~*Learning From Mistakes by Lauren Brandon*~

The Ironman World Championship is one of the most important days of competition in the world of triathlon. Over 2500 people race and I am sure a lot of mistakes are made. I unfortunately made some mistakes that negatively impacted my day and I will definitely never do these again. First of all, when I built my bike post travel, I put my seat too high. All week long I thought that my hip flexor and hamstring were bothering me because of the car seat angle of my rental car, but when my husband examined my bike after the race, I had put my seat too high. A few mm might not seem like a lot, but over 5 hours of riding hard it can not make things feel great. Mistake number one that I will not make again.

Mistake number two was I missed my T1 bag. Upon exiting the water, I ran right past my T1 bag and had absolutely no idea where it was. Nothing like running around like a chicken with its head cut off on camera. Ha! While this ended up not impacting my race too much, it could have made a huge difference. Not ideal and I will always be triple checking where my transition bags are!

It would have been easy to get upset or pissed off, but we all make mistakes. I have learned a couple of important lessons from this past Ironman and will always be trying to improve.