Wow, it’s been awhile since
I’ve updated, huh? I guess that life in general and that Ironman thing kind of
got in the way. Mac has been traveling a
ton, the kids are back in school and I switched to a new department at work, so
to say the last few months have been crazy would be the understatement of the
year. However, ultimately, thanks to
everyone pitching in, I got to the start line in Louisville healthy and pretty
well trained and tapered (actually, I’ve got this taper thing mastered!).
Mac left for Louisville
early Wednesday morning - he had to set up for the race expo (which started
Thursday). I stayed home for Sienna’s
kindergarten round-up on Thursday, then I took a late flight to
Louisville. What a quick, easy flight –
and the Louisville airport was so simple.
The thing I noticed first when I left the airport? Even at 10:30pm, it
was really hot and humid.
Friday was spent checking
in for the race (how about the nice backpacks Ironman is handing out at
registration these days?) and helping Mac at the QR booth at the expo. I also got in a little time in the Recovery
Pump boots and picked up my first pair of CompressSport calf sleeves
(amazing). I always have high hopes for
spending a lot of time off my feet leading up to a race, but somehow, with
everything there is to do and all of the logistics involved, I never really get
this done. Something to work on, I
suppose.
My training partner Katie
got to Louisville Friday afternoon and (coach and friend) Eric arrived a little
while later. Katie and her friend/sherpa
Patti decided to have a low key night at their hotel, so after we checked in to
our hotel (we moved to the Hilton at the finish line for Friday, Saturday and
Sunday nights (this was a great decision, though the hotel itself was not
great), Mac, Eric and I had a late dinner across the street at Eddie
Merlot’s. A great choice if you’re ever
in Louisville.
Why was the Hilton not so
great? Well – to start, before I went to bed I wanted to take a quick shower –
that’s when I found out that the showerhead in our room was broken and would
only spray directly at the wall it was mounted on – so you had to lean against
the wall to get any water. Awesome. Next, in the middle of the night, I got up to
use the restroom and the toilet wouldn’t flush.
Are you kidding me? THEN the air
conditioning system started going crazy and making the most horrible pounding
noise. The front desk’s response to all
of this? Sorry, but we can’t do anything
about the showerhead or a/c, and we’ll try to have the plumber look at the
toilet SOMETIME tomorrow. They laughed
when I asked for a different room. As
much as I liked the location for the race, I don’t think I would ever consider
staying at this hotel again. Okay, rant
over.
With Katie at bike check:

Saturday was spent trying
to eat well, doing last minute bag prep and checking in the bikes and
transition bags. As usual, I was on my
feet a lot more than I would have liked, but I think I did a good job of
hydrating and eating well. After the expo ended, Mac brought me back a turkey sandwich;
of which I was able to eat maybe half and then I tried to settle in. Sleep did not come easy that night.
The alarm at 4:45 came all too early and I
tried to choke down as many calories as I could (which wasn’t many). Then I was on my way to transition. I walked from our hotel by myself. I like the time to just think and be quiet
and Mac likes the extra sleep – win for both of us. At transition, I put my nutrition on my bike,
topped off my tires (thanks to the nice girl in my row who shared her pump and
saved me from the bike tech line) then started the long walk to the swim
start. I got body marked and dropped off
my morning bag and then headed for the back of the line to enter the
water. The swim start at Louisville is
interesting – everyone lines up and after the start, they let people in the
water 2 at a time. I would guess that
the line was well over ¾ mile long.
CRAZY. Given the start format,
your time started when you crossed the timing mat on the dock, BUT everyone was
still held to the midnight finish time.
So, for someone like me, who got in the water at 7:30ish, I had
approximately 16:30 to finish. At the
time, I wasn’t overly concerned about the loss of a half hour, because I had
not “cut it that close” before, but (foreshadowing…) it would come back to
haunt me.
The swim was unlike any
other Ironman swim I’ve done (all mass starts) – there was very little contact
– but the water was actually really rough, especially around the two
bridges. About half way through the swim
I started to get really nauseous, which turned into full blown sea sickness –
ugh.
Swim
– 1:42:16
Yep. My Ironman swims just keep getting
slower. Hmmm. I jumped into the brown
soup Ohio River and I was off. The
swim started out mostly uneventful. For
the first 1,000 or so, we headed upstream around an island. Then we turned and (supposedly) had the
current behind us for the rest of the swim.
When we made the turn and I looked up, it felt like I was going to swim
all the way back to Illinois. FAR. The swim was unlike any other Ironman swim I’ve
done (all mass starts) – there was very little contact – but the water was
actually really rough, especially around the two bridges. About half way through the swim I started to
get really nauseous, which turned into full-blown seasickness – ugh – that has
never happened to me before. It
was not pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be back on terra firma
as I was that day when they pulled me up the steps!
I'm the one in the middle...excuse the iPhone shot!

T1
– 8:10:00
Transition
went smoothly. For the first time, I
stayed in the same race kit all day.
This made transitions surprisingly easy (duh, I know). Socks, glasses, race belt and helmet on. Grab shoes (transition was really muddy –
didn’t want to clog my cleats) and run to bike.
As I started riding, I saw Mac and Eric off to the side, so of course I
stopped to talk to them. In reality, I
did think that my back wheel was rubbing, but when I checked it, it seemed
fine, so a quick kiss to Mac and I was off.
Bike
– 8:01:22
Heading out:

The
bike. Where to even begin? It was
hard. And hot. And I felt sick. THE WHOLE TIME. Before the race, many people had told me that
the bike course was “easy” – that it was “mildly rolling” – LIES! This was a
really difficult bike course. It was
either up or down all the time – never flat.
Did I mention it was HOT?
I
truly don’t know what to say, this was one of the hardest IM bike courses I’ve
done. The first section and the out and
back weren’t horrible. I had been told
that the “worst hills” on the course were on the out and back. That was the section we drove and the section
that I was most scared of. In all
honesty, I thought the loop was far worse.
The entire time, I was having a very hard time taking in (and keeping
in) any calories, so I knew I was putting myself into a very deep calorie
deficit. I made it through the loop the
first time and was really looking forward to the special needs (about halfway
through the second loop, I think?) – I had a big bag of Ruffles chips that I
couldn’t wait to eat (this was a good sign because NO calories had sounded good
yet) and I had my replacement bottles of EFS – they would be fresh and I could
start over trying to drink. Then I arrived at special needs and they COULDN’T
FIND MY BAG!! In all honesty, while most
of the volunteers all day were great, the volunteers at special needs were real
jerks. I did what any normal grown woman
would do in that situation; I cried. Yes
folks, for the first time ever, I cried my eyes out during the Ironman
bike. Then I told myself to suck it up
and keep moving.
I finished the second
loop and then on the way back to transition, around mile 100, I started seeing
stars and getting dizzy. I knew I was
close to passing out, so I did the TOTALLY NORMAL thing to do in an Ironman – I
got off my bike and sat in the grass under a tree with my head between my knees
trying to stop the world from spinning.
It was like the worst hangover ever times a million. AWESOME. After 20 minutes (give or take)
under the tree, the spinning had slowed down considerably, so I got back on my
bike and slowly made my way back to transition.
Looking back, I think that if race support had come by, I would have
seriously considered dropping out. The
rest of the way back, I told myself that if I saw Mac on my way in to
transition, I was going to tell him I was quitting. I didn’t see him. I was kind of mad (looking back now, that
makes me smile), but I moved through transition, changed my shoes, took off my
helmet and replaced it with my visor and then I saw Eric on my way out of
transition. I had a full-blown melt down
– I cried harder than I did at special needs.
I told him I was sick, hadn’t taken in any calories, DIDN’T GET MY
RUFFLES and I told him that as soon as I saw Mac, I was DONE.
Eric
convinced me to get out on the run course.
He said I would see Mac around mile 1 and I could make a decision
then. He told me the fact that I was
still upright told him I had a chance to finish and I had about 6.5 hours to do
it. Six and a half hours sounds like a
lot, but the way I felt, a marathon in under 6.5 hours was going to be a
stretch. BUT, I had nothing to lose
(except more calories), so off I went.
T2
– 9:51 (this included my meltdown and talk with Eric – the actual “transition”
portion was one of my fastest ever since I didn’t do a clothes-change)
Run
– 5:59:41
Starting the run - on the bridge:

Well,
the spoiler is that I finished. The run
was, in a word, BRUTAL. I did see Mac
not long after starting the run. He knew
(I’m pretty sure Eric had called him) that I was in trouble. He walked up the
bridge with me and talked to me, really talked to me about my day, how I was
feeling and my options. He got me to agree to give it a shot. I’m so thankful he did. Eric met me on the bridge and walked with me
a little and talked to me about how to try to get some nutrition – small bites
of pretzels and small sips of water, coke and chicken broth – to see if I could
tolerate it. After I came off the
bridge, I told myself that I would get through the first loop and
re-evaluate.
I
saw Katie when I was around mile 4-5 (and she had made the turnaround and was
at mile 8) – she was walking and didn’t look like she felt much better than
me. We said hi and kept moving. I made it to the turnaround at mile 7 (?) with
more walking than I had hoped to do. I was finally able to get some calories in
and my stomach was feeling better than it had all day (not great, but
better). I found Katie around mile 9-10
sitting on the curb. She had been really
sick too. I stayed with her for a few
minutes and asked some nearby police officers to have her evaluated by medical –
she couldn’t even get up at that point.
She told me to keep going. I did,
but all the while telling myself I would get back downtown and then I was dropping
out (see a theme here?).
Mac
found me around mile 10-11 - he had done the math and told me that I had a
chance of finishing if I did the second loop faster than the first and kept
moving. At this point, I was MAD – I
felt like shit all day, I had trained to have a better day than this and I
decided that I was going to fight like hell to finish. I made the turnaround near the finish and
headed back out in the pitch dark, knowing that I had to make it to mile 19 by
10:00pm. Then I would have 2 hours to
make it 7 more miles.
Mac snapped this one:

In
the end, I put on my big girl pants, started running and only let myself slow
down at aid stations to try to get in a few calories. I was stuffing handfuls of ice into my top
and then sucking on pieces of ice as I ran.
Sounds gross, I know, but the cold ice helped so much. I actually made it to mile 20 before 10:00pm
and for the first time that day, I allowed myself to think that I might
actually finish. I’m by no means fast,
but I had never cut an Ironman race this close.
As much as my brain would process, I kept doing math and figured that I
should be able to finish with 20-30 minutes to spare. Also, now the 30 minutes I lost at the
beginning of the day waiting for my turn to start the swim, had now officially
come back to haunt me.
I
have never been so happy to see a finish line as I was that night. I slowed a little, high-fived the crowd and
took it all in. You know what’s funny? I
negative split the run by 45 minutes.
Crazy! So many times, all day, I
wanted to quit. I’ve never felt that way
before – sure, Ironman is a hard day, but in the 4 I had previously done, I had
never actually considered really quitting.
I still don’t know what happened to me out there – both physically and
mentally. I didn’t deviate from my
practiced nutrition, yet I was really sick/off all day. Maybe the seasickness in the swim just
triggered a (bad) chain reaction? I don’t know.
Blurry finish:

Done:

What
I do know is that I was probably more prepared for this race than any other
Ironman I’ve done. More training, (many)
more long bike rides and much more practice with nutrition (obviously THAT
didn’t stick). I’m signed up for IMTX,
so I have about 9 months to figure some things out. For the next few weeks, though, I’m taking
some time to do what I want to do, not only what a training schedule says I
should/can do. Go for a short run?
Sounds great. Play at the park? Sounds
great. I want to enjoy the fall with Mac
and the kids. I want to cheer for Jake
at cross country meets and I want to take Sienna to swim lessons. Mac is trying to talk me into some cyclocross
racing, but I think I’d rather be a spectator/sherpa for him instead. We’ll see.
The possibilities are endless. I
can tell you one thing, though; there won’t be formal training until after the
holidays (maybe...I'm already itching to do a little something).
As
always, I have to thank Mac, Jake, Sienna, our extended families and all of our
friends, especially Eric, for coaching me and Katie, for being the best
training partner ever (note, Katie ended her day with a trip to the med tent
for several IVs – she’ll be back to conquer IM soon). Ironman might be an “individual sport”, but
it sure does take a whole crew of people to get you through it. I’m lucky to have so many people on my team!
Finally, a little Ironman irony:
