#76 Do an (Half) Ironman

I did it!

It's still surreal.  Months and months of training and in one fell swoop, it's done.  It seemed kind of anti-climatic as I was closing in on the finish line.  Except for at mile 11.8.  But to that later.

I signed up for this endeavor nearly nine months ago.  I was at a pretty low point in life for the moment and it seemed like a little silver lining.

(Cupcakes may be silver linings in most worlds, but in mine, large endurance races are.)

August seemed so far away.  And, strangely, 70.3 miles seemed so...easy...at the time.  It seemed perfectly attainable.  Easy peasy.

I told a couple of training buddies about it and all but one balked at the idea.  She's a true inspiration and will actually have a full name in my recounting of this tale:  Hillary.

Hillary gave birth less than a year ago to her fifth kid.  When I told her of my crazy idea, she laughed.  And then, within a few hours, she had called me back and said she wanted in.  I worked on coming up with a training plan that would take in account her crazy schedule and some key races we wanted to complete.  What resulted was a hodgepodge of a schedule that actually worked really well.

As the day neared, my nerves were on edge.  It's hard to comprehend what a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 run looks like when put together unless you've actually done one yourself.  And neither one of us had.  We talked to a few that had done this distance, but even then, it's still too hard to comprehend. The fear of the unknown held me captive all last week.

There are a lot more details I'm going to omit for the sake of getting on to the important things, but I drove to Burley, Idaho for the race with another good friend, Mary, who was doing the duathlon, her cousin, Becky, who was doing the Olympic distance tri, and a good friend of Mary and mine, Allyson, who hung around for moral support.  We met my cousin from Boise, Katrina, up in Burley.  She was also doing the half iron distance.

Interjection:  Wade wanted to come.  Really wanted to come.  But I have not had good luck with the kids being at the finish lines of my races.  They haven't captured the spirit of what it's like to run your body into the ground for hours on end and thus, as soon as I'm within sight, they will tackle me and then pour out their sorrows in the form of pitiful whines that make me want to scream.  Then, when they realize that mom isn't sympathetic to their boredom and pleas to leave at that precise moment, they turn on each other and fight.  Mind you, this will be at the finish line.  As I'm catching my breath.  And I knew that I couldn't do it for this race.  I wanted my family there to see me meet this huge goal of mine, but I don't jump from Super Athlete to Mommy really well and so I (politely) asked him to stay home.

I know.  It's amazing we're still even married, right?  He really is the nicest man on the planet.  And I take full responsibility for him not being there.

I slept okay the night before.  Nothing great.  But it was still rest.  The morning of, I was a little nervous, but not like I thought I'd be.  I methodically got everything ready and we headed to the transition area.

I was a lot more organized for this race than I've been for the last few I've done.  I packed a completely separate bag with all my gear and it just sat unopened until I was ready to lay it out. Usually, when I travel to a race, I'm pulling it all together at the hotel the morning of and  praying I don't leave anything behind.

We got all our stuff laid out and then headed in a truck to the swim start.  The swim was down the Snake River and it was a gorgeous morning.  A little cold--49 degrees--but no wind, which was a relief considering the wind that was roaring the day before.

The swim start was in someone's backyard and that was a little strange.  We doned our wetsuits and waited for the official start.  My feet were freezing, but there wasn't much I could do about it.  I was too nervous to think about anything other than that this was finally happening.  Hillary's dad was at the swim start and he kept snapping these pictures of us.  It was nice to have someone to talk to that wasn't on edge like the rest of us.

The men got in the river and they started the race.  Then the women all trudged in.  There were 17 of us.  Before I knew it, the race was off.

I felt pretty good in the swim.  It's not my strongest discipline and I know that everything would go smoother if I didn't have to expend so much energy on the swim, but for what it was, I felt fine.  I kept veering off course and probably swam so much more than I needed to.  I need to work on my sighting.  But overall, a good effort.  I wasn't the slowest swimmer--I did come across two guys who were walking, so that was encouraging--but I wasn't anywhere close to the front.  One day...

I got out of the river and headed to the bike transition area.  It was a loooooong way from the river, which was weird.  I didn't know what to do with the two people who were offering to take off my wetsuit so I bypassed them.  I got caught up in my wetsuit as I was taking it off and that took some time.  And then, I was having a hard time getting the rest of my stuff on and Hillary's dad kept asking me questions from outside the transition area.  It was all a little strange, but since I was just looking to complete the race, I thought it was funny and engaging.  I asked Hillary's dad how Hillary looked and he said "she wasn't smiling as big as you." to which I responded "that's why she's ahead."  I burned a lot of time in the transition area.

Once I was on the bike, I settled into a good rhythm.  I had to remind myself not to chase down everyone that passed me.  At times, it seemed like I was standing still. Where did these bikers come from?!?  I had a lot of time to think about what to do differently with the training and I know that I need to do specific bike workouts instead of just riding around.

The bike went pretty uneventful.  It was four times around a 15ish mile course.  Even by the fourth lap, I kept thinking, "Um...I don't remember seeing this before.  Did I miss a turn?" No flats.  No crashes.  Just around and around.  I passed my cousin in the third lap.  I knew she'd catch me again in the run, so I kept going to gain as much of a head start as possible.

By the time I hit the end of the fourth lap I was ready to be done with the bike.  My butt and back were killing me.  I don't have aerobars and I'll definitely be changing that for the next one.  I needed to stretch out on the bike big time.

At the transition area, I ran into Hillary's family again.  I asked how she looked and they said she looked great.  I was feeling really good too.

I made it in and out of the transition pretty fast considering.  I started out on the run and passed by Mary, Becky, and Allyson, who cheered me on.  It was fun to see their familiar faces.  My legs felt great and I felt  like I had a lot of energy.

I stopped at the first aid station, about a mile into the run and peed and got some water.  Then I got to the second aid station.  They were handing out ice cubes and that sounded good.  So I walked and chomped on ice.  I decided to walk for four minutes and then start back up.  I saw Hillary coming down the other side and we gave each other high fives.  She looked to still be in good spirits.

This part of the run was hideous.  It was by the airport, off in the weeds, and the smell was atrocious.  There wasn't an ounce of shade to be found and it was getting to be pretty hot.  About 2 miles into the run, my cousin caught back up with me and we ran to the next aid station.  We stopped to walk for a little bit and then continued on.  It wasn't fast, but it was something.  I stopped to walk to eat some gel and Katrina kept going.  That short walk turned into a longer walk than I anticipated, but I still felt pretty good. I headed back towards the finish line--which I would be passing by on my way to the other half of the run--and passed a few people along the way.  They were all struggling, but it felt nice to know we were in this together.

I ran to the park, where Allyson was sitting and waiting.  She started jumping up and down, excited that I had finished. I had to inform her that I was only half way.  She felt really bad about her early congratulations. I ran past the finish line and looked at it longingly.  It seemed so close, yet so far away.

My spirits were still pretty high and I was offering "Good jobs" to everyone that was passing me on the other side on their way to the finish line.  I shuffled my way through miles seven and eight.  I was starting to get really, really tired.  My legs were hurting and I felt like the finish line was a long ways off.  But, I was still joking around with the aid station volunteers and didn't feel like this was the dumbest idea I had ever had.  A plus in my book.

I saw Hillary at about 8.5 miles and she was at about 11 miles.  She looked really good and I knew we were both going to cross the finish line.  That was a relief.  I finally made it to the turnaround spot and headed back towards the finish line.  Mile 10 passed and then I sort of zoned out.  When I finally came back to, I looked at my GPS watch and saw that it said 11.8 miles.  I started bawling because I remembered the last little bit to the finish line was longer than a mile and so my watch must have gone on the blink somewhere.  I was probably only at about 10.2 miles and I still had almost three miles to go.  I was so tired and my legs were so sore, I didn't think I had enough in me to finish.  Off to the side of the road was a mileage marker and as I came upon it, it said 12 miles.  It was the greatest gift I had ever been given.

The last mile passed slowly but I got there.  There was a guy in front of me who was really struggling and I wanted to pass him.  I couldn't seem to close the distance though.  As we came up to the finish line, I saw everyone standing there, cheering me in and I started to sprint to the end.  But I felt bad for this guy who was so obviously struggling that I ended up slowing down a bit so I didn't edge him out in the last 20 feet of the race.

For whatever reason, I did a superman pose across the finish line, and then that was it.  The race was over.  All those months of training, done.  I felt really good though.  Much better than I thought I would.  I was still smiling and laughing.

This was such an amazing experience, start to finish.  People ask me how can you do something of this magnitude and I say I did it because I told myself I could.  Baby steps to the finish line.  It wasn't fast--I was 50 out of 55 people--but I finished and that's all that matters.

I realized that I had miss some key workouts in the training--life with little kids is unpredictable--and I think I could have finished faster if I would have hit those workouts.  But to finish feeling like I did is a testament to how well the rest of the program went.

At mile 10 I was ready to sign up for another one.  I even had the fleeting thought that I needed to get a few more of these under my belt before I attempt a full iron distance.

Eek.  Where did that thought come from?

Hillary and I got together last night and hashed over our race experiences.  Hers was similar except for that she ran every step of the run except for through the water stops.  That's AMAZING!  She contends that at times, it wasn't fast, but she was still doing it.  We decided we're going to do the same race again in two years with the goal of being at least age group contenders.  In the meanwhile, we both have some ideas of things to work on.

I love that I've worked so hard for this and I finally have it completed.  I love that I've finally gotten to a point where I don't feel like I'm disappointing myself if my times are not as stellar as I want them to be.  This was one of the funnest races I've done.  I made new friends.  I smiled a lot.  I thanked each volunteer that sat outside with water and ice for over 7 hours.  They smiled and laughed back at me.  It was such an incredible experience that I know this write-up doesn't even do it justice.  The human body is truly amazing.  God cares about your dreams.  The mind is more powerful than we'll ever comprehend.  Friends are truly the family you get to choose.  Love means staying home and being okay about it.  So many more lessons learned as well.

So what's next?  For starters, I'm going to be a regular contributor to my blog again.  That's good news to the four or five of you diehards still hanging around.  As far as endurance events, I really want to do the Grand Slam--four marathons in a single summer--qualify for Boston, and do a full Ironman.  Obviously, those things aren't going to happen any time soon, but I'm still thinking about them.  On the home front, I have a bazillion projects to do, so I'm keeping myself busy.

I gave myself a gift for this monumental occasion: a necklace that has a charm for every "big" race I've done--13.1 (half marathon), 26.2 (marathon), 100 (bike century), and now 70.3 (half iron distance).  It also has a charm on it that says "miles to go before I sleep" from Robert Frost's famous poem.  It's a visible reminder of what I've accomplished in just the last five years--and what I have left to do.  Definitely miles to go before I sleep.