This will probably be my last post prior to Ultramax. I would like to say I’m ready, but all I can really say is I’m as ready as I’m going to be, it’s too late to do anything more!I’m definitely in no condition to set a blazing pace, my previous dream of a sub-10 hour time is out of the question. Despite having achilles tendonitis since April, my season seemed to be on track and up until three or so months ago I fully expected to be ready for Ultramax. Then I came down with Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome wich was a result of my Achilles tendonitis and a slightly altered stride. My weekly long run which was up to around 16 miles, became non-existant. As if a lack of training were not enough, I woke up on Friday of last week with a horrible sore throat and have had a rather nasty cold since then. Fortunately, I am starting to feel a little better, but I really need to be fully recovered on Saturday in order to complete the event.

A little bit of history: The Ultramax triathlon started 3 years ago down in Lake of the Ozarks. It is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. That first year I registered, but it was my first year doing triathlons and I backed out of the race after doing a half Ironman and having a bad time. The following year I thought once again about competing in the full Ultramax, but then they offered a half distance Ultramax and so I entered it. This year they moved the race from Lake of the Ozarks to Smithville to be closer to an international airport.

They also added an Ultramax Championship Series which is a series of races throughout the season in which you can accumulate points to win free entry into all of next years races ($1000+ value). www.ultramaxtri.com/champseries.php I quickly saw that if a person were to compete in every race in the series, they would stand a good chance of winning the series, just by attrition. Especially since two of the races, a ¼ Ironman and a ½ Ironman were on the same weekend, I figured most sane people wouldn’t compete in both events. Seeing that my sanity has already been questioned, I decided to enter every race in the series, and to culminate the year by competing in my first Ironman distance event.

On the 25th there are going to be two races. One is the US Half Iron Distance Championship and the other is the Ultramax full Iron Distance race. They will both be competed on the same course, but the full will do each leg twice. Going into this last day of the Ultramax series, I have the lead with a score of 203.284 with the second place competitor, Mark Carey having a score of 199.926. Things get a little complicated with the scoring, but simply put, if Mark Carey wins or finishes within 90 seconds of the winner in the Half Iron Distance event, he will most likely win the series, but by only .628 points. At that point, the only way I could beat him would be to finish within 30 minutes of the winner of the full Ultramax. The full Ultramax will probably be won with a time around 9 hours, and for anyone familiar with Ironman racing, for me to do a sub 10 hour Ironman my first time out will be virtually unheard of.

I’ve read you aren’t supposed to predict your times on your first Ironman, I’m going to do it anyways. Swim: 1:20 Bike: 5:30 Run: 3:50 Total time: 10:40 The most difficult to predict is the run, 3:50 might be a little optimistic, but I always aim high. In the back of my mind, I like to think I’m going to go faster, who knows?? I’d better go to bed so I can be sure I’m healthy enough to even start…

Well, it is a little more than a week out from the 20th annual NEMO triathlon and I figured it is about time I write up a race summary. I don’t do this often enough, but it is always helpful to be able to look back and re-read your race summaries.Race morning and I’m up around 5:00am. After getting everything loaded I’m on my way to the race with a brief stop at Walmart along the way. Race morning food consists of a breakfast cookie, banana, and a donut.

Transition setup goes smoothly, I’m the first person in my rack and get a prime spot. Trying something new, I get my name written across my chest in black permanent marker. I had thought of this after seeing multiple marathoners with their names on t-shirts, this allows spectators to cheer them on by name. Somehow I allowed someone to convince me to have my phone number written on my stomach as well

After the short bus ride to the swim start, and a brief warm up swim, the cannon fires and the race is off. This was one of my best swim starts, not much tangling with others. However, midway through the swim, I did have several people swim into me, I’m pretty sure I was swimming straight though. Going into the swim, I figured a time around 19:30 would be good. I always tend to get passed by multiple females from the wave that starts 3 minutes back, this time I only saw one pink cap swim past me, so I knew I was having a pretty decent swim. Out of the water in 18:46, beating last years swim by over 2 minutes.

The problem with swimming faster, there are less people to pass on the bike. Passing people always gives me a small energy boost. After a slow transition, the first 2 miles of the bike were pretty rough. Finally, after getting up to the flat section heading towards Hwy 6, I got my breathing under control and got into a nice rhythm. Keeping track of cyclists passed, at the turnaround I had passed 7 and was in 15th place. Somewhere around mile 13 I had the worst cramp of my life. My right calf locked up and nothing I did could ease the tension. I tried keeping the pedals rotating, but I finally had to completely stop and timidly move my leg in an attempt to loosen up the seized cramp. After having briefly considered quiting for the first time ever in a triathlon, the pain subsided enought to resume pedaling. However, for the rest of the ride I held back to avoid another massive cramp. Despite the cramp, coming into transition I was told I was in 12th place. The second transition went really smooth and I was out in probably under 30 seconds.

Fairly quickly I passed 11th and took over that spot. The run seemed to be going well and the injured calf seemed to be responding fine. Heading out of the cabins, I caught and passed number 10. I could see 9th place about a 1/4 mile ahead, but wasn’t making up much time on him. Heading into the last mile, I was still about a minute down on the 9th place competitor. I was feeling decent so I picked up the pace a hair, just enough to catch him if he kept his current pace. Down to about 1/4 mile to go, he looked back and saw me and picked up his pace as well. So much for catching him…

Ted Zedrc was the overall winner, I had told him before the race I thought he would win. Mark Wilson took second and what suprised me most was Rodney Adkison taking third. Before the race I had hoped to beat Rodney, I had beaten him in the Sean Martin Duathlon, but hadn’t beaten him in any of the other races we had both done this season so he’s either improved all season, or he had a bad race in the duathlon. I finally broke the top 10 in my third NEMO after placing 32 in 2002 and 17th in 2003. My time improvement from last year to this year was only 41 seconds and most of that can be accounted for from the swim. This year served to re-enforce to me the importance of improving even more in the swim, to be able to turn in a faster time while feeling less winded when coming out of the water. I can’t wait for masters swimming!!

A while back I was thinking I needed a website, something catchy, a powerful web presence if I ever got really good with triathlons. Well, here we are many months later and while I’m still no triathlete guru…I’ve set this website up. For now it is primarily going to be a site I can easily update with my training and racing endeavors.

Maybe now and then I’ll throw in some training advice and attempt to play the role of “triathlete guru”, but in all reality, I’m no triathlete guru, just a triathlete working on achieving guru status. Maybe I’ll make it, maybe I won’t, you’ll have to track my progress here and let me know how I’m doing.