On October 22nd, 2023, I became an Ironman. Nine hours, thirty-nine minutes, and eleven seconds after I dove into the Sacramento River, I crossed the finish line to the words I had been waiting eight months to hear: “Mitchell Adam, you are an Ironman!”. The last eight months had been challenging, but if they had been easy, those infamous words every triathlete yearns to hear wouldn’t sound so sweet.

The process of becoming an Ironman was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. At first glance, an Ironman seems like an insurmountable task, one that promises nothing but absolute suffering. This may be be the case if one were to attempt such a task directly from the couch.

But luckily, you don’t need to make this leap all at once; you can take it step by step. Progressively doing things just beyond what you thought you were capable of, but not too far beyond. In this way, something that once seemed insurmountable no longer seems out of reach. This process of continually achieving beyond one’s perceived limits is extremely rewarding.

It is during this gradual process one truly becomes an Ironman, not when they cross the finish line on race day. The race, fuelled by exorbitant amounts of carbs and cheering fans, is only the tip of the iceberg. The training is the hard part, where the real work happens.

In training, no one is watching. If you skip that 6 a.m. swim or cut your long run short, no one is going to know. This means you always need to be fighting the mental battle to keep going. On race day, you aren’t going to decide to just stop, so you don’t need to engage in this battle with yourself.

You pretty much always feel tired during training. Back-to-back big days on the weekends mean that on Monday you aren’t much more than a high-functioning zombie. You slowly recover during the week, despite some tough interval sessions, just in time for the weekend and the cycle repeats!

Mentally, it can be overwhelming to think about the months of training ahead. Knowing that the workouts are only going to get longer and harder forces you to focus on one workout or even one interval at a time.

However, the training is also where the growth comes from, both physically and personally. Showing up for yourself every day, even when it is hard, builds confidence in yourself that you can commit to something and stick with it. Pushing through when you want to quit proves to yourself that you are capable of more than you think. Regularly doing things you never thought you would be able to pushes you to set new, loftier goals and achieve them.

The entire process comes to a peak on race day. It is a day you have earned the right to enjoy and show off the hard work you have put in. It is the day you get to hear the words “You are an Ironman”.

Race Report

The following is report of my race. In the weeks leading up to my race, I read many similar reports. I found it interesting to understand different people’s mindsets during their races, and these reports were a good source of race day tips.

Pre - Race

I was focused on three things pre-race: taper+recovery, carb loading and ensuring the egregious amount of gear triathlon requires was ready to go and in the correct location.

Taper + Recovery

The final training block (four weeks prior to the race) decreased in volume and slightly increased in intensity week to week. Two weeks out the volume really dropped and most of my sessions were speed sessions. This meant that my body was able to recover from fatigue but my legs still remembered what it felt like to go fast.

I got sick in the week leading up to the race. I think it was just my bod feeling like it could finally chill a bit. This meant I basically did no workouts in the five days leading up to the race, my only goal was to get over my illness.

My primary recovery methods in race week, and during training, were stretching, rolling, and using a massage gun. Recovery is pretty much a part-time job during training. I had my recovery routine dialed in and aimed for three 30-minute sessions a week. Three lesser-known techniques that I would recommend are:

• Rolling out your feet with a golf ball
• Couch/wall hip flexor stretch
• Rolling out the muscles right along your spine (Give yourself a tight hug and roll up your upper back, this is good for reducing back pain on the bike).

Carb loading

I did a two day carb load where I was aiming to eat a just over four grabs of carbs per pound of body weight. This is an insane amount of carbs. For me this worked out to 700 grams of carbs, or 2800 calories worth of carbs. This is more than recommended calorie intake for most people, in only carbs. My primary carb sources were oatmeal, bagels, rice and honey.

By the end of the second day I was buzzing. It felt like I was a kid at a birthday pattern who got into the mountain dew. The combination of being mostly carbs and not having done any workouts the previous few days meant that I was roaring to go.

Gear and logistics

Triathlon requires a lot gear. Not only does it require a lot of gear but it also requires you to change gear mid-sport. More gear means more opportunity for something to go wrong. This is the source of a lot of stress for triathletes.

You are provided gear bags to put the gear you need to access mid race. Packing these bags the day before was both exciting and stressful. Exciting since it meant the race was finally here and stressful because I didn’t want to forget packing anything. The day before the race was spent laying out gear, ensuring that everything was functioning and triple checking that nothing was forgotten.

Race Morning

I got up at 4:30 race morning, after a unexpectedly great sleep. There wasn’t much to do as I had everything prepped the day before.

When we arrived at the race venue I dropped off the last of my transition bags (my bike had been dropped off the day before) and the last of the preparations was complete. There wasn’t anything left but to do the thing.

Just before 6:00 I said goodbye to my parents and got on the shuttle buses to take us from the transition area to the start of the swim up river. The atmosphere on the bus was a mix of excitement and nerves. Some people chatted, reflecting one last time on their race strategy. Others sat quietly, reflecting on the journey to get to this point. It was hard to believe that the time was finally here.

I arrived to the swim start around 6:15 meaning I had 45 minutes to put on my wetsuit, ingest a few more carbs and visit the porta-potty one last time before it was time to line up in the swim start corral. During this time I focused on staying relaxed and telling myself to just enjoy the day.

Swim

The swim was something I was initially quite nervous for. Before signing up I had never swum long distances. My first ever open water swim was during the olympic distance triathlon I had done earlier in the year, where I had a mini freakout. To get through it I resorted to a combination of freestyle, breast stroke and doggy paddle.

Since then, I’ve come a long way, comfortably completing four open water swims over 4 km. Given this progress and the fact the swim was downstream, I arrived confident that I wouldn’t have any issues with the swim.

I was right to be confident; the swim was a breeze. This was in part due to the stronger than normal current in the river. I would have preferred the current to be less strong, so I could put all the work I had done both in the pool and outside to use.

I had a motto for each section of the race. My motto for the swim was “Calm”. I knew because I am not the fastest swimmer and because the swim is the shortest section of the race that even if I went hard in the swim it would not save me much time. I wanted to use the swim to ease in to the race, making sure to not spike my heart rate.

I started the swim a little over-excited, which was to be expected, but quickly calmed myself down and focused on my technique. By the time I had settled into a rhythm, a good distance had already passed. The other nice thing about a down river swim is that the sighting is very easy; just swim in a straight line. There was only one left hand turn that needed to be made when we moved from the American river to the Sacramento river.

By the time I started to wonder how much further I had to go I could see the end. I climbed up the ramp out of the water feeling excited that I had one leg complete!

Transition One

After getting out of the water I made a quick stop at the wetsuit strippers (people who strip you of your wetsuit, not wetsuit wearing strippers). The wet suit strippers were great. I pulled my wetsuit down to my hips, sat on my butt and in one motion two people pulled the wetsuit right off!

The run to the transition area was relatively short and I was able to skip the changing tent and head straight to my bike since I was wearing triathlon shorts. Overall the transition was uneventful. I put on my bike gear, crushed a gel and set off to bike 180km.

Bike

The bike is the longest portion of the race, both in distance and time. There is also the largest variability in speed between racers. This means the bike is where the most time can be made up, or lost.

The course was two loops of a very flat out and back course. The route is well suited for a fast bike as there are two long straight sections which you can lock in and put in some work.

A flat course also means a lot of time spent in aero position. Most of the riding I had done in training was on hilly terrain, meaning that I had not spent as much time as I would have preferred in aero position. During training long stretches in aero position caused my back to tighten up, forcing me to sit up (It also did not help that I spent the month before the race completely changing my bike setup, trying to make the aero position bearable. I should have tuned in my setup earlier, giving myself more time to get comfortable in aero.). This was something that I was nervous for during the race.

My motto for the bike was “Steady”. I wanted to avoid big surges that would cause me to burn energy that I would later regret during the run. Instead, I focused on maintaining a steady speed and keeping my cadence up to avoid excessively tiring my legs.

The advantage of a two-loop course is that you can familiarize yourself with the course on the first loop and then ride strategically on the second loop. There were two long straight sections with smooth pavement, which were ideal for riding in an aero position and pushing hard. However, there were also two winding sections, one of which had horrible pavement. During these sections, I would sit up to allow my back to relax and my heart rate to come down. This approach helped me avoid any major back issues and allowed me to maintain an aero position for the majority of the race.

There was a slight headwind on the way out and a slight tailwind on the way back.The slight tailwind on the way back was when you could really fly. In these sections I focused on being tightly in aero position and was able to average just under 40km/h for long stretches. .

The weather that day was forecasted to be overcast and a bit of rain. As someone who struggles in the heat this was music to my ears. I would much prefer rain to the scorching 32C weather Sacramento had early in the week. However, I was not prepared for the torrential monsoon that occurred. With 20km left on the bike it absolutely poured. I was worried they were going to cancel the race. Luckily I only had 20km left and focused on playing it safe. The last thing I wanted was to wipe out so close to the end.

The bike, for a 180km ride, went by relatively quickly. There was a lot to be thinking about: making sure I was eating enough, monitoring my speed/cadence and sharing the road with the other rides. My goal was to do the bike between 5:30 - 6, but I ended up doing it in 5:10! I had felt good, but was slightly worried that I went too fast and would pay for it on the run.

Bike Nutrition

Many consider eating as the fourth sport of an Ironman. Nutrition plays a crucial role in such a long race. Insufficient nutrition early in the race can lead to hitting the wall later on. Hitting the wall results in not just a slight decrease in performance, but a significant one. Most of one’s nutrition during an Ironman is consumed while on the bike.

The body can absorb up to ~90 grams of carbs per hour but if you can tolerate a little more, all the better. This is a significant amount, and I found it almost impossible to achieve this with solid food and even gels. Additionally, eating while biking can be inconvenient. For me, the most effective strategy was using powdered carbs and electrolytes mixed with water. This approach provides complete control over the macros and quantities consumed

I prepared six bottles, each with 100 grams of carbs for the bike, aiming to consume one bottle per hour. Each bottle contained 45g of Cyclic Dextrin, 25g of maltodextrin, 30g of fructose, and electrolytes (1000mg of sodium). Cyclic Dextrin and maltodextrin are very fast absorbing, while fructose is absorbed more slowly. This achieves about a 2:1 ratio of fast to slow-absorbing carbs. Cyclic dextrin is a specially engineered carbohydrate that is supposedly absorbed at a more even rate and is easier on the gastrointestinal system. Whether this is true, I am not sure, but it can also be swapped with maltodextrin, which is cheaper.

This meant that each bottle contained 400 calories or the equivalent of 1.6 Clif Bars. However, the equivalent amount of Clif Bar contains only 69 grams of carbs (compared to 100g in my bottles). Your body can only process so many calories at once, which is why I found it almost impossible to use real food and gels to reach 90g+ of carbs per hour.

At the start of the race, I had two bottles in bottle holders on the frame of my bike. The third bottle was in the aero handlebar bottle. During the bike leg, I would drink from the straw of the aero bottle, eliminating the need to sit up or reach down for water. This made it easy for me to keep up with my nutrition. Once the aero bottle was empty, I would replace it with one of the bottles on the frame and discard the empty bottle. At the 90km mark on the bike, I replenished my supply by picking up a fresh set of three bottles from my personal needs bag.

I stuck to my plan and consumed slightly more than one of my prepared bottles per hour while on the bike. By the end of the bike I was becoming very sick of the taste and was quite thirsty, but my stomach couldn’t handle chugging the carb concoction. I picked up a gatorade endurance from one of the aid stations with about 45km left to satiate my thirst, and another with about 15km to go.

In total, on the bike, I consumed 5.5 of my prepared bottles and 1.5 bottles of Gatorade Endurance. This results in a total of 115.6g of carbs per hour and slightly more than 1000mg of sodium per hour. Once again, this is a lot of carbs, and eating like this while not exercising intensely would probably make you slightly sick (even while exercising, it doesn’t feel great). However, taking in proper nutrition makes such a difference, especially in the later stages of the race.

Nutrition really is the fourth sport of triathlon in the sense that it is something you need to train. I made sure to practice my exact race nutrition in my big workouts to ensure that I could handle it. I also gradually increased these doses over time. Going straight to 115g of carbs an hour would upset anyone’s bowels.

Transition Two

Coming in to transition two it was absolutely pouring. As soon as I put on my running gear everything was completely drenched. However, I was feeling great about my bike and slightly nervous to see how my legs would feel on the run.

I didn’t consume any food during T2 and after a quick stop at the porta potty (my only of the race) I was out on the run!

Run

The running course involved two loops near the transition area, and then a run to downtown Sacramento where the finish line was located. Because the course remained in one area, many fans were present to cheer. However, this setup led to numerous U-turns which take you out of your rhythm. The course also included a few dirt/gravel sections that transformed into mud due to the rain.

I ran the first kilometre or two tentatively to assess my legs, trying not to redline my heart rate. From training I knew that running off the bike usually caused my heart rate to spike dramatically. By easing in to the run I was hoping my heart rate would rise more gradually.

As expected, my heart rate immediately spiked, rising to the 180s. I knew this level would be unsustainable. However, I was not going to let my heart rate dictate my race. I monitored it, but continued to maintain my pace and find my running rhythm. Even while biking, my heart rate was unusually high at times, regularly reaching the 160s.

Fortunately, my legs felt good. My consistency with brick runs (running after biking) during training helped my legs adapt to the sensation. Since most of my extended training rides involved significant climbing, my legs were generally more fatigued than they were after the flat course. At the beginning of my training, running after biking was horrible. I recall questioning my decision to run an Ironman the first time I ran off the bike. I strongly recommend anyone training for a triathlon to incorporate brick runs into their training regimen.

My motto for the run was “relaxed”. I wanted to find my rhythm and run relaxed, not strained. For the first ~15km I focused on my running form. By focusing on my arm swing and foot placement, I found my rhythm. As I established this, I was able to control my breathing, and my heart rate gradually fell to the 160s. This was an encouraging sign.

My nutrition plan for the run involved taking one gel and one salt tab every 30 minutes. To make it easier to remember and reduce the need to dig around in my pockets, I taped salt tabs to each of my gels. However, some of the tabs fell apart while jostling around in my pocket, this is something I could improve in the future. Luckily I had put some spare tabs in my pocket.

Starting with the third gel, I introduced a caffeinated gel, which was my first intake of caffeine during the race. I intentionally saved caffeine for the middle to late stages of the run, when I would need it the most.

Around the 17th kilometre, I began to feel things start to slip. I could feel the wall approaching, much too early in the run. My last resort was caffeine. I consumed my first caffeinated gel and decided to try a cup of Coca Cola from an aid station. I hadn’t used this in training, and while trying anything you haven’t tried in training is typically a bad idea, I knew that Coca Cola was a popular choice among IM runners.

Immediately after leaving the aid station, I felt renewed. The wall was held at bay. I decided that drinking Coke was worth the risk, despite not having trained with it. From then on, at every aid station, I had one Gatorade and two Cokes! My stomach was starting to feel the effects of consuming a years worth of carbs and sugar in one day so I missed taking a gel or two. Regardless, I made sure to continue consuming my electrolyte tabs.

Starting at the 23rd kilometre, I walked through all the aid stations. The combination of walking, caffeine, and sugar provided me with an energy boost after each station, which gradually declined until I reached the next one. Mentally, just focusing on reaching the next aid station made things a little bit easier.

At this point in the race, the mental effects of being intensely focused for nine plus hours were beginning to take effect. I distinctly remember thinking, “Wow, there is really not much going on in my head right now. I am having no thoughts.” As someone who usually has an incessant inner monologue, this was a unique sensation.

Finally seeing the finish line and the red carpet leading up to it felt surreal. This moment represented the culmination of eight months of work, and it was hard to believe it had finally arrived.

I staved off the tears just long enough to get a cool finish line pic. The thought of this moment had brought tears many times, so there was no chance at keeping the eyes dry. Having my parents at the finish line to greet me meant a lot. My dad was a big inspiration for me in doing this race, and it was very special having him there.

Post Race

Fortunately I wasn’t one of the ones who collapsed at the finish line. Overall I felt surprisingly alright. Not pushing it in the marathon (relatively) meant that I hadn’t had to go too deep into the pain cave. I felt much worse in the SF marathon when I had given it everything I had in the final stretch after blowing up with 4km left.

Even though I wasn’t really in the mood to eat anything (unsurprising) I did get a complimentary pulled pork sandwich from the food trucks because, well I had just completed an ironman and I would say this is as guilt free eating as one can get.

While enjoying my guilt free sandwich in the finish area I chatted with a guy who was doing his fourth Ironman race (including half Ironmans) of the year! Expressing my astonishment, he then proceeded to tell me about someone he knew who had finished over 40 full-distance races.

It is understandable how people get hooked on doing these things. The atmosphere at these events is electric, and there is a sense of community. Having such a singular goal to focus on brings a sense of structure and purpose to ones life. Not to mention trying always trying to improve and set a new PR.

The question everyone asks is “Will you do another?”. The answer is almost certainly yes, but not right now. People do these into their 80s. I am sure between now and then I will be inspired to sign up for another. But for right now, I would like to take on some new challenges. Part of the fun is learning to push yourself in new ways, the unknown of something that you haven’t done before.

Something I am learning to appreciate post race is just how special your first race is. Showing up at the start line not knowing what is ahead is a unique experience that you only get once. When I think back to the months and days leading up to the race, I reflect on what was going through my head. I remember watching endless youtube videos trying to figure out this swimming thing, digging into training data and wondering about race logistics.

There were times when I doubted whether I was cut out for this, and times when I was sure I would qualify for Kona. In the end I exceeded my own expectations, and what I thought I was capable of, and that is what counts.

Training

Training Plan

I followed the MyProCoach 32-week intermediate Ironman plan. The plan was split into four phases, and each phase was divided into blocks of four weeks. The first three weeks were “work” weeks, and the fourth week was a recovery week. The workouts in the work week remained the same from week to week, but the distances and times increased.

The plan generally consisted of:

• Monday: Endurance swim
• Tuesday: Strength training and bike intervals
• Wednesday: Run intervals
• Thursday: Speed swim and optional aerobic bike
• Friday: Rest day
• Saturday: Long bike ride followed by a run
• Sunday: Long run

I was very consistent in following the plan, only missing ~five workouts during the 32 weeks. This averaged out to just under 12 hours of training per week. This doesn’t include the time spent rolling/stretching, preparing for sessions, and lying in bed post big workouts. Full-distance Ironman training is a time-consuming endeavour.

At the beginning of the plan and during the recovery weeks every couple of months, fitness tests were scheduled to find your threshold levels for all three disciplines. These thresholds were used to set the pace and power zones for all the workouts. The fitness tests were extremely hard, and I confess that I swapped a few of them for easier workouts…

The plan synced with Training Peaks, so all my workouts were scheduled in the calendar ahead of time. Training Peaks synced with my Garmin watch so that I always had the day’s workout on my watch. This was very convenient, especially for the interval workouts, where my watch would beep at the end of an interval and alert me if I was out of pace or power range.

Metrics and Data

I wore my Garmin watch 24/7 for eight months. This meant I had data on all my workouts, bodily metrics such as heart rate, and other Garmin-provided data like recovery time. It also meant I had a nice watch tan.

All of this data synced to Training Peaks, which is a data nerd’s dream. There are graphs galore showing everything from your fitness score to your max pace/power output for different durations. It was also both fun and helpful to analyze key sessions afterward to see when I was pushing too hard and when I needed to step it up.

Training is a balance between exerting your body to force it to improve and recovering. It’s a fine balance between these two things. Push too hard and your body won’t be able to recover in time for your next workout, don’t push hard enough and you won’t see improvements as fast as you may like. Before this prep, I did not fully understand the importance of recovery, and of not always pushing as hard as you can in your workouts.

The two best metrics I found for determining my recovery levels were HRV (heart rate variability) and my sleep score. If you are pushing too hard and are over fatigued, your HRV will likely be too low. After big workouts on the weekend, at least early on in the plan, I usually slept very poorly. Not only does this probably mean you overreached, but you also aren’t recovering as well as you could during sleep.

I probably (definitely) pushed too hard in the workouts, especially early on in the plan when my body had not adjusted to the training volume. My HRV was on a downward trend for the first few months, and my sleep was poor after big weekends. This led to residual fatigue, and there were some Sundays where I felt completely drained. Learning to strike a balance between feeling like I was training hard and recovering properly is something that I needed to learn and am still learning.

Life Balance

There are not many other things in my life that I have committed to as fully as I did when training for this Ironman. When you commit to something, you are also choosing not to commit to other things. Even though I may have only been training for 12 hours a week, I was constantly thinking about training. While sacrifices were made, I don’t regret signing up for and training for IM California at all. I loved the process and, as I mentioned before, the experience was extremely fulfilling.

I heard a quote about training for an event like this that stuck with me and has some applicability to my experience: “There is a difference between being all-in and being all-consumed.”

Being all-in on something means that you do everything you can to achieve your goal. You put in the work and give it your best shot, but that goal doesn’t dominate your life. It is not the end-all-be-all. Being all-consumed means that your entire life is dedicated to working towards this one goal; it completely consumes your life.

Having training goals can bring immense fulfillment and satisfaction to your life. It can be a positive addition to your life, in addition to other things. Being all-in on these goals is the way to get the most fulfillment and satisfaction out of the process. However, it is important to remember not to be all-consumed, to not let these goals take over your life.

There were times during this prep that I was all-consumed. It wasn’t the entire time, but there were points where I cared just a little bit too much. I think this is common for a first-timer. You need to go over the line in order to find out where the line is.

In the future, I hope to train for other events like this (I already am) and I hope to go all-in on these goals to see what I am capable of and to get the most out of the process. But this is a reminder to myself to not be all-consumed by these goals.

Food

I am someone who needs to fuel properly. Not fuelling properly means I don’t have that extra push in my workouts, often feel sick, and end up not having fun. This is especially true for big workouts. I also want to make sure that I show up to the key workouts ready to perform so that I can maximize the training benefit.

Throughout the build, I increased to 4 meals a day. On Friday and Saturday nights, I would make sure to eat a big meal to fuel me for the long weekend sessions. My go-to splurge meal was an extra-large Domino’s pizza. There were many Saturdays where thinking about the pizza I was going to have for dinner got me through the workout. I tightened up my diet and stopped taking creatine in the weeks leading up to the race to get my weight down to under 170 for the race.

During my workouts, I used Gu gels and Fig Bars as my fuel source (before I started using the carb powders to prepare for race nutrition). I would usually only consume something if the workout was longer than 1-1.5 hours. I generally did not consume any caffeine during training so that I could get the most out of it on race day. I did consume a caffeinated gel before my Wednesday interval running sessions, since I did them in the morning and they were tough.

Gear

This is a list of gear that I would highly recommend (in addition to the standard plethora of gear required for triathlon):

Bike trainer

The reality is that the benefits of training on the trainer are better than riding outdoors, especially for interval work. You can really push it on the bike trainer, and the benefit is that you recover much faster than a hard running session. If you are serious, I think a bike trainer is a must. And if you find it boring riding on a trainer, it means you aren’t pushing hard enough!

Bulk Carbohydrate Powder

Ordering bulk carbohydrate powder really was a game changer for my nutrition. I ordered mine from Amazon and bulksupplements.com.

Good Bike Shoes and Socks

I was surprised at how much of a difference this made, especially the socks. I can’t ride with anything other than my cycling socks now.

Lots of Water Bottles

You are gonna need them.

Food Weigh Scale

I think this is a must if you are serious about fitness, but it is also needed to measure out the carb powder.

Multiple Running Shoes

All running shoes are not the same, it took me a while to appreciate this. Different running shoes are more well suited to different types of runs. Right now I have three shoes: my long/easy run shoe, my tempo run and speed work shoe, and my race shoe (these really make a difference). If you are going to be running a lot, it is worth trying a few out. It also isn’t any more expensive because it just means the shoes will last longer. I know serious runners often have multiple pairs of the same shoe which they alternate between using.

Recovery Toys

I have and regularly use: a hand roller, floor roller, golf ball, massage gun, lacrosse ball, and pull bar (for hanging). For me, each of these has a special role. I know that compression is also a popular form of recovery, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Gym Membership

I am a big believer in strength training for injury prevention, both acute and chronic. I have also started incorporating some knee health specific exercises into my leg days from The Kneesovertoesguy

What I Would Do Differently

Overall, I am happy with how the training and the race went. I don’t have any major regrets, but if I wanted to improve, this is what I would do.

More Focus on the Bike

Seeing the other athletes at the race and their times made me realize how important the bike section is. The key to a good Ironman is to be fast on the bike. Since the bike section is so long, even a small improvement in your fitness or aerodynamics makes a big difference. I put equal effort into all three disciplines. I wouldn’t change this for this prep since I was basically a beginner in all of them, but if I were to do another, I would focus more on the bike. This would also mean buying a proper tri bike.

Bike Power Meter

I would seriously consider a bike power meter. While they are exorbitantly expensive, they are the only way of accurately tracking your effort on the bike. I think part of my fatigue in the first couple of months was because I was going too hard on my long rides. Having a bike power meter would let me track this more accurately.

Reduce Intensity

As I mentioned previously, I went too hard at the beginning of the plan. I should have listened to my body more and allowed it to adjust to the volume.

Not Run the SF Marathon

If the world depended on me doing the IM California as fast as I could, I wouldn’t have run the SF marathon. I got very sick after the marathon, which was on July 22nd, and I felt terrible in my workouts for weeks after. I only felt recovered from the Marathon and being sick in September. However, while this definitely impacted my training, the SF Marathon was a huge confidence boost for me. If I did it all over again, I would run the marathon, but perhaps wouldn’t have pushed myself into the deepest, darkest pain cave I have experienced.

Bike Fit

I did go to get my bike fit but it was not a very good fit. I should have gone to get a proper bike fit and given myself more time to adjust to riding in aero.

Swim Coach

It took me a while, but I was decently satisfied with the level that my self-coached swimming got to. I felt quite comfortable in the water and wasn’t constantly out of breath like I was at the beginning. However, if I really wanted to be the best triathlete I could be, I should definitely go to a swim coach.

Swim Headphones

It took me a long time to learn to love swimming, and I still wouldn’t say I love it. Part of the issue is that the pool I swam in was more of a geriatric float pool. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it just isn’t the most motivating environment. The environment, coupled with the monotony of staring at the blue line at the bottom of the pool, did not make it the most exciting of activities. I would buy some inexpensive swimming headphones so that I could at least listen to music or podcasts to break up the monotony.

Closing Thoughts

Hats off to anyone who has made it this far. I wanted to document my Ironman journey for my future self and for any others who are embarking on, or considering, their own Ironman journey. Subscribe to my (sadly infrequent) newsletter below to hear about my future endeavors!