On November 21, 2010 7a.m. the adventure of my lifetime started.
Swim:
I hit the 60 degree water with all the other hopefuls, except the water didn't feel that cold. It felt good. A little hard to exhale once I put my face in, but other than that it was OK. Twice I had to tell myself to relax, enjoy and stay with the pack. My internal furnace kicked on at the turn around, I was burning up, so I had to pull at the kneck of my wetsuit to let the cold water in(ah yea). My swim was pretty good, 2.4 miles in 1:47 min.. I find that time funny because when I sign up I asked My swim coach if he could get me where I could swim that distance in 1:45..... not bad.
Coming out of the water I was a bit surprised that I could run, although I could not get my arms out of my wetsuit "Thank God for the strippers" or my race might of ended there:).
Bike:
The first loop of the bike was a bit painful, I guess my legs were colder than I thought. I found myself standing a lot, shifting my weight from right to left trying to relax the muscles in my lower back and legs, telling myself, all the while "you've got to relax and get comfortable","Come on you can do this". Coming through the Ladies bike station at the turnaround on Shea was great. They were so pumped and I fed off of their energy, and was able to shake some of the pain I was feeling. At the turn around on Mill ave, after seeing my daughters and hearing their voices I was able to shake off the discomfort.
At the start of the second loop, is when I noticed that I was in Grannie gear,"I thought how did I get, in this gear?" I knew with coach wind being so strong, I would have to push the big ring. This would be the only way I could power through him. I switched to the big ring in the front and the 3 ring from the bottom in the back, and my speed went from 13mph to 19mph on the way out and from 11 mph against the wind to 15 mph against the wind on the way in. Yes, this hurt, but only for a bit:). I found that I could maintain this effort for the rest of the second loop and all of the third loop. I had never been so glad to get off my bike:). Bike time was 8:09. This was a hour over what I had planned, but I beat the cut off by 45 min.
Some of the thoughts that were going through my head on the bike:
wow, my swim felt great.
man, this loop sucks.
OK, who invited Coach Wind?
What? Coach wind brought Three new assistant Coaches(cold, rain and sleet).
OK,.. Bring it,
Is that all you got?
Why did I say that now cousin Gust had to join the party?
I guess to be an Ironman this year, I have to pass all your classes. That's cool.
This is just another Training day.
The Run:
I started the run in the negative as far as my legs and time. I had trashed my legs on the bike,to get through Coach wind and his assistant, but it's all good, because you can't get to the run unless you finish the bike.
Once I got off the bike, I noticed that my legs felt heavy, I went into transition and asked if I could borrow a sit for a quickie :), I changed my shoes and put on a new pair of gloves and grabbed my arm warmers. I had done the math, I only had 6.5 hrs to run 26.5 miles.. I knew I needed 7 to 7.5 hr to achieve my goal. But I also knew that QUITTING was not an option. My new plan was to try and make up as much time as I could on the run. I left the transition area knowing that I would have to run walk as much as I could and if that did not work to walk as fast as I could. My first mile was 18 min, so I pushed harder and at the second check point I was at a 16 min. mile. I was very happy when I reached the 13 mile point and had gained 15 min on my 1/2 marathon time. I told myself, you can do this, Just..Keep..Moving.
The best part of this run was to see my daughters and my son on the walls as I went up Curry for the second time and then to see them down by the boating dock on my way to the Rural bridge. They had only words of encouragement, and I needed them badly.
I had missed getting my special needs bag with my fuel for the second half and had started to wonder if I would finish but, I kept moving forward because that's what I do. 'You have trained for this,"so lets get it her done'. This is what I kept telling myself. Mile 15, mile 16 then at mile 18, I noticed that I could not walk a straight line and when I stopped walking I would walk backwards (that was a funny feeling because I could not stop myself). I would have to lean forward to get myself moving forward. I guess I was tired :).
.
Well, my journey ended at 11 p.m. on the Mill Ave bridge with 6.2 miles to go. The Ironman Director asked me one question, "Can you run a 10 min mile?" I said, "No sir, I never have", which lead to the request for my chip. All I could say was OK.
I went down to the finish to see a few friends come in. It wasn't the ending that I had hoped for but, in the end it was a great day.
Ironman is a mental game. The body will respond when trained to do so, but the mind has the final say. I guess that's what the tears are for. They're for the ' I wonder if I could of finished. They are the anguish of not finishing and they are all the emotions that come with the pursuit of a goal, finished or not. There has to be a end.
Not bad for a Days Work
