Concerning Hard Things (Boise 70.3 Half Ironman)

Apparently doing hard things is now my hobby. Friends keep asking me to do things with them and I keep saying yes, and I sense that the trend will continue. Fact is, I love the social aspect of it, but I also love having a goal to work towards and the incredible sense of accomplishment and victory when I cross, sometimes literally, the finish line. 

Here's where I start talking about race day, and it's going to get long. Basically, you're gonna get a play by play. Do enjoy.

The day of the race I was nervous/excited enough to not have much of an appetite, but by the time I got into the water I was completely ready to just face my fears and go for it, because turning back just wasn’t an option. So after watching the pros blast across the start line, I got in the pack with my heat and ran right into that cold water. Eyes wide open, I put my face under the water. Green and beautiful, and no sign of anything else in the water besides legs.

This is what it looked like:

….except everyone was covered in neoprene and latex swim caps, and they didn't look nearly as peaceful. (By the way, this imagine used to be amazing and frightening to me all at the same time, but experiencing several lake swims and then experiencing  a similar image on race day was actually very cool!)

I knew I’d be a slow swimmer, so I stuck to the back of the group where I didn’t feel like I’d be trampled, and where there would be at least a few minutes before the next heat behind me caught up (they did catch up, and the rest of the heats behind them did, too). I found out immediately that breathing was hard, and had to just calm myself while I swam with my head out of the water very slowly. I was too excited. The water was cold enough that my hands were slightly numb at first, too,  but after a few hundred meters I was okay.  I never felt like I could control my breathing well, but I got in a bit of a groove and was okay. I took several breaks to try to steer myself in the right direction, and once to hold onto a life gaurd’s floaty thingy (the name escapes my brain) because I was dizzy, but I willed myself to finish. I think I did more like 1.5 miles because of how off course I got several times, but I made it to shore after an hour in the water, which was about 15 minutes longer than I expected (my other lake swims were a little less chaotic). I had no perception of speed or time out there because so many people were swimming at totally different speeds. 

Coming out of the water, most people were on their bikes already, but our amazing support team was still there taking photos and cheering.  THANK GOODNESS for them and for the nice guy who gave me a high five when I stumbled back onto land.  I swear I would not have been able to complete the darn race without nice people telling me I was doing a good job even though I probably looked like I was about to fall over dead the entire time.

        ^^ Trying to make up for lost time. Bike position has since been fixed, don't worry.

There is not much to say about the ride, other than it was the hardest ride of my life. It felt like 50 of the 56 miles had a good headwind/sidewind, and I had no concept of time, speed, or mileage because I didn’t have a cool watch (I usually just used my phone on rides). I stopped at mile 30 to fuel up because: WALL HIT/BONKED/DIED. When I got there I had to ask what mile it was, because I somehow didn’t see the 15 mile marker an hour before. I heard one of the volunteers ask if I was the last biker, because she wanted to go home. Talk about depressing. And had there been people at the 45 mile tent, I would have quit. However, being at the back of the pack like I was, most people were gone and I was left with a few stragglers in the middle of the Boise Desert of Death with no way back other than riding or asking a police guy on a motorcycle for a lift. So I rode on, sobbing on occasion, and muttering expletives whenever there was a hill. Thank goodness there was nobody around for so many reasons.

All the Gu and water and Gatorade I downed must have hit somewhere around the time that I hit the run transition. Katie was there taking photos as I biked in, and my immediate thought was that she must have been waiting a LONG time because I was so slow, but it was nice all the same. In the transition area I saw my teammate Chris, who had admittedly had a tough weekend dealing with food poisoning, and I later learned he had been at an aid tent for 20 minutes because he was so sick, but seeing him made me instahappy.  Talk about renewed energy.

^^ halfway point victory dance for my many admirers 

In the end, my time was just under 8 hours, which was longer than I *hoped*, but it was my first triathlon of any kind and I didn't actually fall over dead, so there’s that. The hardest aspect of the race was just the fact that I was alone for most of it. I wasn't with all my friends I trained with, I was behind most of them for most of the day because my swim heat was after theirs. It was just me, trying to figure out how to do this hard thing alone. And that SUCKED. I suppose, though, that life is like that sometimes. We don't always have a huge support group cheering us on (at least where we can see them), we don't always have our friends racing to the same goals, and sometimes we don't know if we'll make it, but we end up finding what we're made of. The race was probably harder for me than it was for most of the team, for various reasons, but I think I'm a stronger person physically and mentally because of it.

Time to find our next race!

^^ This team = the best 

*Photos I stole without permission from most of the people in the photo above. Thanks, guys. ;)