Episode 132: First Time Ironman Tips, Racing with a Stroller, and Flexible Goal Setting
In this week’s episode, we dive into lessons from first-time Ironman racing, including fueling, pacing, run-walk strategies, race execution, and staying present to get the most out of your race experience. We also answer listener questions on supporting a partner through Ironman training and navigating race morning logistics. Katie shares insights from a chaotic but fun local 5K with the jogging stroller during the four-month sleep regression trenches of postpartum life, including thoughts on racing under high life stress, backup plans and “goal trees,” heat adaptation, and why your B and C goals should still genuinely excite you. We also unpack what to do after swinging for a big goal and missing, how to decide whether to swing again, and why it’s important to hold your big goals loosely and stay connected to the process. Check it out!
Jim:
Case Study: First Ironman Lessons
I want to share a race report from one of my athletes, Scott, who just completed his first Ironman Texas. What makes this one worth talking about is the context: no previous triathlon experience, two marathons in the background, and a significant IT band injury that limited their longest continuous run to two miles heading into race day.
These are some of his key lessons from training and racing:
Fueling was the foundation. He was mindful and proactive from the start: 80 to 90 grams of carbs per hour, a mix of his own nutrition and course gels, and lots of plain water to keep GI issues at bay. He made a point of stopping at aid stations, refilling, and not rushing. For a first Ironman, that kind of discipline on nutrition is exceptional, and it showed.
The run/walk method was a game changer. Given the injury, he went in with a 2-minute run, 3-minute walk strategy, and held roughly 10-minute miles through the first two thirds of the marathon. Here's the interesting part: He experienced that running faster during the run blocks actually felt better on the knee than trying to shuffle at a conservative pace. He crossed the finish line looking fresher than athletes with similar times who had been grinding the whole way. This is something I talk about a lot: run/walk done right is not a concession. It's a smart strategy.
Patience on the bike saved the race. He made a deliberate choice to ride conservatively, keep cadence high, and let people pass without chasing. That discipline is hard to execute, especially in your first Ironman, and it paid off on the run. Always light pressure on the pedals. If you ask yourself if you are going too hard, you are going too hard.
Be present with the experience. Engage with the community. Talked to volunteers, waved to spectators, took it all in. That mindset kept him calm, kept him on plan, and made the whole day memorable. This is going from the “me” to “we” mindset.
The one gotcha worth flagging for everyone: swim seeding. If you seed too conservatively, you will get caught in traffic, burn extra energy, and probably miss drafting opportunities. Always seed yourself one wave up from your approximate swim time as most triathletes overestimate their swim time. For example, if you’ll swim ~1:10, start with the 1:05 group.
I’m really proud of this athlete for having developed a plan in training and race simulation that worked for where they are at and then executing that plan on race day. It’s one thing to develop a plan in training and a lot of stimulus control and mindfulness for many hours to stick to that plan.
Thanks to Scott for allowing us to share his main lessons. If you would like to share your race lessons with us, we’d love to include them on the podcast for our community to learn together.
How to support your Ironman athlete as a support person
Great question from an IM athlete partner: “thoughts about how to best support now through July as training ramps up, especially during the upcoming race simulations, and before and during the IM itself?”
Meal Support. Training burns huge calories, and coming home to a good meal is absolutely amazing. Any meal prep, help with shopping, keeping the fridge stocked, and having snacks on hand is a massive contribution. Help with improving protein sources and intake.
Sleep. Anything you can do to help facilitate a good night's sleep matters. Sleep is the biggest performance enhancer — right after good nutrition.
Logistics. Race simulations — especially if she does them outside the city — are a great place to play a support role. We've run training camps and race sims where a support vehicle meets athletes at key points for refueling and encouragement. Just knowing someone who cares about you is out on course during a race sim is both a big psychological uplift and a logistical asset.
(A personal example: my wife and I have a routine where I ride out to a town or area we've been wanting to explore together, she meets me there, and we grab a coffee before driving home together. I get in a 3–5 hour ride and it ends with a shared experience — highly recommended.)
Words of Encouragement. You're probably already doing this, but simply telling her "I'm proud of you" goes a long way — especially when she's grinding through another long swim, bike, or run
And the lesson I keep relearning: just ask how you can be helpful. It's amazing how much that gesture means, and how often it reveals ways to contribute that you never would have thought of on your own.
Race Day logistics question
“I’m looking to book lodging for the race, and wondering how close you’d recommend staying to the race start? I know it’ll be an early morning race day (which is fine) but I’m wondering how crazy it will be to get to the village for the start?
Do you recommend getting there right when parking opens?”
Great question. It's a mistake to arrive at the parking lot right as it opens, as it's usually crazy early. I joke that if Ironman opened up parking at 2am, 25% of the field would show up at 2am for a 7am start!
I would get there 90' before the race start. You don't need much time to set up transition, and there's no sense in waiting around for hours in the cold/dark. Just enough time to get set up, relax a little, keep snacking/drinking and then put on the wetsuit about 20 minutes before the start.
Most Ironmans don't allow for a swim warmup but if they do, we like getting folks in the water for a 5 - 10' warmup.
Katie:
5 takeaways from my C race - local 5K with the jogging stroller!
My why for this race: learning; “putting a time on the board” for a 5k given that I am excited about run training in the near future; haven’t raced a 5k in a long time and doable with life/family logistics (mom and brother in town which helps my 3:1 adult to baby racing ratio); easier to pull off than a triathlon or anything longer; C races are a great part of any training plan.
How to think about racing in the context of high LSS or being otherwise depleted
I have seemingly just escaped from a 2-week baby “sleep regression” where we went from waking up 1-2x per night to feed to waking up every 90 minutes to 2 hours. And it wrecked me!
Exhausted, emotionally a train wreck, physically feeling myself descending into a deeper and deeper hole, etc.
Sidebar: part of what is hard about a sleep regression at around 4 months is that the world assumes you are back to normal in terms of work, training, life, etc. Newborn sleep schedules are sometimes more manageable when you have nothing else on your plate and are in survival mode, but they are REALLY hard when you are trying to live a normal Katie Clayton life!
The Thursday before this race I wrote in my training log: “I'm reeeeeeally tired. And definitely feeling physically and emotionally fragile as a result - childcare is still not on a regular schedule so it was a lot of juggling and baby duty and overall high stress in making all of that happen, coming off another rough night of sleep. If my 5K had been today it would not have been a productive idea to do it, so I may see how the next few days go and maybe even make a game day decision Sunday. It's not that I don't want to do it or am concerned about my time, I just don't think the body is asking for any additional stress given where it is already feeling.”
Luckily, baby locked in and seemed to break the sleep regression in the two nights leading up to the race (i.e. I only had to wake up once or twice!), so I started to rebuild the sleep deficit (and kept my training super easy as well). By the day before the race, I was feeling more open to the idea of participating and less like a shell of a human.
Lesson: if LSS or other life situations are tough enough that racing would place undue additional stress on your system, it’s usually not worth it to do it. (Remember: if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.)
I didn’t want to create a situation where I pushed myself to do something really hard while completely depleted, had a bad time, and then was dealing with being even more dead both physically and emotionally.
Try not to fall into the sunk cost fallacy especially for C races
Jim: Same experience a couple weekends ago, I signed up for a long gravel race but pulled the plug due to the cold, hard rain forecast. The stress of doing the event outweighed the benefit of the training stimulus. (Plus, I turned one missed race into three quality training days so be open to being creative when stress/uncontrollables present obstacles.)
Creating “buy in” for B and C goals, just like your A goal
As I was thinking about goals for this race (and my season), I knew I wanted to at some point run a pretty fast 5k time. Under X time was an A goal for 5k, under Y time was a B goal, and showing up and having a fun day was a C goal. (All without stroller, just as a standalone 5k)
But I soon realized that I wasn’t actually that excited about my B or C goals. I could already tell that I would be at least somewhat disappointed if I ended up running Y time, when I really wanted to run X time at some point this season.
Meanwhile it was supposed to be the warmest day of the spring so far (mid 70s temps and humidity when the race started). Combined with not ideal sleep, these were not ideal conditions to make a bid for my A goal.
This led me to thinking through whether there was a B or C goal that actually really excited me. Thinking outside of the box, I realized that this race does allow strollers. From there I decided that my C goal/plan would be to run hard with the stroller, which sounded super fun and badass but took a lot of the pressure off only having a fun day if I hit my A goal.
By Saturday, I was actually more excited about this backup plan than the original A plan.
Lesson: see if there are any B/C goals that you can actually get excited about. For example, signing up for a race with a friend who is new to it or slower than you and racing with them if it’s not the day for you to push for a solo A goal.
And if you will only have a fun experience if you hit your A goal, come back to your why – is it achieving your goals no matter what? Or is it joy? Commitment to the process? Something else?
By Saturday night before the race, my plan A was a 5k push solo; my plan B was a fast race with a stroller; and my plan C was a true stroller jog.
Writing out and/or visualizing a plan for a variety of different potential outcomes to relieve pre-race anxiety/nerves
The tricky thing about stroller racing is that you have a teammate who is pretty unpredictable when it comes to their willingness to actually sit in the stroller and participate!
As a result, I visualized and planned for a variety of outcomes:
(1) I get good sleep, warm up and feel great, and want to push for solo time
(2) I get bad sleep, warm up and feel bad or it’s really hot, and know it’s probably not the day to push for solo time
(3) Baby is in a great mood re: stroller vs. baby is in a bad mood re: stroller
Etc. etc. etc.
It actually relieved a lot of anxiety to let the day play out based on this “if this, then that” decision tree. It also took away most of the race morning decision making.
I ended up getting a meh night of sleep and the warmup was HOT and humid. Baby was in a good mood to be in the stroller, so I went for plan B (run hard with stroller) with option to roll down to plan C (stroller jog/walk).
Caveat - often you can feel terrible in the warmup and amazing in the race! But if it’s extremely hot, warmup can usually give you a glimpse of how your body is going to respond to the heat
Thoughts on racing in the heat, especially early season races
A hot (?) take: if you aren’t heat acclimated and it’s hot or humid, especially early in the season, it will be extremely difficult to execute paces you can do in cooler weather. Full stop.
It was helpful for me to make some modifications to my goals and strategy prior to the race knowing that it probably wasn’t the best day ever to shoot for my fastest 5k
It’s a tough balance between not writing the narrative of the race before it happens and also being realistic about the physiological effects of racing with a JAHI of 140+ when it’s been 40 degrees for the whole spring.
What can you do to prepare?
Heat training! Sauna protocol, etc.
Choose races strategically (early April, late fall) if going for a really audacious goal
Practical insights for racing with a stroller
Not all races allow it! That was another reason I went with my B/C plan – aligning all of the cards to make this possible in a future 5k might not actually be that doable!
The race website here said something about “you may be asked to line up in the back for safety” with a stroller, though I think they probably weren’t anticipating someone who was trying to throw down *with* a stroller. I ended up lining up towards the front and no one stopped me, but check the rules/guidelines! It helped that this was also not an extremely competitive race.
Closed course is a must for stroller runs; this was a closed course with wide, flat roads.
I was screaming “on your left” a lot, and when that didn’t work, “on your left with a stroller!” which often got some of the MAMiLs out of my way
MUCH harder on hills and into headwind with stroller; I lost time in the middle mile with a hill, but felt some good momentum on the flatter miles
Safety first always – if things didn’t feel right, I was prepared to slow down or change my approach at any time
Proud of the upper body strength and core control I have built over time which were especially helpful pushing the stroller!
If you swing for a big goal and miss, should you try again (and when)
I have had a few athletes this season swing for a big time-based goal (such as BQ) and miss, which brings up many feelings! One of those is whether you should swing again, and how soon.
Most of the time, the athletes who are considering swinging again are those who knew that they had a good shot at their goal based on how they were executing their training, but something unexpected happened that made it hard to execute the big fitness that they had: really hot race day, electrolyte or fueling issue, heavy winds or rain, last-minute illness, last-minute high LSS event during race week, etc. (As a coach, if we think that the training is not indicating that hitting a big goal is likely, we are usually talking about that prior to race day!)
The first thing I have athletes do is identify what went wrong in the race (and often it’s a combination of factors). We are specifically trying to determine whether those factors would require a different course, a different weather pattern, different fueling/hydration strategy, more fitness, more mindset prep, or some other factors.
Once we have figured that out, the second and most important step is to ask yourself: “if I knew today that I was going to swing and miss again, would the training between now and my racing redo still be worth it?”
I truly believe that loving the process is almost always a prerequisite to achieving your big goals
If the answer is no, rethink whether the goal is worth it
“Big goals, loosely held”
Finally, the question of when/ and a related question of how long it takes to recover from e.g. a marathon:
Rough rule of thumb which does vary from person to person and in the context of life stress, how you recover, how hard you raced, etc… number of miles in your running race = number of days before you feel that pop again. Marathon = almost a month, half marathon = about two weeks, 10k = about a week, 5k = 3ish days.
Final step: if you do want to swing again, look at calendar and life logistics to determine a race with the optimal conditions to swing again *that potentially helps you solve for what went wrong.* If you had a hot day in May that went poorly, a follow up race in July is a gamble. While we can do some more targeted heat acclimation, it helps to try to stack the deck in your favor in terms of “likely” (though ultimately uncontrollable) race conditions.
And a reminder:
If you are focused on the process, then you should take solace in the fact that executing a big training block *still* represents an incredible accomplishment and level up in your fitness, separately from whatever outcome you had on one single day. That one single day is often a lot of luck, and the fitness gains will carry you to bigger goals down the line. Having a cherry on top of your sundae is really nice, but the sundae itself is still delicious!
Swim Cap Giveaway
I have several dozen high quality Endurance Drive neoprene swim caps to give away. All you need to do is send me your name and address and I’ll pop one in the mail for you!
Racing Accessibility
Thank you to folks for filling out my racing accessibility form! Still open to responses here
Challenge or Resource of the week
Katie: Lay out some C goals that you are actually excited about! Coming back to your why can help you identify those
Jim: Podcast: Perform with Dr Andy Galpin: Jill Miller: Increase Flexibility & Relieve Pain with Breathwork & Myofascial Release
Gear pick of the week