the week before
after 11 weeks of waking up at 3:45 a.m. to train 3 hours in the morning before heading off to work and then loading 5 hours on saturdays and 2 hours on sundays, i reverted back to "normal" training hours with a little bit more speed work. my favorite part of training was turning into a human vacuum cleaner- i was downing 4 meals before lunch, lunch, two snacks, dinner and dessert, working in 3 pieces of fruit per day..and did not grow at all! by the week before, i was starting to feel anxious because my hip flexors and hips were aching, so i took the last few days off from training and did bikram (hot) yoga, to practice staying calm in uncomfortable situations. A drove us up on thursday, during which i had a minor panic attack en route and fretted about the implications of my not being able to finish. for the days leading up to sunday, i varied between feeling incredibly anxious - what if my hips break? what if i can't finish? - to feeling incredibly calm- well, there's nothing i can do to train any more or less so we'll just see what happens. A and i were sharing a condo with gatorade bob (who actually cooks!), maryka and her boyfriend jim from london, and jeremiah, a friend of the person who was supposed to have done imlp with us had he not been hit by a car while biking the month before. maryka had done i.m. germany and this was jeremiah's first i.m., but compared to the both of them, i felt completely unprepared. we spent the few days before sunday scoping out the swim and bike loops, carb-loading and attending a very useful talk by endurance nation that gave strategic tips for i.m.- take it easy during the swim, take it ridiculously easy during the bike and don't be surprised when people pass you, take it easy during the first six miles of the run, steady til mile 18, then kick it into gear. we were talking and breathing so much i.m. that i was anxious for sunday to hurry up and come. i spent the saturday before doing nothing (which is quite difficult!), journalling a bit about the reasons i was doing the i.m. in attempts to travel as "light" as possible on sunday, and eating every 3 hours.
we were in bed by 8 p.m. and i was up at 11 p.m. for "breakfast" before getting up again at 3:45 a.m., which by then was a "normal" time for me anyway.. so off we went to the race course! bob dropped us off as close as possible to the site and we got our body markings, dropped off our special needs bags and headed off to the swim start.
the swim
it started raining before the swim. what a great sign, i thought. i was getting more and more nervous until i saw A, whose presence calms me, and we gave my brothers and sister-in-law (who were, to my delight, en route!) a call to say i was heading off.
here's the before picture...
seeing the 2000+ people at the swim start, i started to panic. i found jeremiah, who was surprisngly calm, and my eyes watered before the inner dialogue commenced. "you're not the type of girl who cries when she's scared!" oh yeah. i found maryka who gave some solid last minute advice- stay flexible, no matter what happens! i swam over a little bit closer to the race start and heard the announcer saying people had trained all year for this event. all year! i thought, i only did 13 weeks! oh geez.. the pros went off, and 10 minutes later, we were off. at first i was excited because i felt like the 2000+ people were creating a current and as long as i moved my arms, i was going in the right direction. then, suddenly, it felt like someone had dropped a quarter into a school of fish in a fish tank and everyone seemed to be going in 100 different directions. i panicked and kept stopping in my swim to look for a safe spot, ditching my idea to find some feet to swim behind. i slowed down a bit and was able to calm down, telling myself i had better enjoy this part of the race because it is the easiest for me and because i had the most energy now! my goal was to finish at 1:30 so i was very excited to run out of the first lap with 36 something, especially because i was swimming quite far away from the buoys. then on the second lap i was able to go closer to the buoys (there is a cable under water that you should be able to swim with if you are close enough), so was a little surprised that my 2nd lap time was slower than my first. there was some minor traffic during the swim, and every time i felt people grabbing (yes, grabbing) my feet, i would kick as if i was having a seizure. some idiot kept slapping my face when he was doing backstroke and i got very annoyed. oh well. i ran through the timing chip, remembering to take off the top part of my wet suit (i hadn't done a tri since last september!) and there were strippers available so i just sat on my butt and a very strong man whipped off my wet suit. i was wearing my swim suit underneath and felt a little immature, since everyone else was in their tri suits, but i was definitely not going to bike 112 miles in my thinly-padded tri suit. running through the cheering crowds was very exciting, and when i heard my little brother shout "esTHER!" in his distinctive way of saying my name, i squealed and waved like crazy, giving A a high 5. i wanted to tell him, did you see my time?! but forgot. this girl on the other side cheered for me, "go, happy girl!" feeling good, feeling good.. i grabbed my bike-transition bag and ran into the tent to change. my t1 time was something like 10 minutes. long, i know.. then i took a pee, ran to the bike area and a volunteer got my bike out for me (these volunteers are fantastic!) and i was off!
the bike
as i went down the hill and onto the course, i saw A and gave him a smile, then around the bend, saw my big brother samuel. i have not yet learned how to bike with one hand so resisted the urge to wave to them. the loop goes something like this- quick downhill, then a semi-long uphill out of town, then 7 miles of really fast downhill, then 10 miles of flat, then 1 mile uphill, then 7 miles out and back with some hills, then 12 miles mostly uphill. i had been very nervous about the bike, since it was my weakest area in the tri, and had trained for the bike the most with hours on the trainer and my new best friend, coach troy (by then, i could predict exactly what he was going to say on his spinnervals dvd's and exactly when he was going to say it!) i had done only a few rides outside- a few 4 hour rides, one 5.5 hour and one 6 hour, all of which had as many hills as i could squeeze in. there are two hills in fort lee that are about 6 minutes long, and i had stubbornly gone up and down them 12 times in a row. nonetheless, i told A to find me within 3:30 or 4:00 for the first bike loop and was delighted to finish the first loop in about 15 minutes under 3:30. the volunteers were fantastic again, being very encouraging and handing out gatorade, water, gels,and holding on to my bike when i took a pit stop. i was very careful to remember to eat something every 45 minutes to an hour and to stay hydrated. i swung into the bike special needs bag and i hear bob say, "hey esther!" we chatted for about 3 seconds and i told him, "i think i'm doing really well! a lot better than expected!" i exchange my mushed up medley of power bars and pb sandwiches for a "fresh" bag, bob and i high-five and i am off, chuckling because A would be back and think i am having a very bad bike when doesn't see me between 3:30 and 4 hours!
the uphill on loop 2 suddenly seemed very very long, and people kept passing me. i was beginning to feel discouraged, kept telling myself the sati phrases that G had told me the day before (i am strong.. i am confident that victory will be mine! i am persistent! except i changed the latter one to 'i am stubborn!') and then the inner dialogue commenced again. "come on, you are not strong. 13 weeks of training is pretty weak." good thing i am stubborn. i gave up on the pb&j and started taking a gel instead, which helped immensely. the 10 mile flat was not so bad, and the 14-mile out and back not bad either. i saw jim at some point who gave me a pleasant hello as if we were all just on a pleasant little ride. the 12 miles uphill were slow, but that was expected, and finally, i was done with the bike! it was incredibly rewarding since that was what i had worked the hardest on. i saw my bros, sister-in-law and A coming into the bike, and samuel was holding a laptop and pointing to it. needless to say, i didn't have much time to stop and ask what was going on, but found out later that my family had skyped my parents in from china, woke up them at 3 a.m. and my mom saw me coming in from the bike. how sweet is that! i wasn't surprised that most of the bikes had already been racked. i grabbed my run transition bag, and i guess the volunteers were less busy so one very nice volunteer helped me get dressed (except i put my running shorts on backwards initially! oops) and before i took off, was suddenly weirded out by the idea that i had just thought to myself, "all i need to do is run a marathon and i'm done." who says that? i must have made a face because a volunteer asked me what was wrong. "do i HAVE to run?" i asked, and she shooed me out.
the run
my cheering team had magically positioned itself right outside of the run start (how did they do that?) and i waved. feeling good, feeling strong, especially because the first part of the run was downhill. i took a look at my watch and the time was 8:48. and then that was my first mistake- estimating my completion time. i thought, my slowest marathon was 4:28 and my fastest was 3:37 although those were 3 years ago, so my run time will probably be 5 and then i would actually finish around 13 hours and how cool would that be, especially if my goal was to "just finish if i don't get injured before doing so"? there was a pit stop every mile or so, and the loop is a figure 8 which you do twice, which is awful because that means you actually hear people finishing at least four times before you do. jeremiah passed me once, and he was doing excellently..then maryka passed me, and she was looking fantastic. then jeremiah passed me again and by then, i was stressing out. the only word that kept popping into my head was "interminable." "i can do this," i kept telling myself, trying to calm myself down, the part of me that was yelling at me to finish within 13 hours. the long uphill was around mile 11, and by then i was not happy at all. i felt my heart racing but my feet were shuffling, and the crowds that were incredibly encouraging suddenly seemed very loud. my race number is 1969 and i guess that is a rather well-liked number! by the time i reached the top of the hill, i felt my throat closing. asthma attack! i was pissed.. mostly because i hadn't had an asthma attack in two years and partly because i had not anticipated getting an asthma attack during the run and had left my inhaler in my bike..and terrified. i made my way to the run special needs area and half-gasped, half-cried. the volunteers were encouraging and told me to calm down, to breathe deeply and to sit down (i refused to sit down, b/c based on my experience walking 81 miles in 3 days and 4 hours in england..if you sit down you will not want to get up!) someone lent me her inhaler (which is not the best idea) and someone else called the ambulance. i started crying, "i can't do this!" and one lady said, of course you can! you can walk the whole thing and still finish on time!" but i did not want to hear that. i borrowed her phone and called A who ran to the special needs area. he hugged me, sweaty and dirty and all, and helped me calm down. after 10 minutes or so i was definitely ready to go, but the volunteers had called the ambulance and were concerned that i shouldn't go just yet until i had seen the medics. i appreciate their concern and am glad they are so careful. when the ambulance finally came (30 minutes later!) they put me in the stretcher. i told them, "no, i really want to finish!" and A the volunteers vouched for that, so they let me go. i ran/shuffled out of the ambulance and that was when i knew i was going to finish the race.
A ran along the sidewalk as i did the second part of the first lap, and i felt calm knowing he was right next to me. then he said i was doing well and he'd see me at the finish line..so i had one more loop to go.
the second loop was a lot more peaceful, because my only goal was to finish, without any goal times, and besides my asthma was still lingering and i was having trouble breathing but didn't want to tell anyone or they might not let me finish! the volunteers started handing out chicken soup and i started to walk through the pit stops and on the hills. my mind cleared as i shuffled on and i started to kick myself in the pants. "why did you think you could do this on 13 weeks of training, with a crappy non-tri bike, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, no fancy gear and only a heart rate monitor which you only use for entertainment purposes anyway..and you know you didn't prepare for the run at all! why are you doing this anyway?" and as hard as i tried, i could not find a good answer. the only two honest answers that i could give were 1) because it's there and 2) because i said i would. those are pretty weak reasons. oh well, there was no valid reason to stop, anyway. i saw bob, who ran with me for 20 feet and wished me luck. mile 20 finally came, and i thought of all the moments that had led up to this one. i thought of how, back in november, i could not walk without limping, how i had taken 12 advils a day...how i had spent $500 on acupuncture and massages because i was in denial of the stress fracture, how i had aquajogged for an hour and a half at a time with the grannies at the chelsea pool and w/ my fabulous aquajogging partner, G, how i just decided to keep training for im anyway and "see how it goes" and had kicked training into gear and how i had not even expected to get this far, anyway. i thought of the friendships that had developed through this- getting training tips, aero bars,and encouragement from matt shaffer whom i had never met, getting to hang out w/ jeremiah and maryka, getting to know the elderlies at the chelsea pool and the friendships made at TNYA. i had promised matt that i would not leave i.m. unless it was through the finish line or on a stretcher, and well, i had already foregone the latter option! i jogged/shuffled past the volunteers who had been helpful to me before, and they cheered me on. the medics who had put me in the stretcher shouted, "there goes our silver bullet!" which was highly ironic but very sweet. then i passed the volunteers again and this woman had her camera, she said i had been inspiring to them and wanted to take my picture, so she ran alongside and i gave her a thumbs up. then i finally saw a sign that said "to the finish."
it was dark by then, and i whooped at the sight of an arch and dashed under it, thinking that was the finish line. a guy was standing there pointing right. i said, aren't we done? apparently not. then there was a second arch and i was excited and dashed under that one, thinking, this is it! by the time i reached the third arch, which was the final arch with the clock, i gave a half-hearted "yay..."and crossed.
right when my feet crossed the finish line, they refused to move. i felt dizzy and a volunteer gave me a medal and put a cape around my neck. he was holding me up and asked me how i felt. then another volunteer held my arms on the other side and they led me to the medical tent against my half-drunken protests that "i'm fine!" i looked at the medal around my neck and wanted to shout with joy and cry at the same time. i finished my first ironman! and then.. ugh, i just finished an ironman...was it worth it? apparently, i was very cold and had lost 5 lbs of water, which was surprisng because i thought i had been careful to stay hydrated. i got a calf massage and an IV and was released an hour later. finished!!
here's the after picture..my brothers and sister-in-law had created signs for me, and here's one of them. strong finish, eh?
it's been almost two weeks post i.m. and the blues have hit.. i feel emotionally exhausted, physically drained, and my body has decided to rebel against my mind and i've come down with acute bronchitis and a corneal ulcer. i'm ridiculously excited to just run, swim and bike (in that order of preference) just for the heck of it, for as long as i want to and as often as i want to. i know that i had sworn up and down that imlp 2009 was going to be my first and last i.m. but.. i can't say i'm happy with my time. on one hand, i don't think i could have done any better (given the circumstances) and on the other, i wish i had not panicked at mile 11. but then, it could have gone worse. i am immensely grateful for A's encouragement and supportiveness in driving, cooking all of the meals and cheering me on, for my family showing up (in fact, looking at most of the race photos, i am smiling!), for the volunteers and supporters who seemed to know exactly what to say and for the fact that i am still in one piece. i learned that i don't have to convince myself that i am stubborn, and given the short training time, injury, sub-par nutrition and asthma attack, i think 14:01:51 is the slowest i can do (knock on wood)..which is why i am gearing up for imlp 2011- well, it's on the radar! i know i can do better with a more thought-out training plan and more time to train, and maybe even a better bike. i just need to have come up with a solid reason why i want to do it next time.
here are the 6 of us- jeremiah, A, me, maryka, jim and bob- having dinner on our last night together. the i.m. athletes who wanted beer could finally indulge!
huge congrats to jeremiah crowley, who did 11:4_ (sorry, i am bad with times) and to maryka senema, who qualified for kona on her second i.m. ever! maggs, bob and jeremiah, looking forward to imlp 2011. anyone else want to play?
