Kona Recap

I realize that I left this blog in limbo... much like my life was at the time.  I wasn't ready to continue writing a blog while I was trying to sort out my life because... well, like many of the triathlete and runner blogs I read... personal life escapades sneak into blogs.  Sometimes it is very hard to separate the two like it was in my case so I figured it was best to wait until better days to continue writing my blog.  So here it goes... the sum of 8 months to catch all of you up, the recap of Kona, and a few future prospects!

The Last 8 Months:
Honu:  In June I went and raced Hawaii 70.3.  I had a fantastic race at one of my hardest points in my life.  I knew I was literally 'running' down my Kona spot and for the first time in my triathlon career I succeeded in the run portion and placed 1st in my AG and secured a spot to Kona World Championships (and Las Vegas Half Ironman Worlds- which I declined). Total: 5:13:18

Coeur d'Alene:  This was my first full Ironman.... and holy moly did it hurt!  I always have a thing about knowing courses in advance (where I don't want to know them).  So I had a lot of people along the way in my training asking me if I knew the course in which I always replied 'nope, and I'm happy to keep it that way.'  Well... the hills took everyone by a bit of surprise in Ida-hill! The bike portion was changed from previous years to a new course that included 6000 ft of climbing.  It hurt.  It hurt more on the run and it totally freaked me out for Kona so that I didn't want to do another full Ironman! Total: 12:00:26

Kona World Championships:

Let me start by saying this... I have had more people come up to me after the race/during the race and tell me that it was "hell".  I couldn't disagree more.  I actually had a great time and enjoyed almost every moment of it and learned A LOT that I will now share with everyone who cares to read this novel.

Pre- Race:
I had a wonderful group of friends staying in a condo with me.  Yup... 10 people into a condo and I knew it would be a perfect mix because we have travelled together before and it is nothing but positivity.  We all have raced together (Hawaii 70.3), some of us live very close together, and some came from various places (Ohio, Big Island).  It's a lot about the vibe and knowing that if I want to eat cookies and brownies for breakfast each morning before the race that these people know me and won't judge at all.  I have to say that it influences my races a lot because I can't ask for better people to spend my pre-race days with and better supporters. (Note: The following photos are all courtesy of Colin Cross as I was clearly either on the race course or laughing too hard to take the actual picture myself)

Signage!

My savior fixing my back wheel

               Awesome group of friends and family made for a phenomenal support team!                              

My transition bags and helmet were in good hands!

Super happy and smiling Amy and Bill 

The Swim: 58:08

Amy (a former collegiate swim teammate) and myself.
This might not have been how the swim really went...
but the waters were really this crystal clear!

Since this is my strongest portion of the triathlon I always head straight for the front line.  I took the advice of my friend and headed under the finish line portion (where everyone has to funnel through) to get in the water right away after the last female pros started.  However, unlike some of the AGers I definitely didn't hop in the water 30 min before the start.  I stood on the beach and hopped in 10 min before the start and still paddled myself to the front of the swim start and found myself amongst a group of freezing triathletes who had been waiting still in the waters for 20 minutes.  I couldn't help but think to myself that even tropical waters get cold when you aren't moving!  The cannon didn't go off this year so the announcer just shouted over the mic for us to start the swim really loudly.  The first half was a blur of us just following the crowd.  It was the easiest swim course to follow because you just followed the group in front of you.  However at the turn around you took a left and went around a boat and then flipped back around a funky way.  Apparently... it's a good thing I had a set of feet in front of me to follow because this was not the intuition of the lead pro guy either.  Like any normal open water swimmer would think... this went against most normal way of turn buoys.  The swim on the way back was like leap frog.  Since I knew there was only one way back I just kept jumping from one group to another working my way up the swim packs.

The Bike: 5:59:35

The final stretch!

I had an awesome bike on the way out to Hawi (the turnaround).  I felt awesome.  But I was having issues with my speedfill.  The liquid (Gu Roctane) had heated up inside of it and I had no way of getting it out and because I had removed all other bottle carriers I had no way of getting any other liquids at the aid stations besides taking a bottle, chugging, and throwing it before the end of the station.
My stomach felt horribly crampy but I knew that I had to keep taking in liquids.  I unfortunately couldn't even think about eating my gu gels that were taped to my bike.  They just looked disgusting.  I'm sure that probably had something to do with my biking demise by mile 90-112.  I just had run out of some of that awesome energy that I had to start but I really didn't want to have any food and chugging powerbar perform at every aid station certainly wasn't help to settle it much.  I still was happy with my bike time although I know that I could have certainly gone faster.

The Run: 5:15:09

All smiles!

A lot of people ask me what happened on the run.  I tell them what didn't happen.  Simple training.  I looked at my training log before racing for the entire 4 months from late June - early October and realized hat I had only run a total of about 50 miles.  Yup, grand total.  I'm sure that there are some triathletes who do that in one week.  Am I going to make up some excuses?  Nope!  I had a whole lot of fun in those 4 months biking in Colorado, doing night rides, paddling on the ocean, and not doing long runs.  I definitely came out of Coeur d'Alene disappointed with my running and therefore didn't think twice about seeing what would happen if I didn't train at all with my running.  I knew that I could pull off a marathon in Kona by run/walking it and that's what I did.  My stomach really liked me walking through each aid station and afterwards for about a minute.  Conveniently this perfectly worked out to 7/3 (run 7 minutes, walk 3 min).  I'm not entirely disappointed in my  marathon.  Would I change it?  Certainly.. If I trained for it.  However, for not training I just wanted to get through it and come out injury free!

Reflections Back for Kona:
I did learn some valuable lessons at Kona that I would like to share so that hopefully you all will not make these mistakes.
-  I will never again use my Speedfill in a hot climate race.  Although it worked in Coeur d'Alene because the liquid was kept cool in a colder climate... one hot liquid was in there in Kona... getting 64 oz out was impossible and I certainly wasn't able to drink it.
-  I had one amazing looking tri kit on... however, I recommend washing them before first time use... the chafing. was. unbearable.
-  I am completely convinced that the sunscreen they used was oil-based... next time I am bringing my own Planet Sun for them to apply in T1 & T2.  I only burned where the volunteers re-applied their sunscreen.  And I burned... quite badly!

-  I still need to talk to Garmin about this- but I raced with the newest Garmin 910XT and I set it to triathlon mode.  However, since we started in the water (like a lot of triathlons), it lost satellite before the start while we were treading water.  The unfortunate part was that it didn't recover after it lost it's satellite and therefore when I hit the bike.. it was registering bike mode and somehow was still recording in yards/min for speed and still had the screen up for the swim.  The whole watch had glitched because it had not regained satellite during the swim and therefore in the first 5 miles of my bike I had to re-set the watch and go back to bike mode and forget about tri mode completely (and do the same for the run mode).  This could have been a one time glitch and I will continue to play but if not then I will not wear the watch in the water because it was a pain to play with it on the bike.
Total Time: 12:19:31

What's Next?
I can confidently say that I have raced one downwind paddleboard race since Kona and it was the first time that I came in both first and dfl.  I was the only girl on a stock (12' 6") prone paddleboard and at the same time I also was waiting for my roommate on her SUP (stand up paddleboard) so we both managed to be last.  I adamantly wanted to be last just because i have never been last in a race.  It was a 8.5 mile race that was supposed to be downwind and ended up being slightly upwind with no current and taking close to 3 hrs.  I absolutely LOVED it.

Which brings me to next year.  I am looking to do some fun small races between now and Hawaii 70.3 in June. I might hop over to the mainland and race another 70.3 in April.  Tentatively I'm looking at New Orleans 70.3.  I've gotten this urge lately to hop on my paddleboard with any free time that I have.  I'm toying with the idea of Molokai to Oahu (Kaiwi Channel) race on a stock paddleboard in July.
I'll keep everyone updated on the latest through the blog!