IMCDA 2009 Race Report

Warning: Will probably be long and full of detail, for my own memories pleasure.

Days before the race. I flew in on Thursday with Sabrina. Steve and Dee were to be on a separate flight, but arriving an hour after us. Long story short on this minor hiccup, Dee didn't arrive till 1am that night because of a flight delay :( Spent the upcoming days, taking photos galore trying to capture the moment. I'll upload these to my Flickr account later. We went through Athlete Check In, picked up our bikes, attended practice swim, practice ride (in some sprinkles) and rode the bike course. Bike course seemed hilly, but you can never get the full effect "driving" as you do when you're actually running or cycling the day of. I remember this from California. Dee and I drove the course, but it never seemed to match when you were actually in race mode running.

Days prior were full of anxious energy, all good. I kept thinking to myself that I had spent many days wishing that the IM were the next day so I could "get it over with" and there we were the night before. I didn't sleep two nights prior to the race since my nervous energy was already peaking. Just thinking of the magnitude of what I was about to embark was sending crazy brain waves and ideas in my head.

Fast forward to race day :) The good stuff.

Woke up at 4:30am. Kinda early, but decided to jump in the shower. Steve and Dee work up at 4:45am, and we ate our pre-race breakfast. We left the house at 5:15am. I was doing the happy dance, every time I could and Steve would laugh at me. Amber flew in the night before, and she was with us. We got pretty good parking and as we were unloading our morning race bags Steve says, "Why do my bags look so full and yours don't??" Of course, wouldn't you know it. In all my happy dancing nervous energy, I prepared my water bottles for the bike and left them on the counter!!! Dee was on it, two seconds later, she was in the drivers seat heading back to the house. I was about to panic, but figured WHY?? Nothing I can do to change it. If she doesn't make it back, or I can't happen to find her, I have plenty of solid nutrition to get me through and I'll just have to suck down the aide stations gatorade :) I'm a lucky gal, and they made it back in time. Steve and I got body marked, checked our tires, made port o potty stops and the morning was off to a great start. I was able to talk to Adrian before the race and that was nice. We got dressed in our ultra sexy wetsuits, and headed down to the swim start.

Wow... all the athletes, in full on wetsuits, ear plugs, big goggles, small goggles, big guys, little girls, fat, skinny, old, young. It was a pretty neat sight. Helicopter hovering over us, spectators galore and the lake lined with ski boats, house boats and other boats to just watch was amazing. I saw a couple T3'ers, wished them luck and we were on the beach. Steve had a different plan for the swim start, so I gave him a hug, told him I'd see him as he passed me on the bike, and I left. I mosied on down closer to the front. I know I'm not a ubber fast swimmer, but I am a ubber comfortable swimmer, which I think gives me a little more confidence in the open water, in the masses as the average joe. I was a little shocked and how NOT congested the beach line up was. I assumed it'd be like a concert, where you would have to "Excuse me, coming through, excuse me" type crowded. But it wasn't. There was enough room to walk right up the edge of the water if I wanted. Everyone was pretty far spaced out. And spaced out they were. There were athletes lined up on the inside of the buoys all the way down the beach for the ones that wanted to attempt to swim outside of the masses.

Swim: 1:26:20 - 2:16 pace
Before I knew it, the blowhorn went off. I was about 5 seconds from the start. And I jumped right in. Rewind to race morning. My anxiety had my heart rate at 120. I noticed this when I put my bike computer on my bike. My heart was racing with anticipation ALL morning. Back to swim... When I got into the water, I just started swimming. I was surprised, cause normally, it takes a few minutes to get my heart and breathing into a rhythm, but since I started with it high, I had no problems getting into a breathing, comfortability place. The beginning was the washing machine action. It didn't get less crowded until the 3rd buoy. I noticed the water was WAY choppier than the practice swim. I swallowed a ton of lake, and distinctly remember hearing ringing noises in my right ear from the slapping of my head coming down on the water from the swells. A few teammates have stated 3 foot swells. Wow. Luckily, it didn't make me nervous. Everyone was swimming in it, it's not like I was singled out, so I just rolled with it. If anything, I was at an advantage because I was in a good mental place. I kept humming to myself, "Just keep swimming" from Finding Nemo. And I even got a little creative. Adrian told me about a time when he witnessed Brandon swimming and how his stroke was so strong that he actually lifted his body up in the water. So I pretended I was just THAT good of a swimmer. Yes, I know I'm not, but I was in my fairy tale. Just swimming with the swells, enjoying the moment of the swim. I got to swim without being knocked, kicked, pulled or pushed for a few minutes, and then there was the turn buoy. Talk about mass cluster muck. I think 70% of the swimmers thought the turn buoy meant, "Let's invent some new kicks underwater, pick our heads up and just hang out here." Everyone seemed to come to a standstill and it wasn't a nice scene filtering through. Got through it, and the current/swells were the worst for the back half. I made the first loop in 40 minutes. Super happy, but knew that the adrennaline from the first loop was probably the reason for a pretty decent time. Sighting was hard with all the caps in the water, and the swells, it was hard to find the buoys sometimes, which meant I'd swim off course quite a bit. It's not always safe to follow feet, cause not all feet know where they're going. I'm happy with my swim. I was estimating 1:30, so 1:26 was icing on the cake.

T1: 7:43
Something I had NOT practiced and that was changing from wet clothes to dry spandex in a rush. I immediately regretted not swimming in my tri suit and just wearing from start to finish, but soon remembered that I'd be doing this literally ALL day and comfort was the reason. A few extra minutes in transition wasn't going to make or break my day. Little did I know how close I'd be cutting everything, but that's to come. I found a seat towards the end, and was shocked to see I beat a few top T3'ers out of the water :) I got changed as fast as I could and thankfully a volunteer helped with the last half. I was off to the bike... dum da dum dum.

Bike:8:18:52, 13.47mph
Legs felt ok for the start, but I knew it was going to be a long day on the bike and this was going to make or break my IM debut. I decided to not concentrate on what my Garmin showed. No obsessing about my average speed, no obsessing about current speed, just ride what my legs felt, give it what I had and have no regrets. I made it out of town, and the hills. We had driven the course and knew there were lots, but didn't get the full concept until I actually rode it. After we got out there, it seemed like the hills were never ending. Climb, climb, climb. I wanted to take it easy so I wouldn't fry my legs for the 1st loop and be hanging on for dear life for the 2nd, but I also didn't want to take it too easy that I screw myself either. Fine line. I made it through the first loop ok. Nothing really started screwing with my head until we started coming back to town. My nutrition was like clockwork. 15 minutes, eat. Next 15 minutes, drink nutrition. Every 15 minutes, I was eating or drinking. Every two hours, Salt Stick. Time went by and I just dealt with the hills as they came, thinking to myself, "Just one more time around and I'll never have to see this hill again... forever..." Steve caught me on about mile 35, and we talked for two seconds exchanging, "Wow, these hills are tough." And then some "We're doing this, see you later on the run!" On the way back to town, it was flat. But it was longer than I remembered. There was about 10-15 miles to get back and I just remember thinking it took forever. I was also looking for a 1st loop completed sign or something and never saw it, just continued on to my 2nd loop without any noticeable "2nd loop starts here" type of sign. I started to worry. I checked my average pace, and it was 14 point something. I had high confidence going into this that I could average 15 with no problem, and the fact that loop 1, which would assumingly be my fastest, was almost near the cut off average freaked me out. I started the mental roller coaster, but remembered that for every down, there's an up. I went out for my 2nd. Saw a ton of T3'ers. The course was nice, cause it allowed for many out and backs. Yes, the scenery was nice, but it didn't take away the fact that I HAD to make the bike cut off or the last 6 months of my time, energy, heart and soul would be defeated. There were more than 2 hills that I had to stand up on, or else I wasn't moving. These were impossible for me to climb sitting down. My legs were showing signs of fatigue and I started drinking more and I increased my salt intake from 1 every 2 hours to 1 every hour. On a few of the hills, my speed going up them registered as 2.3 mph. No joke. 2.3 mph. The only thing I could think was this was bringing my average mph deathly close to the cut off average. I felt like I was in survival mode. Push, push, push. The next minute, I'd be happy, trying to not stress. The next moment, stress and fear. Then the cooler temps came, then the wind. I screamed out, "You've got to f-ing be kidding me." This was my form of prayer. I had done this on several training rides. Talking to God. I just couldn't believe this. I had a 2 minutes moment where I talked outloud, cause noone was around. It went like this.

Me: "You've got to be F-ing kidding me, right?? You give me choppy water for the swim, and it's pretty nipply out here, and now you're throwing in headwinds when I'm struggling to make a bike cut off. Wow... I can't believe this."
God: replied with headwinds.

I've heard we had 20-25 mile headwinds. The hills; in my opinion, were hard, but it was mentally tough to have the downhills hard, because you were fighting a headwind. I made several sarcastic comments to the volunteers. They'd ask, "Water, gatorade, gel?" and I yelled, "Turn off the fan!!" They just laughed, but I was really irritated. I felt like I had it hard enough to be struggling with hills and extremely slow bike averages, that why in the world did I have to deal with winds too? And then... on those out and backs where I saw my friends, I realized I was now on the other end. I was the one coming back as people were heading out, and I became grateful. Back to be positive. I could do this again. It could be worse, I could be them going out. I pushed as hard as I could and got really anxious when I hit 100. I only had 12 miles to go, but was deathly close to 8 hours. I don't have my Garmin yet to read statistics, but I knew that 8 hours was the cut off, if I had used the entire swim time. Thankfully, I had banked 30-40 minutes from my swim. It made me nervous that I had to dip into that bank. I was pretty confident that my training had gotten me to a place, where I wouldn't have to stress about the cut off, but I was wrong and here I was stressing for 4+ hours of the bike not knowing if I would make it. The ride into town was nice. I could feel myself getting emotional, but knew I wasn't in the clear until I crossed that timing mat. I've had training rides in the past where the last 5-10 miles, my legs are so shot that I literally couldn't average over 8mph on flat roads. I did the math, and figured out I had to average at least 11mph to make it in time. This gave me a boast, and I was at around 15 for the way back. I saw Dee, Sabrina, Sam, and Amber cheering for me and that started the tears. I even have an ugly cry pic of my on the bike. I got to the volunteers at the timing mat, I dismounted and I asked, "Did I make it??" and this lone guy said, "Yes!" I asked again, "Are you serious, I really made it?" and he said yes again, and I started crying. Not a tear here rolling down, I'm so proud of myself cry. This was a full on, tears streaming, holy crap, I did it let out cry. I cried for the entire walk to get my bag and in the changing tent. I quickly found an empty seat and just sat there for a full 60 seconds and cried. A volunteer came up and asked if I was ok, and I was so choked up I had to catch my breath and I told her not to worry, these were happy tears. She helped me change and get into my running clothes. I made it.

T2: 7:51
I probably could have cut off 2-3 minutes because of the cry. But I didn't care. My biggest fear was behind me. If I didn't want to touch my bike ever again, I didn't have to. I will, but I know have the option.

Run:6:25:45 - 14:43/mile
It pains me to type that. But back to the report. I came out of the changing tent to Dee, Sabrina, Sam, and Amber cheering for me. Still a little choked up, I went out to the run. I felt on fire. Garmin showed 9:00 min mile pace. I knew this wouldn't last long but figured I'd hang on as long as I could. This lasted for 2-3 minutes, and I caught a huge side stitch that made me walk. I went for a Salt Stick and remembered that I was so caught up in my crying in the tent, I forgot to take the SaltSticks from my bike jersey to my tri top. CRAP. I got nervous, but figured the aide stations would have some. I walked for a good 4-6 minutes, elongated my chest, took deep breaths to get rid of my cramp. I immediately thought I was under electrolyted and got nervous. I was even more nervous, because at both aide stations, they had no electorlyte pills at all. I figured I'd drink more and eat more to compensate. Tried to blow it off. The run slowed down and I decided I wasn't going to stare at my Garmin. So I took it off, and put it in my back pocket. It beeped at the mile, but it wasn't staring me in the face with my slow paces. I had big goals of running a 5:00 marathon. I ate 12 humble pies on Sunday. My goals were too much. Yes, I ran the long 18, 20, 22 miles long runs this pace after 80, 90, and 100 mile rides, but my legs had 20 hours of rest in between. Today, they had 7:51 seconds to recover from the longest ride I've ever done, 112. I figured, "Anyone can walk an 8 hour marathon. This is a piece of cake." I didn't realize it was a piece of humble, I'm not sure I can do this, I might not make it to the FINAL cut off, piece of pie! The first 13 were long... and slow. The 2nd lap felt even more daunting than the 2nd bike loop. I got to see all my T3 buds, BUT they were ALL on their 2nd lap and I was on my first. I saw Dee and friends at close to the turnaround. Also saw Steve a few minutes before. Each time we saw each other, we stopped to hug and said, "I can't believe we're doing this today. Good job, I'll catch you pretty soon." I also really intended on passing people during the run, meaning my T3 teammates. This didn't happen until the end.... very end. And when it did, it was survival mode. More on that later.

I started the second loop still pretty confident, but a disappointed at how deathly slow I was "running". It took me almost 3 hours to run 13 miles. Insane and a big blow to my "running" ego. I would walk here and there, but just couldn't stomach that I was walking and would start running again. I ran 95% of the entire marathon, now the pace is a different story, but I was doing one form or another of running. Whether it be running, jogging, or shuffling, I wasn't walking. Not that walking is bad, but I'm a SLOOOOOOW walker. When I walk, I walk. I noticed my paces were dropping as the night went on, and realized that when I was stopping to walk, it was considerably slower than my slow "running" pace. For instance, my last 4 miles were a 20 min mile pace. Yes, it is possible to pass people while running a 20 min mile pace. I didn't think it was humanly possible to do this, until Sunday. I shuffled an entire marathon. I had 4 hours to complete 13 hours. Still seemed like a piece of cake, but as the miles slowly, and I mean slowly went by, the time kept creeping with it. Before I knew it, I had 6 miles to go and only 1:45 to get to the finish. And this was 1 hour and 45 minutes to made the FINAL, you're an Ironman cut off. Never in all this training, did I ever think to myself that I wouldn't be able to run the marathon fast enough to make the FINAL cutoff if I made the bike cutoff. In the final, dark, literally dark hours, this fear became a reality. I ate and drank a ton, and my potty stops showed. I must have used the restroom 8-10 times during my marathon. Just urinating, but full blown, full bladder pees. In these last 6 miles, I realized it was my body not holding onto the liquids, hence me not having any electrolyte pills with me. My hands were frozen and they were already starting the tingly, crampy (retarded looking) hands that were reminiscent of my Galveston medical tent trip. At mile 16, I committed myself to NO more walking, unless it was the hill at the end of Coeur d'Alene lake. I shuffled from mile 16 on. I was in survival mode. If I stopped, I feared that I was pass out from the lack of electrolytes and the cramping I could feel coming on. Galveston was in my mind, and that frightened me. To come this far, and not make it for a stupid mistake of not packing two separate bags of Salt Sticks. I should have done one for each bag, instead of trying to remember. I didn't realize how much of a blur things would be in the moment. So I shuffled, and shuffled. I had a ton of thoughts in my head. Here are a few:

- I'm soooo that lone runner... in the dark... during all those Ironman videos that I always thought to myself, there's no way I'd be them. And was.
-I can't believe I made it this far and it's sooooo hard to get my legs to turnover.
-I can't believe I can't excel in the one sport that I thought I had in the bag.
-Pain is temporary, not making the cut off is forever.
-(I'm not going to lie) I was super sad that I thought I'd be disappointing Adrian with my near cut off time performance.
-I do enjoy glowsticks in the dark.
-Running in the dark, with no light, is fun. I thought of Meredith/Mike on their running adventure when they were training for a trail race.
-Timing mats were embarrasing me cause of how slow I had progressed all day.
-Could the weather get any worse?

The marathon had rain 90% of the time I was out there. I was freezing cold and would wrap in a mylar blanket, then get hot and shed it. Then get another mylar blanket, then shed it. I got my use out of the course, the volunteers and later the medical tent.

The last few miles of the marathon were grueling. I couldn't stop for fear that the cramping, tingling would ensue. It was happening in my hands already, and my right calf felt like it was going to Johnny Horse any minute. In the last 2 miles, my stomach started cramping. I drank cold.. yes, cold chicken broth at the last of the aide stations. It was gross cold, but I forced it down thinking the salt would help subside the cramping/tingling so I could finish.

The last half mile, Sabrina met me and walked as I was "running". We bantered back and forth, I joked with the last volunteer that finally told me truth about "You're almost done." I heard this phrase repeatedly throughout the day, and near the end, I started correcting them. "I'm not almost done, I have a marathon to go. Or I'm not almost done, I still have 56 miles on the bike AND a marathon. Or I'm not almost done, would you like to run the last 16 I have to go if you think I'm almost done??? Ok, I only used one of those phrases, but I sure thought all of those in my head. The last 3 miles, once I turned into the neighborhood were crazy lonely. There was one guy ahead of me and I caught him, but later let him pass. I didn't want to cross the finish line with a guy 5 feet behind me. Then it all clicked that I had 40 minutes to get there, and I was in fact going to cross the finish line as an Ironman. Wow. So as I was running down the final street, about 10 people came running by. Where were these people when I was alone for the last 4 miles?????? I turned around at least 4 times to tell them to have a great finish, cause I wanted the line to myself whenever I got there. The finish happened fast, in memory, not in speed. By then, my legs were just thumping one over the other. There was no running to my form, other that I wasn't locking out my hips as you do in walking. My arms were barely moving, and I was at a slow death shuffle. The final stretch I started crying. Everyone had their hands out, and all I could do was put my cramped up hand up against theirs. I couldn't stop moving forward, cause I knew my body was about to react. My face was starting to tingle amongst the tears, and I think my body just went into overload in those last 20 feet. I slapped as many hands and I could, tried to raise my arms up as high as I could, and I crossed. I did it, and I cried. 10 seconds after I said, "I need a small" for the finishers shirt, my entire face went into the tingly, locked up sensation, hands were in full cramp, and I was starting to black out. One of the volunteers grabbed me, then another, and I told them I needed medical before I blacked out. She didn't believe me, so I leaned on her, and that got her attention. My body went to the max, as I did in Galveston.

Final Time: 16:25:45

Med Tent: My body did the same exact thing it did in Galveston. My entire body tingled, my hands cramped up, and my entire face cramped so much that I could not open my mouth, nor stick out my tongue. Doc said I was hyperventilating, a tad bit hyperthermic, but they couldn't get my temperature cause they could not open my mouth, it was locked. They questioned me a ton, and I answered with mumbles and headshakes. They were the sweetest. An IV, plenty of hot blankets, and lots of care, I was the last person in the medical tent to leave. I heard Mike Reilly countdown from 5 to 17 hours, and my heart fell for the ones that didn't make the cut off that were still on the course. About an hour in the tent, I finally regained feeling.

I did it.

What I learned:
-Adrian was proud of me, no matter what my time was.
-I do still, after a days rest, DO NOT WANT TO DO ANOTHER IRONMAN.
-I think it's funny that my first Ironman happened to land on the one CdA Ironman that had the worst weather in IMCDA history, but I survived it.
-I have a new respect, that's even newer than the original respect I had for this distance and for the athletes that continue to amaze me by doing this more than once.
-I wish I had trained for another year at Olympics and Half IM's before attempting a full.
-Everything considered, I'm glad this is over with. I feel like a huge boulder has been removed from my shoulders.
-I don't think it's sunk in that I can be considered an Ironman yet...