Ironman Louisville Race Report - Part 1, The Swim

Since I've been building up to this day for over 5 months, I didn't think that it would be fitting for me to attempt to summarize the whole day in a single post. After spending 14+ hours suffering in the Louisville heat, there are far too many events that deserve to be documented as a part of the Ironman experience. And so we begin...

The swim at Ironman Louisville is unique in comparison to all the others in the Ironman circuit. During each of the other Ironman races, all the competitors begin in a single group and most people describe the experience as trying to swim through a washing machine. In Louisville, this apparently isn't possible because the first 1/3 of the swim is in a narrow portion of river between a small island and the shore. Because of this, the race begins with a time-trial start, with about 6 competitors jumping in the river every few seconds. At the pre-race meeting, the organizers said that everyone should be in the water by 7:30, but that you should arrive early if you want to begin closer to the actual 7am race start.

My plan on race morning was to take this advice and get to the swim start by 6am so that I could be near the front of the line. Apparently, about 75% of the field had the same idea and by the time I reached the swim start, there was a line that seemed to extend for about half a mile past the start. Although I wasn't the last person to arrive, I didn't get into the water until around 7:30am. If anyone reading this plans on doing Louisville in the future, I would advise you to get to the swim start by 5:30 and be sure to bring water and a snack. Or, if you don't care when you start the swim, set up your transition, take a nap, and then show up at 7:30 ready to run down the ramp and jump in the river.

My goal for the swim was to be out of the water in less than an hour and a half and hopefully not burn too much energy before the real race began on the bike. From the start, I tried to stay relaxed and treat the whole swim like a long warm up despite being kicked in the face and the stomach multiple times. The nice thing about the Louisville swim course is that once you pass the island swimming upriver, you then turn downstream and complete the majority of the swim with the current. You also swim beneath 2 different bridges and once you pass the second bridge, you can see the transition area and the crowd awaiting the swimmers.

When I finally reached the swim exit and looked at the clock, I was surprised to see that I finished in about 1:20 which was great considering that I had only really done two long continuous swims and they both took place at other races. This was also the fastest pace that I've held in a swim longer than 1500m and despite the fact that this was probably due to the current, I took it as my first victory of the day. With the swim behind me, I ran into transition with a huge smile on my face, ready to enjoy what I had heard was a very scenic bike course.