That time I did a Half Ironman

Yesterday was... quite an experience.
I was nervous beyond belief starting the Harvest Moon Long Course triathlon. I don't think I've ever had SUCH a good warm-up beforehand.

I did all my drills, strides and easy jogging, set up a beautiful transition area, got in a short 3 mile bike warm up, then wriggled into my wetsuit JUST in time to get out to the first 150m buoy and back. The water was cold - definitely a wetsuit race, but probably thankfully so. If only the air temp wasn't 60 degrees. During the pre-race "meeting," I chugged my gatorade in preparation.

Somewhere, I am out there.

The first half of the swim felt FAST. I was the first wave to go out, and I hung out with lots of people in my wave. For the first time ever I was actually near feet for the whole swim! Once we turned around there were more people in the water and because it was an out-and-back you could feel the choppiness from the people going in the other direction and the people around you. The nice thing was, on the way out, the sun was in your eyes, so sighting the buoys was sometimes difficult. On the way back, from the second buoy after the turn around, you could sight the finish line. I was feeling pretty great, so I hauled it in, all the while sighting the big red finish arch.

My swim went great. My goal was 45 minutes, and I came through off the transition run at 45:28! That means I kept something like a 2:03-05/100y which I'm really happy with since that is what I have been keeping for olympics. I felt really relaxed and thoroughly enjoyed the swim, wetsuit and all.

Killing it out of the water.

On to the bike I felt good. Despite some nasty hills on the first part of the course, I completed 19 miles in the first hour. When I hit 24.8 (the olympic distance) I was at 77 minutes which would be about 4-7 minutes longer than I'd like during an olympic, but in the middle of the half ironman distance... I was pretty happy with that. At 28 miles, the half way point, I had been biking for 1:27 and felt pretty great. Pretty soon thereafter I was slightly distracted by the small tornado in the middle of someone's farm at mile 29.. about a good quarter mile away from me. Maybe I'm just a naïve girl from Jersey, but I swear... tornado. Then I came around a corner and WHAM headwind into climbs. I hate headwind. Someone once asked me why I hate headwind so much more than hills and the answer is simple: you know when the hill ends. You can see the top of a climb and think "I just have to get to there, and then... what goes up, must come down!" I used every trick in my book - coming up to a wheel and sitting on it for a few seconds before passing within the 15 second allowance, tucking in to be small and aero. I got through it, and still managed a cool 17.2 miles during my second hour, rounding out an 18.1 mph average. Though it wasn't as good as my half-way average, it still wasn't bad.

I made the final turn and things got rough. The last 15 or so miles are pretty much entirely low grade climbs, except for 3 small descents. Around mile 45 I felt my abs starting to cramp like they did the first time I did collegiate nationals. "Oh no.. no, no, no. It's gonna be ok," I thought and started chugging water and gatorade. The cramps got bad. It hurt to pedal and yes, my legs hurt, but mostly the pedaling made my abs cramp more. I had to employ "pedal, pedal, coast" uphill for about 11 miles.

look at all the bikes! 

Into T2 things were bad. I was so happy to get off the bike AND that I had stocked emergency water and gatorade at the back of my transition towel. I chugged some water and, much like nationals 2011, walked out of transition holding my sides. I spent the first 20 minutes of the run traveling .6 miles. 2-3 times I stopped, doubled over, because it was the only thing that made the cramps go away. I knew mile 2 was an aid stop, and if I made it there and simply couldn't go any further, I could get someone to carry me in and DNF. I really REALLY didn't want to DNF. I worked so hard for this to be my season ender. So many weeks of 11-13 hrs of training, just to be carted off because I made some stupid hydration mistake.

But then, I think the extra water I had been working so hard to get in finally hit and the cramps were gone. I started walking at a quick pace and felt ok. I made it to the mile 1 water stop where I met Jen. She was just a touch faster than I am and had the plan to "run 10 min, walk 1 min." I concluded it was destiny. For the first 5 miles, Jen and I ran and walked together. She'd always get a bit ahead and I'd hold on to her in my sight. Every time we ran I was keeping 9:45 pace which is great for me out here because I've been thoroughly struggling with the altitude and hills. After the mile 5 water stop (which was more like 5.3 miles), I lost her because I kept going. We had had a few conversations about racing your own race and both agreed to it.

Hitting the turn around my watch read 6.83 miles and I thought "Oh god, please don't let the run course be long. Please."

Soon enough Jen and I found each other. She was red in the face and looked tired. We took ice at every water stop and stuffed it down our shirts. For the second half I became the motivator saying "let's run to this mileage, tree/sign, water stop, just the down hill." I lost her again around mile 10 when she held up at a water stop and a 60-something year-old man pleaded I "jog him in." I jogged with him for a while but his 12 min/mile pace was more difficult than walking or running - it was more... bouncing. I started walking and wished him luck. Jen found me again just after 11.5 miles. She wasn't too far behind. We continued our walking/talking/running routine and hit 13.1 miles a long way away from the finish line - that was frustrating. As we came to about .2 away from the finish line we agreed to run it in, but her foot cramped and she yelled to me to keep going. I felt pretty good so I did leave her behind to race her own race. The run course ended up being 13.53 miles, which is .43 longer than I've ever run in my life.  Grrr.

In the end, it took entirely too long. Playing with some triathlon calculators, I think I can take an entire hour off my finish time - even a good 40 minutes off that course if you asked me to do it next month. Hydration really killed me and then fear of the cramps returning in the run. I still ended up finishing 3rd in my age group, with the 3rd fastest swim, 2nd fastest bike and 5th fastest run (yeah.. it was a bad run). I got a neat plaque to add to my plaque collection :) The girl who finished 4th just a minute or so behind me was an NU 2010 alumna, which is pretty cool. She ran cross country at NU and now I want to train with her! I also found Jen at the end and we hugged and I was glad to see she was feeling better.

Go 'Cats!

"Um, excuse me, I placed third."

See. Told ya.

Yay! Done! Poppop!