Ironman

So it’s been almost three weeks since I did the ironman and I just figured I’d give a run down on the race and the amazing weekend I had, before I forget the details. Well to start, I am the luckiest girl in the world have the family, boyfriend, and friends I do. They were all so supportive of me and I’m so blessed to have such a great group of people in my life.
As most know, or could guess, I was so frickin’ nervous about the ironman….would I finish, would I make all the cut offs, would I fuel myself properly, etc… Oh and I also had a very strange fear of actually dying doing this thing…I don’t know, with all these young people that I know recently dying of heart attacks, I was freaked. Really, I just think I was worrying about anything there could be to worry about.

At any rate, we got into Florida on Thursday around 5pm and my parents were at the airport to pick Ryan and me up. I hadn’t seen them since Labor Day so it was nice to have them greet us right off the plane. After arriving at my parent’s house in the Villages we went for dinner with my brother and his wife, Nadine, who had been down in Florida since Tuesday. Dinner was great but this is when I started getting nervous. My brother, Shane, was also doing the race but he was doing the half ironman. Well he must have been excited because that’s all he talked about! Talking about all the training and races was starting to make me really nervous, but I kept trying to push it out of my head.

That night I slept on the couch and didn’t sleep that well and actually made Ryan switch with me (he had the air mattress, I had the couch) in the middle of the night…what a nice boy! Friday was a just a series of stops to get those last minute details done, including packet pick up, putting my bike back together after it had been the bike box, etc... Surprisingly, going to the race site for packet pickup made me feel a lot calmer and more relaxed about the race; the water looked calm (dramatic irony here) and the transition was set up. A side note on this race, the IM was held at the same location as my very first triathlon, the Great Clermont triathlon, which was an Olympic distance. Actually, some parts of the course were the same as the Great Clermont tri. After I had racked my bike (which you had to do the night before) and finished some last minute details we decided to head back to the house for some food.

After some pasta and good conversation with the family I headed bed, fully expecting not to be able to fall asleep and boy was I right. The race just kept popping in my head fueling my nerves and impeding my ability to sleep. However, alas, I was able to sleep for about 3 hours, not a lot but enough.

I got up at 4:30am with a brick in my stomach and nerves that made me insane. Around 5 am we headed to the race start…which was 45 minutes away. Upon arrival at the race site I finished setting in place my transition stuff, readying my bike, and special needs bag. Of course I also had to do my last minute “duty” that all triathletes and runners hope for before a race. As I got into line for the potties Ryan told me to hurry up as the race was to start in 15 mins…yea about 13 mins later I was out of the bathroom….damn girls and their really long bathroom lines! At this point I started freaking out….I didn’t have my wet suite on and people were lining up at the start! I rushed to get my wet suite on with Ryan’s help and a few curse words and literally ran to the start as the gun was going off. I guess looking back it was a good thing I didn’t stand at the starting line waiting/ panicking about the impending start of the swim, where it is inevitable to be pummeled by other triathletes.

Well into the swim I went. The swim is notoriously the portion that I like the least and the conditions didn’t make this any better. The previous day’s calm water had turned into a very choppy mess. The waves in the lake were hard to swim against and continually pushed me off course…I bet you that in the end I did about a 2.6 mile swim instead of a 2.4 mile swim just due to the choppiness of the lake. Although , I felt absolutely fine in the swim and wasn’t tired in the least when I came out in an hour and thirty six minutes….absolutely horrible swim but eh, what did I care, I was just glad to be done with the swim.

My transition wasn’t too bad but I wasn’t in any rush to get onto the bike. Throughout this whole race I wasn’t too concerned with my time, I just wanted to finish. So onto the 112 mile bike I went. I’m not a terribly good cyclist and that’s mainly due to laziness and not pushing it on the bike, thus this was the portion of the race I was most worried about. During training I had only done one century and maybe two rides that were over 60 miles….ya see, laziness. Obviously I had a good reason to worry about finishing the 112 miles…but I kept that thought out of mind and just kept pedaling. The first 40 miles of the bike course was uphill and not just rolling little hills but pretty decent climbs, although I just kept saying to myself “each pedal stroke the closer I am to the finish”. Around mile 50 I started getting pretty lonely and thus my mental status declined. There were only 300 people doing this race, thus there was a lot of time I spent alone without a person in sight. I knew that around mile 60 I would be arriving at the special needs station for some food and more importantly Ryan would be there waiting to cheer me on. I have never had such a boost in energy and moral in a race as I did when I saw Ryan. I was just overjoyed to see him and with a little encouragement I was ready to keep pedaling and finish the bike. After seeing Ryan my pace increased dramatically from about 14.5 mph for the first half of the bike (keep in mind a lot of challenging hills though) to about 17 mph for the second half, I started passing person after person and each time I passed someone I was that much more charged to finish the bike strong…and that I did. I finished the bike in about seven and half hours, maintaining that 17mph and the best part was my legs didn’t even seem tired. At this point I was just SO happy to be off the bike and happy that all I had left was the marathon.

My second transition was really slow, as I talked to my family and ate a little bit of a smashed PB & J, but soon enough I started the run.

The run was three 8.5 mile loops that were pretty flat for the most part and there were aid stations every mile. For the first 3 miles of the run I felt fine, I started out conservatively and hoped to pick up my pace later on, which was in the end a good plan. However, around mile three I didn’t really feel that great and slowed my pace down drastically…I did the first 8.5 miles in an hour and twenty five minutes…an awful time. Right around the end of the first lap I saw Ryan again and expressed, not so nicely, my discomfort and desire to kill myself. Ryan was great! He comforted me and told me I would be fine and just to keep going.

Well damn, did I go. Somehow from somewhere my legs decided that they wanted to run and run fast! For the second and most of the third loop I average about a 9 min per mile pace. This was crazy fast within consideration of the 112 mile bike ride I just had. I just kept pushing myself mile after mile hoping that my luck with my legs wouldn’t run out, but of course it did. As all marathon runners experience and loathe I hit “the wall” around mile 22. My legs decided they were done for the day and they forced me to walk. I only walked for about 10 mins when I realized that my legs might be done but my heart and desire to finish were not. I pushed myself as hard as I could (13 min miles hahaha) for the remaining four miles and finished, what I considered, strong. Crossing the finish line was the best feeling I’ve ever had. I actually started to cry but my lungs weren’t up for that so I started to hyperventilate instead. Haha! Although that didn’t last long, as soon as I saw my family at the finish a sense of calm and pride came over me and all I could think was “I’m done, no more long workouts” haha.

I finished in 14hrs and 23 mins….what I considered a respectable time for my first IM. I was very happy with my race and my time. The day after the race I was quite sore and surprisingly, depressed. All this hard work for one day’s glory and it was just done, no more working out, no more eating like a pig, no more having nightmares about the race…it was done. Apparently this is a very common feeling among IM finishers…I’m still a little depressed that it’s all over but I’m SO excited to do this kind of race again!

The next IM on my list is IM WI in September 2009. I’m even more excited about this one, as Ryan and I will be doing it together. But until training starts for that I’m going to be running my ass off and enjoying what I truly love. Perhaps a few marathons in the coming months….I wonder if they’ll seem easier now that I’ve done an IM :)

Thank you so much Ryan and fam for your support! <3