I did the Nice France Ironman on Sunday, June 25th, 2006. It took me 14 hours and 15 minutes.
Apparently my two training swims in the preceeding four months really made a big difference. I improved my 2.4 mile swim time by over ten minutes from my best Ironman swim, completing it in something like one hour and ten minutes.
The 112 mile bike course was unbelievable hilly and some sections reminded me of lines at Disneyland. While it appears the ride starts around the next corner, one eventually discovers another twisting trail leading to another faux start. On this bike ride the "tops" of the hills were always just beyond the next visible stretch. While I whimpered up the biggest hill, I decided to name the endless climb the "will killer."
The 26.2 mile marathon took me about six hours. My stomach had become upset from the unfamiliar energy drinks I found on the course … duh. As a consequence, I did some walking in order to avoid heaving.
My friend Joe crushed me by about two hours. It was his first. And he trains. Must be nice.
Now about chimpanzees. While taking a training run in London a week before the race, I found this advertisement poster outside the Natural History Museum. Apparently chimpanzees are 99.4% similar to humans when using functional DNA as the point of comparison. Suddenly, despite my lack of oxygen (or maybe only because I lacked oxygen) this seemed so relevant. Basically, the thinking goes: "If a .6% difference matters this much then …. "
My next blog post will attempt to explain why this fact is so relevant when thinking about the next generation of intelligent systems.
"My stomach had become upset from the unfamiliar energy drinks I found on the course"
I'm curious to know what kind of energy drinks they were?
Posted by: Zrii Amalaki | April 21, 2008 at 08:30 AM
I was searching around for information on the Olympics and found your site.
14 hours and 15 minutes for the Nice France Ironman is awesome.
J.R.
Posted by: J.R. Jackson (a.k.a. MLM's $8-Million Man) | August 19, 2008 at 11:31 PM