Ok, I finished my race report!  Long story short: do this race.  Long story long: read on…

We headed over to T2 at 4:15 to catch the shuttle over to T1.  While this process could easily have been a nightmare, it was actually quite smooth and painless.  Except for the part where I had to pee REALLY bad.  The ride between transitions took about 30 minutes.  I basically high-speed pee-pee danced right off the bus and into the porta-potty line.  Upside: the line was short.  Downside: we waited for a phantom pee-er.  The guy in front of me thought both “stalls” were full.  He even went up and checked, so we all assumed someone was just taking their time.  When I got to the front, I decided to knock.  Wouldn’t want anyone passing out and missing the race in one of those plastic rooms of aromatic bliss!  No one responded.  It’s empty!  It’s been empty this whole time!  That man better get outta Dodge before I exit this thing! Well, I got to go, and was far less aggressive after doing so.  I did not accost the man.

We set up our bike areas, got the tires pumped, sat for a bit, got the wetsuits on, dropped off the dry clothes bags, and made our way over to the swim start.  Now let me tell you something, just because the water temperature is announced as 58° does not mean that it is 58°.  Nor does it mean that your body will function as though it is 58°.  Within minutes of getting into the water my face was numb.  The discomfort is one thing.  The lack of sensation is another.  When you can’t feel your face you don’t know when your mouth is out of the water.  If this occurs while trying to breathe more rapidly, say at the beginning of a triathlon, there’s a tendency to inhale early and take in more water than air.  It took close to 10 minutes and about 6 cups of water to get the hang of using sight to time my breathing, but I got things under control by the first turn buoy.  Aside from the unexpected extra hydration and oxygen deprivation, I actually felt pretty good and was able to settle on a solid set of feet through the first 25ish minutes.  At that point, the claw began to set in.  This is a pose that the fingers lock into when you lose the ability to contract the muscles of the hand into a proper paddle.  Set your finger on the keyboard as though your about to type.  Now, without moving your fingers, lift your hands up.  The claw!  (This doesn’t work if you’re a hen-pecker.)  So now I was swimming along trying to use my forearm as the paddle and just dragging my hands through the water.  I managed to hold onto the feet for a bit longer, but once we made the final turn toward shore, with about 10 minutes left, I started lose them.  It wasn’t by much, maybe a 5-second gap, but that’s enough to lose the draft.  Luckily it was only for that last stretch.

Now came the interesting part: dressing myself without the use of my fingers.  Oh, how underappreciated these little digits of dexterity are!  As I ran into the tent I was swarmed by 4 or 5 volunteers.  Godsends!  I managed to dump my bag out on the ground, but that was about it.  I picked up my long-sleeve shirt, and, before I could finish saying “This might take awhile,” one of the women had pulled it right over my head and down over my torso.  At the same time, one woman wrapped my race belt around me and clasped it while another put my socks and shoes on.  I managed to get my sunglasses on, and place my helmet on my head, but didn’t have enough strength in my fingers to pinch the clasp together.  One woman took over that task and another held my gloves open while I tried to cram my fingers into the their little sleeves.  No good!  At this point I just started running toward my bike in hopes that I’d be able to get the gloves on properly before I reached it.  Nope.  It took another century to manually (with the other hand) straighten my flippin’ pinkies out and get them into their designated glove space.  OK!  I’m ready! I grabbed my bike, and peddled off.  I got the hang of shifting sans fingers pretty quickly and was able to get moving.  Aside from the phantom extremities, I felt great!  There was a decent climb right at the beginning, which was just what the thermogenesist ordered!  (Yeah, I made that word up.)  While I didn’t regain full sensation in my feet until mile 50ish, the harder effort and slower speed on the hills helped bring the core temperature back up.  The course was amazing!  A-mazing!A description of the views simply does not do them justice.

Hopefully these pictures give you some sense, but it’s still not the same.  Just beautiful!  There were some solid climbs, but the difficulty of this bike course came more from the winds that began to set in a few hours into the race.  And the chip seal.  We hit a 20-mile-ish section of this sweet pavement on each loop.  It’s kind of like a rumble strip spread out over the entire road.  Ok, I’m awake!  Thanks!! The chip seal section was followed by “the wall” (a relatively long hill that brought us up to the highest point of the course).  Then came the descent.  While I enjoy a nice challenging climb, going fast is fun!  Max speed: 49.8 mph.  Woop woop!!  This got a bit sketchy on the second loop when the gusty cross winds started to pick up, but I made it down to T2 unscathed.

My legs felt a bit heavy as I started the run, but I knew they’d come around.  By the first mile marker things felt good, and I was excited to try and run down as many people (I know how much guys love being passed by a girl!   ) as I could.  Coming off the bike in 8^th place, I had my work cut out for me to get on the podium.  So work I did!  I kept things nice and steady, pushing into 5^th by mile 8 and 4^th by the half marathon.  The crowds were amazing and made all the difference when things got bad between miles 16 and 19.  I noticed the slight tingling in my pinkies around mile 11 and knew that things could get ugly.  At mile 15 they did.  At least in my head they did. This is too soon to start losing it!  I felt so good – what’s happening?!  Should I walk?  Should I stop??  All those people cheering will feel sorry for me!  I don’t want pity!  They’ll say, “She went out too fast.” Nope!  I’m not stopping.  If I don’t cross that finish line it will be because I collapsed on the side of the road…  I wonder what it feels like to collapse mid-stride.  Is this what it feels like right before you collapse?  Stop!  Focus on the positive! I continued to push through mile 16, and then I remembered Kona.  Ok, don’t be stupid!  Don’t let Kona have been in vain – learn from it!  Back off, regenerate, and then ease back into the hunt. I pulled the pace back drastically, and started speed walking the aid stations.  I walked long enough to get a couple sips of sports drink and water at every aid station all the way through the final one at mile 25.  No kidding!

It took nearly 6 miles to close the 2-minute gap between me and 3^rd place.  Around mile 19 my sight straightened back out and I felt the life come back to my legs.  Even then I wasn’t 100% sure that things weren’t going to fall apart.  Just keep pushing – Tim and Mikaela are waiting for you at the finish line.  The sooner you finish the sooner you get to stop running.  You can even lie down if you want! I really tuned into how I felt and just tried to ride the line between running as fast as I could and not letting the wheels fall off the bus (Munnis, I could hear your commentary through much of this run!).  The crowds through the final 3 miles were out of control and drowned out any doubt or discomfort that was left.  And Tim and Mikaela were right there waiting at the finish line!!

If you’re looking for an ironman that’s a bit like an adventure race, sign up for IM St. George!