its over!! finally! it has come and gone and now i don't have to worry about it or ver do anything like it again!
i have been a nervous wreck about this race for the past few months. two months ago even i told eric that i was just not going to do it because there was no way i would be ready in time for it. thatis when he committed to helping me get ready. i trained and did some running and some biking and swimming, a lot more then i had been doing and much more then i had last summer but i dind't feel ready at all. part of that was because i had no idea what to expect. i was planning 1 hr swim, 4 hr bike and 3 hr run with transition times biked into all of that.
saturdya we went to pick up registration and to rack our bikes. the mandatory pre-race meeting rhoroughly freaked me out. going to the race site made things a little better and it was nice because each racer was given a designated spot to rack their bike. i was 495. then we scoped out the swim start and then exits and entrances to transition. then we went home.
friday we had pizza for dinner. saturday we had the obligatory pasta dinner and it was damn tasty. with all of that carbo loading and all the carbo loading i had been doing for the past week i was feeling ok. grandma came over in the evening on saturday since she was going to watch the kids on sunday and we would be leaving for the race site before 430am.
it was next to impossible for me to fall asleep and i tossed and turned. i checked the clock and it was 135. next thing i knew the alarm was going off and it was 345. i had to poke eric to get up. we loaded into the car and picked up the neigbor and then we were off! we got an awesome parking spot, got our bodies marked then each went and set up our spots. then off to the honey bucket. the one i was so lucky to get was ALL THE WAY FULL. i was concerned that this would hamper my abilities to do what needed to be done, but oh no. everything worked out perfectly. then back to the car to drop off some stuff and to change. we then went and picked up or timing chips and got back into the potty line. 20 minutes later and it was time to go get suited up! the first wave of elite men went off at 630. eric's wave was 644 i think and i stood on the hill and watched him stage. it was the weirdest thing to watch because the waves were staged in the grass right by the dock. when your wave was called you walked out on the dock then down onto this other myster dock and then you got in the water there. it was weird to watch eric line up with these other dudes all in black with orange hats and then for them all to walk as though they were being sheppharded to the meat factory. real weird. my wave went off at 656. by the time we were on the dock i wasn't nervous. i slipped into the water which was really warm and tried to figure out my goggles.
then the race started. dare i say that the swim was actually good? and enjoyable? i was totally relaxed and just went on my way. i swam the crawl stroke more then i ever have before and wasn't getting tired. i did a lot of the breast stroke but on the home stretch i crawled more and i even crawled the last several minutes to make a good showing coming out of the water. i wsa caught by 4 if not 5 other colors of caps but everyone kept their own lines and it wasn't scary like it can be in the sprints. it was even inspiring. expected swim time 1 hr, actual swim time: 51:08
T1 - the neighbor and i came out of the water at the same time but he was out before i was, which isn't suprising since i took 3:30. funny thing, i finished 50 in my age group in the swim, so did eric, my t1 was 3:30 and so was erics. but he made a stop at the honey bucket, i was just slow.
onto the bike. i was worried about the bike. i knew it was hilly and long and i hand't ridden more the 35 miles in one ride since before i was pregnant with seamus. the bike started out good with a good stretch of slightly down hill. this was good because i was having weird upper hamstrong issues that i was quite worreid by. but before i knew it i passed the 5 mile sign and i was stoked. 33 minutes into the bike, i was lapped by the elite men. they were cool to watch go by with the disk wheels and all. i had a powerbar and would take a big bite out every 20 minutes for the first two hours. gu every 40 minutes was it after. i drank one big bottle and two little bottles of water. the time just ticked along. at one point i thought to my self that i wasn't so sure i wou;d be able to completed a 2nd lap and the run but i kept going. i passed the bottle exchange area at mile 14 and the course started to get fun. after a giant awesome long downhill section my odometer magnet and thingy were hitting each other going ding with each turn of the wheel. i was going crazy so i stopped and fixed it. then i finished lap one! i had spent more time out of the saddle and in my big ring then i imagined i ever would. lap two was good and seemed to go much faster. at 220 i decided to totally move my odometer away since it had started dinging again. maybe this helped? but i was having fun and at 40 miles into the bike course i was feeling great and felt like i owned the bike! ha! i went up the last big hill and the rest was smooth sailing along the lake. the bike was done! expected bike time 4 hrs - actual bike time 3:41.
i rolled into t2 for a whopping 4:23 stop. but, to give myself a little credit, i did a complete costume change including shorts and shirt, had some banana, put on a hat and then some body glide in the old arm pits and squirted some sunblock in my hand. i rubbed in the sunscreen as i ran out - spf 50!
the first mile was hard. i had to pee. i was going to pee in transition but thot that if i did i might stay in there. i got to the first aid station at mile 1, was amazed by the buffet of snacks, grabbed some gatorade, walked over to the potty and saw that the potty was occupied. imagine my supirse wne i looked at my watch and it said 9 minutes! so off to aid station #2. got there, got some water, the gatorade was too strong, went potty and was feeling really good. almsot too good. so i kept going. i then figured out that if i took both water and gatorade i could mix them and it would be perfect, so would get to the aid station, mix my beverage, drink it and walk to the last trash can. the course went through town twice with each lap. the 2nd half of each lap was along the lake and had a giant hill. on my way down the hil our neigbor was running up the hill. as i was coming into town to head out on lap two, eric was on the side of the course in his normal clothes! he was already finished! lap two was tougher but i was still feeling good. i dind' tmention that on the bike lap two my right something or another right below the back of my knee started to really hurt and kept hurting. it hurt through the run but i kep going. with only 3 miles to go i had that terrible hill and the last time into town. finaly i got to the 12 mile mark and i picked up the pace. when i got back into town i ran as fast as i could to the finish. expected run time 3hrs - actual run time 2:11.

total time: 6:52:03 i was THRILLED!!

eric met me at the finish and i was so excited!!! we sat on the ground and he brougt me some cookies and a banana and water. we sat there for quite a while.

while i was super happy with my results, eric pulled a 4:55!! while he was 50th in his group out of the water he was 3rd on the bike and 17 on the run - a 1:39 when he hasn't ever run more then 11 miles. i am very proud of him! he finshed 13th in his age group which i think is fantastic!! he is amazing! he finished so fast that he had some of the pizza they had at the finish line. it was all gone by the time i got there but i was ok with that!

awesome day but now we are both totally thrashed i am icing the back of my knee since i think it might snap any second now and we are both concerned about how we will feel tomorrow.

what wll the next goal? mine is to run 13.1 in less then 2 hrs which i thinki can probably do!