The horn went off and we were running. My legs felt good and I was off to a fast start. Too fast of a start. Usually at the beginning of the run leg of a tri, I take it easy, but with everyone starting together there was an energy that I got caught up in.

I should have situated myself at the back of the group, but I got passed quickly by most and was there in no time. We ran along the boardwalk at the Pike, which connects the aquarium to Shoreline Village. I've been down there a million times, and it's always fun to race in familiar places.

The pack pulled away from me quickly. What else is new? I realized that in my 5K last year there were runners and walkers, so I was never at the absolute back of the pack. For this event, the walkers went later, so we were just runners. Oops. May need to seek out the 5K run/walk events in the future, just for my self esteem! :)

Two women passed me but then weren't too far in front of me for a while. I'm glad I had them to follow because this part of the course was unmarked and there were no volunteers to point the way. We had also never seen a map of the course. They just briefly explained it to us right before the start.

I got to the Yard House and hung a right. We ran up the sidewalk toward the beach bike path, and then took a left on that. Now it was cool because I was on the same path as the run for the Long Beach Tri. This brought back fun memories.

It was nice running past the marina and all the boats, but this is when I started to feel a little off. I was maybe a half mile into the race (which I was still under the impression was a three mile race) and already feeling that I had gone out way too hard. I downshifted to a slower jog and hoped that I'd get my breath back, feel better, and pull back ahead. That never happened.

I followed the path to the left and past Alfredo's where they had a first aid station and were giving out water bottles, which I grabbed. I thought this might be mile 1, but there were no markers. Oh well. I continued to run with my water bottle sipping from it every now and then.

Now I was out on the main part of the bike path. There was no shade...just a concrete path and sand on each side. The ocean was right there...so close I wanted to go jump in real quick. Then, I remembered that there was a sewage spill here within the week. Then the smell hit...it totally smelled like azz out there! Nasty!

At this point, I started feeling frustrated. I was so hot. I couldn't see the turn around anywhere near and just couldn't stand the heat. I kept going as I didn't want to DNF this race. I passed another first aid tent and got another bottle of water. At this point, I saw the first 5K runners coming back. After a little while I saw Jessica, one of our counselors. A little while layer, Susana and Keeley, two more counselors went by. They were all really sweet as they went by. Susana and Keeley were walking. A LOT of people were walking. At this point I was thinking that I was hot, but there was no way I was walking any part of this race. Ha! Little did I know. This was also around the time that I started feeling nauseous. I began looking for a place to puke and figured I'd chuck in the sand if I had to. I didn't think too much about this, as I've had other races where I felt like I was going to puke on the run. Never did, luckily.

Then I reached a fork in the road and some runners went left, some went right, some were coming back left and some were coming back right. What the hell? I then saw Kaisha, who is one of our administrators. She said I was to go right. Okey dokey! I could now see the turn around! Yeah!

I made the turn around and started heading back. It was unclear as to where to go so I asked and they told me. I looked at my watch and it showed that it took me 35 minutes. There was no way that this was a 5K course. Judging by my pace, that had been about 2 miles, not 1.5.

Within about 2 minutes of the turnaround I started feeling crazy dizzy. I had to not only stop but hold on to a parking meter to hold myself up. I started feeling really faint. Oh crap. Now what do I do? I stood there a minute hugging that parking meter and struggling with the realization of how much of the race was still ahead of me. What do I do? Should I stop and go back to the first aid tent?

After a few minutes I felt less faint and started walking. At this point, there was no way I was running again...I knew that. In fact, walking became incredibly difficult and I doubted I could do that all the way back. But, I just kept moving forward. I was sweating a lot, but less than I had been which was strange. Then I got the chills. WTF??? I'm burning hot, but look down and I have goose bumps and feel shaky. This did not seem normal. I couldn't get my head around what this could be.

Then I realized that my hands were starting to swell...A LOT! I had to loosen my watch several notches and tore the wristband off before that began choking my wrist. Now I really wasn't sure what to do. My body was doing weird stuff that it's never done before. Maybe I was dehydrated. Maybe this was because I was sick earlier this week. Most likely it was from the heat. I was trying to remember back to my First Aid classes and EMT training what the symptoms of heat exhaustion were, but couldn't remember. I did remember that it can progress into heat stroke, which involves not being able to sweat. I kept an eye out for that knowing that if I stopped sweating that was REALLY bad.

I was approaching a first aid tent and wasn't sure what to do. Do I tell them? Do I keep going? I was doubting my ability to make it back to the finish line, but felt like an idiot. This was a short race, not a marathon. I shouldn't be needing a ride back. I really felt that I just had to take it easy, keep getting water in me, and just keep walking toward the finish. I got water at the tent and kept walking.

This was a discouraging part of the race. There weren't many other runners out there except for the occasional 10K runner coming back in. The heat was getting worse and there was no shade. The path looked LONG!!! But, I kept going.

I finally reached the next tent at Alfredo's (where the LB tri transition area was). I got more water as I had dumped half of the last bottle on my head. I again contemplated telling them about the chills and swelling, but knew I was about a mile away and kept walking.

As I was heading toward the Shoreline parking lot, the walkers were now coming toward me and there were a LOT of them. The tough part is that (A) they aren't running so they're less grumpy, and (B) They are in the first half mile of their walk, so they're all happy and smiling and cheerful. I'm like ready to bite the head off of anyone at this point. Bad combo. One woman wanted a high five. I carefully obliged but my sad giant swollen hand didn't want much of that.

I headed past Shoreline Village and there were so many walkers coming at me that I felt like a salmon going upstream...a slow, hot, swollen, bitter salmon. :) I rounded the corner at the Yard House and now the dog walkers were coming. It was so cute to see the doggies, but it was even more obstacles for my fuzzy mind and breaking down body to handle. I even saw one guy pushing his cat in a little cart thing. Cute.

The cheerleaders did bring a smile to my face. They were drag queens in full cheerleader regalia. I love Long Beach! Very cool! I was on the boardwalk and then saw all the other Millikan people cheering for me. They walked in with me. I felt really embarrassed. I'm not usually this slow. I was having weird health issues. I was really embarrassed, but they were very cool to have waited for me and walked me in.

We got to the finish line...oh wait...there wasn't one. They were tearing it down. They were also out of finisher's medals, but the volunteer vowed to get me one. They told me that they found out it was MUCH more than 3 miles after all. I was pretty sure it was, and that confirmed it. I was glad to be done, felt like crap, the ego a tad bruised, and all I could think about was getting home and getting in cold water.

I should have figured out a way to wet myself down before the run. I realized that in my tris, I'm wet during the run from the swim, which helps a lot more with cooling than I ever realized. Because of my size, I'm going to heat up a lot more than most people. I need to figure out a way to do races like this without overheating.

In retrospect, I should have swallowed my pride and stopped at a first aid station. I really did put myself at risk for much more serious problems.

My warm down was pretty much the walk back to the expo. When we got back the volunteer ran up to me with a finisher's medal, as promised. Everyone else from our group was going to the expo, but said I wanted to get home.

I called my husband and told him what happened. He got pretty upset with the fact that I kept racing. He had just read an article in the LA Times about heat related illness and he said that I had the exact symptoms they were warning about for heat exhaustion. He was worried about me and wished that I had made better decisions during the race.

I grabbed some drive through and went home. At home I just felt so wiped. It was hard to even move. The swelling had gone down, but was not totally gone. I went and got in the pool. It felt really cold and made me shiver, but I made myself stay in for 20 minutes. I came home and got a nap. I called to see if I could get a massage, but couldn't get one until tomorrow, which is fine.

I was supposed to spend the rest of the day getting ready for our camping trip. We're supposed to leave tomorrow for Morro Bay. But, with the heat being so bad, we decided to postpone our trip for a day, so I was able to rest all day. I have a weird post-race fatigue unlike my usual muscle fatigue. Very strange.


The heat was a factor, as was my weight. Also, being dry on a hot day was a bad idea. I was also sick this week. I had a ton working against me and little working for me today.


I really like what this race is about. It raises a lot of money for AIDS research. The course is a good course, though it needs mile markers and needs to more be more accurately measured at 3.1 miles. There were volunteers, but they could have used a few more in places where the course was not obvious.