LongHorn Triathlon Festival - Half Iron - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Well first of all it was not wetsuit legal. My first swim of this distance without a wetsuit. My swimming has been kind of sucking lately. We waded in and had to tread water at the start which was complicated by the fact that there were TONS of weeds. Took off and didn't have much contact but it turned out about 8 minutes into the swim someone kicked my watch and shutit off because thats what my watch swim time read....I HATE HATE HATE it when that happens.

I was trying to be aggressive. Turned the first corner. Could BARELY make out the next buoy. They only had 3 across the top and it was really difficult to sight, plus the sun was in your eyes and my goggles were fogged. I stopped and cleared my goggles about 4 times.Then I decided to aspirate 1/2 the lake. Cough cough sputter sputter. If I get that crazy ameoba I am currently worth WAY more dead than alive so there it is!!!

About 1/2 way thru the swim I had started passing people from other waves, then people from waves behind me started to pass me. Note to self do not try to draft off people from waves that started 10 minutes in front of you. DO try to draft of people from waves that started after you.

FINALLY I made the last turn and could see again. I knew Shaun and Bill were at the swim eixt so it was nice to look forward to seeing them and saying hi. I felt like this swim TOOK FOREVER.

Swim more. Even tho I was 13th out of 39 in my age group I am a much better swimmer than this. Wetsuit legal would have helped.

No pesky wetsuit to deal with. I just put my socks, helmet and glasses on and took off. I walked into transition.

not put socks on.....see bike section for details

PPPHHHFFTTTTTTTT. 1400 feet of climbing my foot. If cranberry has 1100 NO WAY was this only 1400. Marcy's Garmin said 2900. I believe that. I actually did really well the first hour. I was handling the rolling hills well and went 19.75 my first hour. This was the FUN hour of the race. Things just started to fall apart. My socks were SOAKED and bugging me big time. I took my shoes off one at a time and took my socks off and stuffed them in my tri suit pockets. MUCH better. It became a pass Sue fest which has NEVER happened. I had nothing.

I had A LOT of saddle pain and I never get saddle pain. When they put my bike together they put my aerobars REALLY flat....way flatter than I am used to. They were practically tilted towards the ground. I tried to change them the day before but the bike store tightened the screw so tight I couldn't get them undone and I didn't want to strip the screws. I could not stay aero on down hills because I felt like I was going to go head over tea kettles over the bike. After a while between the saddle pain and the pain in my upper back due to the unaccustomed to weird aerobar position I couldn't hardly stay aero at all. I usually ride areo about 98% of the time. My wrists still hurt from riding upright and trying to shift in that flat position. I REALLY do not need DeQuervains.

I was REALLY craving water. I took a bottle at each of the 4 aid stations. It seemed like everytime I went to fill my aeroblottle I come up on a hill...OOPSS. A lot of my NUUN ended up on the ground. I did 2 gels, 240 calories of accelerade and 3 fig newtons. Probably not enough calories but I never felt and energy drain really.

After the first hour I felt like there was an imaginary weight holding me back. I just could not go. I was thinking that making it my own private aquabike would be really a good thing. WTF was I thinking doing this shit when I could be poolside at the Four Seasons being treated like a princess?

About mile 30 my whole seat goes WHOOP....tilts about 45 degrees to the left...WTF? Then it tilts down? I get it back where it belongs and it seems OK. Retrospectively I should have stopped right there and then and tightened it but my head wasn't in the game I guess. Seat proceeds to swivel all over the place one time pinching my leg in the mechanism holding it on the bike. There were times when I just couldn't figure out why I COULD NOT GO. It seemed like something was clicking or rubbing DUH SUE its the f-ing bike seat. I stopped at the top of one hill for about 15 seconds to check the rear tire....WTF was I thinking????

Marmadaddy passed me about mile 46ish and we chatted for a while. There were Mavic cars and motorcylces with wheels and bikes all over the course. I finally decided to try to get one of them to help me but they were always going by at high rates of speed. Mile 50 I saw them stopped but by then I figured I was almost done what was the point of stopping. I think mile 50 was entirely uphill. Steep up and down at mile 56-57....that sucked. I biked into transition and saw Shaun and Lynne. Dismount and my bike seat comes off in my hand.... Saw Aaron and Bill and show them my problem.....

For someone who has no hills to train on it wasn't horrible I guess. The aerobar postion and loose falling off bike seat hurt me big time.

1-CHECK ALL SCREWS ON YOUR BIKE WHEN SOMEONE ELSE PUTS IT TOGETHER
2-PUT THE BIKE POSITION HOW YOU KNOW IT WORKS FOR YOU
3-STOP AND FIX THE BIKE SEAT RIGHT AWAY. Honestly with all the hillson this course I and damn lucky I didn't wreck. I had no idea how loose it was.
4-Train hills if you are doing a hilly course
5-accept that I am comfortable and powerful in a non traditional nike set up and LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE
5-Be mentally into the race....I was not see run for details.

So I had my bike in one hand and my bike seat in the other. A nice volunteer came chasing after me with a piece of my bike that had fallen off. I go to rack my bike DUH I have no seat!!! Rack it by the brakes instead.

Honestly on the bike I was thinking I would make this my own private aquabike and call it quits after the bike. I wasn't into it. I kind of went into tri autopilot I guess because I just sat down and put my run gear on and left.

check my bike when someone else puts it together.

This was a WALK. I jogged out of transition on autopilot all thoughts of quitting out of my head. I yelled to Shaun and Lynne that my bike seat had fallen off. Then I got out on the uber HOT run course and just started walking and I thought WTF was I doing?? I was gonna STOP after the bike!!! Because my watch had gotten turned off in the swim I didn't have a clear idea of what my total time was. I knew it was bad tho. The bike had been a pass Sue fest which I have NEVER EVER has happened. Seemed like my whole age group passed me. I'm a pretty strong cyclist usually and it was very disheartening.

Well I guess I can walk 13.1 miles. I had NO desire at all to be there doing the race. I had no desire to even try. I realized during the first mile of the run that I had ZERO mental game in this race. No emotional energy to do this. I had the most stressful week of my life leading into the race and I had nothing left to give. I was on the verge of a total meltdown most of the run. I kept trying to not think about the mess my business is in and was trying really hard not to cry and not to loose it. I kept thinking about Terri fighting cancer and how she would be so happy if she do a HIM slowly so I kept going.

I made it back into the park and got kisses from Shaun ("you are salty") and just ran the soft downhills and walked the uphills. The hideous hill at mile 56 on the bike we had to run I mean walk up twice. Shaun and Lynne were at the turn around out of the park. I felt terrible that I was so slow and they had to hang around all day waiting for my pathetic self to finish.

Out for loop 2. At this point its just pure stubborness.. Run? HAHAHAHA. Well I did run the down hills and pretty much walked the rest of it. Did I care not really. Helped a girl who was looking not so good. I was still trying to keep it together and hoping not to loose it. Thinking about Terri and my mom and dad all fighting cancer and my friend Jennifer who lost her battle with cancer earlier in the year.

Then I met Caroline my savior. We just started talking and walking together. She was from Chicago. She had no desire to run either. We ran the downhills and walked the rest. She kept me distracted from the rest of the stuff in my head. Talked about clothes etc.

Came back into the park to finish up and saw Shaun and Lynne again. We tried to run the soft downhill but I was dizzy and couldn't do it. Walked up the hill from hell and only a mile to go. Don't you love it when people are saying "Oh you look great" I kept saying "thanks for lying" I mean I'm WALKING. Finished...whatever.

I have to say that I am in LOVE with my Newtons. I had NO FOOT PAIN. I have never had no foot pain on a run of that distance. I've never had no foot pain on a run over 9 miles.

The aid stations of the run were amazing. They were a food buffet. They had ICE. THey had ICE the whole time us Boppers were out there. That was AWESOME. They had sponges which were brilliant. They had electrolyte tablets thank God because I was cramping bad on the second lap of the run. Licorace, salt and vinegar potato chips (my fav but I couldn't eat them)you name it they had it.

I had a bad mental game coming into this race. I had NOTHING and I mean NOTHING left to give. I wasn't excited to do it. I didn't care about it. When the rest of your world is spinning out of control it just doesn't seem that important.

My main thoughts were GET ME OUT OF HERE which was funny because the second loop of the run thru the chaos I REALLY wanted the Amy's ice cream but I just wanted the race behind me when I was done. Shaun and Lynne were angels and helped me get my stuff. We dropped my bike and all the pieces (I hope) with the bike store people, dropped Lynne off at her car and went back to the princess castle. Shower, food, massage, bed. The BEST was calling the laundry service and getting all my filthy nasty WET race things cleaned and dryed and back to me in order to not have to pack wet things. They even got my filthy black with dirt Newtons CLEAN and DRY :) Happy IFD


1-ZERO MENTAL GAME
2-Most stressful week of my life the week before the race
3-Bike seat disaster
4-Crappy aero bar set up
5-No wetsuit on the swim
6-Hilly bike
7-Hilly run


The race was extremely well put on. Kudos to endorfunsports for sure. They rival IMNA, actually I think they are better. The volunteers were amazing. They had awesome volunteers at all the aid stations which were well stocked even for us BOPPERS. I would highly reccomend a race put on by this group. I didn't stay for any food. I was kind of depressed about going roughly 1.5 hours slower than my first HIM.

I think a huge factor for me was the amount of stress I have had the week coming into this race. Costly computer disaster, office manager/PT quitting, my mom in ICU, having to learn to run a medical practice in 2 weeks, trying to come to terms with the fact that the business is doing horrendously and the consequences of that due to MAPs idiotic business sense. It all left me with no desire to race and no mental game.

Its kind of funny because I realized over time reading IM race reports that the 2 places people fall down on race day are nutritionally or mentally. My nutrition was OK. I could have eaten more but I wasn't drained energy wise. I wasn't hungry but then again I walked the whole run (well probably 95% of it) I hydrated fine. Mentally...nada. If you don't give a rats ass about the race its difficult to push yourself. If I come out of this mess with my house and business intact in return for a bad race I'll take it.