About a week before the race Disney released information that had most of us a bit concerned. It seems there is this killer amoeba that lives in lakes and it seems this little bugger loves to swim up the nose of unsuspecting swimmers and then it proceeds to eat away at your brain and spinal chord until well to be blunt your dead. The total time for this little guy to work his magic is roughly 3-5 days from first contact. Now your saying why am I bringing this up. Well it turns out that the lake we were swimming in meet all the criteria to be optimal for this little bugger to thrive and well yeah when they tested the lake he was there. YIKES! so what did disney do??? they suggested we all wear noseplugs and provided pretty nice noseplugs at the swim start. They also allowed everyone the option to bail out of the swim however their time would not be counted in awards. SO that was a bit of a scare but the closer we got to the race the less "ideal" the lake became and I actually heard volunteers saying they were testing the lake everyday just to be sure that the lake was in acceptable levels and safe to swim in.
SO at 7:50am I along with 61 other people in my age group ran into the water with noseplugs on! I do not feel like a very strong swimmer so I really kinda seeded myself near the back of the back b/c I really didnt want to get in anyones way and I really didnt want to get swum over. Boy was I wrong! It turns out compared to the people there I was not that bad of a swimmer and passed a TON of people in the swim. I still dont think im a good swimmer I just think I was more prepared for the distance then a lot of the guys. I was really surprised how many people were having to take a break before we even got to the turn around in the lake. In general I was really happy with my swim. I stayed very calm kept my heart rate down and just swam at my pace. My ability to sight in the water still sucks big time but thats ok with me. I got through it and I feel good about my swim.
Swim Time = 37:44
T1 sucked big time. I swear we had to run like a 1/4 mile just to get into transition and once there they had all the age groups racked together so you were climbing over tons of people just to get to your gear. These were some of my slowest transitions ever and the course and layout had a lot to do with that.
T1 Time = 3:57
The Bike -- Ok heres a shot near the end where I am looking all aero and studly. I was super duper scared of the bike, not for the distance but b/c I was doing something that you just dont do in Triathlon. I was running new untested gear for the first time in a race. YIKES! So what was new??? Oh only my wheels - nothing major there. Also I got a visor for my helmet and opted to try that over sunglasses. I liked it and the wheels worked great!
SO I decided that I would do the first 20 on the bike easy and then crank it up after that. Well the first part of the bike was awesome and I felt like I was barely working yet I was avg 21mph which is smoking for me! My strategy turned out to be a good one as around the 21 mile mark we really nosed into a head wind and I needed fresh legs to be able to maintain the pace I had been going. And I had those fresh legs. I had an absolute blast on the bike! The course was very very fast and despite it being pretty crowded and a lot (I mean a TON) of unexperienced riders on the course it was just so much fun. I really started hard into my nutrition plan on the bike and was taking in a gel every 30 as well as lots of water and endurance energy drink. I felt like I was really doing well and then something happened around mile 31. My legs started to get cold. Now you might be wondering how that would be possible. The temps were in the upper 90's with 100% humidity. And my legs were getting cold??? Your saying to yourself, now sparky that doesnt make any sense???? Well let me tell you something. The human body is pretty cool and when you get really dehydrated (like severely dehydrated) your mind tricks your body into thinking its cold, why???? So that you stop sweating and conserve water. SO I knew that was a bad thing and kept trying to rehydrate in the last few minutes on the bike but I knew that this was bad and that it was going to be hard to recover and get rehydrated on the run. As I entered the dismount shoot for T2 I sat up off the aero bars and got a nasty cramp in my tummy. Turns out my stomach was pretty unhappy with me too and that was just the beggining.
Bike Time = 1:50:44
T2 Time = 2:09
Onto the run. WOW things went from bad to worse very very quickly. I was glad the photographer was close to the run start b/c I still had enough in me to run hard for the photo and get a good "action" shot.
You would think from this photo that I was feeling really good and going really hard. Well I wasnt. I think I started walking as soon as I passed the camera guy and I ended up walking most of the first loop. How come you ask? Well I felt like total and utter crap. My stomach had claimed mutiny on me and I discovered that I could no longer even take in water without getting sick. I decided I really needed to focus and regroup. I hate walking during a run and it a real big issue for me to be able to stop running and start walking. However this is really a "ego thing" and not a "whats best for me thing" so I re-evaluated and changed my goal for the day from finishing under 3:30 to finishing without ending up in the medical tent. The run was two 3.1 mile loops and the first one was just awful I felt so sick and just like I couldnt move and I was getting more dehydrated. My legs started cramping pretty badly and I was so hot I just wanted to be done with the whole thing. After the end of the first loop I saw my two coaches. Bob yelled out "pick it up and try to run the second loop faster than the first one" I thought to myself "well since I have walked most of the first loop I dont think thats going to be too hard"
So after getting myself settled down and composing myself I decided two things. 1.) I wasnt going to try to drink anything else for the rest of the race. And 2.) I was going to try to run the whole second loop. Well I took a 2 very small sips of water and did run most of the second loop. I was slow but I was moving faster than walking. Below is probably my favorite pic of the bunch. I really like how I look in this pic and I think it really captures how I was feeling and how determined I was to finish this race. Side note. At this point in time I was freezing and had goos e bumps all over my body. What fun it is to race!
SO I got to mile 5 looked down at my watch and figured out I had roughly 20 minutes to finish under 4 hours. This gave me a new goal and one I felt I could achieve. I at least wanted the first number in my time to be a 3. A 4 was unacceptable. SO I kicked it in and ran the whole last 1.2 miles and ran through the finisher chute and was soooo happy to be done with that race.
Run Time = 81:06
Total Time = 3:55:38
Age group place = 35 out of 61
overall place = N/A
SO what happened to me that really threw the wrench in my race? Well I spoke with my coach afterwards and we feel that b/c of the extreme heat and humidity in the start of the bike that I probably lost more salt than I was used to losing and in a very short period of time. Salt is really important in your bodies ability to retain and process water and once you become deficient in it well you see what happened to me. SO it was a good learning experience and one Im taking with me in a month to IMFL. I think I will have some salt tablets or something to try to help avoid this again.
SO that was my race. I want to give a big shout out to Hannah Rumping who is the big reason I did this race. After the race Lisa asked me if I thought about her at all while I was racing and I said "yeah actually I did a lot" I really struggled in the run and just wanted to quit so badly but I kept thinking about hannah and how strong she has been and that if she had quit on herself she would not be with us anymore. She really was the strength I needed to finish and was such a great motivivation to finish strong. SO thanks so much hannah your awesome!
well its about a month till ironman so look for that race report too!
cheers!
