Meanwhile, since I was finally healed of my running ailments and was once again able to run relatively well, I wanted to do the half marathon. I hadn’t run a standalone half marathon since Eugene in May 2010, and since I had only been running strong for 2 1/2 months, I didn’t really have many expectations going into the Seattle half. It’s a tough, hilly course that isn’t typically PR-friendly, so although I was hoping to run 1:45 or better (my previous best was a 1:46:46), I figured I’d be satisfied with a sub-1:50.

Jason, meanwhile, was hoping to finally have a “good” marathon (his words), as he usually ends up cramping towards the end and has to compromise speed for the last few miles due to his size. This time he’d be racing 40 lbs lighter and with a ton of mileage under his belt, plus he figured the cooler temperatures would mean he’d be less likely to cramp, so he was excited and nervous for Sunday to roll around.

On Saturday we did our customary “Ugh, I’m feeling so tired ahhhh why does my foot hurt oh god I’m getting sick aren’t I man this race is not going to go well” freak outs and lazed around the house hydrating and acting like hypochondriacs. We also agonized over what to wear for the race. Naturally, since the weather had been relatively mild for the past few years, weather forecasts called for supremely shitty weather on race day because we were unlucky enough to sign up for the race this year (no joke, I was watching the news and the meteorologist actually said Sunday was going to be “sucky”). It was projected to be warmer than usual temperature-wise, but it looked like we’d have to battle rain and wind, so Jason and I were scratching our heads and putting way too much effort into what to wear:

• Underarmour shirt and a long-sleeved shirt with tights and gloves!
• Wait, no, just an underarmour shirt and a t-shirt with a pair of shorts
• Well hold on a second, what about a long-sleeved shirt and shorts
• No, tights and a t-shirt!
• Or I could do tights, pants, underarmour, long-sleeved, gloves, a hat, a parka, a hazmat suit, ski pants…

This went on for about an hour before I ultimately muttered “Fuck it, I’ll just figure it out tomorrow when I’m half-awake” and we went to bed.

The next morning we woke up at 5:45 and ate breakfast (I got my “race day” coffee, something I haven’t ingested since July’s Rev 3 triathlon). I went with the uber-dweeb getup of tights, run shorts, an underarmour shirt, and a TN Multisports t-shirt and also packed a cheap pair of gloves to wear. I grabbed my fuel and some dry clothes to put on after I was done because the genius organizers decided to start the half marathoners at 7:30 and the marathoners at 8:15, so I’d have to wait around for 2+ hours after my race for Jason to be done and didn’t want to freeze my now-smaller ass off while waiting.

We left the house at about 6:45, and I made it about twelve blocks from our place before uttering “Fuck me, I forgot my watch.”

Jason: “What?”

Me: “I forgot my watch!” I had just bought a Garmin Forerunner 305 from one of my teammates and had planned to race with it, but naturally I left it at home because I’m a dumb-ass.

Jason: “So you have the heart rate strap on but not your watch?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Jason:

Sorry, Jas

Me: “I have to turn around and get it.”

Jas: “You’re going to be late to the race!”

Me: “No way, I can make it!”

Jason: “You don’t really need your watch for the race, do you?”

I just glared at him. Okay, maybe I was getting a bit too dependent on heart rate zones and whatnot, but seeing as how Teresa actually gave me a target heart rate to run at for the entire race, I figured I was being a good athlete and following coach’s orders rather than acting like a spazzy control freak. Also, I was being a spazzy control freak. But screw you, I wanted my watch.

Jason, sighing: “Okay, you better make it quick.”

And so I busted a U-wee and sped back to our place. Jason hopped out and grabbed the watch for me while I sat behind the wheel like a getaway driver. After that little misstep, we proceeded to get as close to the race as possible. Once we got stuck in traffic on Denny, I pulled into a pay lot and figured that five bucks for all-day parking would be fine considering I only had 20 minutes before the half marathon started, so I couldn’t exactly be picky with parking options.

Unfortunately, Problem #2 took the opportunity to rear its inconsiderate little head: the pay stall credit card kiosk wasn’t working. I only had a dollar on me and didn’t have time to run somewhere and get cash, so I scrawled the most ghetto apology note imaginable and placed it on my dashboard, prayed to the Parking Gods that I wouldn’t get a ticket, and took off for the race start.

When we got close enough to the start line, Jason gave me a hug and a kiss like a parent seeing his child off to her first day of school. I not-remotely-gracefully hopped the barricade between the spectators and the runners so I wouldn’t have to go all the way around and fight my way towards the front. As luck would have it, the first person I ran into was Kirsten, one of my teammates. I was happy to see a familiar face and chatted with her as the minutes ticked down.

When the gun went off I woefully realized Problem #3: I had to go #1. It was probably a “Nervous Race Day Pee for the 352nd Time” pee, but still, the bladder felt full and I was uncomfortable. Of course, I didn’t want to stop at the first portapotty a sad five minutes into the race, so I gritted my teeth and kept telling myself that the full bladder sensation would fuel me to run faster. “You’ll get to pee when you finish!”, I kept mentally barking at myself.

The weather was awfully muggy, so I ditched my cheapo gloves after the first mile and rolled up my sleeves, lamenting my choice of attire. I gradually built myself up to my target heart rate zone and was surprised to find that, unlike my training runs where it felt like I had to work pretty hard to maintain zone 4, on race day I was able to hit it relatively easily and maintained it well. I took my splits every mile and gawked at how fast each one was. Should I slow down? This wasn’t sustainable, right? But I was feeling fine. Good, in fact. So should I just keep running in this zone and see where it takes me?

I ultimately decided to stay in the zone Teresa originally assigned me and hoped for the best. By mile 5 my full bladder sensation subsided into a dull whimper, and once I hit the Leschi part of the course I felt confident because I had run this stretch of the race so many times while training so it felt familiar and comfortable. I saw a bunch of my teammates spectating and cheering for me and our other teammates who were racing, which made me grin like a dope and wave like a giddy child. (Best team ever. Seriously. End of discussion.)

The hills came and went and I maneuvered through them comfortably. They didn’t feel too bad–chalk it up to living in Capitol Hill and running on hilly terrain multiple times a week. My climbing pace wasn’t fast but it was steady, leaving me some energy to descend faster than the folks around me. I puttered up the heart rate-spiking Galer hill and onto Madison, where I spotted Teresa ahead of me. Her energy levels were starting to dip due to an adverse reaction from one of her treatment shots, so I was able to catch up to her and smack her on her skinny butt. She glanced up and beamed when she saw it was me, exclaiming, “Great job!” What an awesome coach–she’s not feeling well but still cares enough about her athletes to muster up a smile and some encouraging words for us. My heart soared and I pushed on, going from feeling great to feeling super-duper great.

I powered through the Arboretum, up Interlaken, and down through Eastlake. The weather had started to turn and it was raining and getting windy now. I uncursed myself for my choice of race attire and soldiered on, gawking at my mile splits.

The look on my face when I'd check my splits

How was I running this fast? I don’t run this fast! I’m the mediocre runner! I’m the cheese at track! I’ve been injured all season! I’ve only been running for a couple months! What is going on here?!

At mile 11 I came up to a female who noticed me and kept doing the dickheaded “edge you out so you can’t run alongside me or pass me” move. It was annoying, and so was her squeaky shoe. I ran right behind her for a mile before dropping her on a descent, when she couldn’t keep up with my powerful Asian stubs. Take that, chick who arbitrarily started a rivalry with me even though I don’t know her at all and don’t care if she beats me because I’m just trying to run my best race without worrying about what anyone else is doing!

The weather was getting pretty damn ugly by this point, but I was close to the finish so I buried my head, kept wiping the rain off my face, and powered through as best I can. I ran into Mark at one corner and he said, “A quarter mile to go, attack that descent!” I got super excited. Only a quarter mile left? I could finish in 1:40! Holy crap! So I ran and ran and ran and ran…but when I hit the “26 mile” sign, I mentally cursed Mark for being off with his distance estimate. I still had .2 miles to go! Quarter mile, my ass! Oh well, so I wasn’t going to finish in 1:40, but I was still going to post a hefty PR.

I rounded the last bend and began to enter the stadium. Jason’s dad spotted me and started shouting excitedly. I grinned and waved and approached the finish…and then I heard super fast, heavy footsteps behind me and saw Random Rival, who rallied to try and edge me out one last time. It’s called a chip time, lady–we ended up finishing at the exact same time on the clock, but her chip time was half a minute better so she would have beat me even if she didn’t sprint like a doosh at the end. I didn’t care though because I had just PR’d on a hard course on an ugly day, after a season of injury, hardships, and doubt.

Final time: 1:41:15. I couldn’t believe it. Sure, I was slimmer, healthier, and had been running stronger as of late, but I had long written off my 2011 season as being a craptacular disappointment, so to end the year with such a marked improvement felt a bit foreign and strange. I shook off the initial shock and embraced my hard-earned finish time. It felt good to be back in action.

I snapped some unattractive photos with my teammates who were pouring in (I never noticed how bulbous my forehead looked until I posed with people who were all wearing hats while my fat melon remained exposed and shiny in all its Charlie Brown-shaped glory), then made my way to a portapotty to reward my bladder for its patience with a much-earned evacuation. I then wrapped myself up in a space blanket like a giant sweaty burrito and shivered my way back to the car so I could change into dry clothes.

My string of good luck continued when I realized I hadn’t received a parking ticket, so after the most awkward wardrobe change ever (picture a sweaty athlete struggling to conservatively change her pants in the backseat of a Subaru as the car shakes and fills with steam–to anyone walking past the pay lot on the corner of Denny and Aurora, no, that was not a couple getting it on, it was just a fidgeting female who was struggling to yank on dry socks while simultaneously shaking off a foot cramp), I ran to a nearby Walgreens, got some cash, and paid for my parking spot. Success! This must be what the Ocean’s 11 crew felt like.

After chugging a chocolate milk, I made my way back to the race to wait for Jason to finish. I caught up with Mark and Teresa and hung out inside a warm cafe until we forced ourselves to go back outside. The weather had gotten ridiculous by this point–when it wasn’t pouring, winds were gusting so hard that umbrellas were getting turned inside out and the spectators were becoming frozen blocks.

Eventually we saw Jason powering down the street approaching the finish. I was super excited to see him–he looked strong, albeit wet and cold. Teresa and I started cheering like maniacs and he lit up when he saw us. He asked how my race went and Teresa chirped, “She did great!,” then was all “Awwww, how sweet, he asked how you did before he was even done with his race!” Yeah, that’s right, my boyfriend is a stud who’s all caring and cool and whatnot. You know you’re jelly.

He finished in 3:20:16, a whopping 16 minutes faster than his previous best. Yaay, finally Jason gets his “good” marathon!

Me (and my bitchin' shark mittens) with a 3:20 runnin' Jas and his proud papa

We waited for his sister to finish before getting the eff out of the cold and back to the warm confines of the still-steamy-from-Becca’s-wardrobe-change Subaru. The rest of our day consisted of hot showers, a fireplace, homemade pumpkin pie courtesy of Alley and our “Pie of the Month” agreement, and gooey, calorie-licious pizza. We’re both nursing sore legs today but are very happy with our finish times.

My next goal is to do a sub-1:40 (which I might have done if I were on a flatter course), but I’m not sure when my next half marathon will be since I’ll be fully committed to Ironman training now that the race is over. I wanted to do a marathon this winter but Coach T would rather I focus on my Ironman training, so my elusive sub-4 will have to wait a while longer. If she can coach me to a PR marathon for Ironman Canada, I’ll find some way to forgive her… ;) Until then, I’m content to enjoy my half marathon PR for another day before the training picks up again and I’m whimpering for mercy. There’s always another race around the corner, right folks?

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.

Most everyone’s reactions to the change:

Rabble rabble rabble!

My reaction:

Whatevs

Some of my teammates who are racing Ironman Canada next month were bummed because they wanted Rev 3 to be a challenging training race to help prepare for the big one in August. I, on the other hand, have had a season plagued with injury so news of the course change had little impact on me since I’d long given up on kicking ass this year and was instead trying to focus on having fun instead of beating myself up over factors I can’t control. I was more bummed that the race was less convenient to get to since our hotel would have been right in front of the old transition area, but oh well, shit happens.

Week of the Race

Naturally, leading up to the race I developed a last-minute hamstring injury because my body hates me, so before we left to drive down to Portland, I popped into see our team’s sports medicine doc for some last-minute TLC.

"Just relax while I shove a bunch of needles in your leg."

(Yes, I know that’s a picture of my thigh, not my hamstring, but I wasn’t exactly limber enough to turn around and snap photos of the back of my leg when I was told to turn over for Round 2…wait, that sounds kind of dirty. It was a rape-free treatment, I swear.) The only other thing I could do for my hamstring all weekend was to alternate straddling a heating pad and a bag of ice like I was trying to hatch an egg and hope for the best.

Day Before the Race

On Saturday Jas and I woke up and headed to Blue Lake Park to meet with our teammates. As we drove by the transition area, I gawked at it and exclaimed, “Uh, that’s just for the pros, right?” I was mistaken. Apparently about 800-900 people dropped out or deferred their registration to next year when they found out about the venue change, leaving less than 500 people to race on Sunday. The transition area and registration set up was super dinky, giving this whole race a “small town” vibe. I felt like I was doing the Olympic distance Apple Capital race in Wenatchee instead of a fancy schmancy half Ironman. Even better was that my team’s 31 athletes represented over 5% of the race, so there was going to be a lot of blue and yellow out there on the course.

Speaking of the team, we met them at the swim start, which is a lovely 0.5 miles away from the transition area across the street from the park. As we drove past numerous large parking lots and huge grassy areas, I kept sarcastically thinking, “If only Blue Lake Park had a spot big enough for transition!” Why they set up the actual transition area so far away from the swim is beyond me.

Since the lake was roped off for pre-race swimming, all we could muster was a sad 30ish meter looping swim along the rope. I pulled on my Zoot suit and received an odd compliment from my teammate Tammi: “Whoa, that suit is so cool-looking…you look like TRON!” I always thought it looked Batman-esque, but to each his own.

This is exactly what I look like in my wetsuit.

The lake was warm, and some of my teammates worried they’d get too hot in their wetsuits. The pros were actually going to have to swim without a wetsuit or with a swim skin instead, but us amateurs would still be able to bake in our sausage suits. I figured I’d get a bit warm but that it wouldn’t be too bad, so I wasn’t fretting too much.

After our swim, we headed over to pick up our race packets and rack our bikes. Instead of being body marked the morning of the race, we were given temporary tattoos of our number and our age to stick on our arms and calf the night before. We were also forced to have our picture taken so they could flash it up on the Jumbotron as we crossed the finish line. I posed with a dorky thumbs up and shit eating grin, because that’s exactly what a mediocre athlete would do.

When Jas and I headed to transition to drop off our bikes, I was surprised to see that instead of racks we get to use the fancy schmancy pro bike bumper thingies. Check this legitness out:

OMG FANCYSAUCE

They even printed out my name and number:

Shit just got real

The pros got something even cooler: a huge poster of them at their transition spot. My coach’s (who was racing for the first time in over a year due to injury and chronic sickness) looked especially adorable, and I joked about stealing it afterwards and breaking into various teammates’ homes to hang it on the ceiling above their bed so the first thing they’d see when they woke up is this:

She's like Santa Claus...always watching, always knowing

After we dropped off our bikes, Jason and I headed back downtown to grab some street food and spend the rest of the day lounging around and staying off our feet. “Lounging around” turned into Jas nagging me to take a shower because I “smelled like lake” and saying he was going to check for wet hair and a soap smell to make sure I didn’t just lazily rinse off. He’s going to make a great parent someday. Later we hit up Rite Aid to buy a super sad pre-race breakfast for the following morning (since the hotel restaurant and none of the 80 Starbucks in the area were going to be open earlier than 6 am), then grabbed dinner with Brent and Jes before calling it a night.

Race Day

I woke up the morning of the race feeling kind of groggy and tired, then ate, dejectedly yanked on my ever-tightening race outfit (oh Spandex, you unforgiving bastard), made sure I had all my gear, and headed out. We got to transition, marveled at the huge row of portapotties that were available (thank you, 900 people who failed to show up!), set up our stuff, and hung around until the race was to begin. I looked around at the competition and immediately knew I was in deep shit. It seemed as if everyone who decided to stick around and race despite all of the changes were serious athletes. Normally I’m a top third to top half age group finisher, but I figured that today me and my post-Canada paunch would be bringing up the rear. Oh well. Can these fast girls polish off a full order of nachos plus three tacos and beat Portal 2 in one sitting? Yeah, that’s right, who’s the elite now?

The pros started their swim a half hour before us amateurs, then all female competitors would go, followed by men 40 and under five minutes afterwards, and then men over 40 five minutes after that. Great, I got to look forward to having not one but two big waves of dudes swimming over me. Who the hell planned this shit? Sigh. Before I had too much time to stew over swim logistics, the announcer shouted for us to begin so I dorkily jogged into the water and dove in to start swimming.

Amateur women's swim start (photo by Adrian Santic)

Swim Recap

The swim course was a counter-clockwise loop around the entire lake, with the first turn buoy situated really close to the swim start because the lake was wider than it was tall. That first turn was pretty hairy, but I pushed my way through and turned left to begin the ridiculously long stretch towards the next buoy. Since I couldn’t see the actual buoy, I resorted to swimming as straight as possible, looking up every so often to make sure that others were still splashing alongside me. In no time at all I was run over by a bunch of men in the 40 and under wave. Boo to them.

I actually almost ended up swimming to the third turn buoy instead of the second because the lake is so narrow that it was easy to mistakenly sight off the wrong red buoy (and in fact, a number of athletes did make that mistake and were told to double-back and get back on course). As I was heading back to the swim exit, my right side started to hurt and feel tight as if I was getting a side stitch. I did manage to draft off some other slow pink cappers until I got run over by a bunch of men from the over 40 wave. Finally I trudged out of the water and glanced at my watch, hoping for the best.

Swim time: 46:34

One of the worst swim times in my age group (and among all amateurs, probably), but it was a PR for me so I was relatively happy. Next time I’ll shoot for 45 minutes or less — basically I want to get out of the water faster than the time it takes for a pizza to get delivered to me.

Transition 1

I ran over to the rack and grabbed my bag that had a pair of shoes in it, then yoinked off my wetsuit, swim cap, and goggles. One of my teammates’ friends was actually volunteering and recognized me, so she offered to put my stuff into my bag for me so I could be on my way. I thanked her and started on the half mile jaunt over to the actual transition area. Once I got there, I saw Jason’s parents, who felt the need to tell me how far ahead his sister was ahead of me but didn’t give an update on Jason. Thanks for the forced rivalry, guys!

Transition time: 5:21 — Not bad for stripping off a wetsuit, cap and goggles, slipping on shoes, running 0.5 miles, slipping off shoes, slipping on bike shoes, pulling on a helmet and sunglasses, and grabbing a bike.

Bike Recap

The bike course was a two loop flat and fast stretch past the airport and back. As soon as I hopped on the bike and got going, I noticed a few things:

1. “Flat and fast” doesn’t necessarily mean “easy”
2. My left hamstring and groin muscle instantly got tight and remained that way for the duration of the ride
3. This pavement fucking sucks

“Flat and fast” pretty much meant “100% aero,” which meant that I couldn’t coast or sit up without compromising speed. The continuous pedaling basically felt like I was doing a workout on my bike trainer but pushing it much harder. My injured hamstring started acting up almost immediately, and my left leg plus the groin muscle felt tight/tweaked, which forced me to constantly shift my weight and fidget to try and stretch it out. It was a pretty uncomfortable 56 miles.

Speaking of uncomfortable, at one point along the course the smooth pavement abruptly turns into what I dubbed the “vag destroyer” — rough, bumpy pavement that was really tough to ride on. All of the athletes moved over to the shoulder once they hit this part of the road because it was a little bit smoother, but passing someone proved difficult because you’d have to get out of the smoother shoulder part and back onto the chewed up road, which forced you to work harder to get the bike going and make the pass.

Naturally, while riding I became a snotty mess, so I tried to occasionally shoot snot rockets but ended up just blowing snot all over my face and hands and feeling like a welfare child in Alabama. Speaking of snot rockets, this race marked the first time that I got residual snot on me from someone in front of me shooting liquid boogers behind them as they cycled. I was not happy. My reaction went something like this:

Even though the bike leg was painful, snotty, and somewhat demoralizing, it was great to see my teammates on the course. I also battled back and forth with this bad-ass 54-year old for a long while — I’d catch up to her and pass her, then she’d roll up and pass me right back. We exchanged pleasantries each time before I was finally able to pass her permanently. I hope I’m still kicking ass at this sport when I’m in my 50’s.

Eventually I rolled into T2 with a PR bike split, happy that I didn’t get a flat tire which would have forced me to figure out how to change a tubular (I borrowed race wheels from my friend Karen and half-ass watched some how-to videos on YouTube before saying, “Fuck it, I’ll be screwed anyway” and hoping for the best).

Bike time: 2:50:50 — a 29 minute PR over last year’s disastrously windy Boise 70.3 bike split. Even with an injured hamstring, I managed to pull off a pretty sweet bike time. I was pretty stoked to finally go sub-3 hours.

Transition 2

Maybe I felt a bit cocky from my bike split, but for some mentally handicapped reason, as I rolled towards the timing mat, I thought, “I’m going to slip my feet out of my shoes, pro style, and hop off the bike like a boss.” Had I done this during a race before? No. Had I even practiced this before? Well, yes, three years ago at a bike dismount clinic. Had I practiced this since then? No. Therefore, was this a good idea to try during a race? Of course not, but you don’t become a mediocre athlete through logic and common sense.

I got my left foot out fine, but my right shoe velcro banged into the bike chain and I couldn’t get my foot out. As I neared the timing mat, I inexplicably decided to lean my bike to the right, presumably in hopes that gravity would plunk my foot out. Instead, I keeled over and ate pavement in front of a group of spectators and friends who quickly went from “Go Rebeccaaaaaaa yaaaaayyyyyy” to “…..oh.” As I lay on the ground, I looked up and immediately saw a concerned volunteer stick his face an inch away from mine and shout, “ARE YOU OKAYYYYY?”

I responded with something along the lines of this:

Real smooth

Thankfully, embarrassment fueled me to have a relatively decent transition time since I wanted to get as far away from everyone who just saw me bite it big time as possible.

Transition time: 1:16

Run Recap

The first person I saw coming out of transition was Jason’s mom, who snapped some photos of me before exclaiming, “Oh, your knee is bleeding.” I sighed and said, “I know” before turning the corner and running into Jason’s dad. He looked at me and said, “Jason is about 7 1/2 minutes ahead of you,” then he paused and blurted out, “I saw that!” I laughed and said, “I know” again, then added, “That’s what I get for trying to be fancy.” I puttered past them and kept running.

My knee didn’t sting too bad and I didn’t want to stop and clean it off until the race was over, so I just kept moving forward at a steady pace. My run felt pretty strong at first — I high-fived my teammates and even ran into the 54-year old super cyclist and shouted some words of encouragement. Once I hit mile 8, however, my stomach took a turn and I was about halfway to Barfsville from then on. I slowed down a bunch and walked through the past few aid stations to sip flat coke and douse my head with water. It was about 80 degrees, and although there was some cloud cover, it was definitely a warm day out there.

Eventually it got so bad that whenever I’d pass a teammate, I could only nod and mouth “Good job” without actually saying anything because I feared that any attempt to make a sound would result in me projectile vomiting on my buddy, effectively ruining both our races. The last few miles were hell and made me thank the Ironman gods once again that I had a miraculously good race in Canada the year before. After quite a struggle, I made it to the finish line amidst cheers from Jason and my teammates. Ugh, finally.

Run time: 2:04:54 — A slight disappointment since I wanted to go under 2 hours, but considering how little I’ve run this season, it’s not too terrible. Besides, it’s still a run PR for me. Still, I know I’ve got that sub-2 in me, but it’ll have to wait another day.

Total race time: 5:48:56

Hey, look at that, I finally hit my sub-6 hour finish goal and managed to PR by 41 minutes! And wouldn’t you know it, it happened when I was at my fattest and most injured. I wonder what I’m capable of once I’m healthy and at my racing weight. Considering the mental funk I’ve been in all season and how I’ve been struggling with various injuries, I was quite pleased to have such a good race despite everything that I’ve gone through mentally and physically. I know that the course was easy, but it was still a nice confidence booster and is now pushing me to hit another sub-6 at a more challenging race.

I ended up taking 10th out of 16 in my age group, but I had the 4th fastest bike split (well technically 5th, but that girl DNF’d so whatevs) even while riding injured, which is nice. My teammates all had killer races too — a bunch of them placed in their age group, and Jason even won Clydesdale (out of 18 contenders) with a 5:16 finish time (which is a big PR for him, too).

After the race, I headed to the medical tent to get my knee cleaned up (making the Post-Race Medical Tent tally Rebecca: 2, Jason: 1), then nearly hurled but managed to munch it back. Victory!

Post-Race

After the race I realized that the saddest bike crash ever took a little chunk out of my shifter:

D'oh

My knee wasn’t looking too great, but I’ve seen worse:

Thumbs up for extreme stupidity!

I’ve also got some mystery chafing on my back as well as a nice bruise from the fall. Most of my teammates have been polite about the mishap, but the hilariously mean ones (Jason, Brent, Mark) have been giving me shit nonstop, calling me “That Athlete” who always bites it at transition when doing something dumb. Yep, that’s me. I’ve enjoyed loudly lamenting to Jason, “Ugh, isn’t this the worst knee scrape you’ve ever seen? It really stings” while he glares at me and points at his scars from last year’s lovely bike accident. We’re such assholes to each other.

Wrap This Shiz Up Already

Welp, that was my first Rev 3 race and it actually went pretty well. I liked how well organized it was and all of the schwag we got. The competition is definitely more stiff, so if you want to be challenged amongst more elite athletes, I recommend giving Rev 3 a try. I wouldn’t do the race again if it’s at Blue Lake, however, because that course sucked big ol’ donkey balls, but I’d do another Rev 3 race. I definitely want more competition for Ironman branded races because I feel that they don’t treat their athletes (and especially their pros) as nicely as other race series.

I’m still battling a tight hamstring and groin muscle, so my post-Rev 3 goal is to get that taken care of before deciding what my next race will be. I’m going to try and get the body healthy and leaner (I’ll start eating better tomorrow, I swear, but let me finish these two cupcakes I bought from Cupcake Royale — it’s Strawberry Festival month, damnit) so I can start 2012 off fresh, strong, and ready to race.

I signed up for the event when I arrived, so no awesome shwag for me. Oh well, I have enough crappy finisher’s t-shirts to last me a while. I puttered over to my transition spot to set up my crap while the race organizers blasted the sleepiest “pump you up” music ever. After hearing Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” and a mini-marathon of Police songs, I wondered whether I should be racing or watching an end-of-the-episode, post-breakup clip montage from Dawson’s Creek.

That Joey Potter is a real heartbreaker.

The girl racked next to me realized she didn’t have a pair of goggles, so I lent her an extra that I had. We joked about the less-than-stellar music playlist before I headed out for a warm up run. I jogged down to the swim start and realized how different the race was set up this year compared to when I did it back in 2008. For one, we were swimming at a different beach. The transition area was also set up pretty far away from the swim exit, so it was going to be a longish T1.

After getting lubed up and pulling my wetsuit on, I got in the water to do a half-ass warm up swim. Sweet jesus, that lake was cold. It was colder than Greenlake, which I had swam in earlier that week. Rebecca no likey. “Oh well,” I thought, “I can survive a measly 400 meters. Remember when you swam 2.4 miles in August? Sure, you were 10 lbs lighter and in better race shape, but this won’t be so bad! Plus, it’s not even your ‘A’ race so stop giving a shit and just get this nonsense over with.”

Roughly fifteen hundred wave starts later, it was finally time for my group to get in the water. I squirted out one last pre-race pee before the air gun went off. Time to race!

Swim Summary

I took off amid a cluster of females, my nerves and adrenaline propelling me along at a fast (for me, anyway), unsustainable pace. I swam for a while, and when I eventually looked up, I realized that the group I thought I was keeping up with had, as usual, left me behind. Boo. My swim felt kind of tired and lethargic, which was a big ol’ bummer because I had a good pool workout earlier in the week and a decent open water swim. Of course my arms chose race day to be all, “Screw this, we’re tired.” It was at that point I decided that 400 meter swims suck. I only have one swim speed, which is “mediocre.” That speed becomes more embarrassing the shorter the distance.

Swim time: 0:09:22 (2:20/100 meters)

Wow, talk about tragic. Even though I was faster than my first attempt at this race three years ago, I was really disappointed when I crawled out of the water and glanced at my watch. I had expected to be a minute to 90 seconds faster (even 30 seconds on the slow end). Later, however, I found out from a couple people that the swim course was most likely measured wrong and that we had swum more than 400 meters. My teammate Kim compared swim times from this year to previous years and saw that they were 30 seconds to a minute slower, so that made me feel better.

Transition 1

I waddle-jogged up the long path from the beach to the transition area and made it to my rack. Thanks to my new concoction of Glide, hair conditioner, and wetsuit spray, I was able to get my suit off rather quickly for the first time since I bought the damn thing two seasons ago. I yanked on my helmet, sunglasses and shoes and shoomed out of transition in 2:50. Not too shabby considering how far we had to go to get in and out.

Me (and my sexy armpit fat) biking out of transition

Bike Summary

I wasn’t terribly fond of the bike out path from the transition area — it involved going over grass, dirt, roots, gravel, and a bunch of other crap that could easily take out my tire and make me never want to race this sprint triathlon again. Once I got out onto the road, I was less than thrilled to see that the first part of the bike involved having to share the crappy little bike lane with the other racers, which made passing incredibly difficult (I did it anyway because I didn’t want to get stuck behind slower cyclists — this is a race, after all). I finally got out onto open road and pedaled with my little stump legs.

After a very “meh” climb and some gradual inclines, I turned around and headed back to transition. The way back is mostly downhill with the exception of the token hill again, so I tried to duck down and get some speed as I pedaled back to the park. As I got closer and closer, I tensed up and kept expecting to hear the hiss of my tire as it flattened in the same spot as before, but thankfully I survived the bike with no issues. Once I got back to the park, the other racers and I had to wind around on a stupid narrow path to get back into transition. It slowed us all down and was ridiculously awkward, and I cursed the race once again for its poor course outline.

Bike time: 0:43:07 (20.87 mph).

Fastest bike split in my age group. Yaay! I felt pretty good on the bike and thought I could have pushed it a bit more, but since my run has been a bit weaker lately, I figured it was wise to leave a little gas in the tank.

Transition 2

In and out in 52 seconds, with Jason shouting words of encouragement at me. Huzzah.

Run Summary

Here’s where it all fell apart. Since this was a sprint triathlon, I figured my Zoot racing flats would suffice (even though I need to replace them) because they’re easy to slip on and I wouldn’t have to run far. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the run course had changed almost completely since I had last raced in 2008. Before the course took you through a business park, along the bike course on the sidewalk, and through a grassy soccer field before looping back to the finish.

This year, on the other hand, we ran on almost no pavement at all. I emerged from the park and hit a bumpy, gravelly dirt trail. I ran on that for a while and almost immediately scored a nice pebble in my shoe (which rattled around for the remainder of the run) before the course switched to a grass path. After plodding along on that for a bit, I saw that the grass path led to a muddy as shit and slippery trail. Since my Zoots have zero tread or grip on them, I half ran/half slid through the mud piles, stepping as gingerly and as cautiously as I could in order to avoid rolling an ankle or slipping and falling. Needless to say, this run course was slowing me down by quite a bit, and I wasn’t happy about it at all.

Eventually I hit one of two different crappy turnaround points, so I made my way out of the muddy trail and back onto the grass, where I had to do another out and back in some bullshit field before finally heading back towards the park and that sweet sweet pavement. I rounded the corner to the finish, happy to be done with this cursed run course.

Run time: 0:25:14 (8:24/min mile pace)

Not what I wanted by a long shot. I was hoping for sub-8s (pre-injury healthy I could probably bust out lowish 7’s) but was totally unprepared for this new run course (it may not have been new that year, but it was new to me and I didn’t expect it to have changed so dramatically). Had I known about it, I probably would have worn my trail running shoes and taken a little extra time in transition to get those clunkers on. I was not at all comfortable running in my Zoot flats on that terrain; in fact, the next day my feet were sore as shit because those shoes don’t have the type of support and stability that I need for that type of course. Blerg.

Total time: 1:21:23, which was good enough for 5th in my division out of 43 girls.

Well, it was definitely a course personal best, but I wasn’t completely thrilled with my performance. I thought my swim was slow (this was before I heard that the swim course was most likely measured wrong) and my run was a disaster. The girl who took 1st in my age group did a 1:19:46, which was a bummer because it definitely isn’t an unattainable time for me. Oh well, maybe next time (if there is a next time for me — not a huge fan of this race).

I am so special.

I struggled with a range of emotions after this race (which I’ll chronicle in a separate post). On one hand it felt good to shake off the cobwebs and get my first triathlon of the season out of the way, but I felt a bit frustrated with individual aspects of the race. Chalk it up to me being my own worst enemy, I guess. I’m in such a different mindset this season compared to last year when I was training for an Ironman — I’m slower, fatter, and, inexplicably, more tired. At this point I’ve tried to refocus my goals and just have fun this season in order to take some pressure off my shoulders, and maybe that will set me up to have a better, more positive mentality going into running season and to prep for 2012.

I’m not sure if I’ll race Issaquah again. I kind of hate the bike and run course, although it can get addicting to try and constantly set PRs and leave on a high note, Costanza style. We’ll see — although next year will mark my fifth triathlon season, so it could be fun to do all of the races I did as a noob and see how much I’ve improved since then…

Until recently, I haven’t been focused on races and have instead been trying to get my right Achilles tendon healthy. Now that it finally seems as if it’s mostly on the mend, Teresa has taken advantage of my newfound health and has been bugging me about my 2011 race season. First up was the Mt. Rainier duathlon, which I wasn’t thrilled about because I wasn’t optimistic about how well I’d do (especially since I was fresh off an injury, hadn’t been running much lately, and had gained a shame-inducing amount of weight in the offseason). My grumblings fell on deaf ears, and both my trainer and my somewhat bullying boyfriend peer pressured me into signing up. (Well, technically Jason signed me up, but he used my credit card. Bastard.)

Because of my running handicap, I got out of doing the long course for the third straight year, but Jason opted to finally pop his long course cherry. I wasn’t optimistic about posting a PR this time around and instead opted to focus on not embarrassing myself. Since I didn’t expect to run better than last year, I figured I could at least improve my bike time. Jason’s goal was to take the big descent back to transition confidently since he was still a bit shaky after last year’s bike accident.

We got to the race and although the rain had held off and it was remarkably sunny, it was also ball-shrinkingly cold (if I had balls, that is) and holding steady at about 36 degrees. I began to immediately fret over what to wear: should I have gloves? Should I wear the team windbreaker? Is a t-shirt and arm warmers enough or do I need to don a parka OH GOD I’M GOING TO FREEZE TO DEATH OUT THERE. I reminded myself that I often race warm and ended up going with the “Screw it, it’s a short race that I don’t really care about” approach to getting ready.

Jason and the other long course racers started five minutes before us shorties, so I gave him a hug and a kiss and wished him good luck. I stood around with my teammates until it was our turn to get started. Let my first race of 2011 commence!

Run #1

I wasn’t sure how hard to go out on the first run leg, so I just took off like a spaz and ran as best I could. I had to dodge several horses since this year we were sharing the area with some Enumclaw horse show nonsense, but it wasn’t too annoying because the first run is so short. I thought about trying to chase down Jason’s sister who was also doing the race before remembering that she had just done the Boston Marathon and I was newly uninjured, so unless I wanted to keel over and die on the bike portion of the race, I’d better give up on unsuccessfully trying to catch someone who’s quite a bit faster than me. Boo. You just wait until I’m healthy, Danielle! …healthy and a much, much better runner. (Also, in this stupid run fantasy can you stop getting faster so I can catch up to you? K thanks.)

Run #1 time: 12 min 33 seconds (7:51 min/mile pace) — not bad considering I had barely done any running (and haven’t done any speed work) in the past six months.

Yes, that tiny spec is me

T1

This year they changed how you enter and exit the transition area, so my transitions ended up being a bit slower than last year’s super speedy times. Nonetheless, I managed to get in and out in 52 seconds. Yaaysauce.

Warning: extreme belly paunch

Bike

Oh goody, this is the part where I get to catch up to everyone who was faster than me on the run. Time to push it, Salt ‘n Pepa style. I caught up to Jason’s sister after a couple minutes and waved at her as I pedaled by in aero. (To which she responded “Awww” — she may be a great runner, but her inexperience on the bike is my advantage. Note #2 to Danielle: Do not log any cycling hours on that new Cervelo of yours.) My legs felt a bit stiff but I felt like I was pushing the bike pretty decently.

I got to the all-too-familiar Mud Mountain Road climb and began my steady ascent. At one point I saw a girl riding a road bike in what looked like white beach loungey short shorts. What is this nonsense? How was that remotely comfortable to bike in? I got annoyed by seeing the threat of underbutt as she sashayed her hips back and forth on her bike so I passed her.

As I approached the top of the meandering hill, I saw two spectators parked on the side of the road. I wondered who would be dorky enough to be literally the only spectators on Mud Mountain, not to mention sadistic enough to actually want to watch people painfully ascend up the road while going 4 miles per hour. As I got closer to them, I realized it was Jason’s parents. Heh. Everyone who passed them would gasp and sputter, “How much further is it?!” and Jason’s dad would give them a status report. When I got to them he said nonchalantly, “Oh, you know where you’re at, you’ve done this tons of times.” I chuckled and waved and soldiered on.

Conquering Mud Mountain

When I got to the top, the stretch between the top of the hill and the descent back into town felt a bit more difficult than usual — I wasn’t sure if it was because of wind or what, but I wasn’t going as fast as usual. I tried to push it on the descent to make up for lost time, but I also wanted to stay alert and be safety-conscious so I wasn’t sure what my bike time would end up at.

Bike time: 49 min, 38 sec (17.4 mph) — At first I was really, really bummed to see that I cycled slower than last year. It was a bit of a confidence crusher at first because I had been biking so much lately to make up for my lack of running, plus I did a ton of cycling last year for Ironman Canada, so how could I have been slower? After the race, however, Jas looked up last year’s times and noticed that pretty much everyone who raced last year had slower bike times this year, so I guess we did hit wind or something after all.

T2

In and out in 50 seconds. The Zoot race slip-ons sure are handy…

Run #2

…until you realize that you need to replace them. I think I’ve put too many miles on my Zoots, as they were starting to ache my feet during the second run. Oops. I tried to ignore the pain and haul my chubby ass 3.7 miles to the finish. Between the first run and this run, it was the furthest I’d run since December. When I got to the first mile marker, I looked at my watch and it said 8:40. What the hell, was I really running that slow?! (Answer: no, I wasn’t, the mile markers were spaced wrong. Nonetheless, nothing makes you feel crappier than thinking you’re going way slower than you assume you are.)

Between the slower run pace, the wind on the bike, and the new, longer transition setup, there was no way I’d PR or even break 1:30 this year. Bummer. Oh well, at least I was out there and doing it. Eventually I wheezed my way to the finish line, happy to be done. My feet were aching, my lungs were burning, and my self-esteem was at a low at the thought of seeing my unflattering paunch in numerous race photos.

Run #2 time: 30:14 (7:57 min/mile pace) — a bit of a relief that I ran sub-8s after my mile 1 scare. I was two minutes slower than last year’s run leg but I guess I’m not as slow as I feared.

Total time: 1:34:08. Slower than last year, faster than the year before. Ho hum.

Note to self: I look like a d-bag running with my Rudy sunglasses. Also, my arms look grossly huge. Time to cut back on the bacon.

As more and more of my teammates finished the race, results for the short course got posted and I saw that, to my surprise, I won my age group again. Whaaa?! Booty Shorts McUnderButt took 2nd, and Jason’s sister Danielle ended up taking third (she had a slowish bike but fast runs). I had successfully defended my title in my age group. Maybe I should just stick to duathlons and cut out this swim nonsense altogether…

Me and Danielle, Jason's sister, rocking out with our 1st and 3rd place medals

I didn’t get a ghetto-fabulous homemade trophy this time, but I did score a 1st place medal with a bike chain wrapped around it. You gotta love BuDu and their DIY awards.

One of my debilitating personal traits is how ridiculously hard I am on myself. I was pleased to take 1st place in my age group again, but I was a bit disappointed with my slower bike time (even though everyone seemed slower this year) and was a little depressed with my run — it’s hard to have a good run season the year before, only to get injured and lose some of that fitness I worked so hard to achieve. I know it’ll just take a bit of work and some time to get my run back to where it was (and hopefully better than it was), but it still feels like I’ve taken a step back. The extra chub I’ve gained this season isn’t really helping, either, but I’m working on that too. We’ll see if next year I can threepeat or if Teresa will finally shove me towards the long course instead of making idle threats every year.

Back in 2008, I was training for my first half Ironman, the not-quite-half-Ironman-distance New Balance race in Victoria. I was a sorry sight, riding on a borrowed road bike with mountain bike pedals and swimming even more terribly than I do now. I was basically the Tai to Teresa’s Cher if this were the movie Clueless.

"Rollin' on a road bike..."

Teresa urged me and Jason to do the Issaquah sprint triathlon so we’d have a little bit of race experience going into the Victoria half Ironman. Since it was my first tri, I was ridiculously nervous.

Swim Summary

The swim was a teeny tiny 400 meters — it would take you longer to get your wetsuit on and off than it would to actually swim that distance. Of course, I was convinced I was going to drown. I swam with a handful of other girls in my age group, stopping at every buoy to gasp for air and gaze longingly at the shore.

Swim time: 10:29 (2:37/100 meters)

As embarrassingly crappy as my swim was, it marked the only time I’ve beaten Jas during the swim portion of a race. Since this was his first ever open water swim, he panicked and flailed in the water and I ended up edging him out by a minute or so. (Check out the only Mediocre Athlete post my lazy boyfriend has ever written for a recap of his swim from that race.)

Transition 1

My transitions have always been decent, even from the get-go, and my first race’s T1 was a respectable 2:14. I think I’m just anxious to get out of my stupid wetsuit as quickly as possible. No matter the reason, my transitions aren’t that bad.

Bike Summary

I hopped on my borrowed bike and made my way along the 15-mile course. It’s an out and back and I just puttered along with all the other racers. I didn’t have a bike computer at the time, so I had no idea how fast I was going or what my cadence was (it was probably pretty shitty). I momentarily went the wrong way when I followed some schmohawk who took a wrong turn, but thankfully the race volunteers quickly corrected us.

When I was a few miles from transition, I was descending a hill when I noticed an odd noise coming from behind me. “That doesn’t sound normal,” I thought, so once I got to the bottom, I got off the bike and checked my rear tire. It was dead flat. Great, I’d gotten a flat tire during my first triathlon and not only did I not know how to change a flat, I didn’t have any tools or spares with me so I couldn’t even attempt to figure it out. I kind of stood there for a while, not knowing what to do, before eventually click-clacking down the road while pushing my neutered bike.

Eventually my teammate Beth came along and, bless her heart, stopped to try and help me. She had a spare tire and tools, but the only problem was she didn’t know how to change a flat, either. We both fumbled around for a bit and got as far as taking the rear tire off before looking at each other, stumped and covered in sweat and bike grease. Jason rolled up and stopped, but since he didn’t know how to change a tire either, he resorted to staring at us quietly before offering up an extra spare just in case and taking off.

I felt so helpless and frustrated. I should have been done with this stupid race by now, but instead I was stranded on the side of the road with a shitty bike with one flat tire that I didn’t know how to fix. My mood kept switching from anger to embarrassment to amusement. As Beth and I continued to fumble, I looked up and saw a tiny middle-aged woman running across the street with a pump in her hand. She pulled a Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy on us and commanded us to “MOVE!” before taking over and expertly changing the flat. I stood there and watched her in awe. This lady knew her shit. (She informed us she cycles and that we indeed did not know what the hell we were doing.) With my tire now fixed (it was a good thing Jas stopped to give us a spare spare, because we broke the valve on Beth’s and ended up needing a backup) and feeling eternally grateful to both this Good Samaritan and to Beth, I took off and finished the rest of this godforsaken bike ride.

Bike time: 1:26:23 (a whopping 10.4 mph)

When I rolled into transition, it looked like a ghost town. Most everyone had been finished with their race for quite some time now while I still had to run three miles. Because of my ridiculous stubbornness (thanks to both my Korean mom and my Kelley genes), however, I soldiered on, intent on finishing this fucking race. I can’t quit my first triathlon! No matter how terrible my finish time, I needed to cross that finish line.

Transition 2

Because my transitions have always been halfway decent and since I was fueled by “my bike totally sucked” rage, I practically hurled my bike at the rack, grabbed my shoes, and was in and out of there in 1:29.

Run Summary

My legs were relatively fresh thanks to the excruciatingly long rest I had on the bike leg, so I blazed through the run course, passing the handful of people who were still racing. Most of them looked miserable, but a couple of people looked as pissed as me, which led me to believe that they also had some bike issues. The run course was pretty crappy — I ran through sprinklers, an industrial business park, and through a wet and grass clipping-filled soccer field before heading back to the finish. My shoes got destroyed but I didn’t care, I just wanted to put this whole damn thing behind me.

Run Time: 24:31 (8:10 min/mile, which was pretty fast for me at the time)

Overall time: 2:05:07

I came in dead last in my age group, but I did manage to beat a few people overall.

Even though my first ever triathlon was a spectacular failure, I did manage to learn quite a few things:

1. No, you won’t drown during the swim portion of the race — just stay calm and focused and you’ll be fine
2. Know how to change a freakin’ tire; you will be tested at some point, whether it’s during a race or just during a training ride (that season I ended up getting five flats, so by the end of 2008, I became a pro at changing tires)
3. Don’t expect the race to go perfectly, because something can (and oftentimes will) go wrong
4. How your race goes depends on your attitude and how you react in the face of adversity
5. Don’t ever give up on yourself

So yeah, my first triathlon was a big clustercuss. Oh well, they can’t all go great, right? I’ve gotten a lot better since then and have learned even more about myself and about the sport, so barring some sort of catastrophic incident tomorrow, I should be able to post a huge course PR. Of course, if I get another flat tire, I’m going to assume it’s the Triathlon Powers That Be’s way of telling me I shouldn’t do the Issaquah sprint ever again…but at least now I know how to change a flat, so even if I go in expecting the worse, I can still come out on top.

Thus, instead of being a mediocre athlete, he’s simply a mediocre direction follower. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of being in the front — you don’t have anyone to follow. Sorry, dude. Better luck next time.

At first I thought I could still manage to do the half marathon, but after realizing that I wasn’t going to post a decent time and would just end up risking further injury, I begrudgingly opted out of doing the race entirely. (Believe me, eating a $135 race entry is a tough pill to swallow. I can only imagine what it’s like to get injured when training for an Ironman and watching your $600 entry fee get flushed down the toilet.)

Aww, nuts

Since I had already forked over the money, I figured I’d pick up my race packet anyway in hopes of scoring some free goodies that would at least partially justify the bloatedly overpriced Rock ‘n Roll cost (fingers crossed for a gu packet or two). My hopes were dashed when I picked up my bag and saw that the amount of swag I got amounted to a butt-ugly finisher’s shirt with an abstract guitar emblazoned on the front and a packet of Cytomax mix. Really, that’s it? Where are the mini cereal samples, the Shot Blocks and yucky holiday gel flavors, and the inexplicable box of macaroni and cheese? You’re a cheap bastard, Rock ‘n Roll series.

I can’t even wear my ugly finisher’s shirt because I didn’t do the race and would feel like a poser. Much how you don’t attend a concert wearing that band’s t-shirt, you don’t wear race clothing from a race you didn’t do. That has bad karma written all over it…plus, I already have a bajillion race t-shirts, so tossing away the umpteenth black tech tee isn’t going to break my heart. So congratulations, Northwest Center, you’re about to inherit an unused marathon finisher’s t-shirt for some lucky person in need of apparel that wicks sweat slightly better than regular cotton. I am so giving.

So anyway, back to the whole Vegas thing. Jas and I had booked a room at the Bellagio. To make a long backstory somewhat short, the hotel had offered to upgrade us to a “lake view suite” (meaning the fountain) gratis after a reservation mix-up that Jason had straightened out back in June or July. When we got to the front desk to check in, the employee told us that for some reason we had been upgraded again to a mega-suite that’s 1500 sq. ft and has two bathrooms that are each bigger than my bedroom at home. The only catch was that the room wasn’t ready yet. So we waited…and waited…and waited. All told, it took six hours of dicking around and heading to the Expo Hall, grabbing lunch, and being crabby before we finally got our room. In that amount of time I probably inhaled half a pack’s worth of second-hand smoke. Oh casinos, you so nasty.

I just love smelling like a stale version of this lady

The suite itself was nice but not super-duper impressive. It was probably quite grand 10 years ago, but there were a few ghetto touches that indicated how much wear and tear and neglect the Bellagio had been experiencing since it opened in 1998. Some light bulbs were broken or burned out, and there were scuffs and scratches on the walls in various spots. Still, we did have a steam shower and jetted tub, plus there was a TV that popped up out of a cabinet as if by magic…slow, amusingly loud and chuggy magic.

Jas and I were a bit crabby the night before the race from having to wait so long to get our room (my need to shower reaches 24-esque levels of intensity when I’ve been traveling — damnit, Chloe, I need a loofah stat!), so we weren’t thrilled about having dinner with his family that night. Not that they aren’t good company, but you know how it is when you just want to be anti-social and eat your ridiculously overpriced Las Vegas meal in peace. I was less stoked about being peppered with questions about my Achilles — it’s a bit of a sore subject (literally), and I didn’t really need to be reminded of how crappy it was that I couldn’t run the race. We finished up dinner and were lamely in bed by 10 pm. Wooooo, Vegasssssss!

"Goodnight, Bec!" "Sleep well, Jas!"

The next morning, we enjoyed a $50 room service breakfast consisting of coffee, a waffle, and a yogurt parfait (yes, that shiz cost me fifty bucks — that waffle better be made out of narwhal horn) and got ready for the race. By “got ready for the race,” I mean Jason made his bottles and puttered around the room getting all of his stuff in order while I laid in bed until the last possible minute and then threw on jeans and a pullover. We walked to the start of the race and ran into Mark, at which point I hugged my gentle giant, wished him good luck, and parted ways.

It was sunny, windless, and a good temperature for running, but unfortunately Vegas has the shittiest air imaginable so running through the pollution and dryness can do a number on your lungs (as it did to mine last year when I ran the half). Jason wanted to run a sub-3:30 race, but the dry air took its toll and left him dehydrated during the second half of the race. He managed to drag his pasty, salt-crusted body across the finish line in 3:36, which is still a 10 minute PR. Plus, he beat his sister — that should stoke the sibling rivalry and carry him through the holiday season.

I wanted to come back to Seattle on Monday, the day after the race, because I’ve been to Las Vegas enough times that Sin City has started to lose its luster. My allergies are getting tired of spiking into overdrive from the thick clouds of cigarette smoke, everything is offensively expensive, and I’ve found the overall service to be sorely lacking ever since the recession hit. However, my sneaky boyfriend wanted to stay until Tuesday, and he bribed me the only way he knew how: with food. As part of my now quite belated birthday gift, he promised back in August that he’d take me to Joel Robuchon for dinner while we were in Las Vegas. The catch, of course, was that the reservation was for Monday night. That devious bastard — now I had to pack a dress and heels. Coming from someone who spends most of her day in pajamas, that’s a tall order.

Nonetheless, my food-loving side caved and I agreed to leave later so we could dine at a 3 Michelin star restaurant owned by a man who was given the title of “chef of the century.” Sidenote: Jason and I love food. It’s one of the reasons we’re so compatible — instead of negatively judging him for chowing down as much as he does, I shamelessly make him split everything we order in half despite the fact that I’m nearly a foot shorter and weigh 100 lbs less than him. I showed you how we ate our way through Puerto Rico and Miami, so for us Las Vegas’s plethora of restaurants owned by renowned chefs is like Kryptonite.

Joel Robuchon’s restaurants have more Michelin stars than any other chef in the world. He’s French and intimidating and his food is meticulously crafted. Our reservation included a complimentary limo ride from the Bellagio to the MGM Grand, where we were allowed to walk through the Mansion, a section of the hotel/casino specially reserved for high rollers and super duper rich people who aren’t me.

It costs $500 just to look at this picture

The first thing we saw when we were seated was a framed picture of Tony Parker and Eva Longoria. Ouch. The restaurant had photos of random celebrities who had presumably dined there (either that, or Robuchon really stands by his fellow Frenchmen who are also NBA athletes). They apparently didn’t get the memo that those two are on the out and out. Come on, JR, we’re paying enough money that I expect you to be on top of the latest celebrity gossip.

In addition to the lavish entrees, we got to choose from a bread cart offering probably 20+ types of baked goods (photo “borrowed” from Yelp):

I shamelessly stuffed my face with 7 pieces of various bread

We also added a cheese course option and were stunned when they wheeled out this treasure trove of fromage:

Heaven. Lactose-rich heaven.

There were various types of brie, blue cheese, goat cheese, cheddar, herb-crusted cheese, cow’s milk cheese — you name it and it was probably on the cart (well, not Velveeta). One of the cheeses we picked out was the strongest one they offered. Jason shared a piece with me and I sniffed it, cringed, tasted it, lit up with delight, then smelled it again and started coughing.

Jason, laughing: “Are you okay?”

Me, sputtering: “It tastes like a delicious fart!”

I’ve never encountered such a strong, simultaneous mix of deliciousness and revulsion. It smelled so bad, yet tasted so good.

Lastly, after our meal was complete and we finished our desserts, we were treated to a third cart of ridiculousness, the mignardises (or as I referred to it, the “cart full of fancy chocolates”):

*drool*

It was full of a lavish and wide variety of treats to choose from — chocolates, caramels, gelees, and 50 other things I’ve only recently discovered exist thanks to the first season of Top Chef: Just Desserts. By the time the meal concluded, Jas and I felt miserably full and his wallet was about to get substantially lighter. It was a fun experience, but not something I’d do again any time soon lest I just decide to say “Eff this ’saving for my future’ nonsense” and eat my way to bankruptcy.

Now we’re back home and I’m quite happy to have returned to cozy gray Seattle. I don’t know if I’ll do the Vegas marathon in the future — after seeing how much Jason and everyone else suffered and complained about the air quality, it doesn’t seem appealing to me. I might do the half again, but that’s about it. I’m more focused on trying to heal my Achilles and maybe find a replacement marathon to run this spring before the triathlons pick back up again. Oh, and I need to work off this post-Robuchon paunch I brought back with me from Vegas. Priciest fat accumulation ever.

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!