[Brian Hallee]

Hi AJ and anyone still paying attention!

I think this race went really well! I’ve finally got around to posting a detailed write-up of the race at my website here:

https://www.teamshelbrau.com/single-post/2018/10/19/Ironman-Louisville-2018-Race-Report

But I will quickly summarize what I think went right and wrong:

The good:

• I followed A.J.’s plan almost to a tee.  there were definitely points where I started feeling a bit burnt, but I never once got close to injury.  Thanks for the solid plan coach!
• I always did bike + run workouts as a brick, never a “two-a-day”.  i think this helped me feel amazing running off the bike for this race.
• The race was cold, but that played into my favor.  I learned at EagleMan this year that I really struggle in obscene heat, so while this was a bummer for some people it worked for me
• Same story with the last minute swim change – I’ve worked hard on improving my swimming this year, but it’s still by far my worst leg, so the shortened swim played into my hands.
• I switched to an all liquid nutrition this year due to A.J.’s continued reminders throughout the year to focus on optimizing this.  (Infinit on the bike, GU Roctane on the run, with extra SOS salt as needed).  this worked almost flawlessly.  I never felt down on calories or salt or hydration, and it’s easy!

The Bad:

• However, I trained in the DC heat, and my tune-up race was EagleMan (hot AF!), so my Infinit was blended in three 35 oz bottles because I sweat like a pig.  This was not smart for this race, because in 42F rainy windy conditions, I don’t think I sweat a drop over the whole bike leg.  So long story short, I had to stop and pee three times on the bike, which probably wasted over 10 minutes!    But the good thing is I started the run 110% hydrated haha.
• I put Zipp 808 wheels on the front which nearly killed me a few times due to all the crosswinds.  Just another thing to think about based on race day weather conditions.
• At Eagleman I feel like I over-pushed on the bike and suffered on the run.  So to compensate I made double-sure that I didn’t spend myself on the bike to save my run this time, but given how good I felt for most of the run I think I could have pushed harder on the bike.

Overall I don’t think I could have had a better 1st full Iron.  I think the biggest part of this is the good structure and information in A.J.’s plan.  I felt so prepared for the race that I had virtually no pre-race jitters!

Thanks A.J. and the crew for an awesome program!  This was definitely the best race experience of my life!

 

• Brian

 

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