by Dale R.

After hearing about the fun they have in Kona doing the underwear run, I decided to start out my pre-race fun with the First Annual Underpants run around the Capitol building on Saturday. Wore my Flash Gordon underwear because they look pretty darn cool. It was a ton of fun and I was able to meet some real interesting people during this run. The laughs and cheers were just the best.

Back in 2013 I completed my first full course distance in Louisville. The first time you do a full Ironman you don’t have a full grasp of the challenge that awaits you. This second time around was very different for me. Having Coach Joe LoPresto and ET Personal Coaching services on my side for three years has made a huge difference in my performance and outlook on life. So much of this sport is mental over physical. When you learn to take advantage of your strengths and learn to deal with your demons you can do anything in life.

Sometimes a well thought out plan gets modified during the race and you have to deal with issues as they come up. My race plan went off almost perfectly but I did make one mental mistake that is worth mentioning. While I was on the bike, I was going to remove my jacket and throw to my wife. As I was pulling over I didn’t look back for other riders for some dumb reason and in consequence bumped into a rider and I fell over in front of the awesome ET Cheer Crew. It was pretty embarrassing for me to say the least. Hadn’t fallen down in over ten years so my fall needed to be dramatic I guess.

The positive spin from that mental mistake is that I need to keep my head in the game the entire race. Flat roads are much better than on a steep hill to make any clothing changes. We tend to learn more from our mistakes than our successes. I certainly learned something from that experience. It didn’t ruin my day so I take that as a minor embarrassment and learning experience.

After falling down the race really changed for me. My happy face changed into a fully focused and slightly pissed off face the rest of the ride. I told myself to get freaking focused and off mental cruise control. It worked well for me to flip that switch because I didn’t make anymore mental mistakes the rest of the day.

During the run I felt amazing until mile 18. My stomach got a little upset at that point but I had dealt with much worse in previous races. After a couple miles everything settled back down and I was able to finish the race with a 12:12:00 finish and a really big smile. Was able to knock off over an hour from my first race. The fun thing about this sport is that you can always improve. I can see getting my time down much more if the weather behaves like it did this year.

One really memorable moment was when the awesome ET Cheer Crew gave my legs goose-bumps during the run. I’ve never had so many people screaming my name and cheering me on like that. It was a pretty magical moment for me to say the least. BIG thanks to the ET Cheer Crew and Coach Joe for supporting me the entire day. It was a wonderful race and all the hard work and dedication was all worth while in the end.

Special thanks to my wonderful wife and best friend Hilary for always supporting me in every success and failure I attempt in life. We certainly make a great team!

Enjoy all the amazing photos from our weekend at Ironman Wisconsin on the ET Photo Gallery!