Um, yeah, I think this was short. It started with a running start which I do not like at all! My goal in the swim is to never raise my heart rate at all. No higher effort then walking or sleeping. A mad dash through the water raised it instantly. So, I had to recover then ease back into my swim. I never felt awesome but once I got my heart rate down I felt at ease. I actually zoned out for more then half of it, daydreaming about my life and finally realized I hadn't been sighting for a while. Luckily I found myself still on course so I just went with the flow. The last maybe 800M my elbow locked up on me. It hurt really bad and I couldn't bend / unbend my arm easily. I had to deal with this and just keep swimming. Found the end of the swim surprising, I wasn't really ready for it to be over yet as I didn't ever really feel like I got started!

Pay more attention and not zone out. Zoning out is for training, not racing. Also, I started off hungry - this affected the rest of the race. I should have brought something to eat down to the lake area and eaten something else before the swim.

Not so bad! I have notoriously terrible transitions but this felt really smooth and controlled. I even applied my spray sunscreen while here.

Not much, I finally felt pleased with a transition! The only hard part was the crowds heading out, there was actually a line I had to merge into to get to the exit!

Ahhh, the bike. I heard all sorts of nightmares about this course so I spent my few weeks training hammering hills hard. Now, I live in Houston so this is not an easy task! We spent many a weekend in Coldsprings and the last few times I would keep my bike in the large chainring no matter how hard the hill and even kept it in hard gears for all the uphills, just to get some really good strength training in. It's easy enough to simulate uphills here, but there is no way to simulate downhills. This would be a problem at the race.

I got on the bike and the course is crowded!!! Hit the first hill and was glad I pre-rode the first 2 hills the day before. I knew what gear to be in and knew to just stand up - this hill is short and steep and perfect for a standing hammer. So, I flew on up. Glided down the backside to recover and then stood up and hammered the next one. Nice and easy, passing people for extra fun :) Headed zout of the park and although it's a bit rough, there aren't any real hills for a while. So, this part was about easy efforts and recovery. I should have known I would be in trouble on the way back, I was easing along at 23-24mph and even being passed at those speeds.

I can't remember exactly which hills came next, but most of the ups were fine, one was long but doable, the others were all standing hammers. I love riding uphills! The downhills though got scary. Especially the switchback one- I was white knuckling that one!!!

Got done with the hills on the backside and then felt the joy that is the winds. For the longest time, I was pushing to keep 14mph and even passing lots of people at that speed. Ugh! About mile 50 I hit a rather large bump that almost took me out. I bounced off the bike, grabbed it to hold it up and came down hard on my elbow (nice bruise afterward!). After this my bike felt twitchy. Turns out I had flatted!!! I didn't know this until we were putting the bike in the car later. Oh well.

Hit the last 2 hills and was happy to see them. Stood, hammered and enjoyed the ride up. The last hill is an 8.9% grade and I was having a great time passing people. The crowds were going nuts and commenting how I looked fresh enough to do another loop and saying the thing I always hear on the courses - "she's smiling!!!". Of course I am - I love this stuff!

Without having trained, I'm super happy with my climbing out here. It felt great, I guess going to Colorado really did help!

Since I didn't train much, I decided to focus this race on nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. It is a weak link for me. So, I set my timex for 45 minutes and ate every time it dinged. However, starting low I was never able to catch up on the bike and this was a problem.

Whoop! Another decent time (for me). And, I applied sunscreen again! After Galveston I refuse to burn like that again!

Not much, felt good here.

Running - my favorite!

Too bad my calves weren't on board. The first mile or so was miserable, they were screaming in agony. I was really super nervous for the first time in a race that I might not be able to finish - 13 miles on calves like this did not seem possible.

My Garmin broke before the race, so all I had was the timex. I thought this would be ok as I could just hit the lap button at each mile marker. However, they only marked miles 5, 9 and 11. This was terribly unhelpful! So, 10 minutes in (~1 mile I was thinking) my calves settled down and I felt better. I never did get into a groove like I normally do. The whole thing felt forced, but so did the bike and swim. My body just wasn't in the on position today. But, I kept chugging forward.

Ran 3/4 the way up the first massive hill but I could feel my heart rate rising. If I had trained more I would have pushed it more, but I was nervous about my lack of training and didn't want to spike my heart rate so early so I decided to walk the rest of it. I walked the next big uphill from the start. Saw Raul just before the turn on the final out stretch and he was yelling so loudly at me it really lifted my spirits. He is a hoot! On the last stretch I saw Sherri and Amy (both on their way back) and talked to both of them as we passed. Good to see friendly faces out there!

Finally after what seemed like an eternity I hit the turn-around. I was so happy to see it! I felt much better on the way back and my splits show it - 9:50s out, 9:30s back! walked the one big uphill on the back but started running with ~1/4 of it left since I knew I could make it now.

However at mile 9 I started getting dizzy. The heat was catching up with me and it was time to be done. I was glad to have staved it off so well up until now, but it was starting to hit. I'll have to work more on this before Cozumel and IM Woody. The last mile was pure agony - I found a girl to run with and we were desperately looking for an aide station. Finally found it and there was no ice. What a disappointment! I was peeved too for the poor people just heading out on the run course - they will really need ice! Kept running with my new friend, we were enjoying the company. Finally got close to the end and heard it was only 200M away. I picked it up too early and she passed me at the end. Oh well, it was good to have the company and so good to be done!

Eating was spot on here, although I was still low from starting low. I need to train longer hills on the run, these went on forever. And, I need to work on keeping cool. This will be a necessity in Cozumel!!!

I had used my inhaler a few times on the course, but I could feel my chest constricting. Between that and being dizzy I walked straight to the med tent and asked for an IV. A lovely girl helped me out and even helped with my breathing. A few shots of the inhaler, an IV and I felt awesome when I left!


Lack of training.


The overall course was alright. I honestly expected it to be much harder. The bike was much easier then I expected but the run was harder then I thought it would be. The roads were rough. The worst part of the bike was the headwinds coming back.

Running out of coke and ice on the course is not ok. Especially not a course that is known to be hot and the day wasn't even that hot! There was almost no sag support on the bike. The drink stations on the bike were at the worst possible places - just before sharp corners so you had to dump and turn at the same time. They should have just put them even 100 feet earlier then they did. There was no post-race food. After 6 hours on the course I need something solid. They offered gu, 1/2 bananas and watermelon. Seriously, that doesn't even come close to cutting it. Med was great for me but turned away my friend who turned out to be severely dehydrated. He gave them his symptoms and they should have recognized it right away. The lack of attention put him in a very dangerous situation.

Add that to 10 hours in the car each way and I won't be doing this one again. Glad I did it and experienced it for myself but I think this one's a one-and-done race.