Ironman World Championship Race Report!

Qualifying and racing in Kona has been my goal for a long time (4 years at least), so finally getting there felt a bit surreal at first. Sadly, we didn't get to make a long vacation out of the trip but it was long enough to see how beautiful Hawaii is and since it's relatively close to us, we might be back sometimes soon - if not for the race, then maybe for vacation / training camp :-D

Pre-race:
Since we got to Kona kind of late, there wasn't much time to do things outside of the usual pre-race activities. We got in on Wednesday a bit after 3pm, checked into our airbnb (which was conveniently only 3mi from the airport and about 7mi from the race start), stopped by at Trisutto party and got the most essential groceries. Oh, and Justin built my bike too :-) Thursday we checked out the race venue, I checked in, did a short bike ride on Queen K (while Justin bought me CO2s for the race) and a little swim in the ocean. (Oh yes, and we ran into Lucy Charles when we went to pick up Justin's ticket to the Welcome Banquet.) In the afternoon we went to a beach that our airbnb host recommended. It was beautiful! Justin went for a little swim / turtle chase while I relaxed on the beach.

Justin thought this sign was funny - until a seal came to take a nap at the beach :-D

Seal napping on the beach

Turtle that Justin chased around with his camera

In the evening we went to the welcome banquet + athlete briefing, which was longer than we expected (started at 6pm and went past 9pm), so we were quite exhausted by the time we got home.

Friday was already the day before the race, so I did my usual short and easy morning run, a short ride and a short swim (this time at the Kona Aquatic Center). I checked in my bike and bags as early as I could (a bit after 2:30pm) and then we went back to our airbnb to rest and relax. We made some pasta for pre-race dinner (I didn't want to risk a restaurant, plus I imagine most restaurants were crowded and expensive) and we went to bit relatively early (8:30pm).

Race morning:
We woke up at 3:30am with the goal of getting out of the house between 4:15 and 4:30am. There was almost no traffic going into town and we were even able to get parking very close to transition. The body marking was a bit more involved than in other races (volunteers applied our race tattoos and then also weighed us) but because we arrived relatively early, there was almost no wait. I dropped off my special needs bags, inflated my tires (never saw that many race-provided pumps in transition!), lubed my chain (it rained overnight) and put water bottles on my bike. I went back out of transition to say bye to Justin before the 1st wave of the race (pro men) went off. I tried to watch the pro swim start from transition but I couldn't really see through all the people who were standing in the VIP section at the edge of the pier. I did see Jan Frodeno and Bob Babbit spectating though :-o (Bob Babbit even wished me good luck :-D). I did a decent warmup (about 12min) and soon after it was time for my wave to line up.

Swim (1:11:23):
The start line was about 100m from the shore. I got there as early as I could, so I wouldn't get stuck too far in the back (they let us in right after the age group men departed - 15min before our start). In the end, lining up near the front was not a big problem. The start line was pretty wide and it looked like most of the people wanted to be closer to the buoy line, so the crowd was not too bad where I started (maybe 15-20m to the left?). I positioned myself maybe 3-5 people deep, which was about 1-2 meters from the start line. When the canon went off, I tried to start a bit faster than usual to hopefully get on some faster-than-me feet. I think I did an OK job with this but it definitely could be improved. Also, maybe I should have been a bit bolder and line up even closer to the front. After the first 15-20min, I ended up swimming around people of about my speed. Maybe a tiny bit faster than me since I was not really able to pass and drop them (I tried a few times) and drafting off them felt a bit easier than swimming next to them at the same speed, so I tried to mostly draft. We did pass a decent number of men (who started 15min ahead of us), so that's always a good feeling :-) The water felt nice and it was very blue. The only not so great thing was that my neck started chafing pretty badly not even halfway through the swim. I only applied a little bit of body glide prior to the race, thinking that it's not really needed since I was not wearing a wetsuit (just a swimskin over my trisuit). But it seems the top of the zipper on a swimskin can still do quite a bit of damage to the skin, especially in salt water. Next time I'll definitely use vaseline. I felt like I was swimming alright but I never really know until the swim is over and I can see the time. I was hoping for sub-1:10 but was prepared for the worst since I haven't done a non-wetsuit Ironman swim since 2013. 1:11 was a nice surprise!

T1 (4:02):
Most crowded women's changing tent I've ever seen :-o I guess because my swim time was pretty average here (actually below average in my age group).

Bike (5:11:31):
The first few miles were a small loop around the town and a short out-and-back on a relatively narrow road, which was quite crowded. I tried to pass some people on the uphills but I took it easy on the downhills (and got passed back) since passing people at high speed with not much space seemed a bit risky. The crowds didn't really thin out much during this race but once we were on Queen K it wasn't a problem to pass people. The course was pretty scenic and without too much wind it was quite fast too (my bike time ended up being a 2min PR for the distance for me!). I checked my power from time to time but I mostly went by feel. I had no idea what my average power was until after the race since the fields displayed on my watch were slightly different than what I remember setting them to (maybe a software update reset them?) But my power ended up being right where it was supposed to be (161W average and 170W NP if anyone is interested in the numbers). In terms of nutrition, I had my 6 bottles of Infinit (3 on the bike to start with and 3 more in special needs) and I supplemented that with maybe 1-3 bottles of water. I used my original bike Infinit formula for the first 4 nutrition bottles, then switched to what used to be my run formula (slightly less calories than the bike formula and no protein) for the last 2 bottles. I think that helped my stomach feel a bit better for the run. I saw a lot of people grabbing water at aid stations just to cool off and also keeping it on their bike to cool off between aid stations. That did seem like a good idea but since I wasn't feeling too hot for most of the bike, I chose to not take anything from most aid stations in favor of not having to slow down. When I did grab a bottle, I always used it both for drinking (filling my front aero bottle a bit) and cooling with whatever was left. Fortunately, right when I was starting to feel a little too warm in the last 30 miles, it started raining, so that took care of it :-D (otherwise I would have probably picked water for cooling at next aid station) I did take water at what ended up being the last aid station, about 15 miles from transition, which was a good decision (thank you, Mary Beth for pointing this out to me!).

T2 (3:53):
I was pretty pleased with my bike time and was ready to run!

Run (3:53:59):

Once again, I tried not to start too fast. I think I did a good job with not overdoing it in the first few miles, even though I got passed by quite a few girls (I did pass some of them back eventually). It didn't take long (8 miles?) and we were up on Queen K again. From the beginning of the run, I was paying special attention to cooling at every aid station (mostly with sponges) since I was feeling a bit too warm (and so many articles that I read about the race emphasized cooling on the run too). Getting a bit sunburned on the bike certainly did not help - my forearms felt like they were on fire. I was of course drinking quite a bit too (Infinit + extra water and lots of ice) but despite all of this, I started to slow down. Also, since the special needs station was not until mile 18, I eventually ran out of my nutrition and was doing mostly water for the last 3-4 miles before special needs. (I did take 2.5h worth of nutrition with me but ran out a bit quicker than I expected.) Once at special needs, I filled maybe 3/4 of bottle with a bottle worth of Infinit and drank about half of it in less than 10min since I was starting to feel pretty out of energy. My pace was pretty slow at that point (over 9min/mile) and the race quickly became a survival shuffle. It didn't help that my watch was consistently getting ahead of the mile markers (overestimating the distance). Up until mile 20 I was hoping that the mile markers were just misplaced and eventually they'll align with my watch. Sadly, they didn't, so the finish was a mile further away than I hoped for :-p Also, my stomach started feeling slightly weird around mile 20. I considered going to a portapotty between mile 20 and 24 but every time I passed one, it was occupied and often had another person waiting. I guess I was not that desperate. Plus, I was running alongside a girl (from a younger age group) who was puking every half mile or so and still running faster than I was. My stomach discomfort was probably nothing compared to that. (though at least she could relieve herself without stopping for too long and without having to go to a portapotty, LOL) The puking girl eventually dropped me and seemed fine after we both finished - she actually got 3rd in 18-24 age group, only 48 seconds ahead of the next place in her AG (and 63 seconds ahead of me) - no wonder she was so relentless!
  Justin was cheering me on about 1.5 miles from the finish, from which point it was pretty much all downhill, so I got a bit of a second wind - thank God. I think it was the fastest last 1.5mi of an Ironman for me up to date (which sadly cannot be said about my entire run but at least I kept moving and did not do any walking). I was very happy to cross the finish line (in 10:24:48) and even managed to smile a little :-)

I am very happy with my first Kona experience. Sure, the run was not as good as I hoped for but other than that, it went very well. Big thanks to my coach, Mary Beth Ellis, for helping me to qualify for Kona and to prepare me for racing here in the best possible shape (the training between Mont Tremblant and Kona was at times quite intense!). Huge thanks to Justin for coming to Hawaii with me despite his limited vacation and tough work travel schedule. And thank you to all my friends and family who support me in training and racing - your cheers, kudos and words of encouragement mean a lot to me.

Next up: a few running races in November and probably December. Not completely sure about next year just yet but there will almost certainly be some half and full Ironmans involved. Stay tuned! ;-)

Ironman Mont Tremblant Race Report

It didn't take me long after a slightly disappointing race at Ironman Santa Rosa to sign up for another Ironman. After a few days of considering almost every Ironman in the US or Europe that still accepted registrations, I decided I'd give Kona qualification another shot at Ironman Mont Tremblant. It turned out to be a good decision! With over 3 months to go after Ironman Santa Rosa, I had plenty of time to do some more solid training and and test my fitness at a few local races as well.

As I mentioned in my race report from Santa Rosa, I did make a few changes to how I carried my bike and run nutrition for future races. First, I replaced my frame mounted, relatively small aero bottle with a rear X-lab hydration system that can hold two regular water bottles. This almost doubled my liquid-carrying capacity to what should normally be sufficient for a half Ironman distance bike ride. Second, I decided to carry my spare run drink powder in solid-walled containers, so that it's easier to pour the powder into my bottle while running. Mary Beth suggested mini M&M tubes for this purpose and even though I was skeptical about whether they would fit into my run bottle holder pouch at first, it turns out that they are the perfect size. I can comfortably carry 2 of them (a one-bottle serving) and up to 3 if needed. Third, Mary Beth suggested using special needs for the nutrition for the 2nd half of both my bike and run, which I was also slightly worried about since I've never used special needs before but it ended up working out great :-)

In terms of training, it was similar to my training for Santa Rosa but probably better since I didn't get sick at any point and I also knew my way around SF better, so I could ride and run more freely without having to check for directions or not knowing if a road will be suitable for intervals. (Though let's be honest - I do most of my cycling intervals on the trainer anyway :-p) I also tried to do some open water swimming in addition to lots of pool swimming since my OWS has been quite a bit slower than my pool swimming. I also practiced some drafting of Justin in the pool and in open water, which I'm still not very good at but I think I did improve a bit. I did not do any super-long bike rides or runs. My longest training ride this year was 85mi with 6,000ft of climbing in a bit under 6h. My longest training run was 18.5mi but since Santa Rosa I haven't done more than 16.5mi in one run (or even in one day). In the past, this would have had me worried about how could I possibly ride 112mi in a race when I haven't done at least 100mi rides in training or how can I run 26mi in a race when I haven't done at least a few 20-milers in training but I decided to just trust my coach and do what she thinks is best. The training was plenty challenging even without uber-long runs or rides - trust me :-) It was also more fun than most of Ironman training I've done in the past. And in the end I did put in a decent amount of hours too - they were just more evenly distributed across the week on most weeks and had much more intensity than what I used to do in previous years.

My tune-up races went pretty well too and I think I learned something useful at each of them. Most importantly, I tested my equipment and nutrition setup. At California Olympic Distance Triathlon on 6/24 I learned that my swim still needs work (and I need to draft more!) but also that I should make sure my bike shifts into all its gears earlier than the day before the race and that my wheels are true enough to not make my whole bike wobble when going more than 30mph. I'm glad the bike course was relatively flat or else these "little" things might have been a bigger problem. At Donner Lake Triathlon on 7/22 I learned that bottles can jump out of rear bottle cages and also that one should know the course 100% since there might not be volunteers or clean signage at every turn :-( Also, because of the elevation profile of the bike course (2500ft across 24mi with 1200ft up in the first 3 miles and the same amount down in the last 3 miles), I decided to use one of Justin's front race wheels with aluminum braking surface. This was a good idea (as well as pre-riding the initial climb and descent). I quickly dismissed losing a rear mounted bottle at Donner Lake since the course was quite bumpy and I lost the bottle while descending at 30-40mph. However, when the same thing happened a week later and I lost both of my rear mounted bottles not even 10 miles into the bike at Santa Rosa 70.3, I got quite concerned. Turns out it's not an uncommon problem on bumpy roads, even with X-Lab Gorilla cages. Several of my friends recommended I use elastic bands to secure my bottles (thank you, Cari and Jim!), which is what I did and so far it has worked 100%! BTW, Santa Rosa 70.3 still went pretty well. Since I lost 2/3 of my bike nutrition, I grabbed Gatorade Endurance at almost every aid station. It worked OK, though I would definitely not want to do that in a full Ironman (not having my tried and trusted nutrition, slowing down at every aid station and pouring a bunch of Gatorade all over my bike). My run was also solid, though slightly slower than at Texas 70.3. The highlight of it was getting passed by Rinny in the first few miles (she was already on the 2nd out of 2 loops since she started quite a bit earlier than I did and, well, she is also still a little faster than I am :-D)

Mont Tremblant Trip:
We arrived at Montreal airport on Thursday morning after a late night red eye flight. I was actually able to sleep through most of the flight, so I didn't feel too bad upon arrival. Justin's parents were already waiting for us (they woke up extra early to drive from Ottawa to Montreal by 7:15am, which we were very grateful for!). The 3 days before the race went by pretty quickly. On Thursday evening we went for dinner with fellow Trisutto athletes, which was organized by Coach Ed Rechnitzer and it was a great way to meet some new people. I also ran into quite a few friends from NEMS during the long weekend :-)

Race morning:
We got to the transition almost as soon as it opened (5am) since I didn't want to be rushed or stressed, especially with the extra task of dropping off special needs bags. Everything went smoothly and I was at the swim start ready to warm up around 6am. After a 10min swim warmup, I learned that the start was going to be delayed by 30min because of the fog. Oh well, could have been worse (like a cancelled swim at Santa Rosa 70.3). The fog wasn't nearly as bad as at Santa Rosa and it seemed to have improved by the time the original (6:45am) start rolled around. But I guess the race director wanted to be extra safe, so the start was pushed back another 30min. Unfortunately, by then (7:45am) the fog got even worse than what it was at 6am but off we went anyway.

Swim (1:06:24): 

The swim felt pretty crowded, probably because the rolling start was executed a bit quicker than usual - 5 people every 2 seconds. I started around 1:05-1:07 predicted time, which was pretty close to the very front of the age group start since the fastest predicted swim time corral was 1:05 and under. I didn't feel like I was swimming particularly hard - just steady, trying to draft when I could but staying away from people who seemed to have been swimming all over the place. I think I actually got a pretty decent draft for most of the swim. I couldn't see the buoys from more than 50-70m distance (I think they were 200m apart?), so I just followed the general direction of everyone else. I had no idea if I was swimming well or not until after the swim was over and I saw my time (which made me quite happy - a PR by over a minute!). I feel like I could have swam harder but I didn't want to burn too many matches on the swim. Plus it was not like there were many people passing me (if someone passed me at a slightly faster speed, I tried to draft them, but I think in general people around me swam at about the same speed as I did).

Bike (5:20:46): 

When I got on the bike, my heart rate was kind of high, even though I didn't feel too bad. But since I had overcooked it in the first half of the bike way too many times, I tried to keep it controlled. I think it's generally good for me to not go much over 160bpm heart rate on an Ironman bike but I just couldn't get it down for most of the bike (maybe also because it was getting kind of warm?). So I just kept going by feel, trying to not overdo it on the hills. This was the first race I used my new Suunto 9 watch at (thanks to Justin for getting it for me!), mostly because it seems to have more reliable power readings. It worked great, except for not having a normalized power field (looks like Suunto doesn't support it (yet?)). But maybe that's for the best - it seemed like going by feel / heart rate / checking the current power from time to time worked pretty well. As for nutrition, I went through my bottles a bit quicker than expected (one every 45-50min instead of one every hour). So 3 bottles were just enough to get me through the first lap and up to the special needs. I got 3 more bottles at special needs and suspected that I might have to get some extra water on the course towards the end of the bike. Special needs pickup went very smoothly. I was slightly worried about losing too much time stopping and replacing bottles but I think I was only stopped 30-60s and caught up with the people who were just behind me before I stopped within a few minutes of getting moving again. 

I felt pretty good on the second lap - maybe even better than on the first one, even though my time for the second lap ended up being 5min slower than the first lap. Still, I was passing pretty much everyone on the second lap (even though the course was much less crowded at that point, so there were not that many people to pass). I ran out of almost all of my sports drink with about 20 miles to go, so I started taking water from the aid stations. Maybe in the future I should start this water supplementation earlier on the bike. 

I suspected I was doing pretty well coming into T2 since I passed a lot of people on the bike, including a few pro women (which baffled me since they started more than 10min ahead of me, though they were not allowed wetsuits and I suspect maybe some of them went a bit more off the course on the swim since they didn't have a big crowd of people guiding them through the fog).

Run (3:40:56): 

I realized half way through the bike that I forgot to put on sunscreen in the morning... So I was glad that they had some in T2 (they made it sound a bit like we should have brought our own). I did not feel the greatest at the beginning of the run. I did not feel terrible, just not super-energetic, which was probably for the best because it prevented me from starting too fast. (I remember 4 years ago I ran the first mile at 7min pace, followed by a few 7:30s, which was definitely a bit of an overkill, especially with the hills). This time I did the first few miles around 8min pace, which I think was appropriate. Once I got over the hill and onto the bike path, I was running 7:45-7:55/mile and felt pretty good until my stomach started protesting. I stopped for a portapotty at mile 10 and then again at mile 17. My legs didn't feel too bad (though not as springy as for the first 10 miles) but my stomach kept feeling weird, so I couldn't really push it too much without accelerating the need to go to the portapotty again. I was also getting slightly tired/nauseated of my sports drink around 2.5h in. I've drank almost 3 bottles by that point and since my stomach was giving me trouble anyway, I switched to just water and ice for about 40min. Then I got another 1/2 bottle of sports drink in the last 30min because I was afraid I'd fade too much if I continued drink just water. My legs hurt a lot on the last 5K, especially the last 2K but I knew I was leading my AG and that the girls behind me might have been running at a slightly faster pace, so I tried to not let up (much). (Justin told me that I had 9min lead after the first lap, which was pretty good, but might not have been enough if I started walking or shuffling too slowly). 

I was very glad / relieved when I crossed the finish line still in first place in my age group (with a time of 10:15:47) and super happy that I finally qualified for Kona! :-) 

Big thanks to Justin, Nancy and Dono for doing an excellent job cheering me on during the race. Every time I passed within a mile of transition, they were there (usually at a slightly different spot each time) cheering and waving the Slovak flag that Justin bought for me :-) They even made a cheer video that was played on a big screen when I passed 20K and then again at 41K: 

Thank you to my friends and family who supported me in preparation for this race. Special thanks to my coach Mary Beth for providing me with a challenging yet fun training plan and answering all my questions along the way. And of course thank you to my husband Justin for accompanying me on many of my long rides, taking care of our bikes and doing most of the chores when I'm too tired / lazy :-p

Next stop: Kona!

Ironman Santa Rosa Race Report

I thought I'd write this one within a week of the race but other (mostly fun) things got in the way. Plus I wasn't as excited about writing this race report as I was for Texas 70.3 since I was a bit disappointed in how I did in this race. I don't want to make this report sound negative because the race was fun and well-organized and it was also a good reason for a nice long weekend getaway with Justin :-)

So here we go:

I signed up for Ironman Santa Rosa once Justin and I were sure we were going to move to San Francisco (late last year). The race is conveniently located only about 50mi north of SF. We even made a day trip up there a few weeks before the race to pre-ride most of the bike course, which was fun and definitely helpful.

The race was on Saturday (instead of Sunday like most triathlons), so we headed over to Santa Rosa on Thursday morning. The packet pickup was offered even on Friday but I didn't want to be rushed doing all the pre-race preparations and driving the day before the race.

The race morning ended up being a bit more stressful than I would have liked. I got onto a shuttle bus from Santa Rosa to Lake Sonoma a little before 5am, which I thought was plenty early (shuttles were supposed to run from 4am to 5:30am). However, when I was getting on the bus, they were announcing that the last shuttle was leaving at 5am - weird, though the original 5:30am deadline seemed pretty tight even for me... Arriving at the lake around 5:45am, I had just enough time to get everything ready in T1 before the rolling start began at 6:40am. I also had a "minor" freakout because my front aero bottle seemed to have gone missing from my bike. It took me a good 5min (including a pretty distressed call to Justin) to realize that I left the bottle in my T1 bag the day before because I didn't want to leave it on the bike overnight. Phew. I also needed to pump up my tires. There seemed to be very few people with personal pumps in transition and most of them were in a hurry because the announcer was (incorrectly) saying that the transition would close at 6:20am (as opposed to 6:45am - he eventually corrected himself). Fortunately, there were quite a few public bike pumps and the line for them was not too crazy. Unfortunately, half of those pumps were broken - ugh. In the end, I was able to pump up my tires, get everything set up, use a portapotty and make it to the swim start with about 5min to spare. It was probably my most stressful Ironman morning up to date. (Yes, I probably should have given myself even more time...)

Swim (1:13:48)

I had high hopes for the swim. I've swam quite a bit in the past 6 months and finally learned to use my arms more than my legs (by doing lots of pulling and pulling with paddles - at first I hated it but after many weeks of pulling 4km+ workouts several times a week, I got a bit better hang of it :-p). However, I had not done much open water swimming and the few swims I had done up to that point were less than stellar. Still, I positioned myself around the 1hr predicted swim time mark at the start since that seemed like what I could theoretically do in the best case scenario. The water was quite calm, the buoys were pretty easy to see and the course was not very crowded, so pretty much ideal conditions for a fast swim. Since the course was 2 loops with a short run out of the water after the first lap, I had the option of checking my time halfway. I was considering not checking it because I suspected that seeing a bad time might put me in a bad mood. But curiosity got the best of me and I looked at my watch while running out of the water and was not very happy about the 35min I saw... Oh well, maybe I can negative split and still have an OK time. Of course, that didn't happen - my second lap was 38min... I was not exactly happy about that but it was still a long way to go and there was also a long uphill run to T1, which I might have made up some time on.

Bike (5:19:35)

The bike started with a pretty long downhill, which was a good way to prevent me from pushing ridiculous watts from the start, lol. I was familiar with most of the course, which was helpful. It was mostly flat with quite a few turns and 3 real climbs - about 8min each. I kept it steady on the flats, pushed it a bit on the climbs and took it relatively easy on the downhills. I probably pushed it a bit too hard in the first half of the race because my normalized power for the first 56mi was about 10W higher than my normalized power in the second half. I think I did especially poorly in the last 10-15 miles since I was getting a bit tired and I also ran out of my nutrition (I only took 5h worth of my sports drink and I suspect some of it got spilled out of my concentrated bottle or left on the bottom/sides of the bottle, so it might have been closer to 4.5h of nutrition). I took some Gatorade at the last aid station because I felt kind of tired and didn't want to drink only water for the last 15-20min. I was not too happy with my bike time - once again, my second half was a bit slower than my first half (2:44 vs 2:35). I was hoping for a 5:15 or better and ended up just under 5:20. Despite the fading in the second half, my normalized power was still decent (170W) - the best I've done in an Ironman up to date and my time was only a few minutes slower than what I did at Ironman Arizona 3 years ago, which was a completely flat course.

Run (3:48:29)

Going into the run, I knew I'd have to be pretty speedy (sub 3:20) if I wanted to have a shot at breaking 10h (which was one of my goals, together with getting that ever elusive Kona slot). On the other hand, I knew starting too fast was not the best strategy. I didn't push it particularly hard on the first mile but still went relatively fast (7:22), after which I settled into a pretty comfortable 7:45-7:55/mile for the next 6 miles. Mile 8 was the first mile above 8min, which I did not like but then remembered that Mary Beth told me to not overdo it in the first half of the run. So I kept it nice and moderate at around 8:15min/mile for the next 4 miles. Around mile 10-12 the all too familiar digestive issues reared their ugly head... I tried to hold off going to the porta potty for as long as it made sense but eventually decided that yes, I should go and hopefully I'll run better after. I ran OK for the next 3 miles or so but my legs were getting pretty heavy and eventually the stomach issues got too uncomfortable again, so I had to make a quick pit stop around mile 18. (Fortunately, the portapotties were exceptionally clean - maybe Ironman took my feedback to heart after Ironman Austria last year ;-)) I was trying to keep calm and keep shuffling on but honestly, I was feeling pretty dejected. I knew Kona slot was most likely out of question because I was 3rd in my age group at that moment and the two girls ahead of me had a big gap on me (Justin was kindly keeping me up to date on my standing every time I passed his volunteer station - thanks, Justin :-)). But it's never over until it's over and I definitely didn't want to repeat the disaster that was Ironman Austria last year. I still had almost 8 miles left and that would be a long way to walk! Plus, even without a Kona slot, I could at least try to stay in the podium contention. So as uncomfortable as it was to shuffle as fast as I could (without pushing it too much and risking more GI distress), I did my best to keep moving and not give into the temptation of walking and feeling sorry for myself. I tried to focus on the good weather, nice run course with a decent amount of shade, the enthusiastic volunteers and also a few celebrities cheering on along the course (like Desiree Linden and Meredith Kessler :-o) Anyway, I ran out of my own nutrition around mile 20 (3 hours worth was all that I thought I could carry), so I did the last 6 miles only on water. Not ideal but I didn't want to risk more stomach issues from Gatorade or Coke (or anything that is not even liquid), plus I was running slow and my heart rate was quite low, so I was probably running mostly on fat at that point. I eventually made it to the finish - about 30min slower than I hoped for but I still kept my 3rd place in age group. Oh, and I also ran into an old friend from my collegiate triathlon racing days - he was spectating near the finish line. Such a small world!

I finished in 10:31:09 - definitely feeling like I gave it my all but still came up short of my goals. However, as Justin rightly pointed out, despite my troubles on the run (and a pretty disappointing swim), it was still my best Ironman performance in the last 2.5 years, at least. Actually, according to the USA Triathlon score for my race, it was my best ever US race (better than IMAZ where I did 10:04?!?). Not sure I buy that but I'll take the score ;-) In any case, it was by far the best I've ever ran with stomach issues. (I did run better at Mont Tremblant 2014 and Arizona 2015 but I had hardly any GI distress in those two races).

Lessons learned:
1) I still need to figure out how to NOT have any major GI issues on the run... I don't think I ate anything weird during the race - just my sports drink Infinit (around 1000 calories worth on the bike and 500 calories on the run) and maybe 1/3 bottle of Gatorade in the last 20min of the bike. So it might have been something in the days leading up to the race or maybe it was just my body reacting to the stresses of the race. Maybe I really should have taken it a bit easier at the beginning of the run and on some parts of the bike... And I probably should be even more careful with what I eat the day before a race - obviously, I stay away from anything hard on the stomach but maybe I should go even lighter on fat and fiber. (Justin thinks pizza was not the best pre-race dinner, especially since he had his own stomach issues the next morning but I was fine until 10 miles into the run, so who knows) Something to experiment with, I guess.
2) I need a better way to carry my nutrition - both on the bike and run. I actually addressed this by now with the help of Mary Beth and I just need to keep practicing with the new setup. In summary, I got some behind the saddle water bottles for the bike and some less awkward (than ziplock bags) containers for carrying my sports drink powder for the run. Also, I'm going to try using the run special needs and possibly bike special needs in my next Ironman, so that I have enough run nutrition and at the very least a backup nutrition for the bike.
3) Peeing myself on the bike is not as hard as it seemed (sorry if I disgust anyone - it was my first time doing this, so it's kind of a big deal ;-)). It definitely saved me a few minutes compared to stopping for a portapotty at an aid station. The only downside was that most of the pee went into my left bike shoe, which I had to soak in detergent for hours afterwards.
4) Don't give up / get too frustrated / stressed if things don't go as planned. I think I actually did a pretty good job on this one but I could always be mentally tougher.
5) My swim still needs work, especially in the open water.

What's next?
Ironman Mont Tremblant (take two) on 8/19! :-) And before that a few smaller races (two local olympic distance races in June/July and Santa Rosa 70.3 at the end of July).

Last but not least, thank you to everyone who supported me during the race:
   Justin and all the volunteers and spectators, including a big group from GGTC!
In preparation for the race:
  thank you you to Mary Beth for the great coaching and thank you to Justin for dealing with me (and the birdies who seem to be extra misbehaved when I'm not around...) on a daily basis, plus thank you to my friends and family for all the encouragement along the way.
And post race:
  Thank you again to Justin and Mary Beth for helping me make sense of the race and figure out what to do next; and of course thank you again to all my friends and family for all the support!

Ironman 70.3 Texas Race Report

I wasn't very vocal about doing this race because I got sick during race week and for a while wasn't even sure I wanted to race... I still wasn't feeling 100% when boarding my flight to Houston on Thursday and actually started feeling a bit worse on Thursday evening and on Friday. I was still coughing on Saturday and was pretty tired from just doing some short pre-race workouts and some walking around to take care of pre-race logistics. Fortunately, come Sunday 4:30am I was finally feeling pretty much OK. I still had a bit of a cough but no real sore throat and I could mostly breathe through my nose.

As usual, when I am not with Justin, I was cutting things a bit close on race morning but it all turned out well in the end :-) I got into transition with 25min to spare and was out of there in another 10min or so. By 7am I was ready to head to the start. My wave didn't go off until 8am though, so I waited until 7:15 to drop off my morning clothes bag. In retrospect, I could have waited another 15min but I didn't want to stress myself out for the second time that morning, so off I went. There was no swim warmup, so I just stood around like everyone else, moving my arms and shoulders every few minutes to keep loose and warm-ish before the swim. Finally, after about 45min of waiting, our wave was let onto the dock. By that time my hands went a bit numb, which I didn't realize until I started swimming a few minutes later and wasn't really able to catch water effectively. Oh well - I might bring some throw-away gloves next time it's 50F and overcast and there is a long wait at the start...

The water was nice and warm - around 73F, so I got the feeling in my hands back after a few minutes. The start was a bit hectic - I tried to get onto some fast feet in my wave but probably failed, especially after getting kicked into the face :-\ I got into a decent rhythm pretty quickly and felt good, except a mild urge to cough. It looked like I was passing quite a few people in the preceding waves, so that was encouraging but it also felt like I was veering off the course a bit because of the chop and waves. I might have been sighting to much too (every 6-8 single-arm strokes), which I think slows me down but it's better than going off the course. I was out in exactly 35min, which I was not very happy about but oh well - I did not have very high expectations for the race anyway - it was mostly to practice for Ironman Santa Rosa in 5 weeks.

T1 seemed slow, especially the run out of the water, which was quite congested and most people were walking... At least there were wetsuit stripers :-) Because of the cold weather (50s the whole race) and moderate wind (10-15mph), I decided to put on socks for the bike. I think that was a good decision, even if it cost me a few seconds.

The bike was very flat and mostly straight. After a few miles with some turns, we came onto the main road that we took for almost 50 miles. I got right to work and settled into a power range that I hoped for. The course was pretty busy but most people were staying off to the right and were not drafting, so passing them did not feel that bad at first. There was a bit of a tailwind on the way out, so it was FAST - I passed the halfway point in 1:09. The way back was not as fast (about 10min slower), even though I was pushing a little more power than on the way out. Also, it started raining about 1/3 into the bike. I was happy I made my sports drink a bit more concentrated than usual (about 1.5x normal for both bike and run) because the weather was not very conducive to drinking a lot. I still got through my first bottle a bit before mile 40. I definitely wanted to use the other bottle too but my hands were too numb to grab it :-\ For a few miles I contemplated whether to stop to pour contents of my frame bottle into my inbetween aerobars bottle. In the end I decided to carefully pull over off the road at one of the access roads. I could barely take the frame bottle out of the cage with both hands, so it was definitely a good decision to not attempt to do so while riding. I quickly dumped all of its contents into my front bottle and off I went. The new batch of Infinit energized me but I was also getting tired of all the passing and watching out for people swerving, riding 2+ abreast and/or close to the center line. I got safely back in 2:29, which was right where I was hoping to be.

T2 went by pretty quick. I decided not to put on clean socks for the run, even though the ones from the bike were a bit wet because I felt like I was doing well and I didn't want to waste time.

Even though my feet felt frozen for the first 2 miles of the run, I was running faster than expected - a bit under 7min/mile. I kind of wanted to pee but didn't want to waste time, so decided to hold it in unless it became unmanageable (which it didn't). I was passing people left and right, which was fun :-) The course had 3 loops with lots of twists and turns, including a few out and backs, which got a bit crowded during loop 2 and 3. Still, I kept ticking away 7min miles (plus/minus 5s) and was feeling good except for some coughing. My legs were getting a bit tired and sore on the last loop but I did not have any bad (injury) pain - yay! I was very glad when I crossed the finish line in 4:40:13 (around 1:31 for the run). I felt very good about my bike and run :-) I was slightly disappointed for not going a few seconds faster and breaking 4:40 but 4:40 was still a 4-minute PR for me, so I'll take it! Also, I ended up 3rd in my age group and 6th out of all age group women, so not too bad, especially given how the week started out.

Overall, I'm glad I made the trip to Galveston. Not only did I have a decent race but I got to see my friend Yi (who graciously let me stay at her place for the first and last night of my trip, took me out to eat some good food and showed me around Rice University). Also, thanks to traveling solo for this one, I now feel more confident about packing my bike and building it back up, which I haven't done for quite some time. I'm also proud of safely navigating through Houston traffic since last time I was in Houston, the driving seemed pretty scary, even with Justin navigating me.

Big thanks to my coach Mary Beth for all the coaching so far and for the encouragement when things didn't go so well this week. Also, thank you to GGTC for lending me one of their bike cases. Thank you to Yi for being a wonderful host and friend. And of course, thank you to Justin for putting up with my negativity in the past few weeks, for helping me get things ready for the race and for taking care of Gabby and Milo while I was gone :-)