150: Thoughts and Reflections on Ironman Arizona

0:05Nick Bare:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is a breakdown and recap of Ironman Arizona, which I completed this past Sunday. Today is now Thursday, the Thursday after the race. So I'm in recovery from the Ironman effort, which I'm very happy with the effort overall. Total time, 10 hours, six minutes, two seconds, so close to sub 10. Swim was one hour, 30 minutes, 23 seconds. My transition one was eight minutes, 38 seconds. Bike, five hours, three minutes, six seconds. transition to five minutes, 23 seconds, and the run three hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds for, like I said, a total time of 10 hours, six minutes and two seconds total.

1:15Nick Bare:And I'll break down each leg of the Ironman, Ironman Arizona here in a little bit, but there are some things I want to share before we get into race day. now from my understanding Ironman Arizona for years now has been a very popular race but this is 2025 was the last time that they'll be doing an Ironman in Arizona on this course I'm not exactly sure why but they are retiring the Ironman Arizona course now this was a Sunday race and And we flew out Friday. So two days prior to the Ironman. Quick little story before we get into kind of the travel day, because I want to talk about some of the logistics that go into an Ironman triathlon, especially when you're traveling with your entire family.

2:17The night before we left, so Thursday night, I'm laying in bed.

2:23Nick Bare:I'm feeling great. It was day one of the carb up. I'm in the taper. I'm feeling recovered. Was trying to fall asleep early to get plentiful sleep in preparation for the race Sunday. So I was going to sleep before Steph. And earlier that day, as I walked into the bathroom, I saw this kit in this box on our vanities. And it was a nose hair wax kit. And I assumed Steph bought this for me post-race because earlier in the week, we were talking about my out-of-control nose hairs that I trim and they grow back almost the same day. It's crazy. So I saw this kit sitting on the vanity earlier in the day, didn't think much of it.

3:22Nick Bare:I'm getting into bed early Thursday night. before Steph, go through my nighttime routine. I put my sleep mask on. I've been sleeping with this eye sleep mask for the last couple of months and I love it. I absolutely enjoy it, especially the nights when I go to bed before Steph because it blacks everything out. All the lights in the bedroom can be on and I don't see anything. I fall asleep so well and I stay asleep very well too. So I'm in bed, sleep mask going about to fall asleep. And I hear Steph say, do you want me to clean out your nose hairs so you have more horsepower in your breathing come Ironman?

4:10Nick Bare:And I was like, no, I'm about to fall asleep. I'll do it when I get back from the race. So she was doing her nose at the time. and she said, let me just do it really quick. It doesn't hurt at all. And I watched her do hers. She put the wax and the stick in her nose. She let it dry. She ripped it out, didn't flinch, nothing. And she pulled out like maybe a few nose hairs. My nose hairs are probably a hundred times more dense than Steph's nose hairs. So as I'm laying in bed, I was like, all right, we'll bring the kit over, shove them up my nose, We'll rip it out. You say it doesn't hurt at all. I'll fall back to sleep.

4:53Nick Bare:So I'm laying in bed. She brings the wax kid over. She puts one in at a time. So she starts with my right nostril, puts the wax, the hot wax and the stick in there and lets it dry. I lean up. I pull it out. And no lie, it drew blood. I was bleeding out of my right nostril. It hurt significantly more than she led me to believe. And I have to only attribute that to the amount of nose hairs that I have. They must be very dense and strong nose hairs. It was painful. I was bleeding. I had blood on my face. And I knew I had to do the other nostril. So we throw the hot wax and the stick into my left nostril now.

5:45Nick Bare:I sit up, I'm anticipating the pull because the first one hurt and drew blood. This one didn't come out quite as easy. I pulled, nothing, no movement. So then I just start pulling harder and harder and harder. And I could feel each additional nose hair ripping out of my skin. And got the left nostril cleared out. lots of hair came out. I will say it felt great. I could breathe really well. I can still breathe very well. My nose has never been this clean and empty before. For years, it's been filled with nose hairs, but it was traumatic Thursday night before going to sleep. That's what my wife decided to treat me to prior to getting on a plane the next morning and flying to Arizona for my Ironman.

6:50Nick Bare:Did it make a difference in my performance? Who knows? Did I feel better? Absolutely. Once the pain resided, but a lot of nose hair came out. My note right here, so I didn't forget to talk about this. Talk about the nose hair clearance story. That was Thursday night. Steph, I love you. Thank you for helping me with my nose hairs. But I'm going to choose different options in the future other than the wax kit. Painful. It was painful. Okay, so the next day, we traveled to like I said Arizona with um with our entire family I wanted the whole family to be there for this race so we took our three-year-old daughter Charlie one-year-old son Nico Steph's parents Kim and Nick Banda they flew in for the race uh my dad and his girlfriend Sherry they were there for the race.

8:06And it was just really nice to have everyone there. It was really, really nice to have the whole family there and truly celebrate a big prep, a big effort, and a strong performance, in my opinion. But we traveled with the kids. And if you have kids, young kids especially, you know what traveling on an airplane is like with young kids. it was an adventure, but it was all good.

8:33Nick Bare:It was fun. We flew out from Austin direct to Arizona, landed in Phoenix. We flew to the Phoenix airport and went to rent a car. And the only vehicles they had left were big trucks. So we ended up getting a Ram 2500 as our rental. Way too excessive for what we needed for the weekend, but it's all that was left. And in retrospect, by the grace of God, very appreciative that we ended up renting a Ram 2500 because shortly after we got into our rental car and started making the trek to our Airbnb, which was only 15 minutes away from the airport. Traffic was crazy in the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe area.

9:32Nick Bare:We were staying in Scottsdale. We flew into Phoenix, but the race was in Tempe. They're all kind of like right in the same vicinity. And we were on the highway and traffic came to a pretty abrupt halt. So we slowed down, we're sitting in traffic. I believe we were on the 202. and next thing we know that happens is we're getting thrown out of our seats in our truck on the highway what ended up happening is as traffic stopped abruptly we were probably sitting for 20 seconds at that point where two cars behind us the car wasn't paying attention hit the car behind us, full speed. That car slammed into us, hit us, threw our truck around.

10:24Nick Bare:Luckily, we had this massive 2 ,500. So the only thing it really tore up was our rear bumper, but it shook everyone up. Threw everything in the truck around. Steph actually ended up hitting her nose and breaking her nose. This is Friday, two days before the race, right after we landed in Phoenix. The kids were crying and shooken up. So that's how we started this whole trip. Steph was a trooper about all of that. I mean, she hit her nose so hard. There was blood everywhere within this truck, all over herself. And we're just trying to get from airport after a long day of travel with the kids to Airbnb and get them settled.

11:11Nick Bare:So that's how all of this kind of kicked off. It was absolutely chaotic. And we didn't share any of the story during the weekend because we just didn't feel like bringing any attention to it, but this is the first time I'm actually talking about it. That was how we kicked off this whole weekend, which unfortunate, but also just extremely appreciative and grateful that no one was seriously injured. We were all okay. We were able to get back to the Airbnb safely. Family was a little shooken up, but it was an event to start the Ironman weekend. That is for sure. To pivot from there, some of the things that we did immediately after getting into Arizona.

12:08Nick Bare:So the bike was dropped off at Moxie Bike Shop in Scottsdale, Arizona. Great shop, highly recommend it. M-O-X-I-E, Moxie Bike Shop. Because the thing when you travel with your bike to one of these races is that you have to, in order to take it through the airport onto a plane, you have to put it in a bike bag. You can't just walk your bike into the airport and they check it underneath on its own. You have to put it in a bike bag. And to put it in a bike bag, it has to be broken down. And I don't know how to break a bike down properly. So I took that bike, the bike that I raced on my Cerello P5 to a shop here in the Austin area.

12:59Nick Bare:They broke it down, packed it up. We got the bike to Arizona on the plane. Upon arriving, took it to Moxie bike shop where they took it out of the bag. They put it all back together. It's really important to note that you have some sort of guide of your measurements. When you get your bike fit, your bike fitting technician will write down all the measurements of what they adjusted on the bike that are specifically fitted to you. So I took that paper to Moxie and just provided it to them that as they were building the bike back together, they could build it based off the specs that the bike technician who fitted me fitted that bike too.

13:47So it was exactly the way that I needed it,

13:50Nick Bare:the way that I was training on it, and it was fitted specifically to my needs. Now, a few things that we ended up doing additionally at the Moxie bike shop is I got new wheels and tires put on. I tried doing that here in Texas, but the shop couldn't get it done in time so upon arriving to the the moxie bike shop like i said in scottsdale we put on a head h-e-d disc wheel on the back and then we put on a matching not disc but a matching wheel and tire on the front of the bike now these disc wheels you might have seen pictures or videos of these wheels. Most people don't train with disc wheels, but they race with disc wheels.

14:44Nick Bare:I believe they're more aerodynamic. It's a faster setup. But essentially, the whole wheel, like you can't see through it. It is maybe a carbon fiber type material, but it helps with the performance of the bike. so I used a disc wheel on my last triathlon which was in 2021, my 70.3 in Cancun, Mexico and I decided I wanted to use another disc wheel for this race and we ended up getting that done just a few days two days prior to the race but I can tell a big difference in terms of riding and performance utilizing a disc wheel as opposed to not but that's one of the things we got done as soon as we arrive to Arizona.

15:36Now, the episode of the podcast that I recorded before this one that I'm speaking into right now

15:45Nick Bare:and we released, the previous episode was all about my taper. So the day of travel being Friday, this is my second day of my carbohydrate load. Race was Sunday. As I talked about in the previous episode, I like to carbohydrate load three days and two days out and then eat normal the day before, which I'll talk about here as we get into Saturday, the day before. But Friday, the day of travel, ended up being my second day of the carbohydrate load. So there were some backwards planning, logistical planning to kind of ensure that I stayed on top of my carbohydrate load. Some of the things that I did because I was consuming about 800 grams of carbs.

16:42Nick Bare:That's what I ended up consuming Thursday and Friday each day before the race. So I had between those two days, 48 hours, 1600-ish grams of carbohydrates. And it was a perfect taper. It was a perfect carbohydrate load in my opinion. But to ensure that I stayed on top of my nutrition Friday while traveling, I packed a lot of meals. So I carried a cooler with me on the plane that had ice packs. and then I had a meal of beef and rice in there. I carried some orange juices, honey, cereal. And then what I like to do going into a carbohydrate load is input everything the day before into MyFitnessPal so I know exactly what I'm consuming during that carbohydrate load to hit my protein, fat, and carbohydrate macronutrient goals throughout those days to ensure I'm dialed and just hit exactly what I need to.

17:49Nick Bare:So the day before traveling, I had everything inputted into MyFitnessPal to hit the macronutrient goals that I wanted to. I prepared my foods and my meals, some of which were in a cooler, some of which were just in my backpack. And then as soon as we landed in Phoenix, we put an order of Instacart in to have groceries delivered to our Airbnb for what we would need and what I would need really for the remainder of Friday and then all day Saturday leading into the race. I think Instacart is one of the greatest things ever invented. Before having kids, we never used Instacart. Before having kids, we used to love our trips to the grocery store.

18:41Nick Bare:We take our time walking down the aisles, exploring what's new. It was a very relaxing, typically Sunday afternoon trip, Steph and I. After having kids, we don't take those trips to the grocery store as frequently, but we Instacart all the time. I love Instacart. If you haven't used Instacart, it's a game changer, especially while traveling. So as soon as we landed, I had my Instacart order ready for groceries to be delivered to our Airbnb of everything we were going to need for the next couple of days. So that was Friday. Friday was a travel day. It was my second carbohydrate load day. It was a bike preparation day, a food preparation day.

19:33And unfortunately, Friday for us came with an accident, which wasn't planned, was unfortunate, but like I've said, just grateful that no one was seriously injured and everyone was okay.

19:47Nick Bare:Okay. So Saturday, the day before the Ironman, and the reason I'm sharing Friday and Saturday leading up to the race day is because I take these days very serious. The way that I view it and approach these days leading up to the race, I mean, really the whole prep, the entire 18-week prep, I was dialed in. But these last couple of days, I want to remove all variables. I want to control what I can control to set myself up for success, set my family up for success during the travel and the weekend and the race as well. And that comes with a lot of planning. So Saturday morning, we woke up. me and the boys, the media team went and did a shakeout run.

20:37Nick Bare:So it was a two and a half mile shakeout run. Weather was perfect. It was beautiful in the Arizona area. The first thing I noticed in the first 30 seconds of that run, the poppiness of my legs. This tells me I tapered well and I carbohydrate loaded well. when I go out on that last shakeout run, the only way to describe it is you have this pop in your feet and your legs. As soon as your foot strikes the pavement or it strikes the ground, it pops back up. There is this responsiveness. And you know, when you get deep into a prep and you're training on fatigued legs and a fatigued body all the time, you lose some of that poppiness, some of that responsiveness.

21:29Nick Bare:You don't feel it or experience it for quite some time. So when you're at the back half of taper, you go on that last shakeout run and you get that pop and that response when your foot strikes the ground, that for me tells me we're ready. We're recovered. We tapered well. We're fit. We're loaded with carbohydrates. Glycogen is topped off. We're ready to go race tomorrow morning. That's what I experienced. on that shakeout run. As I've already mentioned, between Thursday and Friday, I had about 1600 grams of carbohydrates that were now loaded in the form of glycogen. Not all of it, but I was definitely topped off on glycogen.

22:18Nick Bare:The game plan for Saturday nutrition wise was to consume about 3 ,500 calories. And this broke down to roughly 185 grams of protein, 500 grams of carbohydrates, and 80 grams of fat with limited fiber intake and just consuming foods and food sources that I knew my body digested well and preferred and liked. Foods that just work well for me. Also throughout the day, staying on top of hydration, not just water, but also electrolytes. So I had multiple servings of electrolytes. In the past, I've messed up. When I first started running marathons, were the two days before a race, I would drink one to two gallons of water.

23:11Nick Bare:And I didn't know about proper hydration back then. And I wasn't incorporating electrolytes into that plan. And what I ended up actually doing is flushing out all my body's stores of electrolytes. So come race day, I would cramp up and muscles would seize and they wouldn't work properly. It actually hurt my performance. So in the days leading up to, not just consuming water, but staying on top of electrolyte consumption as well. So that Saturday, the day before the race, multiple servings of electrolytes. another note that I want to share that I like to do while traveling, especially around races is being very careful of water sources that you're consuming.

23:56Nick Bare:I have somewhat of a sensitive stomach. So certain tap water or faucet water, or even water from like a refrigerator filters will hurt my stomach. So we bought a bunch of bottled mountain spring water that we just store in our Airbnb to drink those days leading up to the race, just to have a clean source of water. Some people can drink any type of water and not have any stomach problems. I'm not like that. I can tell when I drink bad water, hurts my stomach. I get some pain, some discomfort, gas, bloating. And I just try to avoid that and really control every variable possible in those days leading up to the race.

24:46And water is one of those.

24:49Nick Bare:So the other things we had to do Saturday in preparation for the next morning. As I mentioned, we did our 2.5 mile shakeout run in the morning, came back, had breakfast, went to Ironman Village, downtown Tempe. We checked in, got my transition bags, bib, all the things I needed to check in. And then we went and dropped the bike off at bike check-in. So you drop your bike off the day before and they store all these bikes. I mean, it was probably over 2000 bikes based off the amount of participants in Ironman Arizona on these racks. Coordinating and planning an Ironman logistically as an organization blows my mind.

25:42It is a very complex system, lots of moving pieces, lots of equipment.

25:49Nick Bare:After bike drop-off, we had to drop off transition bags. So this is the bag that you pick up in between your swim and your bike and the bag you pick up in between your bike and your swim. So we packed transition bags, dropped those off at the respective locations just to provide context. What am I putting in a transition bag? For my bag between the swim and the bike, I had my cycling shoes my helmet I had my go gels in there, socks a go bar in my transition bag from the bike to the run I had my hat sunglasses, running shoes handheld water bottle stuff like that gels, things I'm going to need for for the transition, the next leg of the race

26:47I actually had really good sleep

26:49Nick Bare:Saturday night going into Sunday I slept 6 hours 45 minutes going into race day I've never been someone who has struggled to sleep the night before a race I sleep really well actually my Garmin sleep score was an 83 and my Garmin training readiness score was an 89 which is deemed excellent So I was ready. That's why I take these days leading up to the race so serious. I want my body to be primed. I want logistically to have a plan and be prepared. I want to give my mind the space to just think and be mentally prepared to execute come race day. I want to nail my nutrition. I want to control all the variables that I am in control of.

27:47Nick Bare:And that requires intentionality. It requires commitment. It requires discipline. So based off my Garmin scores that I had, the next morning, Sunday morning, objectively, I was ready, but also subjectively, how I felt, I felt ready. I felt as ready as could be. race day, Sunday, November 16th. I had a 3.45 a.m. wake up for a 6.50 a.m. start time. That was 6.50 a.m. start time for age group athletes. Some of the first things that I did immediately upon waking up. So in our Airbnb, it was me, Steph, Nico, Charlie, and Steph's parents. and the plan was to go over to the media team's Airbnb, which was five minutes from our Airbnb right down the road to do all the filming in preparation for that morning so we didn't wake up the family.

28:51Nick Bare:First thing I did at my Airbnb though, coffee and bowel movement, success. Anyone who has an early race knows you got to back up that wake up time as much as needed so you can have a successful bowel movement because you don't have to worry about that at the starting line in the first couple hours of the race we achieve success in this case 3 45 a.m wake up coffee and bowel movement success by i would say, 4.10 a.m. in the first 25 minutes upon waking. Then I drove over to the media team's Airbnb. Like I said, so I didn't wake up the family. Breakfast, I consumed roughly at 4.30 a.m. This was one cup of oats, just cooked up, two tablespoons of peanut butter, one tablespoon, roughly, of honey, one and a half bananas, three whole eggs, and I put sea salt on top of all of it.

29:56Nick Bare:And I had about 25 ounces of water with two scoops of our electrolytes in there, which was an additional 1000 milligrams of sodium in combination with the food and the salt that I added to the food. From there, I did some light stretching mobility work and I used the Hyperice massage gun on my lower body to get things primed up, ready for the swim. And then we made our way to downtown Tempe, Ironman Village at the starting line. We arrived roughly at 6 a.m. And the first thing we did immediately upon arriving is I went over my bike at the bike check-in. I added my bike computer, which was fully charged to my bike.