Half Iron Race Report

So I haven't posted in a while, but I thought I should at least post my Longhorn Half Iron race report, mostly so I would have it to look back on some day. I'm just going to post what I sent to my BMC e-mail list serv:

Time: 6:44:17 (yes, that six HOURS!)
Calories Burned: ~5,000
Toe nails remaining: 4
Fire ant bites: 3
Current ability to walk: minimal
Lessons learned:
-Drink lots more water on the bike
-Eat more gel on the bike
-Slow the f*ck down on the bike you still have a run you moron!
-Cut your toenails
-If you are going to attempt to do a 13.1 mile run after a bike and swim,
train the running!


Thanks for all the good weather thoughts, it helped. It wasn't that hot
until the run. The bike was beautiful.

So the long and short of it is that all the whining I seemed to be doing
about the weather making the events too easy, well this was not too easy. The swim felt good and I love long swims because people start out
sprinting and get way ahead and I just stay steady and I pass some of them
around the 800m mark as they have burned all their energy. I finished
strong and beat a girl who had been on my tail. that always make me happy.
I got on the "firebolt" and started the ride part. Really uneventful
except for the fact I notice that I was going pretty fast and if I could
keep it up, I would have a fantastic time. So I kept it up and pushed
really hard. The last 6 miles were brutal and the last hill "big bastard"
was bad, but I finished! My friends were cheering part way through the
bike course and that gave me a lot of confidence. One of my friends had
done a half iron last year and I was gunning to beat his time. He was
great to hear him tell me to keep going and beat him good :) At the end
of the bike, I put on my running shorts and started the run.
As soon as I started I thought I was going to die. Like pass out
and get carried off in a stretcher. After the 1st mile I really really
really thought about giving up. There is nothing like feeling like you
are going to pass out 1 mile into a 13 mile run. I just could think
about how far I still had to go. I thought I would just get to the first
water station, have some water and Gatorade and see how I felt in a bit. Needless to say there was very little actual running going on and I would
hesitate to even call it walking.... I passed my friends again and they
lied through their teeth and told me I looked great. It helped. I was
originally going to run 3 miles and run 1. That was quickly changed to
walk up hill, walk the aid stations, and if you feel up to it, run the
rest. I stuck with it for 3 miles, drinking two glasses of water each
station and running with ice nestled snugly in my sports bra. I cooled
down a bit, got my legs working, and started the running again. I can't
even tell you how close I was to giving up in those first 3 miles. I
walked every uphill and a bit at every aid station. I saw my friends and
Ned 4 times though out the course. The second time I saw them I could
tell they were relieved that I was looking better. I survived the run, and
it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Each step was hard.
When I hit mile 12 I told myself I was going to run all the way to the
end. I made it as far as the next aid station, and walked to the point
where I came out of the woods and people could see me again. I did run
the finish, but damn, that was not easy. That run was just about the
worst thing ever. All of my whining that previous events didn't count,
and that I wasn't placing as high as I wanted, all of that was taken away
by that run. It made up for everything. I can truly say that event took
everything I had. Literally. That was so f&cking hard.
It is done now, I didn't get last, I beat my friend's time (he is ok
with this level of competitiveness, he tries to bring it out in me), and I
am, for the first time in 7 events this summer, just feeling like I
accomplished something amazing. Whatever I felt like I needed to prove
this summer, I just proved it. I could have gotten dead last in this
event I would would be strutting around today like I owned the world. Out
of a field of ~900 30 people didn't finish, but I wasn't one of them!!!
I went to lunch/dinner with my friends and Ned afterward and managed to
sit up long enough to realize that I didn't want to eat anything. My
blood sugar was so low that I was so nauseated I couldn't eat. I forced
myself to eat a bit and felt better. By the time I got home I really
couldn't move anymore. I took a shower that involved a lot of sitting on
the edge of the tub. I was so sick to my stomach and tired and sore. I
knew I had to keep eating or it would just get worse. Ned says one of the
funnies things he's seen is me trying to force feed myself ho-hos.
Normally I need no coercion..... I woke up at about midnight and felt a
lot better. I slept until 9am this morning and I feel close to normal,
but really really sore.

damn that was hard. I'll forget by next week and sign up for something
else stupid I'm sure.

If you want to see pictures, here's the link:

Pictures

Click on "Longhorn Half Iron" and search for 749, or Thompson-Flagg


I did sign up for something else stupid, Arizona 2008, Nov. 23rd. Yep, I'm going to try it.... I'm going to try to post about training here, but we'll see what happens. :)

Well, I can swim one lap.

Well the swim is over and I did it. It was way easier than I thought it would be. I was really nervous before it started but after the first few hundred yards I knew i could make it. I think they might have been wrong about the currents. They said that at first the current would go from north to south and then would change and go south to north. So I started out by hugging the north span of the bridge. I felt like I kept getting pushed north so I moved more to the middle and kinda stayed there. When the race first started I freaked out a little. I felt my chest start to tighten up and I couldn't breath but worked at calming down and my breathing felt great the rest of the race. I started out by hanging to the back and trying to get away from the pack. i did things I never would have done in a triathlon. I let people swim past me and hung back to try and get my own piece for real estate. Usually I would try and pass people to get free, but this time I let them pass me. I swam really conservatively. I didn't know how I would feel after a few miles so I swam slow to save everything I could. The chop was almost non existent. The first mile seemed to go really fast. I couldn't believe I had already gone a mile when I passed the marker. The second mile was right after the main shipping channel and it had a food boat. I thought the main channel would be the worst and it wasn't that easy, but not as bad as I thought. I felt so small as I was going through. The bridges were so big and the swells were large and I was so open and unprotected. There were no bridge supports to make me feel at least a little safe. I was a tiny little orange golf ball out in the middle of this huge bay. It was a cool feeling. I saw the food boat with all these other little orange golf balls hanging on it and decided to keep on swimming. I thought that once I got through the channel the rest would be easy. Well, it was and it wasn't. the swimming part wasn't that bad, but my mind had already started counting down to the finish and once my mind sees the finish my body starts giving up a little. The third mile seemed to take forever. As soon as I hit mile 2 i thought "well, it just an ironman swim from here." , turns out an ironman swim is long. I could see the mile 3 marker, but it just didn't seem to get any closer. the food boat was supposed to be there, but it was actually at mile 3.5. About then, something in my wetsuit unhooked and it started rubbing. I have a great wetsuit hickey to show off now! I think the hardest part current wise was getting back out from under the bridge. I had to fight really hard to do it. After that, I could see the finish and it was such an amazing feeling. I had come so far and wanted to do this for so long. I didn't sprint the finish but tried to enjoy the feeling of the last few strokes in the bay. That lasted for a bit and then I just wanted to get it done and I sped up a bit :) As i was about to finish I saw the woman in front of me stand up and collapse. the volunteers at the finish carried her over the finish to the medical tent. It was neat to watch but I was glad it wasn't me. Overall it was a fun race. It was so different than a triathlon as it was so quite and internal. There was no one cheering for you on the course. I had hoped I would at least hear a "way to go!" from the kayaks, but no luck. The volunteers at the finish didn't offer their hands and help you out. It was all so much more subdued than the tris I've done. But feeling so small around something so big was amazing. Feeling knocked around by something like the Bay was great. I am a little upset at my time and the fact that it was so "easy". When I finished everyone was saying it was the easiest year ever. I felt like what I had done didn't really count. On top of that, my time was one of the worst in my age group. the more I think about it though, I really swam conservatively and came out with a lot left. I didn't even need to take a nap that afternoon. There was nothing I could have done about the conditions or how "easy" this year was so I just have to be glad I made it because it would have been REALLY embarrassing if I hadn't made it this year. I know that even if it had been worse I still could have made it, particularly with how good I felt at the end. The chocolate donuts were also nice:) It was a little hard to deal with the fact that something I had been working so hard for and thinking so much about was over. What next? How can I top this? Well the answer to that is a half ironman. More about that later. When I got out I just wanted to get rid of the smell of bay water and I'm not sure I want to smell that smell for a long time. I thought that now that I have done this I am happy and don't really want to do it again. But the more I sit thinking about this, the more I am not sure..... My mom came from Indy to watch and wish me luck at the start. I was just so excited that she would come all that way for this. It really meant so much to me. We went to Cantlers for dinner which is always tasty. they didn't have steamers, which would be my food of choice if stranded on a desert island, but the soft shell crab sandwich was almost as good. So it was a great day, I made it, all the worry was for nothing, it was less than half as bad as I had made it out to be, and now I have post big race let down. After a few more days of bragging, showing off my wetsuit wounds and feeling pretty pleased with myself while sitting on the couch watching TV, I'm going to start training to get faster. Off to eat something bad for me!

I tried to Tri!

Well, I was hoping I would have a race report to post today. I was hoping it would go something like "I executed my race plan perfectly and finished under the time I was hoping for. I feel tired but happy. The swim was great, I kept it together mentally and settled in for the ride. The bike was fun, which was what I was hoping for. The run was what it was, I ran half and walked half and my knee is doing ok today.". I actually have no race to report as it was CANCELED!!!!!!!!! The CapTexTri was CANCELED!!!!! Stupid wusses. So I went on a disastrous bike ride and then an ok swim. Yuck. Well, I have a very expensive T-Shirt that I feel like an ass for wearing. I also missed out on a really hard workout so I am doing bricks today. bleck...

Good nutrition plan

So I did a long swim today. It didn't go too badly. I went to Big Stacy pool which is 33 meters long instead of 25. I like to swim there because it is a little harder mentally as I feel like I am going so slow because it takes me longer to get from one end to the other. I did 7000 meters which is about 4.35 miles. So I made it across the bay at least in a pool. I have to say I hit my wall at about 1200m from the end but I kept going which was really fricken hard. I finally feel like I might be able to finish. I realized why I like swimming, which is nice to realize when you have a lot of it to do. I love repetitive things. They are very calming to me. Knitting, tatting, repeatedly head butting my husband.... Well swimming is like that, stroke after stroke the same. The sound of the water, the sound of your breathing, it is all calming to me once I find that rhythm. I also love the feel on my back of the water line repeatedly going from one side to the other as I roll. The sun on my back is fairly nice too. I'm lucky to live in Texas where I have been able to swim outside since March. I ate a power bar and two gels before I swam and my stomach was fine so I guess I will do that again. I also had chocolate milk as soon as I got to my car and a bagel and banana a peanut butter as soon as I got home and I'm really feeling ok. I'm guessing no one is actually going to read this because if you are reading it it must be very boring. Anyway I have the CapTexTri next Monday so I guess I should start thinking about that. That is going to be a rough day. I've only done one long bike ride and one long run. The run plan is to run .5 a mile, walk .5 a mile and run the finish. We'll see what happens. I will hopefully post pictures of The Rookie soon.
Time for sleep.

Solitary Confinement

I've been training since March and having nightmares since April. I know I can do it physically. In fact, I have already done a 4 mile semi open water swim at Barton Springs. I felt fine during, but I didn't eat soon enough and felt horrible afterward. My stomach couldn't handle what my mind wanted to eat. Bad move and I won't do it again. I need to eat and drink during the training next time. I am worried about how to eat during the race. I know there is a mythical “food boat” at mile 2 but many people seem to miss it completely so I need a back up plan. I'm thinking Jelly Belly “sport” beans tucked into my wetsuit might be a good idea. Yes, Jelly Belly makes sport beans. I talked to a nutritionist yesterday and she said I need to eat more in general. Damn it is nice to have someone official tell you to eat peanut butter!
Mentally, I'm not sure what will happen. I need to remember it takes me like 500 yards to warm up and I feel like crap the whole time. I need to be mentally prepared for the fact that I will want to give up. I'm sure everyone wants to give up several times during this race. I need to train my mind to stay completely focused on nothing. I feel best in longer swims when my mind just kind of buzzes in rhythm with my strokes. I also want to try to remember several good songs that I can sing to myself to keep me from going nuts. I am worried about the currents. I think I just need to realize that it is going to be hard to stay between the bridges but if I'm aware of my surroundings, I can do it. Two and a half hours with only my own thoughts...... that sounds bad. That is a punishment for prisoners and really, a punishment for people who are already being rather harshly punished has to be bad. I will either finish wanting to talk to everyone in sight, or proclaiming I am dropping out of grad school and trying to become a country music star even though I can't carry a tune in a bucket or wanting to hide in a corner in the fetal position. From reading others stories, I do know that I will finish by puking up gallons of sea water. I also need to know it is going to hurt. Every story I read of people's Ironman experiences talks about how much it hurt during the race and they finished by accepting the fact that it hurt, it was going to continue hurting and to finish you had to get through it to the finish. This ain't no Ironman, but I expect it will hurt.

The Beginning

I am a physics grad student at the University of Texas at Austin. I swam at Bryn Mawr College as an undergrad and was middle to back of the pack. When I was 12 one of my friends did the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim and I thought that was so cool. When I decided to make a list of the things I would like to do in life, the first three on there were run a marathon, ride a bull and swim the Chesapeake Bay. From college up until a year ago I turned into a complete couch potato. I would play Ultimate Frisbee in the summer and took Kung Fu lessons, but other than that, nothing. My friend Cindy, who I pretty much credit with overhauling my life, convinced me to do the Danskin triathlon. This was three weeks before the event and she drastically overestimated my fitness level. Well for three weeks I worked my body harder than I thought possible, often to the point of complete collapse and finished the triathlon in a reasonable time. It was an amazing experience. I got hooked and throughout the summer trained and did the Dilloman Triathlon in September and knocked about 15 min. off my time. I was then convinced to do the swim leg of the IronStar triathlon. The swim was 1.2 miles and it sounded fun. I did well and our team, Splash Grind Mosey, got third, mostly due to the amazing biking a running, but still, I helped. I was mentally rougher than I would like to admit. I'm not afraid of open water, but damn, you have a lot of time alone in your own mind when you swim for that long. I thought of giving up, not because I couldn't do it physically, but because I didn't know if I could do it mentally. There is almost no noise when you are swimming and all you can do is think. People go crazy from that! Well after that training I decided this year was the year to conquer The Bay. I signed up for the lottery, sent in my IronStar swim time and I am on the list. Let the training and nerves begin!