IMLOU - my first Ironman
I wrote this up for several different audiences, so please forgive the unnecessary detail.
Swim 1:20:04 T1 10:30 Bike 7:56:55 T2 15:29 Run 6:20:15 Total 16:04:13
Overall 2036/2556 start Gender 477 AG 40-44 83/105 finishers
Pre-race
I trained with Endurance Nation to complete my first Ironman, I have been preparing for this race since March, and preparing to prepare for this race for at least a year. I (mostly) followed the beginner plan and studied all of the advice that so many experienced Ironmen on my team have provided. I was still really scared. Best case scenario I could finish it 15 hours, if it was really hot, or something when wrong it would take longer. I wanted my whole family to come and see me, but only my parents, husband and daughter could make it to the race. My parents did not want to spectate since it would be a lot of people and a lot of trouble. I insisted over and over that I needed them to be at the race, not just in Kentucky. I wore them down and they decided to stay in LaGrange and watch the bike part of the race. Then I wore them down again and they promised to come to the finish line, even though it was going to be late and crowded.
We flew to Louisville, KY the Friday before the race. You have to check in to the race site by 5PM on Friday and I was worried sick that something would delay the plane, but we were on the earliest flight possible. We made it with hours to spare and spent the day shopping at the expo and walking around near transition. We ate a fabulous meal at Joe's Crab shack for lunch and then rested until dinner. We had dinner with team EN. It was really nice to meet everyone and very reassuring to talk to Joe about his experience last year.
On Saturday I went to the 4 keys talk, and dropped off my bike, run bag and bike bags. we ate at Joe's Crab shack (again) but this time with my parents and then drove the bike course. It looked totally reasonable. The plan was to be in bed by eight. At about 9PM I read 49 different good-luck messages on Facebook from women in the Mullica Hill Tri Club. I was in tears, most of these people I have met only in passing, or not at all, and yet here they were supporting me at my race. If I could, I would have printed them out to take with me in my special needs bag, but there was no printer so I took them with me in spirit. I tossed and turned until about 11 and then faded into sleep.
Race Morning
The alarm went off at 3:30. I drank a bottle of Ensure and ate a stinger waffle. We packed up the bottles and were out the door by 4am. I was nervous, but not terrified. I had expected to be terrified. We walked down to transition and I dropped off my special needs bags. These are bags that you get halfway through the bike and run. I filled mine with sunscreen, extra snacks and tissues. We would never get these bags back, so I did not want to put anything valuable inside of them. We walked to the swim start. The swim start at Louisville is not a mass start, instead everyone jumps in one at a time after crossing a timing mat. This means that the earlier you arrive and lineup, the earlier you start the race. More the 2500 athletes and their families were waiting in a big line, athletes on one side, and families on the other. The line must have been more than a mile long.
Waiting for the start John snapped this fabulous photo of the guy next to me.
The swim cut-off is 2 hours and 20 minutes after the last swimmer starts, but the race still ends at midnight. The later you start the swim the less time you have. People had apparently started lining up at 3 am. We sat in line for over an hour and then the cannon went off, one by one we started jumping in the water like lemmings.
Once the cannon went off the line moved quickly
Swim
I started at about 7:15am. The swim was great, very little contact. Only one guy who kept hitting me with his arm and scratching me, I could not get away from him. Every time he clocked me in the head his watch went "beep, beep" I hope I reset it with my noggin. I finally fell back and got behind him and then I tickled his feet for a minute or so. I am not proud of that, but man he was being too aggressive. My time was a bit slower than I had hoped, I was shooting for 1:15 or less. This is the only part of the race that I am sure I am comfortable with, and I wanted to do well. I had heard rumors of a current that would be with us for most of the course, but I did not feel a current. If anything, I swam into a current as we passed the tip of the island and out into the river. Otherwise, I felt great, breathing every three strokes and sighting only occasionally. I was out of the water quickly. I looked for John and Niobe at the swim exit, but I could not see them, so I walked up the ramp. I fell pretty spectacularly last year at the Escape from Fort Delaware running out of the water, so now I am extra careful on the wet ramp at the swim exit. John was standing on the deck of the Crab shack taking pictures and he got several good ones of me leaving the water so even though I could not see him, he could see me. 
I walked into T1 and got my bag, changed into my bike shorts and out the other side of the changing tent. There are volunteers that rub sunscreen all over you at the exit of the tent, that was pretty weird, but important. One of my top goals was not to get burned this year at all, so I had them put sunscreen anywhere that might be exposed. I was shooting for a 10 minute T1 and I was right on target.
Bike
The first 10 miles or so of the bike is totally flat, I got settled in and tried to stay calm. I knew that the hills were coming and if I went nuts now I would be in real trouble in a few hours. For me, the bike is the hardest part. I am soooooo slow. Everyone was passing me. I guy passed me a said "Smart way to ride." Lots of people were cheering for team EN. I was a bike ninja. On the out and back at Route 1694 the real hills started. I slowly went up, my target power was 102 with up to 112 on hills (I am a little peep) and I tried to keep as close to that as possible. It was really tricky on the big hills, but not impossible. I got up to 40mph on the downhill on the way back, what a hill! On the climb, there were several guys in costume. There was a devil and Superman and Death. Death ran alongside me gesturing and hollering "come to me Christy." Gulp! I said "NONONONO!" and I rode away from him.
I hope he was a guy in a costume.
The rest of the course is two loops of about 30 miles through LaGrange and then back to Louisville. My parents were in town and I saw them for about 3 seconds each time I went through. Each time my Dad yelled "There she is!" and my Mom yelled "Where!" and then I was gone. The announcer yelled your name and hometown each time you passed through and the music was a big pick me up. The temperature was really climbing by noon, heat was beaming down on me from the sun and reflecting up on me from the road. I was averaging about 2 bottles of Perform or water an hour but I still had not needed to pee, that is not good. My nutrition was right on target, I ate a Gu cube every 20 minutes and a stinger waffle at 3 hours (freeing me from the Gu cube taste for a little bit,) this was about 200 cal per hour with the Perform. It was actually impossible to stay in my power zones on the back part of the loop and not fall over. I did my best, but I know I burned up a few matches on Old Sligo Road, my power went up really high at one point where the road got steep and a bunch of people just stopped dead and jumped off their bikes with no warning, it was all I could do not to crash straight into them. This actually happened several times on the course, I don't know what people were thinking, I saw one guy stop in the middle of the road while he was passing me and almost take out the girl behind him. She was (understandably) flipping out as she passed him.
I stopped at the 50 mile stop and drank, ate, tried to pee and stretched. My shoulders were really starting to ache and it was crazy hot. There were a lot of flat tires and people lying down in the shade. I heard later that someone had put tacks on the road. I was very lucky not to get a flat tire. I knew that the bike would be mentally and physically tough at about mile 80, but it was starting to get really hard early. This is when I started thinking about all of the good luck wishes from the tri club at home. I did not know at the time how many people were watching me, but the thoughts of all of those ladies were a big reason to keep my legs moving. The course was hillier that I expected, but doable. I ended up going a little slower that I had hoped. I stopped several times at the aid stations and that added a lot of time. The last 10 miles should have been flat, at least it had been on the way out. Someone had come while I was out riding and made it uphill all the way back to Louisville and added a headwind, probably because I escaped Death on Route 1694. It felt like there was a knife in my back and something was terribly wrong with the nail on my big toe. My legs felt fine though! I think I rode the actual course in about 7:45 which means approximately 16 minutes in rest stops. I lost a lot of power in that last hour, my toe would not let me push on the pedal with any force. I tried to stay in aero and just go with the flow. Overall power for the day 96 (a little low) but my ride was much more steady than any other race that I have done. I could have pushed a little more at the end if I was not in so much toe pain.
Run
I sat in transition and cooled off in front of the huge fans for a bit, I did not really want to look at my toe, so I changed socks and shorts and walked out. There was a line to get sunscreen, so I went to the potties and then back to get sunscreen. It seemed short, but I guess I cooled off for a long time since T2 took me 15 minutes. At the start of the run it was at least 92 degrees. The sun was shining and there was no wind or cloud cover. I wanted to run the bridge and then reassess. I ran most of the bridge but my stomach was rebelling against the heat. I knew going into this that if the temps were in the 90's my heat adjusted pace was somewhere around 14:30/mile. I can speed walk 15 minute miles so I started walking. I just kept repeating in my head "don't slow down." At mile 6 I saw Coach P and I was so happy to report that I was right on schedule, staying in my box and not letting my ego take over. I thought that John and Niobe would see me at the start of the second loop, but they were not there. I guess that the tracker was not updating properly and they kept missing me. I almost cried when I had to turn away from the finish line and head back out for another 12.5 miles, what a heart-breaking thing to be so close to all of the cheering and yet so incredibly far.
Once it started to get dark, the temps dropped into a range where I could run. I ran and walked starting at mile 15. At mile 16 I made a friend. I ran past a guy and he shouted "I want to run too, I run with you" and he did. Omar had traveled from Puerto Rico with 40 people to race his first Ironman. He was mad at himself for walking. We ran down every little hill, between every set of traffic lights and every time we started to walk too slowly. Otherwise we speed walked. At this point I was starting to see a lot of people in real pain. There were many folks lying on the side of the road, some were getting IV's from the medical people. Most of the other racers had made friends by mile 20 and almost everyone was walking in pairs or groups of three. My feet were screaming. I knew that I had blisters and I was pretty sure that my big toenail had come off somewhere along the way. I kept thinking "don't slow down." I started to run a little faster, and it felt OK. Omar sang at the top of his lungs in Spanish and I ran to the beat of his song. I high-fived a dachshund that was not amused. Most of the spectators on the course by 11 pm were pretty drunk and cheering like crazy, several of them were running alongside other runners and encouraging them to go on. We sped up a little each mile as we go closer to the finish line, as it cooled off I felt better and better and could really start to run. We went from 15 min/miles to 12:30 by the last 2 miles and according to my Garmin, speed up pretty consistently for the last 8 miles. If only the race was longer we would have been all out flying (I'm kidding.)
Finish
Omar and I could see the turn to the finish line and hear the roar of the crowd about 1/2 mile out. People on the side of the street stated yelling congratulations instead of encouragement. We started running like crazy people. Then we realized that we were 1/2 mile away and we slowed down. Our plan was to walk fast to the turn, and then run to the finish line. My time, my goals, my feet, everything had ceased to matter when I knew that I was going to finish. The turn was dark and quiet, so we stopped and fixed up our hair and clothes. I know it's incredibly stupid, after 16 hours what could I possibly do in a dark alley to look good in a picture? It's even funnier that I cared. Omar turned to me and said, "They told me I was going to cry, are you going to cry Baby?" He stopped and waited and I ran ahead first, this way we could both get good pictures at the finish line. I started to cry and I ran like a crazy person.
The finish line is amazing, all the happy people cheering. I felt like a rock star. I high-fived screaming spectators, and finally saw my husband and daughter. The announcer called my name. I am an Ironman! A volunteer came to help me, but I waited for Omar to finish. I hugged my family over the fence. I hugged some other people that I didn't know. I hugged Omar. Then the volunteer took me away for a medal, t-shirt, pictures, and small chocolate milk. It was the best chocolate milk in the whole world. 
So after all of the prettying up, this is the finishline picture. I look like I just stepped on a dead animal. Sigh...
My Dad sat in the hotel room with us that night as we rested and he said that he could not believe that we only paid $650 for the race. With all the support, logistics and celebration he had figured that Ironman could hardly make any money. I think he must have thought that all of the volunteers were paid staff. He had a great time and had even showed up early to watch the finish. My husband told me they were all completely sucked up into the spirit of the day.
Unfortunately, I think I will lose 3 toenails, including the big one on my left foot, my feet are seriously disgusting. I am considering throwing away the bike shoes. They have never bothered me before, but I have had them for about five years or maybe flying two days before the race changed my feet. Otherwise I feel remarkably good. I felt worse in the days after my first half (except for my toes.)
My Mom called me two days after the race and wanted to know which one WE are doing next.
I'm thinking Texas or Coeur d'Alene.
Comments
You are an Ironman!
Glad to see you want more
CHRISTY CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! great RR, great effort, great work!...it was a pleasure to meet you and your family....and seeing you out on the run course too!...you looked in control.
A pleasure to meet you and John at the team dinner. John obviously has a career as a photographer ;-) Love the one of you and your new friend in the swim line ! Great effort across all 3 disciplines. That bike was very hot and it certainly did get windy in the last 30 miles or so. Sounds like you really toughed it out on the run. Great job! Good luck in your next IM.
Ian
Congrats! Your RR made me laugh out loud, especially your comment abut your finisher's photo! Great job staying in the box and getting it done!
Sara
Great work! And who needs toenails!
I'm glad your folks are now in for next year too!
---Ann.
I was glad to read about your parents. My mom is coming to IMAZ. It is the first time she will spectate a triathlon. I am worried about how she will fare, bu I think that she, like your mom, will be very excited.
No worries about the toes.
At Vineman last month, my husband was commenting that he could tell who was racing because they had ugly black toes. We laughed because that has never happened to me.
After Vineman I had 2 purple nails. Last night, 4.5 weeks post race, one of them pulled up but is still attached at the cuticle. Since I have to look professional at work and wear a lot of open toe shoes, I pushed it back down. You can hardly tell (HAHAHA). By IMAZ in November, they had better be behaved.
Congratulations and great job! Well executed and wonderful race report!
LOVE the emotion at the end! And if it's any consolation, all of my finisher photos look like that, too! I'm gonna keep going back till I get a good one!
Congrats, Ironman!