Amy Ferguson's IMChoo Race Report
Sorry this report is a little tardy but I have purposefully waited a week before writing this race report to try to emotionally remove myself from the race a little.
Let me just start by saying that this was by far the most enjoyable overall race experience I’ve had to date because of the fact that I raced with team mates and enormous support from family, friends and Coach R. Thank you all for blessing me with your friendship!
Okay here are the deets of my day:
Race morning started at 3:00 am. I had gone to bed at 10pm and was tired but could not fall asleep. I know I saw 12:15am and then woke up at 3:00. My alarm was set for 4:00. D’oh! I didn’t fret about it though. I knew I wasn’t going to be at risk of falling asleep during the race;-) Race morning nutrition for me consists of a small cup of coffee, (2) 350 calorie Ensure drinks and a banana. The banana I had was a little over ripe so I decided to skip it. I probably won’t skip it next time. Turns out that the binding affect is of importance to me.
I caught a ride to transition with my buddy and team mate Jim Hogan. Thank you Jim! So my family could sleep in a little. And sleep in they did. No one was awake when I left. No big deal people, just doing an Ironman here;-) My husband did wake up long enough to kiss me goodbye and tell me to go kick some ass. Transition went smooth, rechecked my planned route from the changing tent to make sure it hadn’t blocked off since the day before, placed fuel/water bottles on the bike, started my Garmin, checked tire pressure and even got a selfie with Mike Riley. After the EN team picture I hopped the bus with Jodi, Greg and Jim to the swim start. The busing system was fast and efficient. Got in line to make a deposit at the port a potties. Super smart Jodi let me use her head lamp because it was VERY dark in there. I will definitely bring one to future starts. The line for the swim start was loooong. Think new release day at the Apple Store long. I had decided to use my wetsuit because I am a slow swimmer and needed all the speed advantage that I could get. The only bummer about this is that the wet suit swimmers had to start last. We had to jump in feet first off the dock and I was nervous that my goggles would pop off. I held on to them but soon discovered some water had leaked into the left eye. I started to fret and was getting bumped and there were lots of elbows and bodies around me, further reaffirming my choice to don the wet suit. I surely would have felt my legs sinking if I hadn’t had it on. I quickly tried to close the sides of my “box” and focus on collecting my breathing. At the same time I was trying to decide what to do about the water in my goggle. I wear contacts so I was afraid it was going to be a problem for me. I am learning that a lot of times if you just wait before reacting, things work themselves out. And they did. That water found a spot to settle into and stayed away from my eye and my contact settled back into its correct spot on my eye. I chose to swim closer to the right of the course (closer to the kayaks and the island) hoping to stay in the stronger part of the current and away from the crowd that seemed to be along the yellow buoys. Not sure if it was the right thing to do but it gave me a lot of open water for a lot of the time. I think it was a little less distance too based upon some data provided by some other racers. The swim exit stairs were tricky. A lot like IMAZ. Advice to future racers is to find the biggest volunteer you can to lift you out. Total swim time 1:05 (30 minute PR).
I picked the biggest wet suit stripper I could find and in one swoop that baby was off! Saw my family on the ramp hootin’ and hollerin’. It was great. I was all business in T1. Toweled off the feet, put sox, helmet and sunglasses on and lubed up the Queen. I asked the awesome vollie to pack up my stuff and off I ran with my shoes in my hand. I had a long way to run to my bike and running without the shoes proved to be much faster. I saw my family. Stopped and kissed my boys and got to my bike, put my shoes on and started to run out when I noticed my Garmin was off. Uh-oh. Sabatoge? I know I had started it before the race. I didn’t panic, it has been acting up for over a year now. I calmly turned it back on and it fired up. Got to the very crowed bike mount line and a voice out of nowhere comes booming out, Darth Vader-like, “GET ON THE BIKE AMY” Oooo, it still makes me shudder. Coach Rich is watching everywhere kids. And I was hustling! I wish I could do a flying mount but if I were to try to throw my short little leg over my bike it would surely get caught all up in the water bottles and I’d be a hot mess. Oh well, anyway, off I went speeding away from that scary man with the deep military voice we call Coach Rich. Total T1 time 6:16.
I was pleased to discover that all the railroad crossings had been covered on the first leg of the bike. Good call WTC. Shortly down the road I was thrilled to see Jodi. I decided to settle in to a pace that would keep her in my sights for the rest of the admin leg since we are the exact same bikers. Well just about the time we finished the admin leg, I looked down at my Garmin and discovered that it was off again. No worries, I had my Bia watch on, I could track speed and time this way. Um, nope, the GPS attachment for the watch wasn’t on my body. I forgot to take it off my goggles and put it on my shorts in T1. Epic fail. Turns out, the GPS stick is still missing. It may have fallen on the ground in T1. So there I was, up the river without a paddle. What really worried me was the fact that my Garmin alarm goes off every 15 minutes to cue me to drink my fuel. I didn’t want to booger up my fuel. I tried to do the mental math to calc when I needed to drink based upon mileage but the bike course mileage isn’t marked that frequently so it was strictly going to be a ride by feel day. Thank goodness my “BFF Halo” buddy was around so that I could prevent myself from going out too hard or backing off too much by roughly gauging my speed by her. We were very careful not to stay too close. It was harder to stay a legal distance from the other bikers because the course was just that crowded the entire time. I found it an issue mostly on the climbs because on the descents I would pull away from most everyone I was around. As it turned out, the loss of data tracking wasn’t my biggest challenge of the bike. When I got onto Cove Rd. I committed the cardinal sin of trusting the fart. Yup. It happened. I pantsed a little pooh folks. After my initial disbelief, I assessed the situation and decided that it wasn’t an issue that had to be addressed immediately but that I would try to locate an open porta potty at an aid station because this would not be something that I would want to accompany me on the run. Well, wouldn’t you know that every stinkin’ aid station had lines for the potties. Ain’t nobody got time for that! So I kept on rollin’. I was able to assess that I was not in jeopardy of getting a rash and I did not stink so it had to be tiny enough to ignore until I got to Special Needs where I needed to stop anyway for more fuel. And yup, no potties at Special Needs. WTF?! Okay, keep rollin’! Got my fuel, Special Needs was a train wreck by the way. No organization. By this point I was still intending to stop but then on Cove Rd. I passed my husband’s ex-wife (yes she races too, ugh) and well, there was NO way this girl was stopping so I decided I would clean up in T2! I couldn’t believe how great I felt on the bike and my fueling seemed to be on target. I peed three times and had no real discomfort in my lower back like I often do. Total bike time: 6:49 for 116 miles. If I adjust for the additional miles, it works out to a PR of 16 minutes over IMAZ.
T2: 6:14 included kisses to the family and a trip to the potty for clean-up. Smooth and fast.
The run start was all up and it felt hard. I was completely blind with no watch and had to go by RPE. I didn’t get punched by Rich on the hill so I guess I wasn’t going too hard. I loved that the crowd was purposeful in calling out your name with encouraging words. I am not a fan of the Riverwalk. It seemed to me to be a false flat and I kept looking for it to turn and be able to get my heart rate down and my running legs under me. The first 4 miles were tough, then it got better and I was able to dial in what I thought was around an 11 minute mile. Then it rained and I prayed the sun wouldn’t come out after and turn it into a sauna. I ran the entire first loop, only walking the aid stations and stopping to pee right before the climb up Lindsey. Saw a rainbow and when I came up the Market Street bridge I was met by my two boys running down to greet me. They ran with me to the end of the bridge and told me I was at 2hrs 21 minutes. What?! I was thrilled but knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold that for the second loop. I had packed extra sox, tape and a head lamp in my run special needs bag. I struggled with whether to stop and get them because I didn’t want to stop but ultimately I decided to because I was afraid I’d get blisters with how wet my feet were. I taped my toes and put dry sox on, grabbed my light and started back out. It was shortly after that when disaster struck and the wheels came off. All my toes on my left foot started to turn numb and then by mile 15 stabbing pain started in under the ball of my foot. I immediately knew what it was. My Morton’s Neuroma came back. It showed up for the first time at IMAZ at mile 10 and I had no idea what it was. I hobbled through the remainder of that run and couldn’t feel my toes for a week afterward. This time I tried to run/walk but succumbed to a fast walk for the majority of the remaining 16 miles. I was and still am so disappointed. I was having the best race I’ve ever had. Today I am mad at myself for not making myself run/hobble like I did in Arizona. Maybe it’s because I met up with Joel and he was walking because of blisters and that made it okay for me too. I’m not sure, but I have to accept that, for whatever the reason, during the race I made the choice to stay comfortable and in my mind I lose some badassery points for that.
While in the pit of despair of the second loop I declared that this was my last Ironman. Too much time away from kids, too hard on the body, too expensive, yada yada yada. Then I entered the Finisher’s Chute, heard myself declared an Ironman by Mike Riley and was injected with the WTC crack that is Ironman. Thank you very much, can I have another?
Run time a pitiful 5:56. Total time 14:04. Overall PR of 9 minutes.
Comments
Sorry that fart backfired on you - you sure did live with that one for awhile!
I think the fact that you still PR'd with the foot problems shows that you're improving a lot.
Those final 16 miles probably cost you an hour or more overall.
Good job gutting it out!
Your execution was awesome given that you lost the data feedback from your garmin and GPS. That has increased my stress level immensely when it's happened to me.
Come on the fart and the ex-wife had me rolling .... You just can't make this shit up... Pun intended!
PR is a PR ... you earned it the hard way... Congrats...
Great job hanging in there on the run and grabbing a PR! Enjoyed meeting you at camp and on race weeknd.