1st Ironman down

Made it through Ironman Regensberg on the weekend finishing in 6th place and a time of 8.39.
I still have a mixture of feelings after the race. I was happy to finish as it was a huge mental and physical battle to keep going but I still feel that I could have gone alot better. Which I suppose is a good thing as it gives me more motivation for my next attempt which will most likely be Ironman Busselton in December.
It was a different feeling jumping in the water just being relaxed about the long day ahead. Maybe I was to relaxed and I missed the front group of 3 guys as they just cruised off the front of the swim. They entered T1 with a three minute lead back to me and one other guy after we zig-zagged our way through the 3.8km swim and onto the 180km bike. Once on the bike I was careful not to kill myself on the first 90km and tried to hold a steady heart rate but I still managed to go to hard and really paid for it over the last 50km rolling into the second transition almost 20min behind the leaders but still in 4th place. From there it was a battle just to keep myself going forward, I reached the 8km mark and vomited everything I had drunk during the bike and my legs slowed dramatically. I managed to keep going and crossed the line in 6th place totally exhausted but keen to improve for my next outing.
From here its back to Oz and some easy training for a little while.
Aaron.