Spoiler alert. I’m just spitting my
thoughts out on this one and they are mostly negative. If anything this will be
a vent report, not a race report. Fill free to stop reading if you want to see
the type of report I usually write.
This past weekend I took part in my third
70.3 and second Ironman brand race. I say took part because I can’t even call
it racing. I’m going to keep this short though. I thought by all indicators
that I was capable of 4:30-4:40 on this flat course. I was thinking a 30 swim,
sub 2:30 bike, and 1:29-1:32 run. I was fully prepared to go to roll down and
get a Vegas slot just like ALL my other teammates. Then I woke up and realized
I’m not good enough for that. I must train in a state of delusion where I think
I’m faster than I really am. Forget Vegas slots and being fast. I should just
focus on breaking 5 hours at this point. I don’t belong at a World Championship
event after what I did yesterday. To give you perspective. I have trained and
prepared for this race since November, mostly uninterrupted and no injuries. I
was two minutes slower than my PR from last year when my training was a joke
and I was taking the race easy as a warm up for Leadman. So 6 months of much
more focused training, including power, and I have 0 progress to show for it.
Devastated and embarrassed are the two words to describe how I feel right now.
Embarrassed that I was so confident I would have a Vegas slot. I was
embarrassed knowing people were watching me on the tracker yesterday. I was
embarrassed to have such an awesome kit full of sponsor logos on, knowing that
I was just making them look bad.
Yesterday’s race in comparison to my best
splits from my other two 70.3s. It’s very fun to train hard and not make
improvements.
Swim 34:37
(PR 33:24 2012)
Bike 2:32:40 (PR 2:29:01 2011)
Mess 1:58:05 (PR 1:43:13 2012)
The swim was protected this year so there
was no chance of it being canceled. It was a pretty goofy set up and I’m pretty
sure none of us actually knew where we were going. There was a little bit of
chop and the temp was perfect at 62 degrees. No warm up though. I did my best
to stretch my arms and did arm circles to kind of loosen them up. Me and my
Wattie teammate Travis Thomason started together and even though I lost sight
of him soon after we ended up finishing about 15 seconds apart. It started out
good I thought. I haven’t swam open water since last year but I’m comfortable
in the water so that wasn’t the issue. Somehow I lulled myself to sleep and was
swimming way slower than I thought. I remember thinking several times that my
turnover was slow, but my arms were burning so I thought I was pulling
strongly. At 1000 yards my watch beeped and I rolled over quickly to see my
split. 17:34!!! So much for 4:30. I tried to pick it up and felt like I swam much
harder the second half but popped out and saw 34 instead of 30. 4 minutes off
of goal time.
Transition 1 was 2:39, so now I was 7
minutes off of goal time.
The bike went well even though my split was
not what I wanted. We were beat to death by a steady head wind/ cross wind with
big gust for the first 25 miles. Then we got to ride that tail wind for the
most part until the end. There were a few sections where we had cross wind on
an out and back before jumping back into the tail wind. My goal here was 220
watts or 80% of max. Seemed perfectly doable but clearly I’m stupid and don’t
know anything. I stayed in my range in the wind and ignored my speed which
ranged from 16-20 mph. I figured with the wind this stiff that I would have a
big negative split and could make up for it. When I finally got to turn around I
still stayed in my range and avg’d 22-30 mph. I had two 5 mile sections where
my split was 11:52 and 11:56 or 25.x mph avg. That was cool. Around mile 50 I started
doing the math and realized that unless I stayed over 25 mph I was not going to
break 2:30 or hit 2:30. The last few miles were on a crappy road and not a pure
tail wind so I was only averaging 22-24 mph. When I finished I looked down and
saw a total time of 3:09 on my watch. Awesome now 9 minutes off of goal time.
The bike felt good and never felt like I was doing too much. I haven’t looked
at the data yet but I don’t think I had any spikes accept for a bridge or two
where we had short climbs. Looking back I would guess that I needed to ride
about 20 watts less to have been able to run ok.
Transition 2 was 1 :32, so now I was 10:30
minutes of my goal time and outside of my goal range. I knew I didn’t have the
run to be able to get back any lost time either.
The first mile of the run I did in 7:05. It
didn’t feel bad but it didn’t feel great either. My heart rate was over 180, it
was hot and there was a big bridge to climb. By 1.3 into it I was walking
through the first aid station. I probably ran a few minutes at a time for the
next three miles. I was miserable. My legs felt fine but my heart rate was going
through the roof so fast every time I started to run. I was running my normal
easy/ medium pace too. at one point I looked over at the city which looked like
it was 100 miles away and tried to decide if I wanted to walk back to transition
or just suffer to the end. I don’t remember most of the middle miles. I was
stopping so much and was so hot and miserable that I couldn’t think about much
other than how embarrassing it was going to be when my splits showed up. When I
saw the first timing mat I really wanted to go around it. I wanted to be
anywhere but on the race course. By mile 6 I realized that I wasn’t even going
to get under 5 hours. So much was going through my head. I gave up at that
point. I felt stupid for every time I had uttered the word Vegas, I felt stupid
for having set up my own facebook page, for having a nick name, for even having
this blog. I felt like an imposter. Like an undeserved MOP/BOP participant that
had snuck onto an elite team. I felt exposed as a fraud. I was completely
crushed. I usually have a strong heart and will. But it was completely broken
and taken yesterday. I took my watch off and stuck it in my pocket. There was
no need to look at it anymore. I stopped and started 100,000 times from mile 6
to 10. I saw one guy after the next in my age group go by. I lost 100 spots on
the run. Around 10 I started to feel better but now after all the water and
perform my stomach was knotting up after a few minutes of running. My legs felt
good, which they should have, I hadn’t really run since the first mile. My heart
rate was under control I assumed. I started trying to fight back. Maybe I could
hit 5 hours, maybe I could beat my PR of 5:07. Maybe I could find something to
salvage. I think I went almost a full mile without stopping around mile 10.5-12
before my stomach and diaphragm really started to rebel. With about .75 to go I
pulled my watch back out and saw that I had about 4 minutes to finish to PR. On
a normal day that would have been fine. However, that was not the case. I would
push and my stomach would tie itself in knots. I could see the finish area. It was
right there. I always tell Kayla not to walk in the last mile. It’s just one
mile! Pretty sure I walked every couple hundred yards. With about .2 to go I managed
to resist the urge to walk and get to the line. The line was as empty as the 13
miles had been. There was nothing to celebrate, there was nothing new
accomplished. It was just empty. I was just left with a sunburned body and a
medal that I just put in my pocket. I didn’t deserve to wear it. The announcer
was saying something about my kit and the showing that Wattie Ink was having and
all I wanted to do was cover myself and disappear so nobody would see me.
I’ve had bad races before. I missed goals
before. But to come up over 30 minutes short of what I expected and to fall
apart so badly. To not fight. It just leaves me empty. I had an 8 hour drive to
think about it too. Replaying the race over and over and over. I was the only
Wattie that didn’t succeed Sunday. The others showed why they were on the team.
Something I could not do. This one hurts. This one cuts really deep. This is
the most mental and emotional damage I’ve ever taken from an athletic event. I’m
lost now. I don’t know where to look or what to do. I have a race in two weeks
and honestly I’m scared to even go.
Thank you to those who have been trying to
encourage me.
