The Run

My coach wanted me to walk the first five minutes, but he also told me that if I couldn’t resist running in front of the crowds, to walk as soon as I turned the corner. (It paid to have a coach that knew this course and had experience with it.) My legs felt surprisingly good.

I'll never forget passing several people in the first couple miles of that run. Granted, they were surely on their second lap, and I was only on my first... But I NEVER pass people on the run. Never! I remember commenting to myself, "I LOVE Ironman!" I finally found a race where people run at MY pace. Best thing ever!!!!

My coach had me practicing a 9 minute run/1 minute walk the last month and a half. I did practice that. I did! But all along, I knew in my head that I wanted to do a 5 minute run/ 1 minute walk when it came to the real thing. (I never told him that until after the race though!) Anyway you cut it, I always seemed to do 12 minute miles. Straight, 9/1, or 5/1. Might as well stick with the 5/1!!!! When I bonked hard at the Harvest Moon half Ironman, I managed to get my feet to do the 5/1 pace and it put me back at a 12 minute mile, and perfectly paced to walk the aid stations. Here I was, doing an Ironman, a full Ironman, and it was once again working perfectly. I was consistently pulling into an aid station every other walk break, and doing 12 minute miles. It was great.

I wasn’t the least bit hungry, but once again I remembered the nice bonk I had at Harvest Moon. At that race, I didn’t feel like anything would stay down, but I forced a power gel into me, and it really helped. Thusly, at mile 3, while I didn’t want anything this time either, I again forced a power gel down. I never ever had stomach problems the entire race. I feel really blessed. I had quit eating any solid foods with 1 ½ hours to go on the bike. I had learned at the 5430 tri that Coca-Cola worked well. It was an Ironman, so I HAD to try the chicken broth (it was okay, not great.) I steadied out the entire race by alternating those three basic things and never had problems.

I look back at this entire race and compare it to the college exam you studied so hard for, and fear that your gonna fail, but then you get in there, and you know all the questions. I did not face anything in this triathlon that I didn’t face in my training and shorter races.

I was happy because I made it to St. Andrews State Park before it was dark. I really wanted to see what I would be running through the rest of the night. It was getting dusk. I made a point to use the porta potty one last time before it got too dark to see anything. (Those things were nasty! There was no way I was going in there once it was dark out!)

I saw my friends Matt, Dani, and Julie! They cheered and told me that I went from being 40 minutes behind Amy to now being 15 minutes behind Amy. I had seen her at the turn around. She looked tired.

I saw my husband. We kissed. He always talks about having feelings of attachment. I had so many feelings of attachment at that moment. I love him with all my heart, and from the smile on his face, I feel like he definitely reciprocated. I was so happy.

Before I knew it, I was nearing the 13.1 turnaround. Now I had heard stories of how this can be a big blow to the ego and completely disheartening. You’re heading out on the second loop while others are finishing. For whatever reason, it didn’t bother me. Who cares? I’m going to finish too! There were so many people there cheering. It definitely made the mile in and the mile out go by fast. I stopped and looked in my special needs bag, but there was nothing in there that I wanted. I just threw it aside and kept going.

I just pulled out my half marathon in 2:45. I did 3:09 and 3:04 at my HIM’s this summer. I couldn’t believe it. I just did twice as much swimming and biking this time! Wha? My goal had always been to run the first half and walk the rest if I needed, but my legs were on auto pilot. My legs were no stranger to the aches they were currently feeling. They had felt this way many times in my training. I figured I’d just keep going until I couldn’t go anymore. I was bound to hit “the wall” at some point.

I was now about mile 16? I saw Amy up ahead. Her boyfriend was walking with her. I wasn’t really making any ground on her, nor did I want to. Once I passed her, would I lose some of my steam? Unconsciously, I think she was a rabbit that I was chasing. What would I do once I passed her? DARN! Ben just turned around and saw me. As soon as he saw me, he took off. I walked with her. She was fussing about something with her mile splits and I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about. After some small talk, I finally just snapped at her. “If you’re going to be negative, I can’t hang with you! You need to cut it out! We’re on an Ironman course and we’re going to do this!!! Who cares what time your mile splits are! We just have to finish in 17 hours and even if we walk the rest of this, we're going to do that! 17 hours! That’s ALL that matters!!!! We’re going to be Ironmen today!!!” She didn’t complain again.

I felt bad because she did have a nice walk pace going. I couldn’t walk that fast, my legs hurt. I asked her to slow down. I was anxious to start running again. I finally told her that I had been doing a 5/1 plan, and it was working really well for me. She said she’d try it. We did 2-3 miles of that, but Amy started struggling. Soon we were doing 2-3 minutes, and then walking. And then more walking. She encouraged me to go on without her. I was so torn. If I stayed with her, I would be a really great friend that she would give credit to forever. Of course, if I stayed with her, I might also hold a grudge against her forever, too. What to do?

(She also admitted that she hadn’t eaten anything at all on the run course. I forced her to eat some gel and later some chicken broth.)

At about mile 20, I told her that it hurt more for me to walk than it did to run. (Which it did. My legs hurt no matter what I was doing, but in my heart I wanted to believe that my legs hurt worse when I was walking.) I decided to go on without her. I had told Amy that I was sure she'd catch me when I hit “the wall.” She encouraged me and told me that if I hadn’t hit it yet, I wasn’t going to hit it.

(Amy walked until the last mile. She managed to sprint the last mile and finished at 15:20. I'm so glad I didn't stay with her. There's no way I could have busted out a sprint at the end. Congrats Amy!)

For some reason, I had in my mind that I could probably run the next six miles without taking any walk breaks. I just wanted to finish. That was kind of stupid. I was hurting. I had to remind myself that 5/1 worked really good, I shouldn’t feel guilty for continuing my walk breaks. I was only feeling guilty because I left Amy behind.

I came up on the spot where my friends had been previously. I was sad. I assumed they went to the finish line to see Greg. That’s okay. I’m happy that they were there to cheer for him. Then lo and behold, they jumped out and screamed and yelled for me! They told me Greg had finished in 13 hours 4 minutes. I was SO happy for him!!!!

I knew the neighborhoods I was about to go in would be lonely. I continued to talk and cheer on every athlete I saw.

I knew that with a mile and a half to go, there were lots of people along the course. They would pull me in. When I got there, I was kind of sad, because most of the people had left. It was lonely afterall, but I could hear Mike Reilly in the distance. I thought he said something about one minute until the 16th hour. I had been so excited because I thought I might pull out a 15:30 overall time. That didn’t matter. I was still going to be an Ironman. I gave what I could, which wasn’t much. I remembered my friend Kirk (IMWI 06) telling me that the last half mile doesn’t hurt. When I came in to the home stretch there were 1/3 of the people that had been there when I came through at the turnaround earlier in the evening. But I didn’t care. Some of the athletes leaving with their bikes cheered me in. I was smiling SO big!!!!

The finisher chute DID have a ton of people. Lots of people had their hands out to high five. I high fived everyone I saw. I never heard Mike Reilly call my name, but saw my family. I DID IT!!!! I JUST DID THE IRONMAN!!! AND OH MY GOODNESS! THE CLOCK SAYS 15:09!!!!! Mike Reilly hadn’t said the 16th hour earlier, he had said the 15th hour! OH MY GOSH!!!! I DID IT!!! I not only did it, I did it in 15:09!!!! I seriously thought that if I could do it, I was going to do it in 16:59. I couldn’t believe it!!!!!!

The catcher guy wouldn’t let go of me when I told him I was fine, but laughed because I almost started jumping up and down each time they’d hand me something new: the t-shirt, then the medal, then the hat. They were laughing so much at me. I was so happy.

The rest is kind of a blur. My legs really started to cramp up and hurt badly. I got a massage. Oooh, that was nice. It helped. But my legs continued to cramp through the night. Because our parents had volunteered in the transition area, they had already grabbed our bags and taken care of our bikes for us. (That was nice!)

I’m now home, and I’m still walking on clouds. I’m sad it’s over. I’m amazed I did it. The marathon!!! What on earth happened on the marathon out there!!!

I think the weather was PERFECT and that helped. Most importantly, I had my eye on the prize, and I never let the mental game get the best of me. I stayed on top of it the entire race. If I ever do one again, I may not have the same drive to finish that I did this time. That scares me… Because I want to experience that amount of happiness, success, and fulfillment over and over again. It was the most amazing experience ever. Will it have the same magic if I ever do it again?????

So many emotions to deal with now—but the private smile I harbor doesn’t fade. I did it. I am an Ironman!