The sea was angry that day, my friends…
If you’ve read any of the previous posts, you’re likely
familiar with my trepidation going into this race. I was feeling underprepared related to
illness and injury, and just flat-out scared about the swim. I was ready to go the night before, and
amazingly, I had not forgotten ANYTHING!!!
We went to bed early-ish, and thankfully, the Best People in the World (BPW, a.k.a., dear friends B and R)
offered to wake and bring the kids so Will could take me to the race
early. I awoke at 1am and had trouble
getting back to sleep. Will said he woke
up at 3 am, and I was sleeping, so I guess I did go back to sleep…
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| Kids ready to roll!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
The alarm went off at 4-ish, and I started feeling
nervous. I am the type of person who gets
sick on the first snowboarding trip of the season, even though I’ve been
snowboarding for 15 years, so you can imagine the type of sick this race was
eliciting. Luckily, I had packed
Immodium. Unfortunately, it takes a
while to kick in. Eventually, we packed
up and headed out.
This race had two separate transition areas, and we were
allowed to drop our running gear at T2 on Friday afternoon, which I opted to
do. After dropping my stuff, we went to
IM Village and our kids and the BPW’s kiddo raced in the Ironkids’ 1 mile
run. Very fun!
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| Number 1 finishes! |
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| Number 1 finishes, too! |
Got to T1 safely and learned that I was on a rack with
all the other 40-44 women! Everyone was
very nice, very helpful, zipping, answering questions, etc. It was a nice distraction, and I was feeling
a little better. Will made it over, and
I actually felt like I was ready…for a few minutes. I did overhear a very large woman say, “I’m
expecting to finish the swim in 50 minutes…so embarrassing.” I felt like I would be excited to finish in
50 minutes, but whatever.
Swim:
Wave start! Prior
to queuing up with our wave, I watched the pros start and saw something black
in the water. I should mention at this
point that I saw Jaws when I was 7 years old.
For years, I had troubles with open water, including fresh water, for
fear that something would bite me. So,
to see something black in the water I would soon be swimming in was a little
unnerving. It turns out it was a
seal! How cool is that? I did not see any seals while swimming, but
Will said they were there with us! I
lined up just in time to see Andy Potts and the other pros run by us out of the
swim. We made our way to the boat ramp,
and I felt the water…58 degrees was chilly!
And I had left my neoprene cap and booties in the hotel room…boo! They announced our wave and we all got
in. My breath was promptly knocked out
of me. I tried to put my face under, let
the cold water into my wetsuit, put my face under again, but I started to feel
that same sort of shallow, tight breathing and panicky feeling I had
experienced at Lake Powell in October. I
laid on my back, tried to relax. I was
on the outside and toward the back, FREAKING OUT! How am I going to make 1.2 miles of this?!?!?! The saltwater was another obstacle…yuck. Gun goes off, women swimming. There was some water commotion, but I was at
the very back, so it wasn’t too bad. I
just could not get my face under water without difficulties breathing. I swam breast stroke with my head above water
for probably 5-10 minutes. I know a
couple of other age groups passed me. At
one point, I looked behind me and saw a few other women with pink caps struggling
too. Finally, I could put my face under,
but try as I might, freestyle wasn’t happening.
Is that water in my goggles? Am I
taking in too much saltwater? Why can’t
I just swim straight? Why can’t I
breathe? More age groupers passed me
while I continued to breaststroke.
Breathing was labored. A man
grabbed my leg. I kicked someone in the
face. I stopped at a paddleboard. The
lifeguard was sooooo nice. “Grab on, you
can hang out as long as you like.” I
hung out about a minute and forced myself to press on. Another buoy, another buoy. Stop and rest. Another buoy, another buoy. Little by little, I made it to where the
breakers ended and the swells began.
Wow. I thought I would be more
scared, but really I was just worried about being taken off course, swept away. I’m pretty sure the swells were 4-6
feet. There was a storm surge moving in,
expected to crest on Sunday afternoon.
The interesting thing was, the swells came from various directions, as
they moved in off of the ocean and hit the breakers all around us. Rounded the corner marked by red buoys, then
on to the orange buoys marking the second half.
My neck and shoulders began to hurt, and once I was out of the swells, I
decided to try freestyle again. It felt
pretty relaxed and easy, but I zigzagged a little, so I mixed it up with
breaststroke.
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| Geek in a sausage suit |
Eventually, I heard
someone yelling my name and looked up to see my beloved and my beautiful
kids. It was exactly what I needed. I got out of the water in 1:14, totally
disappointed, as I had expected to finish in 55 or so. 20 minutes behind…ugh. All the bikes on my rack gone. Ugh. I
am going to be last, again. Ugh. Wait a minute, my goal was to finish,
right? And I finished the swim,
right? And I made it with minutes and
minutes to spare, right? Pull your head
out of your butt and get moving!!!
I’d like to take this opportunity to comment on how amazing
the volunteers were. Helping with my
wetsuit, fixing my sleeve, packing my stuff up, offering encouragement. I am so appreciative!
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| Bike out |
Bike:
I got on the bike, encouraged by the cheering of Will and
the kids and the BPW, and I’m thinking, “I might actually pull this off.” A few miles in, I remembered my bike computer
and my watch, realizing that at the end of the swim, I had stopped my watch,
rather than lapping it. I fixed the
watch and pulled my bike computer out, and it flew out of my hands and into the
weeds! Oh, well, I guess I’ll have to
wing it. Will and the BPW had warned me
the roads were slick, and I had brand new tires, so I took it easy on the
corners. I passed some people, and some
people passed me, and the first 20 miles were pretty uneventful for me, though
not for the other 5 people with flats that I passed. Before the 30-mile mark, there was this HILL
to end all HILLS. I saw about 15-20
people ahead of me walking their bikes, but I really wanted to ride it, so I
tried. About 1/3 of the way up, I got
off and walked, passed by a very large lady still pedaling. Humbling.
As I got closer to the summit, I started to be able to make out some of
what the 2 “cheerleaders” at the top were saying, and it was not exactly
positive, but I think it was meant to be encouraging. I’m pretty sure they were Marine drill
sergeants! The female made some comment
about my skirt and how it’s important to look good, and I laughed heartily and
got back on…fun downhill, though I have no idea how fast I was going. There were more hills after that, and I was
riding uphill with a 54-year old at mile 39 when we decided that we were
probably on the last hill, judging by the elevation map we had studied
online. WRONG!!! After the first hill, the rest seemed easy,
and because I was at sea level, my breathing was good, so I rode them all, even
though others didn’t. 1600 feet of
elevation gain! And I ate sooooo much hammer gel on that ride, a little bit
every 20-30 minutes, which I think paid off on the hills and probably during
the run, as well. I started getting tired at about the 50-mile mark, and about
2 miles out, we rode behind a strip mall where I could smell hamburgers
cooking, so I started craving a burger. And
it was raining.
I have never been as
happy to see a transition area as I was to see T2. I had hoped to make the ride in 3:45, but
alas, it was a 4:06 ride. Simultaneously
relieved and disappointed, I dismounted and started running into T2. Again, helpful volunteers pointed me in the
right direction, retrieved my bag, and racked my bike, and I was off and
running!
Run:
Amazingly, I never felt wobbly coming off of the bike…I
had tried to be conservative on the ride, having heard horror stories about
people who overdo it on the bike and explode on the run. And I was so energized by my family and
friends being there, cheering me on, that I felt like I was floating for the
first few miles. Best feeling in the
world. By then, Will and the kids and
the BPW had been joined by the LA transplants, hooray! On the ride, I kept thinking about all of them
being there, waiting for me. About
setting a good example for my kids.
About being tough as nails, strong as an ox, fast as a…?
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| Nice venue! |
The beginning of the course was flat and lined with
spectators. Most of the onlookers were
great! Little kids yelling, “You can do
it!” “Go Ironwoman!” and adults
cheering, “Go 1648!” “You’ve got this!”
Go…[pause while said person looks for my name on my race number]…Heather!” There were some weirdos out there, too: “Just remember you CHOSE to be out here. You SIGNED UP for this! You PAID for this experience! ENJOY it!” or “Step it up! You gotta’ dig deep! It’s all mental…mind over matter!” I just tried to smile and cheer and cheer
other runners on. It was both energizing
and demoralizing to run a loop course, as I knew a lot of the people I ran by
on the first loop were about to finish.
Those who stood out: 2 amputees
just ripping it up with their cool cheetah-inspired leg, a 69-year old woman
who had calves like rocks, a dude in a wheelchair. They all SMOKED me, along with MANY
others…old people, fat people, walking people.
Very humbling. I know this is my first
year in triathlon, I know I am 43 years old, and I know this was my first 70.3,
but I think I expected to be more competitive.
The good news is there is nowhere to go from here but up. And I am motivated to do better next time. And I had to remind myself at this point in
the race that my goal was to finish under the cutoff time. So I plodded along. The second part of the loop was hilly, and I
had to walk some hills in order not to trigger my IT band issues too early in
the run. Onlookers saw this as a sign
that I was slacking or tiring and tried to motivate me. But, truth be told, I felt pretty darn good
during the entire run. No blisters, no
troubles breathing. The temperature was
cool and cloudy until mile 12. It was
nice. Will ran with me from miles 6-8,
which was very encouraging and took my mind off of the run for a while. I made the 3:08pm cutoff at mile 8 with many
minutes to spare and knew I could finish!
And the woman who was embarrassed by her 50-minute swim did not make the
8-mile cutoff. She was pulled from the
race and had a DNF for the day.
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| Me, at the finish, 8:34:37! |
My own doubts
were triggered again at mile 12, when a very well-meaning volunteer yelled,
“You have 15 minutes to make your age-group cutoff…STEP IT UP!!!!” Crap!
I thought we had until 4:18pm! It
was 3:38pm. My official 8:30 cutoff time
would have been 3:51pm. I didn’t think I
could run 1.2 miles, at the END OF AN HALF-IRONMAN, fast enough to make it to
the finish by 3:51pm, but I thought I would try, and I stepped it up. When I could see the finish line, some man
yelled, “Way to step that shit up! You
could pass 3 people before you finish!
Go! Go! Go!” And pass 3 people
before the finish line I did. And I
finished. And I heard the announcer say,
“Here comes Heather from Flagstaff, Arizona. You did it, Heather! Way to go!”
I did it. Finished that race in
8:34:37. I was last to finish in my age group, but not last overall. I watched the last person cross. Her name was Heather. She was escorted across the finish line by 30
cheering volunteers and an arch of balloons.
It was a beautiful sight.
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