MICHAEL LOVATO | Professional Triathlete

Nearly a week after the race, I finally feel as though I’ve had sufficient time to reflect on the way the race played out, and I can now make a clear, less emotional assessment of the Ironman.

Thinking about this race report for a few days prior to writing it should have afforded me the opportunity to spill out all the details in smooth succession, with picture-perfect detail and eloquent wording. However, I am well aware that…

Post-Underpants Run, I was feeling relaxed and ready to rumble. I had confidence in my build-up, and I knew I was ready to improve upon my 2007 Ironman. I had decided to implement a few new nutritional tricks to my routine, based on my, um, evacuation problems in the last three Ironmans I have done. This time around, my goal was to minimize time lost to porto-stops and poopy pants.

My nerves woke me up at 10:30PM, 1:30AM, 2:30AM, and finally at 3:30AM. Other than those brief and expected interruptions, my sleep was sound and restful. There are certainly some advantages to being part bear.

Why the Underpants Run? Why a report on the Underpants Run? Why not talk about the race first? Well, to me, the race really starts to place its pressure on folks ’round about Thursday of race week. It’s an impressive phenomenon, the Hawaii Ironman pressure cooker.

Different folks face, and therefore handle, the pressure in different ways. Some take a running leap-off-the-cliff start, by preparing, preparing, and over-preparing in the several weeks pre-race. They tackle more than they think their competitors are tackling, and they flog, flog, and flog themselves until they are injured or sick, and cannot even get to the line ready to rumble.

In an unprecedented move, I thought I’d post a super-quick race report, only… 28 hours after the fact. My intent is to post the full blow-by-blow in a day or two, after letting all the ins and outs sort themselves out in my post-race brain.

Yesterday was my ninth Hawaii Ironman, I started with race number nine, and holding with the theme, I finished ninth. For those of you who followed online, you may have noticed that I crossed the line in tenth place, but due to a disqualification of one of the fellows ahead of me, I got bumped up a notch to hold my niners intact.