The Nick Bare Podcast - 150: Thoughts and Reflections on Ironman Arizona

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

In this episode, I walk through my full Ironman Arizona 2025 experience—from the weeks of prep to crossing that finish line. I break down how I approached carb loading, packing, and race-week logistics, and how I handled curveballs like getting into a car accident as soon as we arrived. I take you through each leg of the race, how I managed my nutrition, hydration, pacing, and transitions, and what was happening physically and mentally along the way.CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction01:57 Pre-Race Preparations and Travel02:20 Story Time07:41 Traveling with Family and Car Accident12:08 Bike Setup and Nutrition Planning19:47 Final Preparations Before Race Day29:31 Pre-Race Preparations31:49 Swim35:53 Transition to the Bike36:54 Bike41:53 Transition to the Run46:29 Run50:22 Crossing the Finish Line53:12 Post-Race Reflections55:07 Recovery and Future PlansORDER MY BOOK HERE:https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://bpn.team/memberIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is a breakdown and recap of Iron Man, Arizona, which I completed this past Sunday. Today is now Thursday, the Thursday after the race, so I'm in recovery from the Iron Man effort, which I'm very happy with the effort overall. total time 10 hours six minutes two seconds so close to sub 10 swim was one hour 30 minutes 23 seconds my transition one was eight minutes 38 seconds bike five hours three minutes six seconds transition two, five minutes, 23 seconds. And the run, three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds for like I said, a total time of 10 hours,

six minutes and two seconds total. And I'll break down each leg of the Iron Man, Iron Man Arizona here in a little bit. But there are some things I want to share before we get into race day. Now, for my understanding, Iron Man, Arizona for years now, has been a very popular race, but this is, 2025, was the last time that they'll be doing an Iron Man in Arizona on this course. I'm not exactly sure why, but they are retiring the Iron Man, Arizona course. Now, this was a Sunday race, and we flew out Friday. So two days prior to the Iron Man.

Quick little story before we get into the travel day, because I want to talk about some of the logistics that go into an Iron Man Triathlon, especially when you're traveling with your entire family. The night before, we left. So Thursday night, I'm laying in bed. I'm feeling great. It was day one of the carb up. I'm in the taper.

I'm feeling recovered. was trying to fall asleep early to get, you know, plentiful sleep in preparation for the race Sunday. So I was going to sleep before Steph. And earlier that day, as I walked into the bathroom, I saw this kit in this box on our vanities. And it was a nose hair wax kit. and I assumed Steph bought this for me post-race because earlier in the week we were talking about

my out-of-control nose hairs that I trim and they grow back almost the same day. It's crazy. So I saw this kit sitting on the vanity earlier in the day, didn't think much of it. I'm getting into bed early Thursday night before Steph, go through my nighttime routine. I put my sleep mask on. I've been sleeping with this, this eye sleep mask for the last couple of months, and I love it. I absolutely enjoy it, especially the nights when I go to bed before Steph, because it blacks everything out. You know, all the lights in the bedroom can be on, and I don't see anything. I fall asleep so well, and I stay asleep very well too.

So I'm in bed, sleep mask on about to fall asleep. And I hear Steph say, do you want me to clean out? out your nose hairs, so you have more horsepower in your breathing, come Iron Man. I was like, no, I'm about to fall asleep. I'll do it when I got back from the race. So she was doing her nose at the time. And she said, let me just do it really quick. It doesn't hurt at all.

And I watched her do hers. She put the wax and the stick in her nose. She let it dry. She ripped it out. Didn't flinch, nothing. And she pulled out like maybe a few nose hairs. My nose hairs are probably a hundred times more dense than Steph's nose hairs. So as I'm laying in bed, I was like, all right, we'll bring the kit over,

shove them up my nose, we'll rip it out. You say it doesn't hurt at all, I'll fall back to sleep. So I'm laying in bed, she brings the wax kit over. She puts one in at a time. So she starts with my right nostril, puts the wax, the hot wax and the stick in there and lets it dry. I lean up, I pull it out, and no lie, it drew blood. I was bleeding out of my right nostril. It hurt significantly more than she led me to believe.

And I have to only attribute that to the amount of nose hairs that I have. and they must be very dense in strong nose hairs. It was painful. I was bleeding. I had blood on my face. And I knew I had to do the other nostril. So we throw the hot wax and the stick into my left nostril now. I sit up.

I'm anticipating the pull because the first one hurt and drew blood. This one didn't come out quite as easy. I pulled nothing. No movement. So then I just start pulling harder and harder and harder. And I could feel each additional nose hair ripping out of my skin got the left nostril cleared out. Lots of hair came out. I will say, it felt great.

I could breathe really well. I can still breathe very well. My nose has never been this clean and empty before. For years, it's been filled with nose hairs. But it was traumatic. Thursday night before going to sleep. That's what my wife decided to treat me to prior to getting on a plane the next morning and flying to Arizona for my Iron Man.

Did it make a difference in my performance? Who knows? Did I feel better? Absolutely. Once the pain resided. But a lot of it. nose hair came out. My note right here, so I didn't forget to talk about this. Talk about the nose hair clearance story. That was Thursday night. Steph, I love you. Thank you for helping me

with my nose hairs. But I'm going to choose different options in the future other than the wax kit. Painful. It was painful. Okay. So, the next day. We traveled to, like I said, Arizona with our entire family. I wanted the whole family to be there for this race. So we took our three-year-old daughter Charlie, one-year-old son, Nico, Steph's parents, Kim and Nick Banda, they flew in for the race. My dad and his girlfriend, Sherry, they were there for, for the race. For the race. And so, they were there for the race. And I was, race and it was just really nice to have everyone there. It was really, really nice to have the whole family there and truly celebrate a big prep, a big effort and a strong performance,

in my opinion. But we traveled with the kids. And if you have kids, young kids, especially, you know what traveling on an airplane is like with young kids. It was an adventure, but it was all good. It was fun. We flew out from Austin direct to Arizona, landed in Phoenix. We flew to the Phoenix Airport and went to rent a car. And the only vehicles they had left were big trucks. So we ended up getting a RAM-2500 as our rental.

Way too excessive for what we needed for the weekend, but it's all that was left. and in retrospect, by the grace of God, very appreciative that we ended up running a RAM-2500 because shortly after we got into our rental car and started making the trek to our Airbnb, which was only 15 minutes away from the airport, traffic was crazy in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe area.

We were staying in Scottsdale, we flew into Phoenix, the race was in Tempity, they're all kind of like right in the same vicinity. And we were on the highway and traffic came to a pretty abrupt halt. So we slowed down, we're sitting in traffic. I believe we were on the 202. And next thing we know that happens is we're getting thrown out of our seats in our truck on the highway. What ended up happening as traffic stopped abruptly. We were probably sitting for 20 seconds at that point where two cars behind us,

the car wasn't paying attention, hit the car behind us, full speed. That car slammed into us, hit us, threw our truck around. Luckily, we had this massive 2,500, so the only thing it really tore up was our rear bumper. But it shook everyone up. you know, threw everything in the truck around. Steph actually ended up hitting her nose and breaking her nose. This is Friday, two days before the race right after we landed in Phoenix. The kids were crying and shooken up.

So that's how we started this whole trip. Steph was a trooper about all of them, and she hit her nose so hard. There was blood everywhere within this truck all over herself. And we're just trying to get from airport, after a long day of travel with the kids, the Airbnb, and get them settled. So that's how all of this kind of kicked off. It was absolutely chaotic. And we didn't share any of the story during the weekend because we just didn't feel like bringing any attention to it.

But this is the first time I'm actually talking about it. That was like how we kicked off this whole weekend, which unfortunately. but also just extremely appreciative and grateful that no one was seriously injured. We were all okay. We were able to get back to the Airbnb safely. Family was a little shucking up, but it was an event to start the Ironman weekend. That is for sure.

To pivot from there, some of the things that we did immediately after getting into, to Arizona. So the bike was dropped off at Moxie Bike Shop in Scottsdale, Arizona. Great shop, highly recommend it. M-O-X-I-E. Moxie bike shop. Because the thing when you travel with your bike to one of these races is that you have

to, you know, in order to take it through the airport onto a plane, you have to put it in a bike bag. You can't just like walk your bike into the airport and they check it underneath on its own. You have to put it in a bike bag. And to put it in a bike bag, it has to be broken down. And I don't know how to break a bike down properly. So I took that bike, the bike that I raced on, my Sorrello P5, to a shop here in the Austin area. They broke it down, packed it up.

we got the bike to Arizona on the plane. Upon arriving, took it to Moxie Bike Shop, where they took it out of the bag, they put it all back together. It's really important to note that you have some sort of guide of your measurements. When you get your bike fit, your bike fitting technician

will write down all the measurements of what they adjusted on the bike that are specifically fitted to you, So I took that paper to Moxie and just provided it to them that as they were building the bike back together, they could build it based off the specs that the bike technician who fitted me fitted that bike too. So it was exactly the way that I needed it, the way that I was training on it, and it was fitted specifically to my needs. Now a few things that we ended up doing additionally at the Moxie Bike Shop

is I got new wheels and tires put on. I tried doing that here in Texas, but the shop couldn't get it done in time. So upon arriving to the Moxie Bike Shop, like I said, in Scottsdale, we put on a head, HD, disc wheel on the back, and then we put on a matching, not disc, but a matching wheel and tire on the front of the bike. Now, these disc wheels,

you might have seen pictures or videos of these wheels. Most people don't train with disc wheels, but they race with disc wheels. I believe they're more aerodynamic. It's a faster setup. But essentially, the whole wheel, like you can't see through it. It is maybe a carbon fiber type material, but it helps with the performance of the bike.

So I used a disc wheel on my last triathlon, which is in 2021, my 70.3 in Cancun, Mexico. And I decided I wanted to use another disc wheel for this race. And we ended up getting that done just a few days, you know, two days prior to the race. but I can tell a big difference in terms of riding and performance, utilizing a disc wheel as opposed to not. That's one of the things we got done as soon as we arrived to Arizona. Now, the episode of the podcast that are recorded before this one that I'm speaking into right now and we released,

the previous episode was all about my taper. So the day of travel being Friday, This is my second day of my carbohydrate load. Race was Sunday, as I talked about in the previous episode, I like to carbohydrate load three days and two days out and then eat normal the day before, which I'll talk about here as we get into Saturday, the day before. But Friday, the day of travel,

ended up being my second day of the carbohydrate load. So there were some backwards, planning, logistical planning, to kind of ensure that I stayed on top of my carbohydrate load. Some of the things that I did, because I was consuming about 800 grams of carbs, that's why I ended up consuming Thursday and Friday each day before the race. So I had between those two days, 48 hours, 1,600-ish grams of carbohydrates. and it was a perfect taper. It was a perfect carbohydrate load in my opinion.

But to ensure that I stayed on top of my nutrition Friday while traveling, I packed a lot of meals. So I carried a cooler with me on the plane that had ice packs. And then I had a meal of beef and rice in there. I carried some orange juices, honey, cereal. and then what I like to do going into a carbohydrate load is input everything the day before into my fitness pal so I know exactly what I'm consuming during that carbohydrate load to hit my protein fat and carbohydrate macronutrient goals throughout those days to ensure I'm dialed

and just hit exactly what I need to so the day before traveling I had everything inputted into my fitness pal to hit the macronutrient goals that I wanted to. I prepared my foods and my meals, some of which were in a cooler, some of which were just in my backpack. And then as soon as we landed in Phoenix, we put an order of Instacard in to have groceries delivered to our Airbnb for what we would need and what I would need, really, for the remainder of Friday and then all day Saturday leading into the race. I think Instacart is one of the greatest things ever invented. Before having kids, we never used Instacart. Before having kids, we used to love our trips to the grocery store. We take our time walking down the aisles, exploring what's new.

It was a very relaxing, typically Sunday afternoon trip, staff and I. after having kids we don't take those trips to the grocery store as frequently but we Instacart all the time I love Instacart if you haven't used Insacart to Game Changer especially while traveling

so as soon as we landed I had my Instacart order ready for groceries to be delivered to our Airbnb of everything we were going to need for the next couple days so that was Friday Friday was a

travel day. It was my second carbohydrate load day. It was a bike preparation day, a food preparation day. And unfortunately, Friday for us came with an accident, which wasn't planned, was unfortunate, but like I have said, just grateful that no one was seriously injured and everyone was okay. Okay, so Saturday, the day before the Iron Man, and the reason I'm sharing Friday and Saturday leading up to the race day, is because I take these days very serious. The way that I view it and approach these days leading up to the race, I mean, really the whole prep, the entire 18-week prep I was dialed in. But these last couple days, I want to remove all variables. I want to control what I can control to set myself up for success, set my family up for success during the

travel and the weekend and the race as well. And that comes with a lot of planning. So Saturday morning, we woke up, me and the boys, the media team went and did a shakeout run. So it was a two and a half mile shakeout run. Weather was perfect. It was beautiful in the Arizona area. The first thing I noticed, in the first 30 seconds of that run, the poppiness of my legs. This tells me I tapered well and I carbohydrate loaded well. When I go out on that last shakeout run, the only way to describe it is you have this pop in your feet and your legs.

As soon as your foot strikes the pavement or it strikes the ground, it pops back up. there is this responsiveness. And you know, when you get deep into a prep and you're training on fatigued legs and a fatigued body all the time, you lose some of that poppiness, some of that responsiveness.

You don't feel it or experience it for quite some time. So when you're at the back half of the taper, you go out on that last shakeout run and you get that pop and that response when your foot strikes the ground, that for me tells me we're ready. We're recovered. We tapered well. We're fit. We're loaded with carbohydrates. Glycogen is topped off. We're ready to go race tomorrow morning. That's what I experienced on that checkout run. As I've already mentioned, between Thursday and Friday, I had about 1,600 grams of carbohydrates that were now loaded in the form of glycogen. Not all of it, but I was definitely top. I was definitely.

hopped off on glycogen. The game plan for Saturday nutrition-wise was to consume about 3,500 calories. And this broke down to roughly 185 grams of protein, 500 grams of carbohydrates, and 80 grams of fat with limited fiber intake, and just consuming foods and food sources that I knew my body digested well and preferred and liked. Foods that just work well for me. Also throughout the day, staying on top of hydration, not just water, but also electrolytes. So I had multiple servings of electrolytes. In the past, I've messed up when I first started running marathons. Were the two days before a race, I would drink one to two gallons of water. And I didn't know about proper hydration back

then and I wasn't incorporating electrolytes into that plan. And what I ended up actually doing is flushing out all my body's stores of electrolytes. So come race day, I would cramp up and muscles would seize and they wouldn't work properly. It actually hurt my performance. So in the days leading up to, not just consuming water, but staying on top of electrolyte consumption as well. So that Saturday, the day before the race, multiple servings of electrolytes. lights. Another note that I want to share that I like to do while traveling, especially around races, is being very careful of water sources that you're consuming. I have somewhat of a sensitive

stomach to certain tap water or faucet water or even water from like a refrigerator filters will hurt my stomach. So we bought a bunch of bottled mountain spring water. that we just store in our Airbnb to drink those days leading up to the race, just to have a clean source of water. Some people can drink any type of water and not have any stomach problems. I'm not like that. I can tell when I drink bad water, hurts my stomach. I get some pain, some discomfort, gas, bloating.

And I just try to avoid that and really control every variable possible. in those days leading up to the race and water is one of those. So the other things we had to do Saturday in preparation for the next morning. As I mentioned, we did our 2.5 mile shakeout run in the morning, came back, had breakfast, went to Iron Man Village,

downtown Tempe, we checked in, got my transition bags, bib, all the things I needed to check in, and then we went and dropped the bike off at bike check-in. So you drop your bike off the day before and they store all these bikes. I mean, it was probably over 2,000 bikes based off the amount of participants in Iron Man, Arizona,

on these racks. Coordinating and planning an Iron Man logistically as an organization blows my mind. it is a very complex system, lots of moving pieces, lots of equipment. After bike drop off, we had to drop off transition bags. So this is the bag that you pick up in between your swim and your bike, and then the bag you pick up in between your bike and your swim.

So we packed transition bags, drop those off at the respective locations, just to provide context, like what am I putting in a transition bag? for my bag between the swim in the bike. I had my cycling shoes, my helmet. I had my go gels in there, socks, a go bar. In my transition bag from the bike to the run, I had my hat, sunglasses, running shoes, handheld water bottle, stuff like that.

Gels, things I'm going to need for the transition. the next leg of the race. I actually had a really good sleep Saturday night going into Sunday. I slept six hours, 45 minutes going into race day. I've never been someone who has struggled to sleep

the night before a race. I sleep really well, actually. My Garmin sleep score was an 83 and my Garmin training readiness score was an 89, which is deemed excellent. So I was ready. You know, that's why I take these days leading up to the race so serious.

I want my body to be primed. I want logistically to have a plan and be prepared. I want to give my mind the space to just think and be mentally prepared to execute come race day. I want to nail my nutrition. I want to control all the variables that I, am in control of. And that requires intentionality. It requires commitment.

It requires discipline. So based off my Garmin scores that I had, you know, the next morning, Sunday morning, objectively, I was ready, but also subjectively, how I felt, I felt ready. I felt as ready as could be. Race day. Sunday. November 16th. I had a 3.45 a.m. wake up for a.m. start time.

That was 6.50 a.m. start time for age group athletes. Some of the first things that I did it immediately upon waking up. So in our Airbnb, it was me, Steph, Niko, Charlie, and Steph's parents. And the plan was to go over to the media teams Airbnb, which was five minutes from our Airbnb. or down the road to do all the filming in preparation for that morning so we didn't wake up the family. First thing I did at my Airbnb, though, coffee and bowel movement.

Success. Anyone who has an early race knows you got to back up that wake-up time as much as needed so you can have a successful bowel movement because you don't have to worry about that. I have the starting line in the first couple hours of the race. We achieve success in this case. 3.45 a.m. wake up, coffee and bowel movement success by, I would say, 4.10 a.m.

In the first 25 minutes upon waking. Then I drove over to the media team's Airbnb. Like I said, so I didn't wake up the family. Breakfast, I consumed roughly at 4.30 a.m. This was one cup of oats, just cooked up. two tablespoons of peanut butter, one tablespoon roughly of honey,

one and a half bananas, three whole eggs, and I put sea salt on top of all of it. And I had about 25 ounces of water with two scoops of our electrolytes in there, which was an additional 1,000 milligrams of sodium

in combination with the food and the salt that I added to the food. from there I did some light stretching mobility work and I used the hyper-ice massage gun on my lower body just get things primed up ready for the swim and then we made our way to downtown Tempe Iron Man Village at the starting line we arrived roughly at 6 a.m.

And the first thing we did immediately upon arriving is I went over my bike at the bike check-in I added my bike computer, which was fully charged to my bike. I didn't want to leave that sitting out overnight. And then I added my water bottles to my bike as well, which had my G1M sport in the bottles. Also pumped up my bike tires. So where all the bikes are stored for an Iron Man, they have just tire pumps sitting around the perimeter that you can use to pump up your tires. just because overnight, you know, with different weather conditions,

you got cooler and tempi, you can lose some air in your tires and you can bring those tires back to optimal pressure before kicking off the race. And the last thing I did before making my way to the starting line and putting my wetsuit on was I ate a go bar. So I ate this about almost two hours, after breakfast.

So I had a go bar, which is an additional 36 grams of carbohydrates before starting the swim. Now for the swim, as I mentioned, my time was one hour, 30 minutes,

23 seconds. This was actually a bit slower than I would have wanted or expected, but I'm not mad about it. I knew going into the Iron Man that the swim wasn't going to be my strongest.

However, the goal was to finish the swim so that I could conserve energy and expend that saved energy on the bike and the run. I'm naturally not a great swimmer. Of the two triathons I've done before this one, I made slight improvements to my swim, but didn't get better in a meaningful way. And I really didn't expect to get better at swimming in a meaningful way during this 18-week prep.

So the goal was to improve efficiency, to conserve energy for the bike and the run. One hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds. I'm not going to lie. It felt like I was swimming for three hours in that river. It felt like a long swim. But coming out of the water, I still felt very strong. It didn't packs me very well. we were able to wear wetsuits in that swim based off of water temperatures.

I believe the threshold for wetsuits in an Ironman triathlon is 86 degrees. So if the water is 86 degrees or above, you can't wear a wetsuit. In this case, it was wetsuit legal. Now, normally in the Tempe town lake river, the water temperature is like 60 to 61 degrees. But it had been warmer the weeks leading up to this race. So the water temperature actually wasn't that bad. It was like 67, 68 degrees. It didn't feel cold.

It felt fine. Water condition wise, though, it was choppy. The water was very choppy. And it was very dirty. It was like, it was dirty water. It was dirtier than I would have expected it to be. In all honesty. But swimming in a triathlon is so you,

unique because you know you you put in this massive training block in preparation and in my case I was swimming most of the time in a pool calm waters you have a lane to yourself I did some open water swims in the quarry which is attached to lifetime fitness in north Austin it's a beautiful spot to swim if you're a triathlete in the Austin area get a membership at the lifetime North Austin by the domain. There's this massive quarry behind it that you can swim in that is just reserved for swimmers, paddle boarders, kayakers. It's beautiful and it's very clean water. I've never had any issues there. But what makes a triathlon swim so unique is you're not swimming by yourself in controlled water conditions. In a, in a, in a, in a, in a,

in a lane, essentially. There's people swimming over you. There's people that are kicking you in the face. Your arms are getting stuck on other people's arms. Your legs are getting tangled in other people's bodies. Like it's, imagine a school of fish. That's what it's like.

It's people all over each other. You're constantly hitting other people. But the swim, in all fairness, You know, to wrap up the swim, it was a solid swim, in my opinion. I felt strong the whole way through. The goal, like I have mentioned, was to conserve energy. Definitely wasn't my fastest swim ever, but we got it done. One hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds.

Immediately getting out of the water at Transition 1. And I said transition one, it was eight minutes, 38 seconds. You know, you run out of the water, you run down this lane. And they have these people called wetsuit strippers waiting for you. Or essentially, you pull the zipper off the back of your wetsuit. You lay on the ground and these people just grab your wetsuit off you and rip it from your body. It's a wild experience. I mean, they rip those wets off you.

in no time. I got to my transition one bag, grabbed all my cycling gear, and a go bar. So I had a go bar right before the swim, and I had a go bar at transition one, and I'll mention it later,

but I had a go bar at transition two going into the run as well. So going to the bike and going to the run. For the bike, five hours, three minutes, six seconds. I was very happy. with my bike performance. Like really proud of the strength that I had on the bike.

To provide some context of how strong my bike was, I got out of the swim at 1,168th place. That tells you my swim was not the strongest. When I got off the bike, I moved up to 327th place. and then when I finished the run and the Iron Man, I ended up in 187th place overall. So from the end of the swim to the end of the Iron Man,

I almost went up a thousand places. I passed a thousand people. So that's why I said I just wanted to conserve energy in the swim because I knew I could throw down on the bike and the run. Over the 18 weeks in the prep, I spent a lot of time on the bike. That was arguably my biggest focus of this prep because as we see,

it's the most meaningful in terms of time during the Iron Man. I spent a lot of time, not just time on the bike and volume, but with a combination of endurance, sweet spot training sessions, intervals and V-O-2 max workouts. And it paid off.

Every week I was doing one long ride on the bike, anywhere from three hours to five-and-a-half hours. Every week I was doing a two-hour sweet spot session. And every week I was doing a 90-minute to a two-hour V-O-2 max workout on the bike. So I was spending a lot of time on the bike during this prep in different thresholds and efforts of training. And like I said, it paid off. I felt really strong the entire five hours, three minutes, six seconds. My fueling was very strategic and dialed in for the bike.

I ended up consuming about 85 grams of carbohydrates and 1,000 milligrams of sodium per hour. this is a combination of G1M Sport and GoGels. Now the first bottle that I had on the bike had one scoop of G1M Sport Plus. So right when I got on the bike, this would have been one hour and 38 minutes into the Iron Man. I had my first hit of caffeine. G-1-M-Sport Plus is 150 milligrams of caffeine with added nootropics. So that was the first bottle, and the first bottle that I consumed on the bike, in addition to G-1-Sport regular, I had one scoop, one serving of G-1M Sport Plus.

And also while on the bike during those five hours, I had two calf go gels. So on the bike, overall, I had consumed over the five hours. 300 milligrams of caffeine. The course itself, I thought it was a beautiful course. It was three loops and what I found was so nice about it. Going out was a gradual hill. I think going out each loop we climbed about 500 feet, maybe a little bit more,

but there was a slight tailwind from what I experienced. So you really didn't feel that uphill. And on the way back, there was a slight headwind, but you were downhill gradually. So I feel like I could cook going out with that tailwind, and I could cook coming back with that slight gradual downhill. I really enjoyed the three-loop course. I thought it was a beautiful course.

I have and had no complaints of that course. It was really nice and really easy to ride, in my opinion. And I felt strong the entire way through from hour one to the end. And I ended up averaging 22 miles per hour on the bike. As I mentioned, immediately getting off the bike at transition two, I ate another go bar. When I was picking up my transition two bag, this is when I got off my transition two bag. this is when I got off my bike, threw my running shoes on.

I showed this in the YouTube videos in the series that we filmed, but something I started incorporating in my long runs throughout this prep is I carried a handheld water bottle. And the main reason I started doing this is because I started my prep in July.

So July, August, even September here in Central Texas, Very hot. And during these long runs, 16, 18, 20, 22 miles, I would sweat so much. So I started carrying a handheld water bottle with me on these long runs with water and electrolytes. And I would consume this and I would use that handheld water bottle also to carry my go gels. So part of my plan going into the run of the Iron Man was to carry it.

carry a handheld water bottle. This also allowed me to control my electrolyte consumption and carry all my go gels without having to rely with what was offered on course. So at T2, I took my helmet off, obviously.

I took my cycling shoes off, obviously, threw my running shoes on. I ended up running with the Sockony endorphin Elite 2.0s. great shoe love that shoe through my bib on with my number

hat sunglasses and then I grabbed my handheld water bottle it's a Nathan handheld water bottle through my go gels in there and then I also had some BPN electrolyte go packs in that little pocket as well

so I filled up my handheld water bottle and I put one scoop of or one go pack of electrolytes in there which was 500 milligrams of sodium. Throughout the run, throughout the 26.2 miles, I consumed that one bottle in the first half.

So between mile one and mile 13, I consumed 500 milligrams of sodium. And then I retopped that bottle off with another go pack of electrolytes. So I had an additional 500 milligrams of sodium to sip on for the last half, the last 13 miles. I practiced that during training. I carried that over to the race.

I didn't cramp up at all the entire run, which we're about to get into. Last thing I mentioned on the bike, weather conditions were great. I really didn't sweat at all on the bike. Getting off the bike, there were no white sweat marks on my tri-kit. this is something to

to keep in mind you know, I wore a black tric kit and I wore that tricit under my wetsuit so that when I got out of the water I just ripped my wetsuit off and I was already ready to go.

I was wearing my tricit under my wetsuit. When I was on the bike, didn't sweat much, no sweat stains, which is a good sign. If you get off the bike and you see white sweat marks

all over your tri-kit, it probably means you're dehydrated and you got to catch up a little bit with hydration, water and electrolyte consumption. I got off the bike, no sweat stains, no sweat marks, which put me in a good position for the run. Now, if you see some photos of me

post-race after the run, I had white sweat marks and stains all over my tri-kit because at that point, I was dehydrated. I lost significant water during the run and I was sweating a whole lot more on the run than I was on the bike. But transitioning into the run, the last segment of the race. As I've already mentioned, I had another go bar at T2.

I ran my marathon three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds. That ends up being roughly a 735 minute per my. I didn't know how it was going to feel exactly as I started running, but I was surprised. I put out a big effort on the bike. I assumed my legs were going to be a little cooked come to run. When I started running, I couldn't tell you that I just biked 112 miles prior to starting to run. My legs felt fresh.

They still had that poppiness. They still had that responsiveness. that I felt the day before at the shakeout run, which was a great sign. And when I started running, I didn't look at my watch. I just ran based off feel and effort. I just wanted to fall into something comfortable. And after I hit my first mile, I looked down,

and it was about a 6.30 minute per mile pace. And I held that for the first couple of miles. I was really happy with the first half of the marathon. And after the first half, I thought I might have been able to go sub three on the marathon, but things kind of change at second half of the race. I felt really strong, the first 13-ish miles. And then I didn't feel as strong,

which is where my pace really started to drop. My stomach ended up turning on me, which I expected. As I've mentioned, I have more of a sensitive stomach, especially when it comes of some of these longer distance endurance events. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when my stomach's going to start to hurt or turn on me. And my stomach started to turn on me the second half of the run of the marathon.

And at that point, not just the stomach turning, but legs were tired, fatigued. my pace started slowly dropping. If you go and look at my splits from my marathon, I had two miles that were over 10-minute miles. Those were miles where I spent some time in the bathroom and the Porter Potty. That slowed me down significantly. If I would have had a stronger second half of the marathon,

I definitely would have went sub-10. Definitely. But I would have loved to have been able to run a sub-3 to close out this race. And I thought in the beginning it was a potential. But I just, I slowed down significantly that second half of the race that last 13 miles. And I just couldn't hold it all together to hold that effort and that pace that I wanted to. Overall, I'm happy with a marathon.

I mean, three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds after swimming 2.4 miles, after biking 112 miles. I mean, I can't be happy. I'm sorry, I can't be mad at that performance. Overall, I'm really happy with the entire race. My first Iron Man ever in 2019, it was Iron Man, Florida, and Panama City. I believe my time was 11 hours, 28 minutes. So to shave off almost an hour and a half for my first Iron Man, You know, I can't be mad about that.

It was exactly the day that I wanted. It was exactly the effort I wanted. And when I crossed that finish line, I emptied it all. There was nothing left. There was nothing left when I crossed that finish line. I put everything I had into that race. And with that being said, I mean, I'm proud of that. I'm proud to be able to say that I emptied the tank on that race as well as I could have.

And the best part, you know, crossing that finish line and the Ironman organization team was so nice and generous and helpful. They allowed Steph and Charlie to be right at the finish line waiting for me within the fencing and put the metal around my neck. and I cross that finish line. I just bear hugged Charlie and Steph. Nico was with my in-laws on the other side of the fence. But just like seeing my family, being able to hug them, being able to level on them, that's what I was running towards. I wasn't running towards a finish line.

I wasn't running towards a specific time or a number on a clock. I was running to my family. I was running to be embraced and rest on their shoulders. Like literally, I grabbed them, I hugged them, legs were weak and shaky, and I just put my head on their shoulders and just exhaled, rest.

Job finished. 18-week prep, done, race completed. I sent it. I did everything I could on that course. And the only thing left to do was just embrace my beautiful wife and my daughter and go see my son and hug my dad. And it was a great way to wrap up a prep, wrap up a hard physical challenge to celebrate a huge transformational chapter of my life. and also just celebrate the YouTube series and the boys who worked on that series so hard.

Yoli, Landry, and Trevor for 18 weeks, I was really happy with that day. The only way I can describe it, it's exactly what I hoped it would have been. It was that and more. So post-race, we went and picked up the bike, all my transition bags, headed back to the Airbnb,

You know, as I've mentioned, my diet was dialed in for those 18 weeks of prep. Diled. I really didn't eat anything off my diet. So the first thing we had once getting back to the Airbnb, we had pizza, wings, and breadsticks waiting for us. And it was delicious. One of the things I was thinking about during that run, I was picturing later that night, me sitting on the couch, eating food with my family and my kids next to me and my wife next to me. And in that moment, hours later, there I was on the couch with a plate of pizza wings and breadsticks and my daughter next to me, my wife next to me, all of our family just kind of reminiscing about the day. just hanging out and it was such a restful, peaceful, joyful moment.

Truly a celebration. But I will tell you, that pizza and those wings, they slapped. It was so good. It was exactly what I needed post-race. After a big race, I'm never too hungry. Stomach's kind of jacked up and even, consuming so many carbs on the day to say top off on fuel and throwing back as much sodium and hydration as possible. But I was hungry after this one. And the meal was very fulfilling.

So right now we're at the time of this recording, we're four days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, four days post-iron Man. And to be honest, my body feels really solid. I remember after my first Ironman or even after my first ultra and after my first marathon, body being wrecked. You can't walk the next day. But over time, over the years, as I've gotten in better shape, I've built better conditioning, I've learned how to prep better. Recovery has naturally adapted as well. So I'm not overly sore at all, four days post race. body feels, I'd say fairly normal.

Central nervous system and energy is definitely drained as expected. It was a big effort and a big prep. And I always experience sleep disruption for about a week after a big effort or a big race. Every time I do, not necessarily a marathon, but ultras, Iron Man, because of a bigger effort attacks the body in a more meaningful way,

I always experience sleep disruptions for days afterwards, waking up multiple times throughout the night, not being able to get a lot of deep sleep, not being able to sleep in even when I try. But right now the focus is recovery, rest, good food, and preparing to rebuild and reincorporate strength training back into this next training block. Put some size back on, put some weight back on,

and truly balance endurance and strength. But that was Iron Man, Arizona. Such a fun prep. Truly a life-changing prep. I don't say that in a light way at all. It was a life-changing prep. during Ironman, Arizona, in the beginning of the prep, and the beginning of the series,

that's when I committed my life to following Christ. And I was reborn and renewed. I am not the same person. I was when I first started prep as I am today. Truly, a life transformation during this build, this prep, this series. and of all the preps I've ever done, of all the races and the series we've ever documented and shared, this one has to go down as my favorite.

This is one that I will remember forever. This one truly I experienced unlock, breakthrough, and renewal. So, that is Iron Man Prep. Season three, closing it out, Iron Man Arizona. Guys, thank you for all the support and the love. I appreciate you. And as always, go on more.