I should probably preface this race report with a disclaimer that I knew darn well going into it that I hadn't trained as much as I would have liked. I was pretty focused on the Courage Classic and that whole century ride thing that I kind of let the whole running thing slide a bit. And swimming...well, you know me and swimming. :-D Even though I *was* trying to get at least some semblance of half-marathon training in, life was getting in the way and throwing me curveballs (like ridiculous thunderstorms smack in the middle of long runs). With the result that my longest run of training was 10.75 miles. At sea level. Oh well, what are ya gonna do? One of the best things about this race for me was the fact that, for the first time ever, my family was going to be able to see me race. My sister and brother-in-law were out visiting from Michigan, so they brought all the kids (Tyler and my niece and nephew, Kallie and Kade) up to the Res for some beach time and cheering!
Amy and I in transition
Prerace: As usual, I had a less than stellar night's sleep, tossing and
turning for a few hours before finally falling asleep to an anxiety-riddled
race-related dream. The alarm went off at 3:30 and I was out the door by 4:15. Which, you
know, is just ridiculously early. Nonetheless, I was pulling into the
reservoir before 5 (when transition opened), and I was not even in the
first several hundred people there. Ah, type A triathletes. I got a
pretty decent transition spot and spread out to save room for my friend
Amy, who was doing her first 70.3. We got our spots set up, hit the
portopotty (where we ran into Sonja and took a few pictures!), and headed out when they closed transition. Transition
closed at 6:20 and our wave wasn't until 7:15, so we had a while to
wait. We watched the pro start and were amazed at seeing how far out in
front of the pack Andy Potts was. He did the 1.2 mile swim in 22
minutes! He was a FULL BUOY ahead of the rest of the field. Ridiculous!
With Sonja in the portopotty line :-)
The swim: Amy and I had split so she could go to the portopotty again
and I could get a quick swim in just to get wet, so I lined up in my
wave by myself. I was getting nervous because Amy was nowhere to be
seen, but just before they led us down to the water, she showed
up...apparently the potty lines were too long! A quick hug and good luck
wishes, and off we went. I was just praying not to have a repeat of the
panic attack from my last tri (where I probably lost at least 8-10 minutes trying to calm down). I tried to take my time and keep my
breathing under control, and it seemed to work. I got into my groove
pretty quickly and felt fairly comfortable the whole swim. I will say
that there felt like there was a lot more contact in the water than
normal. I got kicked and punched several times, not really normal
for a swim of this distance where people get pretty spread out. Other
than that, the swim was pretty uneventful other than some minor goggle
leakage that slowed me down for a minute or two. I came out of the water
with no idea how I had done, other than that it felt pretty decent.
T1: Still a handful of bikes left on my age group's rack, so at least I
wasn't the last one out of the water! I felt really slow, but it wasn't
too bad according to the results. It's a long run from the beach to
transition, so I must have actually had a fairly good transition.
Wetsuit off, used inhaler, helmet, sunglasses, shoes, and race number
on, and away I went.
Tired already? But you're not even out to Jay Rd yet!
The bike: My legs felt tired right out of the gate. Not a fabulous
start. The first 5-6 miles out of the res are uphill, and I felt it. I
was hoping to be able to catch Amy (who I knew smoked me out of the
water) fairly quickly, but she had a pretty good lead on me. IM makes you wear your race number on your back during
the bike (most tris don't), which is kind of nice because the bibs had our
names on them, so you could see who you were passing (and say hi if you
knew them!). In one stretch on the backside of the first loop, I ran
into three people that I knew within 5 minutes, which was funny. And
cool! Of course, two of them were guys who were blowing me away...but still, nice to see friendly faces out there. I
really thought I would kill this bike, considering my training this
summer, but my legs just didn't have it for whatever reason. The
temperature started cranking up during the second loop. I could tell it
was going to be bad news for the run, with how fast it was heating up.
It had actually been fairly cool at the start of the race, but it was
like someone flipped the on switch to the oven. Ugh. About 8 miles into
the second loop, I finally caught Amy. We chatted for a minute, with
her doing a lot of cussing and threatening to return her bike to the
shop because (in her opinion) it wasn't making her go fast. :-P I passed her, then she passed me back for a minute before I caught her
and left her behind. My goal was to put as much distance on her on the
bike as possible, since I knew she was going to kill me on the run. As I
made the turn back into the reservoir, I saw my family on the sideline,
cheering for me, and it was AWESOME. I've never had family at a race
before (other than when Brian brought Tyler to my first 70.3), and I loved it.
Heading back into transition, super happy to have family cheering for me!
T2: Feet out of the shoes, off the bike, and OW. My left foot was really
sore. My toe had been numb/painful for most of the ride, which is kind
of unusual. Not that it was numb/painful, but that it lasted so long. It
usually lasts maybe 15-20 miles, then subsides, but not this time. The
run back to my transition spot was kind of gimpy. I racked my bike,
grabbed my visor, inhaler, and sport beans, shoes on, and ran to the
portopotty. Along the way, I realized I had forgotten my endurolytes
(electrolyte capsules), but fortunately, my bike was mostly on the way
to the run out from the portopotty.
The run: Here's where the ugly really reared its head. I actually didn't
feel TOO terrible heading out of transition, but I didn't feel great,
either. I tried to grab a sponge at the aid station right out of
transition and totally dropped it. A super nice guy right behind me GAVE
ME HIS and went back for another one. Can you believe that?? And then,
to boot, it turns out that he's a friend of Sonja's, which I didn't know until Sonja tagged me in one
of his Facebook photos...how random is that?!
Here we are...thanks for the sponge, Bret!
Anyway...down the
reservoir road (where the fam was waiting to cheer again, yay!) and out
onto the dirt road around the res. Have I mentioned before how there is
ZERO shade on this run? Mile one was a 10:30 mile, and it would be the
only one under 12 minute pace for the day. Last year I was able to do
this run by only walking the aid stations (stretched way out, but
still!). Not so much this year. I honestly don't know if I blocked out
how hot it was last year, or if it really was that much worse this year,
but it was brutal. I think it was worse this year, but I have no proof
of that. What I do know is that on the backside of the loop where we
headed back into the reservoir, the wind kicked up. On the one hand, it
helped keep the temperature down a tiny bit, but it also gave some
serious resistance. At one point, I was running along the dam and I
honestly thought I was going to get blown off. And not into the water,
which probably would have felt good. It
was somewhere around here that Amy caught me and left me in her dust
(literally). As I finished up the first loop, I really, really did NOT
want to stay left at the split to go out on the
second loop. But I did.
Do I really have to go around AGAIN?
My sister and nephew were along the rail for a
quick cheer as I headed back out for my second loop. As I went through
the aid station at the transition area, I started chatting with a couple
of women, and ended up staying with one for the entire second loop.
Heather may have just saved my life. We decided to stick together, and
that was probably the best decision I made all day. We run/walked 6.5
miles together, and we were totally on the same page. One of us would
decide a landmark that we were going to start running at or run to, and
the other one would be like "you totally just read my mind" :-D.
I can't even remember what we talked about that whole time, but we
chatted most of the hour and a half we were out there together. I was
terrified that she would decide she needed to go faster at some point
and I would be alone again, but she didn't! Meanwhile, the sun kept
beating down on us and the wind pummeled us. I looked down at my hands
with about 2 miles to go and my fingers were so swollen that I couldn't
bend them. Yikes. My legs actually didn't feel that bad and my lungs
were fine, but I had NO go in me. It didn't help that my foot was still
hurting and my other foot was starting to get the 70.3 blister (remember
last year's giant golf ball blister? yeah, that one). But really, it
was just that I had no energy. I was still hoping to make it under 7
hours, but a 15 minute mile and a 14 minute mile pretty much killed that
off. Heather really wanted to get under 7:30 (she started 35 minutes
ahead of me), and our heat-addled brains figured that we should be able
to do that one at least, and we did. The last half-mile was awful. I
wanted to walk SO bad, but we had made a deal to run it in, and I wasn't
going to renege and make Heather feel like she needed to walk, too, and
make her miss her 7:30. So I sucked it up. As I rounded the corner to
the finish chute, I saw Tyler and the rest of my family, and I got a
little teary. Heather out-kicked me, but we crossed the finish line
within a couple of seconds of each other and shared a high-five and a
hug. And last names, so we could find each other on Facebook later,
which we did!
Almost there!
We made it!!!
One more 70.3 in the books!
Post-race: Reunited with the fam and we headed over to the food tent, which was completely picked
over. All they had left was oranges, bananas, cookies, bagels, and stuff
to make your own PB&J. REALLY? Come on, Ironman! That's it?! I know
I'm slow, but I paid just as much to do your race as the fast people,
so it would be nice if you still had some decent food left for the
slower racers.
Especially considering that there were at least 150-200 people behind
me. Ridiculous. None of the offerings sounded remotely good, but I
grabbed some cookies and fruit just to have something to eat. We
wandered to try to find some shade, and ran into Sonja and her family
and Hillary and Ben (who gave me some awesome cheers out on the course and took a couple of the photos above!). Awards were just about to start, and Sonja won her age group and got second amateur woman, so I got to sit
in the shade and cheer for her, which was cool. Yay, Sonja! Eventually, I got it together enough to
head for transition, where I finally saw Amy for the first time since
she passed me on the run. She ended up having a (relatively) great run
and finished about 11 minutes ahead of me.
I'm so proud of her...two years and a week after being diagnosed with
cancer, she conquers the 70.3 distance, how awesome is that?!
The results:
Swim: 54:13 (4+ minutes faster than last year!)
T1: 3:01
Bike: 3:08:11 (17.9 mph; almost exactly the same as last year, bummer)
T2: 3:15 (with a potty stop? Really? Not bad!)
Run: 2:54:29 (13:24 pace?!)
Total: 7:03:05
My slowest 70.3 to date, 12 minutes slower than last year, but only a
minute slower than my first 70.3. I *am* disappointed, but not terribly
so. I knew this was going to be rough, given my (lack of) training, but I
was still hoping for better. I really think I should have been able to
get under 7 hours, but oh well. This was about survival, not a PR. And
of course, I'm starting to feel like I have something to prove with this
race. Yikes. Will I do it again next year? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm definitely not willing to rule it out.
Being a spectathlete is HARD!
