Ironman 70.3 Kansas

I was really nervous going into this race for some reason. I don't usually get too nervous but this was different some how.

Kevin and I left early Friday morning to start the 9 hour trek to east Kansas. The drive went surprisingly fast. With a few stops and a couple rounds of "I packed my trunk" we arrived about 3pm on Friday. We quickly dropped some stuff off at the hotel and headed down to the expo to pick up our packets for the race on Sunday. We stopped at a local sandwich shop to grab some dinner and then laid around for the rest of the evening before heading to bed at a reasonable hour.

I woke up Saturday thinking we had the whole day ahead of us with not much to do but lay around and eat but the day quickly filled up. After getting up we jumped in the car and drove out to the lake, which was about 35-40 minutes from the hotel and I was thinking "wow, we sure didn't pick a close hotel", but EVERYTHING was far from the lake, it is Kansas afterall, but it didn't help that we also took the longer route, thanks to my exceptional navigation skills..ooops! We got to the lake and pulled out the wet suits-ahhhh the wonderful smell of wet suit! Weird I know!! Allot of people think they stink but something about that smell makes me want to race. We went for a quick swim which wasn't feeling so great to me. I have never been a big drafter when I swim, to me it's harder, I feel like I'm working harder to stay on someones feet than I do when I just put my head down and go. We practiced it a bit and I just got frustrated so I decided I would stick to my usual strategy and just swim on my own. I've always been a strong swimmer so there usually isn't anyone I can draft on, the people I catch are to slow to stay on and the people my pace in other age groups I can't catch because they're already gone. After our little swim we grabbed some breakfast, stopped at the bike shop, and headed back to the hotel to lounge around a bit more. The day before a race is hard for me mentally because I don't exercise much and I eat allot so I just feel lazy and fat. When your used to doing 5+ hour training days on the weekends, it's tough when you don't do anything and just eat. I just have to remind myself that I'll be begging to sit down and eat while I'm pounding the pavement on Sunday. At 1 we went to the pre-race meeting and didn't get any good information really, as usual but you always feel you need to go...just in case. We packed up the car and headed out to the site to drop off our bikes in transition. Before the drop we took a quick spin on a few of the rolling hills we'd be struggling up tomorrow, threw on the runners and did a quick jog and called it quits until tomorrow.

With an early dinner in our belly, we found some dumb movie on the no good hotel cable and called it a night. I think we were asleep by 9pm, while the sun was still shining brightly through the window. Kevin has always been able to go to bed while the sun was still up, sometimes at 7:30 (no I'm not kidding) but something doesn't seem right about going to bed before sundown to me. Oh well, I forced myself to shut up and lay there.

Sunday morning came too quick. We rolled out of bed about 4:15, ate some oatmeal through a straw (why didn't we pick up spoons at the store?), and hit the road about 5am. I am such a caffeine junky and had deprived myself all week so I could have the boost on race day. Here's something you'll never believe...only 1 Starbucks in the entire town. I thought they were on every corner? It's a college town and a pretty big place but they only had 1 and they didn't open until 6am. What a tragedy! I had to suck it up and get the crappy gas station coffee which was crap, not to my surprise, and didn't do the trick I hoped it would. Oh well. Off to the race.

Got on site, did the usual: set up transition, pumped the tires, stood in line at the port-o-potty (which is always fun, because athletes have some of the healthiest colons around and if you've ever been in one of those nasty things you know exactly what I'm talking about), ate some more food, and waited.

I was heading back over to my bike before the race started to get my pump for Kevin. I heard "Sharon!" from behind me and turned around to see one of my very good friends, Ashley, from college that I hadn't seen since we graduated 5 years ago. I was so excited. It was so ironic because I was just wondering that week what she was up to and if she was doing Ironman yet. We were the crazy ones in college, skipping class to train together. We didn't have classes on Friday's our senior year so we would get up early and do little mini training triathlons. The only 2 girls on the Baylor Cycling Team for a while as well. It was a great surprise! Oh, and she won the age group in 5 hours flat...guess she has been training! I have to admit I was a little bit jealous of how fast she could run- 1:34!

I headed to the beach and positioned myself at the front left of the pack. They wouldn't let us touch the water so it was a running start and I wanted to be the first out there to avoid a black eye or a bruised rib. The horn blew and I was off. I took off and felt strong. I didn't see many other "silver caps" around and before long was passing yellow caps, pink caps, and many other age groupers ahead of me. When I turned around the final buoy and headed for shore I was thinking "wow this swim feels long" the last length to shore went quickly and before I knew it I was running up shore trying to get my wet suit off my arms. I looked at my watch when I stood up and it said 33 minutes. I was pissed. I knew I could swim that under 30 minutes and I knew I was much stronger in the water this year than any year past. I sucked it up and ran the rest of the way into transition, which was also long because the shore flooded and they had to re-route us. Turns out the course was long, everyone's time was slow. That made me feel a little better, but looking back think I could have swam harder than I did. I was second out of the water, currently 2nd place.


I had a fast T1 time of 1:05 and was off on my bike. I felt good and was ready to ride a 2:30-2:35 split. If anyone tells you Kansas is flat, don't believe them because we had some really good climbs and some really good wind to go up against on Sunday. I had a good ride, I felt strong and kept the pace steady. I won't lie, when Ashley passed me after the first out and back I was a little grumpy and wondering why my legs wouldn't go any faster. With 6 miles to go I hear Kevin coming up behind me singing-I laughed out loud and it put a smile on my face but I'll admit I was also a bit grumpy he passed me, but not surprised, he's a strong cyclist. He started 9 minutes behind me in the water and he caught me! But at least I held him off until mile 50 right? I was 3rd in my AG off the bike at 2:51, currently in 3rd place!

Then it went down hill, and not literally or else my time would have been allot better! I ran in and out of transition with another quick time of 1:06. I was parking my bike and I saw Kevin leaving transition. I knew I'd eventually catch up but I wasn't going to chase him down and kill my legs. I headed out for our 2 lap 13.1 mile run. My legs felt heavy but I ended up running a fast first mile, I was taking my splits and every split seemed to get slower and slower. I felt fantastic aerobically but I just couldn't make my legs go. I've had this weird ache in my upper left hamstring for the past few weeks and as soon as I got off the bike I felt it. It's not injured but I think I'm right on the cusp and I need to be careful. I think this held me back because the last thing I wanted to do was tear my hamstring (which I've done before I might add) and ruin my Ironman in August.

I caught Kevin around mile 3 or 4 and continued to pull ahead. I struggle with my run on these long races. I never know if I should just hit it out of the gate, knowing I'll slow down but that's ok because my first half will be quicker or if I should conserve energy and try for a negative split. I never think I can do that because I know even if I am conservative the first half I'll be tired and I'm not sure I'll pick it up then I just risk running the whole thing slow. Anyways, I was keeping a pace I was comfortable with trying not to slow down. About mile 4 on I kept about the same pace all the way home which I was happy with even though that pace was A LOT slower than I wanted to be running in the first place. I saw a few girls pass me in my age group and I couldn't hang on. I sure do wish they didn't write ages on your calf because it can be a real mind-f*$# sometimes.

Before the first turn around of the run Ashley flew by going the other direction and I knew she was flying, she looked strong and was running hard. We saw each other several times on the bike and the run, encouraging each other the whole way, that was super cool! I was at mile 10 or so and I heard off the side "Go Sharon!", I look over and there she was just lounging in the grass "holy crap, the girl is done?"I thought, but I wasn't surprised at all. I finished the last few miles and was glad to be done. I finished the run in about 2 hrs flat, which made me mad because I ran almost that same pace last year's 5430 Long Course with an injured ITB, but what could I do right?

I was now in 5th place in my age group with a total time of 5:29! Came away with some hardware but not a slot to Nationals or a PR, oh well...next time maybe? All in all it was a pretty good race and a good gage of fitness in mid-June, which was the purpose. I'll take this week light and then start to ramp it up for the next 9 weeks getting ready for Canada! I'm definitely more fit than I was this time last year, I'm swimming stronger than I ever have, I'm running stronger than I have been in the past few years (I just need to figure out how to run that strong off the bike too), and I'm competitive in my AG. I'll give some credit to all the great training in Boulder and with the Boulder Tri Club. Life is good!

Kevin came in about 10 minutes behind me on the run. We looked at our times and I beat him by 3 seconds, which doesn't mean much of anything really and we're not competitive at all, we just love being able to do what we both love together. It was fun to race together and see each other on the course allot. We rode our bikes back to the car, packed up, and began the long 9 hour journey home. Which was a lot more painful than the way out I might add.

P.S. I'm glad I finished when I did. Apparently the weather turned REALLY bad and they canceled about 1/3 of the runners and made everyone leave the race site. Now that would make me grumpy!