Ironman Austin 70.3 Part VI – Final Chapter

November 5, 2011 by 2 Comments

Run Goal: 1:45, Actual: 2:00

Last night my husband and I had dinner with one of my Austin teammates, Valerie, and her husband who was major support crew for us. It just so happens that we’re all in Orlando this week. The topic of Austin came up, of course. It’s amazing that two weeks post-race Valerie and I are still analyzing everything from the disastrous swim start to the bumps on the bike and the heat during the run. Mike is also still analyzing, but in his case it’s subjects such as Valerie and I eating yogurt and Odwalla that didn’t actually belong to us (sorry, Mackey), the Superman costume that Leanne found in her room and which Mike (since he was the only one drinking the night before the race) kindly modeled, and the fabulous deep-fried food he ate in front of us from one of the airstream trailers.

But it’s also time to put this thing to rest before someone beats me over the head and tells me to shut up and move on. So, without further ado, here it is.

When I left off at the end of Part V I was running a 7:45 pace. That lasted exactly to the first porta-potty. The stomach cramps really ratcheted up once I started running, and I thought maybe another bathroom visit could resolve the problem. If only it were that easy. I resolved to forgo gels (actually forgot to grab my GUs from T2 and couldn’t be bothered to run back to get them) and just drink Gatorade Endurance at the aid stations…conveniently located every half mile. When we read about the location of the aid stations on the run it seemed ridiculous that they were so close together, but with temps somewhere in the 80s when I started the run around 12:30pm, and no shade whatsoever on the course, I was glad they were that close.

Heading out at 7:45 pace...

The run was 3 loops. Lap 1 was definitely my lowest point on the entire race. It was very difficult to reconcile the fact that I’d have to do this three times. The hills appeared to be huge. Almost everyone was walking. And the course was very crowded, making it difficult to run around people. It was like a death march. Everyone was miserable. There was mostly dead silence except for the few people talking about how awful they felt. I allowed all this and more to get to me, and I started walking the hills and walking through the aid stations, although this was probably a good idea because I made sure I got enough Gatorade and also managed to grab a couple of sponges.

My pace was all over the place. I would pick it up and run in the high 7s or low 8s for a short while, but then the stomach cramps would get really bad and I’d have to slow down or walk. When I was running, the person running in front of me would often suddenly stop and walk, forcing me to veer around them, which wasn’t easy given the crowds. I started resenting the fact that my swim wave was late because the run course was now crowded with slower athletes from previous waves as well as those from my wave. What I should have been doing was counting how many people I passed,or  noting how many I passed who were in my age group, anything rather than the negativity I allowed to seep in. Mike, who was watching and cheering, said afterwards that I was passing runners left and right, but I didn’t even notice.

Running past Mike...and other people...

I had planned to dig deep but now I was just digging my own grave. When a girl passed me and I looked at her leg and saw “37″ on it, I didn’t even try to give chase. I actually said to myself, “I don’t care.” I had a choice to give up or dig in, and at that point I felt myself giving up.

Things got better on lap 2. Lap 1 was such a struggle mentally because all I could think was “I have to do this 3 times,” but on lap 2 I was able to say, “I just have to do this one more time.” I was still walking the hills and aid stations, but I was running more and actually hung with a group running a decent pace for a while. As I ran past the turnoff for the finish for the second and last time, I said to myself, “you’ll be taking that turn next time” and noted that there was a bit of a dogleg before the turn into the stadium.

Lap 3 was a vast improvement. My stomach actually started feeling slightly better, although my legs were now shot so the pace didn’t improve. I told myself, “you don’t have to run this again” and forced myself to keep running up the hills. I was doing calculations as fast as my tired brain would allow, trying to work out what pace I needed to run in order to stay under 6 hours.

I made the turn for the finish and noticed that the dog leg was longer than I’d expected. Still, I pushed to a 7:40 pace and passed a couple more people. Then we turned and ran into the stadium. A woman I had passed earlier did sprint past me in the final stretch, but I let her go. I finished in 5:55:10, and was so glad to have managed to stay under 6 hours.

Feels Great to be Done!

I felt dizzy after finishing and was staggering around when my teammate Jack found me and suggested I go to the medical tent. That seemed like a great idea and I ended up getting an IV because my blood pressure was pretty low and, with my stomach still feeling terrible, I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat or drink.

I ran my slowest half-marathon ever. Processing what happened on the run and how and why I felt so bad has taken some time. I finally worked out that pulling a stomach muscle in the first few minutes of the swim pretty much sealed my fate. I’m looking forward to redemption at my next Half Ironman. :)

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Ironman Austin 70.3 Part V – More Trick than Treat

October 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Bike Goal: 3 hours; Actual: 3:08

I just got the Jawa and scream monster to bed after a night of trick or treating and thought I’d write this installment before I come down off my sugar high. This year the dentist is paying the kids $1/lb of candy, so instead of me eating all the stuff they don’t like (basically anything with a nut in it) they are selling it to the dentist. I’m glad because I was about to do serious damage with 15 snack size snickers.

There aren't any pics of me on the bike so you get this instead

There have been some complaints. Apparently those less patient readers (you know who you are) think I am dragging this tale out a bit too much. Perhaps it should have been a trilogy rather than a mini-series, but bear with me. I’m still processing everything that happened over the almost 6 hours of dragging my body around part of Texas. For those of you who have completed full Ironman events I know this is a mere trifle, but for moi, who used to consider a marathon a full day of work, it’s a LOT.

I think I left off the last installment at the strippers. Free of my wetsuit, I cruised up the hill and into T1. I remembered where my bike was, and noticed that my helmet, sunglasses and bib were not exactly where I’d left them. They must have fallen or been knocked off my bike, but someone had put them back for me, which was nice. I had a smooth bike mount – no falling or missing the shoes, and pedaled away. After I got my feet in my shoes I looked down at my hands. They were covered in mud, I’m guessing from touching my muddy feet. I started trying to wipe them off on my shorts so they’d be semi clean to eat my Powerbar energy blasts. These things are like gummies and very easy to eat. I had 3 packages of them, already open and in my bento box. I needed to eat 1 package per hour. That translates to 9 blasts, so I tried to make things easy and eat 3 every 20 minutes. For the most part, I got that right. There were just 3 blasts left in the bento box when I finished the bike. Along with the blasts I was drinking water and coke flavor nuun.

I think in future long races I’ll drink something with calories in it so I don’t have to eat so much. The reason for this is because I still had the stomach cramp I got in the water, and it was getting worse. I stuck to the nutrition plan, knowing that if I didn’t, my race would suffer, but if I’d had a calorie drink it may have helped.

The bike started out really well. I was averaging 19.8 mph without having to put in much effort, and feeling good. At the first aid station at mile 12, I went to grab a bottle and was going so fast I just pushed it out of the volunteer’s hand. I slowed down as I approached the next volunteer and got a perfect grab. The bottles were the type you can squeeze, so I just squirted the water into my already open aero bottle, chucked the bottle, and continued on. At the second aid station I decided to stop to use the portapotty. The stomach cramps were worsening and I thought maybe a bathroom visit was the answer. It wasn’t. I got back on my bike and carried on.

Not long after that, the wind picked up, seemingly out of nowhere. All of a sudden I was riding into a massive headwind, with gusts that had me working just to stay on the road. And the road, which had been smooth for the most part, was now rocky and bumpy. I figured I could afford to lose some speed, as I’d calculated averaging 19 mph, so hunkered down and kept going. But the wind kept blowing. And the vibrations from the rocky road were really starting to get to me. There was a foot wide patch at the side of the road that was smooth, and everyone was trying to ride there, but occasionally you’d have to move out either because of a crack or to go around someone. I noted that, even with the reduced speed, I was still passing people so used that as positive reinforcement that I was doing fine.

When my speed fell below 19 mph I got a bit disheartened, wondering when I would get a tailwind and when the road would smooth out a bit. I realized that I probably had a tailwind for the first 25 miles but just didn’t realize it. This section of the bike, unlike the first half, didn’t have any major hills in it, so you couldn’t really pick up speed anywhere. At one point we got a nice downhill and I started gathering some speed only to hear someone yelling into a loudspeaker for us to slow down for a turn. At the bottom of the hill another volunteer was yelling, and then I realized that we were coming into a hairpin turn, and slammed on my brakes. I heard that another rider’s brakes failed on this hill and he rode straight through the intersection and into a ditch on the other side.

So the wind kept blowing, the bumpy road continued, and the stomach griped. I completely lost focus and just rode. My speed fell below 18 mph and there was nothing I could do but watch it take a dive. There were a lot of people on the side of the road changing flats and I actually wished I would get a flat so I could stop. My back and neck were killing me, and I kept having to come out of aero to stretch out. I thought maybe I hadn’t put my handlebars back in the right position after I shipped my bike, and maybe I was in a more aggressive, sprint position. Yeah, this was a low point for my race.

When we turned into the park I realized we were near T2, but I couldn’t see it. The crowds were swarming like in the Tour de France, and I was worried I would ride into someone. Then we turned a corner and suddenly the bike dismount was right in front of me. I quickly pulled my feet out of my shoes but didn’t have time to swing my leg over before the line. A volunteer grabbed me, which was great, as I definitely would have wiped out otherwise. I started to run over to my bike rack but the ground was really rocky and so I had to walk. I racked my bike, pulled the bag off the rack, grabbed my socks and shoes, and headed out for the run. I realized I’d forgotten my GUs before I even got out of T2, but couldn’t be bothered to go back and get them, especially as I wasn’t sure if my stomach could handle them.

As I started the run, my pace was 7:45, which was exactly what I’d planned.

 

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Ironman Austin 70.3 Part IV – Scarier than JAWS

October 30, 2011 by 2 Comments

Swim Goal: 40 mins; Actual: 40:46

Calm before the storm...

We all make mistakes in races. Most are small. Sometimes – not often – we make mistakes that severely affect or even end our race. But identifying mistakes is a necessary part of the learning process and, I believe, essential to becoming a better racer. Of course, that’s assuming we learn from them. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that you made a mistake, but it’s better to do that than to put a bad race down to bad luck. Blaming the weather or the course doesn’t make sense…the conditions are the same for everyone.

And if you think that only rookies make mistakes, think again. My teammate Wayne, an experienced triathlete, admitted to putting his left shoe on the right pedal and vice versa at one of his recent races. You can be assured he learned from that one and double-checked his shoes the next time!

What was my mistake at Austin? You guess. Here’s a picture of my teammate Marisa just before we entered the water. I am standing next to her.

Marisa in between the Wolfanger shirts

And here we are in the water, somewhere near the front, with 175 people behind us:

Considering that I’m a midpack swimmer, and came out of the swim 43rd in my age group, standing at the front of a swim wave of 200 women was an aggressive astonishingly dumb move. And not just at the front, but center, too. This was not a conscious decision. I – and my two teammates, apparently – just wasn’t thinking. When we got in the water for the start there was just one row in front of us. And because we were in the center, when the gun went off, we got slammed from swimmers on both sides and behind. I couldn’t move right or left, just forward. I was pushed completely under the water, hit in the head, back, feet, everywhere. I swallowed a gallon of water and almost panicked. I had to talk to myself to get through it. It was the scariest open water start I’ve ever been in, and ever want to be in. Someone hit my heel so hard it hurt for half the 1.2 mile swim.

After the first bouy things started to calm down. I moved to the right to stay clear of the fray, and took the two turns wide, which I don’t think hurt my time as I was able to swim freely, while closer to the bouy it was a washing machine frenzy. My swim actually started to feel good and I was able to forget the horrific start. The swim was a triangle, and on the last leg I started thinking, “Why am I hungry?” Then I realized the pain in my stomach wasn’t hunger, but a cramp.

I swam through a bit of hydrilla close to shore but kept swimming until I hit sand and then stood up and started running up the hill. I had heard there would be wetsuit strippers and, as I started pulling my suit off I saw an available stripper and signaled to her. She told me to sit down and then she just yanked my suit off in a second. It was totally awesome and I recommend having a stripper remove your suit if they have them at your next race. Much easier than trying to do it yourself, especially if you’re like me and don’t practice often ever.

Out of the water...prior to getting stripped

So I survived the swim, and actually met my time goal. The start wasn’t pretty, but I felt good for most of it. Little did I know how a mistake I made at the start of the race was going to come back to haunt me later on…

 

 

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Ironman Austin 70.3 Part III – Who Shot J.R.?

October 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As a kid growing up in England in the 80s, one of my favorite TV shows was Dallas*. My parents let me stay up late to watch it. Then again, they thought it was a good idea for me to watch Alien and Carrie and The Shining…

Anyway, Dallas, to me, was America. I’m sure I watched other American TV shows and of course all the movies listed above were American, but I actually thought the characters in Dallas were what everyone in America was like. Good thing I didn’t watch Little House on the Prairie.

So of course I stopped thinking that a long time ago (no, really), but I’m reminded of it every time I go to Texas. And even though the only stetsons I saw were in the airport gift shop, there were a heck of a lot of people wearing cowboy boots, and we passed a lot of ranches on the bike ride, although I was too busy trying to avoid the cracks in the road to look to see if any were named Southfork.

I forgot to mention in Part II that we also attended the Athlete Meeting before racking our bikes on Saturday. After failing to attend the athlete meeting at Iron Girl Columbia in 2010, and subsequently stopping at the mat 50 meters from the finish because I thought that was the finish mat (turns out it was the mat that read your chip to give your name to the announcer so he could say it as you crossed the real mat), I’ve since made sure to always attend athlete meetings. At the meeting we learned that most of the cracks in the bike course had been sealed, which meant it was safe but bumpy, and cracks that weren’t sealed and weren’t safe to ride over were marked with bright orange tape. We also learned that water bottles would be handed to us with the tops off, so you couldn’t put them in your bottle cage but would have to dispense the water into your own bottle. Having never done a race long enough to warrant bottle exchanges on the bike, I was glad to get this information so I knew to have my aero bottle open in advance, and that I didn’t need to throw away a bottle to make space for a new one. The race organizers also went over the penalties for drafting and throwing stuff on the road except in permitted areas by the aid stations. You may think you already know all this but, in my opinion, it sticks best when you hear it close to the race.

And the race certainly was getting closer. Back at the ranch house, we shared what we’d learned from the meeting, discussed our race strategies, packed last minute items and worked out what time we’d need to leave the house. Oh, and of course we ate some pasta…with salt.

Several people were going to bed early but I wasn’t tired, despite not sleeping well the night before. I watched part of Avatar with Jack and Kelly and then decided to try to go to sleep around 10:30. I managed to fall asleep but was awoken by sirens at 2:30 (I’d also heard them the night before) and at 3:30 gave up trying to sleep as I was now hungry (weird) and so went into the kitchen to grab some food. I was rustling around in there when I heard someone say, “Alison.” Looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then I noticed Jack on the couch. The sirens had woken him up, too. So we chatted for a bit, made some coffee, and waited for the others to get up at 4.

The first person who went outside announced how warm it was already. At 4am it was in the high 60s. I had plenty of time to double check all my shit since my swim wave, #15 of 17, wasn’t until 8:35, and I didn’t plan to get to the arena until the late hour of 5:30. Those with earlier wave starts were heading out at 4:30 so they’d arrive at 5:00. Even though we had to park at the arena and take a shuttle bus for the less-than-a-mile ride to the lake, I was confident that 3 hours was sufficient.

At some point, while thinking about my stuff, I realized that I hadn’t vaselined my shoes. I planned to run without socks but was wondering if this was a good idea. I’d never run a half marathon without socks. I decided that it was worth the time to put on socks, considering how hot it was going to be, and so when we got to the arena I stopped at T2 to get my socks ready to slide on by putting them in my shoes. Then we boarded a bus to the lake. They had plenty of buses and there was no waiting…this part of the machine was definitely well oiled.

At the lake, we went over to bike transition to put air in our tires, water bottles on the bikes, and faff around like triathletes do. There was picture taking and potties-with-no-line-finding (but also no TP…thanks to Mike, our race support, for bringing tissues)  and National Anthem singing and before I knew it, the pros were in the water and it was time to put my wetsuit on.

*While doing a little research on Dallas, I discovered that a new, updated series of Dallas is due to air on TNT in mid-2012, with “various stars of the original series reprising their roles.” (Wikipedia) All I can say is, Larry Hagman better be in it.

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Ironman Austin 70.3 Part II – Salt Everything

October 26, 2011 by 1 Comment

It seems that Part I of this story created some suspense…plenty more where that came from. I could stretch this thing out for a while. I’m thinking at least 16 installments.

Today is my 39th birthday and I am celebrating my final year in my thirties by, um, yeah, blogging. Next year I’ll be in the 40 – 45 age group for triathlon, since USAT requires that you race according to the age you’ll be at the end of the year. That means for most of the year the age written on my leg is not my real age. I end up getting confused about how old I am and actually thought I was already 39. Always a nice surprise when you realize you’re younger than you thought. Of course this also means you’re old and forgetful.

Anyway, back to the story: After settling into our very nice rental abode – 4 bedrooms plus basement, 3.5 bathrooms, pool table, huge family room and kitchen – we got to work putting our bikes together. Traveling for a triathlon is such a major pain. For a marathon, you just pick your stuff up at the expo and you’re done. But for a tri you have to prepare for 3 sports. And then, if your race happens to have separate bike and run transition areas, you have to make sure you drop off everything at the right spot. Here are my color coded bags – green for the morning stuff that I want to have on me until the swim and then have transported to the finish, blue for the bike, and red for the run.

After breakfast Valerie and I went for a short ride to check our bikes were in working order, and then a 10 minute run to get our legs moving. Everything seemed fine, so we packed up the bikes and headed out.

We drove to Ludecke arena first so we could place our run bags at that transition. I was so well hydrated that, even though I had gone to the bathroom before we left the house, by the time we arrived at the arena 20 minutes later, I was in need of another pit stop. I literally had to run to the portapotty by T2. We spent several minutes working out the best way to hang our run bags from the racks. Tie it on and you might have trouble untying it, leave it too loose and it will blow off, especially as it was getting windier by the minute. I checked out other people’s bags and saw a guy who had just looped the string over the rack and then hooked it under the bag in between his shoes, so one shoe hung over either side of the string. I replicated his method and it worked great. We practiced getting the bag off a couple of times which was definitely easier than untying it.

Run bag before I found a better way to hang it

Then we had to stop by the expo because some idiot had forgotten to buy CO2 cartridges the day before. I didn’t think to pack them with my bike and you’re not supposed to take them on the plane, so I had to buy some. Later I made an even dumber move when I forgot to actually leave them with my bike when I racked it. Thankfully I found them in my bag that night and dropped them at T1 in the morning with my helmet.

Next, we drove over to Decker Lake to rack our bikes. It was getting really windy at this point and, even though my front wheel did touch the ground when my bike was racked (usually it hangs because my wheels are 650s), it was still swinging around a lot. So I racked it by the handlebars for the night, planning to switch it back to the seat in the morning. But of course because it was racked differently everyone next to me got confused and racked their bikes the wrong way, so I had to make them all switch their bikes the next day…made a lot of new friends…not.

Bikes safely racked, we headed over to the lake for a practice swim. Plan was to just swim out to the first bouy and back. We got out and back just fine, but then realized we should swim over to the last bouy so we could check out the swim exit. On the way to that bouy we encountered a lot of hydrilla near the shore. And of course as soon as you stopped and put your legs down, you got trapped in it. I realized what was happening when Valerie told me she was stuck, and told her to start swimming. Once your body is horizontal you only touch it with your hands. I’m actually glad we got stuck in it because when I felt it at the end of the actual swim I didn’t freak out.

ALL the way out THERE??!!!

Swim done, we headed off to find lunch. Before a long race you’re supposed to increase sodium intake to prevent dehydration and cramping issues. We were salting all our food but decided we needed a little extra. So we stopped at the trailer park we’d seen on Friday and each got a chicken and french fry pita from pitalicious. It was really good. We added salt to it, of course, then for good measure got some extra fries and salted those, too.

Valerie and Mike ordering from the pitalicious trailer

To be continued…

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