"It Is Never As Bad As It Seems. It Is Never As Good As It Seems."

If you had asked me earlier this year if I would ever run a marathon, separate from an Ironman of course, my response would have been "Hah! Like hell! I'm a triathlete, not a runner." But after finishing the half ironman and continuing my training for Hood-to-Coast, I found myself right on target for the Portland marathon training. After a couple of beers one night, I signed up. My initial thought was "huh, that was dumb." My thought the next morning was "yep, pretty stupid." Indeed, my thought the evening before the race, as I was methodically filling fuel belt bottles with GE and stuffing GU into nooks and crannies of my gear, was "shoot, this was the silliest idea ever." But I trained anyway. Sort of. My plan was to poll fellow runners each Monday morning to see what their week looked like. I would pick what sounded the best to me (read: the shortest) and do that. Whatever, it worked. I finished. And I finished pretty darn happy too! Here is my race report:

2008 Portland Marathon (that's 26.2 miles, in case you didn't know)
10/5/2008

Pre-race:
I ate an English muffin w/ PB&J, drank some coffee, posed for a picture, and then kissed my sweetie-pie goodbye before heading downtown with Jeff, Natalie, and Tom W. Once there, we hit the porta-potty line and then continued to hydrate. I stood with the 5:30 pace group for a bit, then moved up to the 5:00 pace group. After thinking about it, I moved back to the 5:30 pace group. And then back to the 5:00 pace group, but towards the back of it.


Warm up:
Walking back and forth between pace groups while neurotically trying to decide where to seed myself. Oh, and I saw Jenn, DeDe, and Lisa from the club. What a treat to see them before the run!

The run:
It took about 10 minutes to cross the starting line. That was frustrating because we would start moving, and then stop. Then we would move again and get all excited. And then stop. Once we crossed the start line, there was quite a bit of room to move around. The only exception was when a couple of nordic walkers busted through and runners tripped all over their wildly flung trekking poles.

Miles 1-4 were super easy. But I had to pee. I finally came up on a set of potties that didn't have a line. Ah, relief. 1 minute 42 seconds of relief. I caught back up to the 5:00 pace group and cruised on until mile 7.5, where my support crew was waiting for me. Ken (fiance) took photos, Desi (best friend) ran with me for a couple of miles, and Steve (Desi's boyfriend) cheered. I LOVED LOVED LOVED having them out there!
I ended up ahead of the 5:00 pace group for awhile. As I was coming up on mile 12, a haunted voice popped into my head. "It is never as bad as it seems. And it as never as good as it seems." The latter part of the quote is what was getting to me. I felt SO GOOD. And then, like clockwork, and mile 15 the air was let out of my tires. I was going too fast to sustain for 26.2 miles. And the 5:00 pace group got a new leader with fresh legs and started running close to 10-11 minute miles. I let them go ahead.
Mile 16 has the infamous climb up to the St. Johns bridge. It's beautiful in here, so I focused on the scenery and smell of the forest, rather than the climb. I walked 1:00, ran 1:00. Over and over again. I was passing people the entire way, so that was a confidence builder. Finally...I was on top and at mile 17. Woohoo!

I was expecting the gang to be on the other side of the bridge around mile 18. I needed refueling and just a moral boost. They weren't there, so I looked for them at mile 19. Nope. Mile 20. Uh uh. Oh crap. I needed my Gu and GE. I started cramping. I got down on myself for being so slow. Then a song came on my MP3 that brought out the emotions and the tears started rolling. Within seconds I heard a familiar voice. Kristin! She ran with me for a little while (with her backpack bouncing around) and called Ken to let him know where I was. Turns out, they were going back and forth trying to find me, but my predicted paces were so off target (my bad), that it made it nearly impossible to find me. If it weren't for her, I may have never met up with them the rest of the course. Love you K!

Just past mile 21, my sweetie-pie was running across the street with an arm full of bottles and Gu packets. I got a quick kiss, my smile came back on my face, and I was recharged for the remaining 5 miles.

Miles 22-25 were physically tough, especially the downhills. My pace slowed down a lot. I ran when I could and walked when I couldn't run. But despite the pain, all of us in the marathon were giving support to everyone else. It was great.

Mile 25 appeared and I knew I was home free. I tried to run the entire last mile. Sadly, I didn't have it in me. But I ran most of it. At mile 26, I saw Ken and posed for a few photos. He gave me his phone so that I could call my Mom after the finish line, and said he would see me in the reunion area.
I rounded the corner to the finish chute and saw Steve and Desi cheering me on. I think Desi was smiling wider than I was. Yay, I did it!
Warm down:
I walked through the finishers area and loaded up on cookies, chocolate milk, and chips. I also stopped to have a finisher's photo taken. I felt a little silly because everyone else was posing with friends, but I was all by myself.

Ken helped me change into dry clothes, and then we all went to my favorite NE Portland joint for bloody mary's and french toast!
Event comments:
This is a GREAT event. I don't have anything to compare it to, as far as marathons go. But I very much enjoyed myself [almost] the entire time. Entertainment groups were at least every mile, the volunteers were super friendly, and people lined up outside their homes to give encouragement.

Up until about 1 hour before the race, I wanted to back out. I had no desire to do a marathon and I didn't think it meant anything to me at all. When I started running, I knew that if I didn't finish that I would be devestated. Part way through the run, I realized that I had goals I didn't even know about. And as I crossed the finish line, I just about exploded, I was so happy. This non-runner just finished a marathon!!!

Marathon? Check.

Okay, I DID IT!!! It's over! Thank goodness. It was mostly a good day, with the exception of a little black hole around mile 21 that Kristin quickly pulled me out of (thanks girlie!). Also, my fiance Ken, along with our dear friends, Steve and Desi, followed me around the course providing great moral support. I love them! I'll write a longer report later, but here is a link to photos from the day:
http://picasaweb.google.com/SarahDBryant/2008PortlandMarathon#

Final Time - 5:17:56
Pace - 12:08/mile

Oh Crap!

I have to run a marathon tomorrow!

[Pulls hair out of head while running around looking for running shoes under piles of suitcases.]

The Biggest Loser

The premier of "The Biggest Loser" is on tonight. I love this show. Granted, I don't like some of the aspects of it (body weight percent rather than body fat percent, the high school-ish drama, etc.), but I love that it takes every-day people and shows the world that they too can lose weight and get in shape. Inspiring. I think it's awesome that there is such a huge focus on EXERCISE and not just diet. Americans seem to miss that part most of the time. I know I did for, oh, about 6 years.

Tomorrow, Ken and I are going to have our own Biggest Loser challenge. I've packed on close to 10 pounds since the half ironman (and hey, I've happily earned every pound!). Ken looks fabulous as far as I'm concerned, but he could probably stand to slim down a few pounds. Since I haven't sprung for a body-fat scale yet, we are going on body weight percent. Stay tuned for our progress!

Longest Run

The Portland Marathon is just around the corner -- exactly 3 weeks from today. When I signed up for the marathon, my goal was to get myself into half-marathon shape. So that this winter I could run any race that I felt like entering without planning ahead. Now that I can knock out 13 miles with no problem, I'm feeling a bit lost. My motivation has disappeared. I do not want to do the marathon. My heart is simply not in it. But I was raised by my parents to finish what I start. Damn morals. I called my Mom the other day to whine and complain about it. She offered me $100 to drop out. That was her way of telling me it was okay if I chose to not finish the marathon journey. But my conscious won out and I found myself waking up before sunrise this morning. Filling my nutrition bottles, donning my running shoes, and driving to the gym while the rest of the world slept in on a chill Sunday morning.

My good friend Sondra was a blessing, as she ran the first 11 miles with me. She has been sick and has not run in a few weeks. She also goes at a much faster pace. So for her to slog through 11 miles along side me was likely not easy. But I am so very thankful.

The next 10 miles started out better than expected. This first couple of hills were no trouble. Other walkers and runners gave me friendly waves and smiles. I smiled back...and I meant it. As I came up on mile 14 I was marveling at my rythm and enjoyment. As I came up on mile 15 I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My knees ached, my hips ached, and all of the bones in my feet crunched as they pounded the pavement. I started to cry a little. And then I saw an elderly couple in matching outfits riding their bikes past me. For some reason this lifted my spirits enough to keep going. Soon enough I only had 2.5 miles left to go. It's a route I run often and this is my mental hurdle point. Once I pass this intersection, I'm home free. And then my body started to feel lighter again. My feet didn't throb so badly. My back loosened up a bit. And I was done.

Today was an experience in digging deep and finding out what I have in me. It's been awhile since I've had to go there. I'm out of practice, I suppose. But I know now that I have what I need to get me through the marathon in an few weeks. And maybe even a little itsy teeny piece of me is looking forward to it. Just a little bit.

It Seemed Like a Fun Idea...

I've been rolling all around town with a "Dirtbag Kayaker" license plate holder for the last 2 years. Even though in those last 2 years I've only paddled, oh, 2 or 3 times? I know, it's sad. I do love to kayak. But I like to sleep more. And on my one free weekend day each week, that extra hour of sleep (and the 10 loads of laundry of training clothes, and overflowing sink of dirty dishes from the insane amount of food I consume, and the bike cleaning, and and and) has taken priority. Annnnnnyway, it was 'bout time to change up that license plate holder.

This is what it looks like. Clever, eh? When it arrived in the mail, I do remember thinking "hmm, those swim/bike/run symbols are a little small."


But...............this is what most people see. However, I did not realize this until my Mom was visiting and she asked me, "why do those truckers keep honking and waving at us?"

Q: How do you know it's the end of the season?

A: You have a $3000 sports-bra drying rack sitting in the spare bedroom.

Hood-to-Coast

Last weekend I participated in "The Mother of All Relays". What a kick in the pants good time! I was part of the team "Headhunter Voodoo Dolls" from my club, Lacamas Swim & Sport. 12 girls, split into 2 vans, covering 197 miles in less than 2 days. I was in Van 2 along with DeDe (best van captain ever!), Lisa, Juliet, Sondra, and Nadine. We met up at the club around 11am and headed over to the FredMeyer in Sandy, OR for the first major van exchange point. Van 1 had started much earlier in the morning up at Timberline Lodge to kick off the event. Each person runs a total of 3 legs and we continue to leapfrog each other all the way into the beach at Seaside, OR. You sleep when you can (which isn't much) and you eat what your body can tolerate (which isn't much).

Van 2 Ladies:

I had been given Leg 11, which is actually Leg 11, Leg 23, and Leg 35.

Leg 11: 4.39 miles, ranked easy.
Time = 00:48:35 (pace = 11:04/mi)

This leg was mostly flat, but really hot and stuffy. It went along the Springwater Trail in East Portland, along Johnson Creek. The trail had many homeless guys along it and I was thinking that running this during the evening wouldn't be much fun. The odor from the creek (or was it from the transients) was a bit overwhelming at times. I saw very few other runners, which was a bummer. I just remember being hot and cranky. Not the best way to start out the relay for me. My predicted pace was 11:11, and I ended up with 11:04. I hoped I would do even better, but I'm okay with that time.

Leg 23: 4.18 miles, ranked easy.
Time = 00:40:02 (pace = 9:35/mi)

My second leg was MUCH better and more enjoyable than the first. We were tired since we hadn't napped at all since the start, but it was during the night and the temperatures were cool. This leg was also pretty flat, but had more of a rolling nature. I like running in the dark on unfamiliar roads because I can't see the hills coming and I can't tell how long they are. That's a good thing for me. My estimated pace for this leg was 10:44 and I blew that out of the water with a 9:35!!!

Leg 35: 7.28 miles, ranked hard.
Time = 01:26:36 (pace = 11:54/mi)
My third leg was my longest and most difficultly rated leg. There was also no vehicle traffic allowed on the course (i.e., no van support and no water aid), it was half on paved trail and half on loose gravel, and mostly in hot sun since all of the clear-cutting allowed for zero shade. I LOOVVVED my second run, but this one was pretty cool too. Mostly just because I was exhausted, it was hot, and I was able to push my body to stick it out and not walk.

My pace was a little bit slower than my predicted time (11:22), but considering I was going on no sleep in 35 hours and had only eaten 1 PB&J in the last 18 hours (long story, but my stomach was NOT happy with me, so I pleased it by not feeding it), so I did pretty fantastic I think.

I was carrying a 12oz container of Gatorade and hadn't taken in much when I came upon a young guy that was in a really bad way. He was walking slowly and sort of stumbling along. I offered him some of my drink and when I actually saw his face and realized how bad of shape he was in, I wouldn't leave until he finished it. I was so happy when I saw him cross the finish line only about 5 minutes after I did!

After my last leg, we hauled ass to the beach in order to cross the finish line with Nadine and get our group photo taken.

Afterwards, we all sort of disbanded and went our separate ways to shower and get ready for an evening of partying on the sand. Ken (best fiance ever and driver for Van 1) and I were staying with Sondra, RustyBalls, and DeDe at a 1,000 trails campground not too far away. It was awesome! After cleaning up, we headed to the party and gorged ourselves on yummy food and plenty of tasty adult beverages. Finally at around 11pm we headed back to camp for a much needed night of sleep.

Evening activities:

Off Season = Running Season

After some debate, I decided to call Blue Lake Sprint Tri a couple of weeks ago my finale for the season. I love competing in triathlons, especially since this has been such a rockin season for me. But my body is tired, my mind is tired, and quite frankly I'm feeling more than a bit worn out. My checkbook is too...entry fees are not cheap!

But with the off season comes many opportunities to work on areas that need a little attention. For me, the big obvious area is RUNNING. One glance at my triathlon splits will tell you that. I'm typically top 20-30% out of the water, 50% or so on the bike...and then about bottom 5% on the run. So....this girl is gonna do some running. In a big way.

I'm thinking maybe Portland marathon in October. That's right folks. I'm crazier than you thought. After my half ironman I realized that I was doing the same mileage as some friends training for Portland. So I hopped onto their schedule for the heck of it. Last week my long run was 15 miles. The two weeks prior to that it was 13 miles. Tomorrow I get to do 16. Next weekend is Hood to Coast. Huh, who would have thunk...

Think Happy Thoughts

I have some bummin' news to report. Our fellow triathlete, K-Dawg, was injured a few nights ago in a freak accident at his house. I'll let him tell the icky details, but it basically involved him bravely chasing intruders away from his house and falling while jumping his own fence...and breaking his hip. He has been in the hospital for a few days trying to get well enough to go home. He has pins/screws holding him all together, but it's going to be a long recovery process. He needs your happy thoughts and prayers. With some hard work and favors from the Big Guy, he'll be back to training next year. GET BETTER SOON K-DAWG!!!!

Midsummer Sprint at Blue Lake

Mid-Summer Sprint Triathlon
8/3/2008
Distances: 800 meter (0.5 mile) swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3.1 mile run

This race wasn't really on the schedule for the year, but a sprint distance sounded fun and some other Headhunters were doing it. I'm a lemming, what can I say. Also, my friend Bill was tri-ing for the first time and I thought it would be cool to come out for some support. For the first time that I had a choice, I decided NOT to race in the Athena category (women >150 pounds) and instead race in my real actual age group -- F 25-29. I knew I didn't have a chance in the universe to contend with skinny 20-something year olds, but I wanted to give it a shot!

Bill and I after the finish (photo credit - Bill's wife, Melissa):

The day/night prior to the race I was in McMinnville for my friend Angie's bachelorette party. Now, at no time during the party was I ever "drunk". However, glasses and glasses of wine prior to a race does not suit me. Especially since I don't really drink anymore. I woke up with a nice little hangover and a really bad attitude. I probably would have bailed on the race, except that I had Nadine's race packet and she was counting on me to show up with it.

After arriving about 45 minutes later than planned, I pulled into Blue Lake park and proceeded through the normal pre-race rituals: set up transition, chat with nervous triathletes, rearrange transition, pee, rearrange transition, stare at the water, pee, put on wetsuit, lube up, get in the water and pee, line up to start.

Swim:
I was in the 2nd wave and placed myself in the front, inside. In bigger races I would get mowed over here, but I figured best to battle it out with some dudes rather than fight my way through some slower crowds of swimmers. This turned out to be a wise choice. I had mostly clear water until we started catching up to the first wave.

I focused on taking nice long strokes, and making sure to get a hard pull with good follow-through each time. This worked nicely until I got tangled up with a really big dude. He wasn't fat. More like he left me wondering if he ever played for the 49ers. We tangoed and duked it out for a little while, and then finally parted ways. I then swam until my hands touched sand, then popped up and ran through the Red Bull arches on into transition.

T1:
My fastest T1 time here at Blue Lake. For the first time ever I left my shoes clipped into my bike and put my feet in while riding. It was flawless (thank goodness).

Bike:
I got up to speed and put my feet in pretty quickly. Then I focused on keeping my cadence up and not dropping speed. This was tough when the headwinds hit, but I kept telling myself I couldn't go below 18mph. A dropped below a few times, but made up for it when the wind was blocked by homes/trees.

Not a single girl passed me on the course, and only a handful of guys sped by. It was fun to be passing people. It made me feel fast, although after looking at overall results I maybe wasn't as fast as it seemed. It was fun though!

Next season I need to do more sustained speed work in training. And ride more. I did a lot of riding earlier in the season, but I have only been on my bike twice since the half ironman. I just needed a break from the saddle, ya know? I was 7 seconds slower than the last time I rode this course, although I do think it was windier this time.

T2:
I took my feet out of the bike shoes before dismounting and then ran quickly through transition. My time seems slower than it actually was, but I did stop to drink a fair amount of water. I was so dehydrated from the previous night!

Run:
I dropped down the most spots during the run, but it's the leg I'm the most proud of.
1) This was a 5k PR for me.
2) For the first time ever I kept a sustained pace below 10:00 min/mi.
3) I actually passed someone and was only passed by 2 women (1 was my coach and another was someone in my AG who got me 0.1mi from the finish line).

Me coming down the finish line (photo credit - Julie Seale):

I am so proud of this run, but have so much room for improvement. I have my work cut out for me this winter!
Headhunters, post-race:

Post-Race:
I had a poor attitude coming into this event, but I'm glad I was able to turn that around and push myself to do well. In turn, I ended up enjoying myself. And...I ended up with another podium finish!!!! Final results:
Female 25-29 age group -- 3/12
Overall females -- 12/50
Overall -- 105/205

Swim -- 15:34, pace = 1:57/100m (2/12, 76/205)
T1 -- 02:28
Bike -- 38:01, pace = 19.73 mph (2/12, 93/205)
T2 -- 01:56
Run -- 30:24, pace = 9:49/mile (10/12, 170/205)
Overall -- 1:28:23

Huge congrats to:
Julie, who got 1st place female overall.
Denise, who got 1st place masters female overall.
Bill, who finished his first triathlon, and kicked ass doing it.
Kevin, who did well in all 3 legs and came in with a great time...and ran the whole way despite knee injuries.
Nadine, who made huge improvements on the swim and did great overall.
Denise, me, and Julie, with our awards:

Here is Julie's glass plaque. Do you notice anything UNUSUAL about it??? She's a "traithlete"...

Chelanman 70.3 - My "A" Race

Chelanman Half Ironman didn't start out as my "A" race this year. That was supposed to be Pacific Crest Olympic. But, I get excited about triathlon (and shoes), and I am easily talked into things that sound fun. So on a whim a few months ago, I filled out the online form and hit that brightly colored "submit" button. Bang! Suddenly the olympic distance didn't sound very daunting and I had an extra few hours of training tacked onto each week. I trained hard and earned every single one of those 70.3 miles!

The distances, with some perspective:
Swim = 1.2 miles. Think NW 23rd down Burnside to the Portland waterfront (except the swim is not downhill).
Bike = 56 miles with 4200 feet of climbing. The distance = Portland to Hood River; the climbing = Timberline Lodge to the summit of Mt. Hood.
Run = 13.1 miles. If you've been on the Clackamas River, this is equal to the drive between Carver and Estacada.

Now onto the race report...

Pre-Race:
If you've ever tried herding a dozen monkeys into one vehicle before sunrise, then you might have an idea of what it takes to get a van full of Headhunters to the race site early in the morning. We arrived with just enough time to set up transition, lube up body bits that might chaffe, and struggle into the wetsuit. I downed a GU as I walked over the swim start, kissed Ken goodbye, and stood in line on the shore waiting for the gun to go off.

Swim:
Time = 38:51, pace = 2:02/100m

This was a mass start from the beach. That means that everyone doing the half ironman lines up in a big crowd on shore and then tries to dive into the water all at once and head towards the buoy line. I was somewhere in the middle of the pack starting off. It was a total washing machine. I was not taking full strokes with my arm because I often couldn't push my hand all the way to my waist without it getting yanked off. And instead of having a nice long glide, my leading arm was in front of my face, protecting my goggles and nose. This only lasted about 5 minutes until I was able to make my way towards the front of the pack. Only...I didn't realize that I was in the front of the pack...

We were lucky and had an underwater buoy line to follow for the entire swim out. But once we hit the first turn buoy it disappeared. I wasn't quite sure where to go from here since the sun was now directly in my eyes and I couldn't see another buoy anywhere. So I sighted a couple of other swimmers and followed them. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was cutting the course, so I kept stopping and treading water trying to make sense of where I should go. I finally spotted the next turn buoy and swam like mad to it. It turns out I was on-course the whole time and wasted some serious time by doubting myself. Oy.

As we got closer to the beach I was able to breathe on my right side and look at the spectators. I actually spotted Ken walking away from me (he wasn't expecting me to be finishing the swim yet), so I popped up and hollered at him. More time wasted, but at least I have pictures now! I kept swimming until my hand touched sand and then ran the rest of the way in.

T1:
01:26

I had a pretty sweet transition spot. It was at the exact opposite end of where I came in from the swim, but that meant that I didn't have to run very far with me bike. As I came out of the water, I had difficulty finding my wetsuit pull cord. When I did finally get the top half off, I sat down to pull it off my legs. I have NO idea why I did that. I never sit down in transition. Huh. Oh well, I had the 13th fastest transition time out of 101 athletes. I sometimes wonder what takes everyone else so long. Are they brushing their teeth? Combing their hair? What?

Bike:
Time = 3:41:16, pace = 15.19 mph

Many times in the weeks leading up to the race I was asked "what are you most nervous for?" My answer - "the bike". People were always surprised since I have been making tremendous gains on my biking lately. I'm not a timid rider. I'm not a weak rider. I'm not an especially slow rider. Unless of course, there are...HILLS. And this course had it's fair share of them. I was convinced that I would be slow on the bike that there would be no way for me to make up the time on the run. Because, you see, I'm an even slower runner.

This course starts out with an out-and-back along Lake Chelan. Absolutely beautiful at 7:45 in the morning. There are some nice rolling hills -- nothing too difficult and just enough to get the legs and lungs warmed up. I enjoyed myself on this section, which lasted about 32 miles. As we approached town again, the course veered off south on Hwy 97 and directly into the first long climb. Up, up, up, up. And then...up, up, up. At the tippy-top there was an aid station and a porta-potty. I grabbed a water bottle as I rode by and thought for a split second about the porta-potty. However, Jon had to buy me 2 beers if I peed on the bike, so I kept going. Straight into a spectacular downhill! It was straight and steep and we had a view of the Columbia river on our left the entire time. I shifted the hardest gear I had and pedaled until I was spinning out. And then I peed. 2 beers for me!

The end of the descent led right into the next long uphill on Hwy 971. Twice as long as the last one. And considerably steeper. I think this was the hardest part of the course. It was beginning to get hot, there wern't many people to talk to, and my legs were building up some heavy doses of lactic acid. I gave myself a few pep talks and made myself keep turning my feet in circles. I would count to 10 and then repeat. I would pick a tree and when I made it to that one I would pick another tree. I looked at my watch compulsively to make sure I kept to my nutrition plan. I also committed the cardinal sin of looking at my speed on the bike computer. 4 mph??? Really, I could push my bike faster than that. DON'T YOU DARE!

Finally I made it to the top. Only to be met by a couple miles of false flats. But at least it was easier. And then...the final climb! I had been dreading this climb all week. It's all I could think about. I was certain that I would have to walk it. Or at least stand out of the saddle to make it up. But as I rode, I found myself further and further up the beast. Hey, this isn't so bad! After a little corner I could see the summit. Yay!!!! And then the descent. It was STEEP and FAST. And CURVY. I wasn't expecting the curvy part and thankfully I didn't skid out on that one.

As I turned back onto Hwy 97 I looked again at my bike computer. Holy schmatoly, I was going to finish the bike leg in under 4 hours!!!!! It was that exact moment that I knew I was going to finish the race. Before the cutoff time. I let out a huge WHOOP WHOOP and pedaled my ass off into town.

T2:
01:12

I took my feet out of my bike shoes and dismounted pretty well. As I ran my bike down the steep embankment into transition I could hear all of the Headhunters cheering me on. (They had all finished the Oly distance; Kev, Tom, and I were doing the Half.) What a treat to have them all inside transition talking to me. I didn't need any assistance, but it was cool to have them there asking if I needed anything. I took my fuel belt out of the cooler, threw my runners on, grabbed my visor, and was off. Not a bad transition time considering I just climbed for almost 4 hours and had a few extras (like the fuel belt) to deal with.

As a side note, I had decided to use the fuel belt because I wasn't sure if the aid stations would still be stocked that late into the day. However, I ended up not needing it because this race is TOP NOTCH.

Run:
Time = 2:39:00, pace = 12:08/mile

My legs felt surprisingly fresh coming off the bike. And I felt hydrated and strong. The first few miles ranged from 11:10 pace to 12:10 pace. Too fast for me to maintain. And then...I had to pee. There were no porta-potties and not really any trees to speak of. So my options were (1) hold it for the next 10 miles, (2) go in someone's driveway or yard, or (3) just let it go dude. Haha, if you could smell my shoes you would know exactly which option I chose... I totally hadn't thought through the whole "wet feet for 10 miles" part. Oh well, the blisters will heal.

The pace started to slow down a bit, and as it got hotter and my HR started spiking, I stopped at the aid stations and allowed myself to walk up hills. This slowed my pace to the 12:30-13:00 range. But I didn't care, because I KNEW that I was going to finish! Around mile 9 I started to fall apart a bit. My fuel reserves were running low and it was becoming difficult to not overheat too much. I was also approaching the max distance I had done in training, so my body hurt.

And then...with 2.5 miles to go the Headhunter van comes rolling by. Coach Denise hopped out and ran with me! I don't think that this is really "legal" but I was one of the last ones left on the course and no one cared. At mile 12, Nadine was waiting for us to help run me in. I have the most awesome friends! With 1 mile left to go we could see the park and I knew I was soooo close. Denise said "if you have anything left in the tank, now is the time to leave it on the course." So I picked it up. Big time. My last mile was 8:01! I have never run a mile that fast. Even a single mile. Wow!

Crossing the finish line was amazing and had I not been so anaerobic, I probably would have choked up a bit. After getting my chip removed and getting the medal, I beelined it straight for the lake and laid down in the water. So refreshing! All of the Headhunters followed me down there and we had a fun time congratulating each other. And the best part - kisses from Ken. :-)

After listening to awards -- I got second place by default -- we hung around to watch the last people roll through the finish line and cheer on one more member of our group.

Some Important Notes:
* Special thanks to Ken for supporting me through all of this. And my Mom who was subjected to daily phone calls talking nothing about triathlon. Haha, just wait until Ironman!
* Also many thanks to my many training partners who helped me along the way and kept me motivated.
* My Auntie Anne and Uncle Gordy came all the way out from Puyallup to cheer me on. That was awesome!
* Congrats to all of the Headhunters! Everyone did so great. Nadine and Brian finished their first olympic distance tri. Denise got FIRST in her age group. Bob got second!

Pre-Race

The weekend was too long and fun to try and condense into one race report, so I'll start with the days leading up to the race...

Thursday
After one last chiro appointment, Ken and I drove over the club to load up the trailer/van and head up to Lake Chelan with the Headhunter group. I was horribly naseous. To the extent that people were wondering if I even wanted to attempt the race. Thankfully it passed quickly. I think it was a combination of carsickness and too much coffee on an empty stomach. And, you know, maybe some nerves.

What do you get when you put 7 overhyrdated nervous athletes into one vehicle for a long road trip? Lots of stops! One of the best was at Java Jigglers. Hee hee.

After an entertaining handful of hours in the van, we arrived at our camp for the first night. It was a 1,000 Trails campground just outside of Leavenworth, WA. Thank you, Mikey's Dad for us being able to stay there!!! For those who can afford a membership to 1,000 Trails, it's totally worth it. Nice place. Upon arrival, we all noticed the plentiful "Bear Warning" signs posted all over the property. We didn't really pay much attention to them since almost all campgrounds have similar signage. After unloading the van and setting up camp, Brian cooked us up some yummy meat and we stuffed our faces before crawling into bed. I didn't realize how disturbed Nadine was by the bear signs until it was time to go to sleep and she began asking questions like "do we have any weapons in here?" I convinced her that the warnings were simply to persuade campers to keep their areas nice and tidy. That seemed to help.

Friday
Thump, thump, whack. I woke up to some strange noises outside. I assumed that people from the trailer were up and about. Then Brian whispered to me, "there's a bear on the picnic table." He also pointed to Nadine and gave me the universal "shhhh" signal. Eventually the bear plodded off in search of messier camps. So we did what most people would NOT do...we followed it with a camera. The next hour or so was spent snapping photos and trying to startle it enough to get a better shot. Some funny stuff ensued, but to avoid embarassment of certain people, we'll just leave it at that.

After breakfast (if you haven't noticed, this group is all about the food!) we mosied on over to the campground pool. It turned out to be a pretty nice facility and we all hopped in for a few laps and some horsing around. We decided to do a sprint race from one end to the other...and Ken won! By a body length! Here we are -- mostly seasoned triathletes. Numerous ironman. Swim coach. Ex-swim team people. And the dude who doesn't work out and hasn't swam in like 10 years schools us? That was dumb of him though, because Denise is giving us swim lessons as a wedding gift and now he has to get up at 4:30 am two days a week. Haha!

We packed up camp and spent a few hours in the super cute town of Leavenworth. I could have done without all of the walking prior to race day, but it really was a scenic place worth stopping at. And I even scored a cute leather handbag at a little shop in town.

We arrived in Chelan (after driving on some of the steep bike course) and went through packet pick-up and bike check-in. I had a few moments of "holy crap, I'm really going to do this." And then I sort of fell into my mental hell-hole for the next 12 hours. You know, that dark place where you don't want to talk. Or eat. Or sleep. Or sit still. Or do anything. It's a tortuous place, really. But I suppose all part of the fun.
You would have to be there to understand this. But it's K-Dawg in his true form:As we started getting ready to call it a night, we couldn't help but notice the strong winds that had picked up. They didn't show any sign of relenting soon, so we crawled into bed hoping we would wake up to calmer conditions. About an hour passed and we were all still laying there awake listening to the tent get pushed around by Mother Nature. Another hour passed and yes, we were still awake. Then another few hours passed and I think I might have slept for 10 or 15 minutes. A few laughs and sighs were exchanged as it became apparant we were in for a long night.
Saturday - RACE DAY!!!
Camp began to stir around 4:30am. Not many words were exchanged as people changed into tri clothes, filled water bottles, and tried to choke down breakfast. I knew I needed the calories, but it was so hard to swallow anything. I just concentrated on keeping the food down and hydrating as much as possible.

Around 5:50am we filed silently into the van and drove over to the race, for what was about to become a truly amazing day.

I'm a Half-Ironman!

Yay! I did it! I finished my first half ironman. Within the cutoff time. Feeling strong. Yippee!!!
I'll post a full race report in my usual long-winded fashion as soon as I get a chance. The final results:
Overall time - 7:01:46.9 (71 out of 79 finishers, 71 out of 101 if you count DNF and DNS)
Swim - 00:38:51 (31st)
T1 - 01:26 (13th)
Bike - 3:41:16 (69th)
T2 - 01:12 (26th)
Run - 02:39:00 (72nd)

We're Getting Married

Ken and I are engaged!!! We've made the obligatory phone calls to our families, so I can now post about it. Yay, we are so excited! I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have fallen in love with my best friend. For those of you who don't know me, Ken and I were best friends for over a year before we started dating. The romantic side of our relationship was a total surprise for both of us, but obviously it worked out.

It has become more apparant to me over the past year that he is the best partner I could ever hope for. Throughout my quest to lose weight and become a healthier person, he has stood by me 100%. I went from couch potato, to gym rat, to aspiring Ironman. I get up almost every morning before 5am and he has not once complained or asked me to stay in bed. In fact, he sometimes gets up to make me coffee while I'm packing my gym bag. When I come home late from a workout, he has dinner ready. And then does the dishes. When I konk out on the couch at 7pm, he wakes me up (usually feeds me a second dinner) and then puts me to bed. I know my path to triathlons has been mainly a selfish one, and I only hope that I can find a way to return all of his amazing support.

Me with Jerry Garcia after Ken proposed:

The Ring! Isn't it gorgeous?!?! Ken had it custom made from an artist in Portland. The carvings on the side of the stone are inspired from a Maori design, similar to our matching pendants.

Less Than Four Days...

...until my first half ironman.

It's been an emotional couple of weeks. Last week, I has hit with a dose of reality as THE race date drew nearer. As in, the race that I have been working towards all year. THE big one. Unexpectedly, some serious self-doubt set in. I'm typically a pretty positive person, but I found myself asking: am I ready?, did I do enough?, why didn't I train harder?, what happens if I don't finish in the cutoff time??? And for some reason I was telling myself: no you're not ready, no you didn't do enough, shouldn't have skipped those couple of long runs, you're not gonna finish in 8 hours. And I began voicing those thoughts to Ken and a few training partners. They all gave me quizzical looks like I had totally fallen off my rocker.

Well, I've been plagued with injuries since I started training harder. And I'm a slow runner. Really slow. I did what any engineer would do -- entered my best case, worst case, and expected case scenarios into a spreadsheet to calculate the range of my predicted finishing time. The numbers didn't seem to add up and every case put me over 8 hours, or dangerously close to it. Not much room for error.

And then...I went out for a good run towards the end of last week. I was able to shut my mind off and just run. My legs felt great and my body felt free to do its thing. I had my fatest run ever. And then...I got out on my last hard ride this past weekend. I climbed steadily up the hills. Slowly, but steady. Surprise! My legs didn't burn up! And then...I had my first full relaxing rest day in a really long time. My mind started to unwind and my attitude changed. It became unimportant what happens on Saturday. The big thing is that I'M TRYING IT. And dammit, I'm going to finish the dang course. It might not be in 8 hours, but I'll finish it.

Lake Stevens 70.3 - Relay

I've been a bit behind on updating my blog. Training for a half ironman has kept me a tad bit busy...

A couple of weekends ago I headed up to Lake Stevens, WA with a few members of my gym for a 70.3 relay. I did the swim, Kevin (also known as K-Dawg, Pappy, K-Pa) biked, and Julie ran. We knew going into it that we had a kick ass team. Also, Jeff, Natalie, and Jon accompanied us for support. Super fun weekend!

Oh, I should mention that our team name was "Five Boobs". This is important as you read the details of the weekend. The story behind the name -- I have 2 of them, Julie has 2 of them, Kev IS one. Haha.

Friday
Kev & I headed up in one vehicle, while Natalie and Jeff rode up in another. Along the way we got lost in one of the towns outside of Seattle and stopped at a fireworks stand for directions. I of course had to BUY some fireworks. Since we were there, you know. Roman candles! And some poppits for the sole purpose of annoying everyone through out the weekend.

After getting checked into the hotel (and throwing poppits at unsuspecting people), we sat through the mandatory...and boring...athlete briefing. We also picked up packets and browsed the horrendously horrendous expo. Geesh, for an Ironman branded event, this is the worst expo I've ever seen. Actually, as far as any event goes, it was the worst.

On the way to find a place for dinner, we stumbled across a quaint little coffee stand down by the river. T - N - A LATTES!!! On the reader board below the sign, they clarified that T-N-A actually stood for "tasteful - n - appropriate". Um, yeah.

After dinner and a short play time in the pool/jacuzzi, we went off to bed.

Saturday
After some tasteful-n-appropriate coffee, we drove over the race site. Jeff, Natalie, and I rode the entire 56 mile course as a training day while K-Dawg got his bike checked in and tried to recover from the cold that was knocking him down. When Jon & Julie rolled into town we gathered in the lobby for some beers (yes, before race day) and then headed to Seattle to Pike Brewpub for dinner. This is when reasonable behavior took a nose dive for the evening... I'll give the condensed version.

Several pints at dinner. Rude waitress, so pint glasses went in our bags and purses. Souveniers, you know. Shots at the bar with the cool bartender chic. Left with a 6-pack and growler. Jon, Julie, K-Dawg, and I in same vehicle. Poppits at unsuspecting strangers on sidewalks. A little rearranging of the readerboard at T-N-A. Possibly some T-N-A of our own. Roman candles out the hotel window. Security banging on our door. Sweet talking our way out of trouble & didn't get kicked out of the hotel. Went to bed way to late and listened to "someone" snore for several hours before it was time to get up. Not the ideal night before a race, but eh, we were relaying it!
I have no idea how this happened...

Sunday
Kev and I drove over ahead of everyone since I had to get ready first. We got our chip, milled about transition, and made our way to the swim start. I suited up and got in the procession on the dock. I was in the last wave, so there was a lot of waiting around. Finally it was my turn to jump off the dock and get ready for the count down. I inadvertantly placed myself right next to a blind guy and his guide. They were tethered together with medical tubing so that the blind man would stay on course. Very cool. Until I found myself tangled up in the tubing about 100 meters later. I felt horrible, but was told that they probably train for that sort of thing. But still. 38 minutes later (dead on 2 min pace like always) I shot out of the water and ran through transition to our spot. Um, where's Kevin? Okay, there is his bike...where's Kevin? Where in the boondoggle is Kevin??? I stood there for about 20 seconds, then took of my timing chip, ready to slap it on his ankle whenever he decided to meander over. Then I spotted him COMING OUT OF THE PORTA POTTY!!!! Got him on his way fairly quickly though, and we didn't lose too much time.

Kev came in from the bike right on schedule. He did fantastic! Passed the timing chip off to Julie, and she took off for the 13.1 mile run. We were able to hang out on the course at a location where we could see her several times. Lots of cheering! She crossed the finish line in a smokin' time. Our final time was just over 5 hours (we started about 40 minutes after the first wave). Good enough for 2nd in the mixed division. 3rd overall out of about 30 teams. Woohoo!

To the "Anonymous" A-Hole...

...who felt the need to post a rude comment in my blog:

Congratulations on riding faster than me. You are now a member of an elite crowd of 10 billion. You still ride like a dill-hole.