Tempe, Arizona United States Ironman North America 88F / 31C Sunny

Total Time = 12h 08m 13s Overall Rank = 482/1943 Age Group = W25-29 Age Group Rank = 17/57

Okay it's done in all it's typo glory. I'm sure I forgot lots because I just keep thinking about things so I may periodically update it. You know the drill...I talk lot's, but these Race Reports are for me because I want to remember, not for y'all. So, just look to the right for the stats and go on if you want. A brief clif note's version:

Swim: Was good for me, water temp felt good, minimal bumping, went by fast

T1: Was slow, but I was only shooting for around 10 min. per transition so it was fine. Felt rushed.

Bike: Yeehaw!! Fast Course, lot's of fun. Tried to not go balls to the wall even though I wanted to so bad.

T2: Took my time, went to the bathroom, nothing exciting

Run: Hurt like hell, every 1,660,032 inch. Guess I survived though.

Overall: I discovered I'm an emotional little girl. What happened to my tough exoskelton I've been growing for 26 years??

Alright, I gotta talk about my trip from start to finish, so skip to Event warm-up to start with race day stuff.

Wednesday April 5
I had to get up super early after already being up late trying to get things done. I had to finish packing (Now, about packing...being the anal engineer type A person that I am I made checklists for each transition bag and special needs bag. I then bought those big storage ziplock bags so that I could go ahead and pack the stuff in individual bags so that when I got my actual gear bags I could just transfer the stuff into the new bags and again double check as I went along. I'm glad I did this, it worked quite well) and get in a 45 min. bike and 10 min. run and then I had to swing by the chiropractor to get the final kinks worked out then it was on to work, blah. Work was pointless of course because I just wanted to be in Arizona so bad. My friend Allison called me at 7:30 am that morning to let me know they were headed to the airport. I was so jealous. It sucks not having any vacation time, but oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do. Several people have asked why I didn't fly. Well, I did the math and really, driving was slightly cheaper and the logistics of getting my bike there from podunk Longview just seemed to create more hassle. Plus, it gave me peace of mind knowing that I did not have to adjust my bike in any way before hand and that it would never leave my sight. At BSL I made the mistake of lowering my seat maybe a half inch and had bad knee pain on the bike. My body obviously likes my bike fit now and isn't happy when I try to screw with it. So anyways, the hours finally ticked by and I was able to leave work at 3 pm. I ran home to finish loading up my car and did the "What am I forgetting dance" before putting the mop in the car and heading for Abilene. It was hard to get too excited yet though because I was just going to Abilene today, blah drive that I've seen a million times. But at least there is like vegetation between here and there, boy did I not know what I had coming in my next day's travels. Oh, I had stopped in Weatherford to get gas and eat some Subway. There was a nice little grassy field next to the gas station so I thought I would sit on the sidewalk and let Sebastian run around. Well, the big chicken is too scared to leave me and then this lady with a chiuaua walks in the little grassy area and is barking at Sebastian and then Sebastian starts whining. So I walk into the grass trying to get him to walk in it and he starts tippy-toeing like he's never seen grass before. Man I've got a sissy dog (Ha, evidentally he just takes after his mommy). So gave up on that and told him to get back in the car. I made it to Abilene around 9 and dropped off my screwy computer at my dad's and got to see my little niece again. She's two months old now and so chubby, she's adorable! Made it over to my mom's around 10 pm and immediately headed for bed.

Thursday April 6th
I had my mom wake me up when she got up to get ready for work. She gets up at 5:15 in the morning, but doesn't have to be at work until 8 am! I finally asked her why and she says she doesn't like to be rushed. She's so not my mom! That's like 2 hours of precious sleep just gone for no good reason. Anyways, ate some oatmeal and got ready to roll out. Said goodbye to the mop who looked extremely sad and was on the road a little before 6:30 am. So now I'm off and finally headed to Arizona! The plan was to drive as far as possible, stay overnight somewhere and get to Tempe Friday morning. If the drive went well, I would make it to Tempe Thursday night. When thinking about the drive out to Arizona I imagined blue skies and no rain. Well, I got the no rain part. It was windy when I left Abilene, well, it's West Texas, of course it's windy. I expected that, but by the time I got to Odessa the wind was just crazy. I had the radio on a local station there and they said there were wind gusts up to 50 mph. I believed it! So I had a death grip on the wheel for 100's of miles to come and drove through a brown haze. Man is there a whole lot of nothing out there. Cruise control is the best invention ever. There were literally times I went without seeing a single car. After Pecos, I kinda had to go to the bathroom so I thought, no big deal, I'll just go at the next town. So I keep going and keep going. Finally on I-10 and keep going. No bathrooms and it's starting to get more severe. It got so bad that I was looking for an exit so that I could go under the overpass (because there are NO trees out there). Well, there are no exits because there are no other roads out there because it truly is BFE. I saw a sign for a rest area and thought, well those usually have bathrooms, I can go there. Then, a mile later it mentions the rest area again with the words underneath: No restroom. Ugh! They're killing me here! I finally spot a lone little gas station at the top of a hill and I dash to the exit. You had to drive over a cattle guard to get to it, which I found odd, but didn't care. Man, what relief! I could function again! So back to driving through sad little pathetic towns and fighting the wind. I made it to El Paso in about 6 hours and it was time for lunch. I decided I wanted a sit down meal so that I could eat real food and get a break from the car. I ate at the cracker barrel. It's always weird eating by yourself. I had a good lunch and then borrowed their restroom on the way out. I walk in there and look in the mirror and the hair in my ponytail is sticking straight up from the wind apparently. Lovely! Not only was I the dork eating by herself, but my hair was reaching for the sky. So, made a mad dash out of there and it was on to New Mexico. Gee, to my surprise, it's still ugly. I cracked up at all the signs that said "Blowing Dust Area, Use Extreme Caution." Really? Dust out here? Who would have thought? Do we really need to state the obvious? Actually though, the further west I went, the less wind there was. I was slowly able to pry my fingers off the steering wheel. Perhaps this tension is what caused my troubles in the next couple of days. Periodically throughout my day Allison would call to check up on me and tell me what they were up to and then I would call my secretary to let her know where I was at (she's like my mom). The great thing about driving to Arizona is that I gained 2 hours on the drive. Once in Arizona I realized that I was going to make it there about 6:30 AZ time. Awesome! I'll be there in time for dinner (priorities here, when and where is the food coming). Other than the wind, the drive was easy, no traffic issues because well, there isn't much traffic in BFE. Only place it got a little slow was in Tucson, but I was there just before 5 pm so it was understandable. I found our house easily and Kirk and Allison came running out the door, taking pictures along the way and gave me a great big hug. I will have about a million pictures from this trip because Kirk and Allison took pictures of EVERYTHING. Then I had my camera, Lindsay had a camera, and Erin had a camera. It's gonna take some time gathering them all together. Anyways, unloaded my gear, checked out our cool house. We had a pool and a jacuzzi too, sweet! Oh, perhaps now would be the time to explain who these people are. Allison is the older sister of a guy I used to date back in high school. We broke up, but I stayed extremely close to his family and Ben and I don't hate each other, just weren't meant to be together. Kirk is Allison's husband and then Regi is a friend of theirs. A couple of interesting facts: IMAZ would be Allison's 6th IM. She has severe diabetes and has to wear a glucose pump and check her blood sugar throughout the race. She manages it so well though, she's a hoss. Allison is also extremely outspoken and speaks when she often shouldn't, it was quite comical to us, but if you didn't know her, it might rub you the wrong way. Regi had only done sprints in the past, not even an olympic before. So it was nice to be there with another IM virgin, yet know that I at least had some more endurance training under my belt. I called Regi the token black dude because there were only like 5 in the race, lol. Regi was hilarious. Allison called him Princess and kept saying that we were on Princess Standard Time because we could say we were leaving at 8 or whatever, but we always ended up leaving a few minutes after that due to waiting on him. Anyways, so I had some time to just sit for a little bit while Kirk grilled fish. They handed me a glass of wine and it was just what I needed to settle my nerves a bit. So dinner was awesome with grilled fish, rice pilaf and this awesome bread. I then got roped into going to Coldstone Creamery. I wasn't going to get anything but they twisted my arm (okay, so deep down I knew I couldn't pass it up, but I tried to play cool). We came home, talked some more and then I headed to bed around 10:30 or so.

Friday April 7th
Finally going to get my first glimpse of the race site. I slept like crap Thursday night. Not sure why, I was tired, the bed was comfortable but I kept waking up in the night and found it hard to go back to sleep. So I was up early, along with everyone else in the house. Allison suggested that I go ahead and do my ride and then they would do the run part with me. So, here I was riding my bike at 6:30 am and it's freakin' bright outside, so weird. My ride felt good though. The neighborhood we were in had bike lanes...actually that entire city is covered in bike lanes, I'm so jealous. I came in from my short 20 min. ride and tossed on the running shoes and we headed out. We pretty much just goofed around and ran through a nearby park. Then we came back and got ready to head to the practice swim at 8 am. Walking into the race venue my stomach immediately sank. I hate looking at hoss people. I had these uncontrollable sighs that would escape me every now and then and they would just laugh. So glad they could take joy in my race anxiety. We made our way over to the steps and began putting on our wetsuits and checked in our gear. Kirk waited while the rest of us set out for a quick 15 min. swim. Kirk wasn't doing the race, but he was a medical volunteer. He's done 2 previous IM's and then has volunteered at the rest while Allison raced. He even brought 3 IV's just for us in case we needed them. So, back to the water. Everyone coming out of there was screaming about how cold it was. I was nervous about getting in. I slowly walked down the steps and shoved off. It took my breath away at first, but then it just felt wonderful. It felt great to be in open water, even if the lake was merky. So, did my 15 min. and then came back out. Allison said her hands and feet were going numb and we talked to several others who were fearful of the cold water. The swim instantly gave me a small boost because I thought it felt great and it felt relaxing in my wetsuit. We changed clothes and then headed to the expo to walk around until registration. They had a lot of cool IMAZ stuff and everyone else was buying stuff like crazy. I was fearful because I hated buying IMAZ stuff not knowing whether or not I would finish. The entire time leading up to the race I kep saying, "If I finish.." And everyone kept saying, "WHEN you finsih, Gina." But I just couldn't allow myself to say that becaues you don't know for 100% sure that you will finsih. They persuaded me into buying something anyways so I got a t-shirt and a jersey and felt guilty until race day. We walked around some more and then I stood in line at registration. Oh, and guess who I was behind in line at registration?? Pam Reed!! But, I was too scared to talk to her. Here is this mega-hoss woman and little ol' me. I'm not worthy. She seemed really cool though, just by listening to her talk to her friends. Allison was so crazy and took a picture at just about every step. Here's Gina getting her waivers, here's Gina getting weighed (oh, and let's not talk about the weighing thing, ick! My excuse: I had on shoes, clothes and we had just gone swimming so my hair was still wet, yeah that's it, that's why I saw that awful number), here's Gina with her swim cap, here's Gina buying pictures, blah blah. Man, everything is so expensive at IM's. I bought just the basic finisher's photo. I just don't feel like I need all this crap saying I finished. I'll know I finished, that's all I need. So, after registration, I decided to head to the ART tent because for some reason my left shoulder got a shooting pain before our practice swim. The ART guy was awesome (and hot). He asked if it was my first IM and I of course said yes. He just laughed. Anytime I said it was my first one, people just laughed, doesn't make you feel good. Anyways, he had done Wisconsin and told me some about that. The ART seemed to work, my shoulder almost immediately started to feel better. As soon as I finished that, Erin and Lindsay were pulling into the parking lot and it was lunch time. Perfect timing! So we walked over and met them and next to the parking lot was a mexican restaurant. Talk about my lucky day! The mexican food was just okay though, I've had better. After pigging out there, we decided to just head to the house and relax until the athletes dinner (yep, more food, see a theme to this trip?). It was nice just sitting out on the patio and catching up with Lindsay and Erin. Allison laid out in the pool. Once the sun crept to us we retreated inside. Oh, and the bestest BTer ever called me that afternoon too to wish me goodluck...thanks Kristen (vertical_listing). That made me feel good. Finally Erin and Lindsay left to go check into their hotel and I hopped into the shower before heading to the athlete dinner. The athlete dinner was pretty cool. I just liked listening to the stats. Texas had the 3rd most people in the race, go Texas! We got all excited and the announcer said we had been hanging out at the bar too much. 40% of the racers were IM virgins (that's me) and almost 21% were female (me again...that seems like a small # of females). Then they had people stand up for doing so many IM's. A couple of guys had done over 40 IM's. That's incredible. Then there was one girl who was doing an IM as her first triathlon EVER! Very brave. Kirk and Allison said they met someone at IMLP who was doing it as their first triathlon because he lost a bet. Man, that's a bad way to lose a bet. The athlete meeting was pointless because it covered everything in the athlete's packet and what was on the internet and what you got at registration, but apparently people will still screw up the easy stuff and must be told again. After the meeting, we headed home and started getting our gear bags ready and then off to bed. Allison was so awesome because the days leading up to the race I would have these random questions and she never got annoyed answering them. She was so helpful and gave me some tips of her own which were always great. I think she loved the 'deer in the headlights" feeling I had.

Saturday April 8th
Slept a little better this night, but still not great. Allison and I weren't going to swim again, but Regi wanted to do a full run through so he loaded up all of his gear and headed for the race site. As soon as I came into the kitchen that morning, Kirk goes, "Hey Gina, less than 24 hours." Shut up! He was a constant countdown timer the rest of the day and it was freaking me out. Allison and I sat around watching a million episodes of Darma and Greg before finally getting out to do our 20 min. workout. Then it was shower time, AGAIN (shower, eat, repeat...oh and sometimes do some working out). Kirk was up at the race site too for the medical volunteers meeting so when he got back we went and ate lunch at Chipolte's. It was good, but I don't get the hype. Then it was time to load up the bikes and gear bags and head back to the race site. We got all of our stuff turned in and then I decided to head BACK to ART because now my left shoulder was hurting. What's going on? This one hurt pretty bad and the guy worked on it a lot but it wasn't getting that much better. He told me to come back a little later. So I did and he decided to tape it. Great, my left shoulder is all messed up the day before the race, just what I needed! I tried my best to stay calm though. Kirk was helping set up the medical tent and Regi was waiting for his family to arrive so we just found some nice shade to sit under. Man was it hot that day, we were all thinking about the next day and how we were going to stay cool. Finally we had everyone together and we decided to drive the bike course real quick. We didn't realize that the bike course would be completely to one side of the road and the traffic on the otherside so as we were driving out and seeing all the debris on the road, we weren't too excited. But our side come race day was pretty clean I thought. After that it was back to the house to cook dinner and begin winding it down for the big day tomorrow. We ate grilled chicken and coos coos (however it's spelled, it was my first time to ever eat it and it was great), and grilled veggies and yummy bread again. Oh and I had a glass of wine too to help calm the nerves. After that, it was Coldstone Creamery, again. So good. Back home and it was shower and bed time. Allison gave me a half of a tylenol pm and I was off to bed.

Race Day!!!!!! We all got up at 4 am to begin eating (gotta get protein in 3 hours before race start). I had a power bar and a banana and a little bit of oatmeal, but Regi and Allison went crazy with eggs and waffles. I just can't eat that much. Then it was time to fill water bottles etc. I was a dork and filled up my perpetuem bottle for the bike with 8 scoops of perp. This along with gel should be enough calories to get me through the bike without needing to stop at special needs (I need to consume 235 (okay approx. that much. I wasn't out there with a measuring cup!) calories per hour on the bike, which is very easy for me to carry all at once. It pays to be a shrimpy girl. Too many people OD on calories not knowing that when your body is working that hard, it just can't digest as much). So then I was making a bottle of perp. for special needs just in case I might need more, lose my current one, etc. Since I would be getting it a little past halfway I just put 4 scoops in. Well I sat it on the table next to the other one and then I was like, which one is the real one?! I start freaking out, even though I knew I set the SN one on the outside. So Allison and I kept lifting them to see which one was heavier. It's amazing how it's so hard to tell the difference. But I knew I had it right, I just needed the peace of mind to make sure. Anyways, we finally were fed, packed up and loaded around 5:15 and headed for the race site.

Freak out mode: ON! Holy cow! Walking into the race venue was terrifying with everyone fluttering about. We headed for our bikes to put our bottles, etc. on and to air up the tires. I freak out and say, "I forgot my pump!" Even though I heard them say at the athlete's dinner that they would have some there. Non-crisis adverted. After airing up my tires, I saw Haley and Elizabeth while waiting in line for the bathroom. Then we put a couple more things in our gear bags and got numbered. Man, I clinged to poor Allison for dear life. I was worse than a little kid on the first day of kindergarten. Oh gosh, freak out moment number 2 came when I tried to find my bike gear bag. I found the sign with my number in it, so I'm going through the bags and I'm not seeing the pink ribboned bag (I tied pink ribbon to the tops of my bags to help find them easier). I'm like, somebody stole my bag! They moved it to the wrong spot! Allison comes over to me and was like, okay, calm down and let's look at this. Turns out I was on the wrong side of the sign. Oops...he he, okay, I'm just going to stop thinking now. I seriously was just trying to breathe, it was finally here and I so didn't want it to be. We went and dropped off special needs and then it was time to put on our wetsuits. While getting that done, Lindsay and Erin showed up so I ran to give them my camera and cell phone. Back to Kirk and Allison I finished putting on my wetsuit and lathering in bodyglide. It was then time to walk through transition and across the timing mats. I was having a panic attack that I didn't have enough bodyglide on and Allison is worried that her glucose pump isn't inserted right. Kirk tells us to stop worrying and just go. So, as we are in line to walk across the timing mats I see a volunteer with a big ol' stick of bodyglide. "Do me, do me!!!" Man, did he, he got it all over me. Whew, I feel better now, no way was I going to chafe out there. Then, as soon as we walked across the timing mats the cannon for the pros goes off. Holy crap! I didn't realize it was that close already!!

That's when it happened...the imfamous picture that everyone has seen, the one that graced the front page of the sports section the following day...I started crying. It was uncontrollable and I couldn't stop. I wasn't really fearful of the swim, I think I honestly felt that deep down I could at least finish barring any mechanical issues or stomach shutdowns. This has just been an emotional ride from the day I signed up...no from the day I was born. So I was smart in school and got good grades, it came easy to me. I hated the fact though that I was chubby, have been all my life. I've had friends tell me that, mom tell me that, sister tell me that, coach tell me that. I wasn't athletically inclined in any way. My high school running coach even told me one year, "Gina, you're not a runner." I broke down immediately upon hearing that. She went on to tell me though that I had more heart than anyone and never gave up, but I wanted more, I wanted people to view me as athletic and gifted in that way. I wasn't, I'm not. The race meant so much to me, but didn't seem to phase my parents. I hated that, do hate that. I feel like I try to impress them. My grades and graduation obviously wasn't enough. What else can I do, but I feared I would let them down again, when they didn't care about the race in the first place. What about everyone I told at work, in the Longview bike club, in the Tyler bike club, at the swimming pool, at church, clients, what would these people think if I didn't finish or if I finished poorly? Would they think bad of me? Was I being foolish wasting my money on this? Would all of my slacking in training and eating too much and being over race weight come pay me back in a bad way this day? I hated the uncertaintly of the race and I think that's why I started crying. I say I do these things for me, but if I didn't finish, I don't know that I would have ever come back from Arizona and shown my face again. Allison did her best to calm me down telling me about all of my previous accomplishments. A guy standing next to me was so kind and said that I would be fine. He had done a few before and even suggested I get in the water next to him and he would watch over me. Man, this race sure isn't short of the nicest people in the world.

Okay, calming down, drying tears and standing at the railing next to the water. Allison was waiting as long as possible before getting into the water because the cold water would drop her blood sugar too fast if she didn't start moving so I stayed back with her because I wanted to start towards the back of the pack anyways. There was a guy with a megaphone there though that was so funny. He just kept saying things like, "Go to the water, it won't come to you. Go to the water, it wants you it likes you. The water is your friend." Finally, we jumped in and I just thought about Dave Scott's advice of, "breathe." The water felt warmer than the practice swim, it was really perfect temp now. We slowly waded up towards the line. It's a deep water start, but it's not hard to float in a wetsuit until the gun goes off. I mentioned jumping in because there were no stairs, ladders, etc. near the start line, but they did have stairs at the exit. Erin and Lindsay were somehow able to spot me and I gave them a smile. Allison said to make sure to look around and give myself space so that when the cannon went off and I went flat, I would have room to do so. I had my nice little personal space going on. I was in the water, I can do this...I think.