St. George 2012: Amazing and Terrible

Pre-Race

On a hot day last summer, I had just finished IM Louisville and was contemplating signing up for a spring IM. I was stressed out about IM FL looming ahead and felt like I needed another ‘shot’ at Kona since I didn’t think I had a good chance for qualifying at Florida.

I really wanted an early season IM and had been mulling over the pros and cons of doing St. George. Coincidentally, I was walking the dogs and ran into Jared Brown, who was picking up food in my neighborhood (or possibly stalking me, it’s really hard to say) We started chatting about race plans and somehow I was able to guess and uncover that he was also thinking about St. George. Before I knew it, I got spousal permission J,  and there were several of us signed up/almost signed up and ready to go!

I ended up qualifying at FL and although the pull of St. George wasn’t quite as strong after that, I was still very excited about it and thought it would be a good time. As the winter progressed, two of  those signed up, unfortunately had to make a tough decision to pull out due to injury. A couple of other people talking about it never ended up actually signing up. So then finally, it was just Ted and I. Our plan was to get up there Wednesday and start getting acclimated and John and Stacey would come up Friday night.

As always, whatever arrival you choose sounds like it will be plenty of time but then time starts moving faster and faster and the preparations always take longer than planned. It’s always preferable to have a big group of friends and family there, but the one advantage was there was nothing to concentrate on except for the race. I was more prepared logistically than I’ve ever been.. went to the banquet and pre-race meeting, checked out the bike course, got a massage, organized bags, did a plethora of race week workouts, etc. 

We ran into my coach a few times and it was the first time I had actually met her in person, so that was neat. Also, we did an interview for a local podcast on our goals for the race and why we do Ironman.   The area was beautiful and the course definitely looked tough. I have never been to a race before where the volunteers and locals were so genuinely happy to have the racers there. It was pretty neat and I could tell that folks were sad that this was the last year the Ironman would come to town.

Going in I had two major concerns about St. George. The first was making it through the bike ride. After totally screwing up my bad shoulder at New Orleans, I’d been going to physical therapy, getting massage, etc double time in a desperate effort to get it solid enough to hopefully make it through.  I fully planned to stop and stretch, sit up, resort to taking an NSAID (bad) whatever it took to make it through the bike.  I made a few little changes to hopefully take the pressure off, but I was very nervous about this part .

My other concern has always been the cold water.  I don’t do well in cold and have Reynaud’s and I genuinely wasn’t sure that I could survive a 5x degree water temp. Thank goodness it was pretty warm leading up the race to get the water temp into the 60s.  On Thursday we went out for a practice swim and I had a bit of panic after I didn’t acclimate long enough and my chest started tightening up while swimming.  Since it was only 61 degrees, a tiny little voice in the back of my head wondered if the altitude or some kind of cold etc could have contributed to my reaction but I had to dismiss it since neither of those factors were within my control. I was also waking up feeling a bit congested and scratchy but I managed to convince myself that it was something about the dry desert air.

Friday morning I pulled out all the stops for the swim because I knew I needed a ‘good’ experience before the race.  Silicone cap, neoprene cap (modified so it wouldn’t squeeze my neck) ear plugs, using my inhaler, booties, and super-tight new goggles. Whew! Fortunately this swim went better, but I knew that my swim plan probably needed to entail my going out a little easier than I had planned.

Friday evening,  John and Stacey arrived and we had a super early dinner then I was in bed ready to go by 8 pm. 3:15 arrived quickly, and before I knew it was 6 am and we were about to get in the water. My original plan had been to try really really hard to catch a draft off Ted in the swim, but after my freakout (and the fact that he’s gotten a lot faster) I thought a smarter strategy would be to just do it on my own and try to find someone a little slower to draft. We started up to the left of the first buoy and then we all were off.

No worries getting to the first turn. Breathing was under control, lost my shot at drafting  immediately, but I wasn’t worried. Right after we turned I started to notice some waves and I felt really annoyed at what I thought must be boats driving too close to the swimmers. But then the waves didn’t stop and when we turned again (into the wind) all the sudden everything exploded.  Sudden windstorm that John said you could see coming by a dust cloud on the horizon. It went from no wind to 25 mph .. up to 40 mph gusts in one instant.

I have never ever in my entire life been in conditions like that. I heard whistle blowing everywhere, people were yelling, kayaks turned over, and apparently a boat sank.  That was the good part, because after that I would go long stretches without seeing anyone at all. I was beyond lost and so was the rest of the field, spread out by hundreds of yards.

There were whitecaps that I would let break over my head, and I was just kind of flopping along like a rag doll, riding the waves and trying to breathe whenever there was a trough. Every time I tried to sight I got panicked and really felt better just staying underwater!

 I was so disoriented I only knew one thing about the course, that I had to go around this island off in the distance. It was so. Far. Away.  I was trying so hard not to panic but I honestly felt like there might be no shot at getting there. I hadn’t thought about swim cutoffs, but I began to truly wonder if I had missed it because there was just no one around.

More time passed, and I saw a few others. I would get so excited when I saw another swimmer and try to follow them but the spray coming off people was like a power washer blast to the face. I must have swallowed a gallon of water and I stopped a lot to dry heave and try and get my bearings.  When I finally made it to the island and around the turn buoy, when  I looked towards shore the buoys were no longer in a line but all blown in various directions. I wasn’t even sure if I was going towards the right shore!

I really wasn’t sure if I was still in the race or not either. Later I found out that 161 people got pulled out (some against their will) or didn’t make the cutoff. At the time though, I thought my performance was just terrible and that I must have swum off course by a lot. I wasn’t that mad though because it took a lot of willpower to not panic and just keep swimming.  I figured I needed to keep going because John probably thought I had drowned by this point.  I was happy when I got out because I haven’t feared for my life as much as I did during that swim.

Here is a good account of the swim chaos from a volunteer perspectice:  http://sabrosacycles.blogspot.ca/2012/05/im-on-boat.html

And the swim support crew perspective: 

The Bike

I felt like I was in a wind tunnel as I went out on the bike. It was as strong as the New Orleans winds a few weeks ago, but the difference was these winds were all coming from one direction and we had to climb mountains against them.

It was slow going. Extremely slow going and my biggest initial struggle was with the sheer amount of extra time this was going to take.  I was almost 4 hours into the race at mile 50 and it was very hard to swallow. I hadn’t payed attention at all to the various bike cutoffs but I started to wonder if I was in danger of missing them.

My shoulder actually ended up not being my limiter, although it did hurt some. Trying to get up to my target watts, I was having some ‘breathlessness’ and started to hyperventilate even though my legs felt fine. This really fed into my anxiety because I didn’t think it was possible to haul my butt up some of the hills at ‘bare minimum watts’ Of course, I also stupidly didn’t have my inhaler so there was nothing I could do except try to suffer through.

Another thing that happened was I somehow bumped my eye or got something in it so my vision was very blurry. So many people got pulled and the field was so spread out that I didn’t see many people at all after the first 40 miles.

The reality of what was happening versus what was happening in my head was something that really screwed with me. In my head, I was so slow in the swim and doing so poorly on the bike and hyperventilating that I was basically the LAST person out on the course. Due to the wind direction and course profile the first 2/3 of each loop is the hard part and trying to do math in my head put me at an 8 hour bike.  What I didn’t realize is that everyone was having an issue with the wind. In reality, I was doing okay and it was just going to be slow.

Then this really negative lady went by and was griping about everything going wrong, missing cutoffs etc. and I started to get really really low. I had to have some serious and lloonngg conversations with myself about how bad did I really want to finish St George. I ran through endless scenarios of what it would be like to stop versus continue. This all seems kind of silly now, but at the time, I thought I was seriously ill with the breathing issue, either from too much red bull, too much caffeine overall, the altitude, or something else.

Finally, I had to tell myself that I wasn’t going to go out like a little punk,  and if I was sick enough I would pass out and then and only then could I stop. I had to break ties emotionally with my strong desire to do ‘well’ and that entailed turning off the Garmin so I couldn’t lament about the big time and little watts. After that, it truly became a quest for survival. I sat up to rest my shoulder, stopped and took a few stretch breaks and sucked it up for the remaining part of the 7 hours and 18 minutes the course took me.

The Yog

Getting off my bike, I have never felt so awful. I saw John and Stacey in transition and I was happy to be off the bike and to get my inhaler. The gallons of water, the extra time, everything caught up with me and I was doing a little puking/stopping at porta potties the first 6 miles. I managed to keep it to a jog and gradually started coming around. For the first time in an Ironman, really needed to walk the aid stations to gradually get some broth and coke in me. Finally I started hearing folks talk about the hundreds who either didn’t make swim or bike cutoff then I finally realized it wasn’t just me not having a good day.

I was looking for Ted the whole time really hoping that at least one of us was having a good day, but when I  finally saw him he said he wasn’t either.  I was bummed for him because I knew he had the fitness to really kill it but the day had taken its toll in various ways on pretty much everyone.  I also saw my coach en route to an amazing and HUGE win!!!

Three loops was a blessing and a curse. The good side was that I saw John periodically and he was very encouraging and upbeat and didn’t say ‘What happened’ or ‘ are you okay’ both seemingly innocuous statements that really could have pissed me off at that point! Also have to give a shoutout to Angela Meyer, another GA triathlete (who crushed IMSG last year) who seriously took the cheering to a whole new level. Thanks for the encouragement!  The bad news was that we kept having to pass the finish line over and over.

Finally, I got to the last loop and I was actually feeling better after a steady diet of coke and broth. The sun was getting lower and I thought that I might be able to finish before dark still. A new goal gave me a reason to finally pick it up. I picked it up significantly the last three miles and I have never been happier to hear Mike Reilly’s voice!

Strangely, after that, I didn’t feel all that bad and was able to get around  and go out to eat just fine . I was pretty fried from the sun but otherwise moving along pretty well. Also as soon as I crossed, my full blown scratchy throat and congestion came on and I realized that my respiratory difficulties were probably due to a combo of altitude and simply getting a cold. Sucky timing, but at least I finished.

It wasn’t until the next day that I learned there was a 28 % DNF rate… very high for folks who, at this point, knew what they were getting into when they signed up for St. George. I also heard that less than 50% of the women finished but I haven’t verified it myself yet.

Overall, about two hours slower than I was aiming for.. it was apparent early on that for me it was a day ‘to finish’ From an experience standpoint I really wouldn’t trade St. George. The whole thing  could only be described as both  awesome and terrible. From a performance standpoint, the year is kicking off to an inauspicious start. I really need to reevaluate and see what needs to happen next and if I’m on the right course .   

Much thanks to my awesome and understanding husband who supports me beyond what is reasonable and puts up with my crazy, expensive, and time consuming hobby. Afterwards, I was able to rally slightly for a fun trip to Vegas with the four of us. Six cups of coffee helped me keep me going till about 2 am (not very late in Vegas!)