The Chronicles of my Ironman 70.3 journey. Never in my wildest dream to finish a 70.3 . Asthmatic kid and a Mountain biker at heart, a lot of work to be done in all 3 disciplines. Nevertheless the stars started to align when I met Iron Dan Regalado. Meeting is short but fast. He moved to Switzerland .At his send off party, room was filled with heavy hitters of CARE including CEO Arnez Nisperos .Met them again at Leons as a runner in a relay team. I was in awe of how Tri works as it unfolds before my eyes. I told myself I should do one coz it was freaking Awesome!!! Did my first Supersprint with Batchmates Marvin Go , Mark Go and Larry Lugue. I pretended I swim coz its chest deep. Lol. Tri Rock followed ,It was a struggle in all 3 phases. December came . Norman and King were relentless in their campaigns for ITU and Racine. I was freaking out if Ill sign up or not. Gosh , those are big boy races.Good thing I did. 16 week plan was in place . Swim clinics here and there . I strictly followed it till the very cold Galena race. Nothing will prepare you for a very cold swim but your willpower and open water experience which is zero. My near drown experience at Batavia taught me to do more OWS, I discovered the beauty of swimming , it become a strength . RACE DAY My vision of Racine was way off. I thought the swim is just on the pier just outside of my hotel room..NO!!!duh!!!So really its 71.3 Jo E. Cadillac was right . I only have 3 hour sleep. Not nervous but anxious. SWIM : the mile trek was a warm up while eating a bagel with PB&J and coffee. Water was glass .As we arrived I warmed up about 10 min .I learned that from Linus & Jonathan in Galena. Wave 8 with Darryl and Dennis, these guys were cool under pressure which was contagious . I positioned myself on the middle right pack . My breathing side. It worked except for one instance when a lady from wave 9 swam on my right just as I opened up my mouth. I drank of course. I thought I needed it since my mouth was dry.I was out of the water at 48:26. BIKE : all I was praying was a mechanical trouble free ride but I forgot to ask for a cramp free ride which hit me by mile 35. I was hammer happy again till then and conservative the last 21. Took 7 sport legs and 2 GU gels and 1 1/2 bottles of Carbo Pro with GU brew. I came back unscathed for 3:11 time. RUN : Armand offered to run with me with my crampy self. God sent him for some reason coz I thought I was done mile 1. EFS and salt tabs eased up the cramps. Walk 1/4. Run 3/4. It worked till he took another angel duty on Ruth.Saw a lot of CARE on the run. By mile 7, saw Caje and we have the same predicament ,we ended up doing the 1/4,3/4 till we hit the Zoo. Crossed the finish line at 2:56. Total time 7 hours and 12 minutes. I am very happy. Dream come true Couldnt do it without Him ,The man above, my family and friends. Thanks CARE. On the swim part. Coaches Edwin , Jennifer Andrew , Charles and Carlo , swim buddies Phil Carlson n Eric Manipon and Bobby Rosales On the bike part: big thanks to FAB ,who I ride road on weekends: On the run part ; all my Runkeeper buddies & Armand .
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 14:36:50 +0000