Melbourne, Victoria Australia 51.8F / 11C Overcast

Total Time = 9h 31m Overall Rank = / Age Group = F 35-39 Age Group Rank = 0/

THANK YOU to thousands of people (and quite a few animals) who contacted me with good wishes about this race before and after. Big THANK YOU to those who have supported me for years. Biggest THANK YOU to my sister Tina for making sure I've scraped through the last 35 years alive, and to Nigel on BT who took this particular IM journey with me and has seen to my every need here in Melbourne. {{{MELON PRESS}}} to all!

4 Ironmans I've signed up for, done majority of training for, and finally I got to actually race in one! Woohoo! In the two years leading up to this race, I had 14 bouts of serious illness or injury, including dengue fever, chikungunya (makes dengue seem pleasant, and have lasting osteoarthritis), typhoid fever, pneumonia, bruised ribs, and concussion. I was last in an emergency room on Jan. 15th. So the training was a little less than optimal. I seem to be missing that entire base and build period. I was well-trained for a sprint, decently for Olympic, okay to finish HIM, and big-question-mark for an IM.

So I'm overjoyed to have started and gotten as far as I did. All of it, even the last two years, has been a tremendous experience and I wouldn't change a thing. The best bit is the incredible people and love I've gotten to be part of throughout.

In typical Yanti style, I didn't pack until the day I was leaving. Two hours to go and this is what my spare room looked like (never mind the living room):



I also had a very irate cat who was refusing to let me put things in the suitcase. And then ... the electricity went out! (Storming as usual). Awesome! So I was swearing, sweating, hopping, working by flashlight and candlelight ... finally, all was ready to go with 2min to spare and I used that for a shower. Then the cabbie that showed up in the driving rain informed me that the trunk was broken ... c'mon, laddie, we're Indonesian, we can get that giant bike box and suitcase in the rear seat AND four clowns if need be!

The trip was a comedy of errors, too, but suffice it to say I've completely changed my mind about strength training for Ironman. Of COURSE you need to do strength training to pack, unpack, haul, clear customs, multiple airports and otherwise deal with all your luggage in a relatively short period of time. Due to other normally bizarre circumstances bound to happen in tri travel, I also wound up hauling all my crap up and down these stairs multiple times. Please note that they are almost, but not quite, wide enough to accommodate a bike box. (!)



That, and the enormous amount of walking you do pre-race, needs to be taken into training account. For all that, I was totally unprepared.

I do terrible, terrible things to hotel rooms. And I mean, within seconds. The only dif between this pic and the true post-seconds pic was that I'd put my bike back together.



Welcome to beautiful Melbourne! Friendliest piglets of anywhere! I saw this grand marquee dozens of times and it tickled my tummy always.



Beginnings of the finish line. The "Slow Down" sign was funny ... and it it was up all weekend! What does it mean, near a finish line? Weather looking increasingly ominous, and I keep wearing all the clothes I own and taking a dozen hot showers a day to warm up.



Now THAT'S a sign (painted on the run path)! (However, Nigel did say I would have gotten lost on the mary course, and with my penchant for getting lost on even very clearly marked courses, perhaps it's just as well I never got to it).



Here's your sign ... I know that word is supposed to mean something to me, but ... Schedule ... Schedule ... hmmm?



Ah! Now HERE's a sign I understand and like!!!



And another one even more--it's got my name on it! Very cool.





I'm bumbling about the expo when suddenly my name rings out and I am assaulted first from the rear and then full frontal--it's the pro and my beloved friend and inspiration AMANDA BALDING! Now I feel right at home.



And here's the man Lukie himself!



Two of my very favoritest pro piglets ever. Oh, slurp. :)

As I'm buying a half dozen cartridges (need to pump up bike tyres just to get it going ... account for premature shoot-offs ... and a couple extra for the race), someone else yells my name: it's Joerg piglet FROM BALI standing right next to me! Wow! I really am home! We'd been texting and would have met up, but what luck. (And yes, there is an Ironman brand stand-up paddleboard).



The expo was great and I got killer deals on Power-nutrition and tri clothing. I heard from multiple-Ironracers that this was one of the best expos ever.

The BT Piglets Dinner ... and finally meeting NIGEL!!! (Across from me, and then there's Stephen, swiss_tri, and across from him Michael, whom I sat next to on the loooong shuttle ride race morning as well).



At the Friday night Carbo Dinner, Nigel brought me TIM TAMS and MINT SLICES (making good on a training promise) ... what a piglet!



As we were leaving the Carbo Dinner (which sucked and was very badly organized, but I won't go into it), Michelle Mitchells (who I inexplicably don't have a pic of me with!) was trying to get in, and security wouldn't let her! So she called me over and asked me to vouch for her--ha ha ha! Me to confirm one of the pro triathletes! She was another one who had greeted me at the expo and had so very kindly offered to sherpa for me after the race. WHAT A GAL!

I got to meet Joe (cottoneyes), who was a tech organizer for the bike, whom I fell in love with a long time ago over a feisty challenge group. Here we are at the Palais Theatre for the pre-race show, one of Australia's oldest and finest theatres ... the location, and the show itself, were truly extravagant. Great stuff from IM. And I was in a piglet sandwich. Doesn't get better!!!





That night, I finally get Red Robber pieced back together--good thing because he needs to be checked in tomorrow! Really simple but effective setup. What could possibly go wrong? ;)



Quite a lot with race organization and logistics of having start/transition and headquarters/finish 45km apart, as it turns out. Saturday afternoon I went to the shuttle area to have my bike loaded onto a truck and me onto a bus to go down to transition for bike and bag check-in.



I waited a reeeaaaally long time for that bus to depart. Not what I wanted to be doing late the day before the race. Coulda been worse--Joerg piglet was told at the expo (on THURSDAY, even) that there weren't any shuttle tickets left (we had to pay $40 for that privilege) and he had to get his own bike down to check-in. He wound up riding it down. The day before the race. With his transition bags. Worse yet, there were DOZENS of empty seats on the bus and they weren't checking tickets. And after the 45km ride down, there were a lot of people doing a lot more waiting there for their bikes to arrive (which, inexplicably, were lagging hours behind the buses).



So I bunked down on the cold concrete as well and made some new friends. The friends were awesome. The TWO HOUR WAIT out in the cold on a sidewalk for my bike on race eve? Not so much.



Hey! There's Freddie! (Frederik Croneborg, a 70.3 specialist pro triathlete, and of course, another dear friend ... doing his first IM, too! He smashed it, despite having had flu ... flu, not cold, the week before. What a guy!)



FINALLY! The bikes! The handlers were literally dropping $15k Shivs from the trucks any which way--only that thin cardboard box between the bike and the tarmac. At that point, I started laughing uncontrollably. What a mess.



Security at transition was VERY tight. All numbers, people, bikes, and transition bags were checked and re-checked, and they took about a dozen photographs of my bike (no joke) before I could go in.

Wow! So cool to see my name there on my spot!



Seeing the sea of bikes there was truly awe-inspiring. Delightfully, there was a sand-sculpting exhibit next door. (Just a small corner of the whole area shown)



Traffic on the 45km back to St. Kilda was horrendous b/c of race setup and many race vehicles on the road ... I didn't get back until nearly EIGHT O'CLOCK. EIGHT O'CLOCK with a 3am wakeup for the race, and having spent most of the day sitting out in the cold and hours on a bus. And I was by no means on one of the last shuttles back. Poor athletes!

GAME DAY! (Finally!) I had a fierce battle with the toaster over my Pop Tarts, but I got all the pieces back.



Finally ready to go. I look like a bag lady all bundled up, which is just as well as St. Kilda is a pretty crappy neighborhood at night and I saw 7 hookers on my way to the shuttles (that damn 45km back to start/transition again!).



Back to transition ... I asked a piglet to borrow his pump, and he gallantly offered to pump my tyres up for me (yes, we are talking about a bike, actually) ... his eyes went pretty wide when he saw me stuffing a condom and cash into my saddlebag. Well ... if the race goes pear-shaped, may as well have some fun, right? ;)

Dearest Joe came to find me and wish me good luck. {MELON PRESS} And best of all, after I got out of transition and was waiting around in my wetsuit--I saw Nigey Pie! So we waited together for race start with his wife and zipped each other up and whatnot. Could not ask for a better friend or pre-race setting.

No access to water to warm up beforehand. Not good either, but oh well. The pros got off to a rip-roaring start and immediately the age groupers lined up for their start ... all 1600 of us had to go through the swim entry and exit arch, onto the beach, into the water, and the 100m or so out to the deep-water swim start in 13 minutes. (pic taken day before)



This was the most magical moment ... for both of us ... Nigel and I linked arms so we wouldn't get separated, and solemnly shuffled in the quiet crowd, arm in arm, towards the arch, towards the beach, and into the cold depths to begin our first IM race together.