Triathlon Tuesday - Ironman Florida Race Report Part 2 - The Storm During the Storm

(continued from Part One: Here)

RACE DAY - Saturday 11/1/14

I woke up around 3:30 Saturday morning to the wind HOWLING outside. I took a peek outside just to make sure… Yep, those trees are bent in half from the wind. Oh, goody.

I hadn’t slept very well, but I never sleep well the night before a race so I didn’t worry about that (It’s the night before the night before a race that counts with sleep. Little sleep the night of the race? No problem.)

I refused to freak out about the wind (what could I do about it anyway?), and had my pre-race breakfast: bagel, banana with peanut butter, and a Boost drink. 

Made this post on Facebook which really did sum up how I felt:

This is it. I can't control the winds howling outside or the cold. But I can control how I will respond. And today I will choose to rise up to the challenge that is before me. And adapt as I need to. One stroke at a time. One pedal at a time. One step at a time. Until the finish. ‪#‎IronmanFlorida2014

It was time.

Rob, Meg and my wetsuit/leather pants

I went ahead and put on my wetsuit. Usually, I wait until right before I get in the water before putting on my wetsuit in order to avoid over-heating. No possibility of that happening on this day. Slapped on the bright-as-the-sun yellow socks, throw away sandals, and my coat, and got a ride to as close as we could find parking (the Club La Vela lot, about .25 miles away from the start) around 5:15am.   Dropped off the special needs bags as we were walking in.

Cold & soon to be sad

Checked the air in my tires, got my nutrition on my bike, then stood around trying to find a way to keep warm. Finally found a building where I could go inside and wait with my friends Megan and Rob because it was that cold.  At 6:30am we headed out towards the beach with everyone else to get ready for the swim start.

THE SWIM WALK DOWN TO THE BEACH AND BACK

You could feel the excitement as the wetsuit-clad masses made their way from the transition area down to the beach. We all knew the water would be at least 20 degrees warmer than the air temperature and we were looking forward to it. Plus, the sun was starting to peek over the horizon.

Somehow, everything seems more possible once the sun comes up.

I was trying to focus on what was ahead, and uh, drink my Red Bull (all plans –bad and good—begin with Red Bull) when the announcement came over the speakers at about 6:40am.

"Due to a dangerous rip tide and water conditions, causing the water safety team to be unable to keep themselves or the swimmers safe, the swim from Ironman Florida has been cancelled."

There were other parts to the announcement too: bike would start via time trial method at 8am, the race would still be considered an Ironman, life would go on, etc.

My reaction to the news:
 

Ya’ll, there are no words. 

Seriously, a tiny piece of me died when I heard the swim had been cancelled. And although I didn’t say anything, I immediately understood the ramifications.

No matter what, I wasn’t going to be completing a full Ironman. All my training, all my planning, all my physical and emotional focus were not going to get me to 140.6 today. Despite ten months of training, my goal became an impossibility with one sentence.

It was a huge mental setback. But I didn’t dwell on it right then, because to do so would just make me not want to do the race at all. And I had spent too much time and money to be there and not do the race at all (and believe me, there were people who made the choice, once the swim was cancelled, to just call it a day).

Rescuers needed rescuing

I finally really looked out at the water. The Ironman officials had obviously made the right call, it wasn’t even questionable. The rescue kayaks were having to rescue each other after constant tipping, or were getting blown so far off course that a jet ski was needed to pull them back.

There was no way they could’ve gotten to swimmers in distress. And as much as I hated that my race was not going to be what I had hoped, no race is worth someone’s life. This is Ironman, not Stupidman.

But just for the record: if the officials had told us that they strongly suggested we skip the swim due to the dangerous conditions, but we could swim if we really wanted to: I. Would. Have. Swum. 

Swam. 

Whatever. I would have done it. But we didn’t have that option. 

So we moved on, and like I mentioned, I didn’t dwell on it right then. We had nearly an hour and a half before the start, and we were freezing, so we grabbed our (now-defunct) T1 bags and headed back to the car then the house.

Only needed a few thousand more laps...

Because I use humor to deal with just about every situation, and heck since I still had on my wetsuit, I jumped into the tiny pool at our rental house and swam a few laps. If I could’ve just gotten in about 7000 more I could’ve called it the 2.4 miles.  But at least now I could say I had done a triathlon.

Got changed into my cycling clothes, used the restroom (much nicer than the porta potties!), and we headed back to the start around 7:45. 

And then we waited. 

And waited. 

It was just one of those situations. Nobody was at fault (except maybe mother nature). The Ironman staff and volunteers were working the problem as best they could. It just takes a long time to get nearly 3000 people out one small bike chute at one time rather than staggered as they come through from the swim. 

The bigger problem was, it was 40 degrees outside and we were all sitting around in bike shorts, and at most, a jersey and wind-breaker. We were freezing. 

I thought since I wasn’t swimming, I didn’t need to worry about expending calories before I got on the bike. I vastly underestimated how many calories I was using up shivering convulsively for 1.5 hours. 

So when it was my turn to head toward the bike chute around 9:15am (30-45 minutes later than I estimated I would have if the swim hadn’t been cancelled), my stomach was growling from hunger. Starving is not what you want to be as you are BEGINNING a 112-mile bike ride under pretty terrible weather conditions.

THE BIKE RIDE

Nutrition had been something I had meticulously planned for my Ironman (see that craziness here if you dare). To be off my plan before the race really even started was a bit terrifying for me. I had a couple of emergency Gu’s in the Bento bag (not part of the nutrition I planned to use) on my bike, so I consumed those as I was taking the last steps towards the start line where I would get on my bike.  Those caught me up to being enough on my nutrition schedule that I wasn’t too far in the hole.

Finally, I was off! I had no feeling in my toes and had a kitchen sized trash bag wrapped around my torso under my jersey to keep warm (never took that sucker off the whole ride), but at least I was moving! 

Um, but not very fast.

I came closer to quitting in the first 20 miles of the bike ride than I did the entire race. Part of it was just the difficulty of going from zero to full effort with no real warm up. 

But more it was because for most of those miles I was pedaling as hard as I could, my heart rate was in the stratosphere, and when I would look at my speed I was going around 10 mph.

I’m not a fast cyclist even on my best days, but I knew there was no way I was going to finish the race if I was putting in this much effort and getting this little result.  Plus, I knew that even under the best conditions I was going to be toying with the cut off times on the bike.  Now, I had started later than I thought I would have, plus was cycling under adverse conditions.

That wind was a #$%^&@%  $*%#&.

And there was a lot of stress: 

Stress #1: Fear of releasing my death grip on the handle bars and being blown into traffic or another rider by the 22 mph constant wind with occasional “fun gusts” of up to 35mph.

Stress #2: I worried I would not make the 88-mile cut off by 3:45pm, or the full bike cut off by 5:30 (although I found out later it had been extended due to how late some people started the race).

Stress #3: I’m riding 112 miles, and then still have to run a marathon.Uhhh...

Let’s just call the bike ride what it was: not fun. 

Yeah, I smiled for the camera guys in the bushes, but that was more of an I’m-paying-to-do-this-so-I-should-try-not-to-look-miserable smile. 

There were things more difficult than expected, such as opening my ziplock baggies (containing food) with gloves on. Hadn’t practiced that one. 

And that lie about Florida being flat? Um, no. There are lots of low grade inclines in the Florida panhandle. Which wouldn’t have been a problem ‘cept for they always seemed accompanied by a headwind.

What I tried to hold on to, to get me through it all, was that the bike course was a loop. If we had such hideous headwinds going out, surely we would have tailwinds going back. 

Nope. Not headwinds going back, mind you, but not tail winds either. Really just cross winds. So although they didn’t slow progress, they didn’t provide the extra push in miles 85+ that I had been hoping for during miles 1-84.

I tried to stop as little as possible.  Two porta-potty stops were necessary (which I knew was good, meant I was staying hydrated). Stopped at Special Needs. Ate half of a ham sandwich, and drank an energy drink mixture, and changed my nutrition bottle on my bike while some teenage boy held my bag open for me to get whatever I needed. Would’ve put on more chamois cream, but was afraid I might scar that young man for life, so didn’t. Then was on my way. Stopped one last time at one of the last aid stations to stretch my back because I knew I was going to make the time cut offs.

Not all of it was bad. I got LOTS of compliments about my Rosie the Riveter bike jersey. Maybe half

a dozen people recognized me because of it and shouted out that they read my blog. 

Shouted it out as they passed me, but hey, it was nice nonetheless.

Was also playing leap-frog with this one lady for about 30 miles on the bike. She was faster than me, but would stop at more aid stations so we kept going back and forth. We would talk and encourage each other every time. Finally we ended up stopped at the same aid station at the same time. I gave her my name and she laughed. She was my online friend Anne! We had been talking to each other daily for weeks, but had never met. And now we had.

Coming in the last few miles, I tried to take stock of how my body was doing.  I didn’t have any of the girlie-parts issues I had in Ironman Augusta 70.3, thank goodness. My back and neck were hurting from my 7-hour death grip on steering. 

My knees were what hurt the most. Especially my left one. (Found out later that it was actually my IT-band going from the outside of my hip down through the outside of my knee. Even now, nearly a week later, that area is still bothering me.)  I was concerned about how it would affect the run.

Finally I made it off the bike and into transition. Some nice volunteer took my bike to rack it for me, another grabbed my T2 Run gear bag and showed me the way to the changing area.

I got in the changing area and promptly started sobbing. 

I know the poor women in the room –volunteers, other racers—were concerned. One thought I was hurt and upset because I couldn’t continue the race.  All of them were very nice as I blubbered through, changing clothes and crying at the same time.

I knew why I was crying: relief to be off the bike, knowledge that I still had over 7 hours to complete the marathon and there was NO WAY that wasn’t going to happen, the stress I had carried for 112 miles finally easing back. 

I felt much better after my little sob-fest. Ready to continue. Happy to continue. I didn’t linger long in the crying or transition (about 10 minutes), there was a marathon to be run.

THE RUN

Heading out of the changing room, I realized I had forgotten my Garmin watch/computer. I ran back thinking it was in my Run gear bag, but then remembered it was still on my bike. A super nice volunteer sprinted out to my bike rack, got the Garmin, and brought it back to me. I hugged her and was off. 

Actual real smiles

There’s not so much to say about the run. It was great. Flat. Well-supported. Lots of cheering all the way through the 2-loop course. And by then the wind had either died down or we were sheltered from it, but I never felt it.

And running is what I do. 

My legs, my brain, my whole body: “Oh, you want us to run? That’s no problem.” Whereas on the bike I had to focus every second, now I could just let my body do what it knew how to do. Muscle memory.

I was very happy with my run splits. Although they weren’t fast (around 12 min/mile), they were consistent for all 26 miles (at mile 13 I stopped to get my Run Special Needs bag – changed socks, changed arm warmers [um, that were also socks with the toes cut out of them], drank an energy drink mixture, took massive amounts of Ibuprofen). 

Another huge factor in making the run so great for me was having my family there. My husband and oldest daughter and my grandparents. I got to see them four times as I ran and they cheered me on like I was some sort of hero. Made all the difference.

And I met up with my friend Anne again. We ran a few miles together until we got separated stopping to talk to family.

It all went pretty quickly. I never hit the wall (um, that’s because of how many times I’d already hit it on the bike), never felt like I needed to stop. My knees hurt, but nothing unbearable. 

As for nutrition I was using First Endurance EFS Liquid Shot, plus anything at the aid stations that seemed good at the time (chips, grapes, pretzels, coke, orange slices, warm chicken broth).  As the night wore on my choices became more questionable…a grape chased by chicken broth… but hey, whatever works.

And before I knew it, I was on the last couple of miles. I could hear the announcer proclaiming athletes as Ironmans and I knew it would be my turn soon. Invigorating.

And then I was done. I ran down the finishers chute. They called my name: Janie Crouch you are an Ironman.

At that point, after all we’d been through in that crazy wind on the bike, the lack of a swim was not even part of my thought process. The race hadn’t been what I’d been expecting, but it was the one I’d been given, and I’d finished it. 

I was an Ironman. 

(Read my final thoughts and wrap-up here)

PS - My overall stats, for what they're worth. It does help to know that I would've made it in under 17 hours, even with the swim.

Triathlon Tuesday - Ironman Florida Race Report Part 1 - The Storm Before the Storm

I'm splitting this up into two parts since it's so long. And, because what happened to me the days leading up to the race definitely affected race day itself.

Ironman Florida wasn’t the race I was expecting or hoping for, but it was the one I was given, so it was the one I raced.

Wednesday 10/29/14

The packing. The lists.

Due to life, I was rushed packing Tuesday and Wednesday morning for my Florida trip.  (Not my race day items, mind you, because I had very meticulously packed those things a few days before based on my checklists, but everything else.) Because somehow it had escaped me that I would need more than just the items I would wear/use for the race itself. Plus, the weather forecast kept changing. 

So Tuesday and Wednesday morning were pretty chaotic. Did not leave me in a very low stress level.

PCB map I made for family coming in town

I arrived at our vrbo.com rental house in Panama City Beach (about a mile from resort where all the IM hoopla was taking place) late after a 13 hour drive from Virginia on Wednesday night. I was pretty stressed about the house and what it would be like, but it was fine.  I was tired from my drive, so just dragged a few items inside and got ready for bed. I was supposed to meet people for a Gulf swim near the official swim start the next morning, so wanted to get good sleep. 

Thursday 10/30/14

Woke up 1.5 hours before the scheduled 7am swim, but somehow that STILL wasn’t enough time for me to get myself together. I was very nervous and stressed about EVERYTHING Thursday morning. The house, the race, the practice swim.

And, again, although my race stuff was meticulously packed, nothing else was. So I couldn’t find everything I needed for the swim. Heck, I couldn't find just about anything I needed for that swim. Couldn’t find my bathing suit, so I put on a tri kit for under my wet suit, then found my bathing suit so took off the tri kit and put on my bathing suit, then realized I had forgotten a swim cap from home (knowing IM would give me one for the race).  

Rushing back and forth. Finally got in the car. Remembered I had left my towel inside. Ran back to get that. The rental property already looked like a tornado had hit it.

Finally, made it out the door to drive down to the swim start (where is it? where do I park?) only to realize I had left my goggles back at the house. 

At this point I was so frustrated with myself I just blew a gasket. Seriously, threw a full-on fit. It involved me screaming at myself (inside my minivan):

I have a Ph.D., am a mom of four kids, and have written four novels in the last nine months. WHY COULD I NOT GET MY SH*T TOGETHER FOR ONE SHORT SWIM???

The last week had been so incredibly stressful: me travelling out of town for a few days, then my parents coming into town, then my husband getting big news about a relocation happening for us in January, then me getting a huge curveball thrown at me with my writing career… 

And did I mention I was about to do the hardest physical endeavor I’d ever attempted? I. Was. Freaking. Out.

And... scene.

Yeah, check out that calm water.

This hissy fit marked the turning point for me. Work-the-problem Janie showed up and punched hysterical-fit-throwing Janie in the face, and took over. And not a moment too soon. Because I could not have kept up that level of emotional intensity. Too exhausting.

From that morning, for the rest of week, up through and including the race itself, I was calm and focused.

Finally, the calm before the storm. Literally. And figuratively.

Swim ended up being great (I borrowed a swim cap and drove back to the house and grabbed my goggles). Did about 1.5 miles. Of course, if I had known that would be my only swim for the whole week, I would’ve enjoyed it more.

Spent the rest of Thursday picking up my race packet, attending the athlete briefing, and just generally hanging out. Did not either ride or run, although saw multiple people who did.

Friday 10/31/14

IM provided us a nice backpack

Spent the morning packing my bike (T1) and run (T2) bags into the official IM bags. Ironman gives you five separate bags for a race: Bike gear, Bike special needs, Run gear, Run special needs and morning clothes bag. I, being the obsessive

list-maker that I am, had a check list for each.

(As an aside, for anyone doing an IM: seriously, you need lists. The story of the swim emotional breakdown above is what happens if you don't have lists. With a race this long and this involved, there's too much to try to keep track of in your head)

Got my bike down to Transition around 1pm. It was crazy. Unlike IM Augusta 70.3, your gear was not set under your bike. The bikes were racked very close together and the bags were sent to other locations in the transition area.

3000 bikes in one parking lot.

Transition area from one of the hotel rooms

Run bags for T2 - this is why a ribbon or colorful tape on your bag is a good idea

Spent the rest of the day relaxing, having dinner with my grandparents who came down from Atlanta to see me race, and checking the weather every few minutes. 

The weather was already forecasting 20-22mph winds (with gusts up to 35 mph) and colder temps (lows in the 40s). I knew Saturday wasn’t going to be an optimal racing day. 

Finished packing my bike and run special needs bag and called it a night around 9pm. I could already hear the winds picking up but still hoped for the best. 

My hopes were not to be realized. Continued here.

Triathlon Tuesday: Closing Thoughts and Mantras

(It's Triathlon Tuesday, my chronicles of training for Ironman Florida Triathlon: a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run. Follow along by clicking on the "Journey to Ironman" Series link to the right.)

So this is it: the week before the race. I leave tomorrow to drive down to Panama City Beach. Capt Awesome will be joining me on Friday night (after, much to his delight, I've already gone to sleep so he doesn't have to deal with my night-before-a-race insanity).

IRONMAN FLORIDA IS SATURDAY.

Right now I'm doing okay. I can feel the hysteria bubbling up, but am still capable of tamping it down. I've done all my hard training, all my nutrition is figured out, most of my bags are packed.

I'm ready.

Or, if I'm not ready, there's nothing I can do about it now. Unless I can pick it up at a Walmart while driving down I-95.

There's been a lot of talk about mantras on the various Ironman groups over the last couple of weeks. After all, it's a 15 hour race with no music or headphones allowed at any time. That gives a person lots of time to think, or as you get towards the end, mutter the same thing over and over.

This is the mantra I'd like to have going through my mind as I race:

But seriously, it'll probably be more like this:

Some people put pictures of their children on the handle bars of their bike to remind them of their
precious angels waiting for them at the finish line. Well, 3/4 of my "precious angels" decided not to come to Florida because they'd have to travel on October 31 and would miss out on Halloween. Love them.

Mantras on the handle bars of my bike

Plus, considering exercise has always been my time to get AWAY from my kids, putting a picture of them on my handle bars doesn't really work for me. My eldest daughter suggested I find a way of hanging a picture of them over my shoulder: I'd ride faster if they were "chasing" me. Hmmm...


I do have three simple mantra's on my tri-bars:
1. Fight for it. (my overall motto for the whole race)
2. Till I collapse (after the Eminem song; because the only way I'm stopping is because I cross the finish line or I collapse)
3. One. Time. (I don't have to do 140 miles forever. Just once. I can do anything once.)

I'm also wearing some my mantras. My bike jersey:

 The front and back of my running shirt:

And a final RANDOM collection of thoughts:
1. When the going gets tough during the race, I want to remember to be thankful. Yes, this has all been hard. And it has consumed way too much of my time (and money). But I am able to do this because I have a husband and family who have accepted that I’m crazy support me and have worked beside me to make this happen.

2. Maybe after Saturday I’ll stop crying every time I see EVERY. SINGLE. IRONMAN. VIDEO. Really, the tears are out of control.  (This one, for example)

3. IRONMAN is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain and 100% reason to remember the name. Oh wait. No sorry, that’s a song. Not Ironman. Whatever.

4. If I vomit because of nervousness Saturday morning, it’s going to totally mess up my ridiculously planned out nutrition for the race (check out that madness here).

5. 16:59:59 is still an Ironman. All I have to do is keep moving forward.

6. At least part of the reason I do endurance races is to justify listening to Ke$ha, Ludacris and Flo Rida for hours at a time. Yeah, that's probably a sickness.

7. At some point Saturday this is really going to suck. It may be at hour one, it may be at hour fifteen. It may be hours 1-15. Learn to embrace the suck.

But most importantly: 

I will be the same person I am after this race as I am before this race, just with 140 more miles under my belt. A race does not change who I am. And ultimately, it’s infinitely less important than who I am as a mother, wife, friend, and human being.

Triathlon Tuesday: The Last Big Week

So I’m little less than three weeks out from Ironman Florida.

Shane West

I have to admit, I’ve been working most on my biking for the past few weeks. That’s my biggest weakness/fear/challenge/pain-inducer.  I named my bike Shane West (although he’s not allowed to be discussed at our house), because if you’re going to spend that much time riding something, you might as well throw a fantasy in there.

And Shane West

But yeah, the bike leg in the race is 112 miles. I do my last long ride this  Friday and I’m aiming for 110 miles.  Just so we’re clear, that will take me about 7 ½ hours. And actually, the most important thing for me now is not so much fitness as it is making sure I've got my nutrition/hydration plan down to a science on the bike. Not getting fuel will kill your race long before exhaustion overtakes you.

But before I even get to the bike, I have to survive the 2.4 mile swim. It's in the Gulf with a couple thousand of my closest strangers. 

Here's what the 2012 IMFL swim start looked like:

Now see, that picture actually gets me a little excited. I KNOW I can swim 2.5+ miles. I've done it before, multiple times, even with no wetsuit to help with buoyancy/speed. In a pool it takes me about 1hour and 22 minutes to swim the full IM distance. I'm also pretty comfortable in open water and ocean water (I was raised in South Florida, after all).

But here's what the 2013 IMFL swim start looked like (the whole video is here if you would like to revel in that madness for a bit):

Of course, I have no doubt that's what the swim start will be for me on November 1. And even without the waves, a mass start at IM is pretty much a full-contact sport. Who needs tackle football?

But, there are ways to train for taking the blows in such swimming. Such as:

Believe me, at this point in my training, Captain Awesome would be happy to hire people to beat me with sticks as I do anything ("You mean you haven't cooked/cleaned/gone grocery shopping/done laundry again because of IM training?"). That video kills me. I love it.

But this is my last week of big training before I start my 2-week taper. A lot of athletes hate the taper, but not me. I'm like: THANK GOODNESS. No more 6-8 hour workouts. No more exercising more in one week than most fit people do in a month. Or to put it a little less delicately:

(I'm sure that baby has been on a bike too and said the exact same thing. I know I have.) Fortunately, we're close enough to the race that the I can keep focused on why I'm doing this. 

But it's not easy. None of it is easy. But it's almost done.

The last big week.

Triathlon Tuesday: Ironman - There and Back (and There) Again

Me trying to get into IMFL

Eleven months ago, November 2013, I was one of the lucky (although that word should probably be in quotation marks) people who got a spot for the 2014 Ironman Florida race.  It’s one of the most popular Ironman Races and is held in Panama City Beach, Florida. The race sold out in about an hour.

I signed up because I wanted to do something HARD in 2014. Something challenging. Something I wasn’t sure I was even capable of doing and would push me outside my comfort zone.

If I had known how hard 2014 would be all on its own, how far out of my comfort zone I would be living on a daily basis, I would’ve given my lucky spot to someone else. 

Seriously, not five days after I signed up for the race that would take 10-15 hours of training each week, I got a call from Harlequin. They wanted to buy four more books from me. GREAT! But, I would need to write all four books in nine months to get them in on time.  

And then a couple of months after that, my eldest kid decided she was going to become a teenager and go bat-crazy and require 2-3 hours of my undivided attention a day for a couple of months (heaven save me from middle school girls). Thankfully that eased up after a while – she’s a good kid and just needed to find her footing – but it pretty much dominated much of my winter.

And THEN we got life-changing (the good kind) news this summer dealing with my husband’s job, about a transfer that would probably take place in late 2014. (We’re not quite ready to make an official public announcement yet, but let’s just call it “Take 2” if that gives you any hints, for those of you who know me)

So doing a race –not just a race but a 2.4 mile swim, 140 mile bike, 26.2 mile run race that takes a person like me about 15-17 hours— just because it would provide a challenge? By August, the idea was pretty absurd to me. Honestly, I’m surprised it took that long.

So I was ready to quit. It was only that I was doing the race with one of my best friends that I continued training at all. I didn’t want to let her down and quit.

M's broken arm gave me my excuse

Then she broke her arm.

I don’t want to say I was happy when I got that news and found out she wouldn’t be able to do Ironman Florida …

But I’d be lying. It was the out I needed and I was pretty quick to take it. 

I was tired. Ironman was hard. Insert Janie pitiful sad-face here.

I kept training because I had the Augusta Half Ironman coming up at the end of September. But by mid-September I pretty much told whoever cared (not many) that I had decided not to do the full Ironman. Most were relieved. Nobody tried to talk me back into doing it. 

Of course you heard all my sad story, right? My hardships and stressors. How could anyone dare try to talk me back into doing it? Insert Janie pitiful sad-face #2 here.

I was a quitter and I was okay with that. Seriously. 

Kinda.

Regardless, there was no way I was going to be able to pack my family of six up and move us to Germany in the middle of November get ready for our life-changing event and still train for the full Ironman. There just weren’t enough hours in the day.

Everybody knows where I’m going with this story by now, so I don’t know why I’m even telling it.

But anyway, I wrote last week about my quite positive experience at the Augusta Half Ironman 70.3 race on September 28. I did the whole thing in just under 7 hours. And honestly, felt pretty good afterwards. Or at least not like I was going to die.

I was pretty thankful the race was over, the training was over, that I didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Ironman, you little taunting bee-yatch.

Except that in the back of my mind I could still hear the Full Ironman taunting me. 

But what could I do? There weren’t enough hours to get everything done. Except then we got word that the big top-secret life-changing move had been pushed back to December or possibly even later.

It was the perfect storm of Full-On-Stupid temptation: I was coming off the Augusta Half-Ironman and felt like the Full Ironman was within my grasp, the real-life events that had been crowding out my training time had been removed, and there was a little over one month left (the perfect amount of time to buckle down and work hard to prepare).

Once Capt Awesome gave me his blessing (my mom was not so understanding, calling me “a bovine, clodpated, citified moron”), it was a done deal.

So I’m back in, baby! Ironman Florida – Panama City Beach, FL – November 1. 

2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run.

Full-on Stupid. The most challenging thing I've ever done.  Really, really hard.

Awesome.

Triathlon Tuesday: Half-Ironman Augusta 70.3 Race Report

Race Day: Sunday, Sept 28, 2014

Race Weather: Partly cloudy, high of 79; Water temp – 68 degrees

SHORT REPORT:

I really couldn’t have asked for a better race experience for my Half-Ironman. I don’t plan to do another race of this length, so I’m glad it was so positive. The weather was perfect. The race was exceptionally well run and organized.

SWIM: The swim is done in 28 different waves and is considered the most civilized swim start of all the IM events. I was with a group of about 50ish women my age, and although I touched a lot of people, I never got kicked or swam over. Also, you’re swimming with the current, so it’s super-fast. I completed the swim in 29:32. I used my sleeveless wetsuit and it was perfect.

My Mom & I-- immediately after race

BIKE: I am not a great cyclist and was worried most about this portion. The hills are pretty relentless on this course. None of them are very big hills, but they are consistently up and down and up and down for the first 40 miles of the bike. I soon learned to embrace my big ring and pedal hard going downhill so I had more momentum going up. I ended up averaging about 15.2 mph. My total time was 3:40:47

RUN: I knew if I made it off the bike I was going to be fine. 13.1 miles is a distance my body is familiar with. So although it wasn’t pretty, the run was about what I expected. There was so much crowd support – plus having my own parents there was such a big boost. Aid stations were every mile or so… started with water, then added pretzels and a sip of coke by Mile 9. The run wasn’t fast, but it was considering my average half marathon time is around 2:10, 2:31:53 wasn’t too shabby.

Overall time: 6:56:06

This was a great race for a newbie like me. I felt pretty good afterwards, and know if I had trained a little harder I probably could've shaved at least 15-20 minutes off my time. But all in all, I've no complaints.

FULL (EXCESSIVELY LONG) REPORT:

Trust me, you probably want to stop now. I included details that most people really don’t want to know. Read on at your own risk.

Before even starting my report, I want to say this. An ultra-distance runner friend gave me this advice a few days before the race: work the problem in front of you.  That is the absolute truth in a distance race. Don't worry about what's too far ahead, you can't do anything about that yet. Concentrate on what you can do right now. That advice was applicable for me from packing all the way to the finish line.

Packing

Seriously, packing could be a post in and of itself.  I’m pretty Type-A when it comes to organization (hahahahaha – that’s my friends laughing at my use of the word “pretty”: there’s nothing pretty about it, literally or figuratively).

I separated everything into different bags:

1) Race morning bag

2) Transition bag

3) Pre-race swim bag

4) Other clothes bag

5) Nutrition bags

I wanted to keep everything separated as much as possible. (Once you get everything into a small hotel room it can be difficult to find a particular item, or get in a hurry and forget something.) This system worked well for me overall.

I also brought my coffee maker, toaster over and a large plug-in cooler. Keeping the exact same food ritual was important for me. But yeah, it was a lot of stuff. Good thing I have a minivan.

Expo/Day before

Due to family responsibilities (I do have four kids after all) I was not able to leave for Augusta until 5am on Saturday morning from Virginia. That gave me a pretty stressful (GET OUT OF MY WAY, PEOPLE!!!) 6.5 hour drive from Virginia, but I made it by 11:45am.

Went directly to the convention center and got in the packet pickup line.  It was long, but moved pretty quickly. Lots of forms/waivers to fill out. I actually jumped out of that section to run over to the noon athlete briefing at the other side of the convention center because I didn’t want to wait until 2pm for the next one, then came back and finished the rest of the paperwork.

Athlete briefing was worth attending. Went over basic rules: No drafting! No iphones! Biggest 70.3 race in the world! Don’t drown! Etc!

The expo itself was pretty pathetic compared to almost any marathon expo, but I wasn’t there to shop, so I didn’t care. I bought two shirts from the Ironman section.

(As an aside, I’d like to make this comment: I wish Ironman would put even half the effort into designing their giveaway items as they do the items they have for sale. I felt both the race shirt and the finisher’s medal left a great deal to be desired in terms of creativity/appeal.  The free stuff doesn’t have to be as fabulous as the stuff for sale (IM is a business, after all), but for the amount of money we’re paying for the race, at least give us something a little worth showing off. End rant.)

Pre-Race Swim & the Rest of the Day

Rushed to the hotel after the expo around 1:30 (Holiday Inn Express – it was SO worth having a downtown hotel close to everything). Dumped out everything, changed into my extra tri-suit and wet suit and headed out to the Savannah River where the swim would start the next day. There were about 30-40 people in and out of the water.

As a helpful little piece of the race, the powers-that-be release extra water from the dam further upriver the day before and of the race. That gives swimmers more of a current, and a faster swim. (YAY!)

I talked to a couple of ladies who offered to give me a ride back up to the swim start if I swam all the way to transition with them (important, because I wouldn’t have any shoes and didn’t want to walk 1.2 miles back barefoot). So I did.

I’m glad I did that full practice swim. I was nervous about everything, so this was one less thing to weigh on me race day morning. Plus met some nice people.

Since my hotel was so close, after the swim (and getting a lift from my friends) I rode my bike down to transition to drop it off (about 1 mile). Forgot by race stickers, so rode back to the hotel, got them and back to transition. Jogged back to the hotel. So I did my own little mini-Tri on Saturday: 1.2mi swim, 3mi bike, 1mi run.

Went out to eat with friends (old and new). Found out one of our group had strep throat (he stayed at the hotel, but I still drank a can of Lysol to be sure).  Met up with my parents at the hotel, did one more check to make sure everything was ready in my transition backpack, then went to bed around 10pm. Of course, didn’t sleep much, but that was okay because I had slept well the night before (it’s not the night before the race, it’s the night before the night before the race that’s important for me for sleep.)

Race Morning

All my transition gear was packed in my backpack

Got up at 5am, fixed my coffee and bagel in the room. Drank my Boost. Rubbed myself down with all my various substances: deodorant, body glide, Chamois Butt’r. Got my tri-suit on. Caught a ride with friends to transition at 5:45.

At transition I borrowed a pump (there were tons around, I’m glad I didn’t bring mine) and pumped up my tires. I laid out all my items carefully under my bike. I like how IM sets up transition, every number has a sticker on the metal pipe where you hang the bikes. That way everyone gets an equal amount of space. My spot was at the end of a bracket, so I got a little extra room.

One mistake I made in my set up was putting the towel on the bottom and putting everything else on top of it. When I got out of the swim and needed to dry my feet, I would’ve had to dump everything to do that so I just put my socks on wet feet. Always lay towel on top or to the side.

Dad helping me live through the wait

Took one of the school buses back up to the swim start and hung out. One of the local churches by the swim start were offering coffee and snacks (and real flushable bathrooms) in their fellowship hall. Very nice and a great ministry. While there I ate as much of my banana and peanut butter as I could choke down.

My swim start was scheduled for 8:32. By 7:30 I was so nervous I did my crazy laugh/cry thing,
which actually helped me feel better. We left the church and headed down to the water around 7:40. Drank a Red Bull… because why not?

My dad showed up at the swim start which was a great boost! It’s so great to know you have family who are watching specifically for you.

The Swim (00:29:32)

My Dad took this from the first bridge

Tom Petty said it best: The waiting is the hardest part. I was pretty nervous standing with my age group waiting for our turn to get into the water. There was about 4 minutes between each wave (I think), so we were able to get in the water and swim around before actually starting. That helped me ease my heart rate up rather than jump it.

Once the buzzer sounded, I was off with no problem. As I mentioned above the current really works in the swimmers' favor. I had placed myself in the back of the pack, which was a mistake because I was one of the faster swimmers. But there was plenty of space and I was able to work my way around people as needed.

My sleeveless wetsuit was perfect for this water temperature. I had complete range of motion with my arms, but was still warm enough. If I had needed to, I could’ve turned over on my back and floated, but I felt fine the whole swim. Definitely could’ve kept on going.

T1 (00:07:00)

I felt good, ran up the ramp.

Wetsuit strippers - not me, but that's what I looked like

Used the wetsuit strippers. Hilarious.

I found my bike without getting lost. (With 3600 bikes, that’s easy to do). Figured out pretty quickly that I shouldn’t have put my towel on the bottom of my stuff. Didn’t want to dump what I had so painstakingly organized, so I just put my socks on over wet feet.

For Half-IMs, there are no changing tents. So most people just wear a tri-suit which has a little padding in the seat for the bike but not so much that it affects your swim or run.

Got my helmet and sunglasses on. Everything else was already packed on my bike, so I took a couple of sips of Gatorade and headed out!

The Bike (3:40:47)

The bike was what I was most scared of. I’m not a good cyclist, I don’t enjoy riding that much and honestly it’s why I’ve decided that triathlons aren’t really for me.  One of my best friends fell and broke her arm in a sprint tri, plus I’ve heard no less than 30 stories from different people over the last few months of folks who were injured or even killed in biking-related accidents.

I respect anyone who loves to cycle. Be safe, be smart. It’s just not for me.

Having said that, this bike course was less… awful than I thought it would be. As I’ve mentioned, the hills were relentless. Forty miles of them. None too hard (and I live in a flat beach city where there are zero hills), but I was trying to keep my heart rate in Z2, and doing that while going up those hills was nigh impossible. I found myself in the very easiest gear probably 6-8 times throughout the course.

But I also learned to face down my own mortality, embrace my big gear and pedal hard while going downhill. Because the faster I went down the hills, the easier it was to get back up them on the other side. When I hit a speed of 35mph a few times, I have to admit I was pretty scared.  And yet I got passed by literally 1000 people. I have no idea how fast they were going. Yikes.

I had a few problems on the bike. One was that my lower back was killing me from when I had tweaked it a couple days before lifting a case of water bottles out of a shopping cart. I spent a lot of time trying to stretch it out while clipped in. Also, I was having some seriously girl-area problems with my seat. I have no idea what that was about because it hadn’t happen before, but that was BAD NEWS. I’m pretty sure I had a bruised va-jayjay by the time it was all over. (I warned you to stop reading. :-)

Mixing my nutrition at home - Mad Science!

Nutrition on the bike went pretty well. I had a concentrated bottle of Hammer Perpetuem (5 scoops for an estimated four hours). I took a sip of that every 15 minutes and made it through about ¾. I also had two Stinger Waffles broken in half. Ate one of those about every 45 minutes.  Overall, throughout the entire race I was happy with my nutrition. Definitely something I had practiced and knew what I needed.

Also tried to take a Hammer Electrolyte and Hammer Race Supreme caps every 30 minutes, but  dropped the container about half way into the ride. Oooops.

I spent the last 10 miles trying to force myself to pee on the bike (all the really fast people do it!) but just couldn’t manage it.

All and all, considering I did 90% of my bike training on the trainer I was pretty happy with my ride. Didn’t get off the bike at all during the ride, which I think was important. I just stayed to the right and let everyone pass me. And didn't crash or get a flat tire. Whew!

Transition 2 (00:06:54)

My legs weren’t too wobbly coming off the bike, surprisingly. I pulled on shorts and a tank over my tri-suit (because seriously, I’m not running for 13 miles in a skintight suit). Grabbed my running cap and was gone. Had to stop at the porta potty, which added a couple of minutes, but I was still pretty happy with my transition time.

The Run (2:31:53)

Mom loved all the sweat. :)

Look, I’m not fast on any given day. After having swam and run, I was definitely not fast.  But I knew once I made it off the bike that I would finish the race, so that was a big relief. My body knows how to run. It’s familiar territory. My mind knows what to do and what nutrition I need.

I kept two packs of Cliff Shot Bloks in my running belt and used almost all of those.  I took water at most aid stations until about Mile 9 then I started taking a few bites of chips/pretzels and sips of coke. I also took an Electrolyte and Race Supreme capsule every 30 minutes.

The course is multiple loops up and down the same roads, so I was able to see my parents multiple times. It was such a great boost! (And knowing somebody is watching you helps you run faster!) Rarely do I have anybody at my races, so that was a real thrill.

The Finish

The last mile I was really struggling. I finally just started running for 20 seconds and walking for 10 seconds. At that point it was all I could seem to manage. I was about a half-mile from the finish line and feeling pretty weak when this totally random awesome stranger lady (who had already finished) came along side me and said:

Run this last half mile as hard as you can and I promise you’ll never regret it.

It was like magic. So I took off, not anywhere near sprinting, but at least not walking anymore and ran the rest of the way in. And I’m sure she was right, I’ll never regret finishing strong.

(Want to do something great for your favorite IM athlete? Record them coming 

over the finish line from home! [my friend used her phone and recorded her

computer] Believe me, athletes don't care about the quality of the video. Your

recording will be the only one they get. IM doesn't provide that)

Closing Thoughts

Although Ironman Augusta 70.3 was a good experience, I don’t expect I’ll race another 70.3. I liked conquering the distance, but don’t feel any urge to try to beat my time in another race.

But a Full Iron 140.6… that still lingers in my mind. Because of stuff going on in our lives I was planning to back out of IMFL 2014. But now I'm thinking: four more weeks of training. Just do it. Train this last month as hard as you can and I promise you’ll never regret it.

This was my mantra for the whole day and I still hold to it: