Well when I woke up that day at 4:30 AM (ok, I am not sure I was really ever asleep?) it was 75 degrees. There was light rain headed in and the projected high was to be 90+. Perfect weather for an endurance event! Waited around for my wave to finally go off at 7:43, and hit the cool water of Lake Michigan. It was nice to be able to see in the clear water to avoid the other swimmer ahead. Swim went well, although it seemed long (33:13). You had to run a ways up the beach before your time registered. Its all the same in the end. Moved through T1 and out onto the bike, and it took a few miles before my legs got warmed up, they ached as I tried to turn over a big gear. The wind also picked up pretty good, and the loop course you got it from all directions. I did wear my regular helmet, not my aero helmet with the intention of staying cool and dumping water on my head. On the back stretch I passed another guy I had been riding with for about 10 miles and he was out of fluids so I handed him my bottle for a couple of drinks. He fell back but surprisingly he tracked me down through my website and sent a thank you message after the race. Cool guy. I came into T2 ready to off the bike and looking forward to the run (2:26:52). But apparently my stomach had other ideas. As I ran out of transition I felt my legs cramp a little, but they were biking muscles and I have had this happen before and it usually goes away. The problem was my gut. Perhaps I had taken too many salt tabs in transition, but I felt terrible. I did all I could during the run to try to shake the bad gut. However once you are that far into things it is hard to change the course. So a good race quickly became a crap race with the horrible 1:59:51 run (ok, it was survival. Hot, I felt sick, walked a bunch. On the positive side I broke 2 hours!). I noticed on the second loop that no one was running through the water stations. I mean no one. The aid stations were so chaotic because people were literally camped out getting water/ice/sports drinks etc. I was sucking on sliced oranges. I finally took the pill case out of my back pocket and just swallowed the pepcid tablet and tossed the rest. By the time I finished I felt a little better, but was disappointed that I could not put it all together. Just was one of those days, and not sure I could or would have done anything differently. My final time was 5:04:26. Yikes! Forget that one and move on to IM Wisconsin! After the race I went back to the cool Lake Michigan waters and sat there soaking my legs. Got showered up and hung out with a few cronies. Packed up all the gear and trekked it (6+ hours) home. A long weekend for sure!
Racing with me that day was: Todd Bindell, Jeff Lorenzen, roommate Joel Rinderkneckt, Ken Sherman, Braydn Girdler, Bryan Valente, TJ Tollakson (was 3rd in the pro race won by Craig Alexander), Matt & Krista Zepeda were there cheering us all on.
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