Yup, I'm just going to jump back in like it hasn't been 8 months since my last post. Lots of stuff has happened. I might fill in some of the gaps, but probably I won't. So here it is in August now and Boulder 70.3 was to be my "A" race of the season. Yet even going into the race I knew I was not going to have my best performance ever. A foot injury in February prevented me from running much and I knew my training was lacking. But I hoped I could at least shuffle through the run and beat my time from 2 years ago.
Normally I don't have many pre-race adventures but I had a doozy this race. This season I have been biking over to the races at Boulder Res. It's about 6 miles and takes me a bit over a half an hour pedaling very easy. This morning, I ran over a nail or something and flatted at 30th and Valmont. PANIC. Now, I'm a very proficient tire changer so I wasn't worried about that per se. My first concern was that I don't leave myself a whole lot of extra time before the race. This race started at 6:30 and transition closed at 6:15. I flatted at 5:35. Once I could breath normally, I changed the tire relatively quickly and did my first ever fill with a CO2 cartridge. During the change I kept calling the house to see if Jeremy could drive up with another spare tube. I think it's just bad karma to ride or race without tire changing equipment. I called at least 10 times and no one woke up. I accepted that Jeremy would not be able to help and finished the ride to the Res. I got there about 6:00 and got my area set up and then pulled out my tube to see if I could patch the hole really quick. I couldn't find the puncture, then one of my rack mates (seeing me on ground trying to blow an inter-tube up with my mouth) asked if I needed any help. I said, "Well, what I need is a new tube." and she said, "Oh, I have 3 extra ones, take mine." I hope she had an extra good race. My teammate Sally gave me another CO2 cartridge and I was back in business.
I was in wave 10 so I didn't start until 7:15. I used the time from when transition closed to my start to stand in a port-a-potty line. I had a very nice chat with a guy from Alaska. My swim was pretty uneventful. I was swimming with a small group of women and stayed on course pretty well. Ironman changed the swim course so that the first leg wasn't directly into the sun and that helped a ton. The only incident worth noting was near the end. I was drafting off another women from my wave on her right side by her calves. She passed a guy who had started 2 wave in front of us and I got stuck in a bottleneck. I did not hit the guy but I might have brushed his shoulder. So I was pretty surprised when he came back with a punch the the ribs. There is no real swim stroke that could have created that hit, it was intentional. I hope he had bad race karma. I made my goal of a sub-40 min swim (which always seemed very reasonable, but I hadn't done in my previous 2 halves).
Here I am on the left exiting the water. It's pretty rare to get an official race picture of any part of the swim:
My bike leg was awesome. If anything, I am glad I raced for this part. I was feeling strong (could have had something to do with actually training on the bike, plus an 8 day bike tour of Oregon in July). I had a race plan and I followed it to the letter. I kept my power where I wanted it and took in all the fluid and nutrition I had planned. I felt strong and smooth. The course is two loops, and on the first loop I passed a guy and he didn't like that. So he re-passed and was really pushing it. His legs were going up and down like pistons and it just hurt to watch. I let him go, then on the same part on the second loop I passed him again. He made one more feeble effort to get me, then dropped back for good. I passed 6 women in my age group on the bike plus lots of others from the other 9 waves. My average cadence was 89 (woot!) and my average (not normalized) power was 126. I rode the second loop faster than the first and my bike split was 8 minutes faster than 2 years ago.
And then came the "run." Right out of transition my left hamstring started cramping. I have never cramped before (though I did have tight calves at the Summer Open duathlon) so I tried to jog it out, hoping I'd loosen up. I didn't. My first mile was over 12 minutes and my hopes for a sub 6:00 hour finish were already dashed (I needed to run about a 2:20 half marathon for that). I was wearing my race belt with Infinite in it and I tried to drink it hoping that the salt would help with the cramps. It didn't, but it made me feel nauseous. Oh, did I mention it was already 90 degrees at this point? I don't do well in the heat under normal circumstances. By mile 4 I was feeling nauseous and started to get dizzy, plus my right quad starting the cramping fun. I really wondered if I was going to DNF. At any rate, ending up in a medical tent was NOT part of the plan, as I was getting on a plane in 7 hours. I started walking even more with the intent to finish uninjured and somewhat healthy.
As usual, running by the finisher chute was depressing. I remember being a spectator last year and wondering why so many people were walking though the Res area where the crowd is. I had thought, "At least jog here people!" Yup, here I was, walking. I really really didn't want to do the second lap. As I was leaving the Res, I saw Jeremy driving in with the boys. He hadn't planned on coming and I was so happy to see him. And then - a miracle occurred. One of my acquaintances (through tri-friend Liz) came by. I had met Lauren at Stroke & Strides but didn't know her very well. She was starting to struggle, as this was her first half Ironman. So we started to run together. We'd pick a landmark that we would run to, then take a walk break with another landmark to start our run. And we chatted. It was great. The second lap seemed to fly by.
Here we are going into the second aid station. Becky and Ariel were volunteering, Ariel is selling me some gatorade.
The first time I went by the photographer, I was walking with my head down. They didn't send me that picture. This time, we decided to jog by for a nice picture:
I'm not sure what our run/walk interval times were (probably about 2 minutes each), but near the end of each run my cramping was almost unbearable and then it was almost relaxed by the time we started running again. Not only did I feel better the second lap, but I ran it faster too. I was sooo happy to be done. Lauren made us sprint the last 1/4 mile and she had more pep so she finished a couple seconds in front of me:
My new BFF Lauren. I cannot imagine how hard this would have been without her:
So overall, not my best race experience. I really thought that if I was really struggling, I could still do at least a 2:35 run. But it did give me new appreciation for how well Ironman Wisconsin had gone, believe me, I NEVER felt as bad as I did today during my full Ironman. So, upward and onward.
Swim: 38:11
T1: 3:06
Bike: 2:49:43 (ave 19.8 mph)
T2: 2:54
Run: 2:48:04 (12:49 miles)
Total: 6:21:58
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