“Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez”- New Orleans 70.3 Report

April 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 am by under Healthy Living

“Let The Good Times Roll !!!”

That what is says on the back of the finisher medals from the Ironman New Orleans 70.3. This is the break down of the adventure as we (myself, wife, and father-in-law) set out from Indiana to Cajun Country!
Thursday-
The car was all loaded and ready to go, so after work away we went on our 787 mile trip. The speed machine has a nice home in the Ford Flex along with the gear, bags, and still plenty of leg room.
First stop….
Here’s the scoop….I went to college about one hundred miles from Graceland and never went. My wife on the other hand-went a few months after she turned 16. So on the way down we made our pilgrimage to see the King’s house.

This is the wall just outside his house that is filled with thoughts, wishes, and lots of “I love you’s“…I simply wrote “Long live the king!”

The famous musical gates.

Wife Emily & her dad Mike

I thought this plane was super cool!!
I’m taken care of business…
Graceland
Friday-
We made it to New Orleans super late or early on Friday, and caught some shut eye. Then headed off to packet pickup and to get shuffled around like cattle. We had to sit through a “mandatory” athlete briefing which took FOREVER!!! Pretty much the same info as all the other races, and if anything was different, it was listed on the website, in the packet info…so if you screwed something up it was because you didn’t pay attention! But before you could start your packet pickup, you HAD to go to this briefing and get your hand stamped–lame o!!

Like a good boy, I conformed and thought about asking all kinds of silly questions to make them pay for wasting my time, but I behaved myself and smiled, nodded, and even fake laughed at a few of the stupid jokes. Hey man, I’m here to race, not to listen to tales of when your Body Glide failed–serves you right, you should have been using TriSlide anyway!

After I got all checked in, and thank you Ironman for herding me through your gift shop—when I said that I didn’t need anything I meant it, and didn’t need to be herded through all the Mdot merchandise–again, I was there to race. Anyway, Mike took Emily and I to the World War II Museum. Talk about cool!! If anyone is ever in New Orleans, I highly recommend going, and if you do, spend the extra dollars to see the movie–WOW!!


Big planes!!
Saturday-
The three of us headed out to the transition area, and I went for a ride to loosen up my legs, go through the gears, visualize, and honestly–to look super cool in my duds. I had a local news station following me around a bit, but didn’t get to see the video-hope the tv didn’t add 10 pounds :)
After check in, it was off to Bourbon Street and the French Quarter–talk about a party!
Oh yeah!! Parrot Heads all the way. Speaking of, we’re going to the Buffet concert on Emily’s birthday. “Fins to the left. Fins to the right.”
Sunday-
Race morning! I didn’t sleep much, because I am always afraid that I’m not going to hear the alarm, so I looked at the clock about every 45 mins- super annoying! Ate a super light breakfast and drank some EFS to get me started.
This is about an hour before the start of the race.

Here’s a great shot of the swim start-not my wave, I was in the second to last group! Fun swimming through everyone :)

Me coming out of the water. It’s hard to tell because they sent us off in waves by age-group, and my group had two waves, but I’m pretty sure I was the first one out of the water in my wave (there wasn’t anyone else around on the racks). Also, the race directors skipped a wave, and I don’t think they accounted for it. This added 4mins to my swim time and overall time which totally blows!!! This would not happen in a  Rev3 event!!  They run so much smoother!

The bike has always been one of my strong suits. Seriously, look at those giant thighs and butt-it’s like a 454 Big Block engine! Thank you Rudy Project for the great helmet and Gray Goat Sports for setting me up wonderfully! Yeah, that’s the “goat” on my arm. All3Sports also hooked me up with the Speedfil, which came in handy out there.

I had a pretty good bike, but held back some so I didn’t blow up for the run. I ended up a 2:34 for the 56mile ride.

Off to the run…this has been my Achilles heel for most of my races. I started off great and the first 5K was at about a 7:20-30 pace. Then, a super pain just below my right calf happened.

I tried sucking up the pain, but was afraid I was going to tear something, so I backed off. The final 5K I figured, “If it’s going to tear, it would have done it by now.” So I picked the pace back up to around 7:20 and finished strong. Over all, the run was a 1:49 for the 13.1. Thank you so much Trakkers for allowing me to be apart of such an awesome team and Saucony for the kit and Fastwitch 4. The shoe was great, light, and was perfect for the course. If there had been any rocks, off road type running, or had been any longer, I would have needed a shoe with a little more to it like the Tangent 4
Seriously, if you haven’t checked out First Endurance and their products you should! For the race I had:
  • 30mins before swim-1serving of EFS w/ 1serving Pre-Race
  • 2servings of EFS every hour on the bike (one bottle) w/ 1oz of EFS liquid shot every 30mins.
  • @ the 2hour mark on the bike, I added 1serving of Pre-Race to the EFS for a pick me up
  • Every 20 mins on the run I had a sip of 4oz of EFS liquid shot diluted with just a little water.

Biggest bonus–never felt out of energy, never cramped!


Finished the race with a 4:59–just sneaking in under the 5hour mark. Thank you again, Saucony, Trakkers, Gray Goat Sports, Kestrel Bicycles, All 3 Sports, Morris Trucking, Rudy Project, First Endurance, TriSwim, ProMotion Wetsuits, and of course my family for all of your support!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Permalink Comments Off

Comments are closed.