Perspective

Well the good news is, my time would have won the men's 60-64 age group. The bad news is, I'm only 46!

I didn't want to post too soon after the race, because you need time afterwards to separate from the emotion of each Ironman finish.

I talked about expectations just before the race. The success I've had the last couple of years has been due to a strong bike and an even stronger run. On Saturday, following a brutal swim, my bike strength also took a hike, despite very favorable conditions.

However, you need to accept what the day dishes out, and what your body can do with it. You learn from the negatives, and focus on the positives. The positives are:

A 10:56 finish, 19 minutes faster than my first trip here two years ago.

66th in my age group, compared to 81st in 2004.

A 3:37 marathon, 27th in my age group. I got stronger throughout the run and "caned it" in for a seven-minute last mile. Boy, did that hurt.

The funniest moment of the day was at around mile 80 of bike. The aid stations are all set up in the same order: water, gatorade, food, coke, gatorade, water. I had been taking on gatorade and water at each station: gatorade to drink and water to soak myself down. A spray in the face, one down the back and one down the front. At this aid station though, I picked up a coke by mistake. By the time I tasted coke, I had already doused myself in it. So I rode quite sticky for the next ten miles, where I picked up TWO bottles of water and had an impromptu shower on the bike. At 40 km/h!

Back to perspectives: Earlier on, I was having a self-pity party at about mile 10 on the bike, fretting about my crappy swim, when I spun past Marc Herremans. Marc finished 6th overall in 2001 as an able-bodied pro triathlete, and was the revelation from Belgium: a guy who had all the tools to win the world championship some day soon. That winter, he crashed his bike in the Canary Islands and ended up paralyzed from the chest down. Race day 2006, Marc was in his handcycle, powering his way down the Queen K, for the third year in a row.

As I was hammering my way down Palani inside the last mile, the crowds on both sides of the street were going absolutely nuts, and I thought, "wow, what a great crowd", then a three-wheeled blur went by me, and it was Marc on his way to the PC (physically challenged) win. He finished a few minutes ahead of me, using only his arms, for all 140 miles.

When I swung my tired and sore feet onto the floor on Sunday morning, it felt pretty good.