First HIM complete June 27, 2007
Posted by toni in : Races , trackbackPacific Crest Half Ironman inSunriver, OR - June 23rd, 2007
I can’t believe I did it, but I’m still living in euphoria from finishing. Leading up to the race, I’d had a difficult time balancing working the night shift, sleep, injuries and training. It’s amazing how life is thrown off kilter just by living and working different hours than most of the work force. Three twelve hour shifts followed by 20-24 hours of sleep. Yikes. Training happened, but not as much as I would have liked. I definitely had the miles in for the bike and the swim and knew I could go the distance for those two. Having just started running again at the end of April due to a stress fracture in my Right foot in January, the longest run I’d done was 4 miles.
The two weeks before the race I was feeling numb and like a deer in headlights. Frozen by too many thoughts of the unknown swimming through my head. The what if’s, what about’s, should I’s, etc. Nutrition was kind of an issue as I wasn’t sure what I should do. I hadn’t been taking in nutrition on my previous long rides. Maybe an Ensure before a ride or two. Looking back, those were pretty good rides. The bad rides were the ones where little, if any, nutrition was taken in. I have all of these books on training and prep too, but I couldn’t even get myself to sit down and read them. Opening the books only increased my fears of not having trained enough and I didn’t want to see things that I probably should’ve done in my training since it would only further freak me out. I couldn’t even get myself to pack for my trip until the day I left. Weird psychological sh!t going on. Freak out!
Wednesday I spent the day running the typical prep errands after getting off of work that morning. Ended up staying up until 9pm. Oops. Not good sleep prep. Story of my life. Made my list of things to pack and made sure that all of my prep errands were run. Finally crawled into bed.
Thursday, I woke up and didn’t want to get up. Slept a few more hours, postponing my trip and leaving later than planned. Finally left at 2:30 after packing and a running a few more errands. Got to Sunriver at about 8:45p. Had the house to myself that night. Good for clearing my mind and trying to relax.
Friday, I picked up my race packet and changed my division from AG to Athena. Figured I should just even out the playing field. Like it mattered. But for some reason I wanted to do it. Probably to see how I compared to other women with the same build. My parents arrived after I had gotten back from packet pick up. I said hello to them and then left with some guys that were staying across the street to drop off our bikes at T1. I had gone over earlier to ask them the typical questions - have you done this race before? should I take my bike today or tomorrow? They offered to take me with them to T1 and I took them up on it. I had gotten lost getting to the house the night before, so going to the lake with people who knew their way around the area was a plus and something I couldn’t pass up. I got some good info from them as far as the course goes and what to expect. When we got there, the wind was really blowing and creating whitecaps on the lake. This further freaked me out as I’ve never swum in that kind of water before and I already have enough trouble with the swim as it is. The guys reassured me that it would be calm in the morning and placid. Thankfully, they were right. Mom and dad were fabulous and went grocery shopping while I was gone. Yea Mom and Dad!
Got back to the house and took a short nap. Then everyone started to show up. We had nine people staying in the house, so it was full. We had a BBQ that night, which I had invited other racing Trifuelers to. Got to meet Adam and his family and catch up with Paul again. It was quaint and although we were all talkative before dinner, we quickly became comatose after dinner. Siesta! Paul and Adam left a little after dinner since comatose people are not very interesting or talkative. 
Everyone lounged or played games after that. Thankfully, everyone in the house was really cool about letting me get the sleep I needed and we all went to bed at 10pm since I was sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room where everyone was. I got all of my race stuff ready that night and set my alarm for 6am.
Saturday - Race day! Woke up before my alarm went off. NO BAD PRE RACE DREAMS! Yea! Made coffee, started breakfast. I wasn’t hungry at all, but I knew I needed to eat. My dad, my cousin Jenny and friend Julie came with me to drop my stuff off at T2 and then to the race start which was 20+ miles away. My race support was phenomenal! Everyone took really good care of me. I barely had to do anything, which was nice since I was busy freaking out. 
Jenny carried my T1 gear and Julie carried all of my water bottles (3), stating “You’ve got to save your energy”. I couldn’t argue with that! Even though I got there 75 mins early, I felt like I was running late. Said Hi to a few people I knew, including Britt and her husband Tony, who was doing his first triathlon ever - a HIM! Found out I was actually in an earlier wave since I had changed my division. Had to visit the port-a-potties and by then it was time to get into my wetsuit and get ready.
Wetsuit, schmetsuit. The bain of my existence in triathlon. I had already had issues with it at a previous triathlon. Granted, I didn’t really train in open water or take the time to get used to it before that race. I had gotten some tips from a gal on my triathlon team to soak it for 5 mins (accidentally soaked it for 30 mins) and then to open up the neck line once in the water and let the suit fill with water to create some space. Soaked? Check. Water-filled suit? Check.
I’m in the water making small talk with other women and getting us all pumped up. The siren went off and everyone started swimming. I gave everyone a chance to get going before I actually attempted to swim. The swim start is my nemesis. I know I’m not alone in this and that everyone has had to deal with keeping or obtaining composure during and after the swim start, but I can’t seem to get going with out the pre-emptive hyperventilation. My dad thinks it’s because I’m afraid to put my face in the water, which I agree with. But I think it’s also the lack of OW prep, getting used to not being able to stop and take a break whenever I want and the constriction of the wetsuit. I can’t get a full breath in and that furthers the downward freak out spiral. So long story short, I ended up ditching the wetsuit AGAIN (de ja vu. so embarrassing) and spending the next 10 minutes trying to catch my breath so that I could attempt to swim like normal triathletes. I was basically trying to figure out all of my options. Can I swim with the wetsuit? Only if I want to drown. What if I just unzip the back? No help at all. What if I pull it down to my waist? Too busy hyperventilating to see if it helped. Should I quit? NO! You’re not dying or in fear for your life, so DON’T QUIT! Plus you’ve got all of those people on the shore cheering for you on AND it’s your mom’s birthday. Should I give my wetsuit to the guy on the jet ski? YES. Called him over, asked him the embarrassing question of whether he could take it for me (he could), stripped it off and then set back to the ordeal at hand. Breathing. Every time I’d get to where I could finally catch my breath, a wave would come into my mouth and I’d have to start all over again. This whole time I’m swimming the breast stroke with my head above water. Finally, I caught my breath and just did it. I put my face in the water and started swimming. Still a little freaked out (don’t worry, the freaking ends soon. Promise.) and my lungs having been stressed to the max, I had to breathe every other stroke. I tried for more strokes, but it would just get me going again. I’d had enough of freaking out. I just wanted to get the swim over with. I finally got into a groove and worked my way through the swim course. I found myself closing my eyes for part of it too, which I found interesting. 1:04:40. There’s no question what I need to improve on for the swim….
After being horizontal for over an hour, to stand up was a funny occurrence. Drunk without alcohol. At least I didn’t fall. Made it to my bike and could barely stand straight. Putting on socks was hard enough with semi-dried feet. The swaying didn’t really help the situation. Since T1 is so far away, they have us put all of our stuff that we won’t be taking on the bike in a big garbage bag with our number on it. They transport all of our bags back to the finish line for us to pick up after the race. Tying that bag was THE hardest thing to do next to putting on my socks. Hand-eye coordination was barely possible. T1, 6:08.
Finally on the bike! The part I’d been waiting for. It probably took me a good 15-20 minutes to get my legs back. My cycling was slow at first, but then picked up quite a bit after my legs woke up. 16 mph avg which was better from my sprint - 13 mph. I spun up hills and hammered the flats and down hills. Passed a few guys 
and played the carrot for another racer, Liz, who, when she finally caught me, said “You’re a rock star! I’ve been trying to catch up to you the whole race. I’d get close to you and then you’d dust me.” That was pretty cool. I felt really strong on the bike. My nutrition worked great - two bottles of water, one bottle of Strawberry Ensure. My only interesting moment was at mile 15 when I looked down at my arm or something and accidentally went off roading for a little bit. Thankfully I was on a gradual decline on the side of the road. A scream and some gentle braking to get me to a stop and I was good to go. I didn’t fall thankfully. It sure jolted me for a second though. Then, right after that a woman in the back seat of an oncoming car stuck her head out the window and screamed “You rock! woooo hoooo!!” For some reason, this made me start crying. It wasn’t a normal cry though. It was more of a bawling, but without the tears. I guess I had some emotions pent up in me that needed releasing, be it from the pre-race freak outs or the swim or the off road excursion or all three. I only let it go for a few seconds and then gained my composure back. Focus! That was a little weird, but at least it passed quickly and didn’t revisit again. I felt strong up until the last 8 miles. My speed started to wane and this was when Liz caught up to me and called me a ”rock star”. Must build more cycling endurance. 3:16:35.
Hit T2, sat down to put my running shoes on, drank some more Ensure and took off at a controlled pace. 4:08.
Caught up to Liz again and we set off on the run together. We started out walking in order to get our legs adjusted. Turns out, she’s had bronchitis for the last month and broke some ribs from coughing and didn’t think she’d be able to run much. I told her about my foot and mentioned that we may end up hanging together on the run. That was short lived. She’s fast than me and after all the exertion my lungs went through in the swim, they were not allowing me to run very fast at all. More a slow jog, which wasn’t fast enough to keep up with Liz. I kept getting short of breath when I tried to keep up with her. My breathing sped up and I had to stop and walk a few times. She stayed with me the first couple of times, but she was feeling strong and I didn’t want to hold her back so I told her to have a good race and I would see her at the finish. Ended up I could run, but it had to be slow. I ran/walked the first 8 miles and actually ran more of it than I thought I would. I took in Hammer gels at every aid station which happened to be every mile. This helped keep me going and the first 8 miles actually went by rather fast. The last 5 on the other hand, were slow as molasses in January. My legs and glutes had started to stiffen up and my gait was shortening. I ended up walking quite a bit for the last 5 miles. I tried and tried to run, but I was tanked. I could only run for short periods of time. After the first 2 miles, the weather started to change and the sun was taken away by cloud cover which made the temperature cool down. So much for acclimating for the heat prior to the race… I was actually cold for most of the run portion which prolonged it even more. Finally, the end came to and I was greeted with loud cheers from my family and actually hearing the announcer call out my name for once. 3:02:20 Final time - 7:33:51. Athena # 3 to cross out of 3 entered.
All in all, I had a good time. I thoroughly enjoyed the bike and was surprised at how much running I was actually able to do. My nutrition was good and the day went pretty well despite the start. Once I got into my groove of swimming, that was actually enjoyable too.
My race support was fantastic! My parents, although they think I’m a few crayons short of a full box, were extremely proud of me and very supportive. The rest of my family, Aunt Patty, Uncle Curt, and Cousin Jenny were ecstatic for me! They cheered the loudest. That’s their style though and I love them for it! And my friends Julie, Lisa and Max were very helpful the whole weekend. Julie and Jenny took me to T2 to pick up my bike and gear. Again, they carried it all for me since I was waddling due to a very large blister my pinky toe.
After the race, we all went back and gorged on food, sat in the hot tub and relaxed. Thank gawd for the hot tub. So nice! We all went to bed early again since we all had a race the next day. Julie, Lisa and Max were running the 10k, while my family and I were walking the 5k. My aunt and uncle actually ran part of the race. I was very impressed, but they said they run when they workout so it wasn’t anything new to them. I guess I just thought I was the only one who ran. Thankfully, I was wrong.
The walk was actually kind of difficult. My obliques were getting tighter with every step I took and my legs only allowed so much of a stride. It was good to get out and walk though and get some of that lactic acid out of my legs.
Things I learned: More training is needed to improve my time. It’s imperative that I get out and practice OW swims in my lovely @#$^!@* wetsuit. I need to increase my endurance on the bike to keep me strong all the way through the bike distance. Gotta get some running in.
I feel like my mental training was pretty good. I was able to problem solve, persevere and get through all situations.
Thanks to everyone who came out to Sunriver to cheer me on and to those who cheered from afar. My mental state might not have been so strong without your support! I had fun experiencing my newest distance with you all. Hopefully, you can join me on future adventures.
Comments»
Congrats on a great accomplishment Toni. I still don’t know how you do it with that erratic schedule. Recover and get well. We’ll see ya at IMC!!
Toni - You are a Rock Star! I am so proud of you. What a huge accomplishment. You remain, as always, my hero!!! Paige
Congrats Toni! Woo! You did great. I can’t believe you did a 5K after that. You go!
Toni, we were and are so proud of you and your huge accomplishment. Loved the blow by blow rundown of your race. You did fabulous.
I love you….Aunt Patty
So awesome Toni! That sounds like a successful day! Great bike time
And then a 5k??? Just awesome. Congrats!
Toni way to go! now start getting ready for September.
congrats on your finish! glad your foot is recovered enough to get back into tris
thanks so much for hosting dinner! it was great to meet you and your family!
adam
Thanks everyone! It was a fun day despite the swim start. Good confidence booster!
Toni!! I amn so proud of you. That is absolutely amazing. I wish i had the strength to do something like that. I try to do 5 miles on a treadmill and it;s so hard…. Kudos, Major Kudos to you! Wish i could have been there.
Yay, Toni!!! Congrats on your finish. And great recount of your experience. Can’t wait to read the next one! - Deb.
Thanks Anita! Hopefully you can be here for a future race. Or maybe I’ll just drive down to Cali and stay with you for a race.
Thanks Deb! Can’t wait to cheer you on this weekend at Lake Padden! It’ll be great to see you all and catch up!
Awesome work, Toni. Thanks for sharing the write up - what you did was AMAZING!