Wrapping up Ironman

This is the nerdy stuff, but it’s the kind of thing I would have liked to have read before I did the race. So here it goes, feel free to skip.

I tapered for 2 weeks and felt sluggish during the entire taper. My last long run was 21 miles, 5 weeks to the day before the race. My last long bike was 95 miles (hilly), 2 weeks before the race.

I was down to 151 lbs before I started the taper, and then I quit weighing myself. I haven’t been on the scale in 3 weeks now. I’m giving it another week of recovery before I care again.

I started loading up on water in the week leading up to the race. I did not carb load. I maintained a high-er protein diet throughout the taper (100+ g per day). I did eat more carbs in the two weeks leading up to the race, just because I was craving them. But it wasn’t a huge increase.

The night before the race I ate pecan crusted tilapia, mashed potatoes, a little asparagus, and a glass of red wine. I was in bed by 9:00, asleep by 9:30.

The day of the race I ate the following:

4:30 a.m.  - 6:30 a.m.

• Hard Boiled Egg – 70 calories
• 1/2 of an Avocado – 140 calories
• Banana – 100 calories
• Coffee with cream and sugar (x 2) – 100 calories
• Bread + Jelly (2 bites) – 80 calories

490 calorie breakfast

Bike

• Hour 0 – 1/2 PB&J – 200 calories
• Hour 1 – Honey Stinger Chomps – 160 calories
• 1/3 bottle of perform – 80 calories
• Hour 2 – Honey Stiner Chomps – 160 calories
• Hour 3 – Honey Stinger Waffle – 160 calories
• Hour 4 – Oatmeal Cream Pie + Swallow of Coke – 200 Calories
• Hour 5 Honey Stinger Waffle – 160 Calories
• + 2 banana pieces – 60 calories

1180 calories on the bike = 196.7 calories per hour

Run

• Hour 0 – Gel – 110 Calories
• Hour 1 – Gel – 110 Calories
• Hour 2 – Gel – 110 Calories
• Hour 3 – Gel – 110 Calories
• Miles 6 – 24, about 20 calories of coke at each aid station = 280 calories

720 calories on the run = 137 calories per hour

Total calories consumed before the end of the race: 2,290

Estimated calorie burn during the race: 6,000 – 7,000

Post – Race Food Intake

• Apple Juice
• 2 Slices of Pizza
• 1 Beer
• Cheetos from the vending machine

At first all I could stomach was the apple juice. It took about 2 hours before I could think about eating anything else, and even then it didn’t go down very easily. Finally, right before bed, I decided that possibly Cheetos was what my body really wanted.

Even the next day I wasn’t very hungry and a lot of food didn’t sound appetizing. I ate plenty, though, trying to figure out what might taste good. At the end of the drive home from Louisville I told Aaron that it was Blizzard time. Even though I wasn’t really craving one, I had sworn to myself that I was going to have a post-race blizzard. So I took one for the team, and ate it: a nutter butter blizzard with snickers.

I think I’ve got my average heartrate still on my HRM. I’ll post if I can find it. I can tell you it was astonishingly low on the run. Like in the 120s. Maybe that was because I was walking.

Thanks for reading!