The Gulf has not been kind to Tammy

It's now the day after the race and the race was interesting. My race stories are dwarfed by Tammy's incredible day. So I'll start with her race first.

Last year on this race course Tammy wasn't able to run for months before the race so during the race she made it the best she could while walk/running the run portion. Then 6 months later at IronMan Florida she had to DNF on the run due to her Asthma breathing. So this race was going to be vindication for her. She had a very strong swim portion since it was really choppy in the water. Then on the bike she was starting to rip it up but had to stop at the base of the bridge (~25km into the ride) because she had a flat front tire. She quickly changed it and started to move on. She made it almost to the top of the bridge when it went flat again. She changed it a 2nd time, and didn't find anything inside her tire that could cause another flat. She got moving a third time and made it out to the final turn around point when her front went flat again! Without anymore CO2's or 650 tubes to change a 3rd flat she weighed her options and didn't want to have her race end there (she was 35km from the transition). So she started to pedal back at 24-29km/hr into a headwind with a flat tire. Just about every athlete that passed her or that she passed (yes she still was passing people) felt they should point out to her that she had a flat tire. She also lost a water bottle cage on the rough roads and had a salt stick come out of her aerobars. She made it back and hit the run course and ran the best she could after suffering a lot of setbacks in the race. Her finishing time here is not a reflection of her fitness level. I don't think that a lot of people could have done what she did. I know I wouldn't have. We looked at her rim after the race as it has held but pretty well, aluminum rims are better than lightweight carbon rim if you plan on riding a flat tire for 35km's. She's mentioned something that she is going to fire her mechanic as everything seems very suspicious. We are in negotiations now to resolve this.

My race was better than Tammy's, I went into the swim at a decent pace. However with it being so choppy and wavy I was a couple of minutes down from where I would have liked. I was only a minute slower on the bike versus last years calm conditions. And I was able to run most of the course, when the sun came out I slowed really fast. I was slower than I wanted to be but I know what I have to work on for IronMan Austria now.

Here is my heart rate data from the race, take a look at the altitude profile for the swim. The altitude for the bike and run is dead flat besides the little blips on for the bridge we have to cross on the bike course.


Note that the swim has more elevation gain than the rest of the race.