16 miles and LASIK

My long run this week in preparation for the 50K was 16 miles. Normally, I would do this run on Saturday or Sunday morning, but I had LASIK planned for Friday morning, which means 3 days of no workouts.

This meant running Friday morning before LASIK - which ended up being the perfect distraction! One of my favorite things to do on long runs is to listen to a captivating audio book. I vary the topics from fiction to business (and everything in between) and recent favorites include The Help and Outliers and I just finished Ken Follet's The Fall of Giants.

I am always sad when a good audio book ends, especially long ones that I have been listening to for weeks. The characters almost become friends and I miss them when the story is over. I finished The Fall of Giants earlier this week so I was at a loss as to what to listen to for my long run this week, but knew I needed something other than music to distract me for 2.5 hours or I would stress about the surgery.

I ended up choosing Tina Fey's Bossypants and it was the absolute perfect distraction. The book made me laugh out loud on my run and I didn't spend a second of that 2.5 hours thinking about lasers in my eyes.

The other benefit of doing my long run before LASIK is that I was pretty worn out (more on that in a minute) and being tired made less stressed. The good news is that my tired state coupled with the valium they gave me right before surgery made me totally relaxed during the procedure. It has only been 36 hours since surgery, but so far so good!

The not great news is that my 16 mile run was exactly half the distance I will running in less than 2 months and I was totally spent after 16 miles. This is when I have to remember that I have not tapered, I am still fighting cough / cold / congestion crap and that I didn't follow my race day nutrition. I am looking forward to my 18 mile run next week to see how I feel and hopefully I will finally be rid of this cough!

Good luck to all those racing long tomorrow ... yes, I am a wee bit jealous.

I couldn't end this post without mentioning 9/11. Ten years later ... may we never forget.

Cold Front

For the first time in weeks, temps in Houston were below 100 degrees, coming in at a cool 93 degrees today. It is amazing what a difference of 10 degrees makes! I did my long run of the week, 14 miles, and despite not feeling well because I am coming down with a sore throat and cough, I made it through the miles without as much trouble as expected thanks to the lower temps.

Now that I have had a taste of the "cooler" temps, I am ready for Fall! For those of you in the Northeast, I am not envious of your winters, but I am sure envious of the cooler temps you are experiencing now.

Hope you all are enjoying the long holiday weekend!

You know what they say about assumptions ...

About a week ago the doorbell rang in the evening, sending my chocolate lab into a barking frenzy and two curious little boys to the door. Standing outside the door was a young guy, early 20s perhaps, wearing khaki pants and a 3 button polo shirt with a pest control company name embroidered on the front. He gave a very short spiel about how his company was doing some work in the neighborhood and wanted to know if we were interested.

I quickly explained to him that Terminix has been doing our quarterly pest control for years so we would not be requiring his service. I was about to turn around to go inside and shut the door when he stopped to ask me one more question ...

"What is the sticker on the back of your Jeep - the number - mean? Is it a race?" I explained that the number was 140.6, the distance of an Ironman.

His reply ...

"That's really cool, did your husband do that?"

I just smiled and pointed at myself.

Technique, technique, technique?

I have been told I have a "pretty" freestyle ... well, it is definitely pretty ...

Pretty slow that is.

I know that if I swim every single day and put all of my effort into being a "swimmer", I will get faster, although I honestly question how much faster I am capable of being without a fundamental change in how I swim.

I am a middle of the pack swimmer who enjoys the swim, but I am a realist as well. Where we spend our time is an investment and it is also an opportunity cost. An hour in the pool might mean saving a few precious minutes on the swim, but that same time spent in the saddle on a weekly basis can create huge dividends in terms of time saved on the bike in a race.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am disenchanted with the swim. I have been swimming for three years and I worked pretty hard leading up to Florida and Cedar Point to get faster and logged tons of hours and yards in the pool. Circumstances changed (primarily how much I travel for my job) and I did less swiming leading up to IMTX and guess what, my swim time was nearly exactly the same WITHOUT a wetsuit in washing machine conditions! So, go figure, less training = similar results. I am sure if I had been swimming more I would have been a couple of minutes faster, but not the 15 minutes faster I would love to be (sub 1:15 on an IM swim vs my actual time of sub 1:30).

So, what I really want to know is ... what's the secret to getting faster in the pool? Is there some change to my form that is going to yield huge dividends? I don't have the time (or frankly the desire) to invest in becoming a "swimmer". If the answer is that the way to get faster in the pool is to swim faster in the pool, then I will have to deal with that, but I just can't help but think that I am missing out on some secret that is slowing me down in the water.

I have heard from many swimmers that you can log endless hours in the pool and if your technique is not right, it is going to yield marginal returns. I was regularly attending Masters and learned to swim from a coach, but I have definitely hit a plateau. Any advice?

32 miles for my 32nd Birthday

I need a goal to get my out of bed in the morning, otherwise the snooze button it too tempting. Working out for the sake of working out and being healthy turns my good intentions (say an hour run) into checking the box kind of workouts (well, I still managed 30 minutes)!

My "A" race at the beginning of 2012 is the Rocky Racoon 50 mile trail race. I have wanted to do this race for years, but have never been able to priortize it over my tri training, so 2012 is going to be the year! Since I don't have much (ok, any) trail running experience, I figured I better do a couple of 50K races before attempting the 50 miler.

There just so happens to be a different Rocky Raccoon trail race (same location as the 50 miler) on November 5, a mere 4 days after my 32nd birthday. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may recall that Ironman Florida was my 30th birthday present to myself. So, in this spirit, I decided to run 32 miles for my 32nd bithday. The race is 31 miles, so I am going to have to either run a mile before it starts, or finish the race and add an extra mile, but either way, my Garmin will say 32 miles when I am finished!

So, what would you do? Do the extra mile as a warm up or cool down?

Oh, and so far, I have resisted the urge to sign up for IMTX again, although I still check the website on occassion. The race is still open, just in case you were wondering...

Bridgeland Sprint Race Report

As I mentioned in my last post, I clearly identify myself as an endurance triathlete, but in an effort to be more balanced in the family / work / training triangle this upcoming year, I am going to focus on short course racing as well as endurance trail running races.

What better way to determine my short course base than to do a test race? So, on a whim I entered the Bridgeland Sprint triathlon on August 7. I entered the race less than a month out, so I didn't have much time to train for it.

Most people think that sounds stupid ... Of course, I can do a Sprint if I can do an Ironman ... but racing a sprint and finishing a sprint are two very different things. My body is trained to go moderately hard for a very long time - which means pushing hard and staying in the red for nearly an hour and a half is a different animal.

My plan for the race was to survive the swim, err, swim to my best ability on my limited swim training, push as hard as possible on the bike and run sub 8:00 average on the run ... so here is how it all turned out:

Swim - 500 Meters (550 yards)
My wave started last - ugh. Starting 30 minutes behind the first wave means a hotter run and lots of passing on the bike. The race leaders actually passed the swim start on their run while I was waiting for my wave to start.

The swim was point to point and the lake was pefect. Not a wetsuit legal race by any stretch, but the water was not overly warm like I have experienced in other races. I started towards the front of my wave and stayed on the buoy line. My sighting was good and I felt pretty good in the water, depsite the fact that I have been avoiding the pool.

Given my lack of swimming, I was happy with my time, but I seriously am going to need some help on my swim if I am ever going to be competitive in this sport (more on that in a future post).

Time: 10:57
Rank: 26/70

T1
I ran hard out of the water in order to have a fast transition time, but my heart was pounding when I got to the rack. The only advantage of starting in the last wave is that transition was nearly empty so at least I didn't have to contend with a lot of other people. Since I registered late, I was not racked with my AG, but with other people who registered late (I found this to be odd) so I didn't even have other women in my AG next to me.

My T1 is always longer than my T2 as I do a couple of things in T1 that save me time in T2, but this T1 was considerbly slower than it should have been. I think my pounding heart overwhelmed me a bit...

Time: 1:49
Rank: 23/70

Bike - 13.5 Miles
My goal was to go as hard as possible on the bike without blowing up. It took me about 5 miles to really find my legs and for my heart rate to settle down a bit at the harder effort. I was pretty much passing people the entire race, but not many people in my AG. I had no clue where I was relative to the rest of my AG at that point. I finally started catching up and passing women in my AG in the second half of the bike. There were several women in my AG that I played leap frog with as well. At the last turn around heading back into transition (with a couple of miles to go) I saw a bunch of fast women approaching so I did my best to just pedal hard. The look on my face in my race photos from the bike show how hard I was working.

Overall, I am happy with my effort and the results relative to my AG, but I can't help but think I should be able to go significantly faster. If I can average 18.7 mph for 6 hours in an Ironman, I should be able to go significantly faster for 40 minutes. That is where the speed training comes in, I guess!

My bike time and T2 time are approximate because I am guessing at my T2 time as was lumped into my bike time. I hate inaccurate timing!

Time: 0:37:36 - 21.5 mph
Rank: 8/70

T2
T2 was quick and easy. Change shoes, drop sunglasses, grab visor and hand water bottle and exit.

Time: 0:01:00 (estimate)
Rank: ??/70

Run - 3.6 miles
My goal for the run was to run 8:30s for the first 1.5 miles and then really kick it for the last 2 miles. My heart rate was still pretty high as I started the run and I was barely holding pace. It was pretty hot and I was not sure I had it in me to run 7:30s for the last 2 miles. Fellow blogger Christy Blain ran by me in the fist mile and introduced herself and she gave me the boost I needed to pick up the pace (thanks, Christy!).

Unfortunately, shortly after this I got stopped by a volunteer to let traffic past. I have to be honest, I was pretty pissed off. I was running closely behind two other women in my AG, pacing off of them and I lost about 30 seconds because of that stop. I assume the volunteer figured that late in the race it wouldn't matter, but given that my AG started last, it did make a difference to us. I was pretty disheartened after that and my pace slowed in the heat instead of speeding up as planned. I managed a nice kick for the last half mile, but not enough to make a big difference. Given that I averaged 8:33 for my last HIM run (although with cooler temps), I know I can manage a sub 8:00 average for a sprint distance, if not a 7:30 average pace.

Time: 0:32:57 - 8:54 pace
Rank: 13/70

Overall Time: 1:24:21
Overall AG Rank: 14/70 (80th percentile)
Overall Rank: 329/1133 (70th percentile)

Overall, it was a fun, well run race and I recommend it if you are in the area. The race has grown significantly (40 people in my AG in 2010 vs 70 in 2011 - and the top race times were a lot faster too!) and OnUrMark does a great job putting on athlete friendly races. I would like to see them add touches to make their races more family friendly like Rev3 does.

I know that I have a lot of work to do, but it is nice to have a recent short course race under my belt as a baseline. I just purchased The Time Crunched Triathlete - Race Winning Fitness on 8 Hours a Week and I am going to use it as my guide to get faster. I am still reading the book and I will do a review of it when I am finished.

Identity Crisis

What words do you use to describe yourself?

I am a Catholic wife, mother, daughter and friend. I am an endurance triathlete and hobbyist photographer. I am passionate in all aspects of life - family and friends, work and hobbies.

And now, I am having a bit of an identity crisis.

For the first time since April 2008 I do not have a big, fat hairy goal to chase or a big race on the calendar .... and I am lost.

I promised myself during peak IMTX training that I would take a year away from the IM distance, focusing on shorter races with at least a 70.3 next year to keep me honest. This would also allow me to pursue other goals, like an ultra trail race and/or bucket list races like Escape from Alcatraz, Goofy's Challenge or the Nike Women's Marathon, to name a few.

Sounds reasonable, right?

Let me take a step back though …

You may be wondering why I would want to take a year away from the distance in the first place. This is easy to answer.

Training for an Ironman is selfish. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I do think that we should all do things for ourselves that are inherently selfish – but we also need to recognize it. Selfish is not a “bad” word but it is an opportunity cost.

No matter how time efficient you are, if you respect the iron distance, you have to train long on the bike and that means a long ride (or really a long brick) every weekend leading up to the race.

I trained for IMTX from January to May – so let’s call it 5 months training. During that time, there were at least 2 months where my long brick took me until well into the afternoon.

With two boys ages 4.5 and 7, I feel like the opportunity cost is too great to give up that much of my weekend to training. I am lucky in that my family 100% supports this passion of mine and has encouraged me to sign up for another iron distance race, but my own guilt is holding me back.

I think that my struggle, well part of it anyway, is that all of races I am considering are in 2012 and I need a goal NOW (any ideas on getting into the San Francisco Nike Women’s marathon this year?). Another issue I am facing is that I have come to identify myself as an endurance triathlete, so how do I see myself if I am not currently training for an Ironman?

I also know that next May when everyone locally is gearing up for IMTX again, I am going to be jealous instead of relieved that it is not me out there training and racing.

This is the crux of my struggle – what I want to do versus what I think it best for this period of my life for my family. I don’t want to look back and regret that I missed this time with my boys.

Yet another problem with taking a year off the IM distance is that the necessity of signing up for most races a year in advance means that I may be looking at taking two years away from the distance. Thank God for races like Rev3 Cedar Point and Red Man that allow you to sign up much closer to the race, but I digress.

On a whim, I signed up for a local Sprint Triathlon on August 7 and I have been trying to add speed to my workouts as a new type of challenge, but that still leaves 5 months on the 2011 calendar.

I am not sure what I am asking necessarily, but I needed to share my struggle.
Any suggestions on making the transition from long course to short course? Any races I should be considering? What should I focus on this Summer and Fall before picking a goal for 2012?

Thanks for reading!

Ironman Texas 2011 - The Run

The run course was set up with a short run from transition onto the main loop, followed by a 3 lap run. The 3 loop course made it easier for spectators to maneuver around which made for great crowd support, although running by the finish line twice and seeing mile markers that you are not going to hit for two more laps can be a bit depressing.

Happy to be running ... I started the first lap strong, trying to control my pace. I didn’t want a repeat of Cedar Point where I went out too fast. Around the 3 mile marker, I realized that I had messed up my Garmin buttons so my average pace and total time and distance were not right on my watch (so I couldn’t use it as a crutch to help me figure out how fast I needed to be running without doing a bunch of math in my tired head).
The first lap was hot – really hot, with no real shade for the majority of the run. I carried my hand held water bottle and used EFS liquid shot for calories. I put ice down my top at every aid station and took cold sponges as well – all in the name of attempting to not over heat. The heat was hitting me hard and I too quickly mentally gave up on attempting to break 12 hours.

I was struggling to hold my pace and I told myself that I had left it on the bike course. I saw Doug and Ryan at the end of the first lap and was feeling pretty down. You can see how I feel in the picture progression throughout the run – it is so obvious by the look on my face. I gave Doug a kiss and then I gave Ryan a kiss too (what can I say, I was tired and confused) and I told them that I left it on the bike course and I didn’t have it in me to break 12 hours.

Not feeling as good - end of lap 1 Another spectator commented to Doug after I ran off, “Did he (Ryan) just kiss your girlfriend?” and Ryan responded, “Even better, I just kissed his wife!”

I took my first walk break around the aid station about 10 miles in and used the reduced speed to refill my hand held water bottle and take in some extra calories. I extended the walk break just a bit past the end of the aid station and then started running again. I immediately felt like much better – like a different person almost. Unfortunately, this told my mind that the occasional walk break is good for me rather than “you feel better, get back to only running and you can still break 12 hours”.

Looking back now, my only disappointment in the race is that I didn’t have a stronger mental fortitude to come back from that dark place and run at the pace that I know that I can run. I do believe that I was physically fit enough to run a 4:20 Ironman marathon, which was roughly what I needed to break 12 hours. I took the “easy” way out by slowing my pace and taking walk breaks. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with walking, but for me, I know that I could have pushed harder to hit my dream goal and I mentally gave up. That mental block is something that I need to work on before Ironman #4 (which is still TBD at this point – more on that later).

Despite feeling much better, the second lap was still very hot, so I continued the ice / sponge routine and walked the occasional aid station and then some when needed. As I approached the end of the second loop, the crowd support in the mile or so leading up to the finish line (and the turn to start the next lap) really picked me up and as I made the turn, I was so happy to be starting the third and final lap! I also knew that I was about to see my support crew, which had grown to include my children, parents and in-laws.

As I made the turn to the stretch of road where my crew was waiting, the first person I saw was my 4 year old son, Tyler. He immediately ran to the side of the road, put his hands in the air and started jumping up and down. The feeling of pure joy that came over me when I saw Tyler and then immediately the rest of my crew can be seen on the huge smile on my face in these photos. I gave everyone a sweaty hug and a kiss and then took off, it was single digits to the finish line! Andrew, my 6 year old son, ran alongside me for a couple of seconds to send me off, which was so sweet.

Pure joy ...

Every step after seeing my family reminded me that I was that much closer to the finish line and seeing them again (and keeping them from waiting!). I was feeling good and my pace picked up – adrenaline does that for you. I saw a few familiar faces on the course too, which is always a nice surprise. I ran with my Trakkers teammate off and on during the second half of the third lap and we encouraged each other. I took a couple of quick walk breaks at aid stations, but kept them very brief. I was READY to be finished!

When I hit the two mile to go mark I found my inner Forest Gump and picked up my pace again, running well sub 9s. The crowd was great and the faster I ran the more crowd support I got with random people cheering me on. It felt so good to be finishing strong. With about a quarter mile to go, as I entered Market Square, both sides of the street were lined with people. The crowd was great, but a bit subdued, so I raised my hands like a football player does when trying to get the crowd to make noise … and make noise they did!

I continued this while running my heart out towards the finish line. As I entered the finisher’s chute, I high fived lots of people on the left side and ran with my arms up. I saw my mom but missed my hubby and kids because they were on the right side. Mike Reilly, rather than saying, “Anne Moore you are an Ironman”, said, “Annie, get your gun!” and that was alright by me. I’ll take a personalized announcement any day!

Run Time: 04:42:44
Average Pace: 10:47
Overall Place: 474 / 2156
Gender Place: 104 / 537
Division Place: 18 / 78

Overall Race: 12:20:02 – a PR by 3 minutes and 55 seconds!

Overall Place: 586 / 2156
Gender Place: 109 / 537
Division Place: 17 / 78

I loved this race – I had so much fun and despite the hot run conditions, I felt relatively good because of my nutrition plan (thanks First Endurance!). I would do this race again in a heartbeat (local race, great crowd support, nice course, good aid station support).

A huge thank you to my amazing family who rarely complain when I am gone for long training days weekend after weekend and who offer endless amounts of love, support and encouragement. I couldn’t do it without you!

Check out those super cool support shirts ;)
I have also been very fortunate to be a part of Team Trakkers for three incredible seasons, and have been blessed to have fantastic sponsors -- First Endurance, Avia, Tri Swim, TYR, Kestrel, All 3 Sports, Recovery Pump and Canari -- who give me what I need to train long and race hard.

Now, the big question … what’s next? Stay tuned.

Ironman Texas 2011 - The Bike

The start of the bike leg of an Ironman always feels a bit like organized chaos to me – like a stadium emptying after a big concert or football game and everyone finding their own way - and Ironman Texas was no exception. It usually takes the first 20-something miles of the race for things to settle down and for the shuffle of fast swimmers, slow swimmers, fast cyclists and slower cyclists to work itself out.

The crowd support heading out of town was great as well and made for a nice send off into the rolling hills of the Piney Forest area. I quickly settled into a comfortably hard pace and put it on cruise control at that effort level.

I rode the hilly portion of the IMTX course twice leading up to the race so I was really happy when we approached Montgomery and the road began to look familiar. I pushed the down
hills which helped me power up the up hills and kept the pace dialed in on the flats. I saw a couple of familiar faces on the course throughout the day which is always a great pick me up.

The wind was pretty calm and we had nice cloud coverage for a good portion of the bike segment, so I stayed cool, or rather – not hot. The volunteers, as usual, at the aid stations were incredible. I chose not to use the special needs bags for the bike or run because we were told that we would not get them back and I didn’t want to lose anything. Plus, I had everything nutrition-wise that I needed with me on the bike (from what I understand, no one got the bags back, so I was glad I didn’t use them). So, as we approached the half-way point and special needs I stayed to left while a lot of people stopped.

At the half-way mark, my total bike time was less than 3 hours and I realized that if I kept pace that I could break six hours on the bike. I made a mid-race decision to go for it. My fastest HIM bike split is about 3 hours, so hitting 6 hours in a full would be a big deal for me. I knew I was jeopardizing my run, but I felt strong and knew that a fast bike split would give me the best shot at breaking 12 hours.

My only concern at this point in the ride was that I had not seen Doug and Ryan yet. I made it a game to look for the suburban, which helped pass the time, but it was also a bit disconcerting – where were they???

Around this time I went over a rail road track and lost a bottle. I have always thought it was silly that athletes who lose nutrition don’t stop to pick it up – especially if they are going to need it, so I stopped to pick up my bottle. Unfortunately, the top broke on the fall and I lost most of my liquid concentrated nutrition in that bottle. I made two bottles with 3.5 hours worth of nutrition each, so losing that bottle would have been a game changer if I had not brought a flask of First Endurance Liquid Shot “just in case”. I did pick up my broken bottle as to not litter. Overall, the stop was only about 30 seconds, max.

After the nutrition mishap I did a quick re-evaluation of my nutrition plan and adjusted accordingly. I still had plenty of calories to get me through the bike.

Around the 75 mile marker I FINALLY saw Doug and Ryan! What a pick me up! I normally would have just waved but I decided a quick kiss was in order, so I made another 30 second stop to say hello to my support crew and managed to bruise my quad getting off my bike. Thankfully, the bruise didn’t really hurt or show up until Sunday. Doug told me to get going quickly because they had been stopping bikes for as long as 3 + minutes to let cars pass at the major intersection where they were. From what I understand, there was some drama around this because it should not have been happening, so hopefully race officials will get that squared away for 2012.


I took off after seeing Doug and Ryan with a renewed sense of purpose to get back to transition because I knew that is where I would see them again. I finally stopped for a potty break at the 90 mile marker and then the countdown was on! For reference, I stopped at least 3 times during IMFL and 2 times at Cedar Point, so I was happy to have made it 90 miles without a potty stop. With an empty bladder, I felt refreshed and the break was good for me mentally as well.

At this point in the race, I am like a horse running to the stables. I was still focused on breaking 6 hours and my pace had slowed a bit during the second half, so with my albeit brief stops, I knew it was going to be close. I kicked it up a notch as I counted the miles off one by one. With 10 miles to go, my feet hurt, a deep ache. I did my best to move my toes around and just ignore the pain. I knew it would go away as soon as I got off my bike so I was incentivized to get back to transition as quickly as possible.

As we got closer to transition, the crowd support got bigger and bigger, which just fed my adrenaline. As usual, the last several miles felt long, but as I finally approached transition and was surrounded by the excited crowd, I got a huge smile on my face. I took a deep breath and thanked God for a safe ride and no mechanicals. I saw Doug and Ryan as I dismounted my bike and ran it into transition.

It felt so good to hand my bike off to a volunteer! I immediately stopped to take off my bike shoes to alleviate my foot pain and so that I could run more easily to the transition bags and the change tent.

I was amazed when I saw the cumulative clock time as I rounded the corner to the gear bags – it was around 7:35 – I knew that I had done what I needed to do on the swim and the bike to set myself up to break 12 hours. I was not sure what my bike time was, but I knew it was close to 6 hours and I was really happy with that. I was even happier after the race when I found out that I had indeed broken 6 hours on the bike, finishing it in 5:59:56. 4 seconds to spare!

I easily found my bag and went straight into the change tent. It was pretty empty and I had two volunteers helping me. I realized at that point that I had forgotten to put my all day sunscreen on my face before the swim so I was thankful to have a spray bottle of sunscreen in my bag. I sprayed it in my hands and did my best to get it on my face. I also changed socks (now wet and dirty from running in the grass), put on my shoes, changed the nutrition I carry in the back pocket of my tri top from bike nutrition to run nutrition, put on my visor and Garmin and gave the volunteers my sunglasses and bike gear and then I was off.

Bike Time: 05:59:56 (hell yeah!)
Average Speed 18.7 MPH, or 30 KM per hr for my Canadian friends :)
Overall Place: 891 / 2156
Gender Place: 134 / 537
Division Place: 21 / 78

T2 Time: 00:04:25
Overall Place: 288 / 2156
Gender Place: 71 / 537
Division Place: 12 / 78

Ironman Texas 2011 - The Swim

The nice thing about racing my third iron distance race was knowing what to expect … and knowing that despite the fact that my training volume was much lower this training cycle, that I have the capacity to finish the race.

My number one worry going into a race is having a catastrophic mechanical issue or wreck that prevents me from continuing the race. I don’t stress too much about race times – the day will unfold how it will unfold – so I try to put the things that are out of my control (mechanicals, wind, weather) out of my mind.

Race morning is fairly simple when racing long because you have already turned in all of your gear and the only race gear that you have to remember is your bike nutrition … well that and trislide and sunscreen and breakfast and your swim stuff and timing chip… but still, far less stuff to remember than a normal race day.

We chose to stay at home, a short 45 minute easy drive from the Woodlands. We woke up around 3:45 am, got dressed, made breakfast (toast with peanut butter) and hit the road by 4:30 am. My Iron Sherpa hubby and our good friend Ryan were going to be my primary race crew for the day. My children and parents would be joining them much later in the day to watch the finish.

Transition

We arrived in the Woodlands around 5:30 am, found parking and made it to transition to drop off my bike nutrition before walking the mile or so to the swim start. It was a pretty laid back morning and I enjoyed talking to lots of different people on the walk to the swim start. Once at the swim start, I got body marked and then put on my TYR Torque. The race was not wetsuit legal for those competing for AG awards and Kona slots. I knew I had no shot at either, but chose to race without my wetsuit anyhow so that I would see how I fared against the best.

Support Crew - Check out those shirts!

My Iron Sherpa
I always get teary-eyed before saying goodbye to Douglas before big races and this race was no exception. I have no idea why, but it happens every time! After one last quick kiss, I got into the “no wetsuit” corral and started making my way into the water. I finally made it into the water with a couple of minutes to spare before the gun and was surrounded by athletes. I really had no place to go to get away from people (in Florida I started a bit further down the beach to avoid the washing machine) – and there was still a decent line of people trying to get into the water.

Swim Entry Line
At the Gun
When the gun went off it was mayhem. Bodies everywhere. It was the definition of the washing machine effect and it was by far the most difficult mass start swim I have done (Redman Full Aqua Bike, IMFL, Rev3 Cedar Point, IMTX). It took about 15 minutes to find clear water – and for the rest of the race it was a constant battle to stay in clear water. It was as if we all had magnets on that were attracted to each other and we wanted to swim in pods to beat the crap out of each other rather than swim a couple of feet in any other direction in clear water. I got slapped and kicked and had my goggles knocked off my face once, but that is not so bad considering the chaos.

I mentally broke the swim into three parts – the first segment was the “out” to the turnaround buoy, the second segment was the “back” which took us back towards the bridge where we started and the turn into the canal and the third segment was the canal itself. Once in the canal, it was really neat to see spectators on both sides – until I noticed one guy basically walking next to his swimmer. I’m not sure why this annoyed me other than every time I breathed to that side he was there and it felt like I was not going anywhere!

I really try to enjoy the swim even though it is my weakest of the three sports because it just passes so quickly and before I know it I will be spending hours and hours and hours on my bike. When I get tired or frustrated during any part of the race I will often think of people who would love to be where I am at that given moment and for health or other reasons they cannot train for or race an Ironman – and that helps get me through. So as I approach the swim exit I try to remember one last time to embrace and enjoy the day.

As soon as I hit the stairs I got a huge smile on my face – one leg down, two to go! I nearly lost my balance as I started to run for the wetsuit strippers. I opted to have them help me pull off my Torque so that I wouldn’t end up struggling with it in the change tent.

With the Torque off, I ran towards the transition bags and passed the time clock, the time showed it was less than 1:30 into the race. I was pretty happy with what I saw on the clock, especially since I had not been swimming the yardage I had for previous races leading up to IMTX – think, once a week in the pool, maybe. I ran through the sea of bags to the 200s and immediately saw my bag its neon green duct tape on it, grabbed it and was off to change for the bike. I saw Doug at this point and it is always such a relief to me to see him – for one, I am happy he knows that I am safe (I always worry he is going to miss me) and two, it is just a big mental boost to see him.

Grabbing my transition bag
There was an empty seat on the bench outside of transition and I opted to sit there rather than in the dark change tent. I only had to put on my socks, shoes, helmet, sunglasses and gloves and to grab my bike nutrition, so it was a fairly simple transition. I did panic for one moment because it took a couple of looks in my bag to find my second bike shoe, but it was just for a moment. I threw my swim gear into the bag and was off to grab my bike.

Literally, millions of dollars worth of bikes in transition

My only real complaint from a race perspective is that my bike was at the far end of the rack so I had to run to the end of the rack to get it and then back to the middle to exit, so theoretically someone in my age group racked closer to the middle had an advantage. I guess when I am ready to fight for a slot to Kona these little differences will be a much bigger deal :)

The nice thing about being on the end of the rack it that it was also close to the fence so I got to see Doug and Ryan for a moment while I grabbed my bike before running to the bike exit. I saw Doug running towards the bike mount line just as I was mounting my bike (spectating is hard work!), and then I was off.

Swim Time: 01:27:56
100M Pace: 2:18
Overall Place: 1230 / 2156
Gender Place: 256 / 537
Division Place: 46 / 78

T1 Time: 00:05:02
Overall Place: 449 / 2156
Gender Place: 129 / 537
Division Place: 23 / 78