Journey to Kona Day 236: Ironman St. George 2011, IM #2

13 days to Kona, and today I reminisce about Ironman St. George 2011.  It was my second Ironman.  Here is my race report: http://wassdoc.blogspot.com/2011/05/ironman-st-george-race-report.html

The first thing I noticed when reading my race report was the fact that I had already begun writing my race reports prior to the race!  I didn't remember when I started this practice, but it's something that has been of great help to me in regards to visualizing my race.  I'm a big believer in visualization.  Writing ones race report in advance is a great way to do this.  It's then kind of fun to compare the "pre-race race report" with the actual final race report, which I finally did in Boulder this year.  

The 2011 Ironman St. George was an opportunity for me to get a second chance.  I entered my first Ironman a year earlier with multiple challenges, not the least of which was recovering from a hip and clavicle fracture.  It had also been my first Ironman, and lessons were to be learned. I still harbored the idea that I could qualify for Kona.  My swim was solid, my bike was solid, and I'd had some pretty good run results.  I also took time off to train, although, as has been usual for me, other life situations had gotten in the way.  That's been one of the great discoveries on

my journey to Kona this year.  I haven't let anything else get in my way.  I've been doing the training, and can't point to a lack of training in any of the disciplines.  In 2011, my training was pretty good, but in retrospect, I didn't have the peace of mind in my life to truly allow me to focus on my Ironman training.

I had a solid swim, improving by one minute over the previous year.  I had a very solid bike, improving by 25 minutes.  My transitions were dramatically faster, as I figured out how to take my sprint triathlon transition skills into an Ironman.  And then I got to the run.  Once again the run kicked my butt.  I wrote about it, "One thing is notable, I’m not upset by how I feel. I’m not disappointed. I’m not discouraged. It is what it is and I will persevere."

I remember having the presence of mind during the run not to get down on myself.  I pulled off another 5 hour marathon with a walk/run strategy.  It was good enough to improve my overall Ironman time by 33 minutes in a year where the course conditions were actually worse than the year before (high winds and heat).  Who would have thought that the following year would have even worse conditions?

As I finished my second Ironman, I wasn't sure what was next.  I even told my wife that I wouldn't do another Ironman until she told me it was ok to do so.  I no longer felt like I had to try to qualify for Kona.  In fact, I felt that I had done one of the most, if not the most, difficult Ironman's in the world already.  Why did I need to do Kona?  St. George was difficult enough.  It turned out that the following year 80 people who had finished in 2010 and 2011 would start the race.  Only 26 would finish.  That's tomorrow's story.