According to him, nobody in the history of ever should do their swim workout while wearing a watch, even if they need to record splits that would be much easier to track via the lap button than trying to memorize them all from the wall clock. Got it. You should also listen to this guy when it comes to fueling, because it’s better to forgo extra fuel on the bike and a fuel belt during your runs so you don’t look like a fool, amirite? Because everyone laughs at you if they see you carrying some bottles and a few gels. They all point and cackle, “Look at this dumb-ass, carrying a couple unnecessary extra pounds! Revoke his USAT card right now!” Also, despite the fact that I have never seen anyone ever eat a gel outside of training or races, thanks for pointing out that one should never consume them as a snack or meal. I’m sure that happens all the time.

I suppose the only truly “controversial” point this guy brought up was the M-dot tattoo. You all know it well–it’s the Ironman logo that some athletes get tattooed on their bodies after completing their first Ironman. His argument was “do fat people get the McDonald’s Arches tattooed on their bellies because they love a quarter pounder with cheese?”, which is a straw man argument. It’s not like some guy ran out and got the M-dot tattoo because he liked the Timex Ironman brand watches; typically the mindset is that the tattoo is “earned” after months of training and upon completion of the race, whereas any schmuck who loves Mickey D’s or is an Apple fanboy can get the arches or apple icon inked on his skin.

What I think this man was trying to say is that the M-dot is a corporate logo, and tattooing a corporate logo onto your body is stupid–it’s like getting the LG logo or BMW permanently etched onto your body. I can understand that argument, but are you really going to nitpick an M-dot tattoo over tattoos in general (especially when the author himself admitted to having a “Cleveland” tattoo, which is infinitely more embarrassing than an M-dot considering Cleveland is an utter shithole)? People get stupid, ridiculous tattoos all the time for no reason–at least the M-dot tattoo has some semblance of reason and meaning behind it.

Would you make fun of a group of military guys for getting army/navy/squadron/etc tattoos? Of course not, because you’d probably get your ass kicked, but also because you understand that even though the army is a “corporate” logo, it represented a time in that guy’s life when he did something personally meaningful and bonded with a group of like-minded individuals. I don’t see the M-dot as being any different. Not everyone is naturally athletic or gifted. Some people look at an Ironman and see Mt. Everest. They train for months, maybe even years, to aspire to complete one, and when they do they see a dream fulfilled, a giant conquered, a goal attained. Maybe they want to get a tattoo to remind them of the emotional and physical journey they embarked on in order to earn that medal and that finisher’s photo. Maybe they’re already a tattoo freak so what’s one more added to the bunch? Hell, maybe they just like the M-dot logo, after all.

The biggest question you ask yourself shouldn’t be “Why?”, it should be “Why do I care?” And the answer is you shouldn’t. It’s not your body, so you don’t have to live with it for the rest of your life. The M-dot logo may mean nothing to you, but it probably means something to the person who had it inked onto his or her skin. Are you going to go into that person’s house and start trashing the art on his walls, the furniture in his living room, the car that he drives, just because you personally don’t like it? Aren’t manners and being polite basic skills everyone learned in kindergarten?

I’ve completed an Ironman and am training for my second one. I don’t have an M-dot tattoo, nor do I plan to ever get one. Tattoos aren’t my thing, but I understand that some people find them appealing. I have teammates with M-dot tattoos and I have teammates without them. When I see someone sporting one, I don’t roll my eyes and think, “What a fool.” I just see a triathlete. Maybe he’s slow, maybe he’s fast, I don’t know. He might have raced Kona countless times over or he might have barely made the 17 hour cut-off. Whoever he is, I don’t judge him because he has an M-dot tattoo. This same guy could look at my race splits, see my atrocious swim times, and sneer “Why is she even doing this sport?” without knowing anything else about me.

So, in the age-old question “To M-dot or not to M-dot,” the answer is “do whatever you feel like.” If you want to get an M-dot tattoo, get one. If you don’t, don’t. If you roll your eyes at the tattoo, guess what: it’s not mandatory–the athlete catchers don’t grab you as soon as you cross the finish line, guide you to get your medal and your photo taken, then shove you into a tattoo tent and hold you down while Mike Reilly etches the logo onto your calf. If that were the case, Sister Madonna would look like she were in a prison gang. The tattoo isn’t a big deal. Get one or don’t, but don’t sneer at athletes who don’t have one if you do, and don’t scoff at athletes who do have one if you don’t. We can all enjoy the sport together, tattoo or not.

Behold, my 2012 race season (aka, the last year I get to race in the glorious 25-29 age group before being thrown to the fast and strong 30+ assholes):

November 26th: Seattle Half Marathon

This will be my first half marathon since the Eugene half in spring 2010, where I PR’d on a relatively flat and fast course. I’ve never done the Seattle half or full marathon despite having lived here for over 10 years. There’s something about the course being difficult and the fact that it’s during a typically shitty time of the year weather-wise that hasn’t struck me as being terribly appealing. However, a ton of teammates are racing the half and a lean and fast Jas is hoping to run a 3:30 or better in the full, so I decided to woman up and race it too. It’s hard to say what I’ll bust out on Sunday–I’ve been running well lately, which is a refreshing change from how slow and painful my runs were for the first half of 2011. I’d like to do 1:45 or better, which would be a PR for me (on a tough course, no less), but as long as I have a solid, strong race, I’ll be pretty happy.

March 18, 2012: Rev 3 Costa Rica

It’s happening, folks! Jason and I are going to kick off the tri season waaaaaaay too early for my tastes by doing our first half Ironman of the year in freaking March. I bet my first outdoor ride and open water swim will be the week we get there, right before the race. The trip will actually end up being relatively inexpensive since I used miles to book our plane tickets and we’ll be sharing a house rental with two other couples. The pricey part will be hauling our crap and the race registration. One thing I’m not thrilled about is that people complained the swim was way long last year (the top swim time was 10 minutes slower than typical, which means my slow-ass swim time will end up being like a half hour worse than usual if they don’t correct the course for this year’s race) and some swimmers got stung by fucking jellyfish during the race. WHAT. I wasn’t aware of this before booking my trip. Oh God. If I get stung by a jellyfish (and you know I will because I’m the Mediocre Athlete with the worst luck ever), that’s pretty much a race ruiner right there. Oh well, at least I’ll get to hang out in Costa Rica with my friends and boyfriend.

May 2012: Mt. Rainier Duathlon

Teresa will probably make me do this again. The only conundrum is whether I should try and defend my title one last time in the short course before I have to age up next year or if I should graduate myself to the long course since it’ll be better training for Canada. On one hand, the long course will be a better workout. On the other hand, GHETTO TROPHYYYYYYYYYY. Decisions, decisions.

June 2, 2012: Honu 70.3

My second tropical destination race of the year. I fully expect the winds to be atrocious and the heat/humidity to be brutal. A lot of teammates will be racing so it should be a fun destination race. We’re rooming with Mark and Teresa again–by the end of the season we will have stayed with them for four different races. (At this point I’m wondering if we should just buy a house together and pull a “Big Love” minus the whole polygamy thing.) I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was five years old and Jason hasn’t been since he was in high school and went with his family. Fun fact: we were both sick during our only vacation to Hawaii–I had strep throat and Jason had mono. Here’s hoping this coming trip will be better for both of us.

July 8, 2012: Rev 3 in Portland

I wasn’t thrilled with the course and it looks like the race will be in the same spot as last year, but they’ve changed the bike course so it’s now one challenging loop instead of two crotch-busting but flat loops. The swim and run will probably be the same. I’m not super excited about this race, but seeing as how my other option in July was Lake Stevens, I’d rather go back to Portland. I know of at least one teammate who is racing it and Jason will be there for support (but not to race since he’ll be fresh off Ironman Coeur d’Alene), plus we have friends in Portland we can hang out with that weekend, so it should still be a fun time.

July 22, 2012: Seafair

I haven’t decided on this one yet, but I kind of want to do the sprint triathlon one last time before I age up to 30-34 next year. Since I’ll be training so much this season, it’ll be fun to see how well I’ll place in my age group. Maybe next year I’ll give the olympic distance a try, but I wouldn’t mind doing the sprint distance one more time before hitting the big 3-0.

August 26, 2012: Ironman Canada

My big ‘ol “A” race. I’d like to break 12 hours this time around and plan to put in some serious training time in order to try and hit that goal. I think I can improve across the board, but I can make especially big gains in the swim portion if I get off my ass and commit to my workouts. We’ll see how the season goes–I’m pretty excited and looking forward to seeing how fit and strong I can get for this race.

My goals for the half are to try and keep them under 6 hours if possible, which could be a bit challenging because I’m doing two races in humid tropical environments, but hopefully I can stay strong for the 70.3s and get some confidence going into Ironman Canada.

I wanted to do a marathon in January or February so that I can finally break 4 hours (a goal I should have hit the last time I did a standalone marathon but the race went horribly awry), but Teresa wants me to focus on Ironman training and said that I can plan for my sub-4 goal for Canada, at which point I laughed heartily and assumed she was joking. Sub-4 off the bike would be pretty insane for me, but hey, if she can coach me to it then I owe her a huge gift basket full of Lululemon crap and chocolates.

Welp, that about does it so far for my 2012 race season. I’ll have some organized rides and whatnot sprinkled in there (I think Teresa wants me to try and sign up for RAMROD if I can get in), plus I’m not sure what I’ll do after Canada (maybe I can convince T to let me do a marathon, although the last time that happened after an Ironman, I got tendinitis so I’m not sure how gung-ho she’ll be), but it’s going to be a pretty packed season through the end of August. If I survive, I’ll hopefully emerge with some PRs, some finisher medals, some good stories, and minimal sun damage and taint chafing.

The part where she asks the athlete what he gets for doing the Ironman is especially painful for me considering my mom asked me the exact same thing before I raced Ironman Canada and was somewhat disgusted and disappointed to hear that all I would get is a medal, a t-shirt, and an upside-down hat.

I can’t relate to the “waking up at 4:30″ part — I only drag myself out of bed that early if I’m racing; otherwise, 6:30 or 7 is the earliest this lazy fool will get up to train. I should write a book called “The Lazy Person’s Ironman Training Guide” — it involves a lot of late-night trainer rides while blasting loud movies that probably piss off my neighbors.

Before the Race

Anyway, back to my report. It’s a long mofo, so read at your own risk. You may want to properly hydrate and stretch beforehand since this is an endurance read. Got your salt pills and a couple gels within arm’s reach? Okay, good. Let’s do this.

Driving Up

The Wednesday before the race, Jason and I waited impatiently for the stupid UPS guy to show up and deliver Jason’s paycheck (long story — his employer is flaky) so we could promptly spend it up in Penticton. We got the standard Comcast-esque delivery time frame of “Two hours before you normally wake up” to “The exact moment you decide to take a gamble and use the restroom.” The dude finally showed up at 3 pm, and we left immediately after that.

Bikes with fancy race wheels loaded up and ready to go

As soon as we pulled onto the interstate, it hit me that we were actually going to do an Ironman on Sunday. I got a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and my heart began to race, but oddly enough, that was really the extent of my nerves. Since Jason is a giant with a post-bike crash bum shoulder/neck, he could only drive for short stretches before feeling uncomfortable, so I resorted to driving most of the way up. I got back at him by pulling a Costanza and insisting we not stop for a pee break because I wanted to make good time. He was less than thrilled.

His eyes are filled with hatred. Hatred and urine.

Pre-Race Relaxation

We got to Penticton at about 10 pm. Our rental place was nice and clean, which was a vast improvement over last year’s descent into Teen Disney hell. The owners did put some unintentionally amusing stickers on the screen door to prevent people from running into it:

Oh my God, a double rainbow! What does it mean?!

As I mentioned in my Countdown to Canada post, we got our final pre-race workouts taken care of and began carb loading. Dr. Perry had said something about how one gram of carbs equates to 3 grams of water, so carb loading for a race means you’re really putting on water weight and storing it for hydration purposes. I thought about this every time I’d shove cashews and chips down my gullet. Thank God there were no scales in the house.

I took the time to call my mom and remind her about the race I was doing on Sunday — check out her pre-Ironman words of encouragement on my other blog if you want to get a glimpse of what my mom is like.

Day Before the Race

On Saturday Jason and I did a final mechanical check on our bikes before dropping them off along with our bikes and gear bags. We prepped our special needs bags and then spent the rest of the day lounging around and relaxing. I still wasn’t feeling nervous or anxious — more restless and wanting to race. After all, I trained and prepped for 8 months, so I was eager to “take the final,” if you will, and prove that I was ready to pass with flying colors.

The one nasty exception to the “I’m not stressed” feeling is the fact that my body, probably figuring it needed to do something to convey pre-race jitters, decided to revolt by producing a ton of random pimples in a concentrated spot on my back. It was unexpected and gross. Jason coped with it thusly:

“Hey hon, do you have any extra gels I can bor–HOLY CRAP WHAT IS UP WITH YOUR BACK?!” *poke poke* “Ewwwww, can I pop these?”

I refused to allow photographic evidence of this puberty cluster to exist, but here’s an artist’s rendition to give you an idea of what I had to deal with:

27 years old and I still get bacne. Sigh.

After I returned from Penticton, I lied to the massage therapist during a massage appointment and told her they were bug bites. My shame runs deep.

Anyway, that night our non-racing housemates made an awesome dinner of grilled chicken, salad, and pasta with two kinds of sauce. Jas and I got spoiled rotten by them — they cooked, cleaned up, kept us smiling and laughing and relaxed, and constantly told us that we’d both do great and have so much fun out there. It was the least stressful pre-race night I’ve ever had. I honestly don’t know if I can do another Ironman without Connie, Jeff, Thomas, Bridget, and Mark’s parents. We might have to roll with an entire race entourage. I’m totally fine with that.

Before we went to bed, I got my hurr did by Connie (double French braids, hell yeah) and did some final stretching and foam rolling. Jason and I hit the hay at 10:30 pm and, surprisingly enough, were both able to sleep fairly uninterrupted (minus a couple of bathroom visits, of course) until the alarm went off at 3:30 am. (Yes, THREE THIRTY. The things you have to do in the name of Ironman.)

Morning of the Race

When I woke up early (early) Sunday morning, I still didn’t feel nervous. My lack of nerves felt odd and counter-intuitive to how I’ve felt before most races. I remember feeling so nervous before my first half marathon, my first marathon, and my first half Ironman. Hell, I puked twice before Ironman Boise 70.3, and that was after I already had two half Ironman races under my belt. Nonetheless, all of the training plus the awesome effort by my housemates to ensure I was calm and rested leading up to the race made me feel truly prepared for the task at hand.

For breakfast I ate about 400 calories that consisted of a white English muffin with peanut butter, a coconut water (the Naked brand ones I had bought tasted like ass, but Bridget had me try a different brand that was surprisingly tasty and sweet, so I guess its footiness depends on which brand you buy. Naked brand = feet), a packet of instant oatmeal, and, holy shit, a cup of coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, but Teresa recommended I have one on race day so I’d benefit from the caffeine. I think after how my race went, I am now a race day coffee drinker. You’ve won this round, Juan Valdez!

After breakfast, I changed into my race clothes and we all piled into Jeff’s gigantic “I’m proud as hell to be an American” truck. When we pulled out of the driveway, Guns ‘n Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” came on the radio and blared through the speakers. Fuck yeah, let’s do this.

Pre-Race Happenings

We got to the main hub of craziness and headed towards the body marking area.

Check out those sexy braids, courtesy of Connie

I waited in line to get marked. When I got to Sharpie Lady, I had to take off my jacket and roll down my compression socks/roll up my pants to expose the spots where she’d have to put the numbers. While doing all of this, I took off my timing strap that was around my ankle. After I got my doodles, I gathered up my stuff and headed into the transition area to get everything prepared.

After dicking around for a half hour (pumped up my tires, checked my fuel, etc), I heard someone announce, “Will Rebecca Kelley, athlete #2192, please report to the Swim In entrance.” As soon as I heard my name, I instinctively looked down at my ankle and saw that it was bare. No timing strap. Derp. I immediately knew that I must have left it at body marking, and someone must have picked it up and turned it in. No big deal — I retrieved my chip and headed back to my bike, where I spotted a volunteer who had planted himself in my transition spot to ensure that I had picked up my chip. Talk about efficient volunteers!

Rebecca Pees Herself Moment #1

About a half hour before the race was to begin, I found Jason so we could lube each other up unsexily with sunscreen and body glide. We found a spot next to a tree near some sponsor tent against the fence so we could have some space and goop it up. At this point I had to pee, but the porta potty lines were epicly long and I wasn’t sure I’d get to a bathroom before we’d get kicked out of transition. Jason said, “Hold on, we’ll find a bathroom after I finish applying this stuff,” then spent 1.5 eons taking his sweet ass time slowly rubbing first chamois cream, then sunscreen, then glide, all while I hopped around him looking like Rumpelstiltsken doing a combination “I’m cold/I have to piss like a race horse” dance.

Fairly accurate depiction (just add braids and permanent marker)

Finally, I just said, “Fuck it, I can’t wait any more,” squatted next to the tree, and peed through my tri shorts. Jason looked less than thrilled, but I had to unleash the fury in front of a bunch of spectators who were separated by nothing more than a fence and some dignity. Oh well, I was just going to pee in my wetsuit, anyway.

Speaking of wetsuits, after the Lube-a-thon and peefest, we ran into our teammate Steve and suited up.

Steve rockin' the popped collar look while I serve as the meat in the TYR sandwich

Eventually it was time to start. I gave Jason a hug and a kiss and we wished each other good luck. Steve and I hung out together, and when the cannon fired, he gave me a hug and some words of encouragement. A year after signing up and 8 months of training later, here I was, starting the swim portion of an Ironman.

Swim Recap

I positioned myself alongside Steve in the middle of the pack, and when the cannon went off, I slowly trudged my way up to the swim line that cut across the beach. It was about a full minute before I actually did any swimming, but eventually I dove in and got started. I have to honestly say that there’s nothing like a mass swim start at an Ironman. You think you’ve gotten used to getting pushed around and elbowed in your swim wave — well, that’s nothing compared to fighting 2,800 people swimming alongside you. It was by far the roughest swim I’ve done (in terms of people, not water conditions). I swam over people and got kicked/slapped numerous times, especially in the beginning of the race. Season 1 Rebecca would have freaked the eff out — there’s no way I would have been able to do this swim. However, I was able to survive by repeating the following mantras as I swam:

1. Stay calm
2. Stay focused
3. Stay strong

Whenever I got elbowed or swallowed water or felt like I was getting man-handled, I just repeated those three things and kept swimming. It helped immensely. I kept swimming, and the craziness started to thin out. Somehow I ended up drifting so that I was swimming really close alongside the sighting buoys. Oh well, there goes “stay in the middle.” I felt pretty good swimming out (and even saw a diver below me at one point). When I started to see the bottom of the lake, we cut over and made our first turn. The turn got a bit hairy since tons of athletes converged to one point. I swam to Turn #2, which also got a bit congested and flaily, but I ignored it because I was excited to be heading back to shore.

When I was swimming the long stretch back to transition, my left shoulder stated to ache a bit. I thought of Jason and wondered how his shoulder and neck were holding up — after his bike accident, he hadn’t swum more than 30 minutes at a time. I figured adrenaline would get him through the swim, so I wasn’t too worried, but I still thought of him as I slowly made it closer and closer to shore.

Eventually, I hit some rocks that were to the left of where the sandy beach was. I made a mistake and swam through the rocks, then stood up when I couldn’t swim any more. The rocky part of the beach gets shallow pretty far out, so I awkwardly tried to hobble-run in from the water. I already had my wetsuit unzipped when I looked to my right and realized that I could swim further in on the sandy side, so I dove back in and swam several strokes, bypassing the rocks. Swimming with an open wetsuit is a really odd feeling, but I figured it was faster than wobbling in on two legs.

Finally I exited the water looking gorgeous as usual:

Me looking like shit next to a guy with the longest arms in the world

Goal swim time: 1:30 or under
Actual swim time: 1:33

I swam three minutes slower than where I wanted to be, but I was still pretty happy with my swim time. It’s no secret that swimming is my weakest of the three, plus I spend the least amount of time working on it because I hate it so much, but I still managed to swim a PR (if you cut my time in half, it even beats my previous best of 47 minutes at Boise this year). I thought I caught a draft since I didn’t feel as if I was working that hard on the swim, but after checking the results later, I think I caught the Draft Nobody But Me Swam In, because most everyone’s swim time was freaking fast. I only beat 7 girls in my age group, had the second-worst swim time on my team, and ranked 2,501st out of 2,732 total finishers. Hell, even the dude who finished last at a time of 16:59:54 (that’s right, he had four seconds to spare) swam faster than me.

Oh well, screw those fast assholes. Much how my teammate Tracy’s goal was to catch people on the run, my plan was to pass all of the fast swimmers on the bike portion, and that’s exactly what I did.

T1

Ironman transitions are surprisingly fluid. I ran into transition, laid down to get my wetsuit stripped, stood back up with my wetsuit in my arms, ran down a row to grab my T1 bag from a volunteer, and headed into the women’s changing tent. There were females everywhere. Most of them were sitting down, so I just stood in a corner and rifled through my things there. I saw a lot of nekkid ladies, which confused the hell out of me. What were they swimming in? Did these women really change from a swimsuit into cycling gear? Why not just swim in what you’ll race in so you don’t have to flash vadge to everyone? I didn’t really get it, but then again, Teresa has conditioned me to race in the tri kit so I’ve never been a “change your clothes” type of person, anyway.

Total time spent in T1: 3:34. Not too bad if you ask me. Plus, nobody had the misfortune of seeing my pale, soggy ass or bony chesticles, so that’s a bonus.

Bike Recap

I mounted my bike, pedaled about four times, hit my bike computer to wake it up, exclaimed “Shit” as the bike computer flipped off my bike and flew behind me, stopped my bike, turned around, retrieved my bike computer, clipped it back on my bike, re-mounted my bike, and began pedaling again. Good way to start 112 miles, right?

As I pedaled through Main Street, I heard Jason’s dad hollering my name and I smiled at him and Jason’s family. Next I rode by a ton of TN Multisports spectators and grinned at them as well.

The black things on my wrists are folded down arm warmers, not some 80's aerobic wrist guards

I passed a few of my teammates on the Main Street stretch (Laura, Karen, Barb) and shouted happily at them. My legs felt a bit stiff at first, so I was mildly worried how well they’d hold up, but I didn’t really feel like I was cranking hard so I just kept pedaling at a strong, consistent pace. They warmed up well before the climb up Richter, which made me happy.

The weather held up nicely for the first chunk of the bike. I had put on arm warmers in anticipation of colder temperatures, but since it was warmish and not windy, I peeled off the left one and resorted to using it as a handkerchief every five or ten minutes. I know, it’s pretty gross, but for some reason my body composition turns into 85% snot when I’m racing. I’m no good at shooting snot rockets, so either I sniffle and try to ingest mucus for six hours straight, or I blow it out into my arm warmer.

I was on point with my fueling and felt great. When I got to the base of Richter, I looked at my watch and saw that I was about five minutes faster than my training rides. That felt pretty good — I was definitely going faster, but it wasn’t a blowout. I caught Bill going up Richter and we chatted a bit before I passed him.

Holy shit, I'm actually smiling (note the missing left arm warmer -- it's balled up in my hand and caked with snot)

Rebecca Pees Herself Moments #2 and #3

My urge to pee had been steadily growing the more I biked, but I was holding a strong pace and didn’t really want to stop. As I climbed Richter, I saw a pit stop full of athletes lined up waiting to use porta potties. I heard the wait was upwards of 10 minutes. No way was I going to dick around that long to pee. After a while, though, the pressure started to build up, so I finally did what I have tried to do in the past and failed: I peed while biking.

It turns out that peeing while cycling gets easier the more desperate you get. I waited for a descent, looked behind me to make sure that no unfortunate soul would get splashed, popped up out of my saddle a bit, and just let it fly little by little. It made me feel better but slightly gross. I figured by the end of the race I’d smell like eight kinds of death anyway, so what’s a little stale pee added to the mix.

Later on I needed to pee again, so what the hell, I peed on the bike one more time. Same as before — coasted down a descent, stood up a bit, and released the floodgates. Hopefully this will be an Ironman-Only Rule — I don’t need to be pissing myself for sprints or anything. Also, word of warning: your shoes will STINK of pee after the race. Like tragically bad.

I honestly felt pretty great throughout the bike, and I was actually having fun. My body felt good, my spirits were high, and I really enjoyed seeing the spectators cheer like crazy for us. I’d smile and nod at people who’d shout my name and cheer me on. The support was so great. The athletes were pretty amusing too. At one point a guy in front of me snuck out a loud fart, and when he glanced back to see if anyone was behind him and heard it, I just nodded as if to say, “Yep, I totally caught you,” and he dropped his head in embarrassment. I laughed and passed him.

At several points throughout the bike portion, race officials would putter up next to you on a scooter and spy on you for a while. They were trolling for cyclists who were breaking the rules. Whenever one would pull up alongside me, I’d get super paranoid. Was I going to get a penalty? Were they going to yell at me? OH GOD WHAT DID I DOOOO?! One time a scooter pulled up next to me as I was eating a gel, and the officials hung around to see if I was going to litter the wrapper after I was done with it. “Nice try, sneaky race officials,” I thought as I shoved the empty wrapper into my back pocket. Satisfied (or possibly disappointed), the scooter puttered off to bust some other cyclists. I never did get a drafting penalty (although it was really hard not to considering 2,800 athletes were riding along the same course — there were always lines of cyclists in front of and behind you).

Bill re-passed me after we finished climbing Richter. I caught up to another teammate, Lee, and passed her going into the rollers. The rollers were a bit challenging because the wind had picked up a bit — definitely not as fast as when we rode them during our training camp weekend. When we got to the out and back I found Bill again and re-passed him. As I turned onto the out and back, I saw one of my teammates, Johnna, finishing the out and back, so I cheered for her like a banshee.

I was hoping I’d catch a glimpse of Jason during the out and back stretch — I had been thinking about him a lot on the bike portion and was getting a little worried. At one point on the course an ambulance zoomed by me and the other cyclists, and I felt a little anxious thinking about him and wondering if he was okay. Thankfully, I spotted him on the out and back and waved to him like a total dork. He looked strong and shouted words of encouragement.

Soon after that, I hit the turn around point where special needs was, so I pulled over and rummaged around for crap in my bag. I threw the snotty arm warmer in and started using the “fresh” one as my new handkerchief. I also swapped out my bottles and grabbed a couple extra gels, then trudged on. I saw the rest of my teammates behind me: Bill, Lee, Nathan, his friend Nick, Tracy, Karen, Sara, Laura, and Barb. They all looked awesome, and seeing them gave me a nice mental boost, which was much needed going into the Yellow Lake climb.

Remember when I mentioned in my Countdown to Canada post how the weather was going to be great on race day? Obviously I should have kept my stupid mouth shut — it was an insta-jinx. The wind picked up and got really nasty in the tail end of the out and back, and I battled a crosswind and rapidly declining temperatures for a while. It sucked, but at least the entire ride wasn’t like this, plus my Ironman Boise wind battle had prepared me for similar conditions, so I battled back and stayed as mentally strong as I could.

A few times throughout the bike I felt emotions start to creep up on me, like “Holy shit, I’m actually doing this,” but before they got too strong, I’d mentally reprimand myself with a “Snap out of it B-Kel, you’re not done with this thing just yet.” I didn’t want to celebrate too soon — there was still a lot of race left, and you never know what was going to happen, so I wasn’t about to blow my emotional wad and prematurely race-jaculate until I knew the end was in sight.

I got to the base of Yellow Lake and climbed that sucker like a champ. Even though it was cold, kind of windy, and rainy, it felt easier than when I had done it twice before, probably because I was more experienced and because it wasn’t nearly 100 degrees outside. The crowd support at Yellow Lake was crazy — rows of spectators on either side of the bike path, all of them screaming and cheering for us. It was like a Tour de France leg. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was completely and utterly awesome.

Speaking of awesome, I came across a bunch of my non-racing TN buddies about 3/4 of the way up the climb, and they went apeshit when they saw me. I grinned like an idiot and laughed when I saw Brent, one of my teammates, who was sporting a too-small TN Multisport speedo and chugging a beer. He ran alongside me as I pedaled, his voice hoarse from rooting on my teammates who were ahead of me.

“You look awesome!” he said. “Just a little further, then it’s all downhill back into town, and then you get to go for a little run.”

I laughed at “a little run” and kept climbing. After a while, I hit the top and picked up a lot of speed descending down the canyon highway. At one point I came across an older lady racing in a two piece sporty swimsuit. It was pretty gross being stuck behind her all bent over in aero with her buttcheeks half flopped out of her bottoms, so I passed her. She eventually caught up to me on the run and smoked me, but still, not my racing attire of choice.

The last stretch back into town felt like it took longer than expected — it’s a bit tricky because as soon as you finish climbing Yellow Lake and descend down, you think you’re pretty much done with the bike but you probably still have about 25 minutes or so left. I passed the TN Multisports tent on my way in and they cheered like crazy. It was an awesome way to end a long bike stretch, and it definitely put me in a good mindset for the run.

Coming in from the bike portion and waving to the TN tent across the street

Goal bike time: 6:15-6:20
Actual bike time: 6:18:31

I was thrilled with my bike time. Sure, I could have squeaked out a slightly better time if I didn’t take quite as long at Special Needs and if the weather weren’t so crappy leading up to Yellow Lake, but taking all that into consideration, I think I pulled off a good bike split. I made up some ground in my age group, having biked the 24th fastest split out of 77 girls and 1,213th out of 2,732 finishers.

T2

When I rolled into T2, I had to go to the bathroom again, only this time it was, er, more urgent. Not wanting to fail my ultimate race goal, I wobbled into the changing tent with my bag, kicked off my shoes, and ran into the porta potty barefoot (normally a 10 on the Ick Factor, but at this point I was covered in snot crust, sweat, and stale pee, so what’s a little poo residue on the soles of my feet?). The bathroom break took a bit longer than I wanted, but hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Total time spent in T2: 5:11

Run Recap

As soon as I stepped out of T2, I looked at my watch and saw I was exactly at the 8 hour mark. If I ran under a 5 hour marathon, I’d be able to crack 13 hours. Sub-13 was a lofty goal of mine (obviously my primary goal was to finish, with my more realistic goal to finish in low to mid-13 hours), so I got excited and thought “game on.” I ventured out on the run and felt surprisingly great. No stiff legs or aches. My first mile was under an 8:30 min/mile pace. If this were just a marathon, I’d slow down a bit so I wouldn’t burn out. However, since I wasn’t even sure I’d have anything left in the tank later, I figured I’d just use what I’ve got now and see how far it took me.

There’s a little out and back at the beginning of the marathon, and when I hit that spot, I spotted Jason heading in the opposite direction. My heart swelled and I almost started to cry, but I jammed that shit down and forced myself to save the emotions for later. I was really happy to see that he had made it off the bike and was looking strong on the run. We high fived and shouted words of encouragement to each other. After I turned around, I saw Bill heading out and gave him a high five too.

At around mile 3 I came across the team tent, and running by it was absolutely awesome. Connie asked me how I was doing and I said I felt good. My non-racing buddies lined up to scream my name and encourage me. I got a crapton of high fives, which made me feel great and super pumped to run 23 more miles.

Getting a slew of high fives

As I ran by Jeff and Thomas, they kept shouting “11 minutes, you got 11 minutes!” I didn’t know what that meant until I ran past Teresa, who told me that I beat Jason on the bike by 11 minutes. I was surprised and somewhat pleased, but it made sense considering how he was nervous about the bike portion of the race after his accident, so he likely took the descents very cautiously, which is how I managed to out-bike him. It’s something I plan to unsportsmanly hold over his head — I haven’t beaten him on the bike since our first year of triathlons when he was racing on his dad’s ancient Klein that weighed a thousand pounds. Suck it, Jas! Your trepidation and cautiousness is my greedy area of opportunity!…also, I love you.

After the emotional high of passing the team tent, I puttered along and ended up running alongside a woman who was going about the same pace as me. We ran together for a couple miles and chatted. It was also her first Ironman, so we talked about training and about how the race was going. She said she couldn’t believe how long she had to wait to use the bathroom during the bike because the lines were so ridiculous, and I just nervously laughed and declined to tell her that I opted to pee all over myself instead. Twice.

Speaking of pee, I had to stop and use the bathroom at mile 5 so my new run buddy and I parted ways so I could loiter impatiently outside a porta potty. She said, “See you later,” and I thought “fat chance” because I ended up having to wait a while to use the bathroom and figured I wouldn’t be able to catch her. The wait was a bit annoying — probably 5 minutes total — but I kept firm on not wanting to soil myself so I just stuck it out until it was my turn to go. That was my last poo break of the race. I ended up having to stop and pee two more times before I hit the run turnaround, which was a good indication of how well I had fueled on the bike.

The multiple pit stops slowed me down, but other than that I was feeling relatively strong. I hit the turnaround and dodged the Special Needs volunteers since I didn’t pack a bag for the run. Hitting the turnaround was a pretty nice milestone. As I ran back to town, I saw my fellow racing buddies on their way to the turnaround and we exchanged high fives and well wishes one by one.

Miles 18-22 were probably the toughest part of the marathon, partly because I thought I was at mile 19 when I had hit 18, and also because my body was starting to get a bit stiff. Nothing in particular hurt more than anything else, but I was feeling a little fatigued. At one point I touched my arm lightly and could already feel how sore everything was getting. I had fueled okay through miles 1-13, but for the second half I wasn’t taking in many liquids because my stomach was starting to wonk up (I ended up not using the bathroom once the second half of the marathon — no more awesome fueling for me). I sipped flat Pepsi occasionally and walked through some aid stations, but not all of them. I only stopped when I needed something; otherwise, I ran the entire marathon. I wasn’t always fast and it wasn’t always pretty, but I still ran up every hill when several athletes would walk, and I ran through the aid stations I didn’t need to stop at.

Towards the end of the marathon my lips were starting to feel really dry and cracked and wind-chapped. It was bothering me so much that I stopped at an aid station to use some Vaseline. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of reaching into a jar that other athletes had probably double dipped into so they could lube up their chodes and nether regions and rubbing the contents all over my mouth, but I was desperate to sooth my dry lips. Between that, the barefoot porta potty venture, and the numerous pants peeing, I realized that racing an Ironman was probably the most unhygienic thing I’ve done.

When I got to mile 22, I started to get really excited and my spirits picked up because I knew I was nearing the final stretch back into town. Nonetheless, I once again told myself to tone it down because it ain’t over ’til it’s over, and I won’t be a finisher until my stomach hits that ribbon. I picked up the pace and ran strong. Whenever a stranger would cheer me on, I’d smile and nod and say “Thank you.” It felt so good to get support and encouragement from spectators.

I neared the spot where the TN Multisports tent was and got really excited, but I was confused when I ran past the area and saw that it was empty. Where’d they go? Then I realized that the crew must have packed up and moved closer to the finish, and I got excited again. I looked down and saw that my teammates had drawn the TN logo in chalk on the road, and they also wrote out the names of each team member who was racing:

Best team ever

The Hurricane (Mark), Jason, and my name written in chalk

When I saw our names, my heart soared and I ran even harder. I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face for the last couple miles. Eventually, I came to the final portion of the marathon and ran past tons of spectators lining the streets and cheering for the athletes who were a little over a mile away from being Ironmen.

The first person I saw was Jason’s dad. Quick side note: apparently he had been spectating the majority of the race like this:

On the lookout for his son

My teammates told me that he stood like that for nearly an hour, trying to see when Jason was coming in and finishing the bike leg. It is so amusing and adorable. He’s honestly one of my favorite race supporters. I ran by him as he excitedly shouted my name and waved like a maniac, and I grinned and waved like a proud little kid. I saw Jason’s sister next and waved at her as well.

Grinning like I've never grinned before

The first TN spectator I saw was Thomas, who practically dove into the run path to give me a high five and scream at me. I was grinning so hard my face hurt, but I didn’t care. I approached my TN crew lined up on either side of the street. Their excitement was deafening. They all looked so thrilled and happy to see me — I couldn’t believe the support and encouragement. I looked up and saw Jason wrapped in a space blanket, looking tired but so happy and proud. As I reached out and slapped everyone’s hands, I finally let lose the flood of emotions that I had been reserving the entire race and started to sob a little. Well, it was really more of a “dry cry” since I didn’t have any moisture left in me. I couldn’t manage any tears, but of course I did manage to accidentally shoot a snot wad out of my nose. Go figure.

My dry cry muppet face

I will never, ever forget how I felt as I ran past my teammates. I still tear up when I think about it — their support was so incredible. It felt like my family was there watching and cheering me on. That moment was easily the best part of the entire race — better than crossing the finish line and getting my medal. I know that the flood of emotions and pride I felt when running past them and slapping their hands will remain one of my life’s fondest and happiest memories.

The high I felt was dampened a bit when I turned the corner and realized how far I had to run out in the opposite direction of the finish line. Who the hell designed this run course? What sort of douchey monster would make athletes run to within a few hundred feet of the finish line, then force them to turn left and run 0.6 miles in the opposite direction? Bastards.

Oh well. I ran fast and hard, my heart soaring and my smile never wavering. After I turned around and neared the finish line, I saw Jason’s mom and grandma and waved at them. Some of my teammates and Jason relocated after I passed them so they could see me finish, and I ran past them again and got more screams and high fives. It was the best ending to a race I’ve ever done and will probably ever do.

And then, funnily enough, I spotted my mile 3-5 running buddy just ahead of me. I sprinted to catch up to her and said, “Hey, I found you!” She laughed and said, “Great timing.” Guess I was able to catch her after all. She told me to run ahead and let me cross ahead of her, which was really nice. I gave the woman in front of me a few seconds to finish and enjoy her moment before I slowed to a walk and crossed the finish with my arms raised high above my head. I did it. I was an Ironman.

An Ironman finish, Jumbotron-style

Dry crying while stopping my wristwatch

Goal run time: Zero expectations before the race, sub-5 hours when I exited T2 and realized I could break 13 hours
Actual run time: 4:37:41. I’m pretty pleased with my marathon time — it’s only two minutes slower than my first ever marathon time, and 19 minutes slower than my PR (a PR I should easily be able to smash in the near future). My run put me 32nd out of 77th in my age group and 1,197th out of 2,732. Not bad!

Total finish time: 12:38:13. I hit my sub-13 hour goal with room to spare, and I finished 1,305 out of 2,732. Yaay for top half! My finish time also qualified me for some sort of race called the Half Max World Championships, which I guess is like the Cable Ace Awards of the race circuit to Kona’s Emmys. Still, it’s pretty cool to qualify for something. Guess I’m not so mediocre after all…minus the swim.

After the Race

Post-Race Wave of Emotions

After I crossed the finish line, two volunteers immediately swooped in and started fussing over me like mother hens. I had a medal around my neck, my timing chip removed, my photo taken, and a space blanket draped over me before I even realized what had happened.

Check out my bling

They asked how I felt and I just smiled and said that it all just felt so surreal. I know it’s hard to believe, but despite the fact that I had just done a 12 1/2 hour race, it felt like it was over in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t believe I had finished. It was as if someone borrowed my body for a day and raced for me, then returned it when I crossed the finish line. I was in a post-finish haze — happy and awestruck.

The volunteers dumped me into the food line, but nothing sounded good so I just grabbed a bottle of water instead. I moved out onto the street and ran into Beth, who gave me a hug and, in her unique Beth way, told me that “everybody was bawling” when I ran by them and had started dry crying. I aw shucksed a little bit but was secretly happy that I was able to elicit such a reaction from my teammates. I knew those bastards like me!

Beth took me to where Jason and his family were waiting for me, and I got a big hug from everyone (and a blanket from Jason’s mom so I wouldn’t freeze to death). Jason also had a wonderful race — despite his slower bike time, he killed it on the swim and run for a finish time of 11:56:26. Dude swam a 1:12 and ran a 4:04. My big guy can race.

Jason suggested I get my dry clothes bag so I could bundle up. We ventured back into the finisher’s area, and on our way back to transition to pick up my bags, the following happened:

Out of nowhere a wave of exhaustion hit me like a watermelon to the face. I went from post-race high to super-tired in an instant. My stomach also started to act up and I felt a bit nauseous. I asked Jason if I could sit down and he said sure, so I painstakingly took a seat while he wandered off to find a bathroom.

I sat for a while, and when he returned he coaxed me to stand up and make my way to the transition area to pick up my bags. I shuffled along at a miserably slow pace and stopped to use the bathroom while Jason collected my stuff. My stomach felt better after the bathroom break, but I still felt really tired and was moving at a snail’s pace. While we were getting my things, we ran into Tracy, who had also recently finished and was in a fantastic mood. He broke 13 hours as well and had a great run despite unsuccessfully trying to chase me down. (Suck it, Tracy!…but seriously, good job.)

Jason and I eventually made our way back to where our teammates were spectating. Teresa ran up to me like Jennifer Gray towards Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, and for a split second I was terrified at the notion of mustering enough strength to launch her up into the “move” while “Time Of My Life” played. Thankfully, she refrained from hurling her 115-lb frame onto my sore, aching body and instead gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek like a proud mama.

She is honestly the best coach ever. I couldn't have done it without her.

Jason’s stomach was really bothering him, so we decided to go back to the house. I wish I could have seen my other racing teammates finish, but I was so tired and Jason was feeling kind of crummy too, so we opted to call it a night and make our way back home. Unfortunately, our ways of coping with our discomfort varied wildly. Jason’s strategy was to maneuver his way to his dad’s car as quickly as possible, while I could only shuffle along at a snail’s pace while cocooned in layers of blanket. Finally, tired of having to constantly wait for me as I struggled to keep up with him, he whipped his head around and snapped, “You need to walk faster.”

“I can’t!” I said. “This is as fast as I can go!”

He countered with, “I saw you run in looking strong at the finish — you’re capable of going faster than this!”

I replied, “That was before I finished. Now that I’m done, my body is like ‘Okay, you’re done now, right? Good, I’m so over this shit.’”

He grumbled and plopped down on the curb with his head in his hands, feeling miserable and not knowing what to do. Jason’s dad and sister retrieved the car while we waited, and Beth helped navigate us back to the house. We got home and he disappeared to probably unleash all kinds of fury in the bathroom while I settled onto a kitchen chair.

Eventually the rest of our housemates returned, and Connie made me eat some cheese and crackers. After I got a little bit of food and drink in me, I mustered up the strength to go to the bathroom and and take a shower. You know how your pee looks when you haven’t hydrated in a while? Well, my post-race pee wasn’t just dark, it was like an orangeish pink color. It was like I was urinating POG juice. The shower, on the other hand, felt surprisingly good. Washing the lady bits wasn’t very fun though — I was a numb mess down there courtesy of 112 miles on the saddle. After Jason finished, Connie had joked about how he and I were going to have the best post-race sex that night, but considering how he was spending most of his evening in the bathroom and my nether regions were going to be tougher to crack into than the entrance to Fort Knox, our “Ironman finisher intimacy” would have to wait another time.

After I got cleaned up, I choked down a hamburger and promptly “expelled” it within five minutes of finishing it. Fastest (and nastiest) digestion time ever. We celebrated a great day and a great race with some champagne, and Jeff gave a heartwarming toast about how proud and excited he was for us. It was the perfect way to end the night, and after we finished our champagne, we hit the sack for a much-needed and much-deserved night’s sleep. We both slept surprisingly well minus a couple middle-of-the-night shuffles to the bathroom.

Mark, Teresa, Jason and I spent a couple extra days in Penticton after the race. We mostly ate and did some wine tastings, but it was a relaxing couple days before returning back home.

My co-finisher and me tasting wine

Post-Race Injury Report

Surprisingly enough, I emerged from the Ironman relatively unscathed. I had some minor underarm chafing that went away really quickly, but aside from three inconsequential blisters on a couple toes, I was relatively injury-free. No bloody feet or nasty chafing scabs. I’ve gotten way more injuries and war wounds from shorter distance races. Weird.

The only exception was that, a few days after I got back home, I realized that two of my toenails had turned purple:

They're turning violet, Violet!

They don’t hurt at all — it’s more like someone broke into my house and painted a couple of my toenails while I slept. I’ve been told that the nails will eventually fall off. Grossness.

In Closing

If you made it all the way to the end, congratulations, it still didn’t take you as long to read this as it did for me to live it. My body healed up pretty quickly after the race — by Wednesday I didn’t feel sore any more, and minus the purple nurple toenails and my fading cluster of back zits, I’m mostly good as new (other than the stupid cold Jason gave me *shakes fist*). It still feels weird that I am now an Ironman — I’m still having that out of body feeling. I spent so long training for it that once it finally came and went, it felt like an instant compared to how long I spent preparing for it. No worries though — I have tons of pictures and great memories of the race, not to mention a rather unique finisher’s hat that only a Mediocre Athlete would receive:

Derp

Yes, my finisher’s hat was printed upside down. Here’s another photo of it:

It looks better if I stand on my head

I thought about switching it out for a less idiotic version, but it’s such an appropriate and fitting souvenir given the stories and experiences I’ve filled this blog with, so what the hell, it’s a keeper.

Huge thanks to the TN team, Jason’s family, my family and friends, and my blog readers for all your encouragement and support. Special shout out to Connie and Jeff Cunningham, Thomas, Bridget, and Mark’s parents for being so helpful and selfless in the days leading up to the race. Also thanks to Kirsten for some seriously yumtastic banana bread. Thank you Dr. Perry and the Institute of New Medicine for making sure my body was healthy and prepared for race day. To Mark, thanks for keeping me and Jason focused and confident, for finding us a great place through “Webb Accommodations,” and for being an awesome friend and teammate. Thank you to the TN racers and spectators who gave me high fives and boosts and for making me smile throughout the entire race. I’m so proud to be part of such a supportive and incredible team. My racing teammates all finished strong and had fantastic races, and my spectating teammates worked their assess off cheering for us throughout the day.

A special thank you to Teresa, one of my greatest friends and the best coach any of you will ever come across. She is caring, encouraging, and will always put her athletes before herself, no matter if she’s racing or having health problems. She is one of the most selfless and kindest people I’ve ever met, and in just two years she has helped me get in the best shape of my life, constantly smash PRs, and got me to complete an Ironman. Thank you for everything, T. You are the best.

Lastly, to Jason, my best friend and favorite training buddy (when I don’t want to strangle him, that is). I’m so proud of you for finishing the race in a killer time, and I’m so thankful and grateful for all of the support and encouragement you’ve given me since we started doing this crazy sport. I love you mucho, and I can’t wait to train with you for the next one.

That’s it, folks. My first Ironman came and went, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat (no “one and done” for this girl — I’ve gotta break 12 hours now!). I’m not really sure how to end this bloatedly long recap, so I’ll just leave you with this nugget from my last phone call with my mom:

Me, picking up the phone: “Hello?”

Mom: “Oh good, you alive.”

Yes Mom, I’m alive. No, I didn’t die from an entire day’s worth of exercise. I appreciate your concern, though.

Worth every penny

It’s been a pretty crazy year of training, but oddly enough, I don’t feel as nervous going into the full Ironman as I did before my first half Ironman. I’ve learned a lot about the sport and about my abilities in the three years I’ve been doing this sport, and I’ve trained harder this year than any year of my life. I’ve emerged a somewhat better swimmer, a much better cyclist, and a stronger runner. I’ve trained in brutal wind conditions, freezing rain and snow, unbearable heat, and frothy white caps and managed to emerge 20 lbs lighter (Operation De-Chunkify for the win!), a bit more patient and knowledgeable, and a smidge faster than the day before.

Amazingly enough, all of the adverse weather I’ve had to endure this season has absolutely been worth it if the weather plans to be as great as its forecast (mid-70s and sunny, with clouds in the afternoon). I prepared for the worst at our training camp a month ago, cycling and running in 97-degree heat and searing sun, thinking if I could survive that, I could race in similar conditions at the end of August. Unless some unforeseen catastrophe happens (a sudden typhoon, volcano eruption, a Ski Free yeti attack), the conditions should be the best for any race I’ve done (great timing, Weather God!).

Jason and I have been having a lot of fun staying with Mark and Teresa before the race. Mark’s been nice enough to do his final workouts with us slowpokes, even though he’s fast enough to potentially qualify for the World Championships.

Mark, Jason and me before our final pre-Canada ride

On Friday we met up with our team and got in one last swim before the race. The water felt good and there was no Lake Washington-like chop, but my swim back to shore was a pain in the ass because I was swimming directly into the sun so I had problems seeing. Also, since there were so many athletes swimming, I ran into two people who were swimming out when I was swimming back. Blargh.

Emerging from the water looking like a giant next to LL Cool K

Today I’m trying to stay off my feet, hydrate like a fish, and think positive thoughts. Our friends Connie, Jeff, and Thomas are staying in the house with us, and they kept me laughing last night and wishing I could drink booze alongside them. I’ll try to finish as quickly as possible — the sooner I cross the finish line, the sooner I’ll have a beer in my hand. I’m a little bummed about having to carb load all week after spending eight months slimming down — I keep thinking I’m not going to fit into my race kit or haul my growing ass up Richter Pass. Hopefully I’ll burn off those extra taper pounds and will be able to rock a bikini on vacation next month without making people throw up in their mouths.

No matter how the race goes tomorrow, I hope to have fun and enjoy the day as much as possible. I’ll post a race report after I’m done and able-bodied enough to blog. Until then, wish me luck and here’s hoping I don’t crap myself at any point on the course tomorrow.

Go Team TNM!

Kenny Powers is the Perfect Spokesperson for K-Swiss
If you’re not familiar with Eastbound and Down, you should definitely watch it. The show’s about a crass ex-baseball player who becomes a gym teacher despite his ignorance about the fact that his professional pitching career is over. I’ve blogged in the past about how much I’ve enjoyed K-Swiss’s ads (and I have a super-comfy pair of K-Swiss shoes that I wear more for fashion purposes than for running), but this current fake commercial combines Kenny Powers, K-Swiss, and crass humor to create an amusing pitch meeting (language NSFW).

And I Thought Jason’s Injuries Were Bad
I shared some of the carnage from Jason’s recent bike crash, but I readily admit that they were nowhere near as bad as this guy’s (caution: NSFW). Apparently he was riding with a group of cyclists when the guy in front of him ran over a tree branch that flipped up and impaled him in the shin. What the crap! How fast were these guys riding, like 85 miles per hour? The article has lots of graphic photos of the clearly morphined-up cyclist laying in a hospital bed with a freaking tree sticking out of his leg. I hate this sport.

The Classy Way to Win an Ironman Race
Professional triathlete Julie Dibens recently won the Ironman 70.3 in Boulder, but she waited five minutes before crossing the finish line to ensure that the females who finish behind her get to have a prize purse. The reason is due to some bullshit rule change stating that professional Ironman triathletes must be within 8% of the winner’s time to collect their prize money. This rule makes no sense other than to screw over other podium winners because Ironman is too cheap to guarantee them a purse and rewarding their excellence. Your placement should guarantee you some money if there’s a prize pool set aside for that place, regardless of how far behind the leader you are. Julie Dibens is a class act, and I hope other Ironman winners follow suit and take care of their fellow triathletes.

A Blast from the Past
A triathlon website recently took a look at an issue of Triathlete magazine from 1984 and laughed at some of the absurd recommendations and equipment being featured. I like the image of the dude trying to clean his bike off in the bath tub — apparently a hose was too forward-thinking in the mid-80’s. The dude with the sweet ’stache perched in the thinker’s pose atop a Cannondale frame is pretty awesome too.

“Hey Baby, What’s Your Age Group?”
Jason came across this post called Tips for Dating Endurance Athletes, and while the list itself is a bit hard on the eyes, it has some amusing gems like “‘I find fulfillment in charitable work’ really means ‘If I am not racing, I am volunteering or cheering on my buddies, and I expect you to be there alongside me as I stand out in 90 degree weather for 8 hours handing out sports drink to cyclists going 20 mph. Just stick the ol’ arm out there and hope it doesn’t get taken off.’” Anyone who has a few endurance races under their belt should chuckle at a few of these. Maybe I’ll crank out a similar list at some point (perhaps if/when I survive Ironman Canada)…

Our bikes' temporary home

View from our hotel room

On Saturday Jason, his dad and I woke up and prepped everything for our ride. We parked a few miles from the transition area and started setting everything up when I realized that the black rolled up wad of fabric I grabbed and shoved into my bag wasn’t arm sleeves like I thought, but rather compression sleeves for my legs. Fudgers! It was going to be a gray, chilly day, and my wimpo arms were surely going to freeze without some sort of cover. Jason suggested I just wear my compression sleeves as arm warmers. I didn’t have any better options, so that’s what I did. I ended up with 90 miles of compressiony goodness, but unfortunately I realized two things after the ride:

1. The sleeves, which typically go from under my knee to my ankle, weren’t long enough to cover my entire arm.
2. Even though the sun wasn’t out, that doesn’t mean the rays weren’t poking through the clouds.

As such, I ended the ride with this B.S.:

This is not a good look for me

The watch tan I’m used to. The half-forearm tan? Not so much. (I’ve grown accustomed to the hairy arms though, so deal with it.) Anyway, I started riding for a whopping minute before realizing that, no fucking way, my bike computer’s cadence sensor wasn’t working again. What the shit, I just replaced this stupid thing two weeks ago! I angrily fiddled with it for a while, and it went from not reading my cadence to not reading anything. Great, now I was going to ride 90 miles with no indication of my speed or cadence.

Frustrated and fueled by rage, I took off and anger-rode for an hour. After a while, Jason appeared next to me, slightly out of breath, exclaiming, “It took me forever to catch up to you! You need to slow down!” Apparently I was averaging about 24 mph and was climbing rollers going 20. To be fair, the first 30 or 40 miles of the Canada course are pretty fast, with lots of flats/downhills and a few inconsequential hills. I pouted a bit more about my broken computer but decided to slow it down in anticipation of Richter Pass.

Before we got to the pass, Jason’s dad got an epic flat by running over a huge kinked wad of wire. He wrestled it out of his tire and changed the tube but wanted to stop at a gas station to properly fill the tire with air. While he was fixing his bike, I stopped inside to use the bathroom and buy more fuel. When I came out, I saw Jason barely hiding his irritation while a filthy grifter with roughly four teeth peppered him with questions about our bikes. Apparently this Canadian mountain man had been marveling at how nice our bikes were and said that someone should build an eight person stealth bomber out of the same carbon fiber our bikes are made from. He then paused, looked at Jason, and said, “I see you’ve got a belly under all that gear! You must work in an office, eh? This is good exercise for that!” Jason muttered a “Yeah…” while murdering the dude with his eyes, and I resisted the urge to laugh. What kind of person makes remarks about a complete stranger’s stomach? Dudes with meth mouth, that’s who.

"Your belly offends me and my professional appearance."

After our brief break, we continued on and hit the pass almost immediately. I gotta say, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong, Richter Pass is no picnic, but you get to climb for a bit before shooting down a decent decline, then lather, rinse, repeat for a while and before you know it, you’re done. Unfortunately, after you conquer the pass (and are rewarded with a nice downhill), you get hit with a bunch of rollers that are pretty sucky, especially when you factor in a craptacular crosswind (which we got hit with on Saturday).

We skipped an out and back portion of the ride and continued on until we hit the second significant climb, which is the stretch of road leading to Yellow Lake. (Brief aside: who names a body of water “Yellow Lake”? Nothing screams “urine-soaked” like that moniker. It actually is a pretty lake though, and not at all yellow. Still, not the best name.) I thought this climb was uber-shittier than Richter because unlike Richter, which has steep climbs but brief reprieves where you get to descend, the Yellow Lake climb is pretty much a long, arduous, gradual, relentless son of a bitch until you get to the top. On the way up I saw several banana peels and wondered if Jason was trying to take me out, Mario Kart style. If only I had a red shell…

I'm gunnin' for ya, Jas

The last several miles of the bike course shoot you down a pants crappingly fast descent that scared the bejesus out of me due to the semis and crosswinds. Operation De-Chunkify has been going well for me, but at that point I wondered if I should have actually gained an extra 15 lbs instead of lost weight so I’d be better anchored and wouldn’t get bitch slapped by the wind and cars. At several points during the descent I envisioned myself getting blown over the guardrail and falling to my death while still clipped into my bike.

The next day Jas and I ran the middle portion of the run course, which is the same stretch as the first part of the bike course. We did about 15 miles in the sun and I thought about how miserable I was going to be racing in 90 degree heat considering I was already feeling overheated at 70 degrees. The “inconsequential” hills I mentioned earlier on the bike suddenly seemed like a jerk crusted bastard during the run. This will not feel good on race day.

We spent the remainder of the weekend enjoying the gorgeous scenery and buying roughly an asston of wine:

View of the swim start from a vineyard across the lake

Loitering in some Canadian's vineyard

Jason's mom gets inspired by the boobalicious mermaid statue

Our Ironman training fuel

Before we left, we flailed around in the freezing lake (“freezing” being 55 degrees) for about 20 minutes, making me think that I really need to do a couple more open water swims before Boise. Poop. Other than that, though, it was good to explore the Ironman course and dump my paycheck into many, many wine purchases. I can’t wait to come up with the team in July and do it all again. Hopefully Teresa will have some good advice on how to pace myself for the ride, and I’m counting on doing more wine tasting with some of my teammates. Don’t let me down, Ironman crew!

We packed up some things for the weekend and were just about to leave when Jason randomly decided to call his dad and see if he wanted to tag along. Brief aside: Jason’s dad is awesome. He’s the kind of spectator you want watching you race because he’s genuinely interested in athletics and sports. He’ll show up at 5 am to watch things get set up and will wait around all day until the race ends. Best support system ever.

Anyway, surprisingly enough, Jason’s dad wanted to tag along at the last minute so we headed to his parent’s house and picked him up for the long haul to Penticton. (Or, rather, we drove to Jason’s parents’ house and Jason’s dad drove from there. Woo hoo, free ride!) The area in and around Penticton is gorgeous — huge lakes, rolling hills and valleys, wine country galore. I’ve also never seen a town embrace the Ironman like Penticton. There were signs everywhere welcoming athletes and advertising the Ironman. Hell, the town Subaru dealership is even called “The Ironman City Subaru.” After coming from the most redneck, anti-Ironman Ironman race I’d seen, Penticton felt like I’d died and gone to athlete heaven.

I should wipe my ass with this postcard and send it to the fine townsfolk of Lake Stevens.

When we got into town, we made our way to the house that we were staying at for the next couple days. My friend/chiropractor/fellow triathlete Nathan was racing Canada and had rented a house, and he had an extra room to spare. What I didn’t expect was for the house to look like the family who owned it had just left hours before we got there — personal photos and whatnot were left out, making me feel like I had just broken into someone’s house and decided to crash there, Goldilocks-style.

Undoubtedly because Nathan despises me for canceling so many chiro appointments, he decided to save this room for me and Jason:

That poster of Zac Efron holding the camcorder was pointed right at the bed. Ew.

It's like the Disney Channel barfed all over the walls.

Okay, that's just creepy.

Not only was this girl obsessed with Zac Efron…

…she also seemed to side with Team Brown:

Awkward.

Jason’s dad opted to sleep on the floor since he was a last-minute house guest, so the three of us spent the night inside a 13-year old girl’s room, surrounded by glossy two-dimensional teen heartthrobs, nightmare-inducing clowns, and a lavender phone shaped like a pair of lips.

Race day arrived, and we awoke to find an amusing checklist left on the counter top by one of the racers staying in the house:

Gotta remember to glide that chode!

We headed to the start to watch the race and to support our friends.

Swim course

I was absolutely blown away by the crowd of people who showed up to support the race. There were groups of spectators everywhere, and they cheered just as loudly for non-pros as they did the pros. It was by far the most supportive fans I’d ever seen. (No joke, Jason, his dad and I even got cheered on by people when we went for a 6 mile run. It made our wimpy little workout seem like a major accomplishment.) The race was amazingly well organized, too — I’ve never seen anything like it. The last couple of people who emerged from the swim received deafening cheers and screams because they were dangerously close to missing the swim cutoff. Thankfully, they made the cut and were able to enjoy the thrill of getting their wetsuits stripped off by volunteers. (BTW, if you’re looking to purchase a wetsuit, be sure to read some triathlon wetsuit reviews before choosing the right one — you definitely want to have a good fit if you’re dragging yourself through 2.4 miles of water amidst 2,500 other people.)

All day long I saw all sorts of people racing Canada. There were pros, old people, young people, overweight people, (lots of) skinny people. I even saw the guy who races each year with a new “gimmick” — I’ve heard that in previous years he’s raced dressed as Elvis and using a one speed bike. This year he once again went the costume route:

I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be a leopard or a cheetah, but either way, that is one impressive getup considering how swelteringly hot the day was.

My favorite race outfit, however, was the guy sporting the Life with Louie t-shirt:

I could only snap a shot of the back of the shirt, but still, that is an awesomely dated and obscure choice of attire for a 140.2 mile race (who runs a marathon in a cotton t-shirt?!).

Eventually my teammates started to pour in. Mark was first, and he absolutely spanked Canada (and deserved to — he trained so hard all year-long and exceeded everyone’s expectations). This picture pretty much sums up how other racers felt to see him nearing the finish:

It was so awe-inspiring to see my triathlete buddies approach the finish line one-by-one. Everyone had a phenomenal race, and I was so excited and proud for them.

The next morning we got up early so Jason and Nathan’s friend could head over to the Expo Hall and sign up for the 2010 Ironman Canada. After much deliberation and a bout of temporary insanity, I did the unthinkable and signed up with them (it only took 3 G-D hours to do it too, and there wasn’t even a rollercoaster at the end of it). I hadn’t planned on committing to a full Ironman so soon, but Penticton really won me over with its beautiful course and the incredible support and organization. So I HTFU’d, plopped down an obscene amount of money, and began counting down the days until next August.

I’ll keep you all updated on my training regimen from now until D-Day — it’s sure to be rife with complaints, blisters, sunburns, near-drownings, early morning grumblings and prep races. Hopefully you’ll come along for the ride and experience a year’s worth of prep for a full Ironman race. I’ll try to make my journey as amusing as possible for you. :)