My Pre-Race Mental State
I was unnervingly positive going into this race. My training had been rock solid. Other than a single-day blip due to weird lower leg pain (which was quickly addressed by my new favorite PT guy), I’d gotten all of my training in since the summer of just-hold-on-to-as-much-fitness-as-you-can-till-the-kids-go-back-to-school. A few of my long rides and runs had been a struggle, but most of them were really strong. And I hadn’t been forced inside for a single workout due to weather, which was a flat out miracle given that Mother Nature has been bitch-slapping me around for years.All indications, then, were that I was capable of a stellar race and a serious PR. But it’s an Ironman, and fucking anything can happen. There’s ALWAYS something unexpected, and there’s so much to learn about managing the day every time you race. So I think part of me wanted to lower my expectations, and I came up with some great reasons for why maybe the day would fall short of what I thought it could be: I questioned my taper (was I too rested?), my lack of sleep due to a weird waking-up-at-2am-for-hours pattern that I’d recently developed, my tweaky back due to sitting on the ground during the athlete briefing. But luckily the weekend was really busy with pre-race logistics and texts and Facebook messages and all of that distracted me from overthinking my race in either direction.
Race Morning
Even though I gotten there pretty early - I hate to be rushed - the time flew by pretty quickly and soon I was standing in line for swim start. Walking past crowds of people to make my way to the 1:10 start group is always a great boost of confidence, and I was happy to find myself chatting with some fun fellow-1:10ers before the cannon went off. They kept the mood light and happy, which is a great place to be mentally before the swim. Especially because this was where I discovered Error #1: wearing dark, tinted goggles for a 6:50am race start w a 7:05am sunrise on a cloudy day means that one cannot see a damn thing. Nothing I could do about it at this point, and I somehow managed not to freak out.SWIM 1:11:42 / 12th AG / 110th F / 507th Overall
The water was colder than I’d anticipated - I think I was so happy it wasn’t in the 50s that I’d forgotten that low 60s was still cold - but by three strokes in I’d forgotten all about it. Probably because - surprise - my goggles started leaking a bit right away. I remembered from my last race that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent condition and reminded myself to “just swim.” My plan was to swim in the middle - if you hug the buoys on your left it’s crowded, and if you go far right you can be too off course, but targeting the middle buys you some room and actually cuts the curve of the first part of the swim a bit. I need to check my Garmin file, but hopefully I swam a decent line - it was impossible to tell because could not see FOR SHIT for at least the first half mile until the sky finally brightened. Since I didn’t see the buoys until I was parallel with them, I just followed the crowd and hoped for the best.There was definitely some contact in the first half mile of the swim, more than I’d had before - I was hit in the face, had a hand pushing on my back, stuff like that. The water was murky enough that you couldn’t see anyone until you were already on top of them, so what could you really do. I remember thinking it was just like playing sharks and minnows during Friday swim practices as a kid, and I was really happy for those experiences because the contact didn’t phase me at all.
Finally about halfway to the turnaround I was able to start spotting buoys. I still stayed wide right, not too far though because I didn’t want to swim too wide around the turn buoy. I monitored my pace - I didn’t loaf it, I didn’t push it, “just swim.” Once I made it to the first turn - hurrah! - there was a short leg across and then the turn back to the start. On the way back I started swimming tight to the buoys, and within a few hundred yards I found myself in the middle of a huge pack of swimmers. From then on there was a ton of contact. I held my own, but man it was not fun at all. The only upside was that managing the contact held my focus enough that the time went by and finally I was at the turn to the finish. Holy crowds, Batman - I should have taken that turn much wider - it was so freakin’ clogged that I could barely get my arms out of the water to take a stroke.
The cool thing when I was swimming to shore was that it looked like they’d lined the steps out of the lake with rows and rows of orange balloons. It made it super easy to sight the finish and it was just a great swim “finish line” of sorts. When I got closer, I realized that what I thought were balloons were actually lines of volunteers in their neon orange shirts waiting to help us out of the water and up the steps. Man, was that awesome!
T1 5:54
BIKE 6:14:56 / 28th AG / 189th F / 994th Overall
So the first 19 miles out were into the wind, and the winds weren’t horrible but they were enough to make my first few 5-mile segments really slow. I told myself not to freak out, that I’d make it up on the way back. I told myself to ride my plan and let go of the clock. I don’t show my total time on my Garmin screen, so I kept trying to calculate it and project forward to my total time. I needed to stop doing that. Luckily there were a few distractions.
First off, the bike course was really freaking crowded. And there were a ton of race officials going up and down the course on motorcycles. I was being really careful not to draft or block or do anything that would get me a penalty. That was a big challenge because there were a ton of us and therefore there was no way not to be in someone’s draft zone at any point in time. I did my best, and when I heard a motorcycle I made damn sure to clearly look like I was either actively trying to pass or actively backing out of someone’s draft zone (which essentially meant I was coasting). I guess I did an ok enough job of that to avoid a penalty, but it was honestly kind of stressful.
More stressful than that was point of distraction number two: my right inner thigh started feeling really cranky by mile 10. When the left kicked in too a few miles later, it was even more distracting. And disconcerting. WTF? I am 15 miles in and my legs already hurt??? I was trying not to panic, but I was rested as hell going into this race and my legs were NOT supposed to feel shitty less than a quarter of the way into the bike. I could get a moment of relief by shifting saddle positions, so I was doing that often, but the relief lasted maybe 30 seconds at best. Seriously, W.T.F?!?!? And then I though - wait, is this what cramping feels like? I figured it made sense, since engaging the muscles differently helped. So I quickly popped an Enduralyte (thank goodness I’d added those to my bento box that morning!) and hoped that would fix it.
About the same time I downed the Enduralyte, I hit the 14 mile mark on the bike course. I had divided the bike loop into 14 / 4.5 / 4.5 / 14 mile sections, and I had different average power targets for each of those sections. My Garmin screen shows my average power for the current lap, and auto-laps in 5-miles segments. This had worked great for managing my power targets at IM Boulder 70.3 so I was going to stick with that approach for IMAZ. Only thing was that I needed some non-standard lap distances. No problem - I just hit the lap button at the appropriate point on the course and segment those laps manually. Except - Error #2: when you are in Triathlon mode on your Garmin and hit the lap button, your Garmin thinks you are done with your bike and in T2. Mother FUCKER.
Luckily hitting the lap button and totally fucking up my Garmin coincided with the point on the course when I was allowed to turn up my watts a little bit further. So I took my frustration with my stupid-ass inner thighs and my mother fucking Garmin and threw that into powering up the now obvious incline. Simultaneously I tried to figure out what the fuck to do about my Garmin. Clearly it thinking I was in T2 wasn’t going to work. So I saved the file and restarted in Triathlon mode, hitting the lap button a few times to get it to understand that I was on the bike. But I realized I was just going run into the same problem again, so I discarded that file and restarted again, this time in Bike mode. So: I wouldn’t know my total bike time or even how many miles I’d ridden, but I could segment my laps and ride my plan and that was all that actually mattered.
Between the wind and the uphill and my mother fucking Garmin error, I was really happy to get to the turnaround at the top of Beeline. My legs were feeling better, there were easily 20 people under the penalty tent and I was not one of them, and holy shit did I start flying as soon as I was heading downhill. I was thrilled to be making up time, even though at this point I assumed that my goal bike time was basically out the window. I tried to make a mental note of my Garmin mileage versus the 20 mile marker on the course, so I’d have some sense of my total mileage, and then quickly realized that I needed my Garmin screen to tell me lap miles, not total miles (Error #3). I adjusted the data fields on my Garmin screen and finally gave into the fact that I was flying totally, massively blind on this bike course.
The ride back to town was pretty uneventful, save for some general paranoia about the weather. Is that rain in the distance? Is that where we’re headed? Is it moving in this direction? Probably. Possibly not but hard to say for sure. I have no fucking idea. But for the moment it was dry, so I reminded myself I’d gotten wet before and tried to ignore the other thoughts in my head. I made the turnaround, saw the Hogans and Chris & the girls (happy! big smiles!!!) and headed back out for loop #2.
This loop wasn’t feeling too bad! I didn’t force my watts but I was able to stick to the plan, and the wind hadn’t gotten noticeably worse. Based on the course mile markers I knew I was less than halfway into the bike, but I told myself that at the next turnaround I’d be 2/3rds of the way done with the hard work and that was something. Plus it seemed like maybe I was moving even a little faster on this loop! Maybe I could hit the high end of my goal bike time after all (kind of a fleeting thought, since I had absolutely no intel on my time at this point).I hit the turnaround at top of Beeline for the second time - the halfway mark - and the ride down was just as nice as it had been the first time. I had a quick stop in special needs for my second bottle of nutrition, a lovely minute when the sun almost peeked out through the clouds, and then some more musings on the rain. It really did look like the rain was closer, or stronger, or something. Please, just let the rain hold off till I’m on the run! And then, as I’m heading into town, I checked behind me to see how wide I could take a turn. Someone was coming up on me quickly and was clearly planning to pass on the turn, which I almost found super obnoxious until I realized it was Meredith Kessler (who went on to be the top pro women’s finisher). I laughed out loud and was bummed that didn’t pull it together quickly enough to cheer her on.
Once I was back in town I saw everyone (happy! big smiles!!!) and started loop #3. I had predicted this would be the sucky part, and I wasn’t wrong. My legs didn’t feel great, and I was totally sick of this route, but I could still hold my watts and I knew the downhill would be easier, so I pushed on. And this is where my Garmin errors paid off: I had no idea what my time or miles were, and the only think I could do was live within the lap I was riding. Five miles here, 4.5 there, just one lap at a time. It really is a lot easier to get your head around something small. And all I cared about was the turnaround at the top of Beeline, because coming down was easier. Except: I made the turn and found myself pedaling into the wind. You have got to be fucking kidding me.
I was pissed as hell. My legs were trashed, and my watts were dropping, and I knew my speed was sluggish at best. I was convinced my brakes were rubbing. (They were not. I checked.) I was seriously concerned about the fact that I still had to do the run. But then I thought: “maybe my bike legs are trashed, but in T2 I will take them off and put my run legs on.” Because that is totally how it works. OK, clearly I know that I do not have removable legs, but somehow this thought made sense and I re-discovered my belief that maybe I’d be able to run off the bike. And then my watts picked up for the last nine miles and so maybe things would really be ok after all.
T2 6:37
I headed to the bike catchers - please take my bike and sell it (not really! I’m actually not hating my bike as much as I thought I would!) - and then I grabbed my gear bag, hit the port o potty and headed into the tent. My approach in T1 had worked pretty well so I did the same in T2 - dump and start throwing things into need-it / don’t-need-it piles. I also had my volunteer checking the weather forecast on her phone while I was changing into shorts and getting my shoes on. I’d felt maybe 20 rain drops on my way into town (the rain held off!!!) and I was trying to figure out if I wanted to bring my jacket on the run. She said I’d be good for a few hours, so I left my mess of a pile in transition and headed out.RUN 4:46:10 / 23rd AG / 199th F / 911th Overall
My plan was to walk every other aid station to refill my handheld bottle with water and/or gatorade, and take in a gel at every fourth aid station - approximately every four miles. And I had mentally broken the run into four mile sections, directing myself to just stay within those four miles and not to think about the big picture of the entire fucking marathon. My first four miles went great. I saw my crowd again at mile four and shouted “I’m still running!” because I was that incredulous that I was still feeling good. And that basically continued through mile twelve. I felt comfortable, I stuck with my plan, and I didn’t think past the next four mile mark, because I was a little worried about what might or might not happen on loop two.
At some point on that first loop, before I lost all brain function, I did a little math. I had saved my Garmin bike ride when I entered T2 and started the run tracking as I’d headed out. I had switched my Garmin run screen over to miles only (because knowing my time and/or pace totally fucks with my head), so I still really didn’t know much about how my day was going. But I realized that I knew the time of day when I was in T2 (2:35ish) and so I could actually gain a little intel. And what I realized was that my bike time must have actually been decent, and that if I was able to run the run - my goal time of 4:30 or even 15 minutes slower - I *should* be able to beat my goal time for the race. I kind of wanted to check with Karen to confirm my math, but I knew that I could only do what I could do on the run, and her telling me what I was or wasn’t on track to do time-wise didn’t change that. So I focused on getting my head ready for the second loop, and preparing myself to fight for it when it came time for that (because I knew it would).
The aid station just past mile 12 is where things started to derail a bit. I was walking to take in a gel and asking if they had any more in the flavor that I like and simultaneously taking the top off my handheld bottle so I could refill it. I dumped water and Gatorade into the bottle, grabbed the gels they gave me, went to put the top on the bottle and What. The. Fuck. - I no longer have the top to my bottle. I started looking for it and backtracking a step or two and then I realized that I must have thrown it out along with my empty gel. Error #4. So I tossed the entire handheld in the trash, started running, and started re-strategizing.
Clearly I’m going to have to start walking every aid station in order to get down some water. And since my Enduralytes were in the bottle holder, I will also have to down some Gatorade for electrolyte replacement. Walking every aid station, rather than every 2nd, wasn’t a huge mental compromise since I kinda figured I’d resort to that on the second loop anyway. But I was a little worried about getting enough hydration if I only had a small cup of water or so every mile. But there wasn’t another option so I was just going to go with it and assume I’d be ok.
Saw the crowd at mile 13 and smiled and waved - things were still ok! For another quarter mile or so. Then my legs started to hurt. Not injury-type hurt, just an every-muscle-overall-ache kind of hurt. This is where shitty training runs were going to pay off - I know how to run when it hurts, and I know that I can. So, yeah, it hurt, but that was no reason to stop or even slow down. But then I hit and aid station, gulped water and Gatorade, and immediately got a side stitch. This was the story of the next four miles. I tried breathing through the stitch so make it stop, but it wasn’t going away. So then I tried walking a few seconds to make it stop, but it would come back when I started running again. I figured if it was going to bother me whether I was walking or running, I might as well be running. And by 17 - my next wave-and-smile pass by my crowd - it had mostly gone away.
Sometime after mile 17 I started to fade. Somehow, even though I’d told myself pre-race that about this mileage was where it would get hard mentally and I’d have to fight, I’d altered the thinking mid-race to where the fight started at mile 20. So instead of fighting, I started adding some extra walk breaks at mile markers, since they never coincided with the aid stations where I also got to walk. My legs didn’t hurt when I walked, which was nice, and if I started running slowly afterwards they didn’t scream at me, they just settled back into aching. At around 19.5 I saw my crowd and the sign the girls had made specifically for this point in the race, which did help me start to dig a little, but I was still dragging.And then, Kenny showed up. I was walking at the 20-mile marker and he came up beside me and said that instead of playing slinky with me, which apparently he’d been doing for miles, he’d just run a steady pace next to me. Hell yes, a running buddy was *exactly* what I needed. We started chatting about his racing successes and failures, I got distracted, and I stopped needing those extra breaks. In fact, my pace even felt a smidge better. (OK, that could also have been because mile 20 is when I switched from Gatorade to Coke.) I started to fade again after mile 22, which is the one place on the run course that actually is a little dark. So I grabbed my little hat clip light and immediately dropped it and it smashed into a bunch of pieces. I could only laugh - Error #5, luckily the littlest of errors because within a minute or so we had light again.
Then we hit mile marker 23. I could not have been happier - essentially a 5k to go, and I hadn’t bonked or blown up or sat down crying on the side of the road. I was energized as hell and it was time to Be Like Brandon and go for broke. Even though my legs still hurt, I picked up my pace (or at least it felt like I did, I was probably still crawling along) and told myself I was about to PR the shit out of this race. And damn if that didn’t make me smile! Once we hit the 24 mile mark I started the final countdown to the finish. We were still walking through aid stations so I could get Coke and water, but when we were running I was feeling so strong and we were passing people like crazy. I think I was pushing Kenny a little past where he wanted to be, but there was no way in hell that I was going to hold back with less than two miles to go.
As I was cruising down those last two miles, I realized that I had done exactly what I set out to do: I’d raced my plan, I had dealt with a bunch of fucking errors, nothing horrific had happened, and I had run the fucking marathon. I still had no idea what my time would be, but I knew it would have a 12 handle and no matter what the clock said this was a fucking beast of a race for me. We hit mile marker 25 and the final aid station, I took a final hit of Coke and water and said “come on Kenny!” and charged ahead. Kenny was finally taking in some water, but at this point I couldn’t wait for him - I was killing it and I was waiting for no one.
I worked that final mile like crazy. I didn’t sprint - I had decided I didn’t actually need to collapse at the finish - but I ran strong and proud. I counted down the final tenths of a mile, hit the right turn - 3 tenths to go!!! - and started checking my surroundings so I could cross the finish line solo. I took that final left turn to the finish and was going crazy inside (and apparently all over my face) because I had rocked the shit of out of this race. I ran beaming into the finisher’s chute and Mike Reilly called me an Ironman. HOLY SHIT.I had wanted to finish feeling like I had left it all on the course, so I was happy that I felt like I needed the support of my catcher. I was happy that my legs felt totally trashed and it was hard to walk. I was kind even happy to hit the med tent 20 minutes later when I was woozy and nauseous. I always say that you know you did it right when you end up in the med tent.