Ironman 70.3 Hawaii 2018 Race Report

This year marks my 3rd time doing Ironman 70.3 Hawaii (“Honu”), and just like years past, this year the race presented new challenges, new experiences, and new accomplishments. We knew this year would be different and special because Sean’s sister, Ashley, had decided to “tri” with us. It was her first 70.3 and first triathlon in almost ten years. In addition, Sean’s race buddy from Ironman Coeur D’Alene, Stephanie, was here racing from San Francisco. And, to top it off, the race also had the special distinction of being on my 32nd birthday! 

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. 

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. 

So I kept guessing, trying to combine what my body was telling me with what I know to be necessary to get through this kind of race. It was semi-successful. I got a big surge of energy right before the long six mile climb to Hawi, which worked out nicely, but after flying down the (wonderful) descent I just ran out of gas. My legs felt like they had nothing, like they were big blocks of cement, and mentally I felt a little fuzzy. It didn’t help that we picked up a decent little headwind heading back, either. I had been on target to PR by over five minutes, and usually the return is faster than the ascent, but it took the opposite pattern and I got slower and slower as I rode on. It was quite irritating and put me into a somewhat negative head space as I neared the end of the bike course. I pushed hard for the last five mile split, determined to hang on to my PR, and managed to get in one measly minute faster than last year. Not bad, but very disappointing considering the kinds of paces I’d been riding in training. 

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? 

Pushing through the yuck

Having started the run a little frustrated, I was just hating life for the first few miles. Around Mile 3, for the first time in my racing career, I had to truly talk myself out of quitting. “I just really don’t want to do this,” I thought. “I’m not going to do this. I’m going to stop.” I pondered this option for a minute, thinking back on all those torturous speed sessions I’d run, all the hill repeats on the bike… did I do all of that for a DNF? “Okay, I won’t stop, but I’m just going to walk the rest of the race.” That was my next bargaining chip. Again I thought back on my runs – intervals I didn’t think I could make it through, paces I didn’t think I could hold, fourteen mile paced runs fighting headwind and midday Hawaii heat… I kept running. I also remembered that when I start to feel this way on long bike rides it’s usually due to lack of calories, so I reached in my pocket for the gel I hadn’t been able to get down on the bike and sure enough, within minutes, I was feeling better. 

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.

Soon enough I was at Mile 12. I felt like I could run more than my specified interval, but decided to save it for the last set and speed up a little if I could. Up and down and through the grass we went, but now the end was in sight. Once I passed the last aid station my watch showed that there was about a half mile left, and I decided I could run it all and pick up the pace a bit. This wasn’t an “I’m feeling great and have extra energy” kind of being able to pick up the pace, more of an “I promised myself I would push to my absolute max and leave nothing out there” kind of thing. It took everything I had. I finished the last stretch around the grass and savored taking the right turn to the finish instead of the left turn for another lap. As I approached the finish, I saw Sean’s mom and dad. I ran under the arch feeling absolute relief that it as over. I hadn’t looked at my overall time on my watch once during the race, nor had I added up my individual splits, so had no idea what my time was. Given how the race felt, I was just hoping for 6:30 or under, which would take over 20 minutes off of my time from last year. I was still feeling a little disappointment at how things had gone. 

When I looked down at my watch for the total time and saw 6:18, the weirdest thing happened: I started to cry. There were some tears at Ironman Coeur D’Alene and a few more at Kona, but this was an uncontrollable flood of emotion, overwhelming relief that it was over and a release of all the pain of the race. It wasn’t the 6:15 I’d hoped for, but it was pretty damn close. Close enough to make me happy. It meant that I had taken 33 minutes off of my time from last year, and that I had been 12 minutes faster than at the much easier Mini Monster race I did in February, giving me a new 70.3 PR. It also meant that all the grueling work I put in since Kona had actually paid off. I had to stay in the athlete finish area for a couple of minutes before going out to meet people just to get my emotions under control. 


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.

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii 2017: Honu Race Report

Since we are over five months into Ironman training, my plan going into Honu this year was really just to treat it as a long training day. No taper, no big changes in schedule except to count it as both a long run and long bike, which meant taking the day before the race off. This worked out well, as the day before the race happened to be my birthday! We had been planning on driving from the house but the week of the race Sean’s mom surprised us by coming over to spectate and by renting a really nice townhouse just minutes from the race finish. We would have made due either way but it was certainly a wonderful surprise to be closer to the race and to have Cheryle there as our support. 

We checked in on Friday and rumors were already swirling about whether the race could go on without modification due to the wind, which was pretty severe. I brushed the possibility out of my mind until the evening, when we sat in the townhouse eating dinner feeling the walls shake violently with each gust. I thought about dealing with crosswinds like this on my brand new bike, having only ridden it on one ride over 40 minutes and still feeling quite wobbly and uncertain on it. Something about this made me nervous, and the feeling of uneasiness stayed with me all night, causing me to toss and turn without much sleep. Luckily when we got up in the morning the winds seemed to have ramped back down to “normal” Big Island level. Still fairly rough but no longer threatening to tear the house down!

Last minute preparations

We got up early, 3:45, and rode the shuttle to the start at Hapuna. This year, unlike when I did the race in 2015, they had instituted a rolling start, meaning that we gathered by gender and age group and then seeded ourselves within those groups according to our projected swim times. While I like rolling starts in general, this one was not well-executed. My group did not begin to enter the water until over an hour after the start time. I took a long warm up -- much longer than usual -- running at a relaxed pace up and down the beach, getting in the water for a short swim, all while watching the water conditions go from moderately acceptable to downright bad. By the time we got in the water it was incredibly choppy and the currents were going every which way. If they continue the rolling start in subsequent years, I hope that they figure out a way either to condense the start waves or to start the race an hour earlier to minimize the deterioration in water condition. I would also like to see the start waves divided simply by swim time, not by gender or age group. Why, as someone who generally swims 35-36 minutes for 1.2 miles, I had to swim through several waves of much slower men, I don’t understand. Anyway, I survived, but I think there is significant room for improvement in how to organize the rolling start. 

Lots of time to take pictures waiting to start...

All this time contemplating and waiting for my start also gave me time to think about the fact that I hadn’t toed the line at a triathlon start for two years! After Honu in 2015 I had so much momentum and motivation I but knew that the next year, in which I got married, bought a house, moved, and changed jobs was not the year to add Ironman training to the mix. So despite my enthusiasm triathlon had been put in hold. This realization both thrilled me (my grand return to the sport I love!) and worried me (did I forget anything? How should I pace this race? Am I really ready?). Having five months of Ironman training under my belt I felt vastly more prepared than I was for my first 70.3 in 2015 and I tried to just focus on that, but much ofthat training was Zone 2 base training and I was concerned that lack of speed training would negatively affect my race. Finally it was my turn to enter the start chute and put these thoughts to rest.

The swim was not enjoyable for me because of the conditions. No matter how in rhythm I got or how hard I pushed, the waves and current made it impossible to have the kind of swim I had hoped for. I was somewhat horrified when I came out of the water and saw 40 minutes on my watch. All my improvement on the swim this year and a 40 minute swim time is what I have to show for it? Blah. I tried to just put it behind me mentally and move on to the next thing: transition. 

My transition was…. unpolished. Looking back on it and the time (almost twelve minutes!) I’m not quite sure what I was thinking or doing in there. Having a sit down breakfast? Getting a massage? I put on my heart rate monitor, I very thoroughly applied sunscreen, I ate a Huma gel… what else was I doing that took so freaking long? I think I might have hairsprayed my hair… so embarrassing. Pre-race I remember thinking “don’t rush, this is your first race back and you’re not trying to win anything so just take your time and don’t forget anything you need.” Post-race looking at my time I was thinking “okay so maybe you should have rushed a little bit!” Yikes. Anyhow I wasn’t at all stressed at the time and I left T1 more prepared for any bike ride than I probably ever will be again. 

The only bike photo where my helmet didn't look like it was about to fall off

The bike. I remember one thought, the whole race. “Push.” Unlike my first Honu where I remember every hill and bump, this one kind of blurs into a memory of just pushing, faster faster, the whole time. Luckily my shiny new bike, which found its name, Beastie, on this ride, performed like a rockstar and we bonded in a big way. Where my Cervelo would lose speed hitting an uphill, Beastie felt like it was holding all the accumulated speed somewhere in its frame and then letting it out in perfectly rationed portions to keep me flying all the way up the hill. This may also have been a reflection of having a new drivetrain, since the one on my Cervelo was so shot. Either way, it was fun. I had a wonderful time flying down hills in my new 11th gear and passing people on the uphills as my bike unleashed its power. It was awesome. For about half of the course I had a stupidly huge grin on my face. The only little bauble was my fault, when I stupidly tried to drink from my water bottle on my unfamiliar bike on the crosswinds section coming down from Hawi going incredibly fast. I got hit with a terrifying gust of wind and, having only one hand on the handle bars, I was suddenly sideways and moved at least three feet to my right, straight off the shoulder onto the gravel. Somehow I managed to right myself without crashing and steer back into the concrete, all within a split second, but it took ten minutes for my heart to stop pounding. Needless to say I didn’t take my hands off the aero bars again until the wind had calmed down. 

The conditions this year were definitely more challenging than in 2015. The wind wasn’t as scary as I had been worried it might be, but that's not to say it was easy either. The headwind into Hawi was much more severe, and the crosswinds were frightening. It also started raining around Mahukona so the whole acsent to Hawi felt like I was riding through a massive storm. There were quite a few crashes, each one sobering. I saw an ambulance loading one unconscious cyclist, and on a less serious but odder note I also saw two women whose bikes had somehow gotten tangled and stuck together. Both athletes were fine but they were desperately trying to pull their bikes apart, swearing up a storm all the while. 

I counted myself lucky to make it to T2 unscathed. I was slow in T2 although not quite as embarrassingly so as T1, and then I was headed out on the run. My goal was to keep my mike pace right around 12 minutes per mile, and I was aiming to keep my heart rate around 150-155. I had decided that I wanted to run he whole thing without stopping to walk at all except through aid stations (since most of the time if I try to drink out of a cup and run the hydration just ends up all over the front of my tri suit. Here I encountered the other major change from 2015 was that the run course has been changed to two loops, so instead of running all around the Mauna Lani resort area runners stay on the Fairmont property for the vast majority of the time. I’m sure this is easier logistically but it also creates a hillier, grassier, hotter run course. 

My first six miles felt good. The course was indeed very, very tough, with constant rolling hills, quite a bit of time spent running in grass, and unforgiving sun and heat, but my training seemed to be carrying me through. I was thinking “wow, what a change from two years ago” as I headed into the second loop. I even stopped to go to the bathroom, which was new for me. This is where I discovered he challenge of a one-piece tri suit, as much as I love them… it does not make a pit stop easy! 

As soon as I hit familiar territory and had to start repeating the course for the second time, my body and mind turned on me. My legs started breaking down (in hindsight, probably a byproduct of going too hard on the bike!) and mentally I was just disgusted by the thought of doing the exact same really hard run that I had just done again. I made it through three miles holding it together fairly well, but at nine miles my body gave up on me and it was nothing but determination that kept me running. My legs were so shot that I couldn’t even keep my heart rate at 75% -- the fastest I could run had my heart rate hovering around 140. It was bizarre. I hated every hill, both the uphill and the downhill, with a fiery passion. People who were doing run/walk intervals were passing me, but since my goal was to run the whole thing I couldn’t allow myself to walk, even if it might have been a little faster. The “Hell’s Kitchen” section of the course, which some people hate because of the heat but I like because it is paved and flat, now appears twice, so for me this was a pick-me-up. When I hit it the second time I knew I only had a couple of miles left, which kept me shuffling along. When I stepped on a rock and twisted my ankle a bit, I barely noticed. Luckily it held for the rest of the race and only got stiff the next day. 

The last mile and a half everyone surrounding me was suffering. It was scorchingly hot and humid, and the course was nothing but hills pounding on our aging joints. There were many words of encouragment and support shared between us; this is one of the things I love most about triathlon. I had been thinking for some reason that I was supposed to be drinking both water and Gatorade at aid stations, rather than alternating like I usually do, so my stomach was sloshing and distended. Gross. (I felt really stupid afterward when I realized my mistake.)

As is always the case, the last half mile I was lifted by excitement, accomplishment, and adrenaline and my pain melted away. The grass suddenly looks green and beautiful instead of squishy and painful and the gorgeous blue ocean sparkles just beyond the black lava and white coral rocks. Suddenly all is well in the world again. Coming to the finish line was such an incredible feeling, as it always is, and this time I enjoyed knowing that I had taken significant time off my PR and that I had put together a better race, even if it was painful. I also had a bigger cheering section at the finish line this year, which was really fun. Thank you to Cheryle, the Wiley family, and the Grigore family for being there to bring me in! 

So Honu is in the books once again, with a 31 minute improvement on my time! The next thing on my plate is The Big One: my first full Ironman! I’m so glad that we chose to do this race to get us back into it. I got to make my stupid mistakes, try some things out, and see where I stand regarding fitness so that I can better plan and improve over the next few months to be ready for Coeur D’Alene! It was also a wonderful reminder of why I love this sport so much and that Ironman will be worth every moment of dedication and training.