Race Report - 2nd 1/2 Ironman Triathlon - Finished but not done

Place - overall place 65/88 overall women 13/26 age group place 2/4 Times - swim 30:48 T1 3:31 bike overall 64 - time 3:16:40 bike ave speed 16.5 T2 1:46 run overall 69 - total time 2:34:57 average speed per mile 11:56 final time 6:27:42

Well, It's done. 1/2 Ironman number two is in the books. To recap a 1/2 Ironman is 70.3 miles - 1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking and 13.1 miles running (1/2 marathon). This is my ninth season doing triathlons and I love training for a goal, but race day is even better. I expected the race to take me somewhere between 6 hours and 6 and a half hours depending on how my day went. I worked up my fast (A), average (B) and slow (C) estimated times for Shawn sightings/goals for the day. After a couple months of several days a week with multiple workouts it felt a bit weird to cut down the mileage, frequency and duration of my training the two weeks leading into race day. I wanted to make sure my body had a chance to recover before the stress of race day.

Horsing around the day before... Go State!

With Joe out of state all week we were still formulating travel plans clear up to Friday before the race. We ended up driving up to White Bear Lake, MN Saturday morning after Joshua's soccer game.  Abby and I dropped the guys off at my cousin's house where we were staying and then headed out towards Stillwater to check out Square Lake Park and see the course. First assessment, the lake was probably the clearest lake I have ever raced in and the water was warmer than expected. Second assessment, this was going to be a much hillier course than anticipated since the course is next to the St. Croix river valley. Transition from the swim to the bike was up a very steep slope with wooden stairs so it was good to get a feel for the course area. From there we drove down to Stillwater to meet up with the team. There were to be six of us from the Ames area racing together, four who were new to this distance and myself and my primary biking buddy Galen who have done one or more. The day before race day we were still five strong plus some cheerleaders and we met to watch part of the ISU Iowa football game and talk race day.

Team shot prerace - Galen, Shawn, Lara, Jill Steve

Prerace on the beach

Abby and I headed back to WBL and had pizza with the family for dinner (easy but not the best meal choice before a race). I checked my email and saw an awesome message from my coach loaded with encouragement. Then, I headed to bed early as I was worn out from traveling and nervousness. Unfortunately miss Adney the dog woke me up at 3 am looking for her mom (who was out of town) and I couldn't get back to sleep. We were all up and ready to roll out by 6 am to get to the course by 6:30. They had changed the run and bike out locations from the sprint race the day before so I ended up racking my bike at the run out side of transition but decided to just go with it as transition was pretty small compared to many races I had done. I set up my gear (realized my sunglasses were in the car somewhere and Joe graciously offered to go find them for me) and headed down to the lake for body marking. I never did hear what the water temp was but they recommended a wetsuit so wetsuit it was... it is a pretty long swim after all so a little extra buoyancy never hurts.

My team gathered on the beach and as we were all in the last two waves we had fun listening to the music rocking, chatting with family and watched the first few waves get started. Then we were up. It was a standing water group start, which I prefer over a time trial run in start. I was able to get in and get out ahead of everyone right away and had my own lane for the first leg (rectangular course with .25 miles sides and .05 mile top and bottom with two laps). I caught up with the wave in front of us at the first right turn and was in traffic off and on the rest of the swim. The section going back towards the beach was rough with bodies and sun right in our face making sighting the buoys tough so I lost some of my rhythm the first go around. I had a strong second lap and by the closing leg the sun had shifted enough I could sight a bit better. I swam through two of the waves that left before me (3 minutes between each) and came out of the water and hit the mat at the bottom of the stairs at 30:48 which was an A pace time for me. Off to a good start.  

Towards the end of my first lap - MinneFoto

Heading for T1 - MinneFoto

T1 was around 3:31 for me which is ok. I had to run up the three flights of stairs, shimmy out of my wet suit, dry off enough to get my bandaid to stick to my heal (had a massive blister on my heal from a long walk in my bike shoes) that was partially healed. Then off on the bike and into two miles of up. Once I rolled through the first few miles I got into a good rhythm and was maintaining around 18 mph ave which was right where I wanted to be. The bike course is two laps of the same course. it had rolling hills, beautiful countryside and amazing wide shoulders for safe riding. I had done some long tough rides so I was optimistic it was going to be a good day. The back side of the first lap takes you down into the river valley flats and then up a couple of miles of gear grinding hills back out of the valley and to the start of the second lap. Part way up the second half of hills towards the end of the first lap I blew a chain but was able to get it back on quickly and keep motoring up the hill. The other thing I noticed about the same time is that the wind was starting to pick up. As far as my nutrition plan goes I was eating my peanut butter pretzels, taking on EFS and water (one bottle each by the end of two loops), and towards the end of the second lap some stinger gummies as well. The wind was pretty consistent the second
lap but with all the turns we make to cover the course the direction was constantly shifting with the hardest part down in the river valley towards the end with the big climbs and a headwind.

Coming into T2

Walking out of T2

I finished the bike in 3 hours and 15 minutes which was a B time prerace but I give it an A time considering the wind and hill factors with a final average of 16:40 miles per hour. T2 was a 1:46 for me which was a bit quick as I should have eaten my banana because my tummy was rumbling. At this point I was 3 hours and 50 minutes into the race but I'm afraid the hills took more out of me than I thought and heading into the run the first two miles were mostly uphill and I found it impossible to get into a good comfortable running rhythm. A good run for me would have been around 10 - 10:30 minute miles. I saw three miles of that in the first five but it all pretty much imploded after mile five and my splits kept creeping higher close to 12 minute miles. It was in the mid seventies by mid run, windy and the hills just kept coming. The first, middle and last three miles were all in bike lane on the side the road. The rest of the run was on a short segment of bike trail from 3-5.5 and again in the other direction on this out and back course. It was pretty gruelling and I never felt like I did much more than shuffle along.  

Joshua Photo bombing my finish

Nothing left

I saw all my teammates at one point or another on the run course and we were all feeling the hurt from the course, hills, wind and rising heat. Nutrition on the run for me was water at almost every stop and gatorade which I had not trained with but had used in the past. Turns out the gatorade didn't  

agree with me this time and by halfway through the run I wasn't feeling real great with building GI distress. To finish the race we had to run all the way past the length of the park to get to the road in and I saw my family on the other side cheering and I choked up. I was walking up the last hill (otherwise only walking through aid stations) and they got me going again along with a gentleman from Bloomington who was going the same pace as me most of the run. I was elated to finally finish the race still shuffling but almost immediately got light headed and needed to sit and catch my breath (then race to the facilities.)

Waiting for our last teammate to finish

Galen and I with our age
group Medals

All in all it was mostly the race I hoped for although for the first few days after the race I was pretty disappointed by the run. I had several people tell me about their run implosions in race situations and I realized it happens to everyone. It was a tough course and I did the best I could that day. Will I do another... during the run I was cursing my decision to do a second one but as of today I say absolutely... I have upped my No Limits threshold and am looking towards next season which may hold my first marathon.... maybe some day will find me doing that one Ironman Triathlon I always dreamed about (but not for a few years anyway). 

 A huge thanks go out to my training buddies Galen, Jill, Steve (Lara), my coach John, and as always my amazingly patient husband and enthusiastic children. I couldn't have done it without you all. Next up the Des Moines Half Marathon in October and the Living History Farms cross country run in November.