Alright guys. Pray to the weather gods. It's sopping wet right now and the lake is super choppy so much that it resembles the Atlantic. It's all supposed to clear up after midnight. Maybe...come on Mother Nature! Don't screw me over now.

Son of a bitch. I got DNFd on the bike course. I'll post a proper race report later but now I'm gonna go dive headfirst into the nearest bottle of booze.

Ah man gutted for you. Why did they DNF you? I checked you on the live tracker and it looked like you were gonna get in off the bike within the cutoff.

There were a couple intermediate bike cutoffs at miles 62 and 89. I missed the mile 62 cutoff by 7 minutes. It's just as well because I wouldn't have made the 5:30 final cutoff.

The bike course was a 2-looper with two killer climbs each loop. After the first loop I was overheating, bonking, and nauseous, and I wasn't alone. Rumor is that almost a thousand people out of the 2400 entrants failed to complete the bike course.

That's crazy that almost half the entrants couldn't get round. Was it too hot? I thought it was supposed to be freezing in the morning, or is this one of those crazy places where it freezes overnight then is scorching during the day?

And the important question I guess is, so have you signed up for next year?

Ron, the weather was a huge factor. It was below freezing in the morning and hot by noon. It snowed the day before.

I may attempt this race again someday but I'm not going to take advantage of the early signup today. Due to the high DNF rate I doubt that this race will fill quickly when registration is opened to the general public, so I have time to think about it. I spent a small fortune on this attempt.

Don't get me wrong. The overall experience was awesome even though the final result was not one that I was looking for.

Ok, boys! It’s time for a race report for Ironman Lake Tahoe. I’d been meaning to write one sooner, but work, life, and football have gotten in the way. Fair warning: a large wall of TL;DR text follows.



I rolled into Reno, Nevada on September 19, four days ahead of the race. On a physical level I was tired from having caught an 0-dark-30 flight from Philadelphia, but I was teeming with energy after having juiced myself with several strong cups of coffee courtesy of a cute blonde United Airlines air hostess. Some 10 days earlier I had cut out caffeine from my diet so that I could use caffeinated energy shots more effectively during the race. I didn’t quite make it to race day with no coffee, but the layoff heightened the effect of the airline Joe. Needless to say I landed in Reno with quite a caffeine buzz.

Kellie Eldridge from RaceQuest Travel picked me up at the Reno airport. I had booked my stay through RaceQuest some months earlier on the recommendation of several complete strangers. Why the hell not? When I signed up for this race, I knew more or less nothing about it, knew no one in the area, and had only a slight idea about what to expect, so why not book a stay with a group of people I’ve never met?

That turned out to be a great decision. Kellie and her partner Krista Baker acted as race guides for the 15 people who had booked a stay with their company. Kellie and Krista spent the entire time shuttling us all back and forth to the various expos and meetings and otherwise tending to our every need. They had planned an entire weekend of events, including a welcome party, a Q&A with pro triathletes Chris “Big Sexy” Johnson and Jessica Jacobs, several practice swims, and a preview of the bike course. I coined both of them “Tri Mommy” because they certainly earned the title. Their price was unbeatable: $500 for 5 days and nights in a luxury condo, all of the aforementioned events, and assistance with all logistics except for bike shipping.

Reno has all appearances of being a massive dump, but the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains lie just outside town, and Lake Tahoe sits just 45 minutes away. Barely 10 minutes into the drive from the airport I was already starting to feel the change in air pressure.



We drove the windy road into Lake Tahoe at a turtle’s pace, as we were in no rush. The road is a meandering set of switchbacks with a grade that ranges from moderate to fairly extreme. Tourist season may have been over, but that didn’t stop Kellie and I from stopping at every overlook like a true couple of out-of-towners.









The lake comes into view about 10 miles outside of the King’s Beach area. From a distance it is practically indistinguishable from the ocean.





Kellie and Krista had booked us some fabulous luxury condos at Brockway Springs Resort. It was a great location right near the swim start and was very reasonably priced. This was the view from my front porch every morning:





We were in great digs with an awesome view, cool pros staying with us, and even our own dedicated bike mechanic. Nick Castro and his team of mechanics from SAGMonkey were available to us for bike assembly, tuneups, and general technical help. Nick is also a master chef and owns several restaurants in the San Francisco area. He catered several dinners for us. That’s kind of an odd combination of pursuits, but it worked to our advantage! We got tuned up bikes, baked salmon, wonderful breakfasts, and good deserts.





We spent Thursday and Friday getting checked in, setting up all of the gear, and hanging out with Chris Johnson and Jessica Jacobs, the two sponsored pros who had also booked their travel with RaceQuest. Chris and Jessica were both really nice and helpful with advice on what to expect on race day.



After the RaceQuest welcome reception and Q&A panel I got some really good shots of the sun setting over the lake.













The weather was cool but beautiful on Thursday and Friday, but on Saturday a cold front rolled in and brought early morning winds followed by late afternoon rain and snow. In the days prior, the lake had been calm, but on Saturday the wind-whipped water created swells and waves that made the lake look more like an ocean.







We ended up cancelling our planned early morning practice swim due to the rough water conditions. The swells were only 2-3 feet high, which would be manageable were we dealing with an ocean swim. Chris “Big Sexy” Johnson and some of the other pros did a practice swim that morning; Chris later told me that were the water conditions to continue as such, then the swim portion of the event would likely be cancelled. I commented that 2 foot swells were quite common during ocean swims, but Chris opined that the wind-whipped waves and lack of an ocean tide would make the currents and potential riptides unpredictable and thus dangerous for amateurs.

By late Saturday afternoon, I had checked in all of my gear and was ready to go for the next day. I barely beat the rain in getting my gear checked in. The bikes and bike transition bags were all to be set outside overnight in spite of the crappy weather, and Ironman has some odd rules about what can and can’t be covered. One such rule says that bike covers are not permitted “for safety reasons” and will be removed. That makes no sense to me, as I fail to comprehend the logic behind disallowing protective covering for bikes that have already been checked in and likely won’t be moved until the next day. I did my best to cover the seat, handlebars, and drive train.

After check-in, a group of us piled into one of the RaceQuest vans to take a quick drive through parts of the bike course. Chris rode with us and narrated the ups and downs of the course. He is based in Austin but had spent significant time in Lake Tahoe and Boulder, Colorado conducting high altitude training, and he had ridden most of the bike course numerous times.

Part of the bike course was largely unknown to the vast majority of the race participants. The course included a long ascent in a private community called Martis Camp. Prior to the race, WTC officials had attempted on numerous occasions to get the homeowner’s association to open the area up so that people could preview the climb, but the association would not agree. Many people attempted to get onto the climb in the weeks leading up to the race but were always turned away by security guards. The HOA finally relented just two days before the event and agreed to open the road for a two hour window on Saturday. They might has well just have kept the damned area closed, because two hours was not nearly enough time, and no sane person would attempt to bike a huge hill in sloppy wet conditions the day before a major race.

The rains and rough waters really had me worried. The weather forecast called for everything to calm down late Saturday night, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Mother Nature is such a fickle bitch.







At race start the next day, the water had calmed down and the rain had stopped, but the air temperature was 27°F/-2°C. It was COLD with a capital C. Many of the bikes in the transition area were dripping with icicles, and a number of racers later reported that their transition bags were frozen shut.

The lake water was pleasantly warm at around 65°F/18°C. Lake Tahoe is over 1600 feet deep at its deepest point, so the water temperature varies very little throughout the year. This disparity in water versus air temperature coupled with the snowfall from the day before made for a really beautiful swim start: steam rising from the water against a background of a clear sunrise and snowcapped mountains. There are many pictures floating about the Internet of neoprene-clad swimmers charging into steamy water with the sun peeking over white mountaintops.

My tri-mommy Kellie took this shot:



Here’s another posted by my fellow racer Christie Troutt on the group Facebook page:



Here are some shots taken by a family member of fellow racer Ed Shifflet:





As beautiful as the swim environment was, the steamy conditions made the initial part of the two-lap out-and-back swim very challenging. The mist rising from the water cloaked the buoys and rest platforms in a cloud of smoky white steam, and for the first 20 minutes I was unable to see anything further away than about 25 feet. Many swimmers would later report having to sight and navigate simply by following the swimmers in front of them. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

My race plan called for me to do the first 20 minutes of the swim slowly with a mixture of 50% freestyle with a 2:1 stroke-to-breath ratio and 50% sidestroke since I had no doubt that the altitude would affect my ability to breathe. For the first five minutes I stuck to sidestroke to allow time for warm-up and acclimation. I then cranked out barely ten freestyle strokes before losing my breath.

No biggie, I thought, I’ll just mix in more sidestroke until I’ve been out for 20 minutes and then switch to freestyle. I swam sidestroke for another couple of minutes and then attempted freestyle again: one stroke, two, three, four, five, six, seven, gaaaaaah can’t breathe!

No problem, I thought. I had anticipated needing several attempts at starting freestyle, so I swam sidestroke for a bit more and then gave freestyle another go. No dice. I got to ten strokes again before sputtering.

****. I had been in the water for 15 minutes at that point but had barely been able to swim freestyle at all.

At that point I pulled up in the water, pulled off my swim mask, and looked around. Through the soup-thick fog I couldn’t see a thing except for a dozen or so swimmers and a lifeguard in a kayak. I actually said aloud, “Where in the hell is the damned turn buoy? Or any other buoy for that matter?” Another swimmer who was treading water and looking equally lost offered a frustrated “No clue. I can’t see a thing.” The lifeguard rocked back in the cockpit of his watercraft and laughed, “Yeah, I can’t see **** either.” He motioned ahead with his oar and said, “The next buoy is about 50 feet that way, and the turn buoy is next after that.”

Fortunately I wasn’t too far off course. At the buoy I gave freestyle another attempt but barely got out a half dozen strokes before having to switch back to sidestroke. UGH. Things were not going to plan but I was determined to keep calm. Much like a poker tournament can’t be won in the early rounds, a triathlon can’t be won during the swim, but it can surely be lost.

By the time I reached the buoy, the fog had started to slowly dissipate, and I could make out the turn buoy some 100 yards away. I then made my fifth attempt to transition to freestyle. One stroke, two, three, four, five, six, gasp gasp gasp GAAAAH. I swam sidestroke to the turn buoy, geared up for another attempt at freestyle, and sputtered to a stop yet again.

This was the story of my entire swim, as I could not get into a breathing rhythm no matter how hard I tried. My estimate is that I ended up swimming 90% sidestroke, which was a far cry from the performance I had envisioned. Even so, when I reached the first turn buoy I was on pace for a 2:00 swim, well within the 2:20 time limit. This was not at all how I wanted to start the race, but I felt confident in my ability to make up some time on the bike.

I completed the first lap of the 2-lap swim in an hour. Physically I felt fine though I was severely miffed about not being able to breathe appropriately and having to swim sidestroke. Could I have prepped better for the swim? Maybe I could have, with an altitude mask or some **very** expensive high altitude swim training. Tahoe’s altitude and how it would affect me were unknown factors; as it turned out, the thin air affected my swim significantly.

My final swim time was 2:02:24, well below my goal of 1:45:00, and well out of range of the spot at which I had seeded myself for the rolling start. By the time I dragged my soggy butt out of the water, the fog had lifted completely, and the air temperature had warmed to around 35°F. My arms and back were a bit tight and fatigued, but I was just glad to have completed the swim.

As I plodded toward the swim exit, I could hear legendary Ironman announcer Mike Reilly calling the swim finishers over the PA system. “John Smith from Anytown, USA, you will be an Ironman!” The swimmers cheered and pumped their arms in the air as Reilly called out their names as they crossed the timing mat, and the spectators loved every minute of it.

“Now finishing the swim, it’s Andrew Nerney, of Wilmington, Delaware!” Reilly boomed into the cold air, and I did a little hop, skip, and double fist-pump as I zipped through the swim exit chute. “Andrew, look behind you,” Reilly said cheerfully, “it seems that you have some fans out here!” Back by the swim exit were my cousin Jim and his wife Stephanie and infant daughter Jillian. They had driven up to Tahoe from their home in Milipitas to cheer me on. Jim and Stephanie were holding signs that read “Team Nerney” and “Iron Nerney,” and little Jillian was bundled up in a giant pink ball of baby winter clothing.

Race spectators and supporting family and friends are an underappreciated bunch. The energy that I feel when moving through a raucous and cheering crowd always makes me kick things into a higher gear, and having people who attend events specifically to support me is awesome. I jogged over to high-five Jim and Stephanie before hustling out of the swim chute and into the transition area.

At the athlete briefing two days earlier, course officials had strongly advised all race participants to do a full change of clothing after exiting the swim. The sudden cold front that had blown in a few days earlier caught everyone off guard, and WTC was forced to make a number of logistical changes in order to alleviate the possibility of racers catching hyperthermia. Race director Keats McConigal and the other officials strongly advised all participants to take advantage of the warming tents and to plan to spend more time than normal in the swim-to-bike transition.

Despite this, WTC was unprepared for the strong demand for space in the warming tents and the changing tent. The tents were nowhere near sizable enough to accommodate a surge of freezing swimmers, and the volunteers who so graciously manned the transition area were understaffed and overwhelmed.

The result was a chaotic jumble of elbows, feet, hairy butts, wet towels, and random articles of clothing. On the Facebook page racers would describe the scene using such colorful depictions as “a Russian bath house that got hit by a tornado” and “the shower scene from Midnight Express.” People jostled for position and a small amount of real estate in which to change into dry clothing. Hats, shoes, socks, goggles, plastic cups, and even chairs were tossed about like debris in a wind storm as everyone scrambled to and fro. Harried volunteers did their dandiest in fighting a losing battle to maintain some semblance of control.

By the time I arrived at the changing tent, the crowd had thinned a good bit, but the place was a huge mess. Nothing – and I mean NOTHING – in the tent was dry. Latex-gloved volunteers graciously fetched my gear bags, brought me water, and helped me strip off my wetsuit. Trying to keep my bike clothes out of the mess proved to be an exercise in futility, though I did manage to emerge from the soppy scene relatively dry.

Average transition times were not just slightly higher than normal, but absurdly so. At a typical triathlon, the average swim-to-bike transition time is 2-3 minutes for a professional athlete and 6-10 minutes for an amateur. At Ironman Lake Tahoe, the professional racers averaged 10 minutes in transition, and the amateurs a ridiculous 23 minutes. One competitor spent an hour and 27 minutes in the warming tent, having gotten chilled during the swim. Another man lost his bike shoes in the confusion and then spent 42 minutes sitting outside in the cold, assuming that his race was over. By some miracle a volunteer found the man’s shoes, allowing him to continue the race.

I clocked a transition time of 26:07, nearly three times longer than my previous longest time. That was quite ridiculous.

To the bike it was. It was still cold when I got out on the bike course, so I was glad that I had bundled up for the ride. The route proceeded from Kings Beach westward on Highway 89 towards Squaw Valley, California. The route was chilly but sunny and mostly flat except for a short but sharp climb in an area known as Dollar Hill.

The route was a loop that riders would traverse 2 1/3 times, with Dollar Hill being a three-times-fun climb. As I negotiated Dollar Hill during the first loop, I noted a sign reading “Mile 100.” GAAAAH. The hill was sharp the first time around, and I dreaded hitting it a third time at mile 100. I took the below shot of riders on a prerace ride approaching this climb.



The route proceeded into Squaw Valley and then north on the Truckee Valley Trail into Truckee, California. For the first 35 miles the route was fast and flat aside from Dollar Hill and a handful of other rollers. I averaged 17 miles per hour and was feeling pretty good. When I zipped into Truckee, the crowds were out in force, lining the small town’s main street and cheering as loudly as they possibly could. The locals really supported us in this race, and I hope that we were good guests.

Right outside Truckee awaited Martis Camp, the unknown ascent in a private gated community. We all knew that there was a big-assed hill that awaited us, but that climb humbled quite a few folks. It was impossible to ascertain the amount of climbing because it was not a straight climb but rather a series of switchbacks and ups and downs. Total elevation gain was somewhere around 1500 feet over roughly three miles.

As I navigated switchback after switchback, I started to feel a bit hot. Mountain climate temperatures can vary wildly in the fall, and race day temperatures proved no exception. While below freezing predawn, temperatures eventually rose to greater than 60°F by afternoon. It was approaching late morning as I ascended Martis Camp, and I was starting to heat up.

I was decked out in compression pants, bike shorts, a cotton shirt underneath a tri top, and gloves. I was also wearing what I thought was a simple windbreaker that I had purchased at the expo earlier in the week. WTC had added a “clothing drop” on the bike course where riders could drop clothing and have it returned to them, but the first time that I passed the drop spot the temperatures were still too cold to justify shedding any layers. I wanted to wait until I passed the clothing drop area a second time before peeling off any layers, but the air temperatures were getting too warm.

Partway up the Martis Camp climb I stopped to take off my gloves. That was no big deal as it was only a few minutes’ loss. Barely five minutes later, I realized that I was going to have to take off the compression pants as well, which took several minutes. While stopped I debated whether or not to shed any of my top layers, ultimately deciding to leave my “windbreaker” and cotton shirt on.

That proved to be a mistake. Three steep switchbacks later I had to stop to peel off the top layers. That stop took me at least ten minutes as I fumbled with the cotton shirt. Worse still, what I thought was a windbreaker was actually a bike jersey with breakaway sleeves. I didn’t want to just dump all of that clothing since I would not be able to retrieve it later, so I ended up wasting precious time jury rigging everything to my bike saddle.

That turned out not to matter, though. I was overheating but didn’t realize it yet. From that point forward, despite having peeled all of my cold weather clothing I sweated like a horse, felt sick to my stomach, and had a hard time ingesting calories. I was overheating and bonked as a result. My race was over at that point; I just didn’t know it yet.

I gutted it out for the rest of the ascent of Martis Camp, at one point passing the disembark area of a gondola and thinking how ****ing crazy we all were for riding bikes up a mountain side that most people ascend in a damned cable car. This is a very ritzy and exclusive enclave that serves as a summer getaway for Arnold Palmer, Larry Ellison, and various other multimillionaires and billionaires. Homes in the area run tens of millions of dollars in price and are better described as estates. The area is wonderfully beautiful, a private mountain for the well-to-do.

One racer later commented on the group Facebook about the toughness of the Martis Camp climb, dubbing it “Rigor Martis.” I found that nickname to be quite fitting. This climb was undoubtedly the toughest that I have ever done.

As I approached the peak of the ascent, a volunteer yelled “almost there! Just past the next turn!” I looked down at my Garmin watch and saw that my average speed had dropped precipitously. I was averaging just above 13 miles per hour, having lost almost 4 miles per hour from my average since beginning the ascent. That meant that I had a problem, as making the 5:30 pm bike cutoff requires maintaining a speed of 14 miles per hour or more.

I knew at that point that I was in serious trouble of missing the bike cutoff time. Right when that thought occurred to me, I happened to look off to my right and saw one of the most majestic sights that I have ever seen in my life. From atop the Martis Camp ascent, one has a complete view of Lake Tahoe. Until that point I had only been able to view the lake in part, but from 1500 feet above I was treated to a brief but awesome intake of glass-clear water and the bright sun reflecting off of it like a giant blue mirror. Down below me, just hours before there had been a mad scene of swimmers, bikers, and spectators, but from so far above the place looked beautifully calm and tranquil. I recall thinking “even if I don’t finish this race, this view alone was worth the cost.” And you know what? It was.

Zip, zip, zip I went down the Martis Camp switchbacks, topping 40 miles per hour on several occasions. The descent was technical but not overly so, and I wasn’t afraid to let loose with the speed. Some riders get nervous when descending switchbacks, but I knew that I could not afford to lose time.

Martis Camp ended at the exit of the Ritz Carlton Lake Tahoe hotel. From there, riders ascended Brockway Summit, another vigorous climb of 1200 feet. This climb was a straight-up climb with no switchbacks but was extremely steep. There were various estimates as to the maximum grade with no real consensus, but I can sum it up as this: it was ****ing hard. I had to stop and rest on three occasions. Due to road restrictions, WTC had set several intermediate cutoff times on the bike route, one of them being partway up Brockway on the second loop. Nick Castro, the SAGMonkey mechanic and owner who had been patrolling that area of the course, later told me that a large group of riders missed that cutoff and were disqualified. Instead of boarding the athlete transport van, they cycled back down the hill to the Ritz Carlton and hit the bar.

A debate would later break out on various triathlon forums as to which climb was more difficult: Martis Camp or Brockway. The general consensus was that both were extremely hard, but the one-two punch of climb/descend/climb was absolutely killer.

As I climbed Brockway I was encouraged by cheers from all of the stopped motorists. A traffic official was posted just outside the Ritz Carlton, and vehicular traffic was at an absolute standstill. The drivers and their passengers all cheered the cyclists and shouted words of encouragement. One man in a beat up pickup truck had the windows rolled down and AC/DC’s Highway to Hell blaring. He beat his hands on the outside of his car door and yelled “Yeah man! You got it! You got it!” I couldn’t think of a more applicable song to describe the climb.

Twenty-five minutes later I reached Brockway Summit. From there it was a super-fast descent on freshly paved road into King’s Beach. I topped out somewhere around 44 miles per hour, and numerous other people reported hitting even faster speeds. Kellie had reached 55 miles per hour on an earlier ride, and Chris “Big Sexy” Johnson, who ultimately won the race, hit 61 miles per hour on his descent. It was fast and super-duper fun!

As I zipped into King’s Beach, I looked at my Garmin and noted that my average speed had dropped below 13 miles per hour. ****! I was in ridiculous trouble at that point, but I wasn’t about to give up. I hammered it as hard as I could over the 17 miles to Squaw Valley, desperately trying to squeeze effort out of legs that were flatly spent. When I hit Dollar Hill for the second time, my legs absolutely gave out. I never, ever, ever have to walk my bike during rides, but on the second time up Dollar Hill I had to stop and walk. It only delayed me about 30 seconds or so but was extremely demoralizing. One of the intermediate cutoffs on the bike course was at 2:00 pm at mile 62, and I didn’t want to have to slow down or stop while running so close to that cutoff, but my legs just wouldn’t go any more.

At mile 58 was the special needs stop where I could pick up a bag that I had prepped the day before. I didn’t want to stop but I was running low on fluids and needed to eat something. It was to no avail, as I was bonking hard and couldn’t stomach anything. A volunteer at the stop kept saying “do you need medical? Do you need medical attention?” but I vowed to keep going. It was 1:50 pm, so I had ten minutes to go four miles. That’s doable on a good day with fresh legs, so I had hopes that a surge of adrenaline would help me push through.

I pounded those four miles as hard as humanly possible but my average speed stayed at a stubborn 12.7 miles per hour. As much as I pushed I just couldn’t get going fast enough. By the time I reached Squaw Valley, other cyclists were whizzing past me on their way to the bike finish. I pushed and pushed and pushed but the clock was no friend of mine.

Seven minutes. After eleven months of training, I was done in by body temperature, bonking, and seven ****ing minutes. I arrived at mile 62 at 2:07 pm, seven minutes too late. Course marshals had blocked off the entrance to the second loop and were waving struggling cyclists to a stop. A half dozen of my fellow racers pulled to a stop alongside me, each of them looking equally dejected as I felt. A course official said “This is the part that we really hate, but we have to ask you to give up your timing chips.” He then looked at me and observed, “You don’t look too good, man.” No ****. I didn’t feel too good, either. My head hurt, my right arm was numb, my stomach ached, I was dizzy, and my legs were on absolute fire.

That was it. Game over. My day was done.

All in all it was a great experience, though. I’m glad that I did it. 21% of people who started this race didn’t finish it, with the majority of them getting a time disqualification on the bike course. A large number of registrants didn’t even bother to start the race, presumably having dropped out because of the cold swim conditions.

At the athlete’s breakfast the next day, I overheard one participant complaining about the toughness of the course, but his buddy offered “It’s called an Ironman, not an Iron Pussy.” That’s not the most eloquent way of putting things, but truer words had never been spoken.

Someday I will attempt this race again if the stars align correctly. 2014 is out of the question as I spent a small fortune on this attempt and can’t justify spending so much money again next year. Given the tough conditions of the course and the difficulty that WTC apparently experienced in arranging to include Martis Camp as part of the course, there is a good chance that the race will be modified in some way or even shortened to a half Ironman event. But if WTC keeps the course largely the same then I will try this race again in 2015 or 2016.

Ironman Lake Tahoe was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to getting revenge on it someday.

I'm doing the Atlantic City marathon this weekend. The weather forecast is for soppy wet **** weather the entire weekend, so I will continue my streak of having Mother Nature mess with me. Should be fun!

Only just caught up with the trip report. Great effort but it looks like you chose one of the toughest Ironman races around to do for your first attempt. The hills and the weather conditions combined with the altitude sound pretty brutal. Just remember you still manged more than 99% of the population could have managed on that day. Look forward to hearing about your future adventures!

Thanks Ron! There will be more adventures to come. I'm following along your swimming and biking log because I need to work on those things myself.

I think you missed out on the the running up mountains bit? You don't feel like getting involved in a bit of that?!?

Sure, why not? I'll add mountain running to my to-do list.