i have a problem being brief… so it will be long - as usual.
Got to FL on Tuesday afternoon. checked into a really really swanky condo. made the first of many scary trips to Walmart (shudder) for food and supplies. I’d been really babying my stomach since i’d had diarrhea for the last 4-5 weeks and was on a super-bland diet of nothing cold, nothing sugary, nothing with yeast, nothing with mushrooms, nothing acidic, no red meat, no dairy, and basically nothing else either. i didn’t realize until i weighed in that i’d lost about 6 pounds over the last 2-3 weeks from my stomach issues. not so good.
Wednesday was lovely. I swam in the AM and it was warm and sunny. i had to work, which is pretty intense. it’s 9-5 all day standing. i usually end up losing my voice every day from talking so much. hard to eat and drink b/c it’s go, go, go all the time. but, a lot of my friends stopped by, which was nice.
Picked my bike up from TriBike Transport in the afternoon, which ROCKED. nothing sucks more than lugging your bike around the airport and paying crazy amounts of money only to find out that it is lost/damaged when you arrive. This was soooo low stress. Totally worth it. Checked in at registration and met the infamous Jonnyo, who looks different in person than in photos. I didn’t recognize him until he introduced himself.
Thurs and Fri just sucked and got colder and windier. Crap was blowing away in our expo booth, and the whole Timex booth was completely demolished by the wind on Friday morning. i wasn’t too thrilled about racing at this point b/c it was cold and windy and i felt like i hadn’t been eating/resting at all b/c of work. I ate an early dinner alone on friday, which just made me feel even more depressed… got a little cheered up after emailing a friend and hoped that the winds would die down in the AM. Slept like a rock, though. that is never an issue.
Sat AM was f-ing cold. someone said 32 degrees. stood down on the shoreline with my feet in the water trying to keep them warm. i started about 1 row back in the middle, but as soon as the gun went off, i was suddenly about 20 rows back. all the big guys were jumping waves a lot faster than me! i didn’t feel like i actually ‘swam’ at all before the first turn buoy, and i was looking forward to getting some clean water and settling in. but it never happened. on the back side, people started to panic and thrash in the rough water. i got nailed in the eye about half a dozen times and have a little black eye to show for it. the second lap wasn’t much better… same panicking people. i usually feel like i ‘win’ all the little ‘fights’ that take place on the swim, but somehow i just kept losing them all this time. kept getting pushed backward when normally i am able to close up gaps. 1:05 on the swim - 1 min slower than AZ and about 5 min slower than i’d hoped.
in T1, i took everything off. and i was right by the entrance to the tent, so i bet someone outside got a good show. all the volunteers seemed to be standing around with their hands under their armpits trying to stay warm - while i was struggling to get spandex over my wet body. i did finally get some help in my desperate attempt to put on long sleeves, tights, and a headband. being too warm is not an issue for me! there seemed to be some difficulty in finding my bike, but i slid my way to the mounting line (on IMlive TV) and nearly got kicked in the face by some dude mounting next to me.
i got passed by Nino around mile 5 on the bike, which was funny. we both said hi. bike was pretty uneventful until we hit the back side with ~35 miles straight into the headwind. since the ‘plan’ was to push harder into the wind, i did. meanwhile, i was getting swallowed up and spit out by pack after pack after pack. usually 6-10 guys just plowing through everything. sometimes there was a girl holding onto the back of them, which pissed me off. finally a motorcycle came up and watched a couple of these packs roll through me, and i thought, 'finally, this is going to be put to an end!" but I was told that i needed to drop back and give them more room!!! Huh? what about the 9 guys that just rolled though here looking like a solid Cat 2 road race team? I know the official was someone on ST b/c he caught up to me later and made a sign on his notepad to ask if i were Austin79. I know I rode as clean as I could and wayyyy cleaner than anyone else i saw. there was plenty of blatant wheel-sucking going on. i saw very few girls at all on the course, but most of them were involved, which was pretty disappointing.
i felt pretty blown by the time i got to special needs, so i was thankful that almost the entire rest of the bike was with a really strong tailwind. i’m not sure i would have made it otherwise. My computer had been fritzing the whole time and I was praying the battery would hold out - and it did. I launched one of my special needs water bottles into oblivion, so i had to pick up a g’ade instead. it immediately sent my stomach into GI distress, and i had to switch to water and Gu for the last 30 mi. Bike was 5:55.
T2 was pretty uneventful. someone from ST got my bag for me - not sure who it was. I switched to running shorts (no skirt this time) b/c i wasn’t running in freaking tights and the weather was actually really pleasant at this point (finally). Ate some pepto bismol tablets to get the stomach back under control.
AR met up with me at mi 2 on the run. I ran with him for about a mile (7:58 pace) and realized that he was trying to kill me, so i told him to go. i was pretty steady in the 8:30 range and feeling comfortable until i got the park and the pepto wore off. I think i hit every port-a-pot in the park and was actually contemplating running behind a sand dune at one point. my stomach did settle down after that, but my times immediately dropped to 9:30 miles. i felt like i was fading, and i knew it was too early if that continued exponentially (as losing time often does). somehow, i was able to hold the 9:30s though. saw marisol and her BF, my coworkers, Stephan - who was completely zoned out and looked like an odd German pirate in his skull cap, Richard Freer - who was way more alert than i was, Andrea, AR again, Mark in FL - who was kicking ass, and then ran about a mile with Luis from Timex. We gave Herbert a big wave. Then, I got to GO548, my fellow Team Ti member, and gave him a big hug. After that I kinda zoned out. It got really quiet and dark. All you could hear were people’s feet and their breathing. and some occassional farts. no one was even talking. I started to get scared in the last 5 miles that i was losing control. I felt like i was going to trip or pass out - i just wanted to get to that last mile. i was trying to concentrate really hard on running and not passing out. started thinking about all my friends and my doctor and brian and paulo - just to get me to the finish. 3:59 marathon. I think my one try at a stand-alone marathon was 3:56.
Now, for some reason, when I ran into the chute iat IMAZ, ‘Fat Bottom Girls’ was playing and fortunately ended so I was able to finish to a more respectable song (‘Footloose,’ I believe). This time, I got stuck with ‘Fat Bottom Girls.’ They must cue that song just for me or something. Anyway, 11:11:05 isn’t too shabby. And I was happy to take 29 minutes off my AZ time. I felt like i really had to fight for it all day, and it was nice to know that i managed under some definite anti-Lauren conditions.
2 great things i discovered are: compression socks and New Skin. I traveled in some compression socks, wore them all week, and put them on after the race. They have definitely helped. I like to think of them as thigh-highs for athletes… with slightly less sex appeal. Jen had taught me her New Skin trick in Lubbock, and I was excited to try it out. A few coats of New Skin all over the feet, and I have zero blisters! Amazing!!!
Thanks for Desert Dude and Paulo, as always. I don’t know how many times I thought of you guys out there on the course. So much of my effort was just to make you proud.
