我在2018年铁人世锦赛上的经历充满了挑战和教训，其中一些我知道会到来，也做好了准备，但可能更多的是我甚至没有考虑过的。

和其他比赛日一样，早上4点就开始了，但实际上我已经起床了，我从晚上7点半到凌晨1点睡得很好，但从那以后或多或少一直在打盹。我很高兴这个时刻终于到来了，我享受着努力和比赛，我可以不用坐在那里等待。赛前营养包括1个悬崖儿童棒，3 x 24盎司瓶2勺碳水化合物，1勺水和一个凝胶游泳前。从逻辑上讲，一切从一开始就是全新的体验。由于以前从未这样做过，我仍然不确定关于我和我的家人在比赛早上可以去哪里的一些细节。考虑到这一点，我带着所有的东西在接下来的两个小时里下车了，这最终是一个很好的决定，因为直到比赛结束30分钟后，我才再次遇到我的朋友。在用酒精擦洗、编号和称重之后，是时候检查我昨晚丢弃的自行车了。当然，整个旅程中我们经历的最大的一场雨发生在整个晚上，所有的自行车都被磨损了。我早上的目标是尽可能地把自行车擦干，重新润滑链条，确保psi是正确的，试着把我的鞋子擦干一点，把所有的营养都放在自行车上。很快就完成了这个任务，我意识到自己到得很早，接下来的一个小时没什么事可做。 This would have been a nice time to relax with my family but due to the congestion of the transition area I decided to just find a “quiet spot” near the hotel where the race was being based out of. I also managed to spend about 10 minutes gawking over the pros who were in a little pen right in the middle of the action, very cool atmosphere and makes me want to be there even more. Best of all, I know one of them, it was great to see Sarah for a moment pre race, all smiles as always.

在游泳开始时，我在我的比赛装备上穿了一件游泳皮肤，我的装备的顶部塞进了我的背部。在男女职业运动员出发20分钟后，这个年龄段的男性运动员以1600人的速度出发。有人警告过我，比赛开始前我需要踩水一段时间。从楼梯快速游到起跑线后，我们确实在接下来的20分钟里踩水。开始的十分钟，我们被划桨板上的救生员拦在起跑线后面。我尽我最大的努力保持在队伍的前面，而不是积极地向前推动队伍。在比赛开始前大约10分钟，我的腿上被水母蛰了一下。最严重的是在我的右小腿和我左边比赛装备的袖口周围。最初的情绪多少有些糟糕。当我对被刺做出反应时，其他人似乎没有反应，也没有说英语，所以我或多或少只是接受了它，知道我必须继续比赛。说实话，比赛开始前的最后5分钟非常痛苦。 My right leg was at this point useless but the larger problem was the jockeying for position at the front. We started the race at least 30 feet in front of the start line and I was promptly swamped to at least the third line of people and the white water just seemed to explode when the gun went off. I did however manage to start my watch, which was a first for the season. I spend the swim out to the halfway boat battling to get some clear water and moving up through the field. Luckily, even on a good day I do not kick much when I swim, so I was able to swim more or less normally, just doing my best to focus on anything other than the sting. By halfway I was in the midst of the second pack, from my vantage point is seemed a handful had gotten off the front, who where were at this point out of reach. I swam much better on the second 1.2 miles and was able to clear and then lead the second pack all the way back to the dock. I got out of the water a bit flustered about the first half of the swim, a bit pissed/worried about the sting but above all very happy to get on my bike.

骑自行车的前5或6英里是在科纳南部的道路上快速往返。我很难保持低心率，每个人，包括我自己，都很有力量。我感觉很好，我很高兴地意识到刺痛，虽然疼痛并没有限制我的腿的可用性。在当天的第一个“坡道”上，很明显，前面的小组将如何驾驭这场比赛，碾压坡道，在没有人注意的情况下滑行大量的下坡和draft(好吧，这部分又花了10英里左右的时间来实现)。通过在第一个山上保持稳定的动力，我从主要团队的前面走到至少25个更低的地方，这种模式在一天中会重复无数次。当然，当我们到达山顶时，这些运动员立即后退，我把所有人都甩了回去，笨蛋，笨蛋，笨蛋。一旦在皇后K上，我就能更好地了解我在比赛中的位置，以及事情将如何发展。我可以看到路上有几个单身骑手，但很快就明显地发现我在前面，考虑到已经发生的一切，这让我感到惊喜。然后，我的自行车电脑死机了……不知道这是怎么发生的，但这就是现在的现实，我所能做的就是处理它。 Power was nothing special (230np) for the first section of the race where I could see what I was doing but I would not have wanted to go any harder considering my heart rate was already edging out of the desired zone. I had spent a lot of time pre-race debating what gears to run and as it turns out I got this part just right. I ended up using a 55-42 up front and a 11-30 cassette in the back. I was never out of gears in either direction and I also had zero mechanical issues from a drive train perspective(which might be a first). From mile 40 - 56 I was able to settle into how the group was riding as opposed to trying to fight it and waste energy. I was able to get my heart rate under control and finished the first half of my nutrition heading up the rise towards Hawi. Special needs was located just after the turnaround. When we came back around I was the only one who stopped and then when I said my number they couldn’t find my bag. It was over the fence, they thought I had already gone by. I managed to stay calm and be respectful to the volunteers, but inside I was pissed, first off, why did no one else stop, where is all of their food!?!, number two, another unnecessary obstacle, seemed par for the course at this point. Once I finally got going I could just see the last rider in the group heading over the horizon. Now it was my turn to start making mistakes, as opposed to accepting the time loss and sticking to my effort, I chased to get back in touch with the front group. It took about 20 minutes and my heart rate was well above my desire zone essentially the entire time. It still feels stupid as I am writing this, but at the time it was very hard to convince myself to back off. Once I bridged back up I made the decision to just stay with back of the group and recover. At this point I still felt pretty strong but it was also obvious that the bike had not been the conservative ride I probably should have gone with on my first shot at this race. I managed to get through almost all of my nutrition, I still had one gel and about ⅓ bottle of carbo pro left but I was happy with amount of fresh-water I had been able to drink along the way. For the last hour of the bike I was able to ride mostly solo and really focus on controlling my effort. Although I was only looking at heart rate due to the computer failure, this was the most controlled and enjoyable section of the ride for me. I finished with a 4:35 bike split and although I knew this wasn’t going to be my best race, I felt like I could run a consistent marathon based on how I was feeling.

我很想粉饰这场马拉松，但说实话，这是我一生中做过的最不愉快的事情之一。在一年中最大的铁人三项比赛中，在整个马拉松比赛中做爱的孤独感是最令人不快的。我一下车就知道我有麻烦了。直到这一天的这个时候，我不知何故逃脱了所有发生的事情，并设法在或多或少地准确的位置，我想要下车。比赛的第一部分是在阿里岛来回7英里，那里或多或少是平坦的，有时有点阴影，挤满了观众。即使这不会是一个强大的运行，我仍然需要这样做，并明智地调整努力。我把我的心率上限设置在150，尽管我跑得很慢，但在第一部分我能够控制住自己的努力。尽管我在自行车上尽了最大的努力来补充营养，但胃痛几乎立刻就开始了，后来很明显，我的消化系统不起作用了，也许那时已经有一段时间没有了。在球场上唯一一次真正的攀登感觉就像一座山，其实不是，我很确定我能爬上去是因为娜莎的父母在一边跑得比我快，几乎是在拉我。一旦上了Queen Q，我尽我所能保持运动，150的心率似乎让每英里的速度变慢了一些，胃疼了一些。 Mentally, this marathon was right up there with toughest thing I have done. Knowing that you aren’t going to stop, but that this is going to take an additional hour of “running” than anticipated was very tough. It was hard to hold back floods of emotions at times because I knew my goals would not be achieved at this race, but also that I had clearly made mistakes in the last 7 hours that put me in this position. Sort of makes you want to just crawl in a hole. I managed to keep running until mile 17 which is when the walking started. The last 10 miles were much more about I may be in trouble here, certainly hope I can make it back, than they were about racing. The low point was mile 23 when I finally got sick and immediately realized why my stomach had been hurting so much for the last three hours. I don’t think I processed a single thing on the run. I felt so much better. But that was quickly replaced with just feeling trashed. I must have split those last 10 miles into 20 little waypoints, I have never played so many stupid mind games with myself during a session or race. It felt like I was doing a threshold set on the trainer just trying to eek those last 10 seconds out. Only this was miles and miles. I finished with what I thought was dignity, pretty much only walked the aid stations and finally dragged myself across the line, 9:45 later.

比赛后的前20分钟很艰难。甚至连发疯的力气都没有了，我已经筋疲力尽了。一开始，我被一个志愿者粗暴地抓着，感觉太过分了，很快就改变了主意，我非常感谢那个好心的志愿者，他在接下来的5分钟里往我身上倒水。至少最糟糕的情况在大约10分钟后过去了，我能够离开地面，收拾好自己，带上我的东西，离开那里去见我的家人。
我知道我比这场比赛更好，我知道我有一个伟大的赛季，尽管仍然很糟糕。你所能做的就是从中吸取教训，继续前进。我期待着从这场比赛中学到我能学到的一切，但我也期待着忘记它的大部分内容。回去工作吧。接下来是印第安维尔斯70.3,12月9日。