Ironman 70.3 Texas

This is going to be long. The whole weekend was great, and race day was incredible. So many stories and memories. I'm so grateful for the experience.

I drove to Texas on Thursday. I stayed with Cindy- my training advisor- for the weekend. She and her husband have done all distance triathlons- she's even been to Kona! Amazing. They live close to Galveston and do home stays with athletes. I was so glad to be able to stay with them and pick their brains about last minute details.

Friday morning Cindy took me to the pool for a short swim and later I did my last easy 30 minute run through her neighborhood as followed me on her bike with her dog running along. After that there was no training left. Just resting.

Friday afternoon I drove down to Galveston to pick up my race packet and walk around the expo. I saw where we'd exit the water and then drove part of the bike course. I got there right when it opened at noon, so there weren't many people there yet. It was nice to have a calm start to the weekend.

Swim course

Back of the race shirt.

The Ironman logo was made out of our names.

Nathan flew into Houston late Friday night and we had a lazy Saturday morning. There were a lot of storms in the area- some tornado warnings further north- and luckily we only got a lot of rain and lightning.

Nathan and I drove down to the race site for the 12:00 athlete briefing (which was delayed due to a torrential downpour), then bike check in at 1. It was weird leaving Kally Jane in transition. I'm good at giving inanimate objects personalities so I felt bad for leaving her overnight with the storms (Nathan made me feel better by telling me she’d have company with all her new bike friends). It also just made what was about to happen seem that much more real. Race day was the next day! This was it! Final preparations were done. I wouldn't see Kally again until it was race time. Yikes.

The rest of the day was trying to relax. Besides going to Mass that night we just stayed at the house and sat around. I was a ball of nerves.

Got up at 4:15 Sunday and somehow took an hour to get out the door. I was moving pretty slowly. Got to transition at 5:45 and set up my gear. The TriDot tent was right outside of transition which was super convenient and I left my extra gear there with Nathan.

The water temperature that morning was over 77 degrees, so the race became Wetsuit Optional instead of Wetsuit Legal (which is what I had been expecting). If the temperature is less than 76.1 it is wetsuit legal and everyone can wear a wetsuit and start in their regular age group waves. If it's warmer than that and someone chooses to wear a wetsuit they can, but they start in the last wave after everyone else and are also no longer eligible for age group awards (although my ability made me ineligible for age group awards!).

When I first heard the water temperature it didn't cross my mind that I would choose to wear a wetsuit and I proceeded to get ready as planned- including taking in my 30 minute pre-race nutrition. After I did that I started thinking of the benefits of choosing the wetsuit wave- the buoyancy and getting to start last- therefore having fewer people around and fewer people passing me on the bike. My swim wave was smack dab in the middle of the field of >2000 athletes and I was nervous to be among them- so starting last sounded really good. But the wetsuit wave was starting a full hour after my wave and my fueling schedule would have been completely thrown off. I didn't think it was worth the risk, so by 7:10 I made my decision and started walking to the swim start.

Swim

Predict: 0:45

Actual: 0:55

The way they did the swim start was interesting. Each wave started 4 minutes apart, but we had to jump off the dock and swim to the start and tread water for those 4 minutes- that’s when I started regretting not having the buoyancy of the wetsuit. But the main problem I had was I felt my timing chip strap come loose when I jumped in. Every time I tried to reach my ankle to make it tighter I started sinking and getting a lot of salt water in my mouth. I tried not to panic- starting the race off with a Minor (or Major) Freak Out was not going to bode well! I yelled out that my strap was loose and a girl told me to float on my back and give her my foot. So I did and she fixed the strap! Crisis adverted.

The swim felt long. Too long. I didn’t have any concept of time, but I just knew the swim seemed to taking me longer than normal. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong- I felt strong and I felt that my form was good. I hoped that my perception of time was skewed, but when I exited the water I saw that it had taken me 55 minutes- 10 minutes longer than planned.

But it’s a long day and I had to forget about it and focus on transition and the bike. One thing at a time. I’m impressed with myself that I was actually able to push the swim time out of my mind.
(After the race I discovered a lot of people were saying the swim course was long and that their times were longer than they should have been. This made me feel a lot better about the swim- if only I had known that during the race!)

I ran all the way to transition- which was good but also maybe a mistake in this case. I was still a little disoriented from being in the water for nearly an hour and my heart rate was really high by the time I got to my bike. I didn’t want to, but I let myself sit down to put my shoes and sunscreen on. I needed to let myself calm down a second. Transition took roughly 4 minutes because of that, and also it was a really long transition area so just running out of there with my bike took a while.

The bike

Predict: 3:10

Actual: 3:31

This is the part that scares me the most so I tried to calm down as much as possible. I hit the Lap button on my watch, which should have switched it to bike mode, but it stayed on “other” mode (which is used for the swim). All I could see was the time of day and my heart rate. I tried to cycle through the fields of the watch hoping I could see my pace or the distance, but nope. I’ve used the multisport setting on my watch in training and I never had that problem. I started getting frustrated, but made myself calm down. I didn’t want my Minor Freak Out to be at the beginning of the bike course. I was supposed to base my effort from heart rate and not speed, so I told myself only knowing my heart rate was a good thing.

I put this reminder on Kally. I needed it to get through the 56 miles.

It started raining roughly 5 miles into the course. It wasn’t supposed to rain so that was surprising. It was coming down pretty hard. I had a difficult time keeping my heart rate in the right zone. I think my nerves and the rain made it high. I was getting passed a lot but was also passing people. I had no idea how fast I was going.

I wore my camelbak so I wouldn’t have to worry about grabbing a water bottle. There were a lot of others doing the same thing so I didn’t feel too out of place. I skipped the first aide station but stopped at the second. I had my fuel in a water bottle so I pulled over to have half of that and some of the Nuun (electrolyte drink) I had in the other bottle. I chugged it as fast as I could and got back on the course. It was still raining.

After I stopped I started feeling better about the race. I started smiling because I knew I was going to make it through the race. One of my main fears was how the aide stations were set up and if I could safely pull over and start again. I wasn’t the only one stopping, and my plan worked. I knew I could finish the bike course and be okay.

The course has two “climbs” over the bridge to the other part of the island. There was a toll booth there and I laughed at the thought of all of us having to stop to pay the toll. Shortly after that was the turnaround- which was a tight turn that I managed to do without falling.

It was still raining… and the storm that blew in gave us a headwind… we never had a tailwind to counter that.

Around mile 30 my left inner thigh started hurting. This was new. I tried shifting around, changing gears, changing my cadence, but nothing made it better. Tried to stay calm, but the pain kept increasing and there were a lot of miles to go.

I stopped again at the 3^rd aide station for the remainder of my fuel and Nuun. If I had known my camelbak was nearly empty I would have taken a water bottle from them. But I didn’t so I didn’t.

I ran out of water around mile 40 (the course was marked every 5 miles) and I was so thirsty! I could tell I was going slower (but still didn’t know my speed) because of the headwind and I tried to keep my heart rate down but was still having trouble with it.

The rain finally stopped at mile 50 (I think) and all I could think of was how much I wanted off my bike. I was thirsty and my leg hurt. And I knew the bike took me longer than planned. But just like the swim, I had to forget about that and focus on what was next.

When I got off my bike I knew I was in trouble- my inner thigh pain was lingering. It was going to be a long half marathon.

I let myself sit down in transition again. Cindy gave me a hard time about this, but I didn’t care. I knew my goal time was out of reach and my leg hurt. I still had over two hours- I needed a minute to calm myself down. One good thing- it never rained at transition, so my shoes were dry.

I checked my watch when I hit the lap button again and it was still stuck on “other” mode. As I ran/limped/walked out of transition I stopped it, reset it, and switched it to run mode. At least I had that going for me.

The Run

Predict: 2:04

Actual: 2:32

My leg hurt if I walked or ran so I tried to force myself to run as much as possible. I didn’t feel well, though. I thought I might throw up, and I became okay with that possibility. I might throw up, but I wasn’t going to die. Just keep running.

The weather kept changing on us. It would go from hot and sunny to cool, windy and cloudy. I went from sweating to goosebumps. When it was hot I poured water on my head. I drank water at each water station but I think I was still really dehydrated. I couldn’t tell if I was sweating anymore. I only had to pee once in over 7 hours. I think I took a salt tablet on the run, but I can’t remember for sure. I know I took one in T1.

The run was hard. I had been looking forward to running a half marathon, but my body was struggling. My allowed max heart rate for the run was 174, but it never got higher than 145. I knew I “should” have been able to push harder, but I was doing all that I could and it wasn’t “enough”. My leg hurt and I was light headed. Throwing up still felt like a possibility.

I knew early on that my goal of a 2:04 half marathon wasn’t going to happen so I just did what I could and let myself be okay with it.

Was I going to finish in under 6:30? Nope.

But was I going to finish a half Ironman? YES!

The run course was three laps around Moody Gardens. I liked the laps because the support along the route was great and I recognized people cheering us on (and they would recognize us) and I looked forward to seeing them again on the next lap.

There were a lot of other Tridot and Tri4Him athletes, and we all encouraged each other. We got a lot of cheers when we ran by the Tridot tent, too. It was helpful to have the boost.

I also liked the 3 lap course because I had no way of knowing where I was compared to anyone else. Was it their first lap? Second? Were they almost done? Some were struggling like me, others were flying.

At mile 9 I happily exclaimed that we had only 5K left. The guy next to me gave me a weird look and I redid the math. Oops. My brain wasn’t working too well. 
His name was Gary and we ran/walked a couple miles together. It was his 6^th half Ironman and he was “woefully under-trained” (he still beat me). At mile 11 he told me to go on without him and to have a good race. I had enjoyed the distraction for the 2 miles, and I was excited I only had 2 left.

The finish

Tridot Predict: 5:59 (not counting transitions)

My goal: 6:30

Actual: 7:07

I crossed the finish line to the sound of Uprising by Muse (appropriate), and with tears in my eyes. I saw Nathan and as soon as I got my medal and finisher’s hat I ran over to him and gave him a big sweaty and stinky hug as I cried. I did it! It was so surreal.

To keep this long post from being even longer, I'm going to write a separate entry about my thoughts on the race, what I learned, and post-race events.