i love open water swimming. the Russian River hardly deserves to be called 'open water' - it is so confined, but i still loved every minute of the swim. i didn't mind the murkiness (it gave good opportunity to practice drafting by following the bubble path) or the crowded conditions at all. i'm not a fast swimmer, it's just that i feel completely at ease in open water. i'd probably do much worse in a pool race.

nothing i can think of.

the transition area is on dirty sand. there was a carpet path around it but not between the racks. a muddy affair.

bring a large towel to change on and a small one to dry my feet and head with.

about 15 miles into the course is where my troubles began. my kidneys went into overdrive. i have no idea what caused it - i even forced myself to pee into my wet suit during the last K of the swim in order to avoid having to get off the bike right away. i had to whizz 7 times in all - 5 times at a porta-potty, 1 time at a bar where i got yelled at for not taking off my bike shoes and once on the road side - grounds for disqualification, but i didn't care at that time. yes i know, too much info. let's move on.

from about mile 70 on it was all in balance again. by that time i must've passed some people at least 4 times and was getting some strange looks.

it was at mile 80 where the real Ironman began for me. flat rear tire. there was no Bang! or Pffffft. now this wasn't supposed to happen. i had my kevlar armadillo tires on my wheels and in more than 2000 miles of riding i had never had a flat with them, so maybe the valve stem had started leaking. ok, no big deal. i had a spare tube and all the tools. or so i thought...

my tire levers were gone. somehow my seat pack had opened somewhere along the ride or the transport and they had slipped out. after a few minutes of panic i went up to the road and started yelling 'tire lever?' at the bikers. at that point in the race there were still plenty people passing by. right away somebody stopped, tossed me one - 'keep it!'. god bless the triathlete's helpful nature!

i was on my way again shortly after. i had only lost about 10 minutes by then. i was on Airport Blvd, the final stretch of the bike segment when i noticed i had the second flat. rear tire again. and again, no sound. after i was done with my mental cursing (ok, it wasn't all mental) i realized that there had to be something stuck in the tire that caused the flats. i had checked before and found nothing. this time i took the tire surface between my thumb and forefinger, pressed down really hard and dragged the surface through my fingers, so i wouldn't miss anything for sure. and there it was. a piece of wire, about 1mm long was completely buried in the kevlar. it would have caused a race tire to blow up immediately, but the thickness of the Armadillo protected the tube from it unless, i figured, i hit a bump at that exact spot. i dug it out of the tire.

after that, there was nothing i could do but walk along the road and hope that yet another racer would be kind enough to stop and this time provide me with an inner tube. after about 5 min or so of walking i got lucky. another good samaritan.

it was a tube with a short stemmed valve but it had to do. just pump it up a bit more before it goes into the tire. well, it wasn't quite as easy as i thought it would be, but i managed. i was ready to ride again. get on the bike - BANG!!!! tire exploded right at the valve.

riding on the tire without pressure had somehow damaged the tire hook in that place. there was a rip there and the tube had bulged out. as i sat on the bike it got cut.

i have to admit that my mind went pretty blank then. i just didn't know how to deal with it. i wasn't ready to quit and yet it looked like my race was over. so i sat down at the side of the road and thought about what i could do. i decided on walking my bike to the next police officer guarding an intersection, asking them to watch my bike and hoof it to T2. i didn't even know whether showing up without a bike would disqualify me, but i didn't care.
while walking i'd hope for yet another person to give me a spare tube, put it in and pump up the tire to a very careful 30 psi or so.

off i went along the dirty Airport Blvd. i crossed highway 101, got screamed at by motorists, got thirsty and really, really depressed. then another racer stopped and asked if he could help. and yes, he had a spare tube for me.

(i could kick myself now that i didn't ask all the people who helped me out for their names. i really want to thank them all in person, and now i can't. my brain was just not working right. see below)

i thanked the guy and started to take the rear wheel off again. now take off the tire - where's the tire lever? for that matter, where's the pump? gone. i must have left them behind when that last tube exploded. i had a not so brief moment again where i had to fight the urge just to give up. then i put the wheel on again and walked back.

i didn't find the tire lever nor the pump. so it was back to finding a cop and leaving the bike with him or her. i crossed 101 for the 3 time.

then there was a van next to me honking and yelling. i was ready to lift my middle finger to indicate that i wasn't in any mood to discuss why i was walking along this busy road. good thing i didn't - it was a lady from the race committee on her way to pick up somebody who'd had even worse luck than i somewhere on the run. she asked if i needed a ride - i asked if she had a bike pump and yes - she did.

i'll cut this short now. i somehow managed to strip the tire off the wheel with my fingers and put it on again. riding at 30 psi worked. i made it to t2. i got off the bike in turns and when crossing railroad tracks. the tire held and when i put up my bike in the transition area i happened to look down at my Bento box - i had put the tire lever and the pump in there and hadn't been able to remember where i put them less than 10 minutes after i did...

double, triple, quadruple check that ALL the tools are on the bike! carry 2 spare tubes (wouldn't have helped much in this case, but still)

seriously, you tell me - is there anything i could have done to prevent this?

not forget my race belt - again.

i went into the run with the determination to kick ass. i knew i had to go all out now or this, my first Ironman, would be my last. it very well still might be...

i had my Garmin 301 with me. it works on this course - there are no completely shaded areas and i never lost the signal.

i had planned on running the whole marathon somewhere around 4:15 or a bit better if i could help it. now i wanted to break 4h. i had a lot of catching up to do in terms hydration. that hour spent along the road fixing my bike had taken a toll.

i stopped at almost every fuel station to pick up something to drink and eat but i never walked. i know it sounds silly, but my addled brain was fixated on finishing the run below 4h, no matter the cost. i somehow thought i could redeem myself that way.

mile 25 approaches and i skip the aids station. i'm going all out now. (all out means that my GPS tells me i'm running at just below 8 min/mile)

i'm approaching the finish and i'm giving it everything i have. my Garmin later told me that my top speed was 6:30 min /mile. i can't feel my legs anymore. there's 2 chutes - one for 1st and 2nd lap, one for finish. i know that. i've gone through here 2 times before. i enter the Finish chute. where's the finish? WHERE's the FINISH? i thought i screamed that. people shout at me that i'm in the wrong chute. cross over!

i finally realize that even though i my mind knew which way to go my body didn't. so i lost another 1/2 minute right at the end.

making a fool out of myself right at the finish almost broke me. it's hard to describe that feeling of humiliation. i guess it was a combination of all that happend on the bike segment and that blur of memory of people pointing at me and laughing right at the finish.

some of you might think i'm not entitled to complain. i'm not complaining. after all, i finished in less than 13h. you'd have to be me to understand. i'm mostly writing this for myself while my memory is still fresh. i'll have to mull this over for a long time.

one bright spot: there was a 73 year old woman trying to do the full Ironman. when i passed her and read the age off her leg i couldn't help but yell at her "you rock!" she gave me a big smile and everytime we passed again on that in and out i waved at her and gave her a thumbs up. what guts!

turns out she didn't finish after all. Bobbi Pollock - you still rock for me...

i'd go even faster. but then, these were special circumstances.

my friend was there for me. the good thing about this whole event is that she might end up being more than a friend (oh the romance...) she fed me chicken soup and gave me her sweater (now a seam is bust) she listened to my whining and drove me to the hotel, even though she'd done a hard 1/2 IM herself before.

warm down? it's all a blur.


...


they need more porta-potties. especially on the first half of the bike loop. there was a line of at least five people in front of each one of them.

leave at least a sign, if not a volunteer on every intersection. there were 2 places where i would have had to guess where to go if i hadn't checked out the course before.

don't run out of GU. the people who finish last need it most.

overall, it's not a race recommended for first time Ironman people. i guess now i know why the M-dot races are in such demand.

the volunteers were great. when they were there. it just doesn't feel like you're being watched over during the whole race. i guess that's what the $200 premium for the M-dot races is for.