LA-Z-GIRL

The lack of blogs does not mean I have slowed down at all in the training. In fact, between work and training and sleep I have no more time. The past few weeks have been a blur and I am finally able to sit on the couch and relax for a bit. I thought I had posted the blog of my Half ironman race report, but I think I dreamt that. So here goes -it was a while ago, so I probably forgot some things and with the way I raced that isnt a bad thing.
My dad, grandmother, Chris and I all headed to Conroe on saturday so that we could spend the night close to the race site. It was freezing. I have only raced one race with a wetsuit and I loved it, but I quickly realized I would need a long sleeve one. The air was 33 degrees in the morning and all i had was a short sleeved wetsuit. Oh well, too late to stress about it.
The best part of the race was that it started about 50 feet from our hotel room so I was able to warm up until right before my wave started
Pre race - dont let the smile deceive you, I was effing cold.

We finally left the room to go outside and get ready to start. I think the look on my face says it all. This is probably the first time I didnt want to actually get in the water.

The swim was one of the worst I have ever experienced. The fog coming off the water made the visibility so bad that I couldnt see more than a foot in front of me. I had to stop and breastroke every couple of minutes just so I would stay on course. Twice during the race I saw people walking. I was so confused because we were in the middle of the lake, but apparently we swam over two sand bars (or mud bars) and people actually got up and walked. I tried to swim as long as I could over both and only stopped when my arms hit the ground. My arms were also freezing since the air was so cold, so I didnt even really warm up. By far worst tri swim ever. I came out in 2nd or 3rd (cant remember), but still was not happy with my performance. Hopefully I have gotten the bad swim out of my system.
The bike - this is where it went from bad to worse. In T1 I put on as many layers as I could which wasnt much, as you can see in the photo. Luckily I was able to score some toe warmers at the expo and found some gloves stashed at my mom's house in Houston. On a side note, this bike was in the same area as the Ironman Texas course and being in Houston I figured it would be flat. Boy was I wrong. Those of you coming down south in May be prepared for some hills.

It took me about 20 miles to warm up and literally everyone around me was saying the same thing. But finally I did and was feeling tons better. Before this race I knew that my biggest issue in the longer races is nutrition. As hard as I try, I cant get anything down. This race was no different. I waited 15 minutes after the swim and then started to try the plan that coach and I had talked about. 230 cal an hour. I know in Ironman I need more, but coming from my last half ironman where I took in 100 cals total on the bike, this was a good first step. Well I tried to take in as much as I could without puking and actually felt full the whole time. I didnt realize it at the time, but I only took in 1.5 bottles of gatorade and 120 calories of shot blocks so about 300 calories overall for the bike. This would prove to be disasterous. I got off the bike and saw my family and waved. I thought I was feeling good but as you can tell by my poor attempt at a shaka, I was not doing as well as I had thought.

The Run -
The goal was to take in 1 shot block every mile and a half starting right out of the transition. I took the first one with a glass of water from T2 and right back up it came. I tried again with the same result. I started to run but realized by the amount of people passing me that it was more of a shuffle. All of a sudden I had a horrible pain in my stomach and could barely stay upright. I continued this way for 5 miles. I tried to take in water, gatorade and anything else at the aid stations with no luck. FInally I saw Chris at mile 5 and stopped to talk to him. It just so happened that right by him was one of the medical team drs. She came over and took my blood pressure a few times and told me that it was too low and the machine wasnt able to read it. We started talking about what had been going on and she finally suggested that I pull out. It was the hardest thing I have had to do in a race to date but knowing that it was not an A race and my season is just starting, I thought continuing would do more harm than good. I spoke to my coach after and she thought that I had made the right decision, and from now until May the focus is on training my body to take in more calories.

Here is where things started to get better - the post race drink always helps!


Over Thanksgiving and for 2.5 weeks over Christmas I will be in Houston training mostly on the bike practicing to get in nutrition. I have realized that on the bike I am really only able to take in liquids, so I am trying to add carbo pro to my gatorade and with that, I am getting in about 250 cals an hour. Over thanksgiving I was able to get in everything but was peeing every hour, which is a huge pain in my ass. I am back home friday and will continue testing this out. But if anyone has any suggestions, I am open to try anything!
Congrats to everyone who raced this weekend in HNL!