Ironman, I finished 🙂

I have struggled a bit with talking, and writing this blog post, because at the end of the day, I felt so happy and alive. After a 13hr day it was kind of an unexpected feeling. So, I struggled with it, but I just can’t keep a smile off my face when talking about the race. Thus far, I have had three long races (Galveston, Lake Stevens, and Whistler), and while they have had some down moments, most were crazy awesome caffeine, and endorphin induced wonderful dreams.  Thanks to all my teammates for the long training swims, rides, and runs, and Mark for getting me ready, and my parents for cheering along their crazy (in their eyes) daughter, and Guido for getting me started in triathlon and putting up with me in all of my post-race pathetic glory. 😀

Details:
The taper weeks leading up to Whistler was an interesting period of wondering if I was going to finish, and listening to Guido and Mark tell me I was ready.  After watching Guido prepare for several Ironmen events, I was intrigued to see how I would handle things.  The Wednesday, a week before the race, I got sick and spent the afternoon home napping. But thank goodness I felt better by Friday. Then the Wednesday before the race Guido and I had a crazy race-tension induced argument.   So… things seemed to be progressing normally before the race, and I continued to ponder Ironman Whistler. One highlight of that week was that my parents had spontaneously decided to fly up to Whistler and cheer, so that had me smiling and determined to finish! 🙂

During my race plan chat with Mark, it was reassuring to hear the pacing, and plan for Whistler. Slow and steady at swim start to avoid getting beaten up by 2100 people at the mass swim start. Ok by me, since everyone says ‘mass swim start = no fun’. Mid to high Z2 watts pacing on the bike, which is slower then the Z3 pacing strategy of 70.3 Lake Stevens. Z2 heart rate on the run, and no running faster. Since I was worried about running my first marathon ever, that sounded just fine. Finally Mark mentioned to focus carefully on nutrition during the race, and to not get behind during this very long day!

Race morning dawned dark and early at 3:30am for race breakfast of applesauce, bananas and perform. Everything tastes so delicious at 3:30am. gag. Pull on several extra layers, and head over to the bus for T1. Our bus driver got lost on the way to T1, so we joked this was the bad thing #1 for the race. (Mark believes that 2-3 things go wrong in every IM) Transition was surprisingly calm. I got everything taped to my bike, stood in line for the restrooms, and soon enough it was time for the wetsuit. Teresa and Alexa were guarding the swim start for last minute ‘good luck’s and were cheerful smiling faces, and hugs!

The swim start area was full of people, ~2100 ironmen in wetsuits makes for a ton of pre-race energy. I floated out towards the rear, and starred at the sky and just tried to breath.
BOOM!
Go?
1 … 2… 3… wait 30 seconds per race plan, and dive right in.
The plan definitely worked well, I had to swim around quite a few slower swimmers the first 300m, but things smoothed out after that. The swim was great, I felt great, made progress, and had plenty of lake all to myself. Probably because I swam quite far to the outer edge of the loop. Smooth and steady, stroke, breathe, sight. It’s nice to like swimming as a triathlete. Quicker then I would have thought possible (compared to a 2.4mile pool swim), I was hauling myself out of the water, and getting stuck in my wetsuit.
Swim time: 1:12:24

Through the changing tents, and now time to get started on the bike. Where, unfortunately, things started to go badly. My stomach felt like it had a brick solidly lodged in the middle of it. I haven’t had much experience with stomach issues during training and races, since I typically have a delightfully solid stomach. Unfortunately, that means I struggled with purely theoretically knowledge of dealing with it. Initially, I wasn’t sure what to do, hoped it would settle after a bit on the bike, and started fueling. I heard the cheers as I crossed Lorimer Dr., but didn’t see the TN cheer squads. During the climb to Callaghan, I focused on nutrition, and carefully downshifting for hills. There were lots of bikers shooting past, so I tried to stay right. I did love my nice big gears on all the hills, and just tried stay steady. My stomach issues remained the same however, and so I pulled over for a restroom break on the way down Callaghan. I had been successfully following my nutrition plan, and didn’t have many clues as to what was going wrong with my stomach.

Going back through Lorimer Dr. the second time, I still didn’t see the cheer crew, though again I heard them. By now I had been suffering for 2:30 hours on the bike, so missing my cheer crew again had me crying a bit as I headed out for the long trek to Pemberton.  The down hills to Pemberton had me focusing on learning how to pee while biking. 🙂  I failed miserably, which was good for the state of my bike, but bad for my stomach troubles, which were slowly getting worse. I really noticed my stomach troubles in the flats out at the end of Pemberton. I really couldn’t go down in aero-position, because the brick in my stomach was just sharp and pointy.  During the flats, I got to the lowest point mentally, and physically of the race. I dreamed of quitting. But decided to try to finish the bike portion. I decided to stop most nutrition, since it hadn’t seemed to be helping, and I thought maybe I was over fueled.  I also didn’t want to eat or drink anymore of it anyway.  I put my head down, tried to zone out, and just focus on slowly pedaling back to town.

I stopped for another restroom break at the end of Pemberton, and when getting back on the bike noticed my stomach was feeling better (roughly 6:00 bike time). I tested it out during the grueling hills back to Whistler, and was feeling loads better. I finally felt like eating, so I picked up nutrition again, and followed the plan for the rest of the ride. I was definitely glad to have been training camp, and ridden the bike course, because the hills are brutal. But having done them once in the heat and wind of July, I felt I could finish them today. I got to the edge of Whistler and started crying since I was so happy to be finishing the bike. I hiccupped, cried, and smiled through the remaining 5 kilometers of the bike, and finally saw my cheer crew of mom and dad right outside of T2!
Bike time: 7:19:44

I started out the run a bit iffy wondering how my stomach might handle the transition. However, it seemed to be doing just fine! The run has quite a few turns and twists, and some nice pieces through the trails. At previous races I have loved interacting with the crowds, spectators, and cheer teams, and this run was luckily no different. I smile, I wave, I high five, and its great to see people smiling, cheering, and high-fiving back! Somewhere along the way, I got to see Guido heading back towards the finish line. During the long out, and back at the top of Green Lake, I got to see some teammates, which is also fun! Before too long, I was passing by T2 again to start lap2. I didn’t see my cheer squad then, but this time around I was just happy assuming they were hanging out with Guido at the finish line. I saw the TNM crew out on the hill again, and high-fived for one last time. I saw the mile 16 marker and just was thinking, this is now the longest run I have ever done. I just focused on smiling, and keeping my running form loose, and controlled for each step. I was walking a couple of the aid stations, but I noticed that starting to run again after walking for even just 30 seconds is painful. Running felt ok, but starting run was awful. So I tried to just keep running at that point.

A good 3 miles out from the finish, I could start to hear the finisher crowds, music, and the announcer repeating over and over “You are an Ironman!!” It was great motivation and I definitely wanted to finish.  Several turns, a run around a parking lot, a brief jog through town, and I had reached the finishers chute! I ran down to the end, and crossed under the finishers arch, and couldn’t have been happier! Guido was there, having snuck back in, and he enthusiastically congratulated one very excited, and totally hyped up Ironman Whistler finisher 🙂

Run time: 4:35:24
Overall time: 13:19:08
Category place: 20th

Result Website – Bib #368