To follow on the reports that our two guys posted from CDA thought I’d give a couple of notes on my day. Just returned today from our meandering road trip back…

The swim was the most brutal that I’ve ever experienced in my 7 years of triathlon. Even the mass swim in IM Florida was nothing compared to this one. I got kicked in the gut, smacked up side the head, and at one point I could have sworn someone had grabbed my ankle and pulled me backward. (That was probably the brain freeze setting in ). To make matters more difficult, by half way through the second loop I was feeling the cold big time. Despite neoprene hood and booties I could feel that my body temp was much lower than it should be after all of that fighting, scrapping and sort of swimming that I was doing. I am a lightweight girly girl though (weighed in at 115 at registration) and I think that was a significant disadvantage in that cold water. Anyway, came out of the swim in 1:15. My goal was 1:10.

Heading into T1 I was shivering. I called out my race number to try to help the volunteers locate my bag. I was simply told “it’s over there.” In my frozen delirium I tried to remember which row my number would be in and did find it on my own. After I had my bike bag I took time to put my feet in the hot tubs that were placed outside of the transition tents to try to take some of the numbness away. It didn’t help much and thinking back, I should have skipped it. Thankfully, once in the transition tent, the phenomenal volunteer that found me in the tent took care of all of the transition activities that required any sort of dexterity; race belt, sunglasses, helmet strap. Due to my dip in the tub my total T1 time was 6:28.

Teeth chattering I headed out on the bike course. I figured that once I started climbing those hills I’d warm up. The first climb took care of the primary chill. The climbs came at me more frequently than I’d expected, but I managed them. As often happens in training rides here in CO, I passed people most often while climbing. I found that I wasn’t picking up as much speed on the descents as I am accustomed to. I think I held back a bit on those. I needed to be more confident despite not knowing the specific curves on the course. The headwind going into town was an additional challenge. As I mashed along on the straight-away on Government Way I was thinking that I was probably going a bit too hard, but I went with it anyway. Goal time on the bike was 6 hours even. I wrapped it up in 6:02.

T2 was a quick one. Equipment change, visit to the porto, and sunscreen applied in 2:48.

The first three miles on the run I focused on just getting my legs under me. From miles 5 through 13 I felt good. Around mile 14 I started to feel sapped of energy. It was then that I thought through what I had ingested calorie wise on the last 2 hours of the bike, and realized that I hadn’t stuck to the plan and was probably at least 250 calories off what I should have had going into the run. I know better than that because I know that without a lot of reserves in me 250 calories is a lot to be missing. I knew that there was no way I could make up that deficit on the run. I hit a low point then and found my self slow to a walk up a hill. My thoughts were swinging wildly from the very negative - “You’re off your goal pace, so just walk and save the pain” and “who are you kidding” - to much more positive “you are well trained, and you are going to run this thing home” and “You can’t give up the fight now”. After only a short walk the positive thoughts won out. I ran the rest of the way. Run time was 4:09 which was off my goal time by 9 minutes.

The crowd lining Sherman St. heading toward the finish were cheering as if all of us nearing the finish were superstars and they knew who we were. It was deafening. I listened hard for Mike Reilly. In Florida in 2006 I didn’t hear those magic words. Gosh darn it, this time I was going to hear them. After the day I’d had I needed to hear someone say outloud….”You are an Ironman!”

In all it was a good experience and with an 11:36 finish I came away with an Ironman PR (by 13 minutes) and 20th in my AG. Learning to race this distance is tough. Much tougher than the HIM distance, in which over the last year I’ve had successful top 10 finishes. But the lessons learned and the experience collected are what keeps bringing me back…now the question is…which one is next?