list of things to remember when attempting an Ironman (in no particular order):

1. Enjoy the training. If your race attempt is unsuccessful, and you look back on how unenjoyable the training was the whole thing is going to feel like one big miserable failure. I can honestly say that I enjoyed the training. If I count January 1, 2006 as the start of my training, I trained 318 hours and 45 minutes to prepare to race up to 17 hours. 318 hours is a lot of time to waste if you aren't happy during that time. So despite not finishing, it doesn't feel like wasted time. It was time I spent with myself doing something I really enjoyed, even on the days it felt tough.
2. Don't take finishing for granted. While I will be the first to admit that I had my doubts about finishing, I also will be the first to admit that I entertained all kinds of fantasies about finishing: what the finishers chute would be like, what kind of music would be playing, how I would feel... But over the course of 17 hours, just like any other day, a lot of things can happen. In a race of that distance what might normally be a small error can take on mammoth proportions.
3. Enjoy the area you are visiting. I honestly believe if I had flown in on Thursday, prepared to race, then failed to finish on Sunday and flew out on Monday I would have been very very sad. But we stuck around for three full days after the race. We had rented a cottage for a full week so we were in a beautiful setting. We took a 200 kilometer driving tour through the mountains. All of this helped me feel like I was on vacation and that racing was just one part of the trip. This did a lot to soften the blow of not finishing.
4. Don't give up racing. I did a lot of hemming and hawing about racing while training for this Ironman. Training takes a lot of time and mental effort and racing just seemed to be the farthest thing from my mind. But I am glad that I squeezed in two half Ironman races so that when all was said and done it didn't feel like all of that training had been for something that didn't turn out the way I wanted or expected.
   
5. Not everyone can finish an Ironman. Leading up to the race, anytime I expressed doubts, people would say to me, "Really, when it comes down to it, anyone can finish an Ironman". On August 27, 176 people did not finish an Ironman. There are probably 176 different reasons why. No matter how prepared you are, finishing is not guarenteed. I probably missed less than five training sessions over eight months of training. I hit every milestone you would expect to hit in training: two 3.8K swims, a decent number if rides over 100 miles, and two runs at or around 3 hours. But as I said above, 318 hours of training for a race of 17 hours or less means all of that work comes down to whatever happens during that 17 hours; some of that is within your control and some of it is not. You get what you get on the day that you race. You get the weather that you get. You get your body is whatever condition it is in when you wake up. And you deal with that.