I Did It!

I arrived in Kona, Hawaii on Friday afternoon to 80-something degree heat and gorgeous sunny weather, hopped on the team shuttle, and headed over to the hotel with about 75 or so teammates. Because I know what a disaster check-in can be, I sat in the front row of the bus and was off first, grabbed my enormous suitcase, and sped up to the front desk - third in line! I had my own room, which was a miracle - usually you have to pay for your own room (they'll pay for half of a shared room, but my randomly assigned roommate dropped out), so this was a big stroke of luck for me.

My room was as far away as you could possibly be from the front desk - but there's a tram, and it's air conditioned. I was in a row of Team in Training people that I knew, so every time I opened my door there was a friendly face - it was fantastic. Friday night we had to pick up our bikes and put the pedals back on, then we all rode around a bit to test them out and make sure we didn't have any mechanical problems. Then - dinner! Thankfully, I hitched a ride with my mentor, and the restaurant was right next to a market, so I was able to pick up supplies for my room (my race supplies include: 12 cans of Diet Coke, one pack of Everything Bagels, Cream Cheese, Bananas, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, Pirate's Booty, and soy milk for the cereal I brought - a random assortment!).

Saturday morning, the team met in the lobby at 6:30 AM (no rest for the wicked - I mean weary!) for a practice swim at 6:30, and we were off to the beach. The weather was perfect - just a bit overcast, no big winds, calm water. There are some tentative swimmers on the team, and the coaches were looking for stronger swimmers to buddy swim with them, so I swam with a woman who has asthma and is a little afraid of the water. We alternated between freestyle and breaststroke before figuring out that backstroke helped her breathe better, swim faster, and avoided mouthfuls of salt water. We swam about 400 meters, and I didn't really have much of a chance to enjoy the underwater view as I was so concerned with her, so once we hit the beach and celebrated her practice swim completion I headed back out to do a lap of my own.

Oh, is that swim the best thing ever - the water was nearly clear, and getting clearer by the minute. The tsunami had eroded the beach, breaking through to an adjacent pond and changing the underwater landscape quite a bit, but every day the sediment was settling out - and I was swimming over huge coral heads and loads of colorful fish. Even though it was daytime and the sun was bright, I wore my clear goggles (as opposed to mirrored ones to cut down on glare) so I could ogle the sealife. I didn't see any turtles, but heard from others that they had - and we decided that meant good luck for the team.

Saturday afternoon was free play - we had to pick up our race packets, and then of course there's the expo where you can buy all the last-minute goodies you've forgotten, which for me seemed to include some really gorgeous sterling silver and lava rock (smoothened, of course) jewelry. Clearly triathlon essentials. I grabbed a sandwich on my way back to my room, and holed up for the rest of the afternoon to assemble my gear. I put on a movie (Black Swan, so disturbing), and puttered around my enormous room laying out gear and packing and running through the race.

Saturday at 4:30 was the pre-race meeting, which is required for all participants. About half of the ~1300 participants were from various Team in Training chapters, and the Silicon Valley chapter (mine) is by far the biggest, with over 100 members. The announcer went over the course and how it had changed from last year, what the rules are, what the post-race buffet would be like, all the important info. Everyone was such high energy it was amazing - and my stomach was in knots!

After that we had the inspiration dinner - a Team in Training-sponsored gathering of all TNT chapters to celebrate the cause and our achievements, and to honor people who've completed numerous TNT events as well as to honor people affected by blood and other cancers. The fun part is usually the keynote speaker - usually a famous triathlete (I'm starting to learn their names at this point) who's won a bunch of important races.

This year our keynote speaker was Dave Scott, who's won the Ironman 6 times. Dave's "inspirational" speech involved a discussion of how things sometimes go wrong in a race, and sometimes your most significant finishes are not the ones where you win - a nice thought, but poorly delivered. To an audience of amatuer athletes who mostly will just be happy to finish the darn race at all, Dave Scott included the following comments (in quotes but clearly not exact quotes as I can't remember the exact phrasing):

When describing a race where he used a new bike and it wasn't fitted properly and caused cramping and ruined his race:

"When I was on mile 85 of the bike and my hamstring cramped up..."(we're just happy to finish our little 24 miler)

"I got passed by age groupers, by you people." (He competes in the elite group, which starts first and usually has about 20 people in the wave.)

"I was struggling just to get 15-minute miles!" (Said incredulously, like he couldn't believe how slow he was going - this elicited an audible gasp from my table, and was especially insulting as many people aspire to 15-minute miles)

And those are just a few of Dave Scott's inspirational quotes. He mentioned that he'd been "involved" with Team in Training races for 12 years, yet had never actually raced in one. This year, he got talked into it,  agreed to race the course with us, and was handed a Team in Training jersey to a smattering of applause.

The Team in Training jerseys are awarded once you've reached your fundraising minimum, and are something of a badge of honor. To give one away to an athlete who's just insulted all of our performances, and who hasn't actually been involved in either fundraising for TNT or racing TNT events was pretty bad.

Thanks, Dave Scott, for the motivation to want to kick your ass in the race.

Anyway, after a lovely pasta dinner we were all off to bed, because Sunday morning was going to be EARLY!

I spent the rest of the evening going over my gear, then going over it again, packing it and re-packing it, until even my OCD wanted to go to bed. My alarm was set for 4AM, and my neighbor promised to knock on my door at 4:20 to check my bike tire pressure (he had a pump, I did not, nor did I want to fight for the few that would be in transition).

Of course, my eyes popped open at 3AM, and I watched the clock for 45 minutes before finally getting up 15 minutes early. I crammed myself into my tri-top and shorts ("crammed" is the right word - it requires some contortions to get into spandex that tight), ate a bagel and cream cheese and drank as much water as I could, loaded up my water bottles, and headed out with teammates to walk to the lobby. We beat the coaches there, as we weren't supposed to meet until 4:45 and they were a few minutes late - but as soon as they got there I checked in (they keep very careful track of where everyone is so we don't lose anyone), and at 5AM I hopped on my bike for a very scary ride in the pitch black to the transition area. I was the third person there (the only time I will ever be third at one of these things), and they let us in early. I racked my bike, set up my gear, and headed over to get bodymarked. They stamped my number (481!) on each arm, I picked up my timing chip, and meadered around transition for the next hour or so, watching people get set up, socializing with other teammates, watching the sun rise. My nerves and my excellent hydration had me in the port-a-potties more than once before the race, which was a good sign - you certainly don't want to start the race dehydrated!

At 6:45 we headed to the water to warm up, swam a couple hundred yards, and then a bunch of us just sat in the water to keep warm until race start.

Race start is always exciting - this year they had a "holding pen," where each wave waited until directed to enter the water - this is where your timing chip officially starts as you cross the timing mat so they can get very official times for each participant. The elites and under-25 group went first, then the men 30-39, then it was my wave - women 30-39. We are a big, competitive group, and I am confident enough in my swim to feel comfortable on the front line. They sent us in the water, and I swam out to the front left side of the pack, the shortest line to the first buoy. Of course, all of the strongest swimmers are on the front line, and you can't touch the bottom, so there's some jostling. Usually it's friendly, but this group of women were rather rude about it. I tried to joke a bit to lighten the mood, but no one was having it so I shut up. I cleared my goggles about ten times in the last minute before the start and then - BANG! - the gun went off and in a huge rush of foam and splash we were off. There's always a few who sprint at the start, and I know they usually fall off once they run out of steam. I swam head-up for a few strokes to avoid getting kicked in the face - I wear minimalist goggles that don't take well to disruption like some of the other goggles do, but they never leak and give me a wide angle of vision. Once the women in front of me had smoothed out I put my face in the water and off I went!

What. A. Gorgeous. Swim. Check out the course map:

It's challenging to stay focused on swimming hard when you're swimming over coral and fish - and I saw a sea turtle! Good luck for me! They started the waves 5 minutes apart instead of 3 this year, and those two minutes made an enormous difference - that and the changes to the course (less turns) really allowed the pack to spread out, and I got a nice rhythm going and didn't get stuck too many times. The swim is so disproportionally short it's frustrating for me, and indeed, just over 20 minutes later I was getting out of the water and running up the beach to the transition area. My watch said 23 minutes - about a minute slower than last year, but I actually ran the beach-to-transition part, so I evened out overall.

I ran up to the transition area, and thankfully this year they had kiddie pools set up so you could wash the sand off your feet - which you do not RUN into (people tend to slip and fall) - so I hopped in and washed my feet, then jogged into the transition area and down the aisle (left turn right after the port-a-pottie, about 9/10ths of the way down on the right side) to my bike.

Transition one - this year I wore my hair in a ponytail under my cap so I could save a step, and time, in transition. I ran to my bike, threw down my cap-and-goggles, put on my sunglasses and helmet, then my socks (which stuck and wasted maybe 15-30 seconds! Ack!) and bike shoes, put a spare bike tube in my race jersey pocket, put on my race belt with my race number, and off I went! I ran my bike out to the "mount line" and hopped on, and away I rode.

The bike course is part of the actual Ironman course, and is a long, straight course through lavafields - it looks like a burned version of the moon. People leave messages in white coral, and both sides of the road are littered with names and words of encouragement. It wasn't as hot as last year, but I felt like I was riding into a headwind going out - which is also a little bit uphill. I hit the turnaround feeling pretty good, and on the way back I also felt like I was riding into a headwind! I rode pretty hard, figuring I suck at the run anyway so I might as well go harder where I thought I could make up time.

There were a lot of flat tires this year - many people on the side of the road changing flats, and I was quite thankful that I didn't get one, as I'm not sure I could actually change a flat if I had to. I have the tools, but haven't practiced.

Here's the course:

I came screaming back into transition, my legs feeling a bit rubbery, and was able to quite quickly exchange my bike helmet for a white hat, drop my sunglasses, tear off my shoes and cram my feet into my running shoes, and head out on the run, back down through the aisle of bikes.

The first part of the run is over lava, which is interesting when your legs feel like jello. This year I ran with a water bottle, which was an excellent idea as I drank almost all of it through the 6.2 miles. Once you get out of the lava, you're on blacktop - which is the worst part of the thing. It's hot, you're not yet halfway there, and worst of all you can see people coming back the other way. At aid station number 1 I asked for a hatfull of ice and ran with cold water dripping down my neck - spectacular. I was trying to sip my sports drink, but my water bottle apparently leaks a little bit, so as I was running I was also drooling red sports drink down my chin. Very attractive. After mile 3 or 3.5, you enter the resort and wind through the pool areas - and right around mile 4 I crashed and burned. I was overheating, felt like I was going to puke, and just had to walk for a minute. Of course, once I started walking it made running all the harder - but I managed to get going again. The last part of the course winds along the water, over coral and lava, and eventually soft sand. Since the tsunami washed out the beach, they had to change the course, which now wound around the lagoon - so you could see the finish line and hear the cheering, but just couldn't GET there! I hit mile marker 6, with 0.2 miles to go - less than 1/4 mile, or one lap around the track, I realized that to beat my time from last year I'd need to run it in under 4 minutes - no problem! So even though I wouldn't make my sub-three-hour goal, I could at least beat my time from last year. Can't complain about that!

Here's the run course:

I wound around to the finish line - and back into soft sand - ugh! And crossed the finish line to a crowd of Team in Training people who were screaming encouragement and hugging people - and lots of cold water that I poured over my head and down my shirt.

Of course, I stuck around the finish line for hours and stayed until about 2:30 to see the awards - some TNT people were on the podium, which was exciting... And my biggest souvenir: the sunburn on my arms around the numbers - so I have a white 481 on each arm. Spectacular.

Official statistics:

Overall Place: 434 (top half, I'm okay with that!)
Swim time: 24:59
T1: 2:16
Bike Time: 1:24:22
T2: 0:55
Run Time: 1:10:07

Wow, my run really sucks!