Race Report

The half-ironman was not what I would have liked it to be. I did not get to finish the race. I completed the swim. I did it in slightly less time than I thought I would, though I didn't realize how much slower than much of the field I was. I swam and was passed by many of my fellow yellow swim-capped age groupers. Then I was passed by a few people from the wave behind me. Then I was passed by people from the wave behind that. Then I was passed by people from the wave behind them! At that point I started to panic, but kept on swimming. I made it out of the river... 1.2 miles in 50 minutes.

I went to the transition area and changed into my bike gear. I was a little light headed from the swim and went a little slowly. Within ten minutes I was on my bike and on the route. It started with a huge hill. I chugged up it and kept going. A coach had told me the day before to go really slow and steady and take it like a training ride. I followed his advice... maybe a little too literally. I went slowly. At times, I rode like it was a easy Sunday morning ride by the beach. I took in the sights. It was beautiful. Around mile 16 my chain fell off the bike. Luckily I had learned how to fix this little problem the day before. I took a couple minutes to fix the chain and then kept going. Mile 22, I make a friend. A woman who's training for an ironman starts peddaling next to me. We're having fun. We're chatting. Mile 26 she needs to go to the bathroom. She pulls over to the side where there's a small convenience store. I'm liking having a friend to talk to, so I pull over with her. She takes about 6 minutes. When she's done we continue riding. 4 minutes later she zooms ahead of me and leaves me! That sucked! Mile 33, my legs start to cramp and now I have to go to the bathroom. There's a porta-potty near an aid station. I jump in and can barely walk. My legs are cramping so badly. I limp back to the bike and start peddaling again. After a while, my leg muscles ease up. Mile 39... I've been on the bike for 3 hours. I'm a little behind my expected finish time of 4 hours, but I think I'll be able to make it. Mile 40... the dreaded Nasty Grade Hill. It's very aptly named. I start climbing the two mile hill. My legs start cramping again. About a mile and a half up, I think I'm going to fall over. My legs are cramping so badly and the hill looks like it's never going to end. I get off and walk up half a mile. I think I'm almost at the top and hop back on. I ride over the crest. The hill goes down a bit and then veers to the right and climbs some more. I'm almost in tears, but I keep going. Finally I make it to the delicious downhill. I didn't look at the course map very closely. I forget about the 3.5 mile climb again at mile 46. My legs are dead. Even the flats feel like climbs. The course is very windy and the head winds do not help. Then there another long climb at mile 52. I'm going slow and steady trying to keep my legs as fresh as possible for the run. I forget about the time cut-off.

I finally make it back to the transition area. A friendly event volunteer smiles at me. "How was the bike?" "Long." She then stoops to take off my race chip. "Don't I need that for the run?" "You missed the time cut-off honey." My face dropped. I forgot all about that!

Ilyse's brother Adam is in the transition area. He comes to greet me. I'm disappointed and he helps me pack up my race bag. Ilyse comes in 10 minutes or so later and we commiserate about the hideous hills at the end of the race.