fivemonkeys

I drank a lot of water leading up to the start. Extra water plus nerves equals needing to pee badly. No bathrooms? No problem, I’ll take care of business when I get in the river. We line up and head down the ramp to the Savannah river. I ease myself in and immediately become thankful that I have a wetsuit on. The water is cold. Much colder than expected (likely due to all of the recent rain). Despite the full bladder, nerves, and now the cold water, I cannot pee. I suppose it’s because I’m surrounded by people. I’ll have better luck once I get out in the open. I positioned myself on the outside. Despite being a strong swimmer, I don’t feel compelled to take a foot in the face to save a few seconds. I’ll take my time and find my own pace. The gun goes off and the arms and legs start flailing. I take my time, still trying to get used to the cold water. I have no need to fight to stay in the front pack so I just enjoy a nice swim. Don’t get me wrong, I was working but I have a long day ahead of me; I’m not killing myself in the first 30 minutes. And I can’t, for the life of me, pee while I’m swimming. I tried. I really did. I figured at some point my body would give in and let it go but nope, no such luck.

I exited the water and looked at my watch. It read something like 27 minutes. I was shocked. They said there was a slight current but I felt like I hadn’t pushed much at all and I’m finishing 10 minutes faster than in Muncie. I will take it.

I take it easy on the long run to transition and bypass the wetsuit strippers. 1. Wetsuits are not that hard to take off 2. Laying wet on grass and dirt equals mud and grass plastered all over you for the rest of the day. I sit down to put my socks and shoes on, grab the rest of my gear and take off. T1 finished in 3:40.

I took the first couple miles of the bike pretty easy, trying to find an open spot and get my legs warmed up. It didn’t take long though. I got in a good rhythm and was flying. It felt really good. Wind seemed calm and the roads were flat. I wasn’t hammering but pushing to keep the good momentum going. I still have to pee. I know some people can pee while they are on the bike but I couldn’t even let it go in the water, there is no way I could even imagine trying to pee on the bike. I make it to the first of 3 aid stations and decide I have to use the porta potty. Luckily it was open so I was in and out. Ahhhh, so much better. Now that my bladder is empty, I can really fly. I have a great time and I’m making awesome time. I’m surely going to crush my time from Muncie. But then all of the sudden, we started heading back. Unfortunately this wasn’t an out and back course but a loop. And the second half of the loop had a LOT of hills. I didn’t spend the time driving the course but looked at some pictures and over heard some talk of a few hills, etc. but I had no idea. I suck at hills and every time we went up I got crushed more and more. And to top it off, the wind picked up just after the last aid station and the last 10 miles seemed to be uphill with an open head wind. I also didn’t bring my 3bar on the bike opting, instead, for more gels. The combination of everything really made those last few miles of the bike truly torturous. My bike time wasn’t going to be as awesome as I thought but I still had a good chance of reaching my goal time so long as I have a good run. I try spinning in an easy gear and make my way back to transition. T2 in and out in 1:30. I use the time to mentally put the bike behind me and focus on the run.

Starting the run, I try to take it easy and build up. The first mile went well and the second mile felt good despite being a little slower. But by the third mile I was really starting to hurt. My stomach had that “I feel so empty I want to puke” feeling but I knew I couldn’t eat too much or I would actually start puking. I had a little Gatorade (which never tastes good on an empty stomach).  The sun is out now and it is a lot warmer than expected. I try to drink plenty of water and use sponges in my jersey to keep cool. As I pass the turn in point for the finish, the realization that my run is only half over is little tough to handle. What’s worse is that I had really put in a lot of work hoping my run would be a lot better. Fortunately, Tani was right there after the turn in and seeing her definitely boosted my spirits. As I neared the aid station at the start of the second lap, my legs started cramping pretty bad. I decided I had to walk. Walking in a race, to me, is just one step from quitting so it really hurts to do it but there is no way I can continue running. Thank god for whoever thought it would be a good idea to have real food at an aid station!  There, right before my eyes were oranges and bananas! I’m surprised I didn’t give the volunteers hugs. The banana tasted so good. I grabbed a bunch of water and sponges and took off again. The second half was still very tough but there were tons of spectators out there cheering everyone on so I just kept pushing through it. The realization that there was no way I would meet my run or overall goal anymore was tough but I kept reminding myself that this isn’t an easy sport. If it was easy, it wouldn’t mean as much to do a race like this. I could quit if I wanted to but why? What would that accomplish? Nothing at all. I crossed the finish line with a final time of 5:42:01. It may not have been the time I wanted but it is still a good time and, more importantly, I learned something. I know that next time, when times are tough and maybe things aren’t going the way I want, I know that I can push through it and come out on top.

Very late, yes. But better late than never, here is my race report from the inaugural  Ironman Augusta 70.3. It’s a little long so I’ve broken it up into two sections, pre-race and the race itself.

I’ve heard that Augusta is a beautiful city so T and I were excited to visit. There may be some nice parts of Augusta but they are definitely in the downtown area. Downtown Augusta was pathetic. Downtown C-bus would look like NYC next to this place. Enough of the bad talking though; Augusta is a turd but the people are all super nice and the race was great. I would definitely return; I just wouldn’t stay any longer than we needed to.

We drove down but stopped to visit friends in NC for a few days prior. We made the 4 hour trip from Greensboro to Augusta Saturday morning. When we arrived in Augusta, I wanted to go straight for the convention center to get the mandatory pre-race meeting out of the way. This is an Ironman branded race with many more competitors than my previous Muncie experience. This first became apparent when there was virtually zero parking. There were cars and people and bikes (lots of really nice bikes) EVERYWHERE. We finally found a spot and made our way to the meeting and then to packet pick-up. Poor T had to sit through all of that nonsense including a 30 minute wait to get into the pre-race meeting, 45 minutes of pre-race meeting followed by another 30 minutes or so of check-in and packet pick-up. Good thing she is addicted to her Kindle and knitting.

There was a mandatory bike check-in on Saturday so after packet pickup, we checked into the hotel, did a double-check on the bike and headed over to drop it off. I lucked out again and got the end of a section so I had a couple extra inches of space which is always nice.

With my gear triple-checked and certainly ready, all that was left was to find some dinner and relax until morning. We walked up and down the “main drag” looking for something to eat with not much luck. This place was seriously a ghost town; Nobody around and nothing open. We finally ended up finding Blue Sky Kitchen where I had an awesome Cuban chicken and pasta dish with tons of veggies; Perfect pre-race meal. T didn’t care as much for hers but to their credit she did order the only Korean dish from a mostly Cuban menu.

With dinner out of the way, all that’s left was to relax so we headed up to the room to rest up before the super early wake-up call. It ended up pouring down rain all night long. That ended up being a good thing as it helped to drown out the sound from the train that was one street over from out hotel. Seriously, what city has a train that runs regularly down the middle of a downtown street? Augusta, that’s who. The tracks are seriously in the middle of an otherwise normal street. You hear the train whistle, get out the way! Oh, and don’t worry… you WILL hear the whistle.

Here is a picture of the train tracks in use the day after the race. The light colored building in the background, that is our hotel.

The rain was seriously coming down hard and there was plenty of heavy winds and lightning . It was expected to rain so I had covered my seat and bars with bags when I dropped off my bike but it was really coming down. I had visions of 4000 bikes all blown over on top of one another. All of the forecasts said the rain would pass by morning so I crossed my fingers and hit the hay.

Morning came (more like pre-morning) and sure enough, no more rain. The weather was looking pretty good. We drove down to transition and found a parking spot. The swim was a point to point which is nice because we had a little current. The problem though is that you (and more importantly, your dear sweet wife) have to walk 1.2 miles from transition to start. They did have shuttles but they were crowded and were for athlete’s only; no dsw’s.

In transition, I dumped the puddles of water off of the bags that kept my seat and bar dry and laid out the rest of my equipment in its designated spot and did a mental run-through so I could relax and not worry on the way to the start.

We made the 1.2 mile trek to the swim start where I got my chip and put on my wet suit. Thanks to T, I didn’t have to worry about my extra gear (another problem of a point to point swim). After the national anthem and some announcements, we watched the pro’s start. With one last good luck kiss from T, I headed over to line up with the rest of my age group.

To be continued…