Because of what has been going on in our lives in the past few months (traveling in Europe with Sean’s family, organizing and dancing in a ballet performance, and then leaving my ballet teaching job to start classes of my own) my focus has been elsewhere. Although I had trained pretty intensively from January to the beginning of April and picked up again with relative focus after returning from our trip I was feeling a little out of sorts triathlon-wise. To add to that feeling, I dislocated my left shoulder two and a half weeks before the race and had barely been able to swim since then. My goal had gone from “go fast” to “have fun and finish.” I did, however, somewhere in the back of my head, want to go for my goal of really pushing myself on the intensity, past what I’d done before. I knew that wasn’t going to be possible on the swim, but I told myself I’d push the run and see what I could do.
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| Hanging with Mike Reilly at the expo |
The expo and athlete meeting, like always, got me a little more mentally checked in. To add to the fun, Mike Reilly was there so I got to thank him for giving me the double-call (having the audience tell me “you are an Ironman!”) at Kona and get a photo with him. I also felt very fancy checking in at the special Ironman All World Athlete check-in table, and got a good giggle when the volunteer working asked how much it cost to get the VIP check-in. The guy next to me explained the All World selection process, followed by a decisive “we earned that shit.” All of my missing toenails (which have finally grown back!) agreed with him wholeheartedly.
Race eve came and we carefully gathered our gear for the morning. Sean and I applied Ashley’s race number tattoos and I almost cried looking at her eager, excited face and realizing how much I hoped she’d finish. Other than that, I kind of kept to myself. I’m realizing that I’m kind of anti-social pre-race.
One of the most dramatic benefits to becoming more experienced in the sport is the ability to actually sleep well the night before a race. Whereas in my earlier triathlon days I would toss and turn or lie in bed the whole night staring at the ceiling, I now go to bed around 9:30pm, fall asleep without issue, and get 6 hours of solid sleep before my alarm goes off at 3:30am. It’s quite lovely, and something I will never take for granted.
Much to my delight, they had moved the start time up by half an hour this year, from 7am to 6:30. I was hopeful that this would eliminate the issue that I had battled with last year when they instituted a rolling start without taking into account the fact that water conditions deteriorate dramatically between 7 and 8am, resulting in some nasty waves and chop for those of us starting later. I went through my morning routine – get up, eat, shower, tattoo, braid my hair, and double, triple, quadruple check my gear – and then it was time to head for the shuttles to the start.
T1 pre-race is always fun. So many excited people, so much energy! Apparently, they mentioned my birthday over the PA system but of course I was too focused to hear it. At 6:15 we all headed toward the start, and at 6:30 the first wave took off. We were excited to see the legendary Karen Aydelott in the start area, along with Mike Reilly and Ironman god Mark Allen. Sean’s wave went out around 6:40am. After watching him start, I tried to get Ashley settled, then took off on my own to warm up. I ran up and down the beach, then hid and did my weird ballet warm ups that seem to do more good for me than any conventional exercises. Time went by quickly and before I knew it I was joining the women in my age group in the start corral and . I seeded toward the front, not so much on purpose as that I was talking to my friend Sara and she’s a really fast swimmer, and then there we were at the start gates with the signals beeping and so off I went!
My mantra for the swim was simple: “slow and steady,” I told myself over and over again. “You dislocated your shoulder less than three weeks ago and you haven’t swam more than 1500 in three weeks. It’s not going to be a fast swim, but that’s okay. Just stay on the outside so no one knocks your shoulder out again and be slow and steady.” Oddly enough, this swim felt the best of any Honu swim yet. I never got to the point of feeling totally exhausted, and because I was just trying to stay steady I didn’t really leapfrog with any other swimmers. When I passed someone, it was because I was decidedly faster, and when I got passed, it was clear that I was not going to gain my position back. It was kind of a peaceful mindset to swim in. About halfway through the swim my shoulder started tiring – not crunching or clicking or popping or hurting, luckily, just tiring – but it manifested in a definite tendency to drift off to the left, which I had to keep correcting for. I was certain I must be swimming a sine curve.
On the final stretch, I started getting passed by the fastest of the female 20-24 group. There was one girl who was so fast that at first peripheral glance I actually thought she was some kind of sea creature or mermaid. Her movement was so graceful, smooth, and powerful, and she passed me with a kind of speed I still can’t quite comprehend. It was so beautiful to watch I was transfixed, then within moments she was gone.
Soon enough I was rounding the last buoy, hearing the announcer and the crowd, and heading for shore. I exited the water, did my best to run gracefully with a non-double chinned smile for the cameras, and then walked through the showers before running for T1. I couldn't believe it when I glanced down at my watch and saw my swim split - 36:30, three and a half minutes faster than last year!
Another goal of mine for this year was to reduce my transition times. Last year I did this race having not done a triathlon since 2015 and with my focus being on Ironman in August, so I had told myself to take my time in transition and set myself up well on the bike. I had taken my own advice a little to literally, however, and spent an eternity in T1 putting on sunscreen, hairspraying my hair (yes, seriously. What the hell was I thinking?), loading my gels into my pockets, putting on my heart rate monitor, drying my feet… eating breakfast? I honestly don’t even remember what else I was doing but my T1 time was a mortifying 11:xx minutes! This year I vowed not to repeat that performance, so I had applied my super duper waterproof sunscreen pre-swim and taped all of my nutrition to my bike so that all I had to do was put on bike shoes, helmet, and go. And that’s what I did! Shakily, but successfully, I took six minutes (six minutes!) off of my T1 time.
The first little 8-mile out and back to Mauna Lani felt good. My legs felt okay, by breathing was normalizing nicely. I saw Ashley on my way back and she looked like she was doing well, pumping away, so I started the trek up to Hawi feeling optimistic. My first few 5-mile splits were fast -- easily on pace for my goal pace of 17.5mph. The course conjestion was much more noticeable than last year. It seemed that on every hill I was having to slow down and dodge people to avoid getting in the drafting zone. I do want to give credit to the race officials, who were very present, keeping a close eye on the crowds but making very careful penalty calls only to those who were clearly drafting intentionally, not those merely caught in the mayhem and trying their best to leave proper space.
The weather, thankfully, was mild this year. The vicious, frightening crosswinds of last year were almost non-existent, and for this I was very grateful. From the beginning of the bike, though, I could tell that my nutrition was a little off. This wasn’t surprising to me because before our Italy trip, it seemed that I had accidentally fat-adapted myself to the point where I hardly needed any fuel during even long training sessions. Runs and rides where before I would take upward of four gels I could do on Skratch and water alone, and somehow my pace was still faster. Then we went to Italy, where I spent three weeks eating pasta and gelato twice daily. When I came back, I was slower and back to needing fuel on my workouts. Although I made efforts to get back into fat adaptation before the race, it just wasn’t enough time and I was left in a strange no-man’s-land of needing some fuel but not as much as normal, and never being able to tell exactly when I would need it until it was too late. This was the case during this ride. I would try to eat on my normal schedule – a gel every 40 minutes or so – but it seemed like way too much, and I think I ended up taking one every hour or so instead. I was also insanely, insatiably thirsty from the moment I got out of the water to the moment I crossed the finish line. I didn’t want Skratch, I wanted gallons and gallons of pure water. A big part of my nutrition strategy is listening to my body’s cravings, interpreting what they mean, and fueling accordingly but I also know that drinking only water for a 3+ hour ride going into a two and a half hour run, both in sweltering sun and humidity, is a bad idea. I watched Jodie Swallow’s 2013 Ironman Kona performance where she was hospitalized for hyponatremia and I have no desire to experience it.
Into T2 I went, with the same goal in mind as T1 – get in and get out, FAST. No nonsense. I even had a race belt, even though I hate them and usually spend the extra time pinning my number on just to avoid it riding up and flapping around over and over. Helmet on, shoes off, shoes on, belt on, hat on, and out I went! I took off fast, hoping to hold a 9:00 to 9:15 minute mile pace during my planned 4-minute run intervals before walking 1-minute, resulting in a 10:15-ish mile pace on average.
I was quickly reminded of why running at Honu is nothing like running in training. About three quarters of the run is on golf course grass and steep little golf course hills. There is no hope of finding your rhythm, no hope of getting a good stride going, it’s just squish, squish, squish, up and down and up and down. And it’s hot – not just normal hot, but a steam room-like hot that seems to be frying you from above while the evaporating moisture from the grass smothers you from below. Can you tell how much I like this run?
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| Pushing through the yuck |
Once I made it through that dark place, things actually started to improve. It was very uncomfortable, but I was able to hold very close to my goal paces in all but two spots on the course. The Hell’s Kitchen section, a stretch of flat, paved, sun-exposed road that most people dread, actually provided a welcome respite. It’s paved, it’s flat, and when we got to it on both the first and second loop I was able to pick up my pace significantly and make up for some lost time. The second time I went through that section I came up on Ashley, on her first loop, seeming a little frustrated that she was walking but still powering through. She was in the company of another athlete and they seemed to be doing okay. I was so happy to see that she was still going! I used my one minute walk interval to walk with them, then wished them well and fought onward.
Based on the conditions I had adjusted my goals a little – hold 9:30 or faster paces during the run intervals for an average of sub-10:45 minute miles. A little disappointing, but still over a minute per mile faster than last year. I powered on. It felt very different from last year, in which I felt great for the first lap and then completely fell apart on the second lap. This time I was actually feeling better and better (all relative, of course!) as the race went on, and the miles ticked off steadily rather than dragging by. I think with six months of Ironman training, two Ironman races, and six months of intensive speed and power work, I am just a little more used to suffering this year than I was last year. I was still fighting the overwhelming desire to drink six cups of water at every aid station, trying to control my liquid intake while taking care of my body as best I could. As a random and fun surprise, there were a couple of friends out on the course who knew it was my birthday, and told me happy birthday every time we crossed paths. The unexpected result of this was that complete strangers who heard them started saying it too the next time I saw them, which was an excellent pick-me-up as the race went on.
Sean had a rough day. His stomach went bad almost immediately on the run, leaving him only able to walk most of it. He fought through like a warrior and finished. Ashley kept up her steady work, pushing through the heat and the pain, and crossed the finish line of her first 70.3 victorious! Congratulations to both of them as well as all the other finishers, and thank you to my mom and Sean’s family for their support, my dad for being with me in spirit on many a long run, Michelle Suber and Krista Graves for being run/adventure partners extraordinaire, Melissa Schad for being by swim race buddy and awesome inspiration, and all of the athletes I coach for inspiring me daily with their hard work and determination.
