Pink Bunny Turned Into Energizer Bunny: Or How Beth Found Her Inner Ninja at IMWI
Prologue
The oddest thing happened on the drive back from Wisconsin right after I signed up for Ironman Wisconsin in 2009. The decades long feminist debate that I had been having in my head just stopped. Dead done. I had just spend an inspiring weekend in the company of long course athletes and felt perfectly at home with them. Maybe it was something about realizing your tribe is a group of Ironmen is enough to erase any sort of chip on one's shoulder.
This dog-tired sherpa then checked in on the forums, to find the first kernel of the great Ironman training party that was to be this year. In response to Rich's infamous pink speedo bet, chicas laid down their credit cards and their social lives for the next year and signed up for the race. Soon, there were thirteen of us. Pink speedo was on.
And we were doing to do this race and do it together.
And we so we did.
Thirteen turned into twenty. Then came the excellent energy of the pink nail and visor-wearing IMWI doodes -- including the calendar's worth of Pink Speedos. And the most excellent sherpas.
As a result, by race day, my body and head were stuffed with absolutely every bit of race knowledge, fitness, and kharma I could possibly stuff in it. The best part I learned? No one does Ironman alone. So special shout out to Mancona, Robert, Annette, Bill, Jim and the Memorial Day camp crew. Riding the Horribly Hilly Hundred course for the second ride ever on the TT bike was definitely good for race kharma -- not only was it possible, it was fun. And to the Chicago crew for the open water swimming and biking. And flat tire-changing practice. Chica Camp? The rewards from that were more than enough fuel to get a girl through a race. Thank you my scone-eating, foodie, tough, encouraging, awesome friends. I couldn't have asked for better Ironman role models.
The night before the race, in what is becoming a ritual, I read the underlined parts of The Path of Least Resistance and Once a Runner, to make sure my head was on straight. I decided, for the first time doing in race, I was really, really going to do my best. I was going to take everything I've done, I've learned, and I thought I was and put it into Sunday's race. No holding back. No excuses. I was going to make an Ironman out of myself and I was going to do it with every bit of excellence I had.
And so I did.
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The Race
The Endurance Nation presence at Wisconsin was huge. It was great to walk to the race with Michelle and Max and Jo. And ENers were everywhere at race start. I actually didn't have time to get nervous.
The Swim
| TOTAL SWIM | 2.4 mi. (2:10:48) | 3:26/100m | 2542 | 138 |
Let's just call this the part where I learned the difference between excellence and perfectionism.
I thought I was having a great swim. I lined up between the buoys and the ski ramp, where it was not very crowded. I had company most of the time, but they were all nice, polite, and usually about five feet away. Totally missed the mosh pit. I magically learned to have good sighting skills. No kayakers ever had to steer me back on course. I had rhythm. Balance was good. I felt great and thought I was having the best swim of my life.
And then the kayak escort showed up.
And then there were more.
I swam this course in two hours a few weeks before, but there was a lot of veering and stopping. I'm not sure what happened. But I accomplished my goal of making swim cut-off and still getting to play this game. This was my excellent. It was far from perfection. Far. But I'll take it.
The good part? I was happy in the water. And there was no breaststroking. The bad part? I really didn't like being dead last back of the pack. The wetsuit strippers forgot they were supposed to be helpful. And I never want to be there again. So I may be the first ENer who is required to swim in the OS. And I want to and will. If it is a reasonable goal to get the work done in the pool to shave an hour off my swim time before 2012's Ironman, I'm certainly motivated!
T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE 7:06
Okay, now on to the fun part. I got out of the water, saw the clock, and realized it was now time to be spot on and not dally. Considering the wetsuit strippers forgot they were supposed to help and seemed to have never seen a DeSoto wetsuit ever, I'm calling this T1 rock star. My sister and excellent sherpa, who was volunteering in the women's changing tent helped me on my way. I was all business, so she knew I was okay. Thankfully, she didn't tell me my feet and hands were blue until after the race.
Out the door, grabbed my bike and found Bill and Noodle in pink speedos who ran along side me to bike mount. Highlight of the day, boys. Highlight of the day. And it make me laugh and have fun, which I carried through the day.
| BIKE SPLIT 1 | 40 mi. (2:33:00) | 15.69 mph | ||
| BIKE SPLIT 2 | 43 mi. (2:48:33) | 15.31 mph | ||
| BIKE SPLIT 3 | 29 mi. (1:50:24) | 15.76 mph | ||
| TOTAL BIKE | 112 mi. (7:11:57) | 15.56 mph | 2297 | 109 |
When you are at the back of the pack, can only go up in rank, or quit, crying like a baby on the side of the road. I just passed lots of people. I gave myself twenty minutes to get all the angries and stupids from the swim out. Then, I had one of the best bike rides of my life.
I didn't know what being in the water that long would do to my body, so I made a decision to take out an insurance policy and undercook the bike. But I stil wanted to make up ground, so all the course familiarity, descending skills, practice being locked in aero and cornering skills suddenly became very important. I was going to take absolutely every gift the course would give me. I had two amazing ones: The course was clear, so I didn't have to deal with much traffic on the first loop. And the very spread out field of pro men were starting their second loop just as I began my first, so I had excellent riders to follow around nearly every corner and descent, which made it easier to take risks and go faster there.
I was never more motivated in my life to stay locked in aero, and I kept gaining on the field and passing people. BOP is lonely! I really didn't want to be there and was so much happier when I caught up to packs of riders. Powermeter managed legs. The clock on the Garmin managed nutrition. Other than that, I did my best to deal with a little stomach upset that happens when I'm in aero for super-long stretches, and getting Lake Monona out of my nose.
The head game was pretty awesome. I was making up chants, like "Who wants to be an ironman? Beth wants to be an Ironman!," smiled, laughed, bopped my head in time with good course music, and had a pretty fun bike ride. Something clicked on the second loop, and I started to feel better than the first one. I liked playing this game. Alot. I even loved it when the wind picked up and I was so happy I had my TT bike and aero helmet as I joyfully passed lots of demoralized riders. I kept thinking of a quote from one of my favorite authors -- "Spirit will get you through times without ritual, but ritual won't get you through times without spirit." That was me. I wasn't going to win this day on time. But I could win on execution and spirit. And I wanted it. More than anything.
When I picked up nutrition at bike special needs, my sister had left a note telling me if I could make it through ten years of piano lessons with the dumb biddy of a piano teacher we had (she made us play lots of Beethoven and Floyd Cramer), I could make it through anything. Hell yeah! With this and the lovely Michele Moreno, who had this knack for being everywhere on the course -- especially at time when I seeing a friendly face was particularly helpful, and the EN crowd on the Midtown climb, spirit was brimming. A pink bunny sticker on my helmet and on the aero bar, along with the WTGU written on my right thigh, kept the mind from wandering. I just continued my 14:15 hour game of paying attention and rode.
Oh, yeah. I was also so excited to see Marianne, I almost got a drafting violation. So happy to see chicas on the course!
At the six-hour mark, I looked the the mileage, I was exactly at the same mileage I was for my race rehearsal. Even though I was riding seriously lower wattage, bike handling made up for it. Victory dance!
Soon, there was a fun ride with a healthy tailwind back into Madison, a war whoop of victory when I realized I had a perfectly executed nutrition plan, which compensated for the unpredicted rise in temperature on the bike course. I was excited to see if I had set up my run.
T2
| T2: BIKE-TO-RUN | 5:50 | |||
got off my bike not hating it, thinking with a little more chamois cream, I was quite ready to ride another fifty. Dash was good to me and I was singing Todd Kenyon's praises in my head. The girl who just rode her first century ride thought she was taking her sweet time in preparing to run her first marathon. Apparently, race business suit was on. I thought I dawdled. The is not a dawdling time. More victory.
Run
| RUN SPLIT 1 | 6.35 mi. (1:02:18) | 9:48/mile | ||
| RUN SPLIT 2 | 6.65 mi. (1:11:31) | 10:45/mile | ||
| RUN SPLIT 3 | 6.23 mi. (1:08:16) | 10:57/mile | ||
| RUN SPLIT 4 | 6.97 mi. (1:18:07) | 11:12/mile | ||
| TOTAL RUN | 26.2 mi. (4:40:12) | 10:41/mile | 1672 | 74 |
I ran the 35th fastest run split in my age group. I read that this morning and it almost made me cry. I did something FOP in triathlon and it was a big deal something big! The first ENer I saw, was Jeff Linkus, volunteering at run special needs and cheering a girl off in style!
I had never run more than sixteen miles. I had no idea what a marathon felt like. But I did know what four six-mile easy pace runs felt like. So I did that. I spent the first six miles trying to slow down. At the six-mile Garmin buzzer, I would decide what to do for the next set. 10:30s were feeling okay, so I settled in somewhere between 10:00 and 10:30s. After the turnaround, I felt that pleasant haze of run autopilot, where the legs just take over and do their thing. I let it happen. Legs ran. Head kept track of nutrition.
I couldn't see the Garmin time once it got dark, so I kept playing the amazing entertaining game of running between aid stations. It worked the entire time. I only walked aid stations -- although the walking got a bit longer at the end and I had to get a little more creative in what I told my legs I had just been doing recently that make them feel not so great. (Oh, Beth! Your legs must hurt from all those hard bike intervals. You really must have crushed it! No worries. Legs will warm up in a mile and feel great!). There was more chanting. (How do you feel? Mediocre. How do you want to feel awesome! Repeat until first response turns into awesome). I loved State Street and the crazy cool energy of Mile 18. I imagined all the people following along online in Camp Randall, sitting in the bleachers and bopping race demons on the head, in tune to the "Green Acres" theme song. I liked the quiet parts, where I loaded Peter Gabriel's "Mercy Street" and the delightfully nonsensical Andrew Bird song, "Fake Palindromes," and was just rhythm.
I'm sure I dumped Peform. in my hair. I mixed it with chicken broth and water. I did my best to stay hydrated and hold pace. It was a great boost to see the EN crew on the run course -- the amazingly happy Eric, Hasan, Dave, David and the chicas. There were lots of people walking and chatting. Every last Endurance Nation person had on their race execution business suit, no matter what their state. You were inspiring.
I'm proud of this run. If you factor in stops to fix my hair so I looked good for my picture, etc. it was a pretty darned even split. There were no terribly dark spots. I never saw the line. Something Rich said make sense -- you want to keep the ability to make choices as long as possible. I kept being able to make choices about what game I wanted to play. Did I want to run or walk? It was a choice.
Almost everyone around me was walking. I just ran. Thank you, thank you, thank you to every last person, who knew me or not, who cheered. It is amazing what hearing the sound of your name does at mile twenty. And twent-four, somebody cheered "now that's an Irongirl! show them how it is done!" I got out as many "love you, spectators!" as possible, but at some point, words got hard. But I was listening.
Near the finish, my sister yelled out, "sprint it in for Addie June!" -- my niece. She's nine. I paced her first one-mile race last spring. I taught her to evenly pace until the end and then sprint in. She listened. I had to seriously take off to follow her to the finish. Her advice to me for Ironman was the sprint it in to the finish. There was that climb up to the capital (how did they make that hill bigger?), but I turned into the crowd and kicked out a serious sprint to lights, crowds Mike Reilly christening me an Ironman.
I screamed with joy.
So this was me. It is an odd story in numbers, but a good one.
Its the one where I turned from the girl who does triathlons into a racer.
| BIB | AGE | STATE/COUNTRY | PROFESSION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2449 | 32 | CHICAGO IL USA |
| SWIM | BIKE | RUN | OVERALL | RANK | DIV.POS. |
| 2:10:48 | 7:11:57 | 4:40:12 | 14:15:53 | 1672 | 74 |
And like any thing worth doing, the plan of what to do next became very clear. I had fun doing this. Wicked fun. And I want to get good at it. First thing in order. Swim. Second thing. I want to practice racing. How close can I belly up to that line before crossing it? I want to find out.
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Comments
You are an IRONMAN, chica!
Well done.
Very well done!
Beth,
You really nailed it. Proof that EN execution works. Not to mention that you really worked your butt off this year. You had 245 road kill on the bike and 625 road kill on the run! That's a lot of road kill. Can't wait to see what you do next time.
Congratulations!
Matt
Out-freakin'-standing!!!! So happy for you, GF!!! That is one rockin' race. All you did was build, build, build, and that energy feeds on itself to total success. Congratulations! I hope we get to share this experience again some day.
Beth, no joke, I am crying right now after reading your report. I am so proud of you and hope that my first in FL is half as well executed as yours. I'm so glad I could be there and cheer for you and the other EN members (and all the racers).
I have a lot of work to do before FL and even more to learn... particularly before I try my hand at WI next year... I'm so glad I have such wonderful friends and teammates to help me on my way!
Congrats, you are amazing!
Your great race report – had two themes that really stood out to me. First your veteran use of mental skills - Ninja Black Belt level in my book! Second was you enjoyed the day. You worked the energy flow with the spectators. Yes you give energy to them, as you did and it comes back to you amplified. What smart racing!!!!!
Matt
Jeff - That's hilarious. I don't think I was prepared for seeing the throngs of people who looked completely demoralized. Didn't they remember they were doing an Ironman?
Becky -- You will have so much fun on the course! Looking forward to returning to IMWI cheerer/sherpa favor!
Pam - Very inspiring! And let's do play!
P - Does this mean I have official permission to swim in the OS?
Matt Sullivan - I hadn't done the math. That's a lot of road kill! I will admit it was a little bit of extra fun being dead last swim girl, in the pink visor, passing lots and lots of tough-looking doodes.
Everyone - Thank you. I can' say it enough. It is an honor to race with you and be on this team with you.
And when is it time to race again? I think I caught myself some sort of bug.
You may have had a slow swim, but I tell ya, you passed me on the run and never looked back!! i was walking and you were running! I thought... go beth go....u looked so strong and by your times.....U ROCKED THAT RUN!!! A ginormous hug to you because in my estimation the run is the hardest part!! So proud of you and so fun to know you! EN Chica tour in 2012....u bet!!!
Wow. speechless. I saw you on the run, and you were looking great. honestly, I thought you were a lap ahead of me!!!!
Sounds like a great race, and an almost better race report. make me want to wish the like of me and rich also stopped to adjust our hair for the pic
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
@Kathy -- Yes to Chica Tour 2012! I'm spoiled now, and don't want to race alone!
@Hasan -- Maybe the Mile 18 bikini part can help make sure everyone is pretty for their pictures at IMWI next year! So worth that extra minute.