Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 2012 race report.
I've heard about Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon (BSLT) for many years, and it's always sounded perfectly miserable. I mean, I make fun of people for doing Ironman Texas, because who's going to do an Ironman in Texas in May? It's not much saner to do a half Ironman in Texas in late June. And it's hilly. And in Lubbock. None of that says, "Yay, sign me up!" to me. So it's been pretty close to the top of my Never Do list for many years.
And then there was this year. This is the first time I've signed up to do an Ironman so late in the year (August), and the half Ironman races that fall at a convenient time in the training calendar for such a race are kinda sparse, and most are far away and not convenient. Except BSLT. Which is at exactly the right time, schedule-wise, and is close enough to drive to, and not use up a ton of vacation time (which I'm hoarding for Mont-Tremblant). And so we signed up. Unenthusiastically.
But as the race approached, I actually kinda got a little excited. I mean.. if you're gonna do something kinda dumb (a half Ironman), why not go all out and do something REALLY dumb? Plus everyone that's done it before loves it, and keeps going back. So there's gotta be something there. Maybe just extreme heat-induced brain damage.
Race morning
Fortunately I got good sleep Friday night, because my sleep was horrible Saturday night. I went to bed around 7:30pm, since my alarm was set for 3am, and the first time I woke up, wondering if it was time to get up.. it was 8:30pm. Matt hadn't even come to bed yet. It was disorienting. After that, I woke up roughly every 45 minutes, and I'd lay there for 10 minutes, waiting for the alarm to go off. And it wouldn't, so I'd crack one eye and look at the clock, expecting to see 2:55am, and it would say 11:00pm. Or midnight. Or 1:15am. Ugh.
But finally the alarm did go off, and I was up and dressed and fed and tri-tatted and ready to go. The morning actually went flawlessly, which isn't always the case for me and Matt, and it was lovely to maintain complete calm as we drove to the race site, got there early enough to encounter no traffic back-up, and parked and made it to transition with zero problems.
Race morning, in race costume and tri tats
I futzed around with my stuff in transition, followed Kelly around aimlessly, used the portapotty several times, and then we decided to suit up and head to.. wherever it was the race started. We had no idea, so we just wandered aimlessly (we asked a volunteer, but he didn't know either) until we found the lake. Obviously a side-effect of my calm and cool demeanor was that I had spent zero time and angst on figuring out where anything was.
As we got to the lake, we passed Dionn and company, who were just heading toward transition with their bikes. I glanced at my watch: 6:22am. Roughly, maybe, 15 minutes before the race started? And I assume that transition had actually closed at 6am? At least someone is taking this even less seriously than I am!
Stood on the beach and chatted with Jess and Kelly. Matt went off to warm up a bit (we all laughed at him when he asked if we were going to warm up at all), and we huddled together for warmth. It really seemed wrong that I was cold, when the high that day was forecast to be 100 degrees. I commented that this would be the last time we'd be cold that day, for sure.
Eventually the race started and the waves started heading out. They were going off every 3 minutes, and the women's wave was 4th (I think), so once it started, it was our turn pretty quickly. And yes, all the women went off together in one wave.
It was a beach start, which I hate, but I just kinda wedged myself into the crowd a few rows back and waited for someone to kinda casually declare in an indoor voice, "3, 2, 1, go".
Swim 1.2 miles
I followed the crowd down the beach, running into the water until it was above my knees, attempting a token dolphin dive, and then just decided to start swimming.
Out to the first buoy was mostly just an exercise in survival, trying to find some clear water to swim. It actually wasn't as bad as I'd feared, or maybe I just ended up in a sweet spot, but I didn't get all that pummeled. I was, however, incredibly uncomfortable.
When I think "Lubbock in late June", I think "water like a bathtub," which is pretty much the case for any lake around Austin. Evidently Buffalo Springs Lake is, I dunno, a glacier lake or something, because I learned a few weeks before the race that it's nearly always wetsuit legal. I was NOT expecting that, and hadn't planned for it. I had planned to wear my speed suit. The only wetsuit I own is a long-sleeved suit, and I knew it wouldn't be cold enough to make that comfortable or viable. And while I do OWN a sleeveless wetsuit, it's one I bought through an online sale, only to discover that it fit everywhere but the NECK, which was so tight it prohibited me from breathing. So I've owned this wetsuit for ~2 years, but only put it on twice (once to recheck its wearability after losing some weight), and it had never been in the water.
When I discovered it would be wetsuit-legal, I broke out this wetsuit again, intending to just cut a chunk out of the neck to make it wearable, because even if I ruined the wetsuit, it wouldn't be any LESS useful to me at that point than it had been for the past 2 years hanging on a hanger. But then when I put it on at an open water swim workout to test it.. it actually felt okay. Still tight in the neck, but I could swim in it and not die. So I wore it on race day.
I should have cut the neck. I was SO uncomfortable. I felt like I was wheezing, like I couldn't get a full breath, and I'd force myself to fully inhale and fully exhale, and I could, but it wasn't stopping me from feeling like I couldn't breathe. Odd. It just felt wrong. And bad. And I wanted that feeling to end. But I didn't know what to do about it. So I just kept swimming.
I felt very slow. I felt like I had to shorten and slow down my stroke to breathe and to feel as normal as I could feel out there. I was bummed, because I've been feeling pretty good about my swimming lately, and I wanted to see what that translated to in a race, but now I wouldn't know, because things weren't going well.
I did break out of it enough to notice when I turned the first buoy and was sighting for the second that there was an amazing sunrise that we were swimming directly into. "Yay," I thought, "beautiful sunrise. I can choke to death poetically in the beautiful sunrise."
But, hey, what could I do but keep swimming? And at least I still mostly had clear water around me. So swim I did. Only briefly found any good feet to draft off of, so mostly just went it alone, dodging guys from the wave in front of us and getting bumped by guys from the wave behind us.
After another few buoys, my breathing got a little more relaxed, and I calmed down a bit and felt more comfortable. Just in time for it to feel like I was getting a side stitch. Gaaaaah. This is something that only happens to me in open water, in races. I must swim weird when I'm trying to swim fast, and the only thing that seems to help is just to stretch out my strokes as much as possible, so it feels like I'm trying to streeeetttch out the side stitch. I hoped that didn't bode ill for my run, where I'm also often prone to side stitches.
After another buoy turn, this time to head back to shore, the side calmed down, and I got to enjoy 3 minutes of relatively normal swimming, other than me and the girl next to me who kept getting stuck on each other despite nobody else being around us.
Finally got to shore and discovered that you couldn't really do the swim-until-your-hands-touch thing because it was congested and small and full of volunteers and swimmers and chaos, so I gave myself to a swim exit volunteer who dragged me out and told me to watch my step, and went over the timing mat.
T1
I glanced at my watch, figuring with all my swim-angst I was going to be looking at a 35 or 36 minute swim, but my watch said something about 33. I did a double-take, since that's a swim PR for me, and then started to take off my goggles and swimcap, only to find that.. the wetsuit strippers were RIGHT THERE. And I was still wearing all of my wetsuit.
Frantically trying to extricate myself from my wetsuit. Matt will probably say my arms look "beefy" here.
I frantically unzipped my wetsuit and ripped down the top and tried to flop down on the ground in front of one of the volunteers, landing hard on my left ass as I did so. She pulled my wetsuit off in twoish tries, then handed it to me and sent me on my way.
I ran down the carpet to the bikes and managed to remember the bike numbers that were at the end of my row and went down the right row, the right side, the first time. That's big for me!
Got to my bike and I really have no memory of what I did at that point, which caused me to later wonder what in the hell I'd done with my wetsuit (but whatever I did with it, it WAS there with my stuff when I got done with the race). I had decided, though, to put on my bike shoes in transition. Normally I would have had them clipped into my pedals already and done a shoeless mount, but I'd been told many times that there was a giant hill immediately out of transition, and I wasn't sure I could get my feet into my shoes that quickly, and I surely didn't want to climb that hill with my feet on top of my shoes. So to save myself a lot of fretting, I just put them on in transition and minced my way out to the mount line.
Bike 56 miles
Did what has become my stereotypical horribly flubbed mount that took 3 hours (roughly), and was off onto the bike course.
You might think Lubbock is tremendously flat, being in middle-of-nowhere West Texas. I sure did. But it turns out there's this canyon thing, and we went in and out of it multiple times. Betsy had assured me, though, that there were exactly 7 hills. I didn't believe her. I figured it was like riding around Austin, where there would be 7 big, major hills, then the rest of the course would be rolling and constantly going up and down smaller hills. Turns out Betsy was completely right. There are 7 discrete hills, and the rest of the course is pretty much flat. I don't think I've ever ridden that much flat in my life.
But first hills! Immediately up the first big hill out of transition, out of my saddle just because it felt good to do so, then down and back up again. 2 down, 5 to go!
Out of my saddle climbing up the first hill
(Seriously, I'm out of my saddle, I just have short legs, so it's hard to tell.)
Out of the park and I settled into my aerobars, where I'd spend most of the rest of the ride. With my good swim and two waves of men behind me, people began passing me, which also continued for the rest of the ride. Dionn passed me and said something nice and complimentary about my strong swim, and I countered with some remark about her ability to show up late. Sorry, Dionn! I should have complimented you on how you would go on to kick my ass overall.
Tight turn to head out onto the open road
And then a lot of miles of nothing really notable. Lots of flat. Too much flat. I decided I'm not sure I ever want to do Ironman Florida. Fortunately each time I'd get fed up with flat and my aerobars, it would be time to eat, so I'd have to pop up and pop some food in my mouth. I was a little TOO diligent in my not worrying about this race, and forgot to actually formulate a nutrition plan. Fortunately I could cheat and look at my Vineman race report and steal my nutrition plan from that, and that plan worked out really well again. Except that evidently my body isn't good at processing food through the upper part of my digestive system when it's aero, so things kept feeling somewhat clogged up in my throat/esophageal regions. Not sure what to do about that, other than sit up and maybe bounce a little to encourage things to settle down further.
I dunno where exactly this is, but I'm glad they got a picture that sorta exemplifies how we felt like we were in the desert.
Flat, flat, yell for someone I know, hill, flat, eat, yell, repeat for several hours. Got to the spiral staircase, one of the hills I was most afraid of, and found that it was my favorite hill on the course. A long, winding, but very doable uphill, very narrow road with people going both directions, and people passing going both directions. A little bit chaotic. But I sailed up the hill, passing people, turned around and then sailed back down, managing to go down faster than I figured I'd be able to, since when we drove it, it looked like maybe you'd go careening over the edge if you went too fast. Fun! And just 2 more hills to go.
One of the wheeeeeeeeeeeee fun downhills! Also a good example of how not-aero I am compared to some people..
Conquered the next to last hill, then back onto the only section of the course that had really bad road. It was the chipseal I was afraid would be awful, but it turned out that wasn't bad, and the bad part was this section of road with these grooves that you couldn't really see, but couldn't avoid. KaCHUNK. .. KaCHUNK. Lots of bottles around. A guy behind me cursed loudly as he went through one. Frustrating.
But then a turn back toward the park! Almost there! And hey.... headwind! We'd had a mild headwind a few times out there, but this is the first time it really hit hard. I was having such a good ride, so happy with my pace, and now I was suddenly going so, so, so slow, crawling back toward the park. Everyone around me just had their head down, trying to get through this last bit. Another turn, and still into the wind. I was ready to be done. My great attitude was souring. I needed something. I needed prairie dogs. And I was riding through the section of the course where we'd seen prairie dogs. But I didn't see any. And I NEEDED them. And then suddenly, right at the end of the prairie-dog-likely section, there was a dirt mound with 5 prairie dogs cavorting about! And then they all looked up and cheered at me! And did backflips! Well, okay, not those last 2 things. But there were prairie dogs. I swear. Right when I needed them.
Prairie dog!!!
And THEN I got to turn back into the park, which meant.. tailwind! A nice assist all the way back to transition, even helping to push me up that last nasty hill in the park, hill 7 of 7.
As I crested the last hill and rode past the parking area, I went ahead and got my feet out of my shoes. I knew we had one big, steep downhill back into transition (MUCH more fun going down that hill than up), and I didn't want to try to be agile while navigating that hill, nor while going fast up to the dismount line. As I was deshoeing, David passed me and we cheered for each other.
Then a swift braking as I zoomed up to transition, and a last-minute decision as I heard people yelling, "Handcycle coming in!" that I wouldn't try to swing my leg over in this chaotic, narrow lane, and I'd just stop and step down. Stepped down and ran my bike over the line, trying to get out of the way of the handcycle.
T2
Found my stuff again without incident, racked my bike, put on socks and shoes, grabbed my ziploc baggie of Stuff, and while doing all this, frantically glanced out of the corner of my eye trying to figure out where the hell Run Out was. Great pre-planning, Amy. But everyone seemed to be running the same direction, so I ran after them.
David was just ahead of me, and he ran into a portapotty, and I followed him. Well, not into the same portapotty, but into the one next to it. I'd needed to pee on the bike, but despite my best efforts, I hadn't managed to make anything happen out there. I tried to be as efficient as possible, putting on my hairband, stuffing gu in my back pocket, and actually eating a gu as I peed. But I still knew I'd have a slow T2.
Came out of the portapotty, again directly behind David. I was beginning to feel like I was stalking him. At Run Out there was an aid station, and I grabbed a cup of water to wash down my gu, gulped it down, tossed the cup, then ran by David, giving him a friendly slap on the ass as I went. He thanked me by throwing his cup of water at me (just the water part). That actually felt pretty good. Then he ran to catch up with me, and we started the run together.
Run 13.1 miles
I thought, "Almost done!" Then I thought, "Wait. I'd be almost done if this were an Olympic distance tri. This is a half. I have to run a half marathon. Maybe I'm not quite almost done."
But I had a good attitude. I wasn't hot. My legs felt good. I even had company! Let's do this!
Except then I looked, and I'd lost David. But I still felt good! I hit the mile 1 marker, and glanced at my watch to see 8:30something. A little fast, but I wasn't pushing it, just running by feel. I knew I couldn't maintain that pace, and I reigned it in a little.
Somewhere in the next mile, things started to slow down. I still felt okay, but now I noticed how hot it was. And sunny. I ran through the first few aid stations, grabbing ice water and guzzling it down, but then I realized in order to stay as hydrated as possible, I was going to have to walk the aid stations and take several cups of water at each.
Saw Jamie and Fish heading back in, which is always a boost, then hit the first hill. As I ran up, it was a bit of a clusterfuck. Some people were running. Mostly people were walking. There were cars going up the hill, trying not to crush the runners, and emitting exhaust which helped to raise the ambient temperature another 10 degrees, which we really didn't need. And then a guy in a wheelchair, pushing his chair up the hill backward. There were a lot of handcycles and wheelchairs out there, and those folks were AMAZING. These hills were intense, and in order to climb them in a wheelchair, they'd spin around and push themselves up backward. Slowly. Painstakingly. But so strong. It was inspiring to watch, and as I passed another runner, he said, "Man, if HE can do it.." and picked up his pace to run beside me, and I said, "No kidding.." And.. then the guy started walking. Evidently he was inspired, but not THAT inspired. I kept running all the way up the hill.
Took a left out of the park and then down the long, steep hill we'd driven the day before. As I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked to my left and there were people running over there, on the other side of a fence. I was very confused. I couldn't figure out how the route worked that we would have to eventually run over there. I thought it was a straight out and back, but maybe I hadn't really looked at the course close enough. Ohwell, I'd eventually end up over there somehow, and it didn't benefit me to fret about it right then, so I kept running.
Uuuuuuup the hill on the other side. Passing lots of folks. Still feeling okay, if a little warm. And at the top, a right turn onto the Energy Lab II.
It's rude to put a photographer on a hill. You have to expend a lot of energy to smile while going uphill when it's that hot.
This section is an homage to the Energy Lab in Hawaii, a seemingly endless and featureless (and certainly shadeless) expanse of open road, whose only redeeming feature is that it's an out and back, so you get to see all your friends. Oh, wait, the other redeeming feature is that it turns around BEFORE you get to the stock yard that's at the other end of the road. Except that as I turned right onto that road, I could smell the stock yard very clearly. Ugh. That's not a smell you want to experience when it's that hot and sunny and gross. And then on top of that, off to the far side of the road, coming back in, was a girl who'd stepped off the road to vomit in the dirt. I averted my eyes before my body decided to join hers.
For all my cheerless description... the Energy Lab actually wasn't that bad for me. It wasn't pleasant, but I got through it pretty well. I walked each aid station and got ice and water. I took my first gu at one of these aid stations, and as I tore off the top with my teeth, I gagged and almost threw up. I had to eat it very slowly to make sure I kept it all in. Not because I actually felt sick, just because it's very hard to eat when it's that hot and you're working hard and tired and the last thing you want is to put something syrupy in your mouth. Hello, gag reflex. But I got it down and it stayed in. I had also been popping salt pills like they were going out of style the whole run. I was carrying about 3 times as many as I thought I'd need, just in case I had to gift some to a fellow athlete, but I never found anyone in need.
As I was headed out on the Energy Lab, I saw Kelly coming back in, and I yelled at her, "Kelly Green, you are a bad-ass mutha fucka!" and she said something about a puking one, maybe. Vomity Green needs to get out of my age group, or at least pick SOME sport to suck at. Or be less nice, so I can hate her. Shortly after I saw her, I saw Red heading back in, and cheered for her (though I'd used up most of my enthusiasm and all of my profanity cheering for Kelly).
And then at long last, I got to turn around and head back in. I glanced at my watch at the halfway point out of morbid curiosity, and saw 1:01:something. MUCH better than I expected, though moderately worse than I would have liked in a 70.3. But this wasn't just a normal 70.3. The heat turned the whole thing upside down and undid all your planning.
The Energy Lab turnaround as seen when we drove the course, and a vast expanse of nothingness into the distance
But now I was halfway done! And headed back in! And so incredibly, incredibly thirsty. I was chugging as much ice water as I could at each aid station, to the point where I felt like I was sloshing, and I was still so thirsty. I had also moved from taking ice at each aid station and dumping it in my sports bra to just walking past the ice-giver and holding my sports bra open so they could dump ice in, which they graciously did. The volunteers out there were AMAZING, and were out there in the heat and sun longer than most of us, with no promise of a medal at the end. I thanked as many as I could muster the energy for.
(One thing I found odd is out there at the turn-around, a volunteer was yelling, "Ice! Water! Gatorade! Ibuprofen!" Several times she yelled that. It seems like a supremely BAD idea to give out ibuprofen at an endurance race, especially one that hot. Hopefully that was her idea and not the race director's.)
The tent which marked the end of the Energy Lab appeared in the distance, but you can see for 8 miles out there in the featureless wasteland, so it felt like another hour before I actually got to the tent and turned to go down the hill again. Everyone was hugging the side of the road, trying to maximize the shade (since this was one of the few places that HAD any shade), but the camber was really bad on the sides, so I stuck to the sunny middle of the road. I walked through the aid station at the bottom of the hill, then MADE myself start running again as I went back up the other side. I saw Mike as I went through the aid station, and tried to cheer my fool head off for him, since he was nearly done with his first half Ironman!
I also finally figured out that those people who were running on the other side of the fence were running.. in the park. That part I'd done at the beginning, and was about to go do again on the way back in. I'm not sure why I didn't make that connection earlier. Brain not so good out there.
As I ran up that stupid hill again (and yes, I ran up every hill.. the only times I let myself walk was through the aid stations, though that got increasingly harder every mile), I felt so very parched. I transferred some of the ice from my sports bra to the front of my shorts. It melted pretty much immediately. And I reflected on how odd it was that the ice in my sports bra was staying.. ice. For so long. I had most of a bag of ice worth of ice down in there. And you'd figure that would be uncomfortable and maybe cause frostboob, but I couldn't even tell it was there unless I poked at my sports bra.
I considered fishing some ice out of my sports bra and eating it. I also considered picking up a random piece of ice I saw on the ground (it must have JUST landed there, since otherwise it would have melted away) and popping that in my mouth. I was.. really thirsty.
Turned back into the park, and I was so elated. It felt like maybe I was nearly done. Just the park part! No problem! As I ran down the big hill, I saw Chris and Betsy coming up the hill together! I cheered for them! (I later asked Betsy how long she and Chris ran together, and she didn't even remember being with Chris out there. I'm not sure which of us was delirious in this case. I cheered for SOMEone, anyway.)
As I came into the aid station around the corner from the bottom of the hill, I saw Red ahead of me, but then she left the aid station and I started walking and drinking, so she pulled off into the distance. When I started running again, I got closer and closer to her, and then eventually pulled up beside her. I said some brainless encouraging thing like, "Good job, Red," and she turned to me and said something like, "Oh, girl, is THAT how we're going to play it?!" So I said, "Then stay with me!" and she picked up her pace to run with me. But then she said something about how she'd probably vomit if she went that route, and ended up dropping back as a car went by and spewed exhaust at us.
I kept running, but I was low at this point. Low low low. It was hot. I was thirsty. I was done. I was moving purely on auto-pilot, just telling my legs to keep moving and eventually they'd carry me across the finish line and then I could STOP. And drink as much as I wanted.
And then I heard music off in the distance. No, not the beautiful harping of the angels at Heaven's Gates, welcoming me home. But Turkey in the Straw. And I started laughing and sort of crying at the same time. When we'd drive the course on Friday, we'd pulled the car over on the side of the road to take a picture of a wild turkey on the side of the road. As we stalked the turkey, an ice cream van drove by through the park, and after we got back in the car, we laughed over the fact that it was playing Turkey in the Straw, and we were chasing a turkey. And we joked that we were going to carry a few dollars on race day, in case the ice cream man was out there. Because how wonderful would THAT be during a hot race?!
And now here I was, during the race, and there was the ice cream man. Unfortunately he was way across the lake, and I hadn't followed through on my threat to carry money, but it was enough to boost my spirits such that I didn't crumple into a little heap on the ground. I started looping the few lyrics I knew to Turkey in the Straw through my head, and sort of used it as the world's strangest race mantra. "Oh, the little chickie hollered and the little chickie begged, and the little chickie laid me a hard boiled egg." I have no idea if those are the actual lyrics, but that's what I sang. Fortunately for the other racers, I sang this in my head.
So a little boost, but still the lowest part of the race for me. Which is saying something, given my crappy swim. I just wasn't very mentally present, and I don't remember a lot of the last few miles. I gratefully let a man spray me down with his garden hose as I ran by, and ran through the various sprinklers people had put out, and just tried to stay upright. I seemed to be running up an awful lot of little hills that I didn't remember running down in the first few miles. I passed a girl going up a hill, and she kept glancing back at me as I approached her, then pushed to pass me back on the next downhill. I just looked at her dully, thinking, "Lady, if you're trying to beat me, more power to you. I'm just trying to live." I think I ended up finishing before her. Ha.
Everyone whose pictures I've looked at seems to have ONE picture where they're not smiling and look very miserable, so I think there must have been a hidden photographer taking sneaky pain-ridden pictures
There started to be more (any) spectators, and then they started saying we were almost there. The road was windy and wooded, so you couldn't see very far ahead of you, and I certainly couldn't see or hear any sort of finish line. I figured it was the "you're almost there" of an ill-informed spectator at mile 7 of a half marathon. But they seemed rather insistent that I was almost there. And then there were more people, and a sign that said 13! 13 IS almost there! 0.1 miles to go! And then I could see the finish line! I gave it.. well, I remained on my feet and lurched forward, which is what I had left to give, and made it over the finish line!
Happy to be done!
After
I tried to smile for the finish line cameras, and then had to come to a screeching halt because they hadn't put in much room for people coming into the finish line. Someone hung a medal around my neck and someone else handed me a bottle of water, and the whole thing is sort of a nauseating, staggering blur. Someone asked me if I was okay, and I stood there for a second assessing, and pulled myself together, and said that I was. And I was. The nausea passed once I was stopped and just breathed for a second, and I was otherwise fine. In retrospect, I really should have said, "I feel nauseous and dizzy," and then I would have been instantly whisked away to the med tent for an IV! Which I didn't need, but which would have improved my race recovery by like 300%! And they were handing them out like candy. Matt and Kelly collected me from the finish line and we walked by the med tent on our way out, and it was like a Who's Who in there, with lounge chairs and IVs lining the giant tent. Everywhere we looked, there were people with gauze on their elbows. Missed opportunity, for sure.
Me and my Matt and my Kelly Green
I chugged down water and Matt got me a Generic Diet Beverage (what? it's not a calorie thing, it's a taste thing), and we headed down to the swim exit and waded into the lake for a recovery soak. Evidently everyone else took off their shoes to do this, but I didn't quite have the agility or the presence of mind to remove mine, so in they went.
As Matt, Kelly and I soaked, we were joined by Red and Jess, and we had a delightful time relating how miserable our runs were and how much we'd enjoyed the bike, and how insane that guy over there was for getting an IV and THEN getting in the lake and putting his hole-straight-down-to-the-vein arm under that nasty, nasty water. And Jess let me have the rest of her watermelon. And oddly enough, despite my earlier prognostication, eventually I started to cool down, and I ended up having to get out of the water because I was cold.
Then we collected our stuff, including my errant wetsuit, and hobbled back up that horrible hill and headed home. Well, back to the hotel. And home the next day.
Results
Swim: 0:32:53 (1:43/100m)
T1: 1:54
Bike: 3:15:00 (17.2mph)
T2: 3:24
Run: 2:04:16 (9:30/mile)
Total: 5:57:26
During that run, you couldn't have convinced me I would finish sub-6. I was very shocked to see that. And happy.
Thrilled with my swim time, which is a PR and a more than a minute faster than my Vineman swim time. If I could have that fast a swim and feel GOOD doing it, that would be even better.
Transitions were nothing to write home about. T2 was predictably slow, with the portapotty visit.
Also thrilled with the bike. Only one minute off a bike PR for me, on a much tougher course. Those hills felt really good, which gives me hope for Mont-Tremblant (even though it will be twice as long and much hillier with steeper hills).
I would have liked to go sub-2 on the run, but that was before I got out there. I'm amazed I managed to hold it together enough to run a 2:04. Sure it's a positive split by a few minutes, but all I wanted to do is collapse on the side of the road in a fetal position (except the road was too hot to do that comfortably), so I think it was a real mental victory to pull off a 2:04.
One thing I've hopefully finally learned is that if I'm going to do a run this hot, I NEED to carry water with me. I didn't learn it in Hawaii, and evidently I didn't learn it for BSLT. But I need to remember next time. When I was running, I was running well, so maybe if I had water with me, I could run through the aid stations and actually have a better run. And not eat ice out of my sports bra.
Overall time was less than 3 minutes off my PR, and my PR is at Vineman, a flatter bike, a flatter run, and 30-40 degrees cooler.
So it was a great race for me. That's easier to write a week later, with a little distance and perspective. But I think it's exactly what I needed as I go into my last 2 months of Ironman training. A great day of hill work and mental toughness training, and a ton of fun to travel across the state and still race with dozens of my Austin training companions!
(Also I would totally do this event again. I DRANK THE KOOLAID.)
And then there was this year. This is the first time I've signed up to do an Ironman so late in the year (August), and the half Ironman races that fall at a convenient time in the training calendar for such a race are kinda sparse, and most are far away and not convenient. Except BSLT. Which is at exactly the right time, schedule-wise, and is close enough to drive to, and not use up a ton of vacation time (which I'm hoarding for Mont-Tremblant). And so we signed up. Unenthusiastically.
But as the race approached, I actually kinda got a little excited. I mean.. if you're gonna do something kinda dumb (a half Ironman), why not go all out and do something REALLY dumb? Plus everyone that's done it before loves it, and keeps going back. So there's gotta be something there. Maybe just extreme heat-induced brain damage.
Race morning
Fortunately I got good sleep Friday night, because my sleep was horrible Saturday night. I went to bed around 7:30pm, since my alarm was set for 3am, and the first time I woke up, wondering if it was time to get up.. it was 8:30pm. Matt hadn't even come to bed yet. It was disorienting. After that, I woke up roughly every 45 minutes, and I'd lay there for 10 minutes, waiting for the alarm to go off. And it wouldn't, so I'd crack one eye and look at the clock, expecting to see 2:55am, and it would say 11:00pm. Or midnight. Or 1:15am. Ugh.
But finally the alarm did go off, and I was up and dressed and fed and tri-tatted and ready to go. The morning actually went flawlessly, which isn't always the case for me and Matt, and it was lovely to maintain complete calm as we drove to the race site, got there early enough to encounter no traffic back-up, and parked and made it to transition with zero problems.
Race morning, in race costume and tri tats
I futzed around with my stuff in transition, followed Kelly around aimlessly, used the portapotty several times, and then we decided to suit up and head to.. wherever it was the race started. We had no idea, so we just wandered aimlessly (we asked a volunteer, but he didn't know either) until we found the lake. Obviously a side-effect of my calm and cool demeanor was that I had spent zero time and angst on figuring out where anything was.
As we got to the lake, we passed Dionn and company, who were just heading toward transition with their bikes. I glanced at my watch: 6:22am. Roughly, maybe, 15 minutes before the race started? And I assume that transition had actually closed at 6am? At least someone is taking this even less seriously than I am!
Stood on the beach and chatted with Jess and Kelly. Matt went off to warm up a bit (we all laughed at him when he asked if we were going to warm up at all), and we huddled together for warmth. It really seemed wrong that I was cold, when the high that day was forecast to be 100 degrees. I commented that this would be the last time we'd be cold that day, for sure.
Eventually the race started and the waves started heading out. They were going off every 3 minutes, and the women's wave was 4th (I think), so once it started, it was our turn pretty quickly. And yes, all the women went off together in one wave.
It was a beach start, which I hate, but I just kinda wedged myself into the crowd a few rows back and waited for someone to kinda casually declare in an indoor voice, "3, 2, 1, go".
Swim 1.2 miles
I followed the crowd down the beach, running into the water until it was above my knees, attempting a token dolphin dive, and then just decided to start swimming.
Out to the first buoy was mostly just an exercise in survival, trying to find some clear water to swim. It actually wasn't as bad as I'd feared, or maybe I just ended up in a sweet spot, but I didn't get all that pummeled. I was, however, incredibly uncomfortable.
When I think "Lubbock in late June", I think "water like a bathtub," which is pretty much the case for any lake around Austin. Evidently Buffalo Springs Lake is, I dunno, a glacier lake or something, because I learned a few weeks before the race that it's nearly always wetsuit legal. I was NOT expecting that, and hadn't planned for it. I had planned to wear my speed suit. The only wetsuit I own is a long-sleeved suit, and I knew it wouldn't be cold enough to make that comfortable or viable. And while I do OWN a sleeveless wetsuit, it's one I bought through an online sale, only to discover that it fit everywhere but the NECK, which was so tight it prohibited me from breathing. So I've owned this wetsuit for ~2 years, but only put it on twice (once to recheck its wearability after losing some weight), and it had never been in the water.
When I discovered it would be wetsuit-legal, I broke out this wetsuit again, intending to just cut a chunk out of the neck to make it wearable, because even if I ruined the wetsuit, it wouldn't be any LESS useful to me at that point than it had been for the past 2 years hanging on a hanger. But then when I put it on at an open water swim workout to test it.. it actually felt okay. Still tight in the neck, but I could swim in it and not die. So I wore it on race day.
I should have cut the neck. I was SO uncomfortable. I felt like I was wheezing, like I couldn't get a full breath, and I'd force myself to fully inhale and fully exhale, and I could, but it wasn't stopping me from feeling like I couldn't breathe. Odd. It just felt wrong. And bad. And I wanted that feeling to end. But I didn't know what to do about it. So I just kept swimming.
I felt very slow. I felt like I had to shorten and slow down my stroke to breathe and to feel as normal as I could feel out there. I was bummed, because I've been feeling pretty good about my swimming lately, and I wanted to see what that translated to in a race, but now I wouldn't know, because things weren't going well.
I did break out of it enough to notice when I turned the first buoy and was sighting for the second that there was an amazing sunrise that we were swimming directly into. "Yay," I thought, "beautiful sunrise. I can choke to death poetically in the beautiful sunrise."
But, hey, what could I do but keep swimming? And at least I still mostly had clear water around me. So swim I did. Only briefly found any good feet to draft off of, so mostly just went it alone, dodging guys from the wave in front of us and getting bumped by guys from the wave behind us.
After another few buoys, my breathing got a little more relaxed, and I calmed down a bit and felt more comfortable. Just in time for it to feel like I was getting a side stitch. Gaaaaah. This is something that only happens to me in open water, in races. I must swim weird when I'm trying to swim fast, and the only thing that seems to help is just to stretch out my strokes as much as possible, so it feels like I'm trying to streeeetttch out the side stitch. I hoped that didn't bode ill for my run, where I'm also often prone to side stitches.
After another buoy turn, this time to head back to shore, the side calmed down, and I got to enjoy 3 minutes of relatively normal swimming, other than me and the girl next to me who kept getting stuck on each other despite nobody else being around us.
Finally got to shore and discovered that you couldn't really do the swim-until-your-hands-touch thing because it was congested and small and full of volunteers and swimmers and chaos, so I gave myself to a swim exit volunteer who dragged me out and told me to watch my step, and went over the timing mat.
T1
I glanced at my watch, figuring with all my swim-angst I was going to be looking at a 35 or 36 minute swim, but my watch said something about 33. I did a double-take, since that's a swim PR for me, and then started to take off my goggles and swimcap, only to find that.. the wetsuit strippers were RIGHT THERE. And I was still wearing all of my wetsuit.
Frantically trying to extricate myself from my wetsuit. Matt will probably say my arms look "beefy" here.
I frantically unzipped my wetsuit and ripped down the top and tried to flop down on the ground in front of one of the volunteers, landing hard on my left ass as I did so. She pulled my wetsuit off in twoish tries, then handed it to me and sent me on my way.
I ran down the carpet to the bikes and managed to remember the bike numbers that were at the end of my row and went down the right row, the right side, the first time. That's big for me!
Got to my bike and I really have no memory of what I did at that point, which caused me to later wonder what in the hell I'd done with my wetsuit (but whatever I did with it, it WAS there with my stuff when I got done with the race). I had decided, though, to put on my bike shoes in transition. Normally I would have had them clipped into my pedals already and done a shoeless mount, but I'd been told many times that there was a giant hill immediately out of transition, and I wasn't sure I could get my feet into my shoes that quickly, and I surely didn't want to climb that hill with my feet on top of my shoes. So to save myself a lot of fretting, I just put them on in transition and minced my way out to the mount line.
Bike 56 miles
Did what has become my stereotypical horribly flubbed mount that took 3 hours (roughly), and was off onto the bike course.
You might think Lubbock is tremendously flat, being in middle-of-nowhere West Texas. I sure did. But it turns out there's this canyon thing, and we went in and out of it multiple times. Betsy had assured me, though, that there were exactly 7 hills. I didn't believe her. I figured it was like riding around Austin, where there would be 7 big, major hills, then the rest of the course would be rolling and constantly going up and down smaller hills. Turns out Betsy was completely right. There are 7 discrete hills, and the rest of the course is pretty much flat. I don't think I've ever ridden that much flat in my life.
But first hills! Immediately up the first big hill out of transition, out of my saddle just because it felt good to do so, then down and back up again. 2 down, 5 to go!
Out of my saddle climbing up the first hill
(Seriously, I'm out of my saddle, I just have short legs, so it's hard to tell.)
Out of the park and I settled into my aerobars, where I'd spend most of the rest of the ride. With my good swim and two waves of men behind me, people began passing me, which also continued for the rest of the ride. Dionn passed me and said something nice and complimentary about my strong swim, and I countered with some remark about her ability to show up late. Sorry, Dionn! I should have complimented you on how you would go on to kick my ass overall.
Tight turn to head out onto the open road
And then a lot of miles of nothing really notable. Lots of flat. Too much flat. I decided I'm not sure I ever want to do Ironman Florida. Fortunately each time I'd get fed up with flat and my aerobars, it would be time to eat, so I'd have to pop up and pop some food in my mouth. I was a little TOO diligent in my not worrying about this race, and forgot to actually formulate a nutrition plan. Fortunately I could cheat and look at my Vineman race report and steal my nutrition plan from that, and that plan worked out really well again. Except that evidently my body isn't good at processing food through the upper part of my digestive system when it's aero, so things kept feeling somewhat clogged up in my throat/esophageal regions. Not sure what to do about that, other than sit up and maybe bounce a little to encourage things to settle down further.
I dunno where exactly this is, but I'm glad they got a picture that sorta exemplifies how we felt like we were in the desert.
Flat, flat, yell for someone I know, hill, flat, eat, yell, repeat for several hours. Got to the spiral staircase, one of the hills I was most afraid of, and found that it was my favorite hill on the course. A long, winding, but very doable uphill, very narrow road with people going both directions, and people passing going both directions. A little bit chaotic. But I sailed up the hill, passing people, turned around and then sailed back down, managing to go down faster than I figured I'd be able to, since when we drove it, it looked like maybe you'd go careening over the edge if you went too fast. Fun! And just 2 more hills to go.
One of the wheeeeeeeeeeeee fun downhills! Also a good example of how not-aero I am compared to some people..
Conquered the next to last hill, then back onto the only section of the course that had really bad road. It was the chipseal I was afraid would be awful, but it turned out that wasn't bad, and the bad part was this section of road with these grooves that you couldn't really see, but couldn't avoid. KaCHUNK. .. KaCHUNK. Lots of bottles around. A guy behind me cursed loudly as he went through one. Frustrating.
But then a turn back toward the park! Almost there! And hey.... headwind! We'd had a mild headwind a few times out there, but this is the first time it really hit hard. I was having such a good ride, so happy with my pace, and now I was suddenly going so, so, so slow, crawling back toward the park. Everyone around me just had their head down, trying to get through this last bit. Another turn, and still into the wind. I was ready to be done. My great attitude was souring. I needed something. I needed prairie dogs. And I was riding through the section of the course where we'd seen prairie dogs. But I didn't see any. And I NEEDED them. And then suddenly, right at the end of the prairie-dog-likely section, there was a dirt mound with 5 prairie dogs cavorting about! And then they all looked up and cheered at me! And did backflips! Well, okay, not those last 2 things. But there were prairie dogs. I swear. Right when I needed them.
Prairie dog!!!
And THEN I got to turn back into the park, which meant.. tailwind! A nice assist all the way back to transition, even helping to push me up that last nasty hill in the park, hill 7 of 7.
As I crested the last hill and rode past the parking area, I went ahead and got my feet out of my shoes. I knew we had one big, steep downhill back into transition (MUCH more fun going down that hill than up), and I didn't want to try to be agile while navigating that hill, nor while going fast up to the dismount line. As I was deshoeing, David passed me and we cheered for each other.
Then a swift braking as I zoomed up to transition, and a last-minute decision as I heard people yelling, "Handcycle coming in!" that I wouldn't try to swing my leg over in this chaotic, narrow lane, and I'd just stop and step down. Stepped down and ran my bike over the line, trying to get out of the way of the handcycle.
T2
Found my stuff again without incident, racked my bike, put on socks and shoes, grabbed my ziploc baggie of Stuff, and while doing all this, frantically glanced out of the corner of my eye trying to figure out where the hell Run Out was. Great pre-planning, Amy. But everyone seemed to be running the same direction, so I ran after them.
David was just ahead of me, and he ran into a portapotty, and I followed him. Well, not into the same portapotty, but into the one next to it. I'd needed to pee on the bike, but despite my best efforts, I hadn't managed to make anything happen out there. I tried to be as efficient as possible, putting on my hairband, stuffing gu in my back pocket, and actually eating a gu as I peed. But I still knew I'd have a slow T2.
Came out of the portapotty, again directly behind David. I was beginning to feel like I was stalking him. At Run Out there was an aid station, and I grabbed a cup of water to wash down my gu, gulped it down, tossed the cup, then ran by David, giving him a friendly slap on the ass as I went. He thanked me by throwing his cup of water at me (just the water part). That actually felt pretty good. Then he ran to catch up with me, and we started the run together.
Run 13.1 miles
I thought, "Almost done!" Then I thought, "Wait. I'd be almost done if this were an Olympic distance tri. This is a half. I have to run a half marathon. Maybe I'm not quite almost done."
But I had a good attitude. I wasn't hot. My legs felt good. I even had company! Let's do this!
Except then I looked, and I'd lost David. But I still felt good! I hit the mile 1 marker, and glanced at my watch to see 8:30something. A little fast, but I wasn't pushing it, just running by feel. I knew I couldn't maintain that pace, and I reigned it in a little.
Somewhere in the next mile, things started to slow down. I still felt okay, but now I noticed how hot it was. And sunny. I ran through the first few aid stations, grabbing ice water and guzzling it down, but then I realized in order to stay as hydrated as possible, I was going to have to walk the aid stations and take several cups of water at each.
Saw Jamie and Fish heading back in, which is always a boost, then hit the first hill. As I ran up, it was a bit of a clusterfuck. Some people were running. Mostly people were walking. There were cars going up the hill, trying not to crush the runners, and emitting exhaust which helped to raise the ambient temperature another 10 degrees, which we really didn't need. And then a guy in a wheelchair, pushing his chair up the hill backward. There were a lot of handcycles and wheelchairs out there, and those folks were AMAZING. These hills were intense, and in order to climb them in a wheelchair, they'd spin around and push themselves up backward. Slowly. Painstakingly. But so strong. It was inspiring to watch, and as I passed another runner, he said, "Man, if HE can do it.." and picked up his pace to run beside me, and I said, "No kidding.." And.. then the guy started walking. Evidently he was inspired, but not THAT inspired. I kept running all the way up the hill.
Took a left out of the park and then down the long, steep hill we'd driven the day before. As I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked to my left and there were people running over there, on the other side of a fence. I was very confused. I couldn't figure out how the route worked that we would have to eventually run over there. I thought it was a straight out and back, but maybe I hadn't really looked at the course close enough. Ohwell, I'd eventually end up over there somehow, and it didn't benefit me to fret about it right then, so I kept running.
Uuuuuuup the hill on the other side. Passing lots of folks. Still feeling okay, if a little warm. And at the top, a right turn onto the Energy Lab II.
It's rude to put a photographer on a hill. You have to expend a lot of energy to smile while going uphill when it's that hot.
This section is an homage to the Energy Lab in Hawaii, a seemingly endless and featureless (and certainly shadeless) expanse of open road, whose only redeeming feature is that it's an out and back, so you get to see all your friends. Oh, wait, the other redeeming feature is that it turns around BEFORE you get to the stock yard that's at the other end of the road. Except that as I turned right onto that road, I could smell the stock yard very clearly. Ugh. That's not a smell you want to experience when it's that hot and sunny and gross. And then on top of that, off to the far side of the road, coming back in, was a girl who'd stepped off the road to vomit in the dirt. I averted my eyes before my body decided to join hers.
For all my cheerless description... the Energy Lab actually wasn't that bad for me. It wasn't pleasant, but I got through it pretty well. I walked each aid station and got ice and water. I took my first gu at one of these aid stations, and as I tore off the top with my teeth, I gagged and almost threw up. I had to eat it very slowly to make sure I kept it all in. Not because I actually felt sick, just because it's very hard to eat when it's that hot and you're working hard and tired and the last thing you want is to put something syrupy in your mouth. Hello, gag reflex. But I got it down and it stayed in. I had also been popping salt pills like they were going out of style the whole run. I was carrying about 3 times as many as I thought I'd need, just in case I had to gift some to a fellow athlete, but I never found anyone in need.
As I was headed out on the Energy Lab, I saw Kelly coming back in, and I yelled at her, "Kelly Green, you are a bad-ass mutha fucka!" and she said something about a puking one, maybe. Vomity Green needs to get out of my age group, or at least pick SOME sport to suck at. Or be less nice, so I can hate her. Shortly after I saw her, I saw Red heading back in, and cheered for her (though I'd used up most of my enthusiasm and all of my profanity cheering for Kelly).
And then at long last, I got to turn around and head back in. I glanced at my watch at the halfway point out of morbid curiosity, and saw 1:01:something. MUCH better than I expected, though moderately worse than I would have liked in a 70.3. But this wasn't just a normal 70.3. The heat turned the whole thing upside down and undid all your planning.
The Energy Lab turnaround as seen when we drove the course, and a vast expanse of nothingness into the distance
But now I was halfway done! And headed back in! And so incredibly, incredibly thirsty. I was chugging as much ice water as I could at each aid station, to the point where I felt like I was sloshing, and I was still so thirsty. I had also moved from taking ice at each aid station and dumping it in my sports bra to just walking past the ice-giver and holding my sports bra open so they could dump ice in, which they graciously did. The volunteers out there were AMAZING, and were out there in the heat and sun longer than most of us, with no promise of a medal at the end. I thanked as many as I could muster the energy for.
(One thing I found odd is out there at the turn-around, a volunteer was yelling, "Ice! Water! Gatorade! Ibuprofen!" Several times she yelled that. It seems like a supremely BAD idea to give out ibuprofen at an endurance race, especially one that hot. Hopefully that was her idea and not the race director's.)
The tent which marked the end of the Energy Lab appeared in the distance, but you can see for 8 miles out there in the featureless wasteland, so it felt like another hour before I actually got to the tent and turned to go down the hill again. Everyone was hugging the side of the road, trying to maximize the shade (since this was one of the few places that HAD any shade), but the camber was really bad on the sides, so I stuck to the sunny middle of the road. I walked through the aid station at the bottom of the hill, then MADE myself start running again as I went back up the other side. I saw Mike as I went through the aid station, and tried to cheer my fool head off for him, since he was nearly done with his first half Ironman!
I also finally figured out that those people who were running on the other side of the fence were running.. in the park. That part I'd done at the beginning, and was about to go do again on the way back in. I'm not sure why I didn't make that connection earlier. Brain not so good out there.
As I ran up that stupid hill again (and yes, I ran up every hill.. the only times I let myself walk was through the aid stations, though that got increasingly harder every mile), I felt so very parched. I transferred some of the ice from my sports bra to the front of my shorts. It melted pretty much immediately. And I reflected on how odd it was that the ice in my sports bra was staying.. ice. For so long. I had most of a bag of ice worth of ice down in there. And you'd figure that would be uncomfortable and maybe cause frostboob, but I couldn't even tell it was there unless I poked at my sports bra.
I considered fishing some ice out of my sports bra and eating it. I also considered picking up a random piece of ice I saw on the ground (it must have JUST landed there, since otherwise it would have melted away) and popping that in my mouth. I was.. really thirsty.
Turned back into the park, and I was so elated. It felt like maybe I was nearly done. Just the park part! No problem! As I ran down the big hill, I saw Chris and Betsy coming up the hill together! I cheered for them! (I later asked Betsy how long she and Chris ran together, and she didn't even remember being with Chris out there. I'm not sure which of us was delirious in this case. I cheered for SOMEone, anyway.)
As I came into the aid station around the corner from the bottom of the hill, I saw Red ahead of me, but then she left the aid station and I started walking and drinking, so she pulled off into the distance. When I started running again, I got closer and closer to her, and then eventually pulled up beside her. I said some brainless encouraging thing like, "Good job, Red," and she turned to me and said something like, "Oh, girl, is THAT how we're going to play it?!" So I said, "Then stay with me!" and she picked up her pace to run with me. But then she said something about how she'd probably vomit if she went that route, and ended up dropping back as a car went by and spewed exhaust at us.
I kept running, but I was low at this point. Low low low. It was hot. I was thirsty. I was done. I was moving purely on auto-pilot, just telling my legs to keep moving and eventually they'd carry me across the finish line and then I could STOP. And drink as much as I wanted.
And then I heard music off in the distance. No, not the beautiful harping of the angels at Heaven's Gates, welcoming me home. But Turkey in the Straw. And I started laughing and sort of crying at the same time. When we'd drive the course on Friday, we'd pulled the car over on the side of the road to take a picture of a wild turkey on the side of the road. As we stalked the turkey, an ice cream van drove by through the park, and after we got back in the car, we laughed over the fact that it was playing Turkey in the Straw, and we were chasing a turkey. And we joked that we were going to carry a few dollars on race day, in case the ice cream man was out there. Because how wonderful would THAT be during a hot race?!
And now here I was, during the race, and there was the ice cream man. Unfortunately he was way across the lake, and I hadn't followed through on my threat to carry money, but it was enough to boost my spirits such that I didn't crumple into a little heap on the ground. I started looping the few lyrics I knew to Turkey in the Straw through my head, and sort of used it as the world's strangest race mantra. "Oh, the little chickie hollered and the little chickie begged, and the little chickie laid me a hard boiled egg." I have no idea if those are the actual lyrics, but that's what I sang. Fortunately for the other racers, I sang this in my head.
So a little boost, but still the lowest part of the race for me. Which is saying something, given my crappy swim. I just wasn't very mentally present, and I don't remember a lot of the last few miles. I gratefully let a man spray me down with his garden hose as I ran by, and ran through the various sprinklers people had put out, and just tried to stay upright. I seemed to be running up an awful lot of little hills that I didn't remember running down in the first few miles. I passed a girl going up a hill, and she kept glancing back at me as I approached her, then pushed to pass me back on the next downhill. I just looked at her dully, thinking, "Lady, if you're trying to beat me, more power to you. I'm just trying to live." I think I ended up finishing before her. Ha.
Everyone whose pictures I've looked at seems to have ONE picture where they're not smiling and look very miserable, so I think there must have been a hidden photographer taking sneaky pain-ridden pictures
There started to be more (any) spectators, and then they started saying we were almost there. The road was windy and wooded, so you couldn't see very far ahead of you, and I certainly couldn't see or hear any sort of finish line. I figured it was the "you're almost there" of an ill-informed spectator at mile 7 of a half marathon. But they seemed rather insistent that I was almost there. And then there were more people, and a sign that said 13! 13 IS almost there! 0.1 miles to go! And then I could see the finish line! I gave it.. well, I remained on my feet and lurched forward, which is what I had left to give, and made it over the finish line!
Happy to be done!
After
I tried to smile for the finish line cameras, and then had to come to a screeching halt because they hadn't put in much room for people coming into the finish line. Someone hung a medal around my neck and someone else handed me a bottle of water, and the whole thing is sort of a nauseating, staggering blur. Someone asked me if I was okay, and I stood there for a second assessing, and pulled myself together, and said that I was. And I was. The nausea passed once I was stopped and just breathed for a second, and I was otherwise fine. In retrospect, I really should have said, "I feel nauseous and dizzy," and then I would have been instantly whisked away to the med tent for an IV! Which I didn't need, but which would have improved my race recovery by like 300%! And they were handing them out like candy. Matt and Kelly collected me from the finish line and we walked by the med tent on our way out, and it was like a Who's Who in there, with lounge chairs and IVs lining the giant tent. Everywhere we looked, there were people with gauze on their elbows. Missed opportunity, for sure.
Me and my Matt and my Kelly Green
I chugged down water and Matt got me a Generic Diet Beverage (what? it's not a calorie thing, it's a taste thing), and we headed down to the swim exit and waded into the lake for a recovery soak. Evidently everyone else took off their shoes to do this, but I didn't quite have the agility or the presence of mind to remove mine, so in they went.
As Matt, Kelly and I soaked, we were joined by Red and Jess, and we had a delightful time relating how miserable our runs were and how much we'd enjoyed the bike, and how insane that guy over there was for getting an IV and THEN getting in the lake and putting his hole-straight-down-to-the-vein arm under that nasty, nasty water. And Jess let me have the rest of her watermelon. And oddly enough, despite my earlier prognostication, eventually I started to cool down, and I ended up having to get out of the water because I was cold.
Then we collected our stuff, including my errant wetsuit, and hobbled back up that horrible hill and headed home. Well, back to the hotel. And home the next day.
Results
Swim: 0:32:53 (1:43/100m)
T1: 1:54
Bike: 3:15:00 (17.2mph)
T2: 3:24
Run: 2:04:16 (9:30/mile)
Total: 5:57:26
During that run, you couldn't have convinced me I would finish sub-6. I was very shocked to see that. And happy.
Thrilled with my swim time, which is a PR and a more than a minute faster than my Vineman swim time. If I could have that fast a swim and feel GOOD doing it, that would be even better.
Transitions were nothing to write home about. T2 was predictably slow, with the portapotty visit.
Also thrilled with the bike. Only one minute off a bike PR for me, on a much tougher course. Those hills felt really good, which gives me hope for Mont-Tremblant (even though it will be twice as long and much hillier with steeper hills).
I would have liked to go sub-2 on the run, but that was before I got out there. I'm amazed I managed to hold it together enough to run a 2:04. Sure it's a positive split by a few minutes, but all I wanted to do is collapse on the side of the road in a fetal position (except the road was too hot to do that comfortably), so I think it was a real mental victory to pull off a 2:04.
One thing I've hopefully finally learned is that if I'm going to do a run this hot, I NEED to carry water with me. I didn't learn it in Hawaii, and evidently I didn't learn it for BSLT. But I need to remember next time. When I was running, I was running well, so maybe if I had water with me, I could run through the aid stations and actually have a better run. And not eat ice out of my sports bra.
Overall time was less than 3 minutes off my PR, and my PR is at Vineman, a flatter bike, a flatter run, and 30-40 degrees cooler.
So it was a great race for me. That's easier to write a week later, with a little distance and perspective. But I think it's exactly what I needed as I go into my last 2 months of Ironman training. A great day of hill work and mental toughness training, and a ton of fun to travel across the state and still race with dozens of my Austin training companions!
(Also I would totally do this event again. I DRANK THE KOOLAID.)