just a report
here is the overview of my race…
I arrived to Louisville on Thursday night, Vince and crissie helped me a lot and all the family was great, I had a very relaxing couple of days before the race, probably one of the best, maybe because I wasn’t throwing too much pressure in my own shoulders. I have prepared this Ironman like I never did before, after Lake placid I pretty much done what I wanted daily and didn’t follow any scheduled plan, I ended up doing some crazy stuff like the “lusobike special” that I wrote about in my blog (that was a lot of fun though and I will repeat….not so soon though:P). And fun was what I wanted during this time. I did have some more concentrated 2-3weeks prior to the event, when I made the decision of racing.
Weather was warm and kinda humid…that was great, no wetsuit in the swim, it was almost a little
Hawaii training session. The swim started without much light, almost dark I would say. The swim itself was more of the same, start/punching/kicking/get out of the water alone. Right at the beginning I was side by side with Michael Gonher and the eventual winner Max longree that was good for me but after a few minutes I had no company since both dropped back, now I was worried about if there would be currents coming back after the turnaround, I couldn’t see anyone ahead nor at the sides, I just choose to go the closest way till T1, and it was with around 100m to go that I finally understand that there was a guy in my feet all the time, good work, I never felt him until he passed me. Came out of the water with 57minutes and that was actually pretty good for me.
At the transition I had my bike mixed with the age group category, I had number 2509 ,awesome 
I got into the bike with no worries, steady and sure about the fact that Gonher would catch me somewhere in the early stages of the ride, and so it happened, with around 15-20km Michael and Max passed me, Michael immediately took off and dropped Max that stayed with me, I guess we (me and Max) knew how running to the finish is our best qualities. I had some racing going on and we where “together” in most of the first loop but I started to feel the pace a bit too hot so I “let” him go for the rest of the ride and rode alone the rest of it with some passes at the end of the ride, not much else happened. The course was really nice by the way I would just comment the location of the special needs bag that was far from ideal, I always don’t get mine but if I wanted it would be impossible for sure without loosing a lot of time.
Run time, I started at my “usual” pace, I immediately knew that the leader, Chris Macdonald was 17min ahead (thanks ben), and Max was about 5min, a bit too much since he is a great runner. I was cool and was expecting to know how the race developed in the run. Passed Chris hauth before the turn around and Zach after it. It was then that I felt me slowing down a lot. That was a bad sign of course I had around 18-19km of running and I was already over the 4min/km pace. I was in 4th and I knew that I wouldn’t be in contention for much more that that. After that I got into a kind of survival pace and I only was able to get a bit faster after the turnaround in the second loop where I saw Michael in big trouble, I caught him a lot sooner than I would expect and that was it, survival pace till the end. A hard 3rd place with a run where I talked a lot with myself 
3rd place was awesome for me, for the people I know and had the chance to talk about doing this race, finishing was all I wanted. I had a long break in scheduled training as well as a mental break where a lot of changes happened and now I have a mental boost so this suits me fine…
After a recovery week ill head out to Sandiego for training before Kona, I never been to Sandiego, well at least for “serious” training so if someone reads this and trains in the area, if you see me say hi and let me know about the best roads
