South Carolina Half - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I have had so much anxiety about the swim and not having a wet suit. I am not a GREAT swimmer but I am a strong and good swimmer. I am very comfortbale with the distance and in a pool I can swim for almost forever. But my open water experience is limited to the 400yds I swam at my one only tri over a year ago.

I have to say though my fears were unwarrented. The swim was the ONLY part of the day that I thought was fun and that I LOVED.

I have tendenancy in the pool to go balls out that first 100. The water always feels good. So I made a concious effort to reign it in. I just swam steady and then turned it up in the home stretch. I had thought sighting would be hard for me but it was a non issue. I positioned myself to the inside but still had swimmers on either side of me. I breathe bi-lateraly and do 123 breath or 12345 breathe. So I was able to guage where I was without having to look up too much. I trusted that the masses of people were headed the same direction I was.

I finished the swim with the men from the 3 previous waves: white caps, lt blue and dark blue caps. And the challenge was just avoiding them from kicking me.

Nothing. Maybe a wetsuit. I know in a pool I can do the distance under 33 minutes. But I know you don't want full out effort in a tri.

I had my cap and goggles off before I was even out of the water and ran over to my rack. No problem. I was kinda confused about how I was doing but since there were orginially 6 bikes on my rack and only one was gone--a young guy who had been in the wave a few before mine--I figured I was good. I took my picture. Put my helmet on. Glasses. Socks. Shoes (I have old school--mtn bkining shoes actually--on my entry level roadie. I am so so NOT a triathlete. ) Gloves, crackers in my pocket and ran out with my bike. I waited until they told me I could get on my bike.
I chuckled at the girl who had came out of the water after me but hauled ass out of transition before me but then had to struggled to get her feet in her shoes after she mounted her bike. Of course she passed me by the end of the first mile but she probably would have been faster to just put her shoes on before leaving transition. Just saying. I don't know how much time that saves if you aren't proficient at the flying mount. I am proficient at nothing on my bike but I know that and have no expectations.

Does it matter? I ain't doing it again.
Seriously. Nothing but maybe hustle a bit more . . .

Okay. I suck on the bike. I know this. I am sort of okay with it because I try but there is nothing I can do about it. I don't know why I am not faster. But I am not. The bike is really hard for me. I have only been riding a year and half though. But really, I am not all that much better when I started.

I got passed like I was standing still. It was so sad and so humiliating. Two people who passed me snickered at me and my bike. They looked at me and at my bike and laughed. I am not kidding.
My bike was FREE people. Leave me alone. I don't have 5k to drop on a bike. Wait, I don't have 5k to drop on anything. Much less a bike.

My goal was 3 hours and 15 minutes. 17.5ish give or take. I have practiced this pace in training. In my final mini practice tri I did 17.2 avg pace on a much harder course. So I was quite happy with my 17.8 mph. I KNEW I was doing GREAT for ME! Which was totally sad and depressing considering that 500 people passed me. It was so hard to not want to try and hammer it and pass them back--which I did do a few times but that was because they slowed--I didn't speed up. I was even paceed. I have 3 rings on my bike. I stayed in the 2nd ring and didn't even have to use all my gears. I think once on a downhill I put in the big ring. 17.8 the whole time. Which again, is great for me.

I pretty much ate the whole time on the bike. Totally ridiculous. But I was bored. Eating was my entertainment. I never eat this much but I am often under fueled so I figured it was okay.
I had a Gu, then a pkg of peanutbutter crackers, another Gu, peanutbutter crackers and another gu. I also had 4 endurolytes. I 24oz bottle of HEED and probably 60-70 oz of water.


I tried to cheer myself up that I would pass them all on the run. I am, after all, a runner. It is (or is suppose to be) my strength. Hahahahahahahah . . . .

Get a better bike. Maybe one with aerobars, the right type of pedals, shoes. Whatever. I'll still suck.

My last tri I ran out of tranisition with my helmet on so I was very concious to not do that again. So transition was a success because I remembered to take my helmet off. Yay me! Got my bike shoes off, running shoes on. Put a hat on, very sad for how bad my hair looked. I think I took a picture of myself. Grab some luna moons. Thought. Hey. I need to pee. But figureed I would stop when my claves cramped up.

Not get off the bike so that way I never have to try and run after riding.

Hell. Walk of pain.
I felt pretty good starting out but I knew the course was uphillish for the first 4-5 and that would cause me some pain. I even stopped to pick up a Gu when the girl in front of me dropped one. I handed it to her as I passed her. I was trying to go slow. Garmin said 9 min mile, which for me is slow. But I am thinking because it was so shady that maybe I wasn't getting an accurate pace. My claves locked up. This has been an ongoing issue for me so I was kinda/sort of prepared for it. I have not figured out how to avoid it but in training I have managed to work through it and still pull out decent runs after cycling.

I have to walk. I can not run through this. It is just too painful and physically impossible to maintain normal stride. But typically after a minute or 2 of walking my muscles will release and I can run.

So I took this opportunity to use the porto let that appeared. This was about the end of the first mile.

My calves felt better and started running. Now I was out on the open road and it was toasty (but I have been 21+ mile runs in 80+ heat since the end of July so I am okay with toasty. Don't love it but can deal).

I realized that both my feet were completely numb. Totally new senstation. Left more so than the right. Garmin was reporting a 6:50 pace. Way, way too fast. I slowed down to 8:30 and I still couldn't feel my feet. It completely freaked me out and was very uncomfortable. I felt like I was dragging my left foot. So I started doing the walk/run bit. When I was running I was running between 8:30-7:50. For me this is pretty typical race pace. My stand alone half marathon pace is between 7:35-7:50. And I did a 12 mile run 2 weeks ago in training at just under a 7:30 avg pace. So IMO I wasn't going too hard.

By mile 4 my left was still completely numb. I stopped and took my shoe off and looked at my foot.I could not feel it at all. I wanted to make sure I could still move my foot and that it wasn't paralyzed--because that is how it felt. I thought, move toes. And I could move them. So I put my shoe back on and kept walking/running.

I started thinking about quitting. It made every where on my left leg hur--hip, thigh, calf. I was worried I was doing permanent damage and wouldn't beable to run my planned fall half and full marathons. And those are my A priority.

By mile 5 I was serious about quitting. I think this is when my training partner caught up to me and I told her as much. I tried to run with her but her pace is slower than my comfortable running pace. I kept thinking that if I could do nine minute miles I would be okay but I couldn't get my stride to do that. It hurt. A lot.

I stopped again and took off my shoe. Steph ran on and left me (I didn't expect her to wait). Poked at my foot. Still numb. What to do, what to do.

I started looking at aid stations for medical personal. But there just seemed to be kids/volunteers. No one that looked like they would know what was wrong with me.

Around 6 miles the numbness went away and was replaced with fire pain. So I would run for a few minutes. Walk for a few minutes. Run/walk. Limp here and there. Just awful. One race personal person asked me if I was okay and I told him no and he said to hang in there. So I figured I would just keep going until I passed out from the pain and felt certain then someone would then come and drag me off the course. Unfortunately I guess the pain wasn't bad enough to make me pass out. As much as I didn't want to I ended up finishing. My foot pain never went away but it also didn't get any worse. It still hurts today and I can barely stand to touch my feet.
I have run 6 marathons, countless half marathons and never once have my feet felt like this. I hope they get better.

Quit.

I didnt bother with nutrition on the run. Just drank water. I really felt good--energy wise so it wasn't a bonking issue.

I went to the medical tent. I could see from the entrance the cots with fans blowing on them. I wanted one of those cots. But they wouldn't let me in until they weighed me. Oh the humiliation never ends. I had lost 1 lb. Yeah! I only have 7 more to lose until I am back to what I weighed last week. They congratulated me on doing a great job with my hydration. Nutso's. My hands and feet were so swollen. I am surprised I didn't gain weight.

They let me in the tent and helped me to the cot. They took my shoes off and put ice on my feet. They tried to make me drink water and eat but I was so sick of eating and drinking and said no. After a few minutes of icing my feet they felt better and I was able to walk.



my feet.


It is hard for me to have a positive opinion because I was so miserable on the run yesterday. I have certainly had a few bad marathons but even those I still had a good time or could find something positive in my performace: I bonked in the heat at ING but still qualifieed for Boston. And I ran my second slowest marathon at CMM last year because I had GI problems but still had fun.



I didn't have fun at all yesterday on the run or the bike. I felt lonely and sad on the bike and was just in miserable pain on the run. I loved the swim though. It was just amazing. And I had fun setting up.

And I know the negativity I am feeling is not at all the race's fault so don't let my experience discourage you. I don't think the course was too hard or the conditions bad. The problem is with me and I just need to get over my poor pitiful self. Jsut know that sometimes even when you train hard (I did!) and practice everything and feel 100% prepared things can still happen to make it completely suck and dissappoint you. There will always be that "x" factor. And how you prepare and account for that, well, I don't know.

Okay, one final comment/suggestion is that all of this could have been so much better if I had my ipod. I didn't think it would matter but I really really so very much missed my music. That definitely would have made the race better for me, even with all that pain.