My Ironman Florida journey was completely different than what I expected it to be......and so very different than my first Ironman in so many ways! I knew it would be different as each race is, but I wasn't expecting it to be such a humbling experience for me. I was coming off a very successful race season and just recently got a spot for World Championships for my half ironman race on Oct. 17th. Austin 70.3 was an amazing race and I felt incredibly strong so it was a huge confidence booster for me going into my 2nd Ironman. I was pumped to be finishing off my race season with Ironman Florida and hoping to go sub 11 and at least top 10 in my age group. I always set goals for myself and knew I was fully capable of putting together a solid race. Let the fun begin!
RACE DAY!!!
4:30 a.m. alarm and I'm up! I ate a bagel with a little peanut butter and my banana, bundled up and head out the door to walk down to transition. It was COLD! I had on my tri outfit, sweatpants, sweatshirt, headband, hoodie, and gloves.......and I was still cold.
I dropped off my special needs bags and headed to my bike to put my nutrition and water bottles on the bike. Next, I aired up the tires and then decided to add a couple things to my swim to bike bag. I knew I would be cold so I added the extra gloves and headband. I added the sweatshirt too.....just in case. I knew it wasn't going to be very aerodynamic, but if I'm cold on the bike I'm miserable!
SWIM - 2.4 mile ocean swim (1:21:08):
Headed down to the beach for the swim start. It was freaking cold. My toes were frozen. I decided to stand in the water b/c the sand was terribly cold and it felt better on my feet. I kept my hoodie on until the last minute. I stood with my friend Nelia and we moved as far off to the right of the beach as we could to start the swim. We started about knee deep and when the gun went off I started dolphin diving into the waves. It was pretty cool! The current was moving towards the direction of the buoys so Jamie told us to start as far off to the right as possible. Good thing I did because 10 minutes into the swim I was right in line with the buoys. Holy cow......ocean swim with almost 3000 people is crazy! Even though we had the whole ocean to swim we were still right on top of each other.
Early on I felt pretty good on the swim.......relaxed, breathing and enjoying seeing some fish and the white sands beneath me. It's a rectangular swim with the shortest part of the swim putting you parallel with the shoreline. It's a 2 loop course with a little jog on the beach before you re-enter the water for your 2nd loop. As we got out towards the middle of the ocean I started to feel the swaying motion and swells going up and down. I think I can handle this.....just keep swimming! I definitely got smacked in the head and swam over a couple of times. I felt sorry for anyone that really wasn't a confident swimmer and doing their first ocean swim / Ironman in these conditions. It was pretty brutal. The best part of the swim was when you got to turn left about 1000 meters in which put you parallel to the beach. The current carried me a little.......I could have done that all day. But, it was short lived......seemed like we only got that for a few hundred meters. What a tease. And........THEN......I turned left at the next buoy to head towards the shore.....OMG.....sea sick!!!!
If I laid on my side and looked at the horizon I didn't feel like I needed to puke as much.......but I could really feel the swells and my equilibrium was completely out of whack. And laying on your side with your head out of the water doesn't get you too far in a 2 point 4 freaking mile swim in the middle of the ocean with 2800 other people!! I had to suck it up and freestyle it in. OK......body surfing in practice the day before was a blast.....this time not so much (nauseous here, big time).......run on the beach and back in for my 2nd loop. I think it took me 37 minutes to do the first 1.2 miles. Ouch!
2nd loop - only 1.2 miles to go. Ohhhh yeahhhh........my motion sickness / sea sickness (whatever it was) was not going away. It got worse as I went out and hit those waves. Time to feed the fish. I threw up about half way down and it was not pretty....throwing up in your mouth and then taking in salt water is not a good combo. It's hard for me to even think about how it made me feel again......ughhh!!
I made it down the first stretch........stopped and looked up for the big red buoy to see how far I needed to go to make my left turn. As I popped my head up there was a guy that looked like he was lost..... He was hanging out treading water and looking very confused......facing the wrong direction. We are in the middle of the ocean with 2800 people around us and he yells out, "What direction are we swimming?" REALLY!??!! "THAT WAY" as I pointed in the way he was supposed to be swimming." He was soooo disoriented. NOW.....I'm throwing up, laughing, and annoyed all at the same time!!! As I turned the corner around the buoy I was having a hard time focusing on swimming. Instead I was focused on not throwing up again and trying not to think about how miserable I felt at the moment.....the waves would not stop coming, would not stop moving....... Oh what a horrible feeling all around.
I had slowed down even more and could NOT get away from some guy swimming on his back. He was NOT doing the backstroke........ OH NO, his arms were coming all the way up over his head at the same time in a circular motion........then all the way back down again by his sides in a circular motion.........and REPEAT! I tried to swim away from him and the current brought me right back to him.......he hit me about 10 times. GOOD GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE and who signed me up for this?! ;)
Finally, I made it around the corner towards the home stretch.......this was one of the WORST experiences I've ever had......I would have choosen natural child birth again over the way I felt at this point. I threw up again.......taking in more salt water.....this time I thought I'd try a little something different.....I flipped over on my back (I've NEVER done this) and started to backstroke........nope that didn't help. It actually made me feel worse. I just sucked it up and kept asking God to bring me back to the land as quickly as possible. I can do this! YES, I finally made it and I'm sure I was as white as a ghost trying to get up the beach towards the wet suit strippers.
I get motion sickness from swinging on a swing. I'm not sure why I dismissed the idea that I might get sea sick while swimming in the rough ocean waters for my IRONMAN.....kind of important thing to consider! Every time I go scuba diving I vomit on the boat on the way out to the dive spot. But, when I'm actually underwater and diving I feel fantastic. We were not UNDER the water........we were ON TOP of the water with wetsuits......even more buoyant. So, IF I ever do an ocean swim again.......I'm thinking medication beforehand might be a good option for me. Just maybe.
Wetsuit strippers rock.......and off I go to transition 1. Ok......now I'm freezing again AND I have such bad chafing from my wetsuit around my neck, behind my neck and under my armpits that it feels like my skin is on fire. Salt water and chafing...... Good times! Once I got into the changing tent (craziness by the way).......I was REALLY wishing I had a change of clothes.......did I mention how cold I was? I spent almost 13 minutes in T1. Seriously!? I put on dry socks, arm warmers, long sleeved jersey over my trip top, 2 pair of gloves, and my headband to keep my ears warm. 112 miles.....let's do this! Oh yeah, I threw up one more time in T1 before I got on my bike.
BIKE - 112 miles (5:35:31):
Got to the mounting line and no one was on their bike. People were walking their bikes through the chute. I got on my bike right at the line and then had to worry about everyone in front of me stopping up ahead to get on their bike. Alright, whatever! Right away I took in some PureSport to try to get some fluids back in my system. I was hoping to shake the nauseous feeling so I drank quite a bit early on and had a clif bar within the first 30 minutes on the bike. Even though I had a long swim and really long transition I was hoping to get the swim and bike in within 7 hours and then hopefully pull off a 4 hour (or better) marathon. That was the goal! I'm always strong on the bike and it's my favorite leg so I felt confident I could do it!
Ummm I'm noticing that the queasy nauseous feeling was NOT going away. Ok let's just work through this....one mile at a time?!! This is not supposed to be easy. It's an IRONMAN! I don't really remember the first 30-40 miles or so.......I was so focused on trying not to vomit that it is a blur. I do remember when my chin strap broke at mile 30 though. I have no idea what happened but I leaned over to take a sip from my aerodrink and my chin strap came loose. I tried to thread it back in while I was riding and then the clip fell off so I could no longer snap it back in place. So.........I rode the rest of the 82 miles without a securely strapped helmet. I was just a tad bit more frustrated at this point.
I remember it being windy but not too unbearable. We've had some really windy training rides so I was ready for it. Around mile 50 I really felt like I needed to stop and take a potty break. Every time I saw the porta potty lines they were too long so I just held it until about mile 65. Every time I ate something (especially my gels) it made me want to throw up. I was really hungry and probably still dehydrated from the lovely ocean swim I had just experienced.
I ended up chatting with some guy named Cole off and on from mile 50ish til about 80 or so. We started up a conversation b/c he came up beside me and said, "When you are tapped out from holding that pace line let me know." I looked over my shoulder and had a pace line of about 6 guys behind me. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! I had to vomit, pee, and by that time my stomach was growling..... I was not in the mood to pull a bunch of guys in my Ironman race, sorry!
I was starting to get warm so I took off my arm warmers and both sets of gloves. I took them off on the bike and that wasn't the smartest move......definitely should've just stopped to do it. I was really trying to make up time where I could though. There was one part of the course that was really windy....luckily it was only about 8 miles or so. It was pretty brutal though. Overall I ended up with a decent bike split.......not sure how, but I did it! I think I was just shy of holding 21 mph. I was so happy to be off the bike and normally I feel like I can ride all day!
RUN - 26.2 miles (4:33:07):
The best part of coming into T2 at Ironman races is that the volunteers take your bike and rack it for you.....it's like your own little valet service for your bike! You get changed in the changing tent and go on your way. I finally found my bike to run bag (no help here from volunteers) and tried to make up some time since T1 took me forever. I knew I had to take a potty break before getting on the run so I did a quick porta potty stop (had to wait for just a second for one to open up) and then I was off to run my 3rd marathon.
The energy and excitement from everyone just getting on the run rocks!! It was so much fun to have so much support on the run course early on and see so many people I knew. I felt pretty good getting going. My legs didn't feel like I just rode 112 miles so I was super pumped about that. I did notice my toes were asleep......especially on my left foot. I was wiggling my toes as often as possible. At mile 6 I could already start to feel blisters forming on my toes. After the race I took off my socks and realized my baby toes both had one ginormous blister that wrapped around the entire toe. I wore the same brand and type of shoes I did last year and in all my long runs and I never got blisters. The left over salt water and wet & cold feet on the bike did not help the cause here. My goal was to just try to stay positive and keep a nice steady run pace. Other than the blisters I felt pretty good the first 11 or so miles of the run.
I ran with Jean from NY for a little while. She had done IMFL before and qualified for Kona there a few years ago, but she was having a tough day as well. Not that you want others to have a rough day, but it can be comforting to have other people around you that are feeling the same pain and you can help talk each other through it. Saturday was just not her day. She told me a few stories about her Kona experience and I was really inspired by her.
As we were running together a guy ran by that had been "hit" big time during the run. He had diarrhea all the way down his legs. Poor guy. Well, Jean and I were downwind and it was awful. The guy in front of us was gagging and making me want to gag.......he stopped a couple times to bend over and was dry heaving.... I was really close to throwing up again through this little episode. That was good times!
At mile 11ish I started to get that nauseous feeling back. I knew if I could get back into town which would put me at mile 13......I would feed off the energy from the crowd and that would help take me to at least mile 16 (that was the plan anyway)! I definitely got some great energy from the crowd going to the turnaround point. I saw my family, kissed and hugged Ireland, kissed my mom and couldn't stop smiling at River b/c he was so excited to see me. He was jumping up and down with his sign running alongside the road to stay with me. I saw my brother who started running and asking me how I was feeling, how it was going. It was so great to see him since he came in from Europe and I hadn't seen him in 9 months. His wife was taking pictures and I was really feelin' the love! I felt blessed to be there and was ready to finish up the last half of the marathon.
I don't think I made it to mile 16 without stopping like I was hoping for....... I remember wanting to cry at mile 15.......not because I was loving the moment and really enjoying the IM journey like last year, but b/c I knew I still had 11.2 miles to go and I wasn't feeling good at all. The weird thing is my legs felt great (other than some tightness) and I didn't have any other muscular issues until mile 18. I just didn't feel "strong" and really was feeling queasy again..... I now know that I didn't not fuel my body on the bike or the run like I should have and that's mostly b/c I felt sick for a lot of bike and shortly after getting on the run. I didn't take any electorlyte tabs and definitely did not take in enough calories or fluid on the bike. Starting off dehydrated on the bike and loosing calories from the swim and throughout the 5 1/2 hour bike ride really caught up to me on the marathon. I grabbed coke at the next couple of aid stations and it definitely helped settle my stomach and keep everything at bay for the time being.
I got to see Dave, Lilly, Lindsay, Dionn, Vegas, Charles, Jerry, Katie, and a couple of Texas Iron people on the run course and it was awesome to cheer each other on! I was sooo proud to see Lilly and Lindsay looking so good with smiles on their faces b/c it was their first Ironman! I could tell they were loving it! My friend Nelia was killing the course and looked strong every time I saw her. It was her first IM as well. I saw a blind man running the course with his assistant and a man running with a prosthetic leg.......talk about inspiring. Ironman brings together so many amazing people and we all come together from all around the world with a positive outlook and a supportive & kind attitude that it's quite amazing to see and be around! It is an incredible experience that I'm finding can be addictive! Ok, enough sappiness back to my not-so-fantastic marathon performance....
Sally from LifeTime was on the run course right in the middle of the neighborhood we had to run through.....(which was booorinnngg)......so it helped to break things up and I looked forward to seeing her out there. I was all smiles and happy to smile for the camera the first loop. Then, I saw her again on the 2nd loop (mile 16ish) and she said, "Go Lindsey!" I just looked at her and said, "This sucks!" ;) YES, those words came out of MY mouth. I was hurtin' and not having the time of my life here!! Pretty sure my mindset for this race was set very early on and it was hard for me to shake it since I was trying to combat not feeling well throughout the race. I was in my "dark spot" here and having a hard time "living in moment" b/c I was doing quite a bit of self-doubt and questioning why I allowed myself to get to such a negative state of mind. I knew I'd get to the finish line.......I knew I'd be happy to be there.......I knew I'd be proud, but oh did I want to feel good out there and tear up the course. I guess that's why we do what we do and keep coming back for more......it's the thrill of the ride and the fear of the unknown!
Ok almost there and by this time my goal of sub 11 was looong gone. Now I'm going for sub 12 (more importantly I had to beat my time from last year). I only stopped to walk once last year at Ironman Arizona and that was at mile 22. I can't tell you how many times I stopped to walk this year. Over the last 2 years I've had a bit of a chronic glute injury and it started to flare up at mile 18. Every time I took a step whether I was walking or running I could feel it. I also started to feel a tingling sensation in my hands and arms.......it was almost like they were going numb. I was shaking them and making fists with my hands and fingers to keep them "awake."
I met Joni from Austin early on in the run. She had a really bad swim as well and we chatted for a while...........she and I passed each other back and forth on the run. She caught up to me at mile 19 as I was walking. I was eating pretzels and drinking coke. She said, "How you doing Lindsey?" I said, "Not good, not good at all." She said, "How about we run to mile 22 and then if you need to walk we can." I told her my goal and she said well we can do that even if we walk for a mile. We ran together and found out we have some mutual friends in common. I started to feel my stomach in knots and I told her I needed to back off a little and she said "save your breath" let's just keep running. I could tell she was an experienced Ironman. She was just what I needed......not a cheerleader but someone calm and supportive at the same time. Wow, she was so cool! She was one of my angels that day. From that point on I just kept running. I have several mantras that I use when I race, but unfortunately didn't use them as much as I should have (or much at all) on Saturday. One I did pick up that day and used all day was "Just keep moving forward."
I did not stop running from mile 19 to the finish line.....in fact I really started to pick up my pace. I was looking for our condo b/c I knew it was only a mile from the finish line and we ran right by it on the course. Once I saw the condo I kicked it into high gear. Lilly's hubby, Blake, saw me coming in towards the finish line and ran along with me taking me to the finisher's chute. He actually asked me to slow down. Ha! I told him that I had a really rough day and that I never doing another 140.6 race. Oh....right....I think I said that last year too. :) Heading to the finish line I only had 3 minutes to beat my time from last year's Ironman. I did it and was happy to meet that goal even though it wasn't on the original race agenda for me that day!
My cousin lost his battle to cancer a couple of years ago and I always keep him in my thoughts while I race. He was so strong and never complained about what he was going through and really was such a courageous man. I carry him (and his 2 little boys) with me when I race and it's almost like he's watching over me and helps keep me going. I know that not everyone can do what I do (nor do they want to for that matter......ha), but I have been given an amazing gift to be able to do this.....I have such a strong mind and body and choose to challenge them both to the max. I did just that on Saturday, November 6th! It was one of the hardest things I have done emotionally, physically, and mentally. I feel stronger for pushing through every little obstacle I came across and know that things happen for a reason. I got so much out of this race I can't even put it all into words. I learned a lot about myself on Saturday. I cherish the memories I created out there for myself and my family. I know my children absolutely loved the trip and their faces on the race course were absolutely priceless. I will never forget those sweet faces as I saw them on the course and as I came running through the finisher's chute and across the finish line. Ironman Florida (11:47:22), check!
THANKFUL FOR:
• My sweet hubby for supporting me through this journey and putting up with my crazy schedule and always telling me to do what makes me happy
• My awesome parents for traveling to Florida with me to watch the kiddos while I raced!
• Taylor and Nancy for flying in from Amsterdam to be there for me.....such an awesome supportive brother and sister 'n law
• Paige for listening to all the highs and lows of my season and being a supportive and encouraging sister
• Members at LifeTime who have become some of my closest friends. I can't imagine not having the support and love everyone from LT has given me
• Marie for awesome care package. I get to return the favor this year as she will be doing her first IM in just 2 short weeks!
• Chris and Kathy for helping me organize, promote, and execute my fundraiser at Iron Cactus
• David, Mallory, and Matt for being amazing training partners and so much fun to be around!
• Jodis, Kim F., and Kim W. for helping at the fundraiser as well
• Jack Murray and staff with Jack & Adam’s – best bike shop in town
• All the thoughtful, inspiring, and kind words I received before and after the race…..very powerful to me!
• For the ability to do what I am passionate about
• Coach Craig and Coach Hayley for helping me become a stronger / faster swimmer
• Coach Nick for helping me run faster and more efficient and for moral support!
• lululemon athletica 6th & Lamar for supporting and encouraging me and providing the best workout clothes ever!
• Dr. Todd and Laura Whipple for helping me rehab my shoulder, ankle, and keeping me healthy throughout the season!
• Post-race pizza!
• No sunburn!
• Nancy Hill for my awesome post-race massage…..ahhhh!
• Star Gymnastics, Steven Liggett, & Iron Cactus for sponsoring me for the year 2010!
• Friends and family......you are so important to me and I appreciate your love and support during this incredible journey!
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