Thanks Kevin!

At the pre-race dinner in Louisville Amber and I were on our way out when a guy behind me asked "Hey do you have a website?" I replied no but I do have a blog I update every once in a while. Turns out he has been following my blog for some time to try and gain some strength while doing the long workouts required for Ironman preparation. His name is Kevin and he's from Seattle and I recently received this note from him about his race in Louisville;

Hi Darin - thought I would drop a note post Louisville. I was the guy from Seattle that has been reading your blog for last ten months in prep for IML. Got to say it was strange to run into you and Amber given the thousand plus number of people in the room that night. As mentioned, I had been following only two blogs in my prep for Louisville - yours and a guy from here in Seattle that had been training for IM Couer d'Alene. Found them to be good reads.

Sounds like your race was much like mine, but faster. I had visions of sub 11 and ended up at more than 12 1/2. My swim which felt good in the water was off my 1:15 target. Course I could not see my watch two feet in front of me. The bike which I wanted a 5:45 ended up almost 20 minutes more. Found it impossible to get in groove and really just found myself trying to conserve energy for run. The run was basically a death march. Cramped up badly as soon as I got off the bike in both quad's and hamstrings and ended up power walking almost a full marathon. The run is normally my stronger of the three sports and while I new it would be difficult, could never have predicted what happened. Most of the time I tried to kick my run into gear and got nothing but continued cramping. In all honesty, aside from cramping my body was really not that tired at end of race since the run turned into more of a stroll.

It is just impossible to train/prepare for the oppressive heat and humidity that is Louisville when you live in Seattle, but finishing the race was my primary goal so I have to be happy with that.

Best of luck in future endeavours. Kevin

It was definitely tough out there Kevin, good for you for finishing and best of luck to you as wellin your future races. If you have a blog please send me the link and say hi to Rachel as well, hope her race was better.