What better place to start than the beginning?  The swim went well.

I got into the water about 20 minutes before the start, warmed-up as the Navy Seals parachuted out over the pier, and lined up right behind the group I was shooting to swim with.  A bunch of lifeguards on surf boards circled in front of us marking the start-line and keeping us back prior to the cannon shot.  A few pros were having trouble following instructions and kept pushing forward.  Well, let me tell you, those lifeguards did NOT like that!  They kept shouting, “Get back!  Hey you, back!”  Then one of them had had it.  This is what I heard as I tried to prepare for the start: “hooooome of the braaaaaaaaYOU!  Get back!  Do not f&$%ing move!BANG”  What the?!  GO!  Did that just happen?!  Where’d they go!  I was just behind them!  Did that guy really swear?!  Swim harder!  You’re right in the mix!  Keep pushing!

Somehow I recovered from the pre-cannon profanity and was able to hang in with the group I was hoping to.  I had feet the WHOLE time.  My cap, on the other hand…  Well that slid off a bit before the first turn buoy.  Luckily my hair was braided.  For a little while.  About halfway back to the pier I lost the elastic that was holding my braid in place, and swam the rest of the way with the salt water flowing through my hair.  Sweeeeet!  I made my way up the stairs, through the hoses, and into the change tent, shouting, “Hair elastic?  Rubber band?  Does anyone have a hair elastic?” the whole way.  Just when I thought I was going to have to complete the rest of the race Fabio-style, some saint of a woman pulled one out of her fanny-pack, and I twisted it around the knot that my hair had tied itself into.  I shoved my helmet on my head, clipped my race belt on, rubbed in the sunscreen that wouldn’t mist out of the bottle, grabbed my bike shoes, and ran to my bike.  Last year I made the mistake of attempting to run through transition in my shoes.  I wiped out and slid into a porta-potty.  Lesson learned.

I headed out on the bike, not at 34.99 mph (sorry athlete-trackers!), but nice and steady.  I felt strong, even while being passed by hordes of age-group men.

The wind was pretty calm, but began to pick-up as I approached Hawi.  I was pretty certain that it was a slight head wind, so I held back a bit and got ready for the return trip.  I hit the turn-around excited to push the power on the way back, and bombed out of Hawi.  Tucked into my aerobars, I kept the cadence up around 98 and the speed as high as possible to maintain stability through the cross-winds.  I felt great!  Then I came up to the right-hand turn back onto the Queen K and saw the flag on the corner.  A head-wind??  How is that possible?  Didn’t we have a head-wind on the way out here? I spent the remainder of the ride trying to ignore the thoughts of how I had mis-read the conditions so poorly, and focus on maintaining my power and cadence.  There was still a marathon to run.  In spite of my pathetic sense of the elemental forces, I took 10 minutes off of my bike split from last year.

I hit T2 with a sense that something was off but uncertain how bad it was.  Just get out there and see what happens.  Things will come together like they always do. I switched into my run gear, and got a second dose of sunscreen on my way out of T2.  Contrary to how it felt, I was running faster than planned through mile 1, and needed to hold myself back.

As I made my way up and down Ali’i, the pace began to slip.  This was a tough run for me.  I struggled to keep it together mentally as I pushed my uncharacteristically stubborn legs through the marathon.  I used everything in my arsenal to keep moving forward: Less than a mile to the next aid station…  Just hold the pace as long as you can…  One step at a time…  The faster you run the sooner you get to finish line and there are cots there – you can lay down!…  Then you can have ice cream!  Oh, yuck! Yes, I said “yuck” to the thought of ice cream!  It was so hot that the thought of dairy made me want to hurl!   Well, I made it to the finish line.  While it was not the day that I’d hoped to have, I did learn a lot about myself out there, and was able to dig deeper than I thought possible.

Onward and upward!  From here, we will continue to work on my bike strength, make a few tweaks to the race-day plan, and take another crack at it in Utah.  For now, though, it’s recovery time!  No training for a couple weeks.  This will allow me to regenerate and be ready to hit the 2010 season hard.

Thank you so much to everyone who followed my race, whether it was in person, online, or via live updates from the support crew.  Your support means more than you could know!