Ride your bike enough that you can ride 112 miles at a reasonable pace, get off and think "Meh. That was nothing".

x2. And don't get uncomfortable on the bike. Stay with in yourself. Don't mash the hills no matter how many people are passing you. Those people that passed you mashing up the hills are either simply faster than you or you'll catch them on the run.

Mental prep: Make a list with 3 columns.

Column 1 = What could go wrong during the race?
Column 2 = How can I avoid it happening?
Column 3 = How will I deal with it if it happens?

Through your training and race preparation you can avoid a lot of potential pitfalls, the biggest of which tends to be over-biking and starting your run too fast. But there are many, many other things you can avoid having go wrong by making this list, and having thought about how you will deal with these things should they happen can make a big difference mentally during the race.

My main 1st time IM problems were:
- eating too much of different foods in the first hour of the bike, and then having bad indigestion for most of the rest of the bike
- getting mild heat stroke around mile 6 of the run

I dealt with both and finished only 45 mins beyond my original race goal, which I was happy with all things considered.

lots of great input here.

i have to second the motion on getting nutrition nailed down during training.

my input to this thread is this: whatever you expect to race with (equipment, nutrition, EVERYTHING), train with it. make no deviations or changes close to or on race day. no saddle tweaks, don't get something cool at the expo and think to try it during the race. train with what you will race, and race with what you trained.

Nutrition: Train with whatever will be on the course-it will then be available to you during the event IE: if something goes wrong...you launch a bottle or entire rack on the bike-no biggie next area grab their "stuff" your body knows it and you will have less issues...I learned this the hard way, several times-I'm not too bright...IMMT has hills, ride hills, run hills, repeat...

x3, get real strong and real smart on the bike. Besides that, visualize and prepare mentally for the race.

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Raf
http://www.shutuplegs.org

x4

If the bike feels hard then you will be walking the marathon, and that sucks. Do you really want to be out there walking for 5-6 hours? Hell no.

Edit ralfooooopeeeeez! Changed to x4

Scope the course out (for hills) and dont train through injuries even if they might be minor.

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2020 Team Zoot MTN