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.  

Happiness

I just returned from yoga class tonight, where the teacher spoke about happiness, a food-for-thought topic that's been making its way into my life as a common thread recently.

I heard a review of a book called "Shift Happens" that sounded interesting, so I downloaded the audio book.  To summarize, it's about how we all start life as perfect, innocent, unscarred souls, but as our lives progress, we inevitably experience negative experiences and emotions such as rejection, disappointment, heartache, anger, or feeling unworthy or unloved.  We develop mental and emotional wounds and scars, some that we are aware of and some that lie deep in our unconscious minds.  These  drive our emotions and our behavior, and mold our self-concept and our self-confidence.  We create a list of limiting beliefs that will be used to tell ourselves what we can and cannot do.  This list usually lasts for life.  

No one is immune to the bumps and bruises of life.  We all struggle with managing our ego that emerges to try to protect us from further pain.  But that ego often works against you.

The "shift" described in the book is about letting all that emotional and mental stuff be in the past - and really living in the present.   Can one really do this?  He presents a good logical and practical argument around the fact that thoughts aren't real.  They are electrical impulses in our heads; they come and go; and that they don't have to define us.  You can learn to recognize negative thoughts, see them for what they are, then choose new ones.   

It's also about choosing happiness, for no good reason. Most of us have conditions in our heads that we will be happy when we...

• a) find our perfect partner
• b) get that perfect job
• c) lose those last 10 pounds
• d) finally get that dream house or car
• e) win our age group in a race, or score that Kona slot
• f) .....fill in the blank....

And of course there's nothing wrong with striving for goals or focusing on excellence in your life.  The fallacy comes when you think that these things are the key to making you happy.  Once you achieve the goal, you enjoy it for a little while, then that emptiness that made you want it in the first place creeps back and you start focusing on the next thing to make you happy.  It's a vicious circle that can follow you your whole life, and make you wonder why you never feel completely whole or satisfied.  The truth is, real and long-term happiness is found inside yourself, not from an external source. 

People who are "achievers" often enjoy the experience of being very independent and self-reliant.  Yet, as humans, we are all connected  on a spiritual level, and share a collective consciousness.  Nothing happens in the world that is in isolation - the Butterfly Effect if you will.  Humans are wired to need each other, though our egos are quick to step in to encourage us to judge and compete with our fellow man.  That independent achiever personality mentioned above may fail to recognize his innate connection with other humans and cut himself off from meaningful relationships in his life, sadly never figuring out what was really standing between him and true happiness in his life.

Just like everyone in the world, I have negative stuff in my head I need to let go.  I'm sure it's an ongoing life-long process of reminding oneself what's important and what's not.  But I definitely see the power in the process.

As an athlete, it's helped me shift my attitude of doing workouts because they were on the schedule and I needed to "get them done" to really trying to be present in the workout and finding joy in the movement and the water/road/trail.   Thoughts are in my head.  They aren't all going to be great, but the ones that aren't, I can choose to let them go and try to find some better ones.   

As a competitive athlete, this perspective leads me to a place of wanting to do my best, but wanting my competition to do their best as well. I understand the common bond of a kindred spirit that I have with every triathlete who shows up on race day, and that they have worked hard to prepare as have I.   I know that the energy you send out to others comes back to you at some point.  I have so many examples of this in my life. It's also about letting go of the limiting beliefs that I have held about myself. In racing, I have learned that my mind will try to give up before my body must give up.  So, the power is in managing those rogue thoughts.

Our Team focus is on giving back at Ironman races, and the Hawaiian word "Kokua" reflects this concept for our Team.  So far, I have only met a few of the 43 athletes on our Team, but I do know that the Kokua spirit runs deep.  The commitment I see in their training and racing this year, the passion they bring to our online conversations, and the stories which have brought us all together tell me a lot about each of them as a person.  

Wishing you happiness.

A Mother's Day Story

Patricia McIntyre first became a mother when I was born on January 1, two weeks past my due date, essentially cheating my parents of a prior year tax deduction.  You think that at least they’d have a shot at those “first baby of the New Year” honors since I arrived at 12:10.  Nope, that’s 12:10 PM; way too late to the party.

My mom was only 18 when I came along.  She and my dad had gotten married the year before when she was a high school junior. In today’s world of equal gender opportunity and kids off on international backpack trips as high schoolers and college students, early marriage and family is rarely a choice made in high school anymore.  However, the culture of the small Southern town of my family back in the day, it’s what most of the girls did. My dad was a handsome firefighter 5 years her senior, and they were an adorable couple.  At her high school graduation, she was already expecting me, and they were on their way to  living the American dream.  

As I grew up, my friends always thought my mom looked so pretty and young, and that’s because she was!  My two brothers arrived three and eight years after me.  Except for a year in Oklahoma so that my dad could finish his bachelor’s degree  - we grew up in North Carolina.  My parents were great role models, both worked hard, and taught us to do the same.  We were Southern Baptists, and conservative values were front and center.   

In my mother’s footsteps, I was drawn to a nice conservative guy in college who wanted to settle down, and got married in the Baptist Church just a few days shy of my 21st birthday. Unfortunately it never occurred to me to first figure out who I was as a person and what I wanted out of life before becoming a wife.  I just went into marriage on autopilot that first time, and in just a couple of years, realized it had been a mistake.  I know my parents really didn’t understand why that marriage didn’t work for me - but I do remember so well that my mom was rock solid there for me, supporting me even though she couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t happy.  So many times in my life, I’m certain that my mom  didn’t understand my choices or my path, but I could always depend on her love and her belief in me - and lean on her unwavering support.  She’s that same unwavering support for everyone in my family.

My teenage years had their moments of frustration for both me and my mom.  In the big picture, nothing too severe or radical, but I tested some limits.  My parents were super strict with me as a girl, while my brothers had a lot fewer restrictions.  This infuriated me at the time, though later as the parent of a son and a daughter, I understood the greater potential for bad things happening to girls and made the same protective decisions with my daughter and son.  

My mom taught me how to sew, and she made most all my clothes growing up, and I made a lot of my daughter’s clothes when she was little too.  My mom and I used to love to spend hours in the fabric shop, buying pattern and fabric and then going home to sew.  It was a real bonding  time for us.  Every Southern girl must have a pretty Easter frock every year, and my mom made me some beauties!   She also sewed my prom dresses and all the other special occasion outfits.  

Vacations were spent camping, often with extended family, and often at the beaches on North and South Carolina.  Most of my whole family was in the same town, so we got to know our grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. My parents were very frugal, and my mom worked as the secretary at my high school - most of that money going for our college educations.  What a gift our parents gave us...my brothers and I didn’t have to get student loans to go to college, because it was a priority that my parents planned for for years.  We worked for our spending money, but our room/board/tuition was taken care of -all we had to do was study.  I remember when I went off to college as a freshman and was clearly focused more on playing than academics.  There was no mistaking that when my grades came and I received the full wrath of my parents‘ disappointment.  My options were to turn it around immediately, or come home and get a job.  I became a great student, shot up to Deans List and even continued for a Master’s Degree.  All because my parents gave me enough rope to hang myself then let me pick up the pieces and learn the life lessons.

My dad developed some serious health problems later in his life, and it was my mother who was his strength through heart attacks, diabetes and cancer.  She had a no nonsense manner of taking bad news, or a bad day - and redirecting my dad and everyone to a place of hope and solace.  She helped to bring my dad to a place of deeper faith.  My dad wasn’t one of those people who was naturally positive and full of sunshine all the time - but my mom has a beautiful way about her that makes you feel better just being around her.  The deep bond between my parents in the last couple of years before my dad passed away is something that I recognize as love in its purest form.

My mom is a huge inspiration to me, and a role model of unselfish love and compassion.  Mother’s Day is a great time to celebrate how special she is, and to let her know how much she is deeply loved by her family and friends.

Patricia McIntyre, you’re amazing, you’re beautiful -  and I’m so proud to be your daughter.

A couple of days off is good, right?

Now that we have an empty nest, we like to open our home to international professional triathletes for homestays when they come to train in Boulder.  So far we have hosted Aussie triathletes Tim Reed, Tim Van Berkel, Lisa Marangon, and Aussie professional mountain biker Josh Carlson.  We've also hosted American triathlete Jenna Parker and 2004 Ironman Hawaii champion, German Faris Al-Sultan. It's a lot of fun getting to know them - and you really come to appreciate that the life of a professional athlete is not easy!  And we also enjoy having a live-in housesitter/dogsitter so that we can travel to warm sunny places like California when the weather is sucking here, as it sure has been lately.

Tim Van Berkel has been with us for the past 6 weeks - and certainly it isn't the training block he anticipated in the springtime.  Three snowstorms in three weeks, and generally chilly temperatures were not really what he signed up for, I'm sure.

Tim left today to return to Oz, and I'm sure he's ready to get home.  He came down with a wicked cold earlier in the week, and of course, now Warren and I have it.  I really hate being sick, and even more so when it comes with a severe cough.  My abs are sore from coughing my brains out last night.  I guess if there's a silver lining, that's it.....who knew that coughing is a core workout?!  :-)

Warren insisted that we go to the doctor today, so we at least got some drugs that ease the annoying headache a bit.  I'm spinning these days off in my head as "I am often overtired and overtrained but keep pushing through...this is my body's way of telling me take care of it."  After all, if my immune system were rock solid I wouldn't have gotten sick in the first place, right?

So I'm going back in my head to that relaxed state of bliss after my post-race massage in Kona a couple of years ago.

ZZZZ....

Reviving the Blog! - Catching up....

As life has continued to get busier, my blog has sat lonely and mute.  My last post was after Ironman Arizona in November 2011.  A painful character-building day where I completely blew up on the run and brought home a finish time much slower than I had hoped for...but the good news was I managed a podium finish with an AG 3rd place.  Sometimes you still catch a break when you least expect it.

2012 brought another busy year of life and racing.  With a 2 week trip to Australia in the spring, hosting several international triathletes in our home and feeling a little frazzled by the busy pace of life, my husband Warren and I decided we’d take a break from Ironman racing.  I wavered between missing the feeling being very fit and of working in a disciplined manner toward an Ironman goal race, and the feeling of enjoying not having that big training burden hovering overhead.  It was a good year of racing shorter events, with a couple of 70.3’s thrown in just to enjoy the distance.

The Baker’s Team Era

As a member of the Erin Baker’s Triathlon Team for the past 4 years, I had the opportunity to represent a great company and be associated with a wonderful and talented group of athletes.  The Baker’s team mission includes a strong “give back” directive, and its athletes raised money for different chapters of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The Club I chose to fundraise for was our local club in Fort Collins.  I helped organize a special “Day for Kids” event, and recruited college students from the triathlon clubs at Colorado State and University of CO to volunteer that day. The college kids seemed to enjoy the experience as much as the little kids! I got to visit the Clubs on several occasions and interact with the kids and the staff.  It was such a pleasure to be able to help them financially and to see the money help them in their work that is so important to families and communities.

Newest Chapter begins!

This year I am thrilled to get the opportunity to join and help manage the new Ironman Foundation/Newton Running Ambassador Team. I just love the idea of making my triathlon effort and experience about something bigger than just me and my athlete ego.    I’ve found that triathletes are generally fun people who get that life can and should be an adventure. I love that us mere mortals share the course with the triathlon gods and goddesses and that we understand the journey we share.   Triathlon training is both time-intensive and energy-intensive, and Ironman training can be close to all-consuming, especially when placed on top of a busy work schedule.  I’ve found that after crossing over to the sunny side of 50 years old(that’s my spin and I’m sticking with it!), it’s not as easy as it used to be to crank out lots of training miles and yards on land, wheels and water - and be able to bounce back the next day ready for more.  Mental and physical recovery is as important as any training done. I’m FINALLY learning to respect this fact, so I’m becoming less likely to toast myself day after day even though I’m feeling run down, or skimp on sleep by staying up til midnight working.

My coach is Tim Reed, a young Australian professional triathlete who first did a homestay with us back in 2010.  He is quite a student of the sport, and wisely advises me on all things triathlon and talks me down from the proverbial ledge when I lose sight of reason and take myself too seriously.

First Race of the Season

My first race of the season was Ironman Texas 70.3 in Galveston Texas, last weekend. The whole trip to TX is a long sad one; here’s the condensed version.

I was looking forward to spending it with my daughter....had a couple of business meetings planned, but it was to be a girls’ road trip weekend, hanging out and having fun and me racing.  

However, things didn’t go at all as planned..

Thursday: flew to Austin, stayed overnight with daughter Erica

Friday: customer meeting in Austin; then drove with Erica to Texas City between Houston and Galveston.  Dinner with E that night, laughs looking at Facebook posts on my iPad.

Saturday: 2:30am call from hotel management informs us that E’s car was among many that had been broken into in hotels around the area.  Window smashed, Erica hysterical, big mess.  TX City Police reports, general mayhem for a couple of hours. Back to sleep for maybe an hour eventually. Woke up tired and stressed.

Off to the race site to check in and pick up my bike from TriBikeTransport.  Quick 45 minute ride to check out the bike. 
Took a look at the water; calm and nice.  Swimming can be a source of anxiety for me, but this looked just fine.

Drove back to Texas City, then drove an hour to have Erica's car window replaced. 
I had realized Saturday morning that I had left my iPad in the car, so it of course had been stolen. Another call to police to amend report.  Realized I could track my iPad using the Track my iPhone app, and found it on GPS two hours north of where we were.  Reported it to TX City Police, who said it wasn’t their jurisdiction, and that I should report to Houston PD.  Reported to Houston PD, but they said it wasn’t their jurisdiction, should report to Harris County Sheriff.  Reported to Harris County, who said we had to drive up there to meet with the deputy and show him the tracking.  We did that.  The deputy knocked on the door of the house where the iPad was, the resident denied having it - and the officer had no authority to take it any further.  He could not enter without a search warrant, which, of course, you couldn’t get til Monday from a judge.  Of course by then, the iPad would be long gone somewhere else. The whole thing just seems so wrong. What good is knowing where it is if you can’t get it?

So, knowing I’d never see it again, I remotely wiped the iPad clean and digitally kissed it goodbye.  The good news is that AT&T was able to blacklist the iPad as stolen, and make it so that if anyone ever tries to set up a data plan on it, it will flag law enforcement. 

Saturday evening: returned to Texas City, grabbed a sandwich(oops, realized we never got around to lunch) and started gathering up my things to race the next day. Off to bed way too late, then too wired to sleep. Oh, yeah, and what’s with this cough that started on Friday?  Nope, not thinking about that anymore.

Sunday: Race Day  3:30am wakeup, off to the race at 5:00; feeling a bit tired but adrenaline is kicking in.  Feeling like I can do this after all.

• Swim:  I’m in the first AG wave at 7:10.  Wetsuit swim in the bay at 65 degrees. Swim feels relatively low stress until the waves behind me start to catch up and swim over top of me.  I start taking a wider path to avoid aggressive traffic, and of course, time lost.  Swim time slower than even my usual slow swim.  Shake it off and move on. Heading toward T1, a volunteer directs me down wrong lane even I had a feeling it was wrong.  Lost a minute or so looking for spot. Off on the bike.
• Bike: An out and back relatively flat course paralleling the shore on Galveston Island. Historically quite windy.  I was holding a decent mph the first 40 miles, but stiff headwind appeared the last 16 and made for tough going in last long stretch.  Pushed through harder and adjusted body position on bike to use some different muscles - a decision my body punished me for on the run. Possibly not enough calories in to set me up well for the run either.
• Run: Felt lousy from the first mile.  Nothing left in the legs after the bike ride and maybe the fatigue of the weekend caught up with me.  The run is usually my favorite part of any triathlon, but I literally willed my way through one mile at a time, managing the negative thoughts screaming in my head, but really not enjoying a minute of it.  Well, OK, I guess the last tenth of a mile after passing mile 13 was pretty fun.  :-)  



A Familiar IM Sight!



Swim Course 

• Overall: Finished a disappointing 7th in my age group, waaaay off the podium and further still from a Vegas slot.  However, the race was well-organized and well-executed start to finish; kudos to the organizers.  I think I could improve on my time if I had another go at it...

My Texas Entourage!  (Erica)

Beat myself up for a day or so about performing so poorly, then let it go.  At the end of the day, it’s not life-and-death, it’s sport and I live to race better another day.  I did learn some lessons about preparation, pacing, persevering and nutrition.

I had a meeting with customers in Beaumont TX on Monday, and was to fly back to CO on Tuesday.  However, due to the big snowstorm back home, flights cancelled so I was delayed getting back til Wednesday night.  Great...one more night in Texas!  Gotta say while I love Austin, not so much a fan of the Houston area.  Ridiculous traffic and not a great vibe there.

So, I'm spinning it as I've gotten the bad race of the season behind me already!  Time to get back to work and shake off this trip and this race.

The great part of the trip was hanging with my girl, Erica!

Cheers, everyone!

Ironman Arizona Race Report

Prelude to the big Day:

Last November, I was on the high that follows you when you qualify for and finish the Ironman World Championship in Kona.  So the natural thing to do was sign up for another Ironman, which of course, must be done a year in advance.  Warren and I chose Ironman Arizona. I raced there in April of 2007 and knew it to be a relatively flat bike and run course, but also knew that the weather and water temperature were highly variable. 

This racing season has been a mixed bag of injury management, swim frustration, disaster races and PR races. George and Jane Esahak-Gage provided me with excellent coaching guidance the first half of the year, and Tim Reed has been my triathlon coach since July.  Tim is a professional triathlete from Australia, and has done a homestay with us the past two summers. Because I was looking to bring my performance to a bit higher level and to address some weaknesses, I told Tim I was willing to do the work he thought would be necessary to achieve that. The work he prescribed was different indeed, and it was challenging.  He made me go to Masters Swim workouts that I did not want to go to. I often had 3 workouts a day, and I was scrambling at times but figured out a way to get all the work done with rare exceptions. I developed a lingering fatigue but seemed to find new energy in my last taper week.  

Tim had started following the Paleo diet which seemed to be working for him, so I did too. I was Nazi-diligent about eating well.  I started eating a lot more protein including red meat, in an attempt to get leaner and more muscular. I said “no” to wine and other alcohol and sweets and junk food.  Warren demonstrated the inequity of the genders as he was still eating ice cream many nights and polishing off a bottle of wine - and getting more fit and lean all the way. His body is always ready to forgive his transgressions but mine has never shown me the same margin for error.  So not fair...but I digress.

In the weeks before the race, we checked the weather in Tempe and the water temperature in Tempe Town Lake where we would swim. The water was around 60 degrees and a week before the race, the 10-day forecast predicted a chilly rainy raceday.  I spent too much energy stressing over this before finally just mentally letting it go a few days before the race.

My goals for the race were:

1 - Finish time under 13 hours

2 - Swim time 1 hour 30 mins

3 - Bike time 6 hours

4 - Run time 4 hours 30 mins

Notice I didn’t add “enjoy the day” to the goal list this time.  In the past I have enjoyed my Ironman races - and I haven’t suffered through any of them too badly.  My effort in some races might be characterized as doing a kind of  “lah-de-dah” along and “have fun.” But this time I planned to maintain a lot more focus on keeping my best effort alive all day.  

We left Boulder on Wednesday, splitting the drive to Tempe into two days. We spent Thursday night with Jane and George, and on Friday I took the bike out to ride with them and Warren, to check everything out, including my rented race wheels. The forecast for Sunday was a high of 72, low of 50, with no rain and a little wind. Things were looking up!  However, the water temperature was still cold at 61, so we skipped the practice swim on Saturday.  We were preparing to drop off our bikes on Saturday when I realized I had a flat on my rear tire.  My ever-patient sherpa & bike support guy (Warren) changed it for me and it put a little doubt in my mind about getting a flat.  After dropping off the bikes, we headed back to the hotel and stayed off our legs the rest of the day.  Bedtime was 8:30, and I slept better than I ever had the night before an Ironman race.  The alarm went off at 3:30am and soon we were on our way to the race site around 5am.

Race Day

Swim:

The lake water was still 61 degrees.  That’s not so bad in a short race but swimming 2.4 miles in cold water is a different story.  I’m often cold when other people aren’t, so this was a a huge cause for concern for me. I had swum Alcatraz this year and last, which was about that same water temperature, but that was only 1.25 miles. At Ironman Arizona, it’s a deep water start, so you have to be in the water 5-10 minutes before the gun goes off, which is miserable. I wore a long-sleeve wetsuit with a swimsuit underneath, neoprene cap and neoprene booties.  

2,654 athletes started this race.  That’s a lot of people in a narrow canal of a lake. I made the mistake of lining up way to the right by the shore, because this is where I always started when I was a fearful swimmer, taking confidence and comfort in having the water’s edge nearby.  So even though I’m past my swim panic attack phase, I foolishly lined up there.   When the gun went off, I was stuck swimming with all the people who are panicking, stopping, breaststroking, backstroking, and swimming all over the place instead of toward the first buoy. I couldn’t get through the gridlock of people to manage a decent swim stroke for a good 15 minutes or more. Once I finally found some water to really swim, I used Tim’s advice for swimming in a wetsuit: focus on reaching deeper and  rotating more. So far, I was chilly but things were all good.

The IM AZ swim is a long rectangle.  When I was about halfway through it, I looked at my watch and was at 40 minutes, which isn’t fast, but is exceptionally good for me - as my fastest IM swim time was a weak 1:42.   I kept swimming and looked for drafting opportunities instead of avoiding people as I usually do.  Once I got hit pretty hard in the head which stunned me momentarily, and then my legs started to cramp up big time.  I recovered as best I could and focused on continuing to make forward progress. I tried to kick more than usual, in hopes of staying warmer with the extra movement.

At about the one hour mark, I started to get a much colder.  Water was getting into my wetsuit, which sometimes feels refreshing - but not today.  My hands and face were already numb, then my arms started to feel numb.  I started to feel like I was swinging stumps that used to be my arms, and not really feeling like I was able to grab any water.  Nothing to do but keep going and stay out of my head to keep the negative thoughts away.  I counted strokes, tried to keep what Tim calls a “neutral mind” and I focused on getting through it.

At last, the swim finish line.  It’s a deep water finish;  you have to pull yourself up to the ramp steps, with some help from volunteers who try to hoist you out of the water.  I was so cold that I had trouble grasping for the arms reaching out to me.  Somehow I got out of the water.  I looked at my watch and my time was 1:37: 48.  I stumbled up the stairs and crossed the timing mat.  I fumbled with my swimcap and goggles, and one of the volunteers stripped off my wetsuit and I kept moving toward the change tent.  

I had made the decision to completely change into dry clothes in T1, and it was totally the right decision.  However, most of the women who came out of the water near me had made the same decision and it was more crowded than usual in the change tent.  The heat in the tent made you want to sit down and stay awhile.  All the volunteers in the change tent were busy with other athletes so there was no one to help me dress.  My hands were numb and completely useless.  I stripped off my cold, wet swimsuit and was standing there, teeth chattering,  completely naked trying to untie the string in my T1 bag and on the verge of tears from cold and frustration. Then an angel-of-mercy(volunteer) came to my rescue at last and helped me get into my clothes.  After a ridiculous 12:30 in T1, I finally started my bike ride.  Changing clothes took a ton of time but riding cold AND wet would have certainly been counterproductive and miserable. I started the bike ride wearing arm warmers and gloves, as well as a wind vest over my Baker's Team race kit.

Bike:

Immediately, I realized that my rear brake was not engaged, so I had to pull over and fix it.  My fault for not checking it after Warren changed my tire, but what a rookie mistake. 

The IM AZ bike course is 3 out & back loops, a long gradual climb going out, and the same gradual downhill coming back.  The variable factor is the wind.  The first loop was great, wind at your back coming back into town, fast times!  My goal was to hold 18mph for the whole ride.  First loop, I was at 18.4 average.  Good so far.  Second loop, the wind started to pick up, and it was unpredictable - no longer could you count on that sweet tailwind coming back - the wind kept switching around.  Not Kona cross-wind scary, but definitely enough wind to start slowing me down. Grabbed a peanut butter sandwich from special needs bag, and for caffeine, a coke - hit the spot!. Left the vest in my special needs bag as it had warmed up enough to not need it. Third loop, more wind I was working harder and feeling like I going slower - yet I managed to bring my average up a little more over time lost in the second loop. In the third loop, another issue to manage - an optical migraine which manifests as wavy vision and spots before my eyes.  Same thing happened this year in the 70.3 World Championship in Vegas - seems to be brought on by the sun.  Weird and annoying and dangerous when you are riding and trying to get your eyes to focus on the road.

Pushing harder on the bike had worked well for me earlier this year racing at the Olympic and 70.3 distances - I was able to ride faster and still run well, so my plan was to do the same at IM distance.  This was faster than I’d ever pushed for this distance, but so far, I felt good and my final average was 17.7.  This may not seem fast, but a decent job of staying steady.

Run:

I dashed into T2 ready to run; in & out in 4:22.  The run course was also a 3-loop course. The first few miles felt not too bad, the usual Ironman post-bike stiffness but legs started to loosen up and I was still feeling positive. First 5 miles done and I was thinking that a 4:15 marathon was quite do-able - which would give me around a 12:30 finish. Then the wheels started to come off.  I ran past Jane and George just after I finished the first loop, going into the second, and Jane yelled at me that I had come off the bike in 5th place in my AG, and was now in 4th place.  I was encouraged but now worried because I had slowed way down and getting slower all the time.

I’ve experienced bad things running in races before, like cramps, or fatigue, or poor pacing.  Yet what I started to experience about mile 5 this day was completely new to me. My legs started to hurt in a way that I’ve never experienced in a race or training.  It was primarily my quads and hamstrings but later my calves too - it was a stabbing kind of pain and stretching every mile or so did nothing to alleviate it. The good news was that my recurring glute pain that had plagued me the past couple of years, wasn't there. Hmmm. I took in some salt tabs, took in some electrolyte drink, coke....nothing helped.  I needed pharmaceuticals. 

I started to ask for medical at every aid station to see if I could score some ibuprophen - none to be had.  I asked the EMT’s I passed at the ambulance and they offered me aspirin which I didn’t think would help so I declined.  I had some ibuprophen in my run special needs bag but unbelievably I was so out of it, I missed picking it up in the 2nd loop so had to wait til I passed it again on the 3rd loop.  At that point I was at about mile 21 after hobbling through 15 miles of the worst suffering I’ve ever had in a race. I was running but so slowly it was not much faster than a walk. I felt angry and frustrated and on the verge of tears many times.  Any hope of reaching my goals were surely gone now. I’m sure I looked like the poor crippled people you see on the Hawaii Ironman NBC coverage every year.   

When I finally got to my special needs bag, I took ALL my ibuprophen that was in my bag (a megadose of 1000 mg ) and within 10 minutes it was a miracle - I had my legs back.  By this time I knew I’d probably dropped way down in my age group - it’s hard to tell ages because so many people wear compression sleeves or socks that cover up the age marked on the back of their leg. Plus I had stopped to pee twice and you never know who sneaks past when you aren’t looking.  Yet, in my last four miles I was able to gradually increase my run speed, to the point that my last mile was probably my fastest of the day.  I crossed the finish line in 13:21:04, short of my goal but a 35-minute Ironman PR for me. 

I found Warren in the finish area and he told me I’d finished 3rd in my age group, so I passed another 55-59 girl somewhere out there on the run.  I couldn’t help feeling frustrated about being 13 minutes behind the #2 girl who didn’t have a great run.  The crazy psycho Pam feels like she gave it away in the run, and is frustrated that she didn’t get to run that girl down.   Ah, coulda woulda shoulda....if I’d just gotten hold of those drugs at mile 14 instead of mile 21....

Post Race Reflection:

During the race, I’m afraid was quite the bitch.  Instead of happily enjoying the day as I usually do, I took a different mindset.  I put my head down and did not speak to any of my fellow athletes, barely acknowledged the good people spectating who yelled encouragement to me, and made a real effort to keep sharp focus and not give away an ounce of energy.  After the race I apologized to the people I knew who yelled happy thoughts to me, or tried to engage me in conversation during the race, cuz I was far from cordial during the race.  During that train wreck of a run - the middle part when my legs were screaming at me and I had to keep willing myself to run not walk - it was all I could do to focus on the task and block everything out.  People tell me they were calling out to me as I passed on the run and for much of that time I have absolutely no awareness that they were even there.  I was in a weird place in my head and my soul, and I had to dig pretty deep inside myself during those middle 15 miles of the run.

Lessons Learned:

1 - Strength still a huge limiter for me.  I don’t look strong, and in general I don’t feel strong.  I can’t rely on just my good endurance anymore if I want to continue to improve my times.  I have to back it up with a stronger body head to toe.

2 - I am improving my ability to manage my head when things get ugly.  I’m proud that I managed to fight back the demons and get to that finish line.  I can suffer and not quit. When you think you can’t go on, do it anyway. Your head tells you lies about what your body can or can't do.   Channel the negativity into determination. 

3 - I need to check my equipment and nutrition carefully before race start and remember to execute the plan as the day unfolds.  

4 - I’m feeling like I need more training at higher intensity on the bike to be able to successfully push harder on the bike and still run well.  My race pace strategy worked for me at Olympic and half-IM distances this year, but apparently it doesn’t transfer well for me yet at the IM distance.

5 - If you get third place, you’ll regret that you didn’t get second place.  If you get second place, you’ll regret that you didn’t win.  If you win, you’ll feel like a failure if you don’t win again.  This is silly and keeps you from enjoying and appreciating your successes.   Third place in my age group is my best finish ever in an IM race.  Though I spent some time beating myself up about not being able to run down #2, I need to get over myself and realize that this is a huge step up for me.

So did I reach my time goals?  Nope, not any of them.  Yet, looking back, it was a pretty great day.  Both Warren and I walked away with PR’s, and an agreement that we would skip doing an Ironman race in 2012.  Woo hoo!  :-)  Time to find some speed at the shorter distances next year, and have a little more free time to play. 

And I'm going to paint my laundry room.  DIY therapy.

Time:  13:21:04  - Age Group Third Place

Swim: 1:38:04          T1: 12:30           Bike: 6:20:04           T2: 4:22           Run 5:06:02

Sustainable Fitness in Real Life

It's now almost six weeks post-Kona and life has again become routine.  Now is the time to deal with all the stuff I put off for the months I was so hard at work training for the Big Race.  I've got a bigger case of Post-Ironman depression than I've ever experienced after other IM races.  


I know it's all part of a larger stress of life in general, with much up in the air with work, the economy destroying the industry in which I work sharply reducing my income, holidays coming, blah blah blah. When I had this structured training plan waiting for me every morning, I was focused on that because I was so motivated and so excited, and I let a lot of other things slip a bit or did just enough to get by, knowing that after Kona I'd get back to all that.   


Now I have no structure to my training, and some days no desire to even do anything physical. People tell me it's ok, that it's actually good - the offseason is a time that your body needs a break to heal, rebuild, rest.  You should do things for fun - take my dogs out to play, hike, mountain bike, yoga.  And I am, but something just doesn't feel right.  


While being in the best shape of my life this summer and fall was great, I'm finding it so challenging to maintain long-term in real life, both mentally and physically.  And once you've achieved it,  there's pressure to keep it,  and nagging guilt and letdown when it starts to slip away when you aren't training 20+ hours a week anymore.  A couple of pounds creep back and you feel like you are nearing that slippery slope of having another piece of chocolate, spending another hour wasting time on Facebook and blowing off still another boring swim workout. It's twisted and I know that on an intellectual level, yet I wonder....

• What do other people know that I don't know with regard to building a body that stays lean and reasonably fit all year without much maintenance?  I can get there but for me, it takes a TON of work and sacrifice.  Is it all a myth that it's possible?  I don't want to spend 20 hours a week exercising my whole life.

An attitude adjustment might help me. But I do wonder how others manage their heads in the offseason after the high of a really special racing season.   Living with the same discipline I adopted this summer and fall doesn't seem to be sustainable in the absence of tangible goals like a race which is a few months down the road.  I have so many things I need to be doing right now to get stronger for next racing season, and even more important re-focusing my career energies.  I know I need to expand professionally as well, but that project has its own set of issues with regard to freedom and passion.  Career focus is obviously more important right now but as I step back from training a bit I'm losing that precious fitness and leanness which was achieved only with great effort.   It's such a crazy mind game that sometimes leaves me feeling bad, yet paralyzed and doing little about either fitness or career. 


There.  I vented and shared my dark musings.  In the big scheme of things, I'm still very blessed in so many ways and things could be a lot worse - I know that and try to let that perspective buffer all the poor-me thoughts.


Ok, time for a mind shift...instead of thinking of issues as problems, I need to think of them as PROJECTS.  Problems = negative; projects = positive, with potential and achievable. 


Love to hear comments from anyone who's "been there."