After something doesn't go our way, we are allowed one day to analyze, talk about, be down about, tell about, whatever you want to call it. After that you can ONLY look ahead. That is all we can control and sometimes life doesn't go our way.

I trained 15 weeks for IMAZ and prep went VERY well. I was excited to toe the line and confident that I would leave with a breakthrough race and pay check. Four days out, I found that my stomach was upset. I could not digest anything and it got worse. By Thursday morning I was throwing up and felt like I was going to die. I haven't been sick in a LONG time, what are the chances that I do on race week??

I found out that I caught a 24hr stomach bug that was going around the YMCA here in AZ. It totally cleaned me out and then some. I started to feel better Thursday night, but still felt like my head was in a cloud. By Friday I felt ok, just tired. The only bad thing was that I was eating a low fiber, high sugar diet and my body was not digesting it. I was stopped up and bloated. By Saturday I felt better, but couldn't eat much of anything. I tried to ignore it and hoped that positive self talk would get me through.

Race morning, had three Ensures and a piece of toast for breakfast and headed to the race site. I got into the water and felt ok. I lined up on the right side of the big group and tried to stay with a few swimmers that tried to cut the tangent. The effort was too much and I fell off the back. I then tried to swim over to main first pack, but just missed them.

My plan was to swim hard for 800m and see where I was. When I got to that point and was alone, I decided to save energy and shut it down and swam bilaterally for the remainder of the swim alone. At the turn buoy I was exactly in between the first and second pack. I thought the second pack would catch me, but they never did. I came out in 55:xx. For the effort, I was happy.

On the bike I knew something just didn't feel right. During the first loop I started to feel dizzy and couldn't take in any gel just sports drink. My watts were ok, so I just tried to focus. It was tough. After the first loop I was in 17th and about 4min out of 8th place. Not bad.

15 minutes into the second loop my power fell into zone 1...I tried to go with each pro as they came past, but I couldn't. I came to a realization that it was in my best interest to stop. My body could not absorb any calories...I was bonking at less than 2hrs into the bike ride.

It was almost surreal to drop out half way through the bike. Like a nightmare actually. It was the dream that you have a thousand times where you wake up and are thankful it is only a dream. I hung out with Sergio Marques, who also had a very good shot at winning today. He was sick and dropped out at about the same time I did. We watched the rest of the race together, which was very exciting. Congrat's to everyone that had a great day out there.

Today, I don't feel much better, still weak and foggy. BUT, now I look forward to my next race which I have decided is Ironman Coeur D'Alene on June 22nd.

Thanks to all who support me, I will check in again soon. Now I am off to Costa Rica for some R&R from the 17th to the 22nd. When I come back, the work starts baby and you can bet I have a fire going inside after what happened here.

Here's to the next race,

Blake