British athlete Rob Johnson may be a new name to many triathlon followers, but he just checked in with Tri247 to report on his first race as a full-time athlete: Ironman USA, Lake Placid. Appendicitis, two punctures and constant rain would make most people pretty grumpy, but Rob seems to have taken a lot of positives from his race. We'll be catching up with him soon, to find out a little more about him and his racing plans.

I have just returned from IM USA, Lake Placid, having competed in my first proper Pro Ironman race. Unfortunately the decision to leave my job and be a full time athlete didn't start in the best way, suffering an appendicitis operation in March, putting me out for most of the season, but this has been my first race back and I am really pleased with my result. I missed out on qualifying for the World Championships by three places. I had two punctures on the bike and it rained for 14 hours on the day, as seen in the pictures.

Swim 3.8km - 57mins
Bike 180km - 5hrs 19mins
Run 42km - 3 Hrs 5mins (new PB)

Overall, very pleased for the first one back since the op and learnt a few things on the day too. So much for all that warm weather training I did beforehand, it rained for 14 hours on the day of the race. In short, the swim was really fast and there were a few guys who were definitely there just for the swim. The Aquasphere wetsuit was amazing and I didn't suffer any shoulder fatigue during the race. I got caught up in a little scrap with a couple of guys who like to tail-gate me, so I ended up losing touch with the main group and decided I wasn't going to do all their work for them, so I swam in zig-zags for some of the course and also had a few spurts of speed to try to drop them. By the time we were half way round the 2nd lap I hit some traffic in the form of the older age groupers, but eventually got through. Unfortunately time wise it's my slowest IM swim to date, I think this is due mainly to my recent bike focus and also my poor choice of tactics on the swim. Will learn to just do my own thing in the water and not get pulled in to other sub-competitions!

On the bike, I had a great first half and possibly went a little too hard when disaster struck. I cracked my front deep rim carbon wheel due to all the water on the roads (inches!) covering a pot hole, at first I didn't realise what had happened, then about 5 mins after on a climb I got a puncture, so I did a quick change and back on. But the wheel was still shaking all over the place. I happened to ride past technical support and they swapped the wheel out for me. This put me in last Pro place and I spent the rest of the ride trying to claw my way back.

The run was as steep as the bike course but I managed an uncomfortable first 10km, then the juices started to flow and I was away, pulling back Pro after Pro on the first laps and even passed a walking Björn Andersson on the last 5 miles! It ended up being my fastest IM marathon to date and leaves me convinced I can now go sub-3 on a flat course.

The roll-down for Kona places went to the 10th place so I just missed out there, but I'd rather earn it out right, rather than get a roll-down.