Ironman USA 2004
In the past few days I have tried so many times to explain to my friends and family what it feels like to have the perfect day. I still haven’t found a good way to describe it so here are the details. Grab a cup of coffee and sit back and prepare for a long read.
Background: This was my third Ironman. I did Ironman Florida in 2001 (16:24) and Lake Placid last year (15:20). I had a great race last year and two days later signed up again. I knew I could go faster than 15:20 so right after I signed up for this year, I decided to sit down and write out my goals. I hadn’t gone into the ’03 race with a clear goal other than to finish so this year I wanted to know what I was shooting for. I settled on a goal of 13:57 with a stretch goal of 13:20. It seemed reasonable enough with more training and building on the training base I had. 13:57 I was fairly confident I could manage, 13:20 was something to keep me working hard. Back in February I had a nasty ITB injury and couldn’t run for about 4 weeks. I was getting worried because running has always been my weakest and this was putting a damper on all of the run training I had wanted to do. This injury turned out to have a benefit. I added additional bike rides into my schedule and was doing two long rides on the weekends. By March I was already up to a 100 miler on the bike. I was able to start running again in March and never had another ITB problem.
A lot of people have asked me what the difference was between last year’s training and this year. The answer is simple- I trained more. I increased my mileage by about 1000+ miles on the bike and 100+ on the run from last year. I did more “quality” training rides and also had a great base from last year to build on. This year, I rode over 450 miles on Skyline Drive (220 of which were on the Tour de Skyline 2-day ride with the RATS). I went up to Lake Placid in May and rode the course twice, and I took a training trip to Deep Creek (in western Maryland) organized by our own crazy CAT Kyle Yost, who had us out riding on some nasty tear-inducing, steeper than the side of a building mountains for 4 days. I had a blast training for this race and by the middle of each week was already looking forward to my weekend training. I only had one “bad” long ride in June, my last ride on Skyline, about 88 miles, which confirmed to me that I was slightly over-trained. My longest run was 16 miles and I got in a lot more speed work than last year. Swimming was ok, I went to swim practice and put in good time in the pool, but it never felt like my swim was coming together, which I was ok with. There you have it, train more and have fun.
Fast forward to the race:Joanne and I arrived in Lake Placid on Thursday after leaving Arlington at 5 am. We met up with our friend Eric Stanley who had been living in the DC area but since last year’s race had moved to Tampa so we hadn’t seen him in a while. We headed into town for some workouts and dinner. I have to include this story about dinner since it’s hilarious, sorry Eric. I ordered a salad instead of soup. Eric ordered salad as well. Right before the waitress left the table I switched to soup. Apparently I threw off Eric’s plan because he had wanted the soup but ordered a salad because I did. Hilarious! At that moment, I realized that I was the official Ironman Veteran for the weekend.
Friday and Saturday were filled with numerous trips to town, easy training and getting ready for the race. Nothing went wrong, unlike last year’s valve extender debacle, and the bike and bags were in transition on time. We headed back to the lodge, cooked some chicken and veggies for dinner and I packed the special needs bags. Bars, a few gels and 2 bottles of Accelerade for the bike. A few gels, gummy bears, twizlers, and peeps, yes, peeps for the run bag. Joanne has taught me well with the peeps, and a huge thanks to Stacey Long for having enough self-control to save the peeps from Easter. I didn’t end up eating any of the candy during the run, but it was just nice to know it was there just in case.
Eric and I drove back into town around 7 pm on Saturday night to make some last minute cell phone calls. On the way there, we commented about how beautiful it was with the sun out and that wouldn’t it be great if we were finishing at that time tomorrow. We made the calls, I had a long pep talk with Tracey Melnick, girl- you rock, and we went back to the lodge. Most people had gone to bed, but Joanne, Eric and I stayed up for a little while talking. I had my traditional two pre-race beers, and was ready for bed.
Race Morning: The alarm went off at 4:00 am and woke us up to some country song repeating the line “just give me one more day” over and over. No thank you! I don’t need one more day, let’s get this party started. I immediately went into the kitchen to get the coffee started, imagine that! Breakfast was two english muffins with peanut butter and a banana and then a power bar in the car. I looked through the special needs bags one more time to make sure I had everything, got my bottles and fuel belt and we were off. Joanne, our “loved one” for the weekend, drove Eric, Olwen and I into town, and we somehow found a parking space near the transition area. Go Joanne! I got body marked and went to my bike and transition bags to make sure everything was there and in the right bags. At some point in the middle of the night I woke up and was worried that my bike shoes were in the wrong bag. I double checked everything and was off to the Tri Cats tent. I met up with Joanne and we walked to the special needs bags to drop them off.
Back to the tent and I got Eric and we went back to our dry clothes bags to put our warm clothes in them and then got our wetsuits on. We ran into Kyle, Jeffry, Olwen, Michelle and several other people back at the tent, took some pictures and were off to the swim start. I was amazed at how calm I was all morning. It definitely helped that I had done this race before and knew the course really well. I felt confident in my training and just had a feeling it was going to be a great day. I was once again feeling what Coach Vince refers to as “ripped and dangerous!”
Swim: Last year I positioned myself about four rows back. I got beat up and had to swim past a lot of people. This year I lined up front and center. I looked around for Mike Guzek, since I knew we were about the same speed, didn’t see him anywhere. 30 seconds to go, I got butterflies! Finally I was feeling ready to race! BRING IT ON! I was pumped! The cannon went off and I just put my head down and sprinted as hard as I could. I got bumped around a little, but not as bad as last year. I made it to the turn buoy of the first loop in about 13 minutes. As I headed back to the beach, I got a little confused and couldn’t find the cable. I had to take a second to collect myself and get back into a rhythm. I got out of the water to run around to the start of the second loop and took a look at the clock and it said 26 minutes. I figured this was pretty good and knew I was going to be faster than last year. As I made my way around to the buoys, I took a breath and noticed that the person next to me had a blue cap- must be a pro. I took another breath and saw the number on her arm was 1. That’s Heather Fuhr! I swam next to her for a few buoys and then didn’t see her. I had a feeling that she was still there somewhere so I looked behind me and sure enough, she was drafting off of ME! No kidding! Since she was drafting off me, I was ahead, so that was ok with me! I hit the turn in 41 minutes and still felt awesome. I exited the swim and saw the clock, 55:00, YIKES! Got the wetsuit off thanks to the awesome strippers, and was on my way running down to the change tent.
Swim: 55:00- 66 overall, 7th female
T1:Running down the streets in Lake Placid from the swim finish to the transition area is one of the most exciting things about this whole race. There are people several rows deep screaming the entire way. It’s hard not to run. I smiled all the way to the change tent. I got my bag and headed in. Last year I completely changed my clothes in between the swim and bike but this year I wanted to shave off as many minutes as I could so I decided to do the whole race in tri shorts and a race jersey. It turned out to be a good decision. I put on my helmet and bike shoes and made my way to my bike.
T1: 5:02
Bike:First, lets just say it was cold. I was beginning to second guess not changing clothes as I was flying down through the neighborhood. I pulled my arm warmers up and started to get warmed up. The first loop was filled with me getting passed by lots of familiar faces. First Guzek, on the way up the climb out of Lake Placid. We talked for a second about the swim and then he took off climbing. The next familiar person to pass me was Kyle. At about mile 23, right before the turn up the climb out of Jay, I had my first experience getting what I think Guzek calls “Yosted.” We chatted for a second and he took off up the hill looking very strong like he was on a mission to have a monster bike. Next came Jeffry on the out & back section. He passed me in the exact same place as last year. I hoped that we both were doing better than last year and it turns out we were! We exchanged encouragement and he was on his way, looking great!
I had one major nutrition problem during the race and it came on the bike. I had planned to have a Power Gel at 30 minutes into the ride and then every 40 minutes after that I would have a Power Bar. I had the gel at 30 minutes, and then at 1:10 I looked at the bars and just couldn’t eat it. I didn’t even unwrap the first one, I just had a feeling that my stomach wasn’t going to able to handle it. I took a huge risk and substituted Power Gel and Gu for the Power bars. I had two gels in place of each power bar I was supposed to eat. It worked out just fine, but this could have been a disaster either way.
As I climbed back into town, I realized that I was biking the fastest 56 miles of my life. I estimated that I was going to be right around 3:10. I have a very bad tendency to go out way too fast every time I race and I was sure that my family and friends were going to see my split and think that’s what I’ve done. I wanted to stop and tell Joanne that I was in control, hadn’t gone out too fast, and to call my parents, who were watching online from home, and tell them too. I didn’t see Joanne to be able to tell her, so I just let her think about it while I rode the other 56. I’m sure she was shaking her head at me. The last pep talk I got from Coach Vince was all about me not going out too fast on the bike so I’m sure he would have been completely freaking out had he been in Lake Placid seeing my 3:10 split. Good thing he wasn’t in the country!
Leaving town the second time I felt great, better than the first. The climb out, descent and flat section to Jay felt great! Back up the climb in Jay and through the out & back and I was still feeling fast! I started climbing back into town and Chas caught me. I was so excited to see that he had a HUGE smile and looked great! Before I knew it I was off my bike and running towards the change tent.
Bike: 6:36:36
T2:Nothing exciting happened here. I put on running shoes, the fuel belt and my race number and was off. I decided to use the port-a-john in transition so that any additional time would be added to my transition time, not the run time.
T2: 4:29
Run: A few weeks ago, someone had told me that I was going to be off my bike in 7:45 total race time, I laughed at him, you know who you are! As I left transition to start the run, I looked down at my watch and it said 7:41. At this point I knew that if I could run a 5:19 marathon I was going to break 13 hours. WOW!
I took off running and there are people lining the streets. Everyone is screaming your name because it’s on your bib number. I dropped my chapstick, which I really needed so I reached down to pick it up and was running so fast that I tripped over my feet and nearly did a face plant into the road in front of all of the spectators. Luckily I caught myself and continued running. I was down and out of town and at mile 1 in 8:45. Ok, what’s going on here? I was 10:20 here last year. This is good. I continued to put down several 9-10 min/miles on the way out. At the bottom of the second hill, my left foot was completely numb. I stopped several times to re-tie my shoe but nothing was helping. I finally got feeling back around mile 5- that was strange.
One of the best moments came around mile 9 when I was running with someone who was asking me if I had ever done this race before. I said I had and he asked me how I did. I looked at my watch (total race time about 9:10 at this point) and told him that at this time last year I was just getting off my bike. He nearly fell over, so did I.
I ran back into town, walking the major hills because I knew I should, not because I wanted to. I saw Joanne, Philip and Mark cheering. They were smiling, I smiled back and put up my hands kind of to say “What the heck is going on here?” I got to special needs and took some gel and the peeps. I got to the timing mat at the half marathon in 2:17- my fastest half marathon ever.
I hit the only low point on the run at about mile 16. That was where I started walking last year. I made myself continue running this time. I knew it would get better, and about a mile later it did get better. At mile 19 I met Cesar from Costa Rica. He was awesome, telling me his whole life story and history with triathlon. He told me that I was going to finish in daylight, I nearly cried, heck, I think I'm going to cry right now just thinking about it! A few miles later, he took off and picked up his pace, I stopped at the john.
As I ran back up the hills I knew I was going to finish and have the best race of my life. People were everywhere cheering and I giggled and cried the entire last 4 miles. As I made the turn past the finish to go on the out & back I was completely on top of the world! I saw Joanne, she ran beside me for about a block, I know, outside assistance, sorry John B. I told her to stop because she was making me cry and I didn’t want to start sobbing with 1.5 miles to go.
As I made my way out to the turn around, I reflected on the race, my previous races, and my entire athletic career. I’ve been an athlete my whole life, but I have never really set a clear, concrete goal and gone after it the way I went after this one. On the out & back, I enjoyed this last little bit of time to myself.
I entered the Olympic oval, saw the people, heard the crowd. They were all cheering for me. I looked up at the sky and wiped the tears from my eyes, I was finishing in daylight. It was simply overwhelming and all I could do was smile. I have never been more proud of myself. I crossed the finish line, heard my name and heard those words I have waited 365 days for “YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!”
Run: 4:54:03
Finish: 12:35:08
28/62 in Age Group W25-29
149 out of 396 females
946 out of 1961 overall
I found Joanne, watched Eric finish and got that much-deserved massage then went straight for the pizza. I stayed around to watch some friends finish and as Joanne and I were walking to the car around 10 pm, she said, “you know, there’s just something about being out there racing late at night.” There really is and I was immediately taken back to Ironman Florida. It was a completely different experience. I was glad to be done, but I saw so much of myself in those people who were still out there racing. I appreciate their dedication and perseverance more than you can imagine because in 2001 I was there, desperately trying to make that midnight cut off.
As I was sitting at the bar the other night with my good friends, I was reminded of how far I have come since beginning triathlon in 1997. Zerkle reminded me of that conversation back in August 2000 when I shared with him that I wanted to do an Ironman someday, and I was whispering because I was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to hear me. I certainly remember and will never forget each Ironman finish line. Crossing the finish in Florida at almost midnight holding hands with Joanne and Theresa who remain and will always be my best friends. Finishing Lake Placid last year in the rain, smile from ear to ear, with my friend Michelle. And this year, finishing for the first time in daylight. Just because I was faster this year doesn’t mean that the finish is any more special than any of the other finishes. Each of these is special in their own way and the challenges faced to get to each finish line were different.
I am an Ironman. I am proof that it takes a goal, hard work, confidence and determination and you can accomplish things you never thought possible. The immediate euphoric feeling may fade away, but I will always know what it felt like to accomplish my goal on July 25, 2004. Its time to set a new goal. I think I may actually do another Ironman one day but for now I’m going to enjoy the rest, food and my social life.
There are so many people who had a huge part in getting me to the finish line. Coach Vince, you deserve ten thousand gold stars for putting up me for the second year. I couldn’t have improved as much as I did without all of the detailed workouts and constant encouragement. Joanne, Theresa and all of my triathlon friends- thank you for believing in me, and bearing with me through many miles on the bike and on the trails. Special thanks to Joanne for being my “loved one” and taking care of me race weekend. To the Deep Creek/Westrernport boys- Kyle, Steve K. & Vince- thank you for waiting for me at the top, Kyle for coming back down only to find me sitting on the side of the road in tears and encouraging me to get back on my bike, and Steve for telling me to “Shut up and Pedal!” That’s exactly what I said to myself the second time up the climb out of Jay on Sunday. The trip to Deep Creek is what gave me the additional confidence that I needed going into Ironman and I can’t thank you guys enough! Finally, thank you to my parents for the endless encouragement and support, for being proud of me no matter what, and for being my “bridge over troubled water” and for letting me raid their kitchen on several occasions after my long workouts.
If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a big pat on the back and go sign up for Ironman, you won’t regret it! Whatever your goal is, be it in your personal life, or in your athletic life, write it down and go after it.
Background: This was my third Ironman. I did Ironman Florida in 2001 (16:24) and Lake Placid last year (15:20). I had a great race last year and two days later signed up again. I knew I could go faster than 15:20 so right after I signed up for this year, I decided to sit down and write out my goals. I hadn’t gone into the ’03 race with a clear goal other than to finish so this year I wanted to know what I was shooting for. I settled on a goal of 13:57 with a stretch goal of 13:20. It seemed reasonable enough with more training and building on the training base I had. 13:57 I was fairly confident I could manage, 13:20 was something to keep me working hard. Back in February I had a nasty ITB injury and couldn’t run for about 4 weeks. I was getting worried because running has always been my weakest and this was putting a damper on all of the run training I had wanted to do. This injury turned out to have a benefit. I added additional bike rides into my schedule and was doing two long rides on the weekends. By March I was already up to a 100 miler on the bike. I was able to start running again in March and never had another ITB problem.
A lot of people have asked me what the difference was between last year’s training and this year. The answer is simple- I trained more. I increased my mileage by about 1000+ miles on the bike and 100+ on the run from last year. I did more “quality” training rides and also had a great base from last year to build on. This year, I rode over 450 miles on Skyline Drive (220 of which were on the Tour de Skyline 2-day ride with the RATS). I went up to Lake Placid in May and rode the course twice, and I took a training trip to Deep Creek (in western Maryland) organized by our own crazy CAT Kyle Yost, who had us out riding on some nasty tear-inducing, steeper than the side of a building mountains for 4 days. I had a blast training for this race and by the middle of each week was already looking forward to my weekend training. I only had one “bad” long ride in June, my last ride on Skyline, about 88 miles, which confirmed to me that I was slightly over-trained. My longest run was 16 miles and I got in a lot more speed work than last year. Swimming was ok, I went to swim practice and put in good time in the pool, but it never felt like my swim was coming together, which I was ok with. There you have it, train more and have fun.
Fast forward to the race:Joanne and I arrived in Lake Placid on Thursday after leaving Arlington at 5 am. We met up with our friend Eric Stanley who had been living in the DC area but since last year’s race had moved to Tampa so we hadn’t seen him in a while. We headed into town for some workouts and dinner. I have to include this story about dinner since it’s hilarious, sorry Eric. I ordered a salad instead of soup. Eric ordered salad as well. Right before the waitress left the table I switched to soup. Apparently I threw off Eric’s plan because he had wanted the soup but ordered a salad because I did. Hilarious! At that moment, I realized that I was the official Ironman Veteran for the weekend.
Friday and Saturday were filled with numerous trips to town, easy training and getting ready for the race. Nothing went wrong, unlike last year’s valve extender debacle, and the bike and bags were in transition on time. We headed back to the lodge, cooked some chicken and veggies for dinner and I packed the special needs bags. Bars, a few gels and 2 bottles of Accelerade for the bike. A few gels, gummy bears, twizlers, and peeps, yes, peeps for the run bag. Joanne has taught me well with the peeps, and a huge thanks to Stacey Long for having enough self-control to save the peeps from Easter. I didn’t end up eating any of the candy during the run, but it was just nice to know it was there just in case.
Eric and I drove back into town around 7 pm on Saturday night to make some last minute cell phone calls. On the way there, we commented about how beautiful it was with the sun out and that wouldn’t it be great if we were finishing at that time tomorrow. We made the calls, I had a long pep talk with Tracey Melnick, girl- you rock, and we went back to the lodge. Most people had gone to bed, but Joanne, Eric and I stayed up for a little while talking. I had my traditional two pre-race beers, and was ready for bed.
Race Morning: The alarm went off at 4:00 am and woke us up to some country song repeating the line “just give me one more day” over and over. No thank you! I don’t need one more day, let’s get this party started. I immediately went into the kitchen to get the coffee started, imagine that! Breakfast was two english muffins with peanut butter and a banana and then a power bar in the car. I looked through the special needs bags one more time to make sure I had everything, got my bottles and fuel belt and we were off. Joanne, our “loved one” for the weekend, drove Eric, Olwen and I into town, and we somehow found a parking space near the transition area. Go Joanne! I got body marked and went to my bike and transition bags to make sure everything was there and in the right bags. At some point in the middle of the night I woke up and was worried that my bike shoes were in the wrong bag. I double checked everything and was off to the Tri Cats tent. I met up with Joanne and we walked to the special needs bags to drop them off.
Back to the tent and I got Eric and we went back to our dry clothes bags to put our warm clothes in them and then got our wetsuits on. We ran into Kyle, Jeffry, Olwen, Michelle and several other people back at the tent, took some pictures and were off to the swim start. I was amazed at how calm I was all morning. It definitely helped that I had done this race before and knew the course really well. I felt confident in my training and just had a feeling it was going to be a great day. I was once again feeling what Coach Vince refers to as “ripped and dangerous!”
Swim: Last year I positioned myself about four rows back. I got beat up and had to swim past a lot of people. This year I lined up front and center. I looked around for Mike Guzek, since I knew we were about the same speed, didn’t see him anywhere. 30 seconds to go, I got butterflies! Finally I was feeling ready to race! BRING IT ON! I was pumped! The cannon went off and I just put my head down and sprinted as hard as I could. I got bumped around a little, but not as bad as last year. I made it to the turn buoy of the first loop in about 13 minutes. As I headed back to the beach, I got a little confused and couldn’t find the cable. I had to take a second to collect myself and get back into a rhythm. I got out of the water to run around to the start of the second loop and took a look at the clock and it said 26 minutes. I figured this was pretty good and knew I was going to be faster than last year. As I made my way around to the buoys, I took a breath and noticed that the person next to me had a blue cap- must be a pro. I took another breath and saw the number on her arm was 1. That’s Heather Fuhr! I swam next to her for a few buoys and then didn’t see her. I had a feeling that she was still there somewhere so I looked behind me and sure enough, she was drafting off of ME! No kidding! Since she was drafting off me, I was ahead, so that was ok with me! I hit the turn in 41 minutes and still felt awesome. I exited the swim and saw the clock, 55:00, YIKES! Got the wetsuit off thanks to the awesome strippers, and was on my way running down to the change tent.
Swim: 55:00- 66 overall, 7th female
T1:Running down the streets in Lake Placid from the swim finish to the transition area is one of the most exciting things about this whole race. There are people several rows deep screaming the entire way. It’s hard not to run. I smiled all the way to the change tent. I got my bag and headed in. Last year I completely changed my clothes in between the swim and bike but this year I wanted to shave off as many minutes as I could so I decided to do the whole race in tri shorts and a race jersey. It turned out to be a good decision. I put on my helmet and bike shoes and made my way to my bike.
T1: 5:02
Bike:First, lets just say it was cold. I was beginning to second guess not changing clothes as I was flying down through the neighborhood. I pulled my arm warmers up and started to get warmed up. The first loop was filled with me getting passed by lots of familiar faces. First Guzek, on the way up the climb out of Lake Placid. We talked for a second about the swim and then he took off climbing. The next familiar person to pass me was Kyle. At about mile 23, right before the turn up the climb out of Jay, I had my first experience getting what I think Guzek calls “Yosted.” We chatted for a second and he took off up the hill looking very strong like he was on a mission to have a monster bike. Next came Jeffry on the out & back section. He passed me in the exact same place as last year. I hoped that we both were doing better than last year and it turns out we were! We exchanged encouragement and he was on his way, looking great!
I had one major nutrition problem during the race and it came on the bike. I had planned to have a Power Gel at 30 minutes into the ride and then every 40 minutes after that I would have a Power Bar. I had the gel at 30 minutes, and then at 1:10 I looked at the bars and just couldn’t eat it. I didn’t even unwrap the first one, I just had a feeling that my stomach wasn’t going to able to handle it. I took a huge risk and substituted Power Gel and Gu for the Power bars. I had two gels in place of each power bar I was supposed to eat. It worked out just fine, but this could have been a disaster either way.
As I climbed back into town, I realized that I was biking the fastest 56 miles of my life. I estimated that I was going to be right around 3:10. I have a very bad tendency to go out way too fast every time I race and I was sure that my family and friends were going to see my split and think that’s what I’ve done. I wanted to stop and tell Joanne that I was in control, hadn’t gone out too fast, and to call my parents, who were watching online from home, and tell them too. I didn’t see Joanne to be able to tell her, so I just let her think about it while I rode the other 56. I’m sure she was shaking her head at me. The last pep talk I got from Coach Vince was all about me not going out too fast on the bike so I’m sure he would have been completely freaking out had he been in Lake Placid seeing my 3:10 split. Good thing he wasn’t in the country!
Leaving town the second time I felt great, better than the first. The climb out, descent and flat section to Jay felt great! Back up the climb in Jay and through the out & back and I was still feeling fast! I started climbing back into town and Chas caught me. I was so excited to see that he had a HUGE smile and looked great! Before I knew it I was off my bike and running towards the change tent.
Bike: 6:36:36
T2:Nothing exciting happened here. I put on running shoes, the fuel belt and my race number and was off. I decided to use the port-a-john in transition so that any additional time would be added to my transition time, not the run time.
T2: 4:29
Run: A few weeks ago, someone had told me that I was going to be off my bike in 7:45 total race time, I laughed at him, you know who you are! As I left transition to start the run, I looked down at my watch and it said 7:41. At this point I knew that if I could run a 5:19 marathon I was going to break 13 hours. WOW!
I took off running and there are people lining the streets. Everyone is screaming your name because it’s on your bib number. I dropped my chapstick, which I really needed so I reached down to pick it up and was running so fast that I tripped over my feet and nearly did a face plant into the road in front of all of the spectators. Luckily I caught myself and continued running. I was down and out of town and at mile 1 in 8:45. Ok, what’s going on here? I was 10:20 here last year. This is good. I continued to put down several 9-10 min/miles on the way out. At the bottom of the second hill, my left foot was completely numb. I stopped several times to re-tie my shoe but nothing was helping. I finally got feeling back around mile 5- that was strange.
One of the best moments came around mile 9 when I was running with someone who was asking me if I had ever done this race before. I said I had and he asked me how I did. I looked at my watch (total race time about 9:10 at this point) and told him that at this time last year I was just getting off my bike. He nearly fell over, so did I.
I ran back into town, walking the major hills because I knew I should, not because I wanted to. I saw Joanne, Philip and Mark cheering. They were smiling, I smiled back and put up my hands kind of to say “What the heck is going on here?” I got to special needs and took some gel and the peeps. I got to the timing mat at the half marathon in 2:17- my fastest half marathon ever.
I hit the only low point on the run at about mile 16. That was where I started walking last year. I made myself continue running this time. I knew it would get better, and about a mile later it did get better. At mile 19 I met Cesar from Costa Rica. He was awesome, telling me his whole life story and history with triathlon. He told me that I was going to finish in daylight, I nearly cried, heck, I think I'm going to cry right now just thinking about it! A few miles later, he took off and picked up his pace, I stopped at the john.
As I ran back up the hills I knew I was going to finish and have the best race of my life. People were everywhere cheering and I giggled and cried the entire last 4 miles. As I made the turn past the finish to go on the out & back I was completely on top of the world! I saw Joanne, she ran beside me for about a block, I know, outside assistance, sorry John B. I told her to stop because she was making me cry and I didn’t want to start sobbing with 1.5 miles to go.
As I made my way out to the turn around, I reflected on the race, my previous races, and my entire athletic career. I’ve been an athlete my whole life, but I have never really set a clear, concrete goal and gone after it the way I went after this one. On the out & back, I enjoyed this last little bit of time to myself.
I entered the Olympic oval, saw the people, heard the crowd. They were all cheering for me. I looked up at the sky and wiped the tears from my eyes, I was finishing in daylight. It was simply overwhelming and all I could do was smile. I have never been more proud of myself. I crossed the finish line, heard my name and heard those words I have waited 365 days for “YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!”
Run: 4:54:03
Finish: 12:35:08
28/62 in Age Group W25-29
149 out of 396 females
946 out of 1961 overall
I found Joanne, watched Eric finish and got that much-deserved massage then went straight for the pizza. I stayed around to watch some friends finish and as Joanne and I were walking to the car around 10 pm, she said, “you know, there’s just something about being out there racing late at night.” There really is and I was immediately taken back to Ironman Florida. It was a completely different experience. I was glad to be done, but I saw so much of myself in those people who were still out there racing. I appreciate their dedication and perseverance more than you can imagine because in 2001 I was there, desperately trying to make that midnight cut off.
As I was sitting at the bar the other night with my good friends, I was reminded of how far I have come since beginning triathlon in 1997. Zerkle reminded me of that conversation back in August 2000 when I shared with him that I wanted to do an Ironman someday, and I was whispering because I was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to hear me. I certainly remember and will never forget each Ironman finish line. Crossing the finish in Florida at almost midnight holding hands with Joanne and Theresa who remain and will always be my best friends. Finishing Lake Placid last year in the rain, smile from ear to ear, with my friend Michelle. And this year, finishing for the first time in daylight. Just because I was faster this year doesn’t mean that the finish is any more special than any of the other finishes. Each of these is special in their own way and the challenges faced to get to each finish line were different.
I am an Ironman. I am proof that it takes a goal, hard work, confidence and determination and you can accomplish things you never thought possible. The immediate euphoric feeling may fade away, but I will always know what it felt like to accomplish my goal on July 25, 2004. Its time to set a new goal. I think I may actually do another Ironman one day but for now I’m going to enjoy the rest, food and my social life.
There are so many people who had a huge part in getting me to the finish line. Coach Vince, you deserve ten thousand gold stars for putting up me for the second year. I couldn’t have improved as much as I did without all of the detailed workouts and constant encouragement. Joanne, Theresa and all of my triathlon friends- thank you for believing in me, and bearing with me through many miles on the bike and on the trails. Special thanks to Joanne for being my “loved one” and taking care of me race weekend. To the Deep Creek/Westrernport boys- Kyle, Steve K. & Vince- thank you for waiting for me at the top, Kyle for coming back down only to find me sitting on the side of the road in tears and encouraging me to get back on my bike, and Steve for telling me to “Shut up and Pedal!” That’s exactly what I said to myself the second time up the climb out of Jay on Sunday. The trip to Deep Creek is what gave me the additional confidence that I needed going into Ironman and I can’t thank you guys enough! Finally, thank you to my parents for the endless encouragement and support, for being proud of me no matter what, and for being my “bridge over troubled water” and for letting me raid their kitchen on several occasions after my long workouts.
If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a big pat on the back and go sign up for Ironman, you won’t regret it! Whatever your goal is, be it in your personal life, or in your athletic life, write it down and go after it.
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