Day 1: Swim 10K, bike 90.3 miles
I’m up and making my tried and true breakfast - some coffee (some Kenya Kirinyaga AA Kabingara that I roasted at home and brought with us…have to have my morning coffee) and some Starbucks steel cut oatmeal. I’m using my swim shorts since I’m going to change into a bib for the bike anyway. We load up the car with all the bike gear as well as food - Gu’s, and water for the swim and additionally Cytomax and granola/nut bars.

At the swim start (and the start of every stage), we need to weigh in to set a baseline weight for that day (for comparison at the end of the day). Bryan heads over to the kayaks to find out which one is his and to get it set up including mounting the inflatable rainbow zebra and pink flamingo that we bought to more uniquely identify his kayak.

It’s time to put on my wetsuit, which I’ve only worn 3 times this year (2 times being in races) and I want to make sure I pull it up enough against my crotch and my armpits so the suit doesn’t pull down on my arms during my stroke. On a 10K swim, that’d make for a lot of extra effort.

There was a bag piper who played and called us all together to form an Ohana “family” circle where we all joined hands and the RD said some words to welcome us to the start of the race.





The start was quite low-key with a verbal countdown and then we start. Bryan and I didn’t do a great job getting organized to meet up together at the start, but it didn’t matter. There weren’t that many of us and we quickly find each other and start this long swim.

My plan was to bilateral breath, which I’ve never done in a race, but always do in training. This keeps me steady, relaxed, and balanced and keeps my neck/shoulder on one side from fatiguing.



I was curious how the whole kayak escort thing was going to work out, but it actually made for much easier swimming than regular OWS because I can sight off the kayak and not have to lift my head and look forward as I would have to in a regular OWS. Bryan’s kayaking to my right, my more natural side, so I can easily see him. Also, I can sight underwater even though the water’s a bit murky because the sunlight illuminates the length of the kayak underwater for an inch or so below the surface. It’s 8k just to the first buoy. It’s not even visible to Bryan who has to rely on intermediate landmarks until he can get in sight of the buoy; I’m glad I can just rely on him to lead me. Even so, I still find myself zigzagging a little bit relative to the kayak.



I’d asked Bryan to stop me every 30-40 minutes for a quick break and an opportunity to consume a Gu and water (which is how I practiced in training) if I need. The first break at 40 minutes comes up pretty quickly. The bulk of the swim is more of the same, although the interval between breaks shrinks to 35 minutes and then later on closer to 30 minutes. On one of the breaks, Bryan tells me how tippy the kayak is and how it requires a lot of effort in his core to remain stable.

About halfway through, I’m feeling a little nauseous at the break and pass on the Gu and water. I’m worried about what I’m going to be like once I get out of the water. Eventually, we reach the first buoy. I’m struggling a bit and I know my pace has slowed. At the next rest break, Bryan tells me that I’ve been shortening my stroke, so when we start up again, I focus on lengthening my stroke and that helps a lot. There’s a little bit of a current here and the water is very shallow.

Bryan swings wide of the second buoy (the current?), but I’m not wasting that extra effort and the finish is in sight, so I cut the buoy close. Surprisingly, I’m feeling pretty strong so I push myself a little for this last 750m or so. I pass someone pretty handily and make my way to the finish. I’m out in 3:31:03 (which is 17/29 OA), which is pretty much exactly what I did in training. My legs are steady and I get out of the water without any assistance. Andrea’s there and hand’s me my glasses and she walks me over to the small transition area.

Andrea takes me to where she racked my bike and has my gear. She has one of those aluminum roast pans filled with water so I can rinse my feet. I put on my flip flops, grab my DeSoto 400-mile bibs (what I used for all my long training rides), a towel and Chamois Butter and head into the small changing tent. VD is in here with one of his crew helping him change. I pull off my swimsuit, dry off, pull on the bibs and apply Chamois Butter. I head back over to my bike and Andrea helps me with my tri top and sprays sun screen on me. I put on my socks, shoes, and helmet (I decided to skip the gloves). I estimate the transition time was between 5-10 minutes (race splits just include the transition time in the bike split).

Day 1: Swim 10K, bike 90.3 miles

My goal for the bike was just to ride a steady effort, not go anaerobic, and not do anything to put any stress on my legs so I would have them in solid shape for day 2 (as well as day 3). I had switched to 50/34 compact cranks a few months ago because of this race and was running 12/27 in the back so I had all the low gearing I needed to keep my effort steady and even, esp.; on the climbs. I had my 808/disc wheelset on since I wanted all the aero benefit I could get (even though the race manual warned of strong crosswinds on the descents) since I don’t have a lot of power and making efficient use of what power I did have was important.


There’s a short climb straight out of transition to get onto Eastside Road. Then it’s into Okanagan Falls, a turn south onto Main Street and then a long stretch down to Osyoos. I’m glad we drove the course in the previous days so I didn’t have to wonder much what was coming next. Plus, the turns were clearly marked with fluorescent route arrows on the road (new for this year).

There’s a group/paceline of cyclist who turn onto the road behind me. They’re mostly riding tri bikes, so I’m assuming they are triathletes training for IMC. As they pass me, they’re friendly and make comments from “good job” to “nice bike” to “how was the swim?”

The ride is relatively flat with some minor rolling hills. The cars from the various crews do their leapfrogging of their athletes. For those of us who are on the same part of the course at the same time and at the same pace, we see the same crews over and over again and they cheer me on each time as I pass.

In Oliver, I have the luck of getting stuck at both the lights in town. One of the other racers is impatient and bikes through the red light (intersection was clear), but I wait. This race is open roads and intersections/lights aren’t kept clear for us so we have to follow the road rules, but fortunately, there are very few sections with lights or left hand turns.

I eventually get to Sherry’s Berries fruit stand which is where I staretd my test ride earlier in the week. From here it’s a few miles to the Husky gas station in Osoyoos where I make the turn right to start the climb to Richter pass. I’m taking it nice and easy. I’m getting passed by some cyclists (including the other tri group) and I pass some other cyclists (non-racers). Since I’m riding on the shoulder, there is some debris here, but fortunately only a minimal amount of glass. Of course, it’s like I had some freakish Pavlovian response to glass in the road because every time I spotted some, I seemed to steer straight onto it.

On the descent after Richter, there’s a lot of cross wind as we were told. I’m getting blown around a bit on my 808s (plus I only weigh about 133lbs) and my back end is really squirrely, which I’m assuming is the texture in the road. This made for some hairy descending. When the road levels out a bit, I can feel my rim sorta bottom out and I realize I have (and have had) a flat on my rear wheel. Ugh. I’m not sure if it’s a slow leak or not, so I used up one of my CO2 to inflate the tire so I can keep riding until my crew shows up. Okay, there’s the hole and it’s a decent sized cut (this also sucks because I just put on this tubular earlier in the week so it has less than 100 miles on it). I’m going to have to change my tire. I get passed by a few folks and the crew for FR stops and asks me if I’m okay. They try to call my crew to let them know I’ve flatted, but there’s no answer. I’m a little PO’d at my crew since I don’t know where they are and I’ve only seen them a few times so far on the ride (I’m at about mile 40) wheras I’ve seen other crews 2 or 3 times as frequently.

Since this is a tubular, I cut the tire off with the razor blade I keep taped underneath my saddle for this very purpose. I put on my spare tubular, but it’s not glued because I use Tufo tape; I’m relying on the residual glue on the rim and the air pressure, which is something I’ve had to do in previous races. This will be fine for most of the riding, but I know there is a very speedy technical descent at the end of today’s ride, so I’ll have to swap wheels before I do that section. FR’s crew offers to take all my trash (the flatted tubular, CO2, razor, etc.) and they even offer me another tubular and some water/Gatorade, but I pass on that and thank them for all of their help.

I think 4 other racers passed me while I was changing this flat, but I’m sure it as all over less than 10 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I continue onward and eventually my crew catches up to me and passes me and stops ahead. I’m still a bit miffed and they are very apologetic and promise to leapfrog me more often. I realize that in the scheme of things this isn’t a big deal and let them know it’s okay.

The route continues mostly downhill all the way to Keremeos where we make a turn onto highway 3A towards Yellow Lake, but before that, there’s an out and back stretch on Upper Bench Road. This is uneventful, but it’s a chance to see a few others in the race and some of the other cyclists I saw earlier who appear to be doing the UMC course with us rather than the IMC course.

After that, it’s a fairly long uphill stretch, at first fairly mild, but then getting steeper as I get closer to Yellow Lake. I take this climb nice and easy according to my plan. At the top of the climb at Yellow Lake, my crew is there and we take this time to swap my rear wheel to my 808 backup since I want to make sure I have a tire that is firmly glued on. They top off my liquids and I’m off again.



Up ahead, I can see CF. I’m slowly gaining on him on the climbs. I don’t quite catch up to him before the descent, but on the descent, I catch up to him quickly since he’s on a road bike and I’m more aero. The descent has a lot of curves, so I hang back a little bit. On a long curve, I pass him. The crosswinds are pretty strong so I take a full lane since I don’t want any cars trying to squeeze past me. I put some distance between me and CF. The last descent is only a single lane and I’m cable to keep to the shoulder for the most part.

I’m back in OK Falls. It’s a quick turn left followed shortly by another left and there’s the finish line. I finished with a bike split of 5:51:49 (19th) which gave me 9:22:5 for the day. This put me in 18th place out of the 29 of us, one of whom DNF’d.



I walk over to my crew and give them my bike. I change quickly and head over to the medical tech to take my measurements. She says I’m at only 130 lbs., which is 4.5% below what I weighed this morning which was a little concerning to her. I tell her I was wearing sweats and my flip flops in the morning and later prove it to her by reweighing myself with my flip flops on which adds 1.6 lbs. alone which is 1.25% of my body weight. She laughs at my insistence about my weight (and would become a running joke for us through the rest of the race). In any case, she cautions me to hydrate well (I didn’t pee at all on the bike segment, so I know I am dehydrated) between now and tomorrow morning.

I put my name on the massage wait list (we are given massages at the end of the day), but there are 5 people ahead of me (a distinct disadvantage to finishing slower than others) and I don’t want to wait around, so I eat the Subway sandwich my crew bought me and then we head back to town. We need to stop at Bike Barn to pick up a couple more spare tubulars (Zipp Tangente…expensive even with a discount) and CO2 just in case.

We return to the hotel, unload the bikes and bring them back up to the room. We all shower and head out for dinner. We head over to Villa Rosa which is an Italian restaurant close to the hotel. I have the grilled salmon and Andrea and Bryan both have the Linguini al Granchio with crab meat and baby lobster with red sauce, which sounds great, but is pretty bland.

We get some gas and head back to the hotel. We have to prep all the gear for the next two days (bike and run) since we’ll be staying in Princeton after Day 2 because Day 3 starts there, so we’re staying in a hotel out there (including as part of the race fees). I’m in bed by about 9:00pm.

*****

Day 2: Bike 171.4 miles

We’re up at 4:00AM. Coffee and oatmeal for me. I’m wearing another pair of De Soto 400-mile bibs again. At 5:00AM, we load up the car and drive down to the to the Skaha Lake Marina where the race starts. I do my weigh in and get my bike ready.

The start was originally supposed to be a paired staggered start based on our bike splits yesterday, but they decided against that and it’s going to be a mass start. While we’re waiting for the start, I talk to KB and KB a bit. I ask why almost no one else is running a disc. One of the lead guys, RP, is, but I’m the only other one. KB asks me if it wasn’t hard to handle in the wind yesterday. I said, that it was the 808 fronts that make handling in the wind sketchy and that I had flatted yesterday, but it wasn’t too bad otherwise.



I seed myself about midway in the pack as we start. The first part of the course today takes us down alongside Skaha Lake on Eastiside Road and into Okanagan Falls. I guess I’m a quick starter (too fast at the start?), because after a few minutes, I make up time on a fair number of the racers (although to be fair, a lot of this is on the downhills and flats where I may be more aero), but at least my legs feel pretty good. Then, we take a turn onto Maple which takes us onto Oliver Ranch Road which is a nice side road amidst vineyards. I’m glad we drove this section a couple days ago so I knew exactly what to expect, although again, the roads are marked pretty clearly for turns.

After this stretch, we join up with Highway 97/3A which is the same stretch we rode yesterday down to Osoyoos. At mile 19, I fumble my trusty tri club water bottle and drop it. Oh well. Otherwise, the ride is uneventful all the way down to Osoyoos. I stop off at the Husky gas station, where my crew is also stopped, to use the bathroom and eat a bar. When I’m back on my bike, my crew has topped off all my water bottles.

I head just a little further south to the turnaround area and then head back north again towards Okanagan Falls. I’m following EB who is a 28 year old female who was first female finisher yesterday. She’s a bit faster than me, but she’s struggling a little because she is having mechanical issues with her front derailleur and has been having to shift it using her foot until she can get her crew to fix it.

On the bike segment out, it seemed like a (mild) net downhill so that on the return I was expecting to have a bit of a slog going back uphill, but I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s still generally flat so I’m still making decent time.

Coming back into Okanagan Falls before climbing The Wall, I stop off with my crew for fresh water bottles, a gu, and an extra spare tubular since the climb section is a no feed (i.e. no support) zone. It’s about mile 60, just a bit over one third of today’s mileage. I’m still feeling good. I have the road to myself. There’s no on in sight ahead of me and no one behind. I take the climb nice and easy, just trying to keep my effort even and steady. Up ahead, I can hear the announcer. There are a few folks here cheering us on. The climb is uneventful and as I come to the final climb, there’s the race photographer here and the announcer is calling my name out.

The stretch after the climb is nice with a bit of mild downhill and I ride along some lakes. There are a series of a couple small climbs before another more extended climb as I approach Yellow Lake (which was near the end of the Day 1 ride before the descent to the finish). KB passes me and said he had a flat. I tell him he’s looking strong as he pulls away. There’s a short sharp descent by the golf course and soon I reach the T where I have to turn left to Yellow Lake. There is a volunteer here who lets me know it’s clear to make the turn.

After passing Yellow Lake, it’s a nice long descent to Keremeos (which was one of the final climbs we did yesterday since we were doing the reverse direction). This is a nice break. I’m geared out and it feels like I’m going pretty fast, but I really don’t have enough weight to take me downhill any faster than a bit over 40mph (I didn’t check this during the descent, only much later when I saw top speed on my bike computer). A pickup truck pulled on to the road behind me and passes and when it’s about half a mile ahead, some of the contents from the truck spill across the road. It’s big pieces of Styrofoam which I have to make sure I maneuver around.

After the descent, I stop off with my crew at Bears Fruit Stand to take a longer break. I eat the Subway sandwich they bought for me and use the bathrooms here. There’s a line for the bathrooms, but it’s all crew members from other teams and they courteously let me cut to the front of the line to save me time. This is about 90 miles into the ride which is more than halfway mileage-wise and it’s just under 6 hours into the ride, so I feel like I have a reasonable cushion to make the 12-hour cutoff.



From here, the 65K ride out to Princeton follows highway 3 which follows the Similkameen River upstream. I pass AK and comment on how crappy the shoulder is here. She says she’s more worried about how wicked the headwinds can be on this stretch. Apparently the natives call this place “The Meeting of the Winds.” Great. Obviously, headwinds affect everyone although I’m pretty small and don’t have a lot of power so I rely on being efficient. Consequently, headwinds just kill me (NM, who has done this race numerous times over the years (and won twice) supposedly said this year was the worst he’d seen the headwind). Since the shoulder is really bad in stretches, I ride in the road, which is okay even though there are cars blowing by at 100+kph because there are two lanes.

There are also some hills on the first third of this stretch out to Princeton. Ah, the only thing I love more than strong headwinds is strong headwinds going uphill…not. When my speed dips below 15mph, I sit up which gives me some relief from being in aero and I can sit back and up (with a corresponding detriment to my frontal aero profile…) for a bit. The slow going is discouraging and mentally draining. I’m acutely aware that I need to average just over 14mph for the entire 171 miles to make the cutoff and that every minute I’m below that speed, I know I’m eating into the small time cushion I have.

At some point, the road becomes single lane in each direction and riding in the road is really scary. Trucks hauling a trailer (e.g. a boat) are esp. scary since they often pass very close. I seriously think that there is a distinct possibility that I will not make it through this stretch without being hit and finally decide to ride on the shoulder. Fortunately, it’s not in bad a shape as it was earlier on, although there is still often a fair amount of gravel.



In the middle stretch of this segment out to Princeton, the road flattens out a bit (i.e. no more hills), but it’s still slowly and steadily climbing uphill as it follows the river. My eyes/mind play tricks on me and I sometimes thinking I’m going downhill, but my legs and speedometer tell me otherwise. I’m also keeping an eye on the clock because I want to make sure I have at least 3+ hours to do the last out and back after Princeton since we were told during the bike briefing that it would take about that long to do it.

When I get to Bromley Rock Park, my crew and a volunteer are here telling me that there are outhouses in the park that we can use.



That’s a relief (literally) and a crew member from another team even offers to hold my bike for me while I go use the bathroom. He had just told his athlete that he’s about an hour out from Princeton (it’s about 1:30PM) and then 3 hours to do the out and back which puts his estimated finish at about 5:30PM, which is 30 minutes before the cutoff. But he’s a little faster than me, so I’m slightly worried about cutoffs since I’m not positive how my legs will feel on the last 40 miles on the out and back (esp. since the first part is more climbing). I just continue to stick to my plan of just maintaining a steady effort and my legs still feel pretty decent.

I’m counting the miles as I get closer to Princeton and I was a little bit off because I (fortunately) arrived there sooner than I expected. That buoys me up a little bit and I start the out and back. It’s a right at the Petrol Canada gas station and then another right onto highway 5A. I can hear the announcer at the finish, although I don’t see the finish area since we didn’t drive that section and I’m not sure where it is. I can actually hear the announcer announce me and that I’m on my way on the out and back so they must have a spotter somewhere to give him that info.



This out and back stretch has rolling hills that steadily climb up to Allison Lake. Since it’s an out and back, I occasionally see other cyclists (usually part of the race, but sometimes not) on their way back. Since I also see the crews for those on the return, I also get cheering from them too. My legs are still feeling okay and I’m feeling more comfortable about the cutoff. I climb a little bit and descend a little less than I climb and continue this the whole way up to Allison Lake. When I start seeing signs for Allison Lake, I know it’s close, but it seems like the last mile or two until the turnaround is taking forever to get to.



I finally see the turnaround, which is a pleasant sight. On the return, even though it’s a net descent, there are plenty of ups and downs and there are still 20 miles to the finish so there’s still work to do. I see how close some of the guys behind me are since I’m now on the return. CL, who finished right after me yesterday, asks me how long to the turnaround and I tell him about 2 miles. Up and down, but more down than up and I’m making good time thanks to all the help from gravity.

Since we didn’t finish driving this part of the course and the finish, I don’t know where the finish is and the last thing I want to do is make a wrong turn or go down an extra hill. So as I get closer to the end, I ask my crew to tell me how to navigate to the finish. At the next stop, they both yell to me that I’ll need to turn right as some road, but since they’re both yelling, I can’t hear what the road is. The course has been very well marked at every turn, but with downhills, I’m not positive that I’ll see markers on the road so when I get very close, I make sure I’m not going so fast that I can’t make a right turn. I see the markers in the road and it is a fast exit to the right, an exit ramp, and then another quick right into a parking lot to finish.

I cross the finish line and boy am I glad to be off my bike. Alexi comes over to greet me and congratulate me as does her father Steve, the RD. I finished the day in 10:59:15 and was the 19th finisher that day (one person would DNF), but moved up to 17th place overall with a cumulative time of 20:22:07. This time, I ask Bryan to sign me up for a massage right away, but I’m 7th in line, so I know I’m not going to wait around for that.

I go to medical to get my tests done (all is fine this time and given how many times I had to pee, I knew I wasn’t very dehydrated).

We stick around for a little bit to watch a few more finishers. I eat the Subway sandwich my crew bought me and then we head out.

Since Princeton is 50+ miles away from Penticton and the run start tomorrow is nearby, we have two hotel rooms here in Princeton which are included as part of the race fees. All the racers and crews are booked in one of three hotels in town; we’re in the Sandman. Of course, this is a very small town and the hotel is kind of a dump (which I heard the same from others staying at the other hotels), but it doesn’t really matter. We wash up and then head over to, Belaire, the restaurant (also paid for as part of our race fees) for dinner.

Dinner was buffet style, primarily pasta, salad, bread, and chicken. For a restaurant, the food was pretty poor, but for post-race food, it was decent enough. In fact, we all wolf down seconds. I actually talk about how it’d be nice to finish the race at sub 30 hours (which would require me running a 9:35ish or better double mary); it sounds a little ridiculous to be setting any kind of time goal at an event like this that I’m doing for the first time and 30 hours is fairly arbitrary (I really only picked it because it’s a nice round number), but it does seem doable going into the run, which is my strength.

It’s Alexi’s birthday, so there’s a cake for her which we all enjoy for dessert. We fuel up the minivan and then head back to the hotel for an early night’s sleep.

Day 3: Run 56.4 miles
I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, which is very abnormal for me, but likely indicative of overexertion. It took me a couple hours to fall asleep and then I woke up at about 1:30am and had trouble going back to sleep, so I had maybe a half night of sleep going into the run (and was short from the previous two nights as well). We got ready, packed up, and drove down to the main street of Princeton to the breakfast place (same place as dinner the night before). We had to wait a bit to get inside the restaurant. It was a full breakfast including eggs, bacon, sausage, but I primarily just ate carbs and fruit since I didn’t need anything heavy and greasy in me just before a double mary. There were way more people than places to sit so we stood at the counter with the register and ate our breakfasts there.




We drove out the race start, which was about 15 minutes outside of Princeton. I did my weigh in which I did quickly and then returned to the car because it was pretty cold out since the sun hadn’t yet risen. I was going to start out the run with a long sleeve Lululemon (quite popular in Canada of course) top over my tri top and a headband to keep my ears warm. Soon enough, it’s time to line up to start.



I don’t really know where to line up relative to everyone else; when everyone is all decked out in their runner’s gear, they all look fast to me. I line up right in the middle. We start.



The runners sort out fairly quickly with two groups of 4 up ahead of me. I’m with another group of 4 and I just hang in the back. My legs are feeling pretty good, although it normally takes me about 6 miles to really loosen up. One of the guys, MD, falls back when we hit the first hill. I stick with the other two. As we crest the hill, I’m faster than these two so I cut in front and on the downhill I pull away from them.

Up ahead, the lead group of four is long gone. The other group of four has broken up into two pairs. I’m creeping my way up to one of the pairs, SM and VD. On a hill, I’m gaining on them. At the top, SM cuts over to the side of the road (to take a leak I think) so I pass him and I’m closing quickly on VD. As I catch up to him, we chat briefly and I say “today, we become ultramen!”

I pull away from him and very slowly gain on the other two, RP and JM, who are chatting. It takes me quite awhile to reel them in and I’m pretty close when JM gets some water from her crew and RP takes off. I run along side JM briefly and we chat a bit and then I continue onward. I’m pulling away from JM, but RP is pulling away from me.



I have no idea how long I’ve been running, but I’ve been enjoying a nice relaxed run. I hear and see Steve King, the race announcer (he’s very good) set up ahead at what turns out to be the 10K point in the race. As I approach, I find out I’m at 55 min or so and I’m in fifth place. Cool!

As the sun rises, the run it gets warmer and the run is pretty scenic…rural, a bit wooded at times, and some lakes. I even see a couple deer cross the road ahead of me.

I continue along and as I approach the half marathon point, the announcer says that my split is 2:05. He announces that I’m still in fifth place and that if I finish at that level, it’ll move me up quite a bit in the standings. I need to pee and after a few aborted look at the trees at the side of the road, I decide I’m just going to pee next to the minivan using it to shield me from anyone on the road. I also shed my headband and top since it’s warmed up.



Earlier in the week, Andrea had made some large color prints of pictures of me from previous races, including me in my pink gown at Nike Women’s Marathon, my French maid outfit at Javelina Jundred, and my Wonder Woman outfit at Nike Women’s Marathon…some of my “greatest hits.” Every so often throughout the race, she would tape up a new one onto the outside of the minivan so that by the end, the car was wallpapered with pictures of me from various races. It made for quite a sight.

Somewhere before the 40K mark, the pavement ends and it’s a gravel road. One of my calves is starting to hurt so I stop a bit to stretch it out. I’ve had a calf tear years ago so I want to be careful. I’m approaching the halfway point, the first marathon. Steve King is here announcing and he talks about how my run has the steady, relaxed look of an ultra distance runner, which was affirming. I’m still in fifth place and my first marathon (i.e. halfway) time is 4:15, which I’m pretty happy with. It was a bit interesting to note what a non-event it was like for me having just run a marathon, but with another marathon to go, I guess that made sense.

The runner in front of me, RP, has widened the gap (no surprise), but since I only took about a 30 second break here and he apparently took about 2 minutes, I’ve made up a little time on him. My crew would later tell me that when the runners behind me took their time at this point in the race, the announcer compared them to my brief stop here.



The second marathon has more climbing and my pace seems to be dropping a bit, even on the flatter sections. I think part of it is that both my calves are bugging me a bit as well as my right hip from my IT band. The road is graded a bit for drainage and I think my right side IT is taking more abuse even though I’ve tried to run closer to the middle of the road. At about 45K, Bryan decides he’s going to pace with me. I enjoy chatting with him and his pacing helps me get maintain a decent pace, even through all the climbing. It’s also helpful to have someone carrying water for you right there with you, esp. since it’s become pretty warm so I’m using some of the water on my head to keep cool.



We’re moving along pretty well and we’re definitely pulling away from JM because her crew is no longer leapfrogging me so she must be at least a few kilometers back now. We’re trying to figure out when exactly the big climb is (supposed to be around 60K) since we’ve been steadily climbing (and some descending). My calves continue to bother me and every so often my right IT band does. When we finally do the climb, it’s not really that bad at all…not bad from a trail ultra perspective that is, but someone who only ran (flat) road races would think this was pretty hilly. I finally decide to take some ibuprofen.

At some point, the announcer drives up in his van along side of us on his way to the finish line. He has his passenger side window down so he can talk to us and he tells me that I’ve been doing a brilliant bit of running and that he’ll see us at the finish. I tell Bryan that I don’t know about brilliant because I only do what I can do, but I am glad that I can finish the race with my strength.



Bryan’s legs are spent since he’s paced me through 25K and most of the hills. I’ve never really made use of a pacer in previous races, but I can definitely see how helpful it is. The last 15K is primarily downhill (esp. the first 5k of this last 15K) and my wife joins me off and on for sections of it. She hasn’t been running in quite awhile so she can keep pace with me on the downhills, somewhat on the flats, but if there’s an uphill, she has to bail and have Bryan pick her up and leapfrog ahead of me so she can pace me some more.

These downhill descents are really taking their toll on my calves and my IT band. Each downhill is seriously painful. There’s also a little bit of uphill and I run part of it, but then have to walk. When I get to the downhill and flats again, my wife wants to run with me so she paces me off and on again, but she’s struggling to keep up.

At some point JM’s crew leapfrogs ahead of me and so I worry that she’s caught up to me. I’m not really racing her per se (and she would go on to finish 4th overall, second female, and shatter the F40-49 record by over 2 hours), but it still would suck to get passed in the last few K of a 52.4K race.

The last few kilometers are incredibly painful and even though I know the end is near, each kilometer seems to stretch out for an eternity. I just have to force the grey matter to push the meat around for a little longer. Andrea wants to finish the last part of the race with me (even though the race is already set up to have the crew join you in the last 200m to run through the finish with you), so she paces with me and Bryan drives again. I’m in so much pain and Andrea knows it and she says she wants to cry and when she tells me she feels this way, it makes me start to tear up to hear her say it. Andrea can’t keep pace so she hops back into the minivan for awhile again. Bryan hops out and paces me for a little bit. Andrea still wants to run with me to the finish so they swap again. She pushes herself so she can stay with me and it’s a struggle for both of us in our own ways.

Finally, finally, finally, we turn and we can see ahead to where we make the turn into the park where the finish is set up. We’re running to where we see Bryan ahead of us. Andrea can’t keep the pace and she tells me to go on ahead so I can make my time. I let out a half laugh because the idea of finishing without her sounds so preposterous since we’ve been doing this whole race together so I slow down a bit.

We meet up with Bryan and we all join hands and trot to the finish line. I hold our joined hands up in the air and we cross the finish line. I feel elation and relief, but I feel strong. The race director is here congratulating me. We pose for photos (with Colonel Alvin Drew below). So many others are congratulating me and it’s all a glorious blur.



I finished the run in 8:56:37, good for fifth place. This moved me up to 11th place overall with a total time of 29:18:44 for the three days. Considering my expectation was just to finish (esp. not DNF on Day 2), I was very satisfied.

I signed up for a massage right away and there was no waiting (a distinct advantage of finishing before most), but I actually wasn’t quite ready for one yet since I was still reveling in the finish. I went to medical for all my tests. I weighed in at below 130 which mean I was definitely dehydrated so I started taking in plenty of liquids. I ate some food (some good pizza, chicken thighs, salad) and then had a massage, which lasted for at least 30 minutes (no wonder there was such a long wait all the other days).



We stuck around to watch all the rest of the athletes finish. In the last hour before the cutoff, there were still eight athletes who hadn’t yet finished. We were all watching and waiting for sign that there were close to the finish because we know how heartbreaking a DNF would be at this point. As some of the finishers and their crews crossed, they were overcome with emotion and we were all overcome right along with them as they celebrated their triumphant finish as well as the end of the pain (although I saw a lot of folks with a lot of blisters) that they had been suffering to get there. I congratulated every finisher. When it was all done, the last two finishers made it across with just over 10 minutes before the cutoff. It was great to have everyone successfully finish the race and we could all collectively share our success.




We headed to the car and drove back to the hotel. We had to unload the car of all the gear from the last 2 days of racing (the minivan was a mess, but whatever…it was a rental). We’re all pretty tired and need showers, but not so hungry since we ate at finish line. My wife did end up ordering a pizza, of which I ended up eating half. We all slept well that night.

The day after the race, the entire race group and all of the crews were invited to do an Ohana float down the river as a post-race activity. The place to do this was just across the street from the hotel, so all of the athletes hobbled over there with there crews. We rented innertubes and a ticket to get a ride back up which was half subsidized by the race organization (i.e. cost us $5 each). This was a perfect, relaxing activity for all of us to enjoy.



We did have to return the gear that the race organization loaned us (e.g. cooler, binder, hi-vis vests) and buy some schwag (cap, t-shirt, mug, and tri top for me). We had lunch at The Dream Café, which was so so. Then we pretty much had to pack up since the three of us had a 5:45PM flight. There was an awards banquet which started at 4:00PM so we would only be able to attend for about 20 minutes before we had to head to the airport.

It was a shame that we hadn’t planned to stay for the awards ceremony since it would have been an opportunity to hear from everyone else directly and to further bond with our fellow racers and crews. Because we were leaving, I had to do my speech first. They introduced me and then read off my splits for the race and presented me with a finisher’s medal, jacket, and trophy with our name and finishing time engraved on it.



I gave my speech where I talked about how unique this race was, not because of the distances we did, but because how involved the crews were with their athletes in the race (which made them a part of the race), but also how we all became involved with each other - other athletes and other crews. When that was done, we said some quick goodbyes and headed to the airport.

*****

Ultraman was my most significant athletic feat to date. It was an incredibly rewarding experience for me to race it because I could involve others and be involved with others. Likewise, my crew was also surprised at how much they enjoyed the experience despite how much work it was. I’m not sure if/when I’ll race like this again (Ultraman Hawaii 2012?), but if you ever have the opportunity to be involved with the race, either as an athlete or crew or volunteer, I think you’ll find it rewarding too.

*****

Post script: In the end, the spirit of a challenge is the same for anyone...it's pushing yourself beyond what you thought were your own boundaries. This is what I was doing for me at this race, but can happen at any level of experience. Just like so many others, I started here on BT when I was doing sprints (check my first race reports). To be sure, I've put in a lot of work, made tradeoffs, had opportunities over many years to build to this point and not everyone one else will have those opportunities and be willing/able to make those tradeoffs. But that being said, there's undoubtedly a potential ultraman in all of us.