Ironman Coeur d'Alene

I can't begin to describe how much fun this race/vacation was. The combination of a great venue, a group of good friends that all went together, it was my first Ironman, the crowd cheering at the finish line and finally seeing how happy my wife was when she finished made it a spectacular race.

We rented an old house in downtown CDA that was only a few blocks from the start of the swim and about 7 blocks from downtown, it was an ideal location for the week. We spent many hours on the porch of the house relaxing the days before the race.


On race day we dropped off our special needs bags went back to the house to relax and when it was race time put on our wetsuits and walked to the start.


The swim was basically mass chaos, especially at the turn around buoys. There were close to 2300 racers lined up over hundreds of yards on the beach standing 20+ people deep. When the gun went off everyone headed for the same turn around buoy.


When I reached the buoy I ran into a wall of people that were stopped and floating vertical waiting to make progress forward. It was backed up 20+ people deep and wide. No way to make progress without waiting for those in front of me to start swimming. There was wide spread panic setting in by many of the swimmers when they were in the middle of that mess. It finally cleared up and the swimming resumed. All of the time in the pool paid off as the swim wasn't that tough.

The bike portion went through some beautiful countryside with plenty of rolling hills. The numerous rides of the Lake Henshaw route in San Diego had me well prepared for the bike portion as it didn't seem too tough either.

Next up was the run and that was a different story. I'm feeling pretty good here on my first lap of the course. Our strategy was to walk through each aid station to make sure we got plenty of nutrition in us.

The second lap was tough. Around mile 18 the wheels came off the bus and I had to walk for the first time outside of the aid stations. My pace started to slow and my goal of finishing sub-eleven hours quickly vanished.

There were hundreds of spectators lining the last six blocks heading into the finishing chute all cheering for each racer coming by. It was a spectacular feeling of accomplishment and the closest I'll ever come to feeling like a rock star.

I got the job done as Coach Spencer said and finished my first Ironman!


My wife came in shortly after me and was ecstatic!




In the end I finished in 72nd place out of 250 in my age group and 582nd out of 2265 overall.

Total Time: 11:54:33
Swim: 1:22:56 (2:11 pace 100yd)
T1: 7:52
Bike: 5:35:21 (20.0 mph pace)
T2: 3:02
Run: 4:45:24 (10:54 min/mile pace)

The next couple of days in CDA were filled with lots of relaxing, coffee at Java on Sherman, Bowling at the Sunset Lanes, fireworks and eating.

Jill and I are already looking for our next Ironman to race in. It was a great time with my family and friends in CDA.