Paul Fallace

My name is Paul Fallace, I’m 49 years old. I played lacrosse & soccer in high school, I went to college in Annapolis and played lacrosse at Navy. 

While stationed in Norfolk, Va trained with a bunch of shipmates for the Marine Corps Marathon at age 27. I enjoyed training for the race and continued to run 5K and 10K races after getting out of the Navy and moving to Indiana.  

My wife and I had four kids while in Indiana including twins in 3-year span so life changed drastically. I changed jobs and we moved to Maryland to be closer to family.  Over the next 15 years I ran one race a year but continued to run on a daily basis.  

At age 45 I had some free time to start a new hobby. I joined the YMCA and added swimming to my weekly workout routine along with Spinning class.  When I started I could only swim about 10 laps straight with every other lap breast stroke.  There were a bunch of serious bikers and triathletes in the early morning spin classes including a few that had completed a full Ironman; I was a little in awe but thought it was something I would love to do in the future.

In January 2015 several people in the spin class signed up and trained together to complete their first triathlon a 70.3 Half Ironman called Eagleman. It gave me the courage to train and try one myself but was going to have to improve my swimming.  One multi-Ironman finisher I met at the YMCA told me about the Harford Multisport Club and encouraged me to join.  

In April 2015 I ran my first race with HMC – a Duathlon. The group were very encouraging yet competitive. I decided to join the group to meet and train with some more experienced triathletes and also participate in more events.

Completing my first Triathlon gave me the drive to want to improve my time and go for a bigger race. I started to think about a full Ironman. In 2016, only my second year as a Triathlete, I did an Olympic distance Tri, 2 Half Ironman distances and Ironman Lake Placid! Now I had the bug! I signed up for a similar program in 2017, I have improved in just about every race improving in all three disciplines.  

Lessons learned and advice to myself 3 years ago would be to join RASAC running club and run with the runners, join Masters Swim and swim with the swimmers.  Also join either one of the local bike clubs or do more bike races with bikers.   They have them almost every weekend in the summer.  They are well supported and much more fun than riding 50, 75 or 100 miles by yourself or with just a few people.  

My most memorable moment would be finishing Lake Placid in the dark after 15 hours and suffering from a poor nutrition plan, almost passing out but gutting out the last 13 miles in a slow painful walk.  For me nutrition at the full Ironman distance has been my nemesis.  I’m still working on it and hope to hit my full Ironman goal of under 12 hours this fall at IM Maryland. My happiest multisport moment was finishing Ironman North Carolina 70.3 in under 5 hours.  It was great to have familiar faces from the HMC club there to see during the race and at the finish line.

In 2018 I aim to race Eagleman 70.3 again and hope a better nutrition plan allows me to improve on my run time and overall time.  Also hope I make enough improvement in my nutrition plan to finish Ironman Maryland in under 12 hours.

Beyond 2018, I have finished two of the 4 Virginia-Maryland half Iron races so I want to complete the Patriot Half and Waterman Half to close out all four.  I enjoy traveling to races in different cities or parts of the country so I would like to complete a West Coast Half or Full and overseas Half or Full once I get the kids through college.  Maybe even two Full Ironman in a year if I’m feeling good!