stevebradley's Mentor Group FULL (Page 250)

I keep refreshing - he should be through the bike soon, right?

Sounds brutal. Must be a very very cold bike.

Ok! He's through the bike! 6:35:02, with an average of 17.01 (the last part was his fastest, average of 17.14).

Very impressive given the weather conditions. Glad he's off the bike!

Back home aftetr a bundle of hours, and all sorts of groovy things have happened.

Sooooooo...........

JESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You did it, and you SMASHED it, too! The only time that truly counts is the one off your watch -- the incredibly sweet 3:52:47. And it's kind of hard for me to think you suffered too much the final four miles, managing to hold at 8:50-9:00. Many people would KILL to keep that type of pace while suffering!

I can hardly wait for all the glorious details, but in the meantime I will just vicariously revel in your accomplishment. Enjoy your much-deserved stokedness!

LISA -

Huge thanks for your report, and it does indeed sound much worse than I thought it would be. I guess, then, that it's no surprise you are muscularly compromised right now, as I have no doubt that 50 miles of ruggedness will do that to a person. As for falling down 11 times, well, as you say, that's the price to be paid for being an efficient road-runner. There's a double-edged sword for you!

I'll count on a few bubbled-wrapped weeks of run-rest to resolve all tat is ailing you right now. From the sounds of it, you're not too worried about long-term damage; rather, you're just clinically reporting on the way things are.

And great for you that you managed to tear up the course for, oh, about the final 32 (THIRTY-TWO!!! ) miles, at least relative to the rest of the field.

Are you planning a trip or two to the pool this week to do some pull-buoy swims? I'll bet your body would love for you to do that!

Finally, for now, I'm gonna try top hold you to your vow -- "....my first and last 50 miler" -- and just trust that you won't try to sneak any 100-milers into your life!

LISA and JESS -

Thank you for the instant updates here about Neil and the bike -- saves me a dial-up search, even though www.ironman.com is one of the fastest sites I know of.

That does sound brutal, those temps during a 112-mile ride at least partially in a downpour. Oh, yes indeed -- ironman can be a cruel mistress! Hopefully it will all blow over for the run and be nice and clement for Neil (and everyone else, for that matter).


GO NEIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neil's still running - he's almost almost there. His T2 was pretty fab.

Yup!

Just about an hour to go, which will put him close to his Plan B run plan, which is pretty good considering what must've been a nasty bike leg.

When it's too hot, we crave cold; when it's too cold, we yearn for swelter. Why can't we make up our minds?

HANG TOUGH, NEIL!!!

Neil Saxon, you are an Ironman! I took s screen shot of his finish. I'll post it as soon as I figure out how. Well done, Neil!

Much to tired to type much right now on the iPad, so I'll keep nit brief.About the bike...woozers! Now if we ever get wind like that here in LA I simply cancel my ride. It was really bad...amazing to see it didn't seem to effect the pro's. So that's the wind.I alsonstarted out the ride with a flat out of t1. If you know who Paul huddle is he actually changed it for me. After he finished I got rolling and the tube exploded. He then changed it again and I walk/ran the bike to repair area about 500yds away for better air. I got moving finally but 26 minutes had elasped. But it was cool meeting Paul and learning he had hands of steel as he removed the tire with his fingers.Fast forward to lap 3 and I had yet another flat on the rear. Affter I rolled out I noticed the front had a chard of glass stuck in the sidewall but i didn't touch it, i figured I would go as far as I could on it. Good thing, it made it the whole ride (but is flat now pot race). In light of all that, and the gusts I'm calling it a mental test.The run, I was simply wiped out before I started...but I managed some decent miles in there.More later.

NEIL -

Fabulous performance under a lot of adversity. It should go without saying that I hope you never have an iron-race bike even half as mentally taxing as IMAZ '10. The only good that came out of it was knowing that you can persevere through that type of multiple setbacks. Well, that and also learning that Paul Huddle really IS the good guy that the entire universe believes him to be!

Re-re-reading your post, you did a gutsy thing in not removing the protruding shard up front. I guess that follows the logic that if one has been speared in the side, but in effect can "walk it off" even though the spear is still in them, they are best to leave it there so at least all the blood stays where it should. So, at least until post-race, that shard did a good job of keeping the air from escaping, I guess!

How long are you there for? A day or so, and then returning? Well, enjoy the accomplishment, a fine finish to what was a tough year for you. It still impresses me that you had enough faith in yourself that you never seemed to entertain the idea of bailing on IMAZ when you had the stress fracture in your foot. But you nursed that beautifully, and then just systematically carried on with your training.........and it all got you through a challenging day at Tempe! Kudos to you, big-time!

LISA -

Gonna check that momentarily; thanks in advance!

How are you feeling today? I expect your muscles are howling at you, but hope that the knee is feeling decidedly better.

Each day my feetsies are feeling better, and as long as this continues apace I will face a decision before too long -- to get back to running asap, or (admittedly probably likely wisely) extend the running off-season until, um, er, ah, whenever*.

My recent swimming breakthrough continues to threaten to be for real, not a trick of the light or a mere figment of my imagination. But, having said that......I'll believe it when I see it!

And, finally, what shoes did you wear for Stone Mill -- the new Newton trail ones, perchance?



(*Whenever....as in asap? )

Just posted a Race Report (http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=234442&posts=1#M3222331), but I will post more details here since you guys have been here for the whole story

I don't really know what to say - looking back on yesterday's race, I still kind of get choked up. Remember how, gosh, maybe a year ago, I said I wanted to start pushing more in races, wanted to do more than just finish strong, wanted to finally beat 4 hours and maybe even BQ?

I did that yesterday (well, obviously not BQ - I'm still 12 minutes away from that, and I have no friggin' clue where those 12 minutes could come from!). I pushed myself so hard. I RACED a marathon. I didn't just finish, I didn't just run it. I raced it. I still don't know how I averaged UNDER 9-minute miles for a whole marathon. I'm in awe of myself (if I do say so ).

My mantra for the first 18ish miles: "This is the pace you can hold all day." I said that to myself repeatedly. I wasn't thinking about much else for those miles besides running easy 8:50s. 8:50s aren't easy for me, but I was pouring myself into making them easy. Running like it was easy and just plain ignoring the fact that it wasn't. If that makes sense. I hung with the 3:50 pace group for pretty much the whole way. I wasn't chatting with them, though, I was just focused. In a zone. Mark says he saw me three times, but I never saw him. I was absorbed with the task at hand.

I lost the 3:50 group somewhere around mile 19. There's an out-and-back in Manayunk. There were big crowds there. I know that there weren't really hills there, but it felt like it. I walked through a few aid stations here, but it hurt oh-so-much to start running again, so by mile 22ish I stopped walking through aid stations. I didn't walk at any point besides an aid station in the whole race.

Miles 22 to 26.0 are a blur. My garmin was like .2 off at this point - so I would get to a mile on my garmin, and have to go .2 further to see the mile marker flag (meaning my Garmin shows me finishing at 26.4 rather than 26.2). By mile 24ish, I thought I was going to throw up. I hurt so so so bad. I remember thinking that running the marathon was the dumbest thing I've ever done. I remember thinking I would never do it again. All the same, I held the pace. I don't know how.

The last mile. Similarly, I don't really remember. I pushed. Hard. I made faces, even though people were cheering for me. I turned into the finishing chute, and saw the race clock ticking down: it was at 3:59:4x as I rounded the corner. I knew that I was about 7 minutes ahead of that because of the corral system. But I pushed all the same - I wanted the gun time to be under 4:00 too, so no one could doubt that I did it. I made it in, right in time.

I finished, got my space blanket. I looked down, and realized that there was blood running down my legs. I had TERRIBLE chafing, and I didn't even realize it. I tried to rub it off. I got my medal, took some pictures. I found Mark, got terribly choked up. I almost cried.

I can barely walk today. The chafing on my thighs is seriously extreme. I also have a blood-blister about the size of a quarter on my heel. And my muscles are trashed.

But really? Thinking about yesterday still makes me choke up. I've known for a while, I think, that I could physically beat the 4 hour mark. I think I knew it last year when I ran 4:10 and was in pretty good shape. But I didn't know if I had it mentally - if I could push that hard, if I could break those barriers within myself. I learned some lessons that I think will come in handy at IMLoo in August.

I am so proud of the weekend we all had. Lisa - second overall in a 50 miler. Neil battling THREE flats to finish his second IM under crazy bike conditions. Anyway, thanks for being there with me the whole way. I really took inspiration from you guys in those final miles.

MINDY -

I gained about three pounds this weekend , doing little other than being a Remote Cyber-Support Crew. How about you??

JESS -

I haven't been to the "official" race report, preferring instead to bask in the personalized one for us "Four Hoarsepersons of Your Auspiciousness". It is a wonderful report -- heck it almost chokes ME up!

Don't know wher to hit first, so it will be what I'm most curious about -- the wicked chafing of your thighs. What did you go with, anyhow? I'm guessing it could only be conventional running shorts, which seem to be the only item that could move around enough to cause blood-flowing chafing. Ouch, ouch, OUCH! How aware during the race were you of the problem? (Atrocious syntax in that sentence!) Or did it only bother you when you stopped? (If so, maybe you too should've done Stone Mill 50-miler --- that wou,d be all those extra miles pain-free! )

As for the first time actually racing a marathon -- yup, it sure is special, and plenty enough reason to warrant getting choked-up. I know you had that thought in mind -- firmly -- going in, and you seemed to have the quiet confidence to back it up, which you certainly did! I too am in awe of you!

As for those 12 minutes.......they might dissolve quicker than you think. My BQer was done in 3:29, which was about 22 minutes faster than my previous best. It was on a user-friendly course on a user-friendly day, and with good training it just happened. I had no bad patches during it, and was just steady for the whole thing, whereas in my previous 3 or 4 marathons it had never unfolded even half that seamlessly. So, if you can have a good run of training and have a perfect weather day on an uncrowded flattish course (mine was North Central Trail Marathon, just north of Baltimore), you stand a really good chance of making significant inroads into those 12 minutes. I didn't really think I could do it, and my coach was even more skeptical....but it happened!

And what a confidence-builder "going into IMLOO" (ha-ha!). Well, not really ha-ha, even though you do have a long way to go before you are actually "going it". But the resukts are there now, and the knowledge of what it took and what it all felt like, and that stuff you will NOT forget come next August 27 or whenever LOO is.

It makes lots of sense what you say about holding the 8:50s, and even though they weren't easy, you managed to "pour myself into making them easy". (I love that phraseology!) That has to have been the overriding highlight of the race, yes?

And being focused so well.....and in a zone......and absorbed........... seem to be other indisputable indicators that you have raised yourself to another level. You now know exactly where your mind needs to be for you to rise above adversity and produce your best results.

LISA might beg to differ, but I think how you felt is similar to how she has felt at times when she has not wnated to be chatty with anyone (even Ryan) at all. When she has mentioned that, i think of it as a great example of being in her zone, that it was fully "Game On!"

And for you yesterday, ell, from your account it sure sounds as if it was "Game On!" You were solid for the whole thing, and certainly battled through some mental tough spots towards the end. PLease allow yourself the whole choked-up experience!

I hope you are babying yourself big-time -- whatever that means to you and however it will address your muscle aches and your chafing and that big old blister. As for Thanksgiving in a few days................pig-out for all you're worth -- you earned it!!