Ironman Arizona - TriathlonFull Ironman

The cannon went off and for a second nobody moved, we had to wait until the people in front of us cleared out. The start was rough like I expected, but nothing too bad. Some of the bigger guys were a bit too aggressive but I don't think they realized who they were dealing with as I pummeled them right back when they tried to smack/swim over me. As I usually am at tris, I was shocked at the poor level of OWS skills that most of the swimmers have. I'm NOT a fast swimmer by any stretch of the imagination but having basically lived in the ocean as a kid I am good at sighting and swimming in a straight line, and chop and people swimming near me usually don't bother me at all. A lot of people around me were not happy and there were tons of people breaststroking and freaking out that I had to swim around. I got kicked in the eye by a breast stroker but luckily I was able to shake it off and keep swimming.

After about 10 minutes I was able to get some clear water. My plan was to swim down the middle of the lane following the tangent so that I could swim almost a straight line rather than hugging the buoys and adding distance. This worked perfectly, and the first half of the swim went pretty quickly. Before I knew it we were making the turn, and the sun was at our back finally. On the swim back I had a lot of clear water, I stayed away from the scrum by the buoy lines. I got sort of bored so I sang 99 bottles of beer on the wall to myself and focused on being smooth and strong in the water.

The Mill Ave bridges kept getting closer and closer and then we were making the final turn into the stairs. At this point it got more congested and a guy next to me decided to repeatedly smack me in the head so I shoved him away and got a bit mad. I was hoping to go sub-1:30 so to see 1:25 on the clock when I got out of the water made me really happy.

Overall this was a fantastic swim, but if I had gotten in the water earlier I would have tried to line up a bit closer to the actual starting line so I wouldn't have had to swim through so many slower swimmers at the start.

Came up the stairs out of the water and got wetsuit stripped and ran up the long path to the changing tents. Then tent was really crowded so I didn't get a volunteer but I did get a chair so I set to work drying off and putting on my bike clothes. I did full changes for both transitions to be comfortable, so if I want to cut off some time next time I'll see if I can race in tri shorts and a tri top instead. It was a bit cold coming out of the water and most people were putting on arm warmers but I warmed up pretty quickly so decided to forgo the arm warmers and just go with my jersey which was totally the right decision. I finished up in the tent, went out and got sunscreen and grabbed my bike and was off and riding!

It's a long transition area but if I wanted to take time off here I'd not do a full change. But it was my first IM and I wanted to be comfy so I'm happy with my decision to do the full change this time.

Onto the bike! This is my weakest of the three sports and I've been working a lot on my cycling the past 6 months to get to the point where I could be sure I would make the bike cutoff.

I settled in and told myself to "ride your own race." When you swim a 1:25 and are a below average cyclist you get passed A LOT, so I just told myself to ride as far right as I could, stay out of the way and give people plenty of room to pass. The course was crowded the first lap so I worked hard to stay outside the drafting zone as people passed me. I felt a bit off for the first 10 miles or so, my stomach was a bit upset from drinking the lake water but once I started to take nutrition and water I started to feel better. We had a bit of a headwind on the way up the Beeline but I was still keeping a good pace and was feeling good. Hit the turnaround and FLEW down the hill heading back to town, we had a killer tailwind. I used my weight to my advantage here and was passing quite a few people, cranking along in a big gear. I passed a guy and we both looked at each other and said "this is awesome!"

Got back into Tempe to finish the first lap and I was feeling super. I was averaging over 16mph at this point and had a huge smile on my face. Saw the family and waved at them, and headed out for loop #2. I was starting to get hungry and needed to use the bathroom so I stopped at the first aid station on the way out of town around mile 42 and took a quick pit stop. Then headed out to the turnaround, I noticed that the slight headwind had died and I was making much better time up the Beeline than on the first lap. Great, I thought to myself, these conditions are perfect. Made it up to the turnaround and made the u-turn and was faced with a nasty surprise, full on headwind! Turns out the wind had turned. This is where the race started to go south. The headwind was relentless, I tried to stay in aero as much as I could but it was totally demoralizing to have to pedal that hard on a downhill grade. I fought my way to special needs and took a quick stop to grab my other PB&J, my tums and chamois butter. Made my goal at this point to just make it back into town to finish loop 2. I fought the wind all the way back and was very unhappy having to make that turn to go out for the third loop. I gave my husband a thumbs down and yelled to him that the wind was killer but I still hoped to be back by around 4pm.

Decided to take my final bathroom/food pitstop at the same aid station on the way out of town. Shoveled down my other PB&J, had a banana and stretched my back and was off for the trip to the turnaround. I was feeling ok at this point, my nutrition was good but I was just starting to get tired. Have a bit of a break from the headwind was nice but I knew once I hit the turnaround it would be a fight to get back in to finish off the bike. The course had cleared out a lot since all the fast people were already running so I had a bit more room to move. Finally made it to the turnaround and headed back for the last time. The wind had calmed a bit but it was still a pretty good headwind and my back and shoulders were getting tired so it was harder and harder to stay in aero. I just ticked off the miles, tried to stay positive and looked for the turn off from the Beeline back onto the city roads. Close to the turnoff I saw the last cyclist with the sweep vehicle going in the other direction so I knew I had more than an hour of cushion, which made me feel good. Kept fighting the wind and finally made it back into Tempe and was done with the bike!

Nothing. I trained hard for this ride and given the wind conditions I performed to the best of my ability. Without the stops I think I averaged somewhere around 15mph which is much better than I could have dreamed of 6 months ago.

Handed off my bike and hobbled over to grab my transition bag. Running in my cleats after 112 mile of biking was so painful I said "ouch, ouch, ouch" every step. Made my way into the changing tent. I had a volunteer and she helped me fill up my handheld bottle with water while I changed into my running shirt and capris. I tied my long sleeve shirt around my waist and put my headlamp on over my visor since I knew I only had a little over an hour until sunset. It felt so good to put my running shoes on! Pretty efficient transition overall.

Nothing, if I wanted to cut time here I'd just not do a full change.

Onto the run. The plan was to stick as closely as I could to a 10/2 run/walk which would hopefully bring me to a sub-6 hour run. I did the math when I got off the bike and figured out I had 7.5 hours to do the run so I was in good shape. I was starting the run when a lot of folks were already on their second and third laps so there were a lot of people walking so I just told myself to stick to my own race and not let myself get sucked into walking. I stuck to the run/walk religiously. Made sure to take the gels I had with me and get fruit and water at the aid stations, and for the first hour or so I was stuffing ice down my shirt as it was still hot. Finished the first lap as the sun was going down and was thankful since it was starting to cool off. The first lap went by in a flash and before I knew it I was at mile 10.

I was starting to hit a bit of a wall at mile 10 so I started eating cookies and drinking chicken broth at every aid station. The chicken broth was heaven! I kept on with the 10/2 but it was getting harder to run for 10 minutes straight but I was able to hold on until after I hit special needs. My sister had put another note from my friend Julia in my special needs bag so that was a huge pickup to have that note right when things were starting to get really hard.

I hit mile 13 right around the 3 hour mark so I was still hopeful that I might be able to do a sub-6 hour run but I knew I was starting to unravel. I started hitting the coke at each aid station and let myself switch to a 5/2 run walk and I was able to hold onto that through mile 16, when my run had become as slow as my walk. At this point I switched into survival mode, run when I could, walk when I couldn't. Around mile 18 I gave up on running and based on what I was seeing on my Garmin decided that a strong power walk would be more productive than trying to run. The benefit of being tall with long legs is that with a nice power walk I can hold 14:30 min/miles pretty consistently.

At around mile 19 I met up with another lady who was power walking and who would be my buddy the rest of the race - Jody. We walked together a bit and realized we made a good team so we decided to stay together the rest of the race. I told her I was going to power walk until mile 24 and then try to run the last 2 miles. Miles 20-25 were long, dark and horrible. We pulled each other along making small goals, like getting across the next bridge or to the next aid station. I had consumed too much coke (caffeine makes me jittery) so I was starting to shake and feeling awful and she said she wasn't leaving me and kept me going at a good walking clip. At the aid station past mile 23 I saw my Mom and sister and started crying and told them "this is so hard, I'm never doing this again." But we kept going and we were actually passing people who were walking pretty slowly and were chatting trying to keep our minds off the pain. Each time we passed a volunteer we said "thanks for being out here but we're really glad we aren't going to see you again." I jogged a little in between walking, it felt good to use running muscles rather than walking ones, even though my run was still glacially slow. We finally made it back across the bridge and only had 1.5 miles left to the finish. We were keeping a good walking pace, and still had a good 40 minutes until the 16 hour mark. As we walked along in silence I think we both realized we were almost done, and what that meant. The spectators who were still out there started to say congrats and that we were going to be an Ironman as we got closer to the finish line. It was surreal.

Once we made it under the Mill Ave bridges I wanted to run it in, so I gave Jody a hug and a huge thank you for her companionship the last 7 miles. I took off at a "run" and gave a loud whoop when I got to make the turn for the finish line. The last quarter mile heading for the finish line was completely surreal. I could hear Mike Reilly from a distance and as I headed along the road the crowds got larger and larger. As I was heading to make the left turn towards the finishers chute I saw Sami and I stopped and gave him a kiss and told him thank you for supporting me during the training for this race. Once I hit the finish chute I took my time, high fived the crowd, waved at my family, and really tried to soak it up. Crossed the finish line and I AM AN IRONMAN!

I think when you're doing your first Ironman the run is the big question mark. How will your body react when you've been out there for that long? How will you respond? I think training a run/walk for this race was 100% the right thing to do, it kept me going long after I think I would have normally lost my drive to keep running. I think with this run I just needed more fitness and a deeper endurance base to go sub-6 hours.

Crossed the finish line and was caught by an awesome catcher. He got me my medal, hat and t-shirt and asked me how I was feeling and if I needed medical. I told him I felt fantastic, and he said he thought I looked good and sounded like I was fine so he let me go get my finisher's photo taken and head for the food tent. Decided to pass up the massage since I didn't want to wait, I got some cold pizza and a water and found my family and sat right outside the finisher's area for about 10 minutes chatting with them and forcing some food down before we headed to the car.

I was feeling pretty good and could not wipe the stupid smile off my face so I asked if we could stay for a few more minutes and watch some of the finish line action. We walked over and got a spot right by the fence and soaked up the energy and awesomeness of the finish line for about 10 minutes. At this point I was getting tired so signaled the family that it was time to head home.


I woke up the next morning already thinking about how I would go about taking time off if I were to race another Ironman. I think with more training and losing 15-20 pounds I could take 10 minutes off my swim, an hour off my bike and maybe 30 minutes off my run without too much trouble. I just need more time in the sport, and I need to get serious about getting to goal weight. I did spend the last week seriously considering a community fund slot for IMCDA but I don't think it's in the cards for this coming year.


This was a fantastic race, I couldn't have chosen a better one for my first Ironman. The course suits my strengths and with the looped format it was great for my family from a spectator's perspective.

I could not have done this race without the support of a ton of people. First and foremost my husband Sami. He gave me full permission this year to make this year of training "all about me." He was there day in and day out listening to my never-ending list of obsessions and worries related to training and racing. He was there on all my long bike rides either riding along side me, singing songs and telling jokes, or driving SAG making sure I had enough water and nutrition. Cheering me on when I was doing well and giving me tough love and telling me to suck it up at 5am when I didn't want to go to the pool. He was and is my IronSpouse extraordinaire.

Next is my coach Dorette Franks of Trifiniti. Dorette gave me the support and accountability I needed along with a fantastic training plan that got me perfectly prepared for the race. All I needed to do after all the training was just go out and execute on what she had planned for me. Thank you Dorette for your wisdom, support and expertise.

Next Mom and Dad, Ben and Amanda. Thank you for listening to me talk incessantly about this race, for checking on me after a long ride or run to make sure I was ok and for coming out to spectate in AZ, it meant the world to me to have you there.

Finally all my Golden Gate Tri Club friends and teammates, I couldn't have done this without you guys. Watching so many friend finish their first Ironman races earlier in the year made me believe that I could do it too. And the unwavering support week in and week out from my Swim/Bike/Run DMC ladies, Chris and Denise; Alex, Wacey and the rest of the Tracksters, and of course Mike W., my IMAZ partner in crime along with the rest of the GGTC crew, thank you!

It's a week later and I'm still processing what finishing this race meant to me. When I started doing tris back in 2009 it was to support my efforts at losing weight, giving me a reason to get out there and exercise. But at some point in the last three years my outlook has shifted. It's no longer about my life-long battle with my weight, it's about being fit and being an athlete and absolutely loving what I do day in and day out. I've won the weight battle - while I could still lose 15 pounds I'm FINALLY happy with how I look and am frankly amazed at what my body can do when I put in the training. I no longer allow what I weigh to define who I am, because I am so much more than just a number.

The last few years in tri have been about striving for the bigger distances - Oly, Half Ironman, Ironman. Now that the Ironman is over I don't know what my next focus will be. Maybe an epic swim, maybe a 50K, another Ironman? Getting faster at the 70.3 distance? I don't know right now but I am excited to continue on because it's not the destination but the journey that makes it great.