Saturday I did an Ironman 70.3 dress rehearsal: no bib, no aid stations, me testing fitness, pacing strategy, fueling, and race-day equipment before November’s Ironman in Florida. The swim went well — an easy pool session at Lifetime. The bike was strong over 56 hilly miles, and I was regulating well even as the sun came out hard for the last half hour.
Then, I got off the bike into full sun with no shade anywhere, and the day changed.
Mile one felt strong. Mile two felt fine. Halfway into mile three, my heart rate climbed to 175 at a pace that’s normally an easy zone 2 effort for me — and on the walk breaks in my 1-mile-run, 1-minute-walk plan, it wasn’t dropping much below 160. Some of that was probably too much caffeine before the run holding it up. The heat did the rest.
I walked the back half of mile three, tried running again, and my whole body went hot and cold at once. Teeth chattering while the temperature read 95 with 80% humidity is your body telling you something specific, not only that you’re tired. I walked the next couple miles looking for shade that didn’t exist, and stopped at mile six.
Here’s the part I want to be clear on: my body didn’t make that call for me. I made it before it got the chance to. I’d already banked a solid swim, a strong bike, and a few good running miles — the fitness was there, and I knew it. This wasn’t a day where I doubted myself. It was a day where I did the math: alone, no aid stations, nothing on the line but a training log entry, and a heat load that was still building. There was no reward on the table big enough to risk where that was headed.
Could I have found a gas station, iced down, and worked my way through 13.1 miles on a slower run-walk split? Probably. But that’s ego math, not risk math. Pushing through would have proven something I already know about my fitness, at a cost that had nothing to gain from it.
Twenty minutes of walking got my heart rate back into a reasonable range. Shade, ice water, and air conditioning did the rest. Legs were heavy that evening, and I was tired, but nothing beyond normal training fatigue — no setback, nothing lost. That’s proof the decision was right.
Here’s where the equation changes: at Ironman Florida in November, this exact scenario plays out differently. Aid stations mean ice, fluids, and a way to manage my temperature that I didn’t have alone on a Tennessee back road. If the heat comes for me there, the call isn’t to stop — it’s to slow down, lean on the resources on course, and protect the finish over the pace goal. Different risk, different reward, different math. Same principle either way.
— Iggy
There was no reward on the table big enough to risk where that was headed.
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