Ironman North Carolina 70.3 2017 race report.
My next big thing after Ironman Texas was (after a bit of recovery and downtime) to train for the Rocky Raccoon 100 mile trail race. That's almost 50 miles further than I've ever run at one time, and would require some intense and focused run training.
But then I was invited for a Girls Weekend in North Carolina, to celebrate Trista's 40th birthday and do Ironman 70.3 North Carolina (formerly Beach to Battleship). And I'm NEVER invited to Girls Weekends. And it would be some of my favorite people. And I wasn't sure I could handle the FOMO. So I consulted my coach, who said cross training was a good thing, and go for it. So I signed up.
Then I did a lot of running. And not a lot of swimming. And definitely not a lot of cycling. I did a decent number of 60-90 minute rides, all on the trainer. With a month to go, I managed to sneak in two outdoor rides, a 58 miler and a 48 miler. So at least I knew I could ride a bike still, albeit slowly. I did exactly zero speed workouts, either on the road or on the trainer; everything was at an easy recovery pace. I DID do some speed work for swimming, because 99% of my swim workouts were at Masters, with the other 1% being the one open water swim at the Quarry I did a few weeks before the race. No wetsuit practice.
One of my two outdoor training rides!
I did do a lot of running, though. I ramped my mileage up each week, as my Rocky schedule dictated. This half Ironman was purely for fun, and not at all for time, so I did not modify my running volume leading up to the race, nor did I taper as I always have in the past for triathlons of any distance, especially something as long as a half Ironman. In the week leading up to the race, I ran 15 on Saturday, 7 on Sunday, 9 on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, then 4 on the day before the race. With the 13 during the race and the 3 my legs were hopefully willing to do the day AFTER the race, I was on course to hit the mileage I should have been doing that week anyway, even if configured slightly differently than normal.
With all that, I really wasn't expecting much from the race other than hopefully a fun day with friends, followed by drinking on the beach.
At the airport, taking our first of the million selfies we took over the course of the weekend.
Before
This race is Logistically Complicated. I've done races with two separate transitions before, as this one has, but never one where each discipline is point to point. Nothing ends at the same place as it begins.
(Matt points out, accurately, that technically I HAVE done something where each thing was point to point: Ultraman Canada. But that's a completely different beast, not even comparable.)
That means we had to drop our bikes off at T1 the day before, but would have access to them on race morning, which is fairly normal. We also had to drop off our shoes and whatnot at T2 the day before, but would NOT be able to have access to them race morning. T2 was far away from T1 and even further from the swim start, and so we had to be sure that whatever we needed in our T2 bags, we put in there the day before.
Preparing our bags the night before dropoff. We take our triathlon prep very seriously.
On race morning, we did the long drive down to the finish line in Wilmington, parked the car, hopped on a bus, then did that same long drive all the way back to where we'd started in Wrightsville Beach. We were dropped off at T1, where we checked on our bikes, pumped up our tires, put our liquids in place, and made sure everything else was in order.
We had intended to do a little warmup run to get our blood flowing, but our bus driver had gotten lost on the drive, so we were running a bit behind, and ran out of time. We took the shoes that we intended to warmup in and stashed them over by the swim for later, then came back to T1 to get on the shuttles to the start line.
We found the line, and it was longer than we expected. We started walking down the line to find the end. And walking. And walking. And walking. And walking. When we finally found the end of the line, we couldn't even see T1 anymore, much less than shuttles that we were trying to get on. We figured there's no WAY this event was starting on time, given how many people they still had to get to the start line.
But miraculously, that unending line went super fast, and within 10 minutes we were on a bus and headed to the swim start.
Race morning.
We exited the bus directly into the portapotty line. Once that was taken care of, we put on our wetsuits, which was actually a bit of a relief, because it was COLD out there. Low 50s. And I hadn't brought a very warm jacket to wear while we waited. So the wetsuit felt nice and warm, and I managed to get ANOTHER wear out of it without tearing through the thin spots I'm convinced I'm going to tear through every time.
I ate my pre-race Gu, we checked in our morning clothes bags, and then we all hugged and wished good luck, and Trista and I headed out with the other dark green cap 40-44 ladies toward the water (Karen and Cecilia were in a later wave).
As we waded/slid (it was super slick on the ramp) into the water, Trista worked her way up to the front, as planned, so she didn't get stuck behind slower people like she did in Galveston. I stayed maybe 3-4 rows back, not fighting to be at the front, but not letting people push in front of me. I criticized Trista for not reminding me it was salt water (she'd reminded me loudly maybe 5 minutes earlier). I hate swimming in salt water.
As we crowded in together in the water, a girl on the dock next to us started yelling that when we started swimming, we needed to swim out toward the first buoy, then gestured out into the water. She had no voice amplification, so I can't imagine the people who were still wading in near the back could hear her, but I took note, looking out into the middle of the water for the buoy.
We treaded water and joked around with the other swimmers and made sure our watches were ready to go (mostly; hi, Trista). Then they called out 30 seconds to go, then counting down from 10, then the race began.
Swim 1.2 miles
Because I am the most obedient of girls, I immediately started swimming directly for the first buoy, out in the middle of the water. I had to shorten my stroke for 3 or 4 strokes, but then I had some clear water, so I checked my heading, was still headed right for the buoy, and put my head down to keep swimming. And it was .. really calm. One of the calmest swim starts I've had for any distance, and CERTAINLY the calmest for something as big as a half Ironman. It was delightful. Not a single person hit me, and I didn't hit a single person! So much empty water. And when I got to the buoy, I came up to sight and figure out where the next buoy was, and discovered that I had so much empty water because.. I was the only one there. Everyone else had hooked a right halfway to the buoy, and started swimming along the buoy line. No reason not to, not like they were cutting off any distance or skipping a buoy. And evidently they'd done this because they'd hit the famed current. And I knew that because not only were they back across the water a ways, but they were WAY DOWNSTREAM from me. I'm not the fastest swimmer, but I know my usual relative position in a swim, and I was way far back from where I should be.
Crap. Well, nothing to be done but let it go and try to get back in the fray. So I started swimming along the buoy line, but angling back (the way I'd just come, yay negative progress) to rejoin the crowds. And just as I got back to the press of neoprene-clad humanity, the water got a lot colder. As they said it would, if you were in the current. Yay. Sigh.
At least now I was pretty sure I was in the right place. Which meant I finally had to start battling other swimmers. At least it was a little more spaced out at this point, though, so not quite so deadly. In fact, other than one girl in my age group who swam directly on my left pretty much the entire time, and we kept colliding, I didn't really have any bad contact during my swim. No kicks, no punches, no being pushed under. I had to swim around some guys from the waves ahead, and I got to enjoy the whoosh of the people from waves behind me as they sailed by at ridiculous speeds, but I remained wholly unmolested.
Really the only other notable things about the swim are (1) I hate salt water, and I should probably learn to swim without ingesting so much water, because bleeeehhh, (2) I could not settle my breathing down, and I had to breathe every 2 strokes the entire swim, and (3) I was a little nervous about the ladders, but they ended up being a complete non-issue.
When we first heard about the "ladders" at the athlete briefing, we figured there's no way they meant actual ladders. But they did! It's a deep water exit, so you swim up to a dock that has 14 ladders hung down into the water, and you wait until one is available, swim up, then climb out. It wasn't nearly as traumatic as I feared it might be: I sighted as I swam up, found out that didn't have anyone on it or swimming toward it, swam up, grab the rungs, climbed up (it's only maybe 3-4 rungs?), thanked the person who had offered a hand, because damned if I could figure out how to actually use that hand in a helpful way, walked onto the dock, then scampered my merry way the 4 miles to T1.
(Note: Might not actually have been 4 miles.)
T1
I didn't see a timing mat when I got up on the dock and took a few steps, but I wanted to be sure I knew my swim time without any of transition, so I hit split on my watch and glanced at it. It said 29:something, which meant very little to me, because I hadn't actually looked up my previous half Ironman swim times, but I had the vague impression they'd all been over 30 minutes, so yay! Probably a swim PR even though I'd failed to fully embrace the speedy current!
Flattering post-swim photo. You can see the swim exit/ladders here.
I started a careful jog down the dock and wound my way around the corner, scanning the rows of shoes. Even though it wasn't 4 miles, there was a hefty hike from the swim exit over to transition, so we'd left shoes near the swim exit that we could wear just to get over to T1. Of course, so had everyone else, which meant it wasn't easy to find a specific pair of shoes. Fortunately Trista had brought her hot pink duct tape with her that morning, and put some tape on the railing above her shoes, which were conveniently parked right next to mine. I found and grabbed my shoes, briefly confused because Trista's still seemed to be there, and I was positive I hadn't beat her out of the swim unless something had gone tremendously wrong. (I thought they were Trista's because they had the same pink tape on the shoes themselves, but it turned out they must have been Cecilia's shoes, which also had pink tape, and was in a later swim wave than me.)
I didn't bother putting the shoes on, because I was still wearing my wetsuit, so I carried the shoes in one hand, my swim cap and goggles in the other, and with the third hand I must have magically grown, I got my wetsuit down to my waist in anticipation of the wetsuit strippers.
I flopped down in front of some strippers, and they managed to extract me, though it took a few tries. I very, very, very briefly considered putting on my shoes at that point, but I knew putting running shoes on wet feet, then tying those shoes, would probably take even longer than it would take me to run in bare feet, so I just carried swim cap, goggles, wetsuit, and a pair of running shoes with me awkwardly, wincing with each step, as I ran through the parking lot, across the street, up the curb, into the grass, around the corner, by the portapotties, into the actual transition area, then down 6 rows, turning before the 7th row, passing by Trista as she was grabbing her bike off the rack (shoe-related crisis of confusion abated!), and found my bike/gear.
We weren't allowed to put our gear on the ground around our bikes, so I put on my helmet and sunglasses, which were on my handlebars, then untied my gear bag from the bike rack and fished out my Embrace the Suck towel and my bike shoes. I stood on the towel and kinda wiped futilely at my wet, muddy feet, then slipped my shoes on. I didn't even consider wearing the arm warmers I was convinced I'd need when I was standing around freezing before the swim. I crammed the towel, my wetsuit, swimcap and goggles into the bag, dropped it on the ground, swung my bike off the rack, and ran toward Bike Out.
There would be no shoeless mount. Not after I failed completely at Jack's Generic because I hadn't practiced, and then practiced not a single time since then. I learn!
I managed to negotiate the deadly curb down to the mount line without face planting (they did have the curb outlined in bright tape, but it would have been nice to have a volunteer yelling something like, "BE CAREFUL, THERE IS A CURB, YOU ARE LIKELY TO FALL!"), and ran way past the mount line to stop behind a guy who looked like he'd probably be taking off right around the time I got mounted up. Perfect.
I hit split on my watch and started my bike computer, but did not look at my split. Given the 4 miles of travel, I just assumed it was probably a 10 minute transition or something. Fine.
Bike 56 miles
Mounted up and took off riding without incident. Kelly had told Karen that the NC course was "wiggly". The swim was certainly wiggly, winding around point to point, and now the first few miles of the bike was very wiggly. Turn, turn, turn, impossible to get into much of a rhythm, and probably ill-advised to be your aerobars, though that certainly didn't stop many people.
After what felt like a thousand turns, we finally did our final turn out of the Wrightsville Beach area, and headed out to the big straight part of the ride. Which meant crossing our first bridge.
We weren't really sure what to make of the bridges, going in. We knew that we were going to go over several drawbridges which were grated at their highest point. There were a lot of warnings about the bridges: Go slow. Walk if you feel safer. Maybe unclip one foot as you go over. Don't pass anyone while on the grate. That sort of stuff. Our first instinct was to kinda discount it. They warned us about the railroad tracks, too, and we've ridden over a ton of those, and being from Texas, also a ton of cattle guards. We're familiar with riding over stupid metal hazards. But we didn't ever ride over them before the race, and they certainly LOOK pretty scary, so we were apprehensive going in.
And it turns out.. they're pretty scary. As we rode over the first one, it was still morning, and everything was dewy, and the grate was wet, and SUPER slippery. Some people were concerned that their tire might get stuck in the grate somehow, but the real hazard was hitting the wet grate and having your tire slide out from under you to the side. I was behind a slower gentleman who was being very cautious as I went over the first bridge, and as soon as I got on the grate, I knew I would be staying behind him, going very slowly, and just trying to hold a straight line. And I got over it just fine. But I knew this was one of those "respect this hazard" sort of things that could spell the end of my race if I was too aggressive.
Once I was over that, I settled into my aerobars and tried to just kinda zone out. I hadn't done nearly enough riding to prepare for this race, and only two outdoor rides, so I knew this probably wasn't going to be pleasant or comfortable. I just wanted to get through it so I could run. And then be done. And then drink.
The ride wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. There was debate over whether it was "pancake flat" or merely "flat", and I would argue that there were enough overpasses and bridges that it was bumpier than a pancake, but certainly not much more. So lots of time spent in the aerobars, coming up only to eat, drink, and deal with hazardous road conditions and hazardous people.
It was.. really pretty boring. And uncomfortable. I felt like I was fighting the wind a little on the way out, but I think mostly it was just so flat that I could never coast. I'm not used to Unrelenting Flat.
Aero. Wry smile.
So to pass the time, I yelled at people who were drafting (of which there were MANY), sang songs in my head, and played "Bike Malfunction or Cicada?", wherein I tried to figure out if my bike was making a weird whirring, chirping noise, or whether it was just bugs in the tall grass we were riding by. Fortunately everything seemed to be cicadas.
Other than the bridges and the drafters, the only truly annoying part of the ride was the lollipop section. We moved off the big road where we had a lane blocked off just for us, safe from the cars, and rode a loop on a smaller road before heading back to T2. This loop was completely open to traffic with no space coned off for riders, and so cars would pass us in the lane of opposing traffic. At least until cars came from the OTHER direction, at which time they would merge back into the lane with the bikes, and everyone was unhappy and unsafe. Not my favorite part. But I never saw anything go tremendously wrong, fortunately.
I think this was technically in the first few miles, when everyone was still packed together. I look like I'm part of a peloton, though!
After the lollipop, we got back on the big road, and headed back toward Wilmington, where we would transition and then run. I felt like maybe we had more wind at our back in this direction, and indeed my speed picked up in this direction, but I think that also had to do with my getting stuck in more bike congestion in this direction. Someone would pass me, and then slow down massively, so I would be forced to pass them again in order to not slow down massively myself. After yelling at all those drafters, I was damned if I was going to be forced to draft involuntarily myself. So I did a lot of surging and passing on the way back. Not always in a bad way, either. I ended up leap frogging with one girl over and over and over, and eventually we learned each other's names so we could cheer for each other, since we were doing it so often. (Karen, /Kah'-ren/, from possibly Australia?) We kept each other motivated and inspired! And faster than we'd otherwise be.
Nearing T2.
We were obviously nearing a town as we headed in, which I was hoping was Wilmington, and then after some more railroad tracks and one last bridge/grate, we rolled back into civilization. We hadn't really investigated this part of the course, so I wasn't sure how close to T2 we were, until giant buildings loomed up before us, then event fencing, then a turn which was surrounded by cheering crowds (which we hadn't really seen since the first few miles of the bike). Figuring this turn was probably going to take me to transition and the dismount line, I realized I needed to decide post-haste if I was going to get my feet out of my shoes before I dismounted or not. As I made the turn, I decided to take off my shoes, and after I turned I realized I had precious little time to actually accomplish that. Got one foot out, took a break to brake hard, because I was going DOWNHILL to the dismount line, and still had to get another foot out, and managed to wrest my second foot out of its shoe just in time to stop riiiiight at the dismount line.
I stepped down and stopped at the line, and a guy behind me almost crashed directly into the back of me at speed. What the hell did you think I was going to do, sir? Go right over the dismount line on my bike? Ugh. (12%.) (Sorry, inside joke from the weekend.)
T2
I started running with my bike down the road, then into the fenced corridor to the right toward transition. The middle of the path was covered in a thick rubber mat, which I fiercely claimed as my own, because the dirt around the mat was peppered with big, sharp rocks, which would not be pleasant on my shoeless, sockless feet. Fortunately the people around me were wearing shoes, so seemed happy enough to run in the rocks, and I didn't come upon anyone ahead of me that I had to go around.
I got into transition, ran down 5 rows, found my rack and spot without incident, and racked my bike. Then split my watch, but did not look at the time. I had been eating roughly based on mileage, so really didn't know how long the bike had taken me, and really didn't want to know. I'd felt like I was riding sustainably, but had been passed by a billion people, and didn't really feel like I was riding very fast as a result. Ignorance is bliss, when there's nothing you can do except potentially regret.
I untied my bag from the rack and plopped my butt down on the ground. I'd had to pee for the last 10 miles of the bike, but had been so surrounded by other cyclists that whole time, I didn't even try to pee on the bike. I didn't really want to take the time hit during transition or during the run to hit a portapotty, so I sat in the grass and peed while putting on my socks and shoes. Sorry, bike neighbors.
After I got my socks and shoes on, I still wasn't done peeing, so I fished out my bag of nutrition, my throwaway handheld water bottle, and my headband, put on my headband, bagged up my helmet (even though they'd said we didn't have to bag our stuff, I didn't have my name in my helmet, and didn't want to risk losing it; plus it was literally the only thing that I had to put in my bag), and then hopped up to head out.
Hands full of things I needed to sort out as I started the run.
I ran toward Run Out, wound around the outside of transition, and then out onto the road to start the run!
Run 13.1 miles
Yay, running! The last thing I have to do before the drinking can begin! And I like running! Except.. remember when I was freezing a few hours ago? Yeah, that was no longer the case. The sun was out in full force now, and even though it was probably only in the mid-70s (I didn't actually know that until just now; I cheated and looked it up on weather underground), with the sun and no shade it felt like it was in the low 90s. Which some people argued was still cooler than it was for a lot of our training in Texas, except that I do 100% of my runs in the 4-7am time frame, so I have no sun acclimation at all.
Plus I quickly realized in the first few miles that for all the debate over whether the bike was pancake-flat or merely flat, nobody ever claimed the RUN was flat. It was touted as lovely, but never was flat put forth. I realized this because the first few miles had quite a bit of up and down in the aforementioned glaring sun.
The good news is, my legs felt decent. I tend to come off the bike feeling warmed up and loose, and my body doesn't usually seriously object to the transition. That doesn't LAST, but it's a nice way to start out. So I was cruising past folks, running by feel, and trying to settle in. And not think about how many miles 13 was. Plus that 0.1 at the end.
Obligatory jazzhands.
After a couple miles of up and down in the sun through the downtown area, we turned into a much shadier, prettier, tree-lined avenue. The shade seemed to drop the temperature at least 10 degrees, and life (and running) felt tolerable again.
I tried to keep my pace and my energy up, encouraging people as I passed them or they passed me, cheering for folks going the other way, and thanking the aid station volunteers. I ate a Gu roughly every 3.5 miles. I took a salt pill around mile 6. I ran through the aid stations, taking one cup of water from each one, drinking 3/4 and then dumping the last 1/4 down my back.
Around mile 6, I began to wonder where the turnaround was. I knew that the finish line wasn't at T2, and that the course went out further than halfway, but I wasn't sure exactly how far it went out. The consensus seemed to be that it turned around somewhere around mile 7.
As I got closer and closer to mile 7, I began to get concerned. I knew Trista should be ahead of me, so I'd been watching for her coming back, but I hadn't seen her, nor had I passed her. When I actually saw the arrow for the turnaround ahead, I got REALLY concerned. How could I have missed her? Was she okay?! And then just as I was pondering all this, approaching the turnaround.. there she was, coming back! And then Lauren, right behind her! We cheered for each other as we passed, then I navigated the sharp U-turn to head back toward the finish line. 6 miles until drinking!
I was a little miserable at this point. It was warm. My legs were tired. I was completely coated in salt, both from salt water having dried on my body and from my body sweating and then drying repeatedly. My body was ready to be done. And my right shoe was juuuuust a little bit loose, which I was diligently trying to ignore, but which was becoming more and more of an issue as time went on and my foot moved around too much in my shoe. And now I still had 6 miles left, which is a lot of miles, really, even if you try to put a "just" in front of it to brighten it up.
So when I came up on Trista again, I said, "Girls' Weekend, they said. It'll be fun, they said." And we laughed. I think. I tried to laugh. I was tired. I think I reminded her she had an 18-pack of Bud Light back at the house waiting for her. (Just for her; nobody else was willing to drink that.)
Just after that, I saw Karen coming out, not too far behind me, and we got to cheer for each other for the first time since the race started! Then I saw Tom, who was out cheering for Carolyn and taking pictures. He didn't see me until I was right on him, so he ended up taking a few close photos, then running down the street ahead of me, with his expensive camera, so he could take a few more of me as I ran toward him again. It made me nervous to see him running with the camera, but it made me smile that he was so committed to getting good pictures. Tom's awesome.
Shortly after having seen Karen and then Tom, I saw Cecilia! Now I'd seen all my girls, and felt better knowing they were all doing well and smiling happily. The way this course was configured, it wasn't the best for cheering on your fellow participants.
Then I had a section with no distractions, during which time I realized that my loose shoe plus the water I was dumping over my head was causing a blister on the bottom of my foot. That same damn blister I get every half and full Ironman. Arrrrgh. If I'd retied my shoe right when I noticed it was loose, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. But now it was formed and if I continued to ignore it, I risked it getting much worse and possibly driving me to have no choice but to walk. I was already running on the outside of that foot, which could cause all sorts of other problems. So I stepped off to the side of the course, managed to bend down, and retied that shoe. As I stood up and started running again, I hit the start button on my watch, because muscle memory is a strong and terrible thing. Of course, I hadn't STOPPED my watch, because I was in a RACE, where time doesn't STOP, so hitting that button STOPPED my watch, and it took me a few seconds to remember that and START it again. Ugh. I was not at my brainiest.
But I only had 3 miles to go. I can do anything for 3 miles. I intended to take my last Gu with 3 miles to go, but the aid stations were spaced out strangely through there, and I didn't end up getting water until I was roughly at mile 11. I considered just not taking that last Gu, but I didn't want to have an excuse for falling apart completely so close to the end of the race, so I took about half a Gu when I got to water again.
I was back in the hill, unrelenting sun section of the race, but I knew I was close to the end, so I tried to stay strong. I really wanted to walk. I did not let myself walk.
I turned onto the street we'd run out on, so I knew I had to be somewhat close. I passed the mile 12 marker. I passed the women in sparkly skirts with the loud music cheering wildly for the runners. I passed what I thought was the last aid station. Then I passed another aid station that I figured had to be half a mile from the finish line at most, and one of the volunteers told me I had less than a mile left. I wanted to say "I BETTER HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS THAN A MILE LEFT!" but I didn't have the energy.
I ran through an intersection and the policeman directing traffic cheered for me, which is actually rather rare. So at the next intersection, I asked the policeman for a high five, even though he had something in his high-fiving hand, and he very graciously swapped that to his other hand and high fived me. And the guy behind me took advantage, and got one for himself, too.
The spectators started telling us that the finish line was just ahead. At first I figured we were going to turn on a side street and then finish, but then I could see a black arch in the distance, uphill of course, that must be the finish line.
I started to try to push, to give whatever I had left, which at that point wasn't much. I heard a spectator say something about my sparkly headband to her companion, and that made me smile. I heard people cheering my name, but wasn't sure if I knew them or if they were reading it off my bib. I tried to smile instead of grimace. I entered the chute, willing my legs to keep moving. Then as I crossed the finish line, even though I keep telling myself I need to come up with a finish line maneuver that doesn't have so much potential for bad faces and awkward body shapes, I ended up doing the only jump I seem to be capable of doing.
And I was done!
After and Results
I got my medal, hat, and water, then waited at the end of the finish chute. Karen was just behind me (despite starting 20 minutes after me), Trista just behind her, and then Cecilia behind them. Each time someone would finish, we'd go up to the photographer and get another photo together with each new person. I'm sure the photographer loved us, but damn we looked cute in our matching kits.
All together!
And after we'd all finished, we hobbled back to our vrbo on the beach and finally started drinking. Sure, we could have celebrated Trista's birthday with JUST drinking, but this way we really EARNED this drinking.
I mentioned that I looked at my watch after the swim, but then didn't look at it again, including during the run. This is actually my preferred way to race. I'm fairly good at racing by perceived effort, and I check in with myself often to see if I could be going harder, and try to go harder if I can. I'm afraid if I look at my watch, I'll either be disappointed with my current pace, or I'll think I'm going too hard/fast and back off. This way I just listen to my body and let it dictate the effort, and trust that the pace will take care of itself.
This can go either way when I look at my watch at the finish line. And it has gone both ways.
This time I crossed the finish line figuring that I'd be somewhere just over 6 hours. I'd done 6:01:40 in Galveston, and that was when I was Ironman training, and was actually riding my bike regularly and outside, and had done some amount of taper, so I'd probably be slower than that, but hopefully not too much slower.
I crossed the finish line, looked at my watch, and saw 5:46:44. I wasn't even sure how that had happened, and I didn't worry about it at the time, but I was prepared to be elated if that was my actual time.
And it was!
My swim was a ~4 minute PR over my previous best of 34:12 at Vineman 2011. My bike was a 5 minute PR over my previous best of 3:10 at Kerrville 2013. And my run wasn't anywhere near a PR, but it was still a solid run, given my lack of taper and the volume I'd been running leading up to the race.
Overall it was my second fastest half Ironman, 3.5 minutes slower than my 5:43:12 at Kerrville 2013, but on a whole lot less training and with less taper.
The current-assisted swim was certainly helpful, even if I didn't execute it to its full advantage, and the relatively neutral wind on a flat bike definitely helped. But I think I undersold to myself how fit I was. I had some pretty low expectations, but I let myself exceed them, and that definitely helps boost my confidence as I move my cycling and swimming completely to "when I'm feeling it, as cross-training", and move my running to the forefront in the last 3 months of training for the Rocky Raccoon 100.
Swim: 0:29:59 (1:33/100m)
T1: 5:33
Bike: 3:05:35 (18.5mph)
T2: 3:47
Run: 2:01:52 (9:13/mile)
Overall: 5:46:44
Sub-30 swim! Just barely! 1:33/100m, which is 1:25/100y, which is usually my "swim all out for 100 yards" pace. 18.5 mph on the bike! I usually don't even average that kind of pace during a sprint triathlon. And my first few miles on the run were just sub-9, falling to 9, falling to 9:30s, then rallying for a 9:14 for my last mile. Thank you, legs, for hanging in there with insufficient rest and pampering.
(Pretty pleased with my transitions, too, given the distance we had to travel in T1 and the amount of peeing I had to do in T2.)
I briefly stole this sign from another Amy, so I could get this ridiculous photo.
Overall it was such a fun trip with some of my favorite girlfriends, and a great way to end a triathlon season that began back in April with the same friends. And then we drank.
Run all the miles.
But then I was invited for a Girls Weekend in North Carolina, to celebrate Trista's 40th birthday and do Ironman 70.3 North Carolina (formerly Beach to Battleship). And I'm NEVER invited to Girls Weekends. And it would be some of my favorite people. And I wasn't sure I could handle the FOMO. So I consulted my coach, who said cross training was a good thing, and go for it. So I signed up.
Then I did a lot of running. And not a lot of swimming. And definitely not a lot of cycling. I did a decent number of 60-90 minute rides, all on the trainer. With a month to go, I managed to sneak in two outdoor rides, a 58 miler and a 48 miler. So at least I knew I could ride a bike still, albeit slowly. I did exactly zero speed workouts, either on the road or on the trainer; everything was at an easy recovery pace. I DID do some speed work for swimming, because 99% of my swim workouts were at Masters, with the other 1% being the one open water swim at the Quarry I did a few weeks before the race. No wetsuit practice.
One of my two outdoor training rides!
I did do a lot of running, though. I ramped my mileage up each week, as my Rocky schedule dictated. This half Ironman was purely for fun, and not at all for time, so I did not modify my running volume leading up to the race, nor did I taper as I always have in the past for triathlons of any distance, especially something as long as a half Ironman. In the week leading up to the race, I ran 15 on Saturday, 7 on Sunday, 9 on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, then 4 on the day before the race. With the 13 during the race and the 3 my legs were hopefully willing to do the day AFTER the race, I was on course to hit the mileage I should have been doing that week anyway, even if configured slightly differently than normal.
With all that, I really wasn't expecting much from the race other than hopefully a fun day with friends, followed by drinking on the beach.
At the airport, taking our first of the million selfies we took over the course of the weekend.
Before
This race is Logistically Complicated. I've done races with two separate transitions before, as this one has, but never one where each discipline is point to point. Nothing ends at the same place as it begins.
(Matt points out, accurately, that technically I HAVE done something where each thing was point to point: Ultraman Canada. But that's a completely different beast, not even comparable.)
That means we had to drop our bikes off at T1 the day before, but would have access to them on race morning, which is fairly normal. We also had to drop off our shoes and whatnot at T2 the day before, but would NOT be able to have access to them race morning. T2 was far away from T1 and even further from the swim start, and so we had to be sure that whatever we needed in our T2 bags, we put in there the day before.
Preparing our bags the night before dropoff. We take our triathlon prep very seriously.
On race morning, we did the long drive down to the finish line in Wilmington, parked the car, hopped on a bus, then did that same long drive all the way back to where we'd started in Wrightsville Beach. We were dropped off at T1, where we checked on our bikes, pumped up our tires, put our liquids in place, and made sure everything else was in order.
We had intended to do a little warmup run to get our blood flowing, but our bus driver had gotten lost on the drive, so we were running a bit behind, and ran out of time. We took the shoes that we intended to warmup in and stashed them over by the swim for later, then came back to T1 to get on the shuttles to the start line.
We found the line, and it was longer than we expected. We started walking down the line to find the end. And walking. And walking. And walking. And walking. When we finally found the end of the line, we couldn't even see T1 anymore, much less than shuttles that we were trying to get on. We figured there's no WAY this event was starting on time, given how many people they still had to get to the start line.
But miraculously, that unending line went super fast, and within 10 minutes we were on a bus and headed to the swim start.
Race morning.
We exited the bus directly into the portapotty line. Once that was taken care of, we put on our wetsuits, which was actually a bit of a relief, because it was COLD out there. Low 50s. And I hadn't brought a very warm jacket to wear while we waited. So the wetsuit felt nice and warm, and I managed to get ANOTHER wear out of it without tearing through the thin spots I'm convinced I'm going to tear through every time.
I ate my pre-race Gu, we checked in our morning clothes bags, and then we all hugged and wished good luck, and Trista and I headed out with the other dark green cap 40-44 ladies toward the water (Karen and Cecilia were in a later wave).
As we waded/slid (it was super slick on the ramp) into the water, Trista worked her way up to the front, as planned, so she didn't get stuck behind slower people like she did in Galveston. I stayed maybe 3-4 rows back, not fighting to be at the front, but not letting people push in front of me. I criticized Trista for not reminding me it was salt water (she'd reminded me loudly maybe 5 minutes earlier). I hate swimming in salt water.
As we crowded in together in the water, a girl on the dock next to us started yelling that when we started swimming, we needed to swim out toward the first buoy, then gestured out into the water. She had no voice amplification, so I can't imagine the people who were still wading in near the back could hear her, but I took note, looking out into the middle of the water for the buoy.
We treaded water and joked around with the other swimmers and made sure our watches were ready to go (mostly; hi, Trista). Then they called out 30 seconds to go, then counting down from 10, then the race began.
Swim 1.2 miles
Because I am the most obedient of girls, I immediately started swimming directly for the first buoy, out in the middle of the water. I had to shorten my stroke for 3 or 4 strokes, but then I had some clear water, so I checked my heading, was still headed right for the buoy, and put my head down to keep swimming. And it was .. really calm. One of the calmest swim starts I've had for any distance, and CERTAINLY the calmest for something as big as a half Ironman. It was delightful. Not a single person hit me, and I didn't hit a single person! So much empty water. And when I got to the buoy, I came up to sight and figure out where the next buoy was, and discovered that I had so much empty water because.. I was the only one there. Everyone else had hooked a right halfway to the buoy, and started swimming along the buoy line. No reason not to, not like they were cutting off any distance or skipping a buoy. And evidently they'd done this because they'd hit the famed current. And I knew that because not only were they back across the water a ways, but they were WAY DOWNSTREAM from me. I'm not the fastest swimmer, but I know my usual relative position in a swim, and I was way far back from where I should be.
Crap. Well, nothing to be done but let it go and try to get back in the fray. So I started swimming along the buoy line, but angling back (the way I'd just come, yay negative progress) to rejoin the crowds. And just as I got back to the press of neoprene-clad humanity, the water got a lot colder. As they said it would, if you were in the current. Yay. Sigh.
At least now I was pretty sure I was in the right place. Which meant I finally had to start battling other swimmers. At least it was a little more spaced out at this point, though, so not quite so deadly. In fact, other than one girl in my age group who swam directly on my left pretty much the entire time, and we kept colliding, I didn't really have any bad contact during my swim. No kicks, no punches, no being pushed under. I had to swim around some guys from the waves ahead, and I got to enjoy the whoosh of the people from waves behind me as they sailed by at ridiculous speeds, but I remained wholly unmolested.
Really the only other notable things about the swim are (1) I hate salt water, and I should probably learn to swim without ingesting so much water, because bleeeehhh, (2) I could not settle my breathing down, and I had to breathe every 2 strokes the entire swim, and (3) I was a little nervous about the ladders, but they ended up being a complete non-issue.
When we first heard about the "ladders" at the athlete briefing, we figured there's no way they meant actual ladders. But they did! It's a deep water exit, so you swim up to a dock that has 14 ladders hung down into the water, and you wait until one is available, swim up, then climb out. It wasn't nearly as traumatic as I feared it might be: I sighted as I swam up, found out that didn't have anyone on it or swimming toward it, swam up, grab the rungs, climbed up (it's only maybe 3-4 rungs?), thanked the person who had offered a hand, because damned if I could figure out how to actually use that hand in a helpful way, walked onto the dock, then scampered my merry way the 4 miles to T1.
(Note: Might not actually have been 4 miles.)
T1
I didn't see a timing mat when I got up on the dock and took a few steps, but I wanted to be sure I knew my swim time without any of transition, so I hit split on my watch and glanced at it. It said 29:something, which meant very little to me, because I hadn't actually looked up my previous half Ironman swim times, but I had the vague impression they'd all been over 30 minutes, so yay! Probably a swim PR even though I'd failed to fully embrace the speedy current!
Flattering post-swim photo. You can see the swim exit/ladders here.
I started a careful jog down the dock and wound my way around the corner, scanning the rows of shoes. Even though it wasn't 4 miles, there was a hefty hike from the swim exit over to transition, so we'd left shoes near the swim exit that we could wear just to get over to T1. Of course, so had everyone else, which meant it wasn't easy to find a specific pair of shoes. Fortunately Trista had brought her hot pink duct tape with her that morning, and put some tape on the railing above her shoes, which were conveniently parked right next to mine. I found and grabbed my shoes, briefly confused because Trista's still seemed to be there, and I was positive I hadn't beat her out of the swim unless something had gone tremendously wrong. (I thought they were Trista's because they had the same pink tape on the shoes themselves, but it turned out they must have been Cecilia's shoes, which also had pink tape, and was in a later swim wave than me.)
I didn't bother putting the shoes on, because I was still wearing my wetsuit, so I carried the shoes in one hand, my swim cap and goggles in the other, and with the third hand I must have magically grown, I got my wetsuit down to my waist in anticipation of the wetsuit strippers.
I flopped down in front of some strippers, and they managed to extract me, though it took a few tries. I very, very, very briefly considered putting on my shoes at that point, but I knew putting running shoes on wet feet, then tying those shoes, would probably take even longer than it would take me to run in bare feet, so I just carried swim cap, goggles, wetsuit, and a pair of running shoes with me awkwardly, wincing with each step, as I ran through the parking lot, across the street, up the curb, into the grass, around the corner, by the portapotties, into the actual transition area, then down 6 rows, turning before the 7th row, passing by Trista as she was grabbing her bike off the rack (shoe-related crisis of confusion abated!), and found my bike/gear.
We weren't allowed to put our gear on the ground around our bikes, so I put on my helmet and sunglasses, which were on my handlebars, then untied my gear bag from the bike rack and fished out my Embrace the Suck towel and my bike shoes. I stood on the towel and kinda wiped futilely at my wet, muddy feet, then slipped my shoes on. I didn't even consider wearing the arm warmers I was convinced I'd need when I was standing around freezing before the swim. I crammed the towel, my wetsuit, swimcap and goggles into the bag, dropped it on the ground, swung my bike off the rack, and ran toward Bike Out.
There would be no shoeless mount. Not after I failed completely at Jack's Generic because I hadn't practiced, and then practiced not a single time since then. I learn!
I managed to negotiate the deadly curb down to the mount line without face planting (they did have the curb outlined in bright tape, but it would have been nice to have a volunteer yelling something like, "BE CAREFUL, THERE IS A CURB, YOU ARE LIKELY TO FALL!"), and ran way past the mount line to stop behind a guy who looked like he'd probably be taking off right around the time I got mounted up. Perfect.
I hit split on my watch and started my bike computer, but did not look at my split. Given the 4 miles of travel, I just assumed it was probably a 10 minute transition or something. Fine.
Bike 56 miles
Mounted up and took off riding without incident. Kelly had told Karen that the NC course was "wiggly". The swim was certainly wiggly, winding around point to point, and now the first few miles of the bike was very wiggly. Turn, turn, turn, impossible to get into much of a rhythm, and probably ill-advised to be your aerobars, though that certainly didn't stop many people.
After what felt like a thousand turns, we finally did our final turn out of the Wrightsville Beach area, and headed out to the big straight part of the ride. Which meant crossing our first bridge.
We weren't really sure what to make of the bridges, going in. We knew that we were going to go over several drawbridges which were grated at their highest point. There were a lot of warnings about the bridges: Go slow. Walk if you feel safer. Maybe unclip one foot as you go over. Don't pass anyone while on the grate. That sort of stuff. Our first instinct was to kinda discount it. They warned us about the railroad tracks, too, and we've ridden over a ton of those, and being from Texas, also a ton of cattle guards. We're familiar with riding over stupid metal hazards. But we didn't ever ride over them before the race, and they certainly LOOK pretty scary, so we were apprehensive going in.
And it turns out.. they're pretty scary. As we rode over the first one, it was still morning, and everything was dewy, and the grate was wet, and SUPER slippery. Some people were concerned that their tire might get stuck in the grate somehow, but the real hazard was hitting the wet grate and having your tire slide out from under you to the side. I was behind a slower gentleman who was being very cautious as I went over the first bridge, and as soon as I got on the grate, I knew I would be staying behind him, going very slowly, and just trying to hold a straight line. And I got over it just fine. But I knew this was one of those "respect this hazard" sort of things that could spell the end of my race if I was too aggressive.
Once I was over that, I settled into my aerobars and tried to just kinda zone out. I hadn't done nearly enough riding to prepare for this race, and only two outdoor rides, so I knew this probably wasn't going to be pleasant or comfortable. I just wanted to get through it so I could run. And then be done. And then drink.
The ride wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. There was debate over whether it was "pancake flat" or merely "flat", and I would argue that there were enough overpasses and bridges that it was bumpier than a pancake, but certainly not much more. So lots of time spent in the aerobars, coming up only to eat, drink, and deal with hazardous road conditions and hazardous people.
It was.. really pretty boring. And uncomfortable. I felt like I was fighting the wind a little on the way out, but I think mostly it was just so flat that I could never coast. I'm not used to Unrelenting Flat.
Aero. Wry smile.
So to pass the time, I yelled at people who were drafting (of which there were MANY), sang songs in my head, and played "Bike Malfunction or Cicada?", wherein I tried to figure out if my bike was making a weird whirring, chirping noise, or whether it was just bugs in the tall grass we were riding by. Fortunately everything seemed to be cicadas.
Other than the bridges and the drafters, the only truly annoying part of the ride was the lollipop section. We moved off the big road where we had a lane blocked off just for us, safe from the cars, and rode a loop on a smaller road before heading back to T2. This loop was completely open to traffic with no space coned off for riders, and so cars would pass us in the lane of opposing traffic. At least until cars came from the OTHER direction, at which time they would merge back into the lane with the bikes, and everyone was unhappy and unsafe. Not my favorite part. But I never saw anything go tremendously wrong, fortunately.
I think this was technically in the first few miles, when everyone was still packed together. I look like I'm part of a peloton, though!
After the lollipop, we got back on the big road, and headed back toward Wilmington, where we would transition and then run. I felt like maybe we had more wind at our back in this direction, and indeed my speed picked up in this direction, but I think that also had to do with my getting stuck in more bike congestion in this direction. Someone would pass me, and then slow down massively, so I would be forced to pass them again in order to not slow down massively myself. After yelling at all those drafters, I was damned if I was going to be forced to draft involuntarily myself. So I did a lot of surging and passing on the way back. Not always in a bad way, either. I ended up leap frogging with one girl over and over and over, and eventually we learned each other's names so we could cheer for each other, since we were doing it so often. (Karen, /Kah'-ren/, from possibly Australia?) We kept each other motivated and inspired! And faster than we'd otherwise be.
Nearing T2.
We were obviously nearing a town as we headed in, which I was hoping was Wilmington, and then after some more railroad tracks and one last bridge/grate, we rolled back into civilization. We hadn't really investigated this part of the course, so I wasn't sure how close to T2 we were, until giant buildings loomed up before us, then event fencing, then a turn which was surrounded by cheering crowds (which we hadn't really seen since the first few miles of the bike). Figuring this turn was probably going to take me to transition and the dismount line, I realized I needed to decide post-haste if I was going to get my feet out of my shoes before I dismounted or not. As I made the turn, I decided to take off my shoes, and after I turned I realized I had precious little time to actually accomplish that. Got one foot out, took a break to brake hard, because I was going DOWNHILL to the dismount line, and still had to get another foot out, and managed to wrest my second foot out of its shoe just in time to stop riiiiight at the dismount line.
I stepped down and stopped at the line, and a guy behind me almost crashed directly into the back of me at speed. What the hell did you think I was going to do, sir? Go right over the dismount line on my bike? Ugh. (12%.) (Sorry, inside joke from the weekend.)
T2
I started running with my bike down the road, then into the fenced corridor to the right toward transition. The middle of the path was covered in a thick rubber mat, which I fiercely claimed as my own, because the dirt around the mat was peppered with big, sharp rocks, which would not be pleasant on my shoeless, sockless feet. Fortunately the people around me were wearing shoes, so seemed happy enough to run in the rocks, and I didn't come upon anyone ahead of me that I had to go around.
I got into transition, ran down 5 rows, found my rack and spot without incident, and racked my bike. Then split my watch, but did not look at the time. I had been eating roughly based on mileage, so really didn't know how long the bike had taken me, and really didn't want to know. I'd felt like I was riding sustainably, but had been passed by a billion people, and didn't really feel like I was riding very fast as a result. Ignorance is bliss, when there's nothing you can do except potentially regret.
I untied my bag from the rack and plopped my butt down on the ground. I'd had to pee for the last 10 miles of the bike, but had been so surrounded by other cyclists that whole time, I didn't even try to pee on the bike. I didn't really want to take the time hit during transition or during the run to hit a portapotty, so I sat in the grass and peed while putting on my socks and shoes. Sorry, bike neighbors.
After I got my socks and shoes on, I still wasn't done peeing, so I fished out my bag of nutrition, my throwaway handheld water bottle, and my headband, put on my headband, bagged up my helmet (even though they'd said we didn't have to bag our stuff, I didn't have my name in my helmet, and didn't want to risk losing it; plus it was literally the only thing that I had to put in my bag), and then hopped up to head out.
Hands full of things I needed to sort out as I started the run.
I ran toward Run Out, wound around the outside of transition, and then out onto the road to start the run!
Run 13.1 miles
Yay, running! The last thing I have to do before the drinking can begin! And I like running! Except.. remember when I was freezing a few hours ago? Yeah, that was no longer the case. The sun was out in full force now, and even though it was probably only in the mid-70s (I didn't actually know that until just now; I cheated and looked it up on weather underground), with the sun and no shade it felt like it was in the low 90s. Which some people argued was still cooler than it was for a lot of our training in Texas, except that I do 100% of my runs in the 4-7am time frame, so I have no sun acclimation at all.
Plus I quickly realized in the first few miles that for all the debate over whether the bike was pancake-flat or merely flat, nobody ever claimed the RUN was flat. It was touted as lovely, but never was flat put forth. I realized this because the first few miles had quite a bit of up and down in the aforementioned glaring sun.
The good news is, my legs felt decent. I tend to come off the bike feeling warmed up and loose, and my body doesn't usually seriously object to the transition. That doesn't LAST, but it's a nice way to start out. So I was cruising past folks, running by feel, and trying to settle in. And not think about how many miles 13 was. Plus that 0.1 at the end.
Obligatory jazzhands.
After a couple miles of up and down in the sun through the downtown area, we turned into a much shadier, prettier, tree-lined avenue. The shade seemed to drop the temperature at least 10 degrees, and life (and running) felt tolerable again.
I tried to keep my pace and my energy up, encouraging people as I passed them or they passed me, cheering for folks going the other way, and thanking the aid station volunteers. I ate a Gu roughly every 3.5 miles. I took a salt pill around mile 6. I ran through the aid stations, taking one cup of water from each one, drinking 3/4 and then dumping the last 1/4 down my back.
Around mile 6, I began to wonder where the turnaround was. I knew that the finish line wasn't at T2, and that the course went out further than halfway, but I wasn't sure exactly how far it went out. The consensus seemed to be that it turned around somewhere around mile 7.
As I got closer and closer to mile 7, I began to get concerned. I knew Trista should be ahead of me, so I'd been watching for her coming back, but I hadn't seen her, nor had I passed her. When I actually saw the arrow for the turnaround ahead, I got REALLY concerned. How could I have missed her? Was she okay?! And then just as I was pondering all this, approaching the turnaround.. there she was, coming back! And then Lauren, right behind her! We cheered for each other as we passed, then I navigated the sharp U-turn to head back toward the finish line. 6 miles until drinking!
I was a little miserable at this point. It was warm. My legs were tired. I was completely coated in salt, both from salt water having dried on my body and from my body sweating and then drying repeatedly. My body was ready to be done. And my right shoe was juuuuust a little bit loose, which I was diligently trying to ignore, but which was becoming more and more of an issue as time went on and my foot moved around too much in my shoe. And now I still had 6 miles left, which is a lot of miles, really, even if you try to put a "just" in front of it to brighten it up.
So when I came up on Trista again, I said, "Girls' Weekend, they said. It'll be fun, they said." And we laughed. I think. I tried to laugh. I was tired. I think I reminded her she had an 18-pack of Bud Light back at the house waiting for her. (Just for her; nobody else was willing to drink that.)
Just after that, I saw Karen coming out, not too far behind me, and we got to cheer for each other for the first time since the race started! Then I saw Tom, who was out cheering for Carolyn and taking pictures. He didn't see me until I was right on him, so he ended up taking a few close photos, then running down the street ahead of me, with his expensive camera, so he could take a few more of me as I ran toward him again. It made me nervous to see him running with the camera, but it made me smile that he was so committed to getting good pictures. Tom's awesome.
Shortly after having seen Karen and then Tom, I saw Cecilia! Now I'd seen all my girls, and felt better knowing they were all doing well and smiling happily. The way this course was configured, it wasn't the best for cheering on your fellow participants.
Then I had a section with no distractions, during which time I realized that my loose shoe plus the water I was dumping over my head was causing a blister on the bottom of my foot. That same damn blister I get every half and full Ironman. Arrrrgh. If I'd retied my shoe right when I noticed it was loose, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. But now it was formed and if I continued to ignore it, I risked it getting much worse and possibly driving me to have no choice but to walk. I was already running on the outside of that foot, which could cause all sorts of other problems. So I stepped off to the side of the course, managed to bend down, and retied that shoe. As I stood up and started running again, I hit the start button on my watch, because muscle memory is a strong and terrible thing. Of course, I hadn't STOPPED my watch, because I was in a RACE, where time doesn't STOP, so hitting that button STOPPED my watch, and it took me a few seconds to remember that and START it again. Ugh. I was not at my brainiest.
But I only had 3 miles to go. I can do anything for 3 miles. I intended to take my last Gu with 3 miles to go, but the aid stations were spaced out strangely through there, and I didn't end up getting water until I was roughly at mile 11. I considered just not taking that last Gu, but I didn't want to have an excuse for falling apart completely so close to the end of the race, so I took about half a Gu when I got to water again.
I was back in the hill, unrelenting sun section of the race, but I knew I was close to the end, so I tried to stay strong. I really wanted to walk. I did not let myself walk.
I turned onto the street we'd run out on, so I knew I had to be somewhat close. I passed the mile 12 marker. I passed the women in sparkly skirts with the loud music cheering wildly for the runners. I passed what I thought was the last aid station. Then I passed another aid station that I figured had to be half a mile from the finish line at most, and one of the volunteers told me I had less than a mile left. I wanted to say "I BETTER HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS THAN A MILE LEFT!" but I didn't have the energy.
I ran through an intersection and the policeman directing traffic cheered for me, which is actually rather rare. So at the next intersection, I asked the policeman for a high five, even though he had something in his high-fiving hand, and he very graciously swapped that to his other hand and high fived me. And the guy behind me took advantage, and got one for himself, too.
The spectators started telling us that the finish line was just ahead. At first I figured we were going to turn on a side street and then finish, but then I could see a black arch in the distance, uphill of course, that must be the finish line.
I started to try to push, to give whatever I had left, which at that point wasn't much. I heard a spectator say something about my sparkly headband to her companion, and that made me smile. I heard people cheering my name, but wasn't sure if I knew them or if they were reading it off my bib. I tried to smile instead of grimace. I entered the chute, willing my legs to keep moving. Then as I crossed the finish line, even though I keep telling myself I need to come up with a finish line maneuver that doesn't have so much potential for bad faces and awkward body shapes, I ended up doing the only jump I seem to be capable of doing.
And I was done!
After and Results
I got my medal, hat, and water, then waited at the end of the finish chute. Karen was just behind me (despite starting 20 minutes after me), Trista just behind her, and then Cecilia behind them. Each time someone would finish, we'd go up to the photographer and get another photo together with each new person. I'm sure the photographer loved us, but damn we looked cute in our matching kits.
All together!
And after we'd all finished, we hobbled back to our vrbo on the beach and finally started drinking. Sure, we could have celebrated Trista's birthday with JUST drinking, but this way we really EARNED this drinking.
I mentioned that I looked at my watch after the swim, but then didn't look at it again, including during the run. This is actually my preferred way to race. I'm fairly good at racing by perceived effort, and I check in with myself often to see if I could be going harder, and try to go harder if I can. I'm afraid if I look at my watch, I'll either be disappointed with my current pace, or I'll think I'm going too hard/fast and back off. This way I just listen to my body and let it dictate the effort, and trust that the pace will take care of itself.
This can go either way when I look at my watch at the finish line. And it has gone both ways.
This time I crossed the finish line figuring that I'd be somewhere just over 6 hours. I'd done 6:01:40 in Galveston, and that was when I was Ironman training, and was actually riding my bike regularly and outside, and had done some amount of taper, so I'd probably be slower than that, but hopefully not too much slower.
I crossed the finish line, looked at my watch, and saw 5:46:44. I wasn't even sure how that had happened, and I didn't worry about it at the time, but I was prepared to be elated if that was my actual time.
And it was!
My swim was a ~4 minute PR over my previous best of 34:12 at Vineman 2011. My bike was a 5 minute PR over my previous best of 3:10 at Kerrville 2013. And my run wasn't anywhere near a PR, but it was still a solid run, given my lack of taper and the volume I'd been running leading up to the race.
Overall it was my second fastest half Ironman, 3.5 minutes slower than my 5:43:12 at Kerrville 2013, but on a whole lot less training and with less taper.
The current-assisted swim was certainly helpful, even if I didn't execute it to its full advantage, and the relatively neutral wind on a flat bike definitely helped. But I think I undersold to myself how fit I was. I had some pretty low expectations, but I let myself exceed them, and that definitely helps boost my confidence as I move my cycling and swimming completely to "when I'm feeling it, as cross-training", and move my running to the forefront in the last 3 months of training for the Rocky Raccoon 100.
Swim: 0:29:59 (1:33/100m)
T1: 5:33
Bike: 3:05:35 (18.5mph)
T2: 3:47
Run: 2:01:52 (9:13/mile)
Overall: 5:46:44
Sub-30 swim! Just barely! 1:33/100m, which is 1:25/100y, which is usually my "swim all out for 100 yards" pace. 18.5 mph on the bike! I usually don't even average that kind of pace during a sprint triathlon. And my first few miles on the run were just sub-9, falling to 9, falling to 9:30s, then rallying for a 9:14 for my last mile. Thank you, legs, for hanging in there with insufficient rest and pampering.
(Pretty pleased with my transitions, too, given the distance we had to travel in T1 and the amount of peeing I had to do in T2.)
I briefly stole this sign from another Amy, so I could get this ridiculous photo.
Overall it was such a fun trip with some of my favorite girlfriends, and a great way to end a triathlon season that began back in April with the same friends. And then we drank.
Run all the miles.