Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
Today's episode is a breakdown and recap of Ironman Arizona, which I completed this past Sunday.
Today is now Thursday, the Thursday after the race.
So I'm in recovery from the Ironman effort, which I'm very happy with the effort overall.
Total time, 10 hours, six minutes, two seconds.
So close to sub 10.
Swim was one hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds.
My transition one was eight minutes, 38 seconds.
Bike, five hours, three minutes, six seconds.
Transition two five minutes 23 seconds and the run three hours 18 minutes 32 seconds for, like I said, a total time of 10 hours six minutes and two seconds total.
And I'll break down each leg of the Ironman Ironman Arizona here a little bit.
But there are some things I want to share before we get into to race day.
Now, from my understanding uh, Ironman Arizona for years now has been a very popular race, but this is 2025 was the last time that they'll be doing an Ironman in Arizona on this course.
I'm not exactly sure why, but they are retiring the Ironman Arizona course.
Now this was a Sunday race and we flew out Friday.
So two days prior to the Ironman.
Quick little story before we get into kind of the travel day, because I want to talk about some of the logistics that go into an Ironman triathlon, especially when you're traveling with your entire family.
The night before we left, so Thursday night, I'm laying in bed.
I'm feeling great.
It was day one of the carb up.
I'm in I'm in the taper.
I'm feeling recovered.
Was trying to fall asleep early to get you know plentiful sleep in preparation for the race Sunday.
So I was going to sleep before Steph.
And earlier that day, as I walked into the bathroom, I saw this kit in this box on our vanities.
And it was a nose hair wax kit.
And I assumed Steph bought this for me post-race, because earlier in the week we were talking about my out of control nose hairs that I trim and they grow back almost same day.
It's crazy.
So I saw this kit sitting on the vanity earlier in the day, didn't think much of it.
I'm getting into bed early Thursday night before Steph, go through my nighttime routine.
I put my sleep mask on.
I've been sleeping with this eye sleep mask for the last couple of months and I love it.
I absolutely enjoy it, especially the nights when I go to bed before Steph, because it blacks everything out.
All the lights in the bedroom can be on and I don't see anything.
I fall asleep so well and I stay asleep. very well too.
So I'm in bed, sleep mask on, about to fall asleep.
And I hear Steph say do you want me to clean out your nose hairs so you have more horsepower in your breathing?
Come Ironman.
And I was like, no, I'm about to fall asleep.
I'll do it when I get back from the race.
So she was doing it. her nose at the time.
And she said, let me just do it really quick.
It doesn't hurt at all.
And I watched her do hers.
She put the wax in the stick in her nose.
She let it dry.
She ripped it out, didn't flinch, nothing.
And she pulled out like maybe a few nose hairs.
My nose hairs are probably a hundred times more dense than Steph's nose hairs.
So as I'm laying in bed, I was like, all right, we'll bring the kit over, shove them up my nose, we'll rip it out.
You say it doesn't hurt at all, I'll fall back to sleep.
So I'm laying in bed.
She brings the wax kit over.
She puts one in at a time.
So she starts with my right nostril, puts the wax, the hot wax and the stick in there and lets it dry.
I lean up, I pull it out.
And no lie, it drew blood.
I was bleeding out of my right nostril.
It hurt significantly more than she led me to believe.
And I have to only attribute that to the amount of nose hairs that I have.
They must be very dense and strong nose hairs.
It was painful.
I was bleeding.
I had blood on my face.
And I knew I had to do the other nostril.
So we throw the hot wax and the stick into my left nostril now.
I sit up.
I'm anticipating the pull because the first one hurt and drew blood.
This one didn't come out quite as easy.
I pulled nothing, no movement.
So then I just start pulling harder and harder and harder, and I could feel Each additional nose hair ripping out of my skin.
Got the left nostril cleared out.
Lots of hair came out.
I will say, it felt great.
I could breathe really well.
I can still breathe very well.
My nose has never been this clean and empty before.
For years, it's been filled with nose hairs.
But it was traumatic.
Thursday night before going to sleep.
That's what my wife decided to treat me to prior to getting on a plane the next morning and flying to Arizona for my Ironman.
Did it make a difference in my performance?
Who knows?
Did I feel better?
Absolutely.
Once the pain resided.
But a lot of nose hair. came out.
My note right here, so I didn't forget to talk about this.
Talk about the nose hair clearance story.
That was Thursday night.
Steph, I love you.
Thank you for helping me with my nose hairs.
But I'm going to choose different options in the future other than the wax kit.
Painful.
It was painful.
Okay, so the next day, we traveled to, like I said, Arizona with our entire family.
I wanted the whole family to be there for this race.
So we took our three-year-old daughter Charlie, one-year-old son Nico, Steph's parents, Kim and Nick Banda.
They flew in for the race.
My dad and his girlfriend, Sherry, they were there for the race.
And it was just really nice to have everyone there.
It was really, really nice to have the whole family there and truly celebrate a big prep, a big effort and a strong performance, in my opinion.
But we traveled with the kids.
And if you have kids...
Young kids especially, you know what traveling on an airplane is like with young kids.
It was an adventure, but it was all good.
It was fun.
We flew out from Austin direct to Arizona, landed in Phoenix.
We flew to the Phoenix airport and went to rent a car.
And the only vehicles they had left were cars. big trucks.
So we ended up getting a Ram 2500 as our rental.
Way too excessive for what we needed for the weekend, but it's all that was left.
And, in retrospect, by the grace of God, very appreciative that we ended up renting a Ram 2500, because shortly after we got into our rental car and started making the trek to our Airbnb, which was only 15 minutes away from the airport.
Traffic was crazy in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe area.
We were staying in Scottsdale.
We flew into Phoenix, but the race was in Tempe.
They're all kind of like right in the same vicinity.
And we were on the highway and traffic came to a pretty abrupt halt.
We slowed down.
We're sitting in traffic.
I believe we were on the 202.
Next thing we know that happens is we're getting thrown out of our seats in our truck on the highway.
What ended up happening is traffic stopped abruptly.
We were probably sitting for 20 seconds at that point.
We're two cars behind us.
The car wasn't paying attention.
Hit the car behind us.
Full speed.
That car slammed into us.
Hit us.
Threw our truck around.
Luckily we had this massive 2500.
So the only thing it really tore up was our rear bumper.
But it shook everyone up.
Threw everything in the truck around.
Steph actually ended up hitting her nose and breaking her nose.
This is Friday.
Friday, two days before the race, right after we landed in Phoenix, the kids were crying and shooken up.
So that's how we started this whole trip.
Steph was a trooper about all of them.
And she hit her nose so hard.
There was blood everywhere within this truck, all over herself.
And we're just trying to get from airport to, after a long day of travel with the kids, the Airbnb and get them settled.
So that's how all of this kind of kicked off.
It was absolutely chaotic and we didn't share any of the story during the weekend because we just didn't feel like bringing any attention to it.
But this is the first time I'm actually talking about it.
That was how we kicked off this whole weekend which unfortunately, but also just extremely appreciative and grateful that no one was seriously injured.
We were all okay.
We were able to get back to the Airbnb safely.
Family was a little shooken up, but it was an event to start the Ironman weekend.
That is for sure.
To pivot from there, some of the things that we did immediately after getting into Arizona.
So the bike was dropped off at Moxie Bike Shop in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Great shop, highly recommend it.
M-O-X-I-E, Moxie Bike Shop.
Because the thing when you travel with your bike to one of these races is that you have to.
In order to take it through the airport onto a plane, you have to put it in a bike bag.
You can't just like walk your bike into the airport and they check it underneath on its own.
You have to put it in a bike bag and to put it in a bike bag, it has to be broken down.
And I don't know how to break a bike down properly.
So I took that bike the bike that I raced on my Cervelo P5 to a shop here in the Austin area.
They broke it down, packed it up.
We got the bike to Arizona on the plane.
Upon arriving, took it to Moxie Bike Shop where they took it out of the bag.
They put it all back together.
It's really important to note that you have some sort of guide of your measurements.
When you get your bike fit, your bike fitting technician will write down all the measurements of what they adjusted on the bike that are specifically fitted to you.
So I took that paper to Moxie and just provided it to them as they were building the bike back together.
They could build it based off the specs that the bike technician who fitted me fitted that bike to.
So it was exactly the way that I needed it, the way that I was training on it, and it was fitted specifically to my needs.
Now a few things that we ended up doing additionally at the Moxie bike shop is I got new wheels and tires put on.
I tried doing that here in Texas, but the shop couldn't get it done in time.
So upon arriving to the Moxie bike shop, like I said in Scottsdale, We put on a head HED disc wheel on the back.
And then we put on a matching, not disc, but a matching wheel and tire on the front of the bike.
Now these disc wheels, you might've seen pictures or videos of these wheels.
Most people don't train with disc wheels, but they race with disc wheels.
I believe they're more, aerodynamic.
It's a faster setup.
But essentially the whole wheel, like you can't see through it.
It is maybe a carbon fiber type material, but it helps with the performance of the bike.
So I used a disc wheel on my last triathlon, which was in 2021, my 70.3 in Cancun, Mexico.
And I decided I wanted to use another disc wheel for this race.
And we ended up getting that done just a few days, two days prior to the race.
But I can tell a big difference in terms of riding performance utilizing a disc wheel as opposed to not.
That's one of the things we got done as soon as we arrived to Arizona.
Now the episode of the podcast that I recorded before this one that I'm speaking into right now, and we released.
The previous episode was all about my taper.
So the day of travel being Friday, this is my second day of my carbohydrate load.
Race was Sunday.
As I talked about in the previous episode, I like to carbohydrate load three days and two days out.
And then eat normal the day before, which I'll talk about here.
As we get into Saturday the day before.
But Friday, the day of travel, ended up being my second day of the carbohydrate load.
So there was some backwards planning, logistical planning to kind of, ensure that I stayed on top of my carbohydrate load.
Some of the things that I did, I was consuming about 800 grams of carbs.
That's why I ended up consuming Thursday and Friday each day before the race.
So I had between those two days, 48 hours, 1600-ish grams of carbohydrates.
And it was a perfect taper.
It was a perfect carbohydrate load in my opinion.
But to ensure that I stayed on top of my nutrition Friday while traveling, I packed a lot of meals.
So I carried a cooler with me on the plane that had ice packs.
And then I had a meal of beef and rice in there.
I carried some orange juices, honey, cereal.
And then what I like to do, going into a carbohydrate load, is input everything the day before into MyFitnessPal so I know exactly what I'm consuming during that carbohydrate load to hit my protein, fat and carbohydrate macronutrient goals throughout those days, to ensure I'm dialed and just hit exactly what I need to.
So the day before traveling I had everything inputted into MyFitnessPal to hit the macronutrient goals that I wanted to.
I prepared my foods and my meals, some of which were in a cooler, some of which were just in my backpack.
And then, as soon as we landed in Phoenix, we put an order of Instacart in to have groceries delivered to our Airbnb for what we would need and what I would need really for the remainder of Friday and then all day Saturday, leading into the race.
I think Instacart is one of the greatest things ever invented.
Before having kids, we never used Instacart.
Before having kids, we used to love our trips to the grocery store.
We'd take our time walking down the aisles, exploring what's new.
It was a very relaxing, typically Sunday afternoon trip, Steph and I. After having kids...
We don't take those trips to the grocery store as frequently, but we Instacart all the time.
I love Instacart.
If you haven't used Instacart, it's a game changer, especially while traveling.
So as soon as we landed I had my Instacart order ready for groceries to be delivered to our Airbnb of everything we were going to need for the next couple of days.
So that was Friday.
Friday was a travel day.
It was my second carbohydrate load day.
It was a bike preparation day, a food preparation day.
And unfortunately, Friday for us came with an accident, which wasn't planned, was unfortunate, but like I've said, just grateful that no one was seriously injured and everyone was okay.
Okay, so Saturday, the day before the Ironman event And the reason I'm sharing Friday and Saturday leading up to the race day is because I take these days very serious.
The way that I view it and approach these days leading up to the race.
I mean really the whole prep, the entire 18 week prep.
I was dialed in.
But these last couple of days, I want to remove all variables.
I want to control what I can control, to set myself up for success, set my family up for success during the travel and the weekend and the race as well.
And that comes with a lot of planning.
So Saturday morning, we woke up, me and the boys, the media team went and did a shakeout run.
So it was a two and a half mile shakeout run.
Weather was perfect.
It was beautiful in the Arizona area.
The first thing I noticed in the first 30 seconds of that run, the poppiness of my legs.
This tells me I tapered well and I carbohydrate loaded well.
When I go out on that last shakeout run, the only way to describe it is you have this in your feet and your legs.
As soon as your foot strikes the pavement or it strikes the ground, it pops back up.
There is this responsiveness.
And you know, when you get deep into a prep and you're training on fatigued legs and a fatigued body all the time, you lose some of that poppiness, some of that responsiveness.
You don't feel it or experience it for quite some time.
So when you're at the back half of the taper, you go out on that last shakeout run and you get that pop and that response when your foot strikes the ground that, for me, tells me we're ready.
We're recovered.
We tapered well.
We're fit.
We're loaded with carbohydrates.
Glycogen is topped off.
We're ready to go race tomorrow morning.
That's what I experienced on that shakeout run.
As I've already mentioned before, Between Thursday and Friday I had about 1600 grams of carbohydrates that were now loaded in the form of glycogen.
Not all of it, but I was definitely topped off on glycogen.
The game plan for Saturday nutrition wise was to consume about 3500 calories.
And this broke down to roughly 185 grams of protein.
500 grams of carbohydrates and 80 grams of fat, with limited fiber intake, and just consuming foods and food sources that I knew my body digested well and preferred and liked.
Foods that just work well for me.
Also throughout the day, staying on top of hydration, not just water, but also electrolytes.
So I had multiple servings of electrolytes.
In the past, I've messed up.
When I first started running marathons were the two days before a race.
I would drink one to two gallons of water.
And I didn't know about proper hydration back then.
And I
And what I ended up actually doing is flushing out all my body's stores of electrolytes.
So come race day, I would cramp up and muscles would seize and they wouldn't work properly.
It actually hurt my performance.
So in the days leading up to not just consuming water but staying on top of electrolyte consumption as well,
So that Saturday, the day before the race, multiple servings of electrolytes.
Another note that I want to share, that I like to do while traveling, especially around races, is being very careful of water sources that you're consuming.
I have somewhat of a sensitive stomach, so certain tap water or faucet water or even water from refrigerator filters will hurt my stomach.
So we bought a bunch of bottled mountain spring water that we just stored in our Airbnb to drink those days leading up to the race, just to have a clean source of water.
Some people can drink any type of water and not have any stomach problems.
I'm not like that.
I can tell when I drink bad water hurts my stomach.
I get some pain, some discomfort, gas bloating, and I just try to avoid that.
And really control every variable possible in those days leading up to the race.
And water is one of those.
So the other things we had to do Saturday in preparation for the next morning.
As I mentioned, we did our 2.5 mile shakeout run in the morning.
Came back, had breakfast.
Went to Ironman Village, downtown Tempe.
We checked in.
Got my... transition bags, bib, all the things I needed to check in.
And then we went and dropped the bike off at bike check-in.
So you drop your bike off the day before and they store all these bikes.
I mean it was probably over 2000 bikes based off the amount of participants at Ironman Arizona on these racks.
Coordinating and planning an Ironman event Logistically, as an organization, blows my mind.
It is a very complex system, lots of moving pieces, lots of equipment.
After bike drop-off, we had to drop off transition bags.
So this is the bag that you pick up in between your swim and your bike, and then the bag you pick up in between your bike and your swim.
So we packed transition bags, dropped those off at the respective locations.
Just to provide context, like what am I putting in a transition bag?
For my bag between the swim and the bike, I had my cycling shoes, my helmet.
I had my GoGels in there, socks, a GoBar.
In my transition bag from the bike to the run, I had...
My hat, sunglasses, running shoes, handheld water bottle, stuff like that.
Gels, things I'm going to need for the transition, the next leg of the race.
I actually had a really good sleep Saturday night going into Sunday.
I slept six hours, 45 minutes going into race day.
I've never been someone who has struggled to sleep the night before a race.
I sleep really well, actually.
My Garmin sleep score was an 83 and my Garmin training readiness score was an 89, which is deemed excellent.
So I was ready.
That's why I take these days leading up to the race so serious.
I want my body to be primed.
I want logistically to have a plan and be prepared.
I want to give my mind the space to just think and be mentally prepared to execute come race day.
I want to nail my nutrition.
I want to control all the variables that I am in control of.
And that requires intentionality.
It requires commitment.
It requires discipline.
So based off my Garmin scores that I had the next morning, Sunday morning, objectively, I was ready.
But also subjectively, how I felt, I felt ready.
I felt as ready as could be.
Race day, Sunday, November 16th.
I had a 3.45 a.m. wake up for a 6.50 a.m. start time.
That was 6.50 a.m. start time for age group athletes.
Some of the first things that I did immediately upon waking up.
So in our Airbnb, it was me, Steph, Nico, Charlie, and Steph's parents.
And the plan was to go over to the media team's Airbnb, which was five minutes from our Airbnb right down the road, to do all the filming in preparation for that morning, so we didn't wake up the family.
First thing I did at my Airbnb though, coffee and bowel movement.
Success.
Anyone who has an early race knows you got to back up that wake up time as much as needed so you can have a successful bowel movement.
Because you don't have to worry about that at the starting line in the first couple hours of the race.
We achieved success in this case.
345 am wake up, coffee and bowel movement.
Success by, I would say, 410 am in the first 25 minutes upon waking.
Then I drove over to the media team's Airbnb.
Like I said, so I didn't wake up the family.
Breakfast, I consumed roughly at 4.30 a.m.
This was one cup of oats just cooked up, two tablespoons of peanut butter, one tablespoon roughly of honey, one and a half bananas, three whole eggs.
I put sea salt on top of all of it.
And I had about 25 ounces of water with two scoops of our electrolytes in there, which was an additional 1000 milligrams of sodium, in combination with the food and the salt that I added to the food.
From there I did some light stretching mobility work and I used the Hyperice massage gun on my lower body to get things primed up ready for the swim.
And then we made our way to downtown Tempe, Ironman Village at the starting line.
We arrived roughly at 6 a.m.
And the first thing we did immediately upon arriving is I went over to my bike at the bike check-in.
I added my bike computer, which was fully charged to my bike.
Didn't want to leave that sitting out overnight.
And then I added my water bottles to my bike as well, which had my G&M Sport in the bottles.
Also pumped up my bike tires.
So where all the bikes are stored for an Ironman, they have just tire pumps sitting around the perimeter that you can use to pump up your tires.
Just because overnight, with different weather conditions, you got cooler and tempy, you can lose some air in your tires and you just bring those tires back to optimal pressure before kicking off the race.
And the last thing I did before making my way to the starting line and putting my wetsuit on was I ate a go bar.
So I ate this about, almost two hours after breakfast.
So I had a go bar, which is an additional 36 grams of carbohydrates before starting the swim.
Now for the swim, as I mentioned, my time was one hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds.
This was actually a bit slower than I would have wanted or expected, but I'm not mad about it.
I knew going into the, the Ironman.
The swim wasn't going to be my strongest.
However, the goal was to finish the swim so that I could conserve energy and expend that saved energy on the bike and the run.
I'm naturally not a great swimmer.
Of the two triathlons I've done before this one, I made slight improvements to my swim, but didn't get better in a meaningful way.
And I really didn't expect to get better at swimming in a meaningful way during this 18-week prep.
So the goal was to improve efficiency, to conserve energy for the bike and the run.
One hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds.
I'm not going to lie.
It felt like I was swimming for three hours in that river.
It felt like a long swim.
But coming out of the water, I still felt very strong.
It didn't tax me very well.
We were able to wear wetsuits in that swim based off of water temperatures.
I believe the threshold for wetsuits in an Ironman triathlon is 86 degrees.
So if the water is 86 degrees or above, you can't wear a wetsuit.
In this case, it was wetsuit legal.
Now.
Normally in the Tempe Town Lake River the water temperature is like 60 to 61 degrees, but it had been warmer the weeks leading up to this race.
So the water temperature actually wasn't that bad.
It was like 67, 68 degrees.
It didn't feel cold.
It felt fine.
Water condition wise though, it was choppy.
The water was very choppy.
And it was very dirty.
It was dirty water.
It was dirtier than I would have expected it to be, in all honesty.
But swimming in a triathlon is so unique because you put in this massive training block in preparation.
And in my case, I was swimming most of the time in a pool.
Calm waters, you have a lane to yourself.
I did some open water swims in the quarry, which is attached to Lifetime Fitness in North Austin.
It's a beautiful spot to swim.
If you're a triathlete in the Austin area, get a membership at the Lifetime North Austin by the domain.
There's this massive quarry behind it that you can swim in that is just reserved for swimmers, paddle boarders, kayakers.
It's It's beautiful and it's very clean water.
I've never had any issues there.
But what makes a triathlon swim so unique is you're not swimming by yourself in controlled water conditions, in a lane, essentially.
There's people swimming over you.
There's people that are kicking you in the face.
Your arms are getting stuck on other people's arms.
Your legs are getting tangled in other people's bodies.
Imagine a school of fish.
That's what it's like.
It's people all over each other.
You're constantly hitting other people.
But the swim, in all fairness, to wrap up the swim, it was a solid swim, in my opinion.
I felt strong the whole way through.
The goal, like I've mentioned, was to conserve energy.
Definitely wasn't my fastest swim ever, but we got it done.
One hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds.
Immediately getting out of the water at transition one.
And I said transition one was eight minutes, 38 seconds.
You know you run out of the water.
You run down this lane and they have these people called wetsuit strippers waiting for you.
Or essentially, you pull the zipper off the back of your wetsuit, you lay on the ground and these people just grab your wetsuit off you and rip it from your body.
It's a wild experience.
I mean, they rip those wetsuits off you in no time.
I got to my... transition one bag, grabbed all my cycling gear and a go bar.
So I had a go bar right before the swim.
And I had a go bar at transition one.
And I'll mention it later, but I had a go bar at transition two, going into the run as well.
So going into the bike and going into the run for the bike, five hours, three minutes, six seconds.
I was very happy. with my bike performance.
Like really proud of the strength that I had on the bike.
To provide some context of how strong my bike was, I got out of the swim at 1,168th place.
That tells you my swim was not the strongest.
When I got off the bike, I moved up to 327th place.
And then when I finished the run and the Ironman, I ended up in 187th place overall.
So from the end of the swim to the end of the Ironman, I almost went up a thousand places.
I passed a thousand people.
So yeah, That's why I said I just wanted to conserve energy in the swim, because I knew I could throw down on the bike in the run.
Over the 18 weeks in the prep, I spent a lot of time on the bike.
That was arguably my biggest focus of this prep because, as we see, it's the most meaningful in terms of time during the Ironman.
I spent a lot of time, not just time on the bike in volume, but with a combination of endurance, sweet spot training sessions, intervals and VO2 max workouts.
And it paid off.
Every week I was doing one long ride on the bike, anywhere from three hours to five and a half hours.
Every week I was doing a two hour sweet spot session And every week I was doing a 90 minute to a two hour VO2 max workout on the bike.
So I was spending a lot of time on the bike during this prep in different thresholds and efforts of training.
And, you know, like I said, it paid off.
I felt really strong the entire five hours, three minutes, six seconds.
My fueling was insane. very strategic and dialed in for the bike.
I ended up consuming about 85 grams of carbohydrates and a thousand milligrams of sodium per hour.
This is a combination of G1M Sport and GoGels.
Now the first bottle that I had on the bike had one scoop of G1M Sport Plus.
So right when I got onto the bike this would have been One hour and 38 minutes into the Ironman I had my first hit of caffeine.
G1M Sport Plus is 150 milligrams of caffeine with added nootropics.
So that was the first bottle.
And the first bottle that I consumed on the bike, in addition to G1M Sport regular, was I had one scoop, one serving of G1 Sport Plus.
And also while on the bike during those five hours, I had two calf GoGels.
So on the bike overall, I had consumed over the five hours, 300 milligrams of caffeine.
The course itself, I thought it was a beautiful course.
It was three loops and three, What I found was so nice about it, going out was a gradual hill.
I think going out each loop we climbed about 500 feet, maybe a little bit more, but there was a slight tailwind from what I experienced.
So you really didn't feel that uphill.
And on the way back, there was a slight headwind, but you were downhill gradually.
So I feel like I could cook going out with that tailwind and I could cook coming back with that slight, gradual downhill.
I really enjoyed the three-loop course.
I thought it was a beautiful course.
I have and had no complaints of that course.
It was really nice and really easy to ride in my opinion.
And I felt strong the entire way through from hour one to the end.
And I ended up averaging 22 miles per hour on the bike.
As I mentioned, immediately getting off the bike at transition two, I ate another go bar when I was picking up my transition two bag.
This is when I got off my bike, threw my running shoes on.
I showed this in the YouTube videos yesterday in the series that we filmed.
But something I started incorporating in my long runs throughout this prep is I carried a handheld water bottle.
And the main reason I started doing this is because I started my prep in July.
So July, August, even September here in Central Texas, very hot.
And during these long runs, 16, 18, 20, 22 miles, I would sweat so much.
So I started carrying a handheld water bottle with me on these long runs with water and electrolytes.
And I would consume this and I would use that handheld water bottle also to carry my go gels.
So part of my plan going into the run of the Ironman was to carry a handheld water bottle.
This also allowed me to control my electrolyte consumption and carry all my go gels without having to rely with what was offered on course.
So at T2, I took my helmet off, obviously.
I took my cycling shoes off, obviously.
Threw my running shoes on.
I ended up running with the Saucony Endorphin Elite 2.0s.
Great shoe.
Love that shoe.
Threw my bib on with my number, hat, sunglasses, and then I grabbed my handheld water bottle.
It's a Nathan handheld water bottle.
Threw my GoGels in there.
And then I also had some BPN electrolyte GoPaks in that little pocket as well.
So I filled up my handheld water bottle and I put one scoop of or one go pack of electrolytes in there, which was 500 milligrams of sodium.
Throughout the run, throughout the 26.2 miles, I consumed that one bottle in the first half.
So between mile one and mile 13, I consumed 500 milligrams of sodium.
And then I re-topped that bottle off with another go pack of electrolytes, So I had an additional 500 milligrams of sodium to sip on for the last half, the last 13 miles.
I practiced that during training.
I carried that over to the race.
I didn't cramp up at all the entire run, which we're about to get into.
Last thing I'll mention on the bike, weather conditions were great.
I really didn't sweat at all on the bike.
Getting off the bike, There were no white sweat marks on my tri-kit.
This is something to keep in mind.
I wore a black tri-kit and I wore that tri-kit under my wetsuit so that when I got out of the water I just ripped my wetsuit off and I was already ready to go.
I was wearing my tri-kit under my wetsuit.
When I was on the bike, didn't sweat much, no sweat stains, which is a good sign.
If you get off the bike and you see white sweat marks all over your tri-kit, it probably means you're dehydrated and you got to catch up a little bit with hydration, water and electrolyte consumption.
I got off the bike, no sweat stains, no sweat marks, which put me in a good position for the run.
Now, if you see some photos of me post-race after the run, I had white sweat marks and stains all over my tri-kit because at that point I was dehydrated.
I lost significant water during the run and I was sweating a whole lot more on the run than I was on the bike.
But transitioning into into the run, the last segment of the race.
As I've already mentioned, I had another go bar at T2.
I ran my marathon three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds.
That ends up being roughly a 7.35 minute per mile pace.
I didn't know how it was going to feel exactly like I started running, but I was surprised.
I put out a big effort on the bike.
I assumed my legs were going to be a little cooked come the run.
When I started running, I couldn't tell you that I just biked 112 miles prior to starting to run.
My legs felt fresh.
They still had that poppiness.
They still had that responsiveness that I felt the day before at the shakeout run, which was a great sign.
And when I started running, I didn't look at my watch.
I just ran based off feel and effort.
I just wanted to fall into something comfortable.
And after I hit my first mile, I looked down and it was about a 630 minute per mile pace.
I held that for the first couple of miles.
I was really happy with the first half of the marathon.
And After the first half I thought I might have been able to go sub three on the marathon.
But things kind of change at second half of the race.
I felt really strong the first 13-ish miles.
And then I didn't feel as strong, which is where my pace really started to drop.
My stomach ended up turning on me, which I expected.
As I've mentioned before, I have more of a sensitive stomach, especially when it comes to some of these longer distance endurance events.
It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when my stomach's gonna start to hurt or turn on me.
And my stomach started to turn on me the second half of the run of the marathon.
And at that point, not just the stomach turning, but legs were tired, fatigued.
My pace started slowly dropping.
If you go and look at my splits from my marathon, I had two miles that were over 10 minute miles.
Those were miles where I spent some time in the bathroom and the port-a-potty.
That slowed me down significantly.
If I would have had a stronger second half of the marathon, I definitely would have went sub 10.
Definitely.
But I would have loved to have been able to run a sub three to close out this race.
And I thought in the beginning it was a potential, but I just I slowed down significantly that second half of of the race, that last 13 miles.
And I just couldn't hold it all together to, to hold that effort and that pace that I wanted to.
Overall, I'm happy with the marathon.
I mean, three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds after swimming 2.4 miles, after biking 112 miles.
I mean, I can't be happy.
I'm sorry, I can't be mad at that performance.
Overall, I'm really happy with the entire race.
My first Ironman ever in 2019, it was Ironman Florida in Panama City.
I believe my time was 11 hours, 28 minutes.
So to shave off almost an hour and a half for my first Ironman, I can't be mad about that.
It was exactly the day that I wanted.
It was exactly the effort I wanted.
And when I crossed that finish line, I emptied it all.
There was nothing left.
There was nothing left when I crossed that finish line.
I put everything I had into that race.
And with that being said, I mean, I'm proud of that.
I'm proud to be able to say that I emptied the tank on that race as well as I could have.
And the best part crossing that finish line and the Ironman organization team was was so nice and generous and helpful.
They allowed Steph and Charlie to be right at the finish line waiting for me within the fencing and put the medal around my neck.
And I crossed that finish line.
I just bear hugged Charlie and Steph.
Nico was with my in-laws on the other side of the fence.
But just like seeing my family Being able to hug them, being able to love on them.
That's what I was running towards.
I wasn't running towards a finish line.
I wasn't running towards a specific time or a number on a clock.
I was running to my family.
I was running to be embraced and rest on their shoulders.
Like literally...
I grabbed them.
I hugged them.
Legs were weak and shaky.
And I just put my head on their shoulders and just exhaled rest.
Job finished.
18 week prep done.
Race completed.
I sent it.
I did everything I could on that course.
And the only thing left to do was just embrace my beautiful wife and my daughter and go see my son and hug my dad.
It was a great way to wrap up a prep, wrap up a hard physical challenge, to celebrate a huge transformational chapter of my life.
And also just celebrate the YouTube series and the boys who worked on that series so hard.
Yoli, Landry, and Trevor for 18 weeks.
I was really happy with that day.
The only way I can describe it, it's exactly what I hoped it would have been.
It was that and more.
So post-race, we went and picked up the bike, all my transition bags, headed back to the Airbnb.
As I've mentioned, my diet was dialed in for those 18 weeks of prep.
Dialed.
I really didn't eat anything off my diet.
So the first thing we had once getting back to the Airbnb, we had pizza, wings and breadsticks waiting for us.
And it was delicious.
One of the things I was thinking about during that run.
I was picturing later that night me sitting on the couch eating food with my family and my kids next to me and my wife next to me.
And in that moment, Hours later, there I was on the couch with a plate of pizza, wings and breadsticks and my daughter next to me, my wife next to me, all of our family, just kind of reminiscing about the day and just hanging out.
It was such a restful, peaceful, joyful moment.
Truly a celebration.
But I will tell you, That pizza and those wings, they slapped.
It was so good.
It was exactly what I needed post-race.
After a big race, I'm never too hungry.
Stomach's kind of jacked up and you've been consuming so many carbs throughout the day to top off on fuel and throwing back as much sodium and hydration as possible.
I was hungry after this one and the meal was very fulfilling.
So right now we're at the time of this recording.
We're four days Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday four days post Ironman.
And to be honest, my body feels really solid.
I remember, after my first Ironman, or even after my first ultra uh And after my first marathon, body being wrecked, you can't walk the next day.
But over time, over the years, as I've gotten in better shape, I've built better conditioning.
I've learned how to prep better.
Recovery has naturally adapted as well.
So I'm not overly sore at all.
Four days post race body feels, I'd say fairly normal.
Um, Central nervous system energy is definitely drained, as expected.
It was a big effort and a big prep.
And I always experience sleep disruption for about a week after a big effort or a big race.
Every time I do not necessarily a marathon, but ultras, Ironman races, Because a bigger effort attacks the body in a more meaningful way.
I always experience sleep disruptions for days afterwards.
Waking up multiple times throughout the night, not being able to get a lot of deep sleep, not being able to sleep in even when I try.
But right now the focus is recovery rest, good food and preparing to rebuild myself and reincorporate strength training back into this next training block.
Put some size back on, put some weight back on, and truly balance endurance and strength.
But that was Ironman Arizona.
Such a fun prep.
Truly a life-changing prep.
And I don't say that in a light way at all.
It was a life-changing prep.
During Ironman Arizona, in the beginning of the prep, in the beginning of the series.
That's when I committed my life to following Christ.
And I was reborn and renewed.
I am not the same person I was when I first started prep as I am today.
Truly a life transformation during this this build, this prep, this series.
And of all the preps I've ever done, of all the races and the series we've ever documented and shared, this one has to go down as my favorite.
This is one that I will remember forever.
This one truly I experienced unlock, breakthrough, and renewal.
So that is Ironman prep season three, closing it out.
Ironman Arizona.
Guys, thank you for all the support and the love.
I appreciate you.
And as always, go on more.
