I like to get these
race reports done as soon as possible, so the events of the day and my reactions
to them are fresh in my mind. Short synopsis is: It was a tough day, but I learned
a lot. 12:21 on the day, 1:07 swim, 6:45 bike, 4:19 run.
Jeff and I flew into
Chicago Thursday morning before the race, met up with family and then made the
drive to our favorite town in the Midwest. Madison is a great place, full of
cyclists, coffee shops, great places to eat, and hills hills and more hills
that can put a smile on any cyclist's face, as long as they are a glutton for
punishment. One of the things we have missed the most since moving to Houston
are the weekend trips we would take to Mad-town to train, so the familiar
drive up John Nolan drive with Monona Terrance in the background was a welcome
and comforting sight.
The days leading up to
the race were pretty relaxing as far as pre-Ironman goes. Normally we are
frantically running around dealing with random ridiculous crises, but since we
had our fair share of that before we left for our trip ( remember the bike fit
debacle?) we seemed to have gotten that out of the way. We did our best to nap,
stay off our feet and eat plenty of good food (more on food and nutrition
later, our choice to embrace Metabolic Efficiency training dramatically
improved our training experiences and completely saved race day for me). I was
nervous as usual. I had high expectations and really felt that I could achieve
the goals I had set forth for myself, but was nervous about the unknown.
But I tried to only worry about things I could control, so the weekend went on.
** Brief sidebar on
nutrition before I get into the day: After Ironman Brazil and my severe GI
issues I decided that my usual plan of ‘ just eat whatever and hope that it
works’ was no longer a viable plan. If I was going to be serious about racing,
I needed to be serious about race day nutrition. I would loosely practice
nutrition before, but I never turned down a mid ride snickers bar either, and
would frequently fuel long rides with pineapple empanadas from El Tierra
Caliente ( the best Mexican Bakery EVER).
After doing some
research about different training and racing nutrition, I was pointed in the
direction of Metabolic Efficiency (ME) training, which addresses
training/racing nutrition via every day nutrition. The idea is to teach your
body to use fat instead of carbohydrate as fuel during exercise, done by
consuming high amounts of good fats, protein and fiber, and little carbohydrate
( carbs from lots of veggies and a little fruit is fine, but the idea is to cut
out grains, starches and legumes) and keeping protein/carb ratio as close to
1:1 as possible. There are also aspects of periodization – so if you want to
learn more I would highly recommend picking up the book Metabolic Efficiency Training: Teaching the Body to Burn More Fat by Bob Seebohar or talking to our super
awesome friend Robyn Lalonde ( owner of Edge Athlete Lounge in Chicago who is
trained in MET). **
So Sunday morning came
quickly. I'll skip over normal morning stuff. Getting down to swim start always
takes longer than you expect in Madison, and if you want to line up near the
front of the swim you have to be prepared to get in early, and tread water for
a little while. So I made my way down early and got in place. It felt crowded.
Well, it felt like there were nearly 3000 people in the water ( largest number
of athletes starting to date, I believe). So there’s that.
Gun goes off. Its
chaos for a while, but I quickly find some feet to draft off and the first
stretch of the swim is pretty uneventful. It was a lot of contact as usual, but
I expected it to clear up once we turned the first buoy and made our way to the
second- I wasn't sighting well but that’s because the bottle neck caused by
turning the buoy meant more crowding, and more contact. All of a sudden I went
up to take a breath and was hit hard on my head by a guy swimming diagonally
trying to get in front of me. I swallowed what felt like was a gallon of water
but kept going. After turning the last buoy I lost focus and as far as I can
tell I added quite a bit of distance to my swim by drifting off the line- I
scrambled to cut across, but I think the damage had been done. Slower than
expected swim- 1:07:XX, but meh, 2 minutes extra is not the end of the world if you think
about it within the context of an entire day.
Coming out of the
water I hit up the wetsuit strippers. There were some issues getting the
wetsuit off over my garmin. My watch got reset in the process, but this isn't a huge deal to me. I dealt with it on the fly and moved on. But as I ran
to my bike in T1 I had that sloshy feeling in my stomach and was almost
immediately hit with serious nausea. I thought this was just because of the
abrupt transition from swimming to running, and figured it would subside. As
planned, I didn’t take in any calories for the first 15-20 minutes to let my
stomach calm down. About 20 minutes in I took a swig of water. Oh no, that
didn’t feel good- this nausea was real, and it was about to rear its ugly head.
I took a few sips of Osmo in an attempt to get some salt and electrolytes and
some calories, and then in started… think Norman Stadler epic meltdown Kona
2007
What I can only
imagine was lake water and a couple sips of Osmo came right up. This was not
good- I just got on the bike and there was no way for me to take in any
calories. I began to panic. How was I going to finish this bike ride without
any caloric intake, while getting sick, much less run a marathon after? I
really didn’t know what to do except press on and try to take in some calories.
Small bite of cliff bar? Nope, that didn’t work. More osmo and water? Nope,
right back out. I managed to keep a decent pace for the first part of the loop
but I started to get desperate, scared, disappointed and upset all in one. I
saw girls in my age group pass me left and right and I knew my goals for the
day were out the window. But that wasn’t my primary concern at that moment. Was
I going to be able to finish this race at all? I stopped at an aid station
right after the climb into Mt Horeb, got sick again and then immediately
started to cry. It’s embarrassing thinking about it now, but the rush of
emotion and disappointment was overwhelming as I contemplated pulling the plug
on the race. But as one of the volunteers approached me to ask if I wanted to
call Medical or the sag van, I found myself saying “No, I’m going to keep
going, it’s just going to be a long day”. So there it was. I was committing to
this race.
And that’s how my bike
ride continued. After the first of the “three sisters” ( three major climbs on
the back half of the loop), I pulled over to the side of the road again. A sweet older gentleman saw me, crossed the
street to check up on me. After I assured him I would be fine ( I wasn't entirely sure of this myself, but I guess I made a compelling case) and we chatted
for a while. I told him I appreciated him stopping for me, and went on my way.
I was miserable. But I was moving forward, and in the ever so wise words of a
friend “forward is a pace” so I pressed on. I got to the last climb on the
first loop where tri clubs, friends, family and random spectators set up camp,
grills, coolers and music and line the side of the road Tour de France style. I
knew that Element Multisport, our tri shop back in Chicago, would have their
tent set up near the top of the hill and I was desperate for a friendly face. I
saw our friend Chris, the owner of Element, and pulled over. As he asked me what was wrong I started
crying again. I was a blubbering mess, and I apologize to anyone I encountered
during this less than glamorous moment in my life.
Chris gave me a
pretzel and made the compelling argument that my second loop would be better
since hopefully by then I will have gotten rid of all that lake water in my
stomach. Hmm ok, I could get behind this idea. I was almost at the second loop
anyway, how bad could another one be? I passed the half way mark and somewhere
around mile 60 or so is special needs. I decided to stop as I had originally
planned to switch bottles even though I had only gone through half of one of my
bottles of Osmo. I was able to keep liquid down at this point, (but still
hadn’t tried food) so I wanted to make sure I had enough osmo on me in case I
was able to actually fuel my way through the rest of the ride.
But as I pulled up to
special needs and stopped, I was shaking and a couple volunteers rushed to me.
I explained to them what happened and in the most pitiful, but honest, moment
of the day I blurted out “ I just need a
hug from my husband”. Despite our hilarious “rivalry” hinged solely on
burger bets, I was secretly hoping he was somewhere right behind me, and that I
could let him know what was going on. The volunteers were quick to jump to
action with the hug though. All the volunteers this past Sunday were amazing,
and there aren’t enough “thank yous” I can give for the people that sacrifice
their time to spend an entire day catering to the base needs (hugs included) of
triathletes.
I decided to use the
opportunity to open up a packet of almond butter and suck it down. Finally
taking food in was energizing, and as I started back up I became cautiously
optimistic that I was going to make it through this ride. For the rest of the
112 miles I kept a slow and steady pace, taking in small bites of cliff bar and
almond butter. All in all, I made it through the ride on less than 400 calories
and there is absolutely no way I would have been able to do that if I had not
been practicing metabolic efficiency- training ( ok, done with my soap box
moment)
I got a little weepy (AGAIN,
it was like a Meryl Streep movie I swear) as I pulled into T2 because I
honestly could not believe that ride was over. I had mentally been preparing
myself for a near midnight finish throughout the entire ride because I had no
idea how my day was going to unfold. I left my garmin on my bike. This run was
going to be old school.
Starting the run I felt
surprisingly good – I hit the first aid station for some ice, because it always
calms my stomach, and started to pick up momentum. Before I knew it, I was
actually running this marathon. I wasn't moving at a blazing pace or anything
but to put it in perspective, I had dropped down to 25th place after
my bike ( from 13th on the swim) and ran my way back to 15th
in my age group. I passed 91 women and around 400 men on the run. Given the day
I had, I can’t really complain about this. I won’t go into too much detail on
the run. Parts were great, parts were not so great ( including the world’s
longest pee break because my body was FINALLY allowing me to hydrate) but
overall, that run was fun, despite what my face
may look like in the pictures. I took potato chips from random
spectators ( SO GOOD), high fived some kids, danced to some music around mile
18, saw friends and old teammates, and got several compliments on my hot pink
shoes.
Looking back on the
day, I can honestly say it was full of small, personal victories. I kept going when I really wanted to stop. I
used my training to adapt to what came my way. And I was reminded of the
kindness and generosity of others in a sport that’s so often described as
selfish. But, there is an element of disappointment as well that seems to be a
recent theme for my racing. Part of it is that I put a lot of pressure on
myself so no matter what the result is, I will always expect more. The other aspect
of it is that I know how hard I work, and during training I see glimpses of
what I am really capable of and then for whatever reason, the pieces don’t come
together on race day. I’m not writing this the whine or complain, but just as a
way to reflect on a long, rewarding and challenging year of racing. I know it’s
“just a hobby” but I am lucky enough to have found something I am passionate
about, and part of the joy I derive from this is challenging myself to become
better at it. So it’s time to step back and think about what’s next for me. I
plan on using a little bit of off season time to test the waters with ultra
marathon running before hopping back on tri training, Contrary to previous
plans though, it looks like 2015 will focus on building speed. I’ll come back
to Ironman the following year hopefully refreshed, faster and stronger J
