This is one of the hardest blog posts I've had to write. My desire to be an Ironman was (is) strong. My Ironman dream was (is) crazy large. But I am now having to handle the disappointment along the way...and I'm not sure how well that's going. On Sunday I DNF'd (did not finish) Ironman Louisville. I dropped out on my own volition at mile 20 of the bike. 3 hours into my 17 hour day. And it hurts. A lot. A lot.
We got into town on Friday, in time for me to register and hit the athlete's briefing. I got to meet a friend that I had previously only known from online. She was volunteering all weekend and was the one who gave me my race numbers and swim cap. She also took this picture of me at registration...see how excited I am!
Afterwards we wandered around Louisville a little bit, had some food and got the girls supplies to make posters to cheer me on, and then went to the athletes banquet. Everyone had said as a first timer I needed to go to the banquet. Well, I went...and I was really unimpressed. The food was nasty and the "inspirational" stories were pretty cookie-cutter and repetitive. I talked with some of the folks at my table, but mostly I found it horribly boring...and I usually love that stuff. I cry at Hallmark commercials and those Foundation for a Better Life billboards. Sob stories always get to me. But the banquet just didn't do it. I was bummed by that experience.
After the banquet, we went back to the hotel and played cards with the girls in the lobby. While there, the skies opened up with a wild rain and lightning storm. I've never seen lightning like that in my life...and it rained forever. I knew that would make the water a bit wild, and that made me nervous. But this weekend was all about NO FEAR.
The next morning, my husband (now known as Iron Sherpa) talked me into going for the practice swim in the river. It left out of the swim finish -- not the protected channel where the race starts, but the wild wide open Ohio River. Well...the current was INSANE. I managed to make it up to the first buoy, turn around, and then swim back to the exit. Most people totally missed the exit and flew well past because of the current. At least I knew how to cut across, so that was a point in my favor.
Here's a picture from the practice swim...you can see that the first buoy (the one I made it to) is NOT very far upstream. After I got out and changed, the family brought me breakfast. We ate and then went to check out transition and the swim start. As we were walking, we watched a bit of the practice swim and most of the people still in the water looked like they were in an endless pool...lots of stroking, going nowhere. Yikes. But this weekend was NO FEAR so I tried to put it in the back of my head. Seeing the swim start helped a lot, because I could see that the water wasn't as fast there because of the island protecting the channel. I felt a lot better.
Unfortunately, sometime in this walking around by transition and the swim start, I felt my foot starting to hurt a bit. There was a bruised looking, swollen part on the top of my right foot. I figured it was probably psychosomatic, though - because I'm always "hurt" before a race. Y'know - you imagine that your knee hurts or whatever. Well, maybe you don't, but I always do. And then once you get on the course, amazingly it is all healed.
I also went back to Ironman Village to pick out the bling that I wanted to buy when I finished.
On Saturday afternoon, we put my bike and gear bags into transition. That was a really neat experience. First my bike got a glamour shot...OK, it was probably a picture for the purposes of insurance, but it was kind of funny when they set her up in front of the white background for her picture. Then this kid led me through everything I needed to know. He was really sweet and I felt a lot better about transition then.
By this point, my dad was in town. We went and hung with him. Part way through the afternoon (and after I dropped off my gear bags...of course), the skies opened up AGAIN. The rain was crazy hard and it lasted a long time. Not only was the river going to be wilder, but also my gear would be soaking. Like I wasn't already nervous enough. But I just told myself NO FEAR. We went out for pizza -- my favorite pre-race meal of course -- and then just hung out at the hotel room until it was time for sleeping around 9p. I was planning on waking up around 4a - not that I did much sleeping. And then it was the day.
IRONMAN DAY! The day I have been training for. The day I have been dreaming about. The day I have been dreading. It was finally here! And I was going for it!!!! Holey crap!
I woke up super early and went down to transition, where I was about 30th in line. I filled my nutrition bottles and checked my tires and then fast-walked down to the swim start. There I was about 50th in line. This was the plan, because I wanted to have as much of the 17 hours as possible...and I didn't want waiting in the swim line to eat into much of that time. My strategy worked, because I was in the water before 7:02am. Sweet.
Iron Sherpa came to wait with me in the swim line. On my hands I wrote "You Are Stronger" and "NO FEAR." I was ready for this race. Of course, I started crying because I was totally stressed...but I got my shizzle together before the start. As soon as the line started moving down to the water, I had convinced myself that it was all going to work out. And into the water I went.
The swim was interesting. I got felt up, fondled, and kicked a number of times - and probably did the same to a few (or a lot of) other people. For the most part, I really enjoyed the swim up the channel because I could see movement - I was making visible progress past the landmarks on the right (the side I breathe on). I felt really good. And then all of a sudden, I kept seeing some stupid boat (the Connie Linda or something like that)...it would not get out of my viewpoint. I was past the top of the island and the water was pushing me back. Plus it got really damn cold up there - the water I mean. Frigid pockets of dark water. Ugh. I kept fighting my way forward until I finally saw the red turn buoy...but I was worried I had taken too much time. I was sure I wasn't going to make the 2:20 cut-off because I had spent so much time just churning water. The water was a little intense around the buoy - between the current coming in and a lot of people trying to get around it, I got a little disoriented...but I rounded the buoy and I knew it was all downhill from there.
So I swam. And swam. And swam. I knew it was well over a mile back down to the swim finish...and it felt like it took forever too. But I kept swimming, buoy to buoy to buoy. It was harder to visually confirm my progress, since breathing right just showed me the middle of the Ohio River, which is really quite wide at that point. And I'm still not cool enough to breathe left. But I felt like I kept getting closer to the next buoy. The bridges over the river seemed to be coming closer as well. And so I swam. And swam. And swam.
While I was swimming around the turn buoy (and at the part of the channel where I was churning), my foot started to hurt again. It was weird to have your foot hurt while you're just kicking...but it did.
Finally I got to the swim finish. As the woman was helping me out of the water, I kind of slipped/tripped on the step because my foot hurt so bad. I hopped out of the water and into the walkway to transition. Medical came over and brought me a chair. They looked at my foot, could see the swelling and bruising, and asked if I wanted to continue. My friend who was volunteering also came over. I decided that biking shouldn't hurt my foot as much as kicking or walking, so I said I would go on. Hell, I'd figure out the run when I got there.
At this point, I also looked at my watch, thinking I was around the 2 hour mark or more...1:36! Yeah me! This from a girl who couldn't swim hardly at all last summer, I swam a tough 2.4 miles in 1:36!!!!!!!!!!! OK, so the current was helpful on the part down the river, but still. GO ME!
So I hobbled thru transition, got my gear bag & went to the change tent. This was my first IM, obviously, so the whole change tent thing was new to me. How cool! The volunteers were amazing. Multiple ladies asked me what they could help me with...I didn't take advantage of it, because I was thinking through what I was doing in my own head and doing it myself helped me focus, but wow.
And then I was off on the bike. The first 10 miles were great...mostly flat. The only issue I had was avoiding a crash at the aid station at mile 8...but I got around it in time and kept on. Then there were some hills, which were hard, but I was managing. Finally I got to the out and back...and the hills were huge! I was doing fine with the hills mentally and generally physically, but with every pedal stroke, my right foot was killing me. Pretty much any time I put weight on my foot, I got a sharp pain up my leg. I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to complete the out-and-back (going up at least 3 more big hills), let alone the rest of the race, so when I made it to a driveway where I could pull off safely, I got off my bike. There were some fans/support folks there that were cheering people up the hills (dressed aptly as the Devil and the Grim Reaper); they helped me get off my bike and over to a place to sit down and wait for sag. Since it wasn't an emergency, I sat for a long time watching all the bikers come up the hill and back down again on the other side.
Finally EMS showed up, looked at my foot, said I probably had a stress fracture or nerve damage, and said they'd bring me back out the main road. (The out-and-back was closed to traffic - they came to get me in a little ATV.) The EMS guys left me at a little church where I was taken care of by some of the church members. They got ice for my foot, let me call Iron Sherpa, gave me water, offered me food, and kept me company until I could be officially removed from the race by IM staff and until my family could get back from where they had gone to watch me come through on the bike.
When my family finally made it back to me, the church folks helped load up my stuff (including giving us a bungee cord for my bike because it doesn't fit on our rack properly). They also gave us directions to urgent care so I could get my foot looked at. And that was the end of my day. :(
(I'll spare you the boring details of waiting over an hour at urgent care, only to know nothing more than that something is wrong with my foot. Gee, thanks, doc...)
So here's my Ironman Louisville 2014 Finisher picture:
Not exactly what I had in mind.
That being said, I lived the day with NO FEAR. I know now that I CAN do an Ironman. And I'm going to do one. On the drive home, we tried to figure out if I could do one this year yet, but it seems kind of silly since I don't even know when my foot will be healed. Instead, at least for now, we've settled on IM Maryland 2015. The dream is still big, the desire is even stronger, and I hope that I can handle the disappointment until next fall.
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