me versus the cooling wind on the uphill! I stuck to my nutrition plan of granola bar / gel every 35 minutes, plus Gatorade to thirst, so I put in roughly 360 calories per hour. I was pacing by heart rate and feel, aiming for 120ish heart rate, which I hit well. Those last few miles into transition, I felt like a rockstar because I was so overjoyed at the prospect of getting off the bike.
T2 - 10:28
Again, I took things slow, with lots of Body Glide on my feet and another layer of sunscreen.
Run - 4:56:58, 103rd in division, Activity | TrainingPeaks
The run is 3 laps around Tempe Town Lake with some short hills and only one long hill. On the first lap, my plan was to run at 10:00 minutes per mile pace and walk every aid station and significant hill. I held this well and averaged 10:59 min/mile. For the second and third laps, I resolved to stick with that RPE and plan, so I ended up averaging 11:30 and 11:39 min/mile for those laps, which included a lot of pee stops. I was eating a gel every 40 minutes and drinking water and Gatorade at the aid stations, plus dumping ice down my kit. I had a little bag of M&Ms in Special Needs from my kids’ Halloween candy, which really hit the spot at mile 15. By the end of lap 2, I was feeling sleepy and my extremities were tingly. Although I hadn’t trained with it, I’ve heard the virtues of Coke during the Ironman run, so I switched to that for the lap 3. I am now a true believer. The Coke really perked me up for that last lap, and I pushed on with a nice flat pace to the finish!
Aftermath
In my half-Ironman races, the limiting factor on the run has usually been the threat of leg muscle cramps. I didn’t feel those at all during the Ironman marathon, presumably because of my slow pace. What I did feel was systemic fatigue. After the finish I was shivering and weak, similar to the depths of a bad flu. I ate a little on site before collecting gear and heading back to our place. There I continued to nibble on food, and I slowly started feeling better. I couldn’t even consider sleeping until over four hours after finishing, because I’d sucked down so much caffeine that last run lap. After a couple of days, I’m still tired and a bit sore, but doing okay.
Overall assessment
I’m really proud of my result, and I think it reflects my strengths. I’m in no way athletically gifted, but I’m smart and disciplined, so I feel like I paced extremely well given my goals. Maybe I could have pushed a bit harder and shaved a few minutes here or there (especially in transitions), but I think that would have dramatically increased the risk of blowing up and finishing in a miserable state. My relative strength on the run was not due to any athleticism, but rather due to not blowing up or getting injured like so many of my fellow racers I passed.
Looking forward
Training for an Ironman is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, and the long workouts were definitely tough on my family. So I’m not doing another full-discance race until my kids are more grown up and need me and my wife less. I can appreciate why people get addicted though; the shared tough but positive experience with ~2000 other people is really amazing. I may drive up just to volunteer next year and be part of the good vibes. Next season, I’ll be toning it down quite a bit, with just some local Olympic and sprint races on the calendar. I can see jumping back into half-distance racing after that.
Thanks
Number one thanks go to my wife and kids, for putting up with all the training for this past year (and the aborted build from last year). It was also great having my extended family on course to greet much during each run lap. Talking triathlon with my brother-in-law was also great, since he got me into the sport. Now he doesn’t have the full distance to hang over my head. Thank also you to everyone on this forum, especially @JoeX for organizing and @mbgoroff for checking in on me. Since I do all my training alone, even lurking in this wonderfully positive space has been a blessing. I’ll keep engaged even if I’m not going long next year.
