This is a very “bare bones” race report for IM Arizona. My next post will be much more expansive, focusing on lessons learned in 2011 as a whole, and how I’ll apply those lessons to 2012.

This past Sunday, I raced at Ironman Arizona. Going into the race, I knew the pro field was stacked. With 55 male pros on the start line, it was the deepest Ironman field of 2011 (besides Kona, of course). I didn’t want to risk destroying my race by getting overly anxious early in the day, so I decided to treat the event more like an individual time trial than as a race against others. This proved to not be the best decision. I ended up as the 34^th male pro overall, finishing in 9:09:57.

Swim – 1:03:45. More of the same issues I’ve had in the past, and there’s no need to rehash them here. I missed the swim pack, and ended up in “no mans land”. I had one other athlete to work with, so that was nice. I will talk MUCH more about swimming in my season wrap up.

Bike – 4:56:00. I went out and rode exactly at my goal power, which was 255 watts, and had my HR exactly where I wanted it. This was very much a “solo” effort, as I didn’t even slightly pay attention to racing tactically. I just went to my power number, and sat there. With that power output, it’s reasonable to expect more speed, so it looks like I may have made many small mistakes over the course of the bike that added up to serious time losses.  This is actually pretty good news, because it should be relatively simple to fix those minor issues. There were many lessons learned there, which will be addressed in the season wrap up.

Run – 3:05:25. Things started out well, as the first 11-12 miles were exactly at the pace (6:40/mile) and HR (mid-150’s) that I knew I could sustain. But soon after that, the length of the season caught up to me. I was doing my 3rd IM in 5 months, and apparently, I’m not quite ready for that volume of racing quite yet.  My legs/mind ran out of gas, and the last 15 miles were pretty rough, as I wasn’t able to raise my HR to levels where I can usually hold it for an IM. It wasn’t a total meltdown or anything like that, just a bit of a let down.

So yeah, as you can probably guess, it wasn’t my ideal day. However, sitting around and moping about it doesn’t really get me anywhere, so it’s time to start reflecting on 2011 as a whole, and taking advantage of it’s lessons to get ready for 2012 (all of which will be addressed in my next, much longer, post!)