When it came to choosing a 70.3 to race before my Ironman I was torn between Florida or New Orleans. Florida was near my home town and I would have friends and family there to cheer me on,
however it was 6 hours away. New Orleans was only 3 hours away, I knew more people racing it as well, but no family would be able to attend. While still debating on which race to choose, my boyfriend informs me that his best friend is getting married on April 11th in Tampa, FL. Well, asking for two weekends off in a row at my job is like asking to win the lottery while riding a unicorn, aka, it won't ever happen! So, since we would be down that way I decided to go ahead and sign up for Florida, which would take place on April 12th.
The two days leading up to the race were interesting ones to say the least. First of all, the weather predicted for race day was expected to be nothing but lightening storms all day. And Hot. I asked everyone to do the anti rain dance. After checking in on Friday, Justin (my boyfriend) and I were on I-4 headed towards Tampa from Haines City, to where we would be staying. Half way there, the transmission kabooms. We pulled over to the side of the interstate and had to wait about an hour for the tow truck. It was a little hot out, and not desirable but wasn't too terrible. Justin later told me I received a gold star for my reaction to the whole situation. I never lost my cool or freaked out, no real reason to, because there are just some things you can't control. So now we were out of a vehicle. The tow truck got us into Clearwater and Justin's Dad got us to the place we were staying. At 10:30 that night (wayyy past my bed time) we received a phone call from Justin's friend that was getting married, and Justin was asked and accepted to be a groomsmen for the wedding! This was pretty exciting and awesome. The next morning, morning/day before the race, after some hassle we finally got a rental car and that left me with less than 30 minutes to get ready for the wedding. Fuhhh. I got mostly ready and then we had to be to the church an hour early so Justin could get the attire for being a groomsmen. There, I also finished getting ready. The wedding was beautiful and filled with Busch Gardens employees (the couple met at Busch Gardens, so did Justin and I!). There was a casual reception to follow, and thank goodness for casual cause 15 minutes in heels was 14 minutes and 59 seconds too long! I behaved at the reception which was hard! Talk about a test of self discipline! Even with all the wine, 10 kegs, sweet tea, I only drank water! When it came to the food, the BBQ buffett (BBQ is my weakness!!), I managed to only eat a spoonful of pulled pork, 2 bites of macaroni and cheese, and a plate full of grapes/strawberries/watermelon. For desert, I only had ONE bite of a cupcake. So, I super duper behaved, like deserved a medal just for not eating all the BBQ pork and baked beans, haha. Overall, we had a great time but had to leave early so that I could get back to where we were staying to get my bike and my bag ready for the race!
For dinner the night before, I had my (new) normal oven roasted chicken strips from perdue and a white rice. No seasonings/spices/hot sauce. After getting my bike and bags ready, I finally got to bed around 9:30. A little later then I was wanting but it is what it is...
At 2:30 in the morning my alarm went off. My normal routine began. First things first, shower. I get all smooth and feeling fresh. Next, apply lotion/sunscreen/body glide/chamois butter/deodorant. Get dressed, get my chip on my ankle, garmin on my wrist, put the bags in the car and then......NAP TIME! Thankfully, Justin drove us from Tampa to Haines City and let me nap.
We got there right as transition opened up because I had to get my bike checked in. Once I got body marked, bike checked in, I went to my transition spot and began setting up. Laid my transition matt down, bike shoes, running shoes, race belt/bib under running shoes, each sock in each shoe, sunglasses in one shoe, my two gus in my other shoe, visor around one shoe, tube of endurolytes in my helmet. Once my transition spot was all set up, I realized I had a lot of extra time left until I had to be down near the water. So Justin and I went back to the car and took a nap. After about 45 minutes, we woke back up and headed towards the water.
The Swim:
The swim was in Lake Eva. Everyone I told that, got wide eyed and mentioned the gators. But, when you're swimming with a thousand people, odds are the gators are the least of your worries. The water temp that morning was 81 degrees. No wetsuit legality for that swim. I had brought both my wetsuit and my speed suit so that I was prepared for either situation. Stepping in to the water, felt a lot cooler than 81 degrees. The swim was an in water start. Walking into the water to the swim start area was gross. The sea grass was everywhere and went up to my shins. The stuff got loose and was floating all around too. For me, 5.5 foot tall, if I stood on my tip toes I was able to keep my chin above water.
The water course was in the shape of an "M". It looked confusing in person from where we were starting. We took off, and I started out slow, just as my Coach and I discussed. Take it easy at first, pace myself, and then past a particular point to kick it up. I thought I was doing well with pacing myself, but lets face it, during a race you don't stop during your swim to check out your swim pace on your watch. Once I realized, a the halfway mark that I was going too slow I tried to make up for it and speed up. I finished the swim in 42:23 (2:10/100m pace) which was disappointingly slow considering two weeks before that I did .9 miles in under 30 minutes at a 1:48/100m pace.
T1:
This was my favorite transition area set up of all my races so far. It wasn't far from the swim exit, it was well spaced and organized, and was easy to maneuver through. AND my boyfriend and best friend were on the other side of the fence cheering me on and making me smile. Justin literally kept saying "Oh, don't smile, don't you dare smile, you have to be serious" which of course made me crack up.
Bike:
I was feeling good at the start of the bike. I knew I had some ground to cover too due to my swim being slower then expected. This bike course was super turny (not sure if that's an actual word, but it is in my book now). First few miles of the bike course I felt like were nothing but turns. The weather was still pretty over cast, and around mile 10ish the weather looked like it was going to get really nasty. But it never did.
For nutrition, I was taking 1 endurolyte each hour. I drank Orange Execute, 16 oz in my aero bottle and another 16 oz bottle of it. Other than that, for fluids I guzzled down water. I ate 1 waffle at around hour 1 and a little after my 2nd hour. I was feeling full for the remainder of the bike so I didn't eat anything else.
I was feeling good with my heart rate/pace on the bike. I noticed one girl in my age group and I kept going back and forth. I waited until mile 40, like my Coach instructed to, to finally get ahead of her and get a good lead from her. The guys on the course were rather friendly too, not complete jerks like some guys can be. Most of them would call "On your left". Two guys complimented my helmet (which, honestly, who doesn't love my awesome helmet!), I got one compliment on my tri kit, and two guys complimented my hill climbing skills (aka I passed people going uphill).
I will say, I've never seen so many butt cracks during a triathlon. Seriously people, before racing/training in tri kits/shorts please have someone check that they're not see through! Another funny thing during the course, for the race briefing the director spoke about the course and the beauty and the scenery through the orange groves, etc. Well, when I heard ride through orange groves I was like "That will smell amazing--oranges!". Umm, yeah, no! During the ride, I smelled what I swore was a pigs pen, literally oink oink pigs pen. Then I looked around and realized I was riding through the orange groves, it must have been fertilizer time, go figure.
My average pace for the overall bike was 18.04 mph. For the first 32 miles, I averaged 18.09 mph. The remainder of the bike course was the hilliest, I averaged 17.97 mph. So, not much variation. I was pretty consistent with my pace. My ride time was 3:06:15.
T2:
Transition 2 was fun, again. Once, I got my bike racked, I heard/saw my brother taking a selfie so I stroke a quick pose (Mind you, my transitions are pretty fast so I wasn't concerned about two seconds for a photo). After that, I sat down, got my injinji toe socks on, followed by my running shoes. Grabbed my number belt and visor, slid everything on as I ran towards the exit. I knew I needed sunscreen but didn't want to stop to have it applied. So, I high-fived a volunteer who had it on their hands which worked great. I had A LOT of sunscreen on my hands and got to apply a good, thick layer on my arms/shoulders.
Run:
First coming off the bike, I wanted to take my first mile nice and easy. I was feeling good and have a bad tendency to go too fast off the bike so I made sure to calm myself down. The first half mile is very crowd supported. It was nice seeing all those people, including my own friends and family.
As for the course it self, oh boy. I was warned about a pretty good hill towards the beginning of not one loop, not two loops, but 3 freakin loops. So, as I was jogging through the first mile which at first was great because of the crowd support, we finally hit the actual road and made a right turn which was a short, but steep up hill. That wasn't too terrible. Then you made another right turn after the hill, to go straight/slightly downhill for a bit, left hand turn that slowly started going up hill. Then, you make a right hand turn to hell. It was (what felt like 20 miles) a little over a mile of uphill, dirt/beaten up road. It was horrible. Like seriously, who keeps that on a freakin run course for a half ironman??? Anyways...
When you finally get to the top, you make a right hand turn through a neighborhood. That's when you hit your second aid station. They offered your usual water/Gatorade/coke and even red bull. As well as your gu/chomps/oranges/bananas. The volunteers, as always, were awesome. Very encouraging and helpful. They would pour water on you if you wanted which was feeling amazing with the heat climbing as the day went on. The course continued through neighborhoods for the majority of the just under 5 mile loop. This one house/family had someone racing that day too, because they were having a big ole party in their yard with signs all throughout the road near their house, had several tents where you could smell the goodies, bounce house for all the kids, adults sitting in lawn chairs cheering everyone on, and two people with water hoses spraying the athletes. They were pretty awesome. A couple turns were left of the loop. Right around mile 4 you hit an aid station, just shortly after it you make a right turn and you can see the transition area. I took my first gu right at the aid station so I could chase it with water. Right before I hit the transition area, blahhhhhhh. Yep, I threw up my gu. Fuhhhh. Not part of my plan. You turn right into that and then you're back to the start of the run shoot. You pass right by the split that says (Left-Finish Line, Right-1st, 2nd, 3rd lap) <---ughhh. One lap down. Two to go. I saw my family and friends in the shoot, even though I wasn't feeling that hot I still smiled because it was so nice to see them.
The second lap was far more interesting than the first. As I was going through the crowd supported area, I heard commotion of some celebrity racing, as some guy just took some photos of him and was talking to someone saying "Yeah that's .......he's in the movie...." I honestly didn't hear the names, just thought well that's cool. Kept trucking along and then I started walking along this guy. We started talking and he was saying how this was really just a training race for his main race which is coming up. I asked which race that was, and what do you know, he said Ironman Texas. I told him that was my A race as well so we talked about that a bit. Then, I started trotting off. When I started walking again, I was next to a girl. Turns out this was her first half ironman. I encouraged her, cause she wasn't feeling too excited about it. There were a few guys behind us joking around. I heard one of the guys saying "What? Is there something wrong with my beard?" I turned around and just smiled as I saw that the guy had sunblock all over his face and in his beard. I said to him "Nah, you're good". (Later came to find out, that was the celebrity, actor Chris Pratt!!!) I started running again. At this point, with my gu having come right back up, I took Gatorade, and endurolyte, and water at each stop. All I kept telling myself was "Look, there are people here for you, don't keep them waiting too long", "You panzy move your ass already", "Coach is going to kill me", "Just a training day for ironman", and "You've done this before, you've got this, just keep moving". My legs hurt so bad. I was hurting just as bad as I was during my marathon for my Ironman.
Finally, I had hit lap 3. Again, I saw Justin, his Dad, my best friend, her boyfriend, my brother, and my Mom. Lap 3 I ran into another triathlete from Pensacola. He was having a rough day too but we were both on the stretch home. Later in the loop, I was next to the girl who was doing her first half ironman. She said she was cramping bad but had no electrosalts. I offered her some but she had no water to take them, so I just gave her my tube of endurolytes so she could have some, especially considering she had a whole other lap to go. Just two more turns, and I was in the shoot for the finish line. I was miserable at this point. I didn't even smile for the cameras/finish line, I was just so ready to be done. I hurt so bad, was so hot, and just felt awful. I was also really disappointed in myself for not having the race I had trained so hard for. I met my family right at the exit and I just wanted to collapse right then and there but my brother and boyfriend took me off to the side to sit down. I didn't even care for a chair or anything, I just wanted to get off my legs. I started crying as soon as I hit the ground. I was so upset that I didn't have a good race and honestly I felt like crap. They got me some ice to put on my legs, and a cold bottle of water to put on my neck. I finally came to after a few minutes and sucked it up. I finished. I felt like crap but still finished, still under 7 hours too. And I PR'ed my bike time. I finished 10th place in my age group.
We got some photos of all of us together and then we needed to start hitting the road. Thankfully, my awesome friend Lee, had a shower in his van, so I was able to get cleaned up before lunch and hitting the road. My best friend, her boyfriend, Justin and I went to Chili's for lunch where I had a lot of food. Then it was a 7 hour ride home.
It was a good learning experience for sure. Now, back to training at its peak for Ironman Texas. Less than one month away now!
Thank you to Running Wild, Gulf Coast Cycle & Tri, Quintana Roo, Newton Running, Pearl Izumi, Injinji, TYR, Xterra, Headsweats, Lazer, Profile Design, Shimano, Tifosi, Body Glide, Gu, Energy Labs, Hammer, and Garmin for your excellent tri gear/products/services.
Thank you to my Mom, Brother, Morgan, John, and Cole for being there to support me. And most of all, thank you to my wonderful boyfriend Justin, who again exceeded the duties of Ironman Sherpa. Love you all!
