Did the Half and I'm Goin' For the Full!
My last post was just a few days before my first half-ironman triathlon, 5430 in Boulder on August 10th. It came and went much better than I expected. However, it was the exact opposite of what I thought: the swim and run were much easier than I expected and the bike was harder than I expected it to be.
Not being a very good swimmer and the fact that I had a major panic attack at Boulder Peak in the middle of Boulder Reservoir, I thought the 1.2 mile swim would be awful. I thought I'd be thrashing around, gasping for air, or just dog-paddling the whole way. But it was great...the water felt good, my arms weren't tired, and I had no trouble making the distance.
I started the bike thinking this would be easy since I've always been a fairly strong cyclist. In fact, I think if I trained well, I'd be a better cyclist than runner. But that was the problem: I didn't train well on the bike this summer. I only got in THREE long rides and I paid for it big time. By the time I finished the bike portion, my legs were dead. As I rode into the transition area, I thought "there's no way I can run 13.1 miles now". I thought I was done.
Lo and behold, I felt great on the run. In fact, I was passing people right and left. Not that I am fast, it's just that most people were tired from the bike. I got a second wind and felt really good. I also think my nutrition plan really helped me a lot. Whatever it was, it was one of my best races ever.
After 5430, I took a break from triathlons and even considered totally switching over to trail running, something I've always loved doing. I was burnt out of tri's and had no interest in planning for next year (which I usually do in the fall). But a good friend of mine, Lynne Parks, was training for her first Ironman (Florida, 11/08) and since I usually do a long run every weekend of 10 - 12 miles, I thought I'd join her for part of her long runs and if it worked out, a few long rides as well. But I had no interest in getting caught up in the Ironman craze.
So, I did some long runs with her and ran two half-marathons as well (Blue Sky and Denver Half). Blue Sky was fantastic and I ran harder at that race than I've run in years. Denver was very slow but I had a good time....stayed the night at a fancy hotel in Denver the night before the race with two of my running buddies and we had a blast. But still, hadn't even thought about an Ironman.....
Then the day came for Lynne's Ironman debut. She and her husband, Marshall, both very close friends of ours, went to Florida for the race along with 5 other friends of our (all Greeley Tri Club members). I was so excited for Lynne and the other guys and followed them online (via Ironman.com). The other guys had all done an IM before but this was Lynne's first time so I was VERY excited for her. Although I was busy that day with the kids, I couldn't stop checking the IM site to see how she was doing.
Then, watching her cross the finish line and hearing "Lynne Parks, YOU are an Ironman" just hit me....I knew I had to do this. I called Marshall and asked him if he was going to sign up (he had told he might since you get first dibs if you sign up on site) and yes, he said that he had signed up for next year's race. I really, really, really wanted to sign up too but I needed to talk to Kurt first. There was no way I'd commit to something this big without his support. We had talked many times in the past about doing something like this but both of us had said that it was too much, that we didn't want to commit that much time or energy to one race, that the kids' activities kept busy enough, that we wanted to simplify our lives (training for 3 sports in addition to going to your kids' sports makes for a very crazy lifestyle!). In fact, Kurt was pretty adamant about scaling back, staying home more, yadda, yadda, yadda....
So there I was, asking him if he'd support me if I took a year to train for the biggest race of my life. And guess what he said??? If you want to do it, go for it. You could've knocked me over with a feather. I was shocked. But we had a big problem: Florida 09 was already closed. DARN!!! Arizona was open but I just couldn't get excited about going to Tempeh, Arizona. After seeing the beautiful beaches in Panama City (and they really are pretty), I couldn't get excited about AZ.
So, the only way to get into Florida was to buy a community slot. That means you have to pay an EXTRA $775.00 (for charity), on top of the $525 application fee. There was no way that my frugal husband was going to fork over $1300 for a race that was going to take a lot of time for me to train for....but guess what??? He said OK! I'm still in shock, to be quite honest. So I sent off the two checks, one for 525 and the other for 775 and I got in.
So, I'm committed. And so is Marshall. We've already mapped out our training schedule. We'll gradually build over the winter and start Gale Bernhardt's 13 week IM training plan next July or August. Kurt, me, Marshall, and Lynne will all go to Florida together and knowing us, we'll have a blast. We've known them for 15 years so this will really be a fun trip together. Lynne and Kurt can have fun at the beach and buy us hamburgers after the race (God willing that I finish!).
To get ready, we're both planning on doing the Windsor Tri (sprint, May), the Greeley tri (sprint, June), Lake to Lake (Olympic, June), Triple Bypass (120 mile bike event, July), and then go with our tri club to OK city in September to compete in the national club championships by doing a Half-Ironman on Sept. 19th. Those are perfect dates - they are spread out enough to get give us time to train for each one and of course, they will all serve as training for the IM.
I feel strangely calm about all of this. Two years ago I would've been in major panic mode. But I feel confident in my ability to train for this grueling event. I won't be fast but I think that if my body holds up, I can do it. And for me, that's an accomplishment.
