Chris McDonald's IMWI Race Report

Hi Guys

Well another Ironman has come and gone and we now have 29 of them in the bank and I can tell you I am still learning something new every time.

I had travelled to Madison in with great preparation and was looking forward to defending the title . It is such a privilege to wear the #1 in an IM but also bring a BIG fat target with it .
We lined up Sunday morning in a very warm lake monona and I was ready to go . As the canon fired I felt like i was on some you tube clip with kimbo slice I had never been hit so many times in a swim start along with being pull and pushed under it was awesome;-)

A found myself in the second pack and was happy to stay there but I was still being absolutely hammered and there was only about 10 people in our pack now. Half way through the swim I did loose my bright green swim cap and then ....the beating stopped. so now my target on the side of my head was at the bottom of lake monona and I could go about the day ahead.

Having raced in Madison 3 time before i knew that just about everyone would take the bike out way to hard and was was just excited to get out on the course and chase down the leaders. we ended up catching the Raynard around half way through the bike and had everyone i wanted in check , Raynard did drop off the bike pack to start but managed to claw back on around 30 kms later. so now we were down from around 12 in the group to 4 as I rolled up the helix and into T2 with the fastest bike split of the day.

I had bike about as easy as I ever have in an IM and was excited to see what the run had in store for me , as we ran out onto the streets of Madison I took the lead but had a young German pretty keen on tracking me down , we did end up running shoulder to shoulder but I just knew the pace was to hot and let him go . a good 8 miles had rolled by now and i was holding 2nd place and gaining again on 1st . as we approached the 12 mile mark I regained the lead . So now my thought were about just trying to control the pace and hold of a resurgent Tisnink . I was very happy with how things were coming along and then mile 15 comes up and apparently the road had turned to quicksand except I was the only one who fell in. the next 4 miles were misery!

Iike I said you learn something new every time and I now know that running 2:50 pace on a course were the run course record in 2:56 in not a good idea :-) I contemplated calling it a day many times but just jogged it in after those 4 miles of walk/jog/walk and held onto 5th place.

you always learn something from the races were things go wrong .
Next up Kona.

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