So last week I shared Miss Ali's Vermont City Marathon race day, so today is my turn :) I apologize in advance for the novel..
Back in the beginning of June I did 70.3 Raleigh and let me tell you about how terrible (and amazing) it was. First you should know that I signed up for this race with about 8 weeks of training - and still recovering from a possibly torn calf (Army doctors can't even tell me if it was definitely torn or not, like it's some sort of rocket science). But the race just so happened to fall when Torin had time off and I had nothing to do except unpack boxes, so I just decided to go for it.
My amazing coach and friend Josh, helped me prep real quick and in a hurry and I was ready to race, both mentally and physically. The day after I flew back from NH (and 5 days from race day) I woke up with a major ear ache and one hell of a migraine. This continued for two more days (with lots of drugs, fluids and sleeping). Torin and I drove to Cary on Friday, which is outside of Raleigh, where his parents live the next day and I felt 80%. The day before the race I woke up SICK. AGAIN. The common topic of conversation was "Are you even going to race?"
HELLO PEOPLE. I trained really hard for 8 weeks, payed a ridiculous amount of money and I'm here. Obviously I'm going to race.
Race day... I was in the second to last swim heat - with no wetsuit (yes, it makes a difference) and it is 8:40 am. The gun goes off and I start swimming, on the outside of the pack, away from the crazies. 100 meters out when I get kicked so hard in the head I see stars. Fabulous. I waved a kayak down and hung on until the stars went away. I adjusted my goggles and took off. I get out of the cove and the waves are everywhere. I would like to say three foot waves but I have no idea for sure; what I can tell you is that I did not get one single breath of air without getting water in my mouth. Okay I'm not the best swimmer - and I certainly get water in my mouth from time to time, but every breath? No. The water was so choppy, and I am a small person.. I got tossed around like a rag doll. I thought about waving a kayak down and telling them I quit. But I knew that I had to get on my bike, because that would be the best part of my day. So 51 minutes later I got out of the water. That's slow for me; I checked my watch several times to make sure that I still had enough time (you have to make it out of the water in 1:10).
I made it to my bike and I took off. The course was absolutely beautiful. It was point to point, so I never had to look at the same thing twice. It was farm country, back roads, shaded, rolling hills - totally gorgeous, and I loved every second of it. I took 15 minutes off my bike time and was sad when it was time to transition to the run. I did have some minor problems with my nutrition on the bike, and it was a problem on the run.
I improved my run times tremendously in 8 weeks. I was planning to race between 10-11/mile. Well. If you ever decide to do a triathlon, have an A plan, and then a B plan. And then a "well this sucks" plan. I fell into the last column during the run portion... It was hotter than hell when I started my run - okay, I was training for this in Georgia where it's almost to hot to run 24 hours a day. I made it around the first city block to see an uphill. And then I climbed uphill for the first half of the first loop, then downhill, around the city block, and then uphill, downhill, city block, I'm done. There was no shade. On the entire run course. It was by far the hottest run of my life. Around mile 4 I had GI distress (thanks to the nutrition problem / all the water and air I took in on the swim), mile 6 my hip started to act a fool, and at mile 9 I had sharp pain every time I bent my knee. I thought about quitting more times than I have ever thought about quitting anything.
Thankfully, I had an AMAZING support squad. Like, really, really, amazing. The entire Reedstrom clan (minus one) was there, and Mama and Jack flew down for basically the day. And most importantly, I had Torin there. They coordinated 3 cars between 7 people - and they chased me around the course all day, and were everywhere I needed them to be, cheering for me like crazy. I think without them, I would have quit in the water. Certainly without Torin, Brad, Mama and Ali's relentless encouragement I would have never even signed up for the race in the first place. So.. Here are some photos! I obviously didn't take any of these and some of them I "borrowed" from FinisherPix...
Back in the beginning of June I did 70.3 Raleigh and let me tell you about how terrible (and amazing) it was. First you should know that I signed up for this race with about 8 weeks of training - and still recovering from a possibly torn calf (Army doctors can't even tell me if it was definitely torn or not, like it's some sort of rocket science). But the race just so happened to fall when Torin had time off and I had nothing to do except unpack boxes, so I just decided to go for it.
My amazing coach and friend Josh, helped me prep real quick and in a hurry and I was ready to race, both mentally and physically. The day after I flew back from NH (and 5 days from race day) I woke up with a major ear ache and one hell of a migraine. This continued for two more days (with lots of drugs, fluids and sleeping). Torin and I drove to Cary on Friday, which is outside of Raleigh, where his parents live the next day and I felt 80%. The day before the race I woke up SICK. AGAIN. The common topic of conversation was "Are you even going to race?"
HELLO PEOPLE. I trained really hard for 8 weeks, payed a ridiculous amount of money and I'm here. Obviously I'm going to race.
Race day... I was in the second to last swim heat - with no wetsuit (yes, it makes a difference) and it is 8:40 am. The gun goes off and I start swimming, on the outside of the pack, away from the crazies. 100 meters out when I get kicked so hard in the head I see stars. Fabulous. I waved a kayak down and hung on until the stars went away. I adjusted my goggles and took off. I get out of the cove and the waves are everywhere. I would like to say three foot waves but I have no idea for sure; what I can tell you is that I did not get one single breath of air without getting water in my mouth. Okay I'm not the best swimmer - and I certainly get water in my mouth from time to time, but every breath? No. The water was so choppy, and I am a small person.. I got tossed around like a rag doll. I thought about waving a kayak down and telling them I quit. But I knew that I had to get on my bike, because that would be the best part of my day. So 51 minutes later I got out of the water. That's slow for me; I checked my watch several times to make sure that I still had enough time (you have to make it out of the water in 1:10).
I made it to my bike and I took off. The course was absolutely beautiful. It was point to point, so I never had to look at the same thing twice. It was farm country, back roads, shaded, rolling hills - totally gorgeous, and I loved every second of it. I took 15 minutes off my bike time and was sad when it was time to transition to the run. I did have some minor problems with my nutrition on the bike, and it was a problem on the run.
I improved my run times tremendously in 8 weeks. I was planning to race between 10-11/mile. Well. If you ever decide to do a triathlon, have an A plan, and then a B plan. And then a "well this sucks" plan. I fell into the last column during the run portion... It was hotter than hell when I started my run - okay, I was training for this in Georgia where it's almost to hot to run 24 hours a day. I made it around the first city block to see an uphill. And then I climbed uphill for the first half of the first loop, then downhill, around the city block, and then uphill, downhill, city block, I'm done. There was no shade. On the entire run course. It was by far the hottest run of my life. Around mile 4 I had GI distress (thanks to the nutrition problem / all the water and air I took in on the swim), mile 6 my hip started to act a fool, and at mile 9 I had sharp pain every time I bent my knee. I thought about quitting more times than I have ever thought about quitting anything.
Thankfully, I had an AMAZING support squad. Like, really, really, amazing. The entire Reedstrom clan (minus one) was there, and Mama and Jack flew down for basically the day. And most importantly, I had Torin there. They coordinated 3 cars between 7 people - and they chased me around the course all day, and were everywhere I needed them to be, cheering for me like crazy. I think without them, I would have quit in the water. Certainly without Torin, Brad, Mama and Ali's relentless encouragement I would have never even signed up for the race in the first place. So.. Here are some photos! I obviously didn't take any of these and some of them I "borrowed" from FinisherPix...
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