Indeed I am showing my age. If you are old enough to remember that little bit of a phrase, then you will find humour in this. If you don’t know what my title means, then you have yet to live.
I trained for a 70.3, but did I train hard enough, that is what was in my mind always. I now have the answer. No I did not. No matter how much you train inside, nothing prepares you for what happens outside.
It has been a long winter, and I am the first to admit, I can be pretty fair weather when it comes to getting outside. I don’t mind it when it’s hot, and when it’s smoking hot, as in frying eggs off your bike seat, I may be a little skeptical of being outside in the sunshine for a long time.
We arrived on Thursday evening, and I acclimatized myself rather quickly. Never mind I have lived most of my life in Canada and have seen more winters than most Southerners, I love the heat. My pre-race bike and run had me soaked and I was loving the feel of it all.
The night before race day, I enjoyed a healthy meal and a beverage and a relaxing dinner with friends and hit the hay at 9:30. It was taking me a while to fall asleep, so I did some mental training. Some visualization, it was difficult to see me crossing the line, yet I still felt comfortable with being able to finish this and even nailing the bike ride.
I woke up at o’dark thirty (3:30 am) and there was no way I would go back to sleep while I waited for my husband to get up and head out in one hour. So I lay on the bed and did more mental training. I checked to make sure I had everything ready to go. What to wear, how it was placed in the bag, all the tags, extra snacks, and Nuun tablets. My energy must have flowed around and woke up my husband. I fueled up on some oatmeal, a banana and some water. The forecast the night before was potential thundershowers/storms. I prayed for intermittent rain. I must have prayed a little too hard, it was 75 at 4:30 in the morning and it was only going to get hotter.
On the drive down we agreed that if I couldn’t beat the bike cut off time by at least 30 minutes, there was a possibility that I would not be able to finish. However I was rather confident that I could do it. We drove ½ the bike course (the first ½) and the run course. The water looked great and the prediction for race day was wetsuit legal.
Upon arrival, yes it was wetsuit legal and I still wasn’t sure if I was going to wear my 3/4 wet suit. I am too large for a well fitted one so mine is a little lacking on the legs and arms and neoprene. I checked into transition – I love that they have a spot for your bike and you don’t have to fight for a spot, everyone has to go the same distance in one direction or another. I am feeling excited and pumped. I regroup with my husband and we walk around for a bit, me in my bare feet and I am getting excited yet nervous! I decide to put on the wetsuit. Then I walk down to the water and step in up to my ankles – it is like lukewarm bathwater. Nope not wearing the suit, off it comes. We sit down to enjoy the scenes of the crowd and get a little more nervous, start thinking of all the things that could go wrong – a flat, a wipe out, start out too fast, get eaten by a gator – then I start to tell myself that I can do this. And just like that I decide to take the wet suit off, seconds before going into the corral for the swim. There’s a two minute wait after you have crossed the chip mat and another 4 minutes before you start your swim. Does that time get deducted from your swim time – I hope so!
When I step into the water, I feel like I am in heaven, so glad I decided to go sans wetsuit. We start, I pace, I talk to myself to ensure I don’t try to bust a lung beating everyone and conserve a little energy. I find my steady pace and move along. The six minutes it takes for me to get ahead of the next wave is pretty good. The fastest of the following waves start to pass and I approach the first turn of the M, then I get decked in the back of the head by some dude who thinks he’s Michael Phelps, my hand gets caught in the pull cord of some swimmer and I had to yank my hand out which may have resulted in the suit getting a little loose on them. As I finish the last leg of the M swim, I get hit again in the back of the head. I thought I was doing the right thing staying far away from the markers. I exit the water with no concept of time a little out of breath but not sucking wind. The only sound I hear is the voice of my hubby shouting that I am right on time and to keep going. I wander through transition, calming myself for the upcoming ride.
I get through transition, drying off between my toes, cleaning up a bit, having a half banana, a quick electrolyte drink and a Lara bar and I am so ready to go. The aisle way is clear for me and as I cross the mount line, some guy wipes and I get of kilter and almost crash. With my rapid ability to unclip myself, I manoeuver the bike around him and carry on. I get out on the bike and it starts out as a good ride and few little hills which seem like nothing. At this point I am thankful for Kym and Graeme and all the indoor biking classes. When I hit the 5 mile marker I check my watch to see that I am just shy of 20 minutes – so I base the rest of the race on 5 miles at 20 minutes – 51 to go another 200 minutes so I will be around 3.5 hours. I try out the aero bars and it feels okay, not great but I will tough it out. Until I hit flat land, no trees and tons of wind – a perfect time to realize that I may be more wobbly using aero bars decide to alternate throughout the flat parts of the course on using them.
I had tons of fluid packed (all nuun in my 4 water bottles) I stopped at the aid stations and hydrated with water and had a 1/2 banana, ate my bars and kept biking. I was trying to make sure I was drinking as much as I could on the flat roads. Just after 25 miles I hit a hills a little larger than what I would call a rolling hill. I biked up them, not something I would have done last year and it was tough for me to get there, but I remembered what Brent told me and it got me to the top of the hill. 250 feet of elevation is freaking high. Pretty sure it was a 90 degree incline and this is where I feel the slightest pull in my hamstring. On the third aid station I downed a bottle of water, filled up my water bottles, and dumped a bottle over me to cool down! And by then I could feel only pain in my ham strings. Shortly thereafter it became a very open road for cars, I swear I could touch cars as they went by me, which not only freaked me out but slowed me down, then when I pulled over for a drink break, an aid truck stopped to make sure I was okay, apparently he had been following me at a distance, and at the point I felt okay and that I may finish in the allotted time. I got back on the bike and headed off. Two miles later I pulled over for another water break as I was going up a minor hill. An ambulance pulls up and they don't get out so I, figured they were just checking. I still had people passing me on the bike and then when I checked the time I wasn’t quite ready to bail but started to doubt finishing and my ham strings were starting to pull hard on my right side. I had a pounding headache (sure sign of dehydration) and knew with only 6 miles to go I could push myself, I just had to speed up. Sadly I had another hill to climb and in the distance it looked like many more to come and I could feel the heat from the ambulance riding so close to my back tire. It was probably the sun but I could hear the diesel sound and that just aggravated my freak out more. Cars would rush past the ambulance and darn near hit me pulling back in. I got back on the bike went down a little hill and then a corner and another hill! Me with my personal ambulance service trailing so close behind. I checked my watch it was 1:00 and I had 20 minutes to finish 4 miles. Between the head and leg pain and the too close for comfort with cars, I started to think about the agreement I had with Marc, I knew that finishing the bike was still possible, however the run not so much. I couldn’t limp 21K in less than 3 hours. Making my third stop for water in less than 15 minutes and I guess I looked bad because this time the boys got out of the bus to make sure I was okay! I realized that I wasn’t and better safe than sorry.
I got a long slow ride back to the transition, I was devastated. I have never not completed something I set out to do unless it involved housework. I am very disappointed in myself, and while others say they are not disappointed and I should be proud of what I have accomplished, I feel that I let myself and a few others down.
There are many bright sides to this:
1) I realized I am not nearly as fit as I like to think I am
2) I need to keep my goals smaller to work towards bigger ones
3) My husband is my biggest supporter and my friends and family are freaking amazing
4) I really really really dislike (this is a mild word) riding the bike and need to work on it
5) Training all winter indoor does nothing for me outdoors
6) While I don’t mind riding in the wind – a little from behind never hurts
7) I may have fallen or failed, yet this doesn’t define me – what I do when I get back up is what is important to me
Ahhhh……
The Wide World of Sports
The Thrill of Victory – I almost made it 2/3rds of the way
The Agony of Defeat – My body hurts, my ego is deflated.
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