140.6

What an experience! The days leading up to the race were a mix of chaos, relaxing, and lots of waiting in line. With well over 2300 athletes preparing to compete at the Ironman on Sunday, there was a lot of energy in Tempe.

I won't bore you with the pre-race details so here is how the actual race went:

swim: I was told to start at the front because I'm a strong swimmer and by starting in the front, I wouldn't have to fight my way through people to pass them. However, I could see all of the men lining up at the front (they wore different colored caps than the women) and that made me nervous since they can be stupidly aggressive. I overheard one guy behind me say he was also told to start at the front because he is a fast swimmer but that he did that last year and STILL got swum over! That pretty much sealed the decision for me. A lot of people also start out way too fast, even though this is not a short distance (2.4 miles). They can't sustain that pace for more than 50 meters and in their excitement and madness, they swim over people.  Happens every time!

I started out in the middle when the gun went off and wasted some time fighting people to pass them as expected. At least I didn't get swum over though! There seemed to be no shortage of bodies and hands grabbing at me. It didn't clear up until almost the turn around buoy. I was feeling that my pacing was okay, but was looking for someone to draft off of. A woman swimmer passed me, and she looked like a good candidate so I stuck to her for a while. It was going pretty well and I could tell we were moving quickly until some kayaks signaled that we were off course and needed to turn right! Oops. I dropped her after that, wanting to navigate on my own. There wasn't much of the course left and I swam into the finish stairs easily. My swim time was just over an hour, which is okay, but I think I could have done just a little better. :)

bike: I started relatively easy since I knew it was going to be a long day. I felt fine the first hour, but shortly after started to have bad stomach cramps. I hadn't felt anything like this before and couldn't figure out how to make them go away. I finally ended up stopping at an aid station to stop cycling and see if they would stop. They didn't. Was my HR too high? I stayed there for almost 10 minutes (my HR definitely dropped by then) but they were still there. I had some food and decided to try spinning easy. I cycled slowly and started getting panicky because I didn't think I could finish 70+ miles feeling like this. I didn't want to pull out at mile 30-something but was feeling that this might be a possibility.

Thankfully, the cramps did eventually go away, but very slowly, and after mile 50! I felt okay for a while, but the cramps came back two more times later, although to a lesser degree. I have a feeling this had to do with my fueling plan (probably not enough calories).

The weather wasn't helpful either. Wind and rain made the conditions tough. But even though this made it harder, I preferred this over blazing heat. By the third loop, I was ready for the bike leg to be over. By then, I was finally feeling okay, which showed in my time, since my last bike loop was the fastest. My final bike leg time was probably 30 minutes longer than it should have been, which I am not pleased about. However, I didn't have to pull out and am glad my stomach finally cooperated!

run: I took my time in T2 to get ready for the run. I started the run off steady but felt surprisingly good! I felt fresh on the first half of the run, and kept having to tell myself to slow down, since I knew I had a long way to go.

I didn't have any "goal run time" in mind, but I did want to see if I could run the entire thing, no matter how slowly. I felt like I was doing well after the first 2 laps (~16 miles), and thought if I could feel as good as I was feeling on those first 2 laps, I'd be doing great! I thought about how the longest run I'd ever done in my life was 14 miles and that I was going to run 12 more than that. It seemed overwhelming so I pushed those thoughts away and just concentrated on getting to the next mile marker.

Around mile 17, the pounding really started to get to me. Most of the course is on concrete and my feet really started to HURT. It was weird because I didn't feel aerobically tired, but my feet really hurt! At one point, I thought I had a rock in my shoe, so I stopped to check my shoe for the rock. I couldn't find one, and accidentally touched my foot and found it must have been a blister. Ouch. I walked a little after that, which was also painful, and now my pace was a very sloooow walking pace. I decided it was going to hurt walking or running so I might as well run and get my pain over with.

Those last 6 miles were tough. I looked at my watch and was motivated that if I kept running, I could finish in less than 14 hours. That seemed like something to shoot for and gave me focus. It looked like I was going to make it once I reached mile 25, even though by this point, I was "running" super slowly! I finally reached the long finish chute and I saw my coach and other friends cheering me on. That was really awesome! My final run time was a little over 5 hours, which I'm happy about because I was able to run mostly the whole thing -- with the exception of walking though the aid stations and when I thought had blisters.

There was no better feeling than crossing that finish line and hearing, "You are an IRONMAN!" I was quite emotional afterward. I did it!

I trained for this, I'm ready

My good friend and coach says you need a mantra to get you through race day. I did the 98% -- I'm ready. I don't have any specific goal time in mind. I didn't want that pressure. I want to finish, and finish feeling as good as one can feel doing an Ironman.

We leave for Arizona today. Bring it!

You know you're training for Ironman when ...

... your kitchen counter looks like this:

 ... your snack foods resemble this:

... and you look like this every Sunday afternoon!

2 more weeks!

That Crazy Girl on the Treadmill

That would be me. This morning. 5 am. Did you see me there? I was the one running non-stop. People came by and joined in, doing their walk/run, but then they left. Rounds of people came. And they looked over at me. With the water bottles, discarded gels, and drenched towel. Step, step, step... focus, focus, focus.

TWO HOURS. Two hours!!! The treadmill doesn't even allow you to go that long. The LED display only has enough digits for 99 minutes so at that point, it turned off and I had to reset it to start again.

I felt surprisingly good. There might be something to this theory that eating more during training will help you perform better. I managed to get down 2 gels and 1 bottle of the Powerbar drink. It started tasting nauseatingly sweet near the end and I had to chase it with some water afterward though. My fellow triathlete friend D (who is very fast BTW) says she would have tried to get down 3 gels, but this was pretty good for me.

I could barely walk after I was done. Just think, by this point in the race, I'd already have swam 2.4 miles and biked 112 miles. And I'd STILL have to run 13 more miles! YIKES.

Practicing race fueling

I haven't been ETL-ing as well as I would like. About a month ago, I had a discussion with my triathlon coach and some of the others in group also doing IM next month. The coach stressed the importance of fueling properly. He said that the more we eat while we race, the better we'll do. He gave us a formula to calculate how many calories to try to get per hour during the race. It worked out to about 200 calories/hour for me. 200 calories! That seems like a lot. I barely get 200 calories in 1.5-2 hours of training. I've always had stomach sensitivty and distress during races too (which rarely happens in training) so I'm a little worried about trying to eat so much in such a short period of time plus with stuff I'm not used to.

The coach also told us not to rely on our "special needs" bag since anything could happen and there is a possibility we won't have access to it. So although this doesn't jive with ETL, I've decided to try training with the stuff that will be used on the course - namely, Powerbar products. This way, I won't have to rely on my special needs bag and won't have to carry a bunch of special items with me. I can just grab what is at the aid stations because that is what will be there.

I purchased a few boxes of Powerbar gels and the powdered drink they'll have available. I refuse to do the bars because (1) I don't do solids well while racing and (2) they contain HFCS.

I hope my body tolerates this junk.

I want my girlfriend back.

Those words were uttered last week by the Boy as I dashed off to yet another early morning training session. I received a new schedule from my coach and now comes the loooooooooong stuff. This weekend I will do my first 5 hour training ride followed by a run, and then on Sunday, an hour swim followed by a 2 hour strength interval bike ride. Tomorrow morning is my first "long-ish" 2 hour run. This is after we ran hard today at the group track workout.

But as my friend K told me today,

Suffer now, suffer LESS later.

So true. :) We are both doing IM AZ next month and she has been a real inspiration to me. She coaches beginner triathletes and this is her first Ironman as well. We've been running a lot together, which has been good for me. I'm the "slow" one in the group and usually never have anyone to run with. So I'm stuck most times by myself which is hardly any fun or motivating. She joined the group specifically for IM training back in July and is just about the same speed as I am in running.

During today's run, she said it was too bad she wasn't a faster swimmer or we could try to race with each other the entire time. How great would it be to have someone to run with during the most grueling part -- the marathon -- at the end? Who knows, I think she'll catch me on the bike so maybe there is a chance...

I thought I would have more free time now that my class ended but it looks like I will spending most of it exercising.