Patriot 1/2 ironman report

The official results are not in yet but overall I came in 7th overall female, and 1st in the womens 40-44 age group. I am not going to deny the fact that it was a tough day out there for me and I'm not going to deny the fact that many times going through my head I thought, " and I have to do this distance twice in 5 weeks, what the hell was I thinking?". Anyway, my report is this...

Yesterday was a very long day for me, as you guys know I have 4 kids 8 and under and yesterday was 3 of my kids last day of school, the other one had a doctors appointment in Arlington, Ma that i had to get him too by 9am ( of course she called and said that it needed to be delayed until 10:30am-I was so pissed, what the hell was I going to do with my 7 year old for 2 friggin hours in Arlington?) anyway, we found a park and had a little snack, etc.... Anyway, 6 1/2 hrs later we were home in Beverly and I had to get him to a Birthday party in Magnolia in 5 minutes. The other kids were home from school and thank goodness my babysitter was able to manage them until hubby got home to take one to flag football practice. By about 6pm I was so exhausted, I packed up all the kids to drive back to Magnolia to get Alex and then home to make dinner and get them to bed by 8p. I took a shower had the car packed for today and tried to go to bed by 9:30p.

Today, got up at 4am, got dressed, had coffee, got my fuel in the refrigerator and drove to East FReetown, MA.

Got to E. Freetown by 5:30, registered got settled and started my warmup. I was feeling pretty relaxed, not too nervous, it was already warm out so I knew it was going to be a tough day on the run, however I knew my fitness was good, I've done everything I needed to do so I wasn't lacking confidence I just wished that running was my strongest asses and not the other two.

The race started 15 minutes late, the sprint athletes went out first and I was in the second to last wave of the 1/2 ironman athletes so we really didn't get into the water until about 8am.

The SWim: last year the swim was grossly short, I came out of the water in 22 minutes for a supposedly 1.2 mile swim, well I should be in the friggin olympics if that was the case. This year the swim was grossly long, maybe by about .3-.4 miles, I came out in 33 minutes based on my watch so that is really slow for me especially in a wetsuit, I normally come out in about 30 minutes. The good thing was the longer the swim the better off I am with the other ladies and I was 3rd or 4th coming out of the water in my age group but the 4 of us ladies pretty much passed all of the ladies in the previous group which was very comforting to know. Plus many men too which is even better.

T1 fairly quick, wetsuit not really an issue.

The bike was not as flat as I remembered, there were some hills, not significant climbs like at Mooseman or LP but lots of rollers which make you work and switch up your gears. Last year I did this course in 2:52 and change today I did it in 2:47, a bit better, should of gone harder but it was really hot and windy and the car traffic was brutal. Many times we had to stop and ride around cars and a lot of times we had to really slow down to ride side by side with cars, this really sucked. I took in an extra 1200mg of sodium with my powerade endurance, peed 3 times and knew that I was adequately hydrated. I used Carbopro this time around instead of food and didn't feel any urge to eat anything and didn't feel any significant bonking issues. I had a good bike that only one woman passed me who eventually ended up in 2nd place overall but besides 1-2 women I played back and forth with and I eventually won no-one passed me on the bike. I loved riding by the men though, it was really encouraging to hear them say, " wow, great going", " good biking". I did see a lot of people flatting out there today, the roads were not in good condition, a lot of times that I normally would of been in aero I chose not too because of the condition of the roads. It was also very windy especially on the second go around on the bike, so being a bit more conservative was the way to go.

T2 my groin was really tight coming off the bike, similar to how I felt but not as bad as I did at the Florida 70.3 last year, I think it has something to do with being in Aero more than I normally am ( wont be a huge issue in Placid) but the groin worked itself out when I ran, so not bad.

The run- I tried to stay positive and my legs were turning over okay from the get go, however, it was really hot and mentally I needed to keep checking in with myself from the beginning. I stopped at every water stop to get my Heed and water but I was able to always run at the same pace in between stops. I knew I wanted to race to end but on reflection I could of gone on longer if I had too but my stupid mistake was to run with no socks today and I got a few blisters on my feet, not a ton but a few. With all the water and pee the sloshing in my feet caused a lot of friction. Anyway, the run ended up in the high 8's I'm assuming, I havent' gotten the final results, lets just hope LP feels a bit better.

I'm happy with my performance but I know that I really need to continue to work on my run off the bike to become the competitive triathlete that I know I can be. The mental game is coming around, the swim and bike are competitive but the run is just fair, I'm willing to put the work in so after LP and some rest it wlll be back to the drawing board.

Anyway, a bunch of my friends were out today doing there best, I want to give a shout out to my training partner Bob who is currently a bit injured but came out today to swim and do they bike, lets hope things get better before LP buddy, Michelle, Nancy, Courtney, Bob, Dustin and of course my awesome friend Shannon who was a bit skeptical about doing the run given that her hip has been causing her some issues on her longer runs, she just crushed the swim and her bike went great and it wasn't until mile 8 that her hip just said, " no way sister". She pulled out a 5:45 today with an injury and 6th in her age group out of more than 100 women, can you just imagine what she could do if she were healthy. She is so positive and so happy for everyone she is just a pure joy to have around. Love her.

Anyway, back to the drawing board and putting in another 2 weeks of some hard work before Ironman taper. Chat with you soon.