11:21. that's how long it took me to suffer my way through the Subaru Ironman Canada last Sunday. 11 hours and 21 minutes of trying to keep thinking positively. 11 hours and 20 minutes of knowing I still had to keep moving forward. 11 hours and 19 minutes of still thinking I might not make it to the finish without embarrassing myself. Whew. Luckily that didn't happen. But looking at these photos I can only guess what other fit triathletes out there thought as I passed them or they passed me. Man who knew a fat guy could keep moving forward.
1:03.xx - that a long time to be in the water. well unless you're at an Ironman than 1hour and 3 minutes is actually not that long at all. Okanagan Lake was a cool 68deg on race morning and I felt great. Ironically this was the easiest swim i've even done at Ironman. I went easy from the start and never tried to increase my tempo knowing that i had a long way to go and that if i blew up early i would never survive. luckily i had lots of nice water to swim in and only got kicked a few times. beautiful lake. great swim. perfect start.
5:36 - for 112 miles that didn't seem like that long of a ride. 
I felt really great out there on the bike. I think it must have had something to do with my Specialized Transition. Man what a great bike. I felt comfortable the whole time and I never had to sit up out of the aerobars for more then a few minutes to get comfortable and back into the speedzone! The whole ride was like a ride with friends - but with lots of extra support. The day seemed to fly by and the scenery was so great the whole way on the bike. Loved it! Especially because the ride ends with about 20km downhill at 70+ kph... nothing wrong with that.
4:36. of running. or sort of running. it took me 1 hour less to run 26 miles then it did to ride 112 miles. oops. that's a long time to be out there.
Of course with the vast amount of fat i'm carting around i think that time ended up being pretty good. plus i've expanded my capacity for suffering yet again. i keep thinking i've reached my max, but on Sunday i suffered even worse then ever before. i really think that if i were to train more i would suffer less, but i'm not 100% convinced of that. i think i would just go a bit faster... hmm. maybe there is something to this training after all.
I had a great time in Penticton this past weekend. I hung out with some friends. i did two really nice rides and i got to tell everyone i met about the great bike i'm riding. nothing could be better then that. of course i did have to suffer through the last half of a really slow and sore marathon... but i still did it with somewhat of a smile on my face. I realized as i ran back toward town at about the 10 hour point in the day - i control every part of this race for me. i control my training. i control my pace. i control my feelings and if i'm feeling sore, slow and tired i have no one to blame by myself and my own preparation. i came up with my ironman mantra. "if you don't train. you can't complain" and so as i hobbled back to town i did it satisfied that my day went exactly the way i hoped it would and that i did as well as i possibly could... fun times for sure. see you next year.
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