RACEDAY!
Wow, a year since I registered, over seven months of training, months of planning and here it is.
I woke up in the best mood. I didn’t get the best night sleep, but I wasn’t expecting it. I was just so happy that it was time. I felt prepared and I wasn’t nervous at all. It was such a great feeling. Alison on the other hand was a bit nervous.
Woke up at 4:00Am to eat, then I took a hot shower and did some light stretching. Got my gear on, and prepared my dry clothes bag and then we walked to the transition area.
Yeah, my tires weren’t flat. Apparently others were not so lucky. Some found their tires flat in the morning, others discovered them flat after the swim, some popped as they were mounting them for the start of their ride. Like I said, I was happy I got my flat Saturday and not Sunday.
I inflated my tires to the suggested pressure by last year’s top female Heather Gollnick, made sure everything was ready for me to start my bike portion and walked down to the swim start.
There we got marked, 970 on my arms, and 38 on the back of my leg. After that I got in a good stretch and then had to wait in line. First the bathroom line, then the swim start line. 6:50 the pros started, 7:00 everyone else, 7:30 after one more wave to Alison, I was in the water. Water temperature was great. I got into a groove early on. My breathing was very controlled and I just felt very comfortable and relaxed from the first stroke to the last. The current wasn’t too bad, which meant up stream wasn’t too hard, but you also didn’t get a boost down stream either. I thought I was having a great swim, so I was kind of surprised by my 1:18. Was expecting more like 1:10. The only problem I had was a cramp in my right calf with about 200 meters to go.
Looking back now I probably could have shaved several minutes off of both of my transition times, but I told myself to relax and not rush through them. So that’s what I did. I wanted to make sure I did all I needed to and was fully prepared to start the next part of the race.
I’m going to give the Reader’s Digest version for the bike portion. A lot can happen in 112 miles but basically everything went well. I was able to maintain my 17mph goal. I tried to take advantage of all of the down hills. No flat tires, no accidents. I did pop my chain once, but it was a quick fix and I was back to work. I stuck to my hydration and nutrition plan and tried to stay as cool as possible. By my standards it was a great ride. I expected to ride for 7 or more hours, so to see my time was 6:37 I couldn’t have been happier. By the way, I didn’t look at my time until I was dismounting my bike.
So now I was in an even better mood than before. All I wanted to do was to get off of that bike, and I did. So it was time to just settle into a run and finish it up.
I wanted to start out at a 10 min/mi pace for the first 13 and decide then if I could pick it up from there. I pretty much averaged 10-11 min/mi for the first 16 miles, and then I started to have some problems. Physically I was fine. I wasn’t tired or winded, my body felt great, my breathing was controlled. I wasn’t hot, dehydrated or have any stomach issues. I simply lost mental focus and had a tough time getting it back. So I started to think about my family, friends, all of the support I was getting, the Hoyts and how lucky I was. At about mile 20 or 21 I was able to get back my focus and I was able to finish strong. I would have liked a better run time, but considering, I was very happy with 4:52.
Before I left for Louisville, I was telling a group of friends who were going to track me online that if they saw me finish in 13 hours that meant I had a good day. I finished in 13:05. I HAD A GREAT DAY!
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