Ironman Wisconsin 2011 - First IM is Done!

It was a long, hard summer getting ready for this race. I finally felt like I had figured out the 70.3 distance, and was ready for the full thing. This is my first, and possibly only, full-distance triathlon, so I wanted it to be a good one.

My finish was captured for the Ironman Wisconsin video and can be viewed over and over and over again at timestamp 2:09...

Time Data:

I came up with estimates based on riding the course, swimming MOWS, looking up times for similar athletes that I know, and a hope to be under 11:30. Since this was my first IM, I didn’t want to make ‘goals’, but it was hard not to. I settled on 11:30 because I thought 11:15 would be impossible.

	Estimate	Actual
Swim	1:06:00	1:03:34
T1	0:05:00	0:05:17
Bike	6:00:00	5:48:47
T2	0:03:00	0:02:21
Run	4:15:00	4:07:05
Total	11:29:00	11:07:04

Bike Data

First Half:

Duration:  2:54:15 (2:54:19)

TSS:  124.8 (intensity factor 0.656)

Norm Power: 138

VI:  1.03

Distance:  56.918 mi

Min Max Avg

Power:  0 362 134  watts

Cadence:  46 150 90  rpm

Speed:  4.5 45.3 19.5  mph

Temperature:  66.2 87.8 73.8  Fahrenheit

Second Half:

Duration:  2:54:47 (2:55:09)

TSS:  126 (intensity factor 0.659)

Norm Power: 139

VI:  1.04

Distance:  56.462 mi

Min Max Avg

Power:  0 249 133  watts

Cadence:  38 191 89  rpm

Speed:  0 45.3 19.3  mph

Temperature:  75.2 91.4 83.5  Fahrenheit

Entire workout (134 watts):

Duration:  5:48:37 (5:49:03)

TSS:  250.4 (intensity factor 0.657)

Norm Power: 139

VI:  1.04

Distance:  113.242 mi

Elevation Gain:  4811 ft

Elevation Loss:  4628 ft

Min Max Avg

Power:  0 362 134  watts

Cadence:  38 191 89  rpm

Speed:  0 45.3 19.4  mph

Temperature:  66.2 91.4 78.7  Fahrenheit

Official Split Info

SWIM	BIKE	RUN	OVERALL	RANK	DIV.POS.
1:03:34	5:48:47	4:07:05	11:07:04	176	5

LEG	DISTANCE	PACE	RANK	DIV.POS.
TOTAL SWIM	2.4 mi. (1:03:34)	1:40/100m	180	3
BIKE SPLIT 1: 54 mi	54 mi (2:47:55)	19.30 mi/h
BIKE SPLIT 2: 94 mi	40 mi (2:12:47)	18.07 mi/h
BIKE SPLIT 3: 112 mi	18 mi (48:05)	22.46 mi/h
TOTAL BIKE	112 mi (5:48:47)	19.27 mi/h	222	3
RUN SPLIT 1: 8.9 mi	8.9 mi (1:21:49)	9:11/mi
RUN SPLIT 2: 13.2 mi	4.3 mi (40:49)	9:29/mi
RUN SPLIT 3: 21.95 mi	8.75 mi (1:23:46)	9:34/mi
RUN SPLIT 4: 26.2 mi	4.25 mi (40:41)	9:34/mi
TOTAL RUN	26.2 mi (4:07:05)	9:25/mi	176	5
TRANSITION				TIME
T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE				5:17
T2: BIKE-TO-RUN				2:21

Pre-Race

On the week leading up to the race, I spent a lot of time reading through the Endurance Nation forums to find out what people were putting in their transition and special needs bags, what their race plans were, and anything else I could learn. I soaked up as much info as I could. This GREATLY reduced my stress, and made for a much smoother race. It helped so much, that after looking at the enhanced results for the non-professional women, I was the fastest in T1, 4^th for T2, and fastest combined. I couldn’t have done it without the EN help!

We rented a house southeast of Madison for us and our families. The earliest we could ‘check in’ was 3pm on Friday, so we went to athlete registration first, stood in line for 1hr 45min, then headed to the house. After making a trip to the grocery store, we grilled up some burgers, socialized, and were in bed around 10pm. Unfortunately, we were not able to attend the EN meetups, and skipped the athlete briefing.

Pre-race photo op with the Wes, my aunts, and mom

Saturday morning we had breakfast then went to transition and bike drop off. We really enjoy the farmers market in downtown Madison, so walked around it with our families. Afterwards, we found a place for lunch and to watch the Iowa football game. We invited our friends over for dinner Saturday night, so when we got home, I made some side dishes and got things ready. For dinner I had grilled chicken and a variety of vegetables. The potluck was probably not the brightest idea, as I ate a good amount of food and food that I have never had previously. I was not doing the standard EN 2am breakfast, so I was okay with eating a bit more food. In all throughout the day, I was standing MUCH more then I would have liked.

I took a shower, applied sunscreen, and was in bed by 9:30pm, but I was wide awake from 11pm-12:30am. The alarm was set for 3:45am, so I didn’t get much sleep. For breakfast I had an egg on an English muffin with a slice of soy cheese, strawberries, and 3 cups of coffee with soy milk (~350 calories). I applied more sunscreen to get me through the day. We left for the race a little later than I had hoped, but ended up having just enough time to get ready.

At 5:30am we arrived at the race site, dropped off our special needs gear, got the bike area ready, put a few more things in the transition bags, donned the wetsuit, dropped off my dry clothes bag (praying I would get it back as my car key was in it), had a Hammer gel with some water (~100 calories), and went straight to the line to get in the water. I was warming up about 20min before the race.

Swim

Gear: Quintana Roo Superfull wetsuit, Zoot race number and belt, Zoot arm coolers, Speedo Swedish goggles, Garmin 310xt watch band (watch was on bike)

Nutrition: 1 hammer gel 20 min before race & too much lake water

Leading up to the race there seemed to be a chance that the race would not be wetsuit legal. Thankfully some cold nights and thunderstorms cooled down the water enough to allow wetsuits. The water did not feel too warm, and was nice and calm at the swim start. I found a good spot inside the ski ramp, one row back with Matt Ancona and a few other ENers. As soon as the cannon went off, several people swam past/over me, but it wasn’t too long until I was with people my speed. I found feet when I could, but was on my own for a good amount of the swim. It wasn’t uncommon to get squeezed between two people. The fighting didn’t calm down as much as I expected from what I had heard. For most of the second loop, I felt the urge to pee. I’d relax and feel it almost come, but then it’d stop. Finally as I rounded the last buoy, I was able to let it flow. Relief! Also on the second loop, I had some slight cramping in my side, but it went away within a hundred yards or so.

Wes and I are in there...somewhere

T1

I pulled down my wetsuit to my waist as I was running up the ramp, and the wetsuit strippers yank it the rest of the way. When running up the helix my knee felt a little stiff, but not too bad. As I ran in to T1, I could see one of my friends running out towards her bike. Wow! I thought I’d be a little closer to her swim time. Oh, well.

The volunteers quickly found my T1 bag and I ran to the changing room. I’m sure there had to be other women in the changing room, but I don’t remember anyone else being there. I had two volunteers dump my bag, and they took care of packing my wetsuit. I put on my helmet, stuffed my spare bag of mix in my jersey pocket, grabbed my shoes, and was off. When I got to my bike, I put on my shoes as the bike handler was getting my bike off the rack. I like that they place the women near the bike out :) As I was running I put on my sunglasses that were hanging from my bike and turned on my Garmin. When I got to the mount line, it was a little congested with people un-smoothly getting on their bikes.

Heading out for a beautiful bike ride

Bike

Gear: EN kit, Specialized Transition bike, 12-27 cassette, compact crank, Giro Advantage 2 Aero Helmet, disc cover on rear wheel w/ powertap, HED Jet 60 front wheel, Tifosi sunglasses, feed bottle on down tube, profile design aero bottle for water, Fuel Belt aero fuel box (contained spare tube, C02, mini tool set, and leavers), a C02 regulator and additional spare tube strapped under rear seat, Garmin 310xt

Nutrition: 6 scoops each of Hammer HEED and Perpetuem and 6 Salt Stick Caps split between 2 bottles (one on my bike and the other in BSN), ~20oz water/hour

Just incase I had an issues getting my bottle from BSN, I had a spare bag of nutrition powder. I grabbed water to fill my aerobottle at almost every aid station. I skipped the Verona aid station on purpose. My garmin was set to go off every 20min to remind me to take in calories.

The bike wasn’t too congested. I leapfrogged with Jon Bergman, a fellow ENer, for about the first hour. There were a few guys that would push up the hill, and then I would pass them on the downhill. One guy even said “I’m not trying to be that guy”. Twice on the climbs people in the crowd said “she’s doing it the right way” as guys pushed their way up and I went up slow and steady. While climbing one of the hills (Old Sauk?) I saw Gwen Jorgensen. That gave me a boost of energy. So cool to see her out there. I also saw her on the second lap running out of Cross Plains with Cindi Bannink.

On the long downhill after the “smile if you peed” sign, I was finally able to pee! This was my first time in a race (I’ve successfully practiced it twice in training). Shortly afterwards, a guy came up to me and said “That was a good idea you had. Unfortunately, the guy behind me was much closer then the guy behind you”. That made me smile. I was also able to let a little out there on the second lap, too.

For about the last 40-60 miles, the balls of my feet hurt as I pushed down on the pedals. I tried to relieve it a bit by pulling up more. I’ve had this happen twice during training, but not sure what caused it. I wonder if all the standing I did on Saturday had something to do with it.

My watts were lower then the ‘goal’ watts based on my FTP, but I wasn’t surprised. I decided it would be best to go on feel instead of my last test data.

My garmin was set up with 2 workouts. One for the bike to go off every 20min, and the other for the run to lap every mile. While going through the Alliant Energy Center lot, I switched the workouts. This was a LOT more difficult then I hoped. The watch froze up, so I had to reset it. Then it wouldn’t turn on at all. I finally got it going after a lot of fumbling.

As I got close to the helix, I took my feet out of my shoes and switched my garmin to my wrist. The bike handler grabbed my bike and away it went.

T2

I took my helmet off as I was running, got my T2 bag, and was in the changing room with just one other woman.  Again, two people helped me with my stuff. Awesome! I gave them my helmet, and they handed me my socks, shoes, hat, and running belt which contained 2 flasks with 2 scoops HEED and 2 Salt Stick Caps each. As I was running in and out of the building, I heard my Garmin beep to indicate it lost satellite reception. Not good.

Run

Gear: Zoot Ultra Tempo 4.0 shoes, WrightSock Double-Layer Cool Mesh socks, Nathan Speed 2 running belt, SweatVac hat, Tifosi sunglasses, Garmin 310xt

Nutrition: ~100 calories HEED, ~300 calories coke

When I exited the transition area, I thought I heard someone say “she’s sixth”. I wondered what they meant. I figured they knew someone in my age group and were checking out calves. I really thought there were SEVERAL women ahead of me. It wasn’t until later that night that I found out I was the 6^th age group woman out of T2.

As I started out on the run, my watch was showing 13min/mile pace. I felt like I was going slow, but I really didn’t think it was that slow. I tried to force myself to slow down to get my HR in check until it could find the satellite again. It was about 2 miles before I trusted what it said for pace.

I assumed it was getting warm outside. Instead of waiting for the heat to get to me, I did everything I could get keep my body from feeling the heat suck. I had researched the TIRP/HIPC (EN's supper secret Heat Index Pace Calculator), but the pace seemed much slower then I felt I needed to go. The morning we left for Madison, I took a look at previous long runs, and found my HR for the EP that we usually do at the end. I’ve never trained by HR, but it was to be my backup plan if I needed it.

I switched my watch to display HR and tried to keep it as close to 150 as I could. If it went above, I slowed down.  If it went below, I speed up. At each aid station I grabbed water at the last water stop, then slowed to a walk for 20-30 seconds. At every other one I either had a swig of HEED, or some coke. I also put sponges in my jersey and ice in my bra. While running, I’d reach into my bra to grab some ice. I’d hold on to it, or slip the hole over a finger. It not only kept me cool, but gave me something to do to keep my mind off running.

How most of my run was spent...smiling with sponge shoulder pads :)

On the second loop, I realized that I was taking in more coke then HEED, which meant I wasn’t getting in many electrolytes. I had some pills in my running belt, so took one. It didn’t go down well. During the out and back section on the trail, each time I’d grab for ice in my bra, the muscle that is in the crease between my leg and torso would twinge. I was afraid it would cramp up, so took in another electrolyte in hopes it would help. About a mile later I was back to good.

At mile 20, I was filling good, so picked up the pace a little. About a mile later I wasn’t sure if I could hold the pace to the end, so dropped it back down for the next 2 miles, then increased it through to the finish line. I did not stop at the last two aid stations, but did make sure to throw out the sponges on the last one. I didn’t negative split the marathon, but I was more consistent with my splits then a lot of other women. I never felt "the suck". I do wonder where the fine line is between feeling the suck, and not feeling it.

I only went through 6oz of my HEED mixture, and 4-5 small cups of coke. I did take in water at just about every aid station, but never had to pee. I have peed in every HIM run, so it seemed odd not to do it today. Maybe it was because I was able to pee on the bike.

Just over 11 hours later...the finish line is in sight

Post-Race

After I crossed the finish, I looked up the results and saw I had finished 5^th in my age group. My time was MUCH better than I ever expected, and I was getting an award, so I was very happy. It wasn’t until that night that I also found out I was 10^th overall non-pro woman. Damn, my age group is fast! The winner of my age group was also the fastest non-pro women. If she was a man with the same age (35) and finish time (10:13), she still would have qualified for Kona! We had 4 slots in our age group, and none rolled down. I was torn on if I would even want to do Hawaii. For as much fun as I had racing IMWI, I have no desire to go through the training again.

35-39 Age Group Award Winners (I'm on the far right)

Final Thoughts

I truly believe if I had not walked every aid station, my run time would have been much slower. I had so many friends tell me to run until I can no longer run. They are all faster runners then me, but had slower run times in their IM’s this summer.

I’m very glad I took the summer off work. I never expected to get so close to Kona, and that was never my goal.  I wanted to do things (work, life, friends, SO) well this summer, and not do everything half-ass as I had been doing. I succeeded. Training took a lot of time and effort, which I do not plan on repeating again.

One thing I would have done differently is not being on my feet so much on Saturday. I wish I would have left my family at the Farmers Market, and gone back to the house to relax. But, they had driven so far to spend time with me that I didn’t want to ditch them.

One other thing I would have done differently….I didn’t enjoy the finish chute as much as I could have. I was too concerned about someone passing me at the last minute.

I couldn’t have done this without the knowledge and support of my friends, family, Wes, and Endurance Nation. And, an extra special thanks to those that read through this entire report 

RAGBRAI

I had a bit of extra time, so did a few days of RAGBRAI with some tri friends. At the end of the week was the Endurance Nation Ironman Wisconsin Rally, so my RAGBRAI time was limited to just a few days at the beginning of the week.

Sunday 7/24

Spent the night at my Aunt Nancy's house to have a bit less riding to do in the morning.

Monday 7/25

I didn't think the crew would be to Carol all that early, so I took my time getting ready. Late morning and I was dropped off on the blacktop road, and on my way. It was my first time in a LONG time since I had been on the road bike. My butt was not happy. The route was 68.94 miles of VERY flat road, but there was one hill that made up for the flatness of the rest of the route. Fun going down, not so much coming back up.

About 20 miles out and I get the call that my group is in town and headed to the swimming pool. Would have been nice to take a dip after the ride, but I wasn't going to get there in time. Oh, well. I showered and hung out with Jeremy's mom (the driver). It wasn't much longer until they were back and dinner was being heated up...delicious taco lasagna (aka tasagna)! Yum!

Tuesday 7/26

We wouldn't be triathletes if we didn't get up early and run before the century ride. Only a few "you're crazy" comments from the other riders. It was a bit tough to begin with, my legs woke up quickly. 3.84 miles. Good enough.

The ride quickly turned from nice and casual to the guys leading and the girls hanging on to keep up. They didn't slow down until the second half. We made a few stops along the way for free cliff bars, a swinging rope into a water hole, and a firehouse with a sprinkler to cool down.

Me, April, Jeremy, Casey, and Trevor

Found our camping spot for the night, and the garmin was a few miles short of a century. Trevor and I headed back out to finish up the last 2 miles.

Wednesday 7/27

My last day of RAGBRAI. I rode the first 3/4 of the day with the group, then rode alone back to Ames to get my car for the drive back home. 67.43 miles total.

A few more were added on to our group, and made it a casual day with most of the guys sporting speedos. Jeremy had the foresight to have a chamois sewn into his. The other guys were not so lucky, but made for a humorous day :)

Fun times!

Kansas 70.3 - Redemption!

Background Info

Previous Best HIM Times:

Racine 70.3 2010 (very flat) - 5:05:35

Pigman HIM 2010 (somewhat hilly) – 5:11:41

Goals and Results for Kansas 70.3

• Not walk any of the run – The closest I had come previously was walking 2 aid stations in Racine. I was able to run the entire run at KS 70.3!
• Sub 5 hours – I thought this was really going to be a stretch due to the bike course, and thought I would be 5:05 or 5:10. I succeeded in my goal by going 4:56:48!
• Top 5 in age group – I had looked up last year’s results and saw I needed to be sub 5 hours. I did end up 5^th in my age group (missed 4^th by 8 seconds)!
• 70.3 World’s Slot – There were 4 slots given to my age group, and I missed it by 8 seconds. I did not stick around to see if it would roll down to me since I wasn’t going to accept it anyway because of IMWI.

Time Data:

I took a look at my previous race results and last year’s KS 70.3 results, and came up with some time goals to get under 5 hours.

	Estimate	Actual
Swim	33:00	33:00
T1	2:30	2:12
Bike	2:38:00	2:40:18
T2	1:30	1:06
Run	1:45:00	1:40:12
Total	5:00:00	4:56:48

Bike Data

TSS: 160.9

IF: 0.779

Norm Power: 168 watts

VI: 1.03

Power: 164 watts

Cadence: 93 rpm

Speed: 20.8 mph

Pre-Race

We camped in an RV with several other people from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Great time! I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked, but it wouldn’t have been any better in a hotel room. It was very nice logistically for the weekend.

Sunday morning we were up at 4:30am, had the standard egg sandwich, strawberries, and coffee breakfast, and then headed out to T2 and T1. Race information packed said T1 closed at 6:45, but we were being yelled at that transition was closing as we were walking down the hill around 6:30am. This did not leave much time at all to set up T1. The woman with the number next to mine, but on the other side of the rack had her gear on my side right where I wanted to place mine. I scooted her stuff over a bit, but nicely kept it on my side of the rack. Her bike was also racked incorrectly, which I had fixed the night before, but she ‘fixed’ it back.

As I unpacked my gear, I pulled out my running hat. I thought about carrying it on the bike with me, but decided to leave it behind. I quickly got the rest of T1 set up with only one additional mistake…I turned on my garmin, but didn’t load up the program.

Swim

I wore a full wetsuit. The water did not feel too warm, and was nice and calm at the swim start. I started on the far end of the buoys since there seemed to be a lot less congestion that far out. I have a swim background, so treading water didn’t bother me, especially in the wetsuit. The first few hundred yards of the swim was great, and then the waves started. I wasn’t sure if it was a boat or what was going on. I was able to get into a good rhythm without too much difficulty. I never really chocked on water, but did have to spit water out a few times. At the first buoy turn, the waves were head on. The worst part was around the second buoy. The swim seemed to take forever, but I had no idea how long I was in the water.

T1

Unlike pretty much everyone around me, I ran to my bike instead of walking. The swim took a bit of energy out of me, but I was still good. My helmet did not go on well, and I had to take it off to adjust the straps and then put it back on. This happened at last weekend’s race, too. I need to practice more.

I had place my garmin strap on my arm, but had the garmin attached to the bike. While setting up T1 I turned on my watch, but had forgotten to pull up the workout to use. I got it started while running out of T1.

Bike

I tried to hold my watts down on the way out of the park, but got a little excited and pushed more then I should of. As soon as we were outside, I settled in for the rest of the first 30min. For the rest of the first section, I kept my watts in goal around 173. But, after the first turnaround, they started to drop. While racing last year, I held 163, so anything above that I was fine with. I also wanted to save my legs for the hills towards the end of the route.

I grabbed water at every aid station to top off my aero bottle. I’m not sure exactly how much water I went through, but each of the 3 times I filled it, I used almost the entire bottle of water. I also had a small bike bottle that contained 3 scoops each of Sustained and HEED mixed with water. My watch was set to go off every 20min to take in a few sips from my feed bottle. I consumed pretty much all of the 600 calories.

On one of the long hills, I dropped my chain. According to my Joule, it took 12 seconds to get going again.

As I was nearing T2, I took my garmin off of my bike and attached it to the watch strap on my wrist.

T2

As I dismounted, my right shoes came off the pedal. I quickly picked it up and carried it into transition. My bike was almost at the end of the rack that had the birdhouse in its row. My stuff was very easy to find. I quickly got in and out.

Run

I quickly found a pace that I thought was MP + 30”. I took a look at my watch to verify, and it was showing me MPH. I tried to switch it to tell me min/mile, but gave up. I ran the entire run by feel. The first time up the hill went well. The second time I was a bit more difficult. I knew as soon as I got to the top, the rest would be much easier. Miles 9-11 seemed to go on forever. At the last turnaround, I thought there was a good distance behind me to the next woman, so I waited until the last mile to kick it up a bit. When nearing the finish line, I pushed with what I had left in me. My garmin took run splits every mile. For the first 9 miles, my pace was pretty consistent from 7:35-7:45 pace. Miles 10, 11, and 13 dropped to 7:50 pace, with mile 12 being 7:36.

I carried a flask around my waist that contained 4 packets of banana hammer gel mixed with water. I had tried straight gel on a training run, and it was hard to swallow. The first half of the run felt good nutrition-wise. The last third of the race I felt I was slipping. The thought of drinking more of the mixture was very unappealing and I thought might be accompanied by throwing up. I did take in a few small sips, but that was it. I need to get this figured out before IMWI. I ended up having about 200 calories for the entire run.

Final Thoughts

I’m happy that I was able to handle the waves as well as I did. Being a swimmer was definitely an advantage on the course that day.

I ran out of gears on a few hills. My bike still has the stock cassette on it, and I know I need to get a new one. I also need to practice changing from the big ring to the small ring to not drop my chain.

I really believe holding back on the last half of the bike really helped my run. The time I lost was more than gained back on the run. Also, the support on the course by EN and all the spectators helped as well. I had run an open HM in April at 1:36, and my previous best open HM prior to that was 1:42. I’m still in shock that I was able to do 1:40. I do wonder that if my watched did tell me my pace, would I have ended faster, slower, or about the same.

I was able to obtain the confidence and motivation I need to begin training for my first Ironman. I don’t think I will ever feel I have fully mastered the HIM distance, but I took a huge step forward last weekend!

Pigman Sprint - A decent start to the season

I slept fairly well last night. We didn’t end up crawling into bed until around 9:30pm. I set my alarm for 4am.

I got up right away in the morning. We packed the car prior to eating breakfast. I wanted to eat a little closer to the race time. We ate at about 4:45am which was good. I had an egg sandwich with fake cheese, and coffee with soy milk. We left around 5:15am and Wes drove. We drove the jeep, so went a little slower. I had hoped to leave at 5:00. Oh, well.

We got to transition at about 6am. There was no line for transition, which surprised me. I quickly got out my bike and transition bag and headed to transition. The first rack on each side was for elite. The right side had 4 bikes, but only one of the left side. I set up next to it.

As I was setting up my gear I saw several people I knew and did some socializing. I went for a short bike ride and short run for a little warmup. I did a few passes at the bike entrance/exit to make sure I was geared right and knew when to take my feet out of my shoes. We had ridden on the course a few weeks ago, so I felt pretty comfortable.

I made sure everything in transition was set up how I wanted it. It was about 6:45 and I needed to still get in a decent swim prior to the start. I got my wetsuit on, ate a Hammer gel, and headed to the beach. I swam around just outside of the roped off area until they put out the buoys, then I swam almost to the buoy and back. I did a few practices of entrances and exits. When I got on shore, they were finishing up the pre-race meeting. Perfect timing!

There were only 5 elite females and we took off 8 minutes ahead of the men. I lined up near the rope. The pack seemed to thin out quickly. There was someone pushing me in to the rope, but after a few hundred yards she dropped back. I thought she had latched on to my feet, but she was 20 second back. 

I tore down my wetsuit on the way up the beach, then took off my cap and goggles. When I got to transition I couldn’t even see Tami. I’m pretty sure at the swim turnaround I could see her pretty far ahead of us. I put on my helmet, but the strap was having issues. I took my helmet back off, then put it on again. Still messed up. I fiddled with it to get it good enough. I then put on my sunglasses, grabbed my bike, and took off.

As I was taking off, another girl came into transition. The entire way into Palo I assumed she was right behind me. I pushed, and my watts looked good. I thought I was gaining on Tami, but couldn’t tell for sure. She was very far ahead! At the turnaround I couldn’t see anyone behind me. Cool! It was a while before I saw Joanna. At that point I pretty much knew I was going to get second place. The next woman was a good amount behind her, and it was quite a while before the next girl. I had filled my aero bottle with a scoop of HEED, but had hardly any of it. I’m still glad I had it with me.

A little before the bike out I started taking my feet out of my shoes. It’s all downhill, so I didn’t need to pedal. I had plenty of time. I don’t remember seeing Tami running. I assume she was running out of transition as I was coming in. There was no way I’d catch her.

I got my helmet off easily, put on my shoes, grabbed my race belt, and took off. I didn’t see anyone else in transition. I got out of T2 quickly and efficiently. As I was running out, I didn’t see any women biking in until I was around the corner headed to the lake. It was Joanna and I knew I could stay ahead of her in the run. After the first mile, the men started to pass me. At the turnaround I didn’t see Joanna for a bit, but she seemed closer than I expected. I kept a comfortable pace pretty much the entire run. As I got closer to the finish line I did pick it up a bit in fear that maybe there was someone else closing in or that an age grouper would move up.

When I crossed the finish I had a ton of energy left. I could have ran for a lot longer. I had some water and a piece of watermelon. I didn’t do any stretching or get a massage.

I wasn’t getting all that hungry, so I went to the car, took a shower. I didn’t bring recoverite, but probably should have because the food line was SO long. Instead I got some yogurt, watermelon, and some animal crackers. Yummy! I wasn’t able to eat it until during the awards ceremony.

We stayed around for prizes. I got $400 for 2^nd overall and $100 for 20^th fastest swim. There was no way I would have beat Tami and the 3^rd place person was a few minutes behind me. I felt that I got a good race in for my training. I did better in the swim and run, but was slower at everything else. Wes defended his Clydesdale title by about 2min, so won free entry in to next year's race! Our triathlon club, Iowa HEAT, won first for the club division. I was very proud of knocking off MidWest Xtreme in our first year as a club.

Iowa Hawkeye Endurance Team

1st place club!

And, I'm Back!

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from the blog, but have decided to get back to it!

Brief update...

Last season had it's ups and downs. I had hoped to finally "get" the half ironman distance, but failed. Both races (Racine 70.3 and Pigman Half) were relatively hot and I just couldn't get the run done. I know I need to work out this for 2011. In addition to the HIMs, I also raced the pigman sprint, Hy-vee (shortened due to a storm rolling in), Big Creek (cut short due to heat), and Age Group Nationals. Of all the races, AGN was the only one I felt was successful.

Wes convinced me that 2011 will be the year of the Ironman. In Sept of 2010, we registered for Ironman Wisconsin to be raced on 9/11/11. To help get us ready, we signed up with Endurance Nation. They have been amazing to train with. Here's hoping for a great season!

Wes and I, and our volunteer mustaches!

More posts coming soon, really!