Flying Monkeys in Kansas...Oh My!

Last weekend I headed east to Lawrence KS for the Ironman Kansas 70.3 triathlon. Warren and I had done this race in 2008.  He's not currently racing and had been on the road way too much lately, so he wasn't making the long trip with me. I headed out at 6:30 on Friday morning, ready to entertain myself for eight and a half hours.  I had Sirius radio and, loaded into my iPhone, an audio book about the hurricane that devastated Galveston and killed thousands of people back in 1900.  So off I went to find Dorothy and her friends on the Yellow Brick Road.

My goal was just to have a better experience and outcome than at my last race in early April, Ironman Texas 70.3 in Galveston.  There, I struggled a lot on the run and came in a disappointing 7th place in my age group. Despite having a nasty cold that hung on for weeks in May, training had started to feel better the past few weeks, so this was going to be a fair gauge of my fitness on the journey to Ironman Canada Whistler in August.

Last year's IM KS was hot, windy and not wetsuit legal.  The day before the race this year, as we checked in, the weather was exactly that again - but the good news was that the water temperature was 72.  A storm was expected to pass through overnight which typically cools the water off even more.  For those of you who don't know, athletes are allowed to wear wetsuits in the swim of a triathlon as long as the water is 76.1 degrees or cooler.  Wetsuits, of course, help keep you warm in the water, and provide buoyancy which makes swimming much easier and faster. For swimmers like me, wetsuits are a good thing, so I was happy to hear that we would be wearing them.  Temperatures predicted to be mid-high 80's, and of course there would be wind - but hopefully not too severe and gusty.

Pam, Nicole, Liz and Khem - IMF/NR Team represents!

Three of my teammates on the Ironman Foundation Newton Running Ambassador Team were racing and/or working at the race, so I was looking forward to connecting with them.  One of them who wasn't racing, Liz Kollar, was kind enough to offer me her race wheels to borrow, and not having any of my own, I took her up on it.  Having a bike with 650c wheels presents some limitations on equipment, and I have thought a few times about a new bike with 700c wheels ... but my beloved bike Bella Blue just fits me and it's comfortable so going to stick with it for at least another year.

Crowie sharing wisdom pre-race.

The day before the race, Ironman hosted a lunch for the Teams who were competing in the race.  Craig Alexander and another professional Emma-Kate Lidbury(who both won the race the next day) came by to speak and offered photo opps.  One interesting thing I took away from Crowie's talk was his response to the question about what's in his head when he's racing.  He said Greg Welch shared this with him: asking yourself "who are you?"  That resonated with me, and in my mind it brings up deep questions about:

• who you are as a person
• why you are a triathlete
• how this sport takes precious time away from being with people you care about yet can be a powerful way to set a positive example of what's possible
• how to bring forth the best in yourself on race day and in life
• gratitude for good health and strong body, and friends to share the sport with
• ....all reflected as "who you are" in the lens of the day's race conditions and circumstances .

Here are the highlights:
Pre-Race:  Due to the predicted storm the night before the race, with possible high winds and hail, we had the option of either dropping our bikes off the day before OR race day.  I chose to drop mine on race day, imagining arriving race morning with all the bikes blown off the racks in a heap of wheels and gears.  It was breezy and still misting a little when we arrived that morning at 5am and there were big puddles in the grass in the transition areas.  I felt like I had made the right decision about not dropping my bike off the day before.  There were two separate transition areas in this race, half a mile apart - so getting everything set up and ready to go took a little extra time.  Before the race, saw  my friends Jim and Pam Buderus, and it would be the only time I saw them all weekend.  I was hoping to catch up with you guys more, sorry to miss you!

I'm #308, first bike on rack right by swim start.

Swim:  I was in the 2nd age group wave.  The water was really choppy because of the wind from the storm.  But the temperature was nice, and I was surprisingly calm. (I'm often not before a triathlon swim)  The course was a long rectangle, and I noticed that they had numbers on the buoys which was convenient.  Eight orange buoys, then a red buoy at the turn point, then swim to the next red buoy and turn again, then eight orange buoys to take you back to the swim finish.  Easy peasy. So my goal this swim was to take a straighter line instead of staying wider to avoid other swimmers who inevitably ended up swimming on top of me. I was trying to be more brave and to better claim my space in the water.  As a result, yep, I got swam over and banged around lot more.  But I just kept going.  After all, I was in a wetsuit, which meant that I'd probably stay on top of the water no matter what.  And I thought I was swimming pretty well.  Actually, my swim time was almost exactly the same as I'd swam in Galveston in April, and much slower than my fastest half Ironman swim time in 2010.  I came out of the water in 48 minutes and was pretty disappointed about the time. But... swim was over and I had to let it go and move on to the bike.

Bike:  This was a very hilly course that was usually windy as well.  However, the first couple of hours on the bike, the wind was there but manageable. As a light rider on a small bike, I get blown around a lot when it's windy.  I've learned that managing the wind is as much mental as it is physical, and have taken advice I heard from Mark Allen to imagine yourself as swiss cheese and let the wind blow through you.  It helps me, and is quite opposite from the way I used to try to mentally and physically fight the wind.  (but I still don't really enjoy riding in the wind)  So in the last hour, the wind picked up a lot, and at the end of 56 miles, I was happy to be getting off Bella Blue to go run my 13.1 miles.

Run: When I got off my bike in the Galveston race after riding into big head winds the last 15 miles, my legs were toast.  I pushed way too hard through the winds and had not trained sufficiently to put that type of effort forward - and I paid dearly with a miserable run in that race. This time I tried to stay more within myself on the bike ride, while still maintaining a good effort.  As a result, the run felt a lot better....yet still not great and certainly not as good as I've felt on the run in some other races.  Haven't cracked why I'm not feeling the run these days.  Started to come good a little more in the last half of the half-marathon but then felt like I was on the edge of cramping big the last three miles.  Took some salt tabs but it was too little too late as it didn't really help the feeling. A friend, Michele Van Pelt, came past me right at the 13 mile mark and I started to find that gear to go with her, but in the interest of avoiding a seizure cramping episode right at the finish line, I ended up letting her go and came in a few seconds later...fortunately with no cramp seizure in the finish line picture.

Wrapup:
My finish time put me 6th in my age group, and my time was significantly faster than the last time I did this race five years ago.  So even though I had hoped to finish faster and higher in my age group, the fact that I significantly improved my time in all three disciplines is something to feel good about.  I will continue to work on the areas of my game that aren't where they need to be (specifically, my swim, my bike and my run, as well as my strength and my nutrition - so "all of it") under the guidance of my coach Tim Reed.  He challenges me to approach both training and racing thoughtfully and analytically, yet reminds me also that at the end of the day it's just a sport, and not to forget to enjoy it regardless of the outcome.  

Morning view from my 4-star Tent Accommodations 

Instead of driving home after the race, I decided to take my friends' offer of pitching a tent in the grass on their campsite and sleeping under the stars before heading out for the long drive home early Monday morning.  It was beautiful!  I zipped the tent up tight and tried not to think about that huge dead snake I'd seen on road on the bike course and how snakes like to slither around in the grass...yikes!   Thanks Don and Mike Orr for the campsite hospitality.   It was also fun hanging out with James Hadley, a pro from Boulder who came third in that race - who stopped by the campsite for a beer or two that afternoon.  

Oh, and the flying monkeys that struck such fear in my young life, watching The Wizard of Oz on tv?  They apparently took the day off.