On the night of November 22nd,
2009 I walked out of our office toward the living room and plopped down on our gold
crushed velvet chair my step dad lent me years before to help furnish my second
“real world” apartment, and said matter-of-factly to Marion, “I need to race
Arizona.” I had spent the better part of my Sunday staring at our computer
watching the live coverage of Ironman Arizona, cheering for my favorite pros,
and stalking my competition in my age group.
I realized the top girl’s were not entirely out of my reach, and if
properly trained and tuned up, I could make a strong go of it the following
year and nab a Kona spot. The following morning, I was at my computer a few
minutes before 11AM PST, my hand hovering deftly above my mouse ready to pounce
when the lines went live at Ironman.com and I was able to register for my race
with destiny exactly 364 days away.
Next, I made some key decisions to
help give me the best chance possible to be fit and ready by November. I hired
a triathlon coach, Super Stud Ultraman World Champion, Hillary Biscay, and was
scouring Craig’s list for deals on a Triathlon Bike, my roadie with clip on
aerobar days were over, I was ready to walk the walk with the big kids.
Hillary started me off with a track
interval work out on January 1st, which was awesome, I felt like I was
in high school again, that said, I did the work out wrong, oops. I gave myself
too much rest in between 400m repeats, a rookie mistake I would never make
again under Hillary’s watch. She wanted
to boost my marathon speed a bit, so I raced a few half marathons during the
first part of the year, a half Ironman, and an Olympic distance triathlon with
my lil’ brother Bo, and his friend Justin, which was a definite highlight of my
year, not my performance mind you, but the special time spent with Bo was priceless.
I had two Ironman triathlons slated
for my year, so you may be asking, “Okay, we know about Arizona, but what else
did she do?” Good question, who can guess which race I chose? Anyone? Okay, okay, the suspense is even
making me restless, I raced in late July, in northern California, yep, Vineman.
This time around was completely
different because instead of my family joining me, I raced along side my oldest
friend from college, thee swimming and cycling extraordinaire, Sarah Gonzalez,
and her two adorable lovey-dovey friends Erin Plante, and Matt Mattilla. It would be their first ironman, my third,
and subsequent nineteenth marathon. We
had a fun few days leading up to the race, it was great to be back in
Guernesville, I felt like a bit of a local, we rented a hip house in the woods,
and laughed and psyched each other up before the big day. Once again Peter rallied up from San Francisco
to spend the night, and then shuttle us to the swim start race morning, thanks
Pete.
I was very excited for the swim leg
of the race because I had spent MANY hours in the pool the previous seven
months leading up to this point, Hillary is a swimming machine, and her
carefully designed swim work outs are legendary, so I was excited to test my
progress. Guess what my swim time was?
1:14 hours!!!! Okay, for those who did
not read my previous post about my first go at Vineman, my time then was 1:14…
No Change At ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t
believe it, but whatever, I let my wounded pride and sore arms stay behind in
T1 and vowed to pedal hard throughout the 112 mile bike leg. **A brief side note here, I am about 85% legs, which
may be my downfall as a not-so speedy swimmer, however, I love to swim, and I
KNOW that Hillary’s work outs boosted my confidence and endurance in the water,
but clearly I could not execute on race day. Oh well.
The bike leg was awesome, until it
wasn’t. I was pushing hard the first
loop of the two loop course, passing people, and smiling, then at mile 100 tragedy
struck. I was at the bottom of the biggest hill on the course, Chaulk Hill, and
my bike locked as I was shifting to an easier gear prepping for the climb, and
I stopped moving. I could not shift,
“what the?” I walked up to the top of
the hill where I asked a couple of spectators in cycling gear to come check out
my bike to see if it was ride-able, “yeah, you’re fine, you just can’t change
gears.” The fury of my alter ego Titanica took over, but once I got the “Okay”
from Joe Bicycle I threw my leg over
my bike and was off! Luckily, I only had
about twelve miles to go, but having to push hard that entire time with no help
of easier gears to rest my legs for the marathon was not ideal. When I rolled into T2 I saw my dad and Peter cheering
and smiling, and I yelled out in an inflamed temper tantrum tone, “I had a bike
mechanical, and lost ten minutes!” My poor dad, he had flown up solo just to
see the race, then fly home, he must have been thrilled to know my attitude was
a few notches below gleeful.
I cannot explain what a mental bomb
I had experienced with my bike issue, it was embarrassing. I needlessly loaded
a ton of pressure on my shoulders to race perfectly not only for myself, but to
make Hillary proud, and to back up my ironman propaganda I was preaching to my
friends all week. Thankfully, I still
had a marathon to run, and we all know how running can bring me back from the
brink of self-destruction, so I threw in all my chips, and yelped pitifully
running out of T2 “let’s go, T!”
I have decided to save you all from
the the gritty details of what went on during the marathon, it was not pretty. To
sum up, I made more pit stops than I can count, and after crossing the finish
line I literally burst into tears, not a shining moment. The upside is that I
finished in 11:47, knocking off about thirty minutes from my previous year’s
performance, placing 2nd in my age group, and completing my nineteenth
marathon to boot. Even better was that I
had the chance to cheer on my friend’s to their first ironman finishes, and
have the most fun post-race day lounge fest ever at our swanky house that
following Sunday. Obviously I did not have that much to be upset about, but a
whole lot to learn from. Ironman Arizona was still four months out.
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