Ironman Race Report- Bike

The 112 Mile Bike
I ran towards the people who had handfuls of sunscreen, pointed to the sexy guy, and said “You, I’d like you to apply my sunscreen”. I made jokes about it being the highlight of my race and moved on towards retrieving my bike. When I passed the volunteers that were in a line yelling “2157” I had flashbacks of when I volunteered last year. I remembered how exhausting the job was . When I got to my transition rack, there was YET ANOTHER sexy guy holding my bike. I pointed right to him and said, “YOU are awesome”. He said, “niiiicccee bike! Good luck!” as I tip toed towards the “bike out”.
I mounted my bike and jumped on for my 112 mile run warmup. I headed out, loving every cheer from every spectator. I looked down and noticed I was in the DANGER ZONE! What’s that mean? My heart rate was at about 170! Normally, I race at 170 average for a 70.3. In 140.6 world, 170 is NOT ACCEPTABLE. I shifted out of my comfy gear and spun easy trying to get my heart rate to my goal of 159. It wasn’t budging. Easier? Really? I have to spin EASIER than THIS? I felt like I was moving backwards. I was being passed by 100 people at a time. I was “that slow chick”. As I approached spectators, they’d yell something like “you’re doing great” then look at me and share a moment of awkward silence as they realized that their 3 words of choice weren’t a long enough cheer to fill the time that it took for me to pass by them. I starting singing “100 bottles of Ironman Perform on the wall…100 bottles of ironman perform…” and only managed to “take 3 down…pass ‘em around..” before I realized that this wasn’t going to be able keeping my mind occupied with thoughts, the goal was actually to silence it. As I rode passed by all of the landmarks I had memorized from our training rides, I thought about how great it was that I knew the course (at least the computrainer version) and was ready to conquer it. During the first 10 miles I made sure to drink the 40 ounces of Gatorade in my speedfil. I took the first chug and gulp, gag, burp I realized that I was about to have the same problem I ALWAYS have on the bike during my races, I puke. During most of my faster paced races in the past, whenever I drank from my speedfil, I’d ended up burping it back up. I was worried when I thought that it was going to happen during this race so I did everything in my power to keep it down. Eventually I learned the remedy. The reason I puke it back up is because I take in air with the Gatorade. I ride at a steep enough angle that makes it so the drink can’t go down and let the air out at the same time. The solution was for me to sit up after sipping the drink, then burp as I was upright so only air came out, not breakfast. About 30 minutes into the race I realized that I REALLY had to pee. Okay, it’s time to try this again. I sat up from my bike, stopped pedaling a bit and tried to pee while riding. I’ve been trying to learn how to pee on my bike for some time now but have been met with much failure. Just like potty training, it takes time. After many attempts and many failures I decided that I HAD to do something about my…umm…situation. At the first aide station I took an Ironman perform, filled up my speefil , and cruised on a little further until I saw the portapotty. Yes, I was about to do it. I was going to STOP during the race to pee. When I pulled up to the area, I saw that there was a line of people waiting. I stopped near the line, stood over my bike, looked at them, looked at the potty, looked down at my leg, and BAM, just like that….I WAS PEEING. Yes, you heard me correctly, I stood NEXT to the portapotty and PEED ON MY BIKE. I looked at the people in line and said “does this count?” and pointed to the portapottys and said “I just needed to be near it to get the flow going”. The men (most of which were old enough to be my dad) looked and me and just laughed. While they stood there in line, I rode off , pee streaming down my leg, and continued my race. Moments after my clever pee experience I saw a man whip out his willy and pee WHILE riding as he STOOD on his bike. After a few more aid stations and a few more Ironman performs I had to pee again. This time I stopped on the side of the road and again, peed while standing on my bike. Other people were getting off their bike and walking towards the woods. I thought about it and thought, why? It’s not like I could aim anywhere. If I was going to pee on myself, who cares where I parked my bike or who saw me. At about mile 50 I took my 5th Ironman perform and realized that my speedfil was full and I couldn’t drink another sip of that yellow poison! I predicted this. Before the race I put a conversion chart on a piece of tape on my handlebars so I knew what to eat if I skipped a bottle. 1 Ironman perform= ¾ powerbar or about 2 goos. I had 2 emergency goos tapped to the stem of my bike and had both of them, 15 minutes apart. Eating those goos was a lot more work than just drinking the Ironman drink so I decided to return back to the yellow potion. At the halfway point there was an out and back where you could see the leaders of the race and stare down all of the people in front of you. This is where I saw Andrea, “Yeah! Princess lil’ Thunder!” and eventually saw coach, “GO TONY!”. Soon, I came up to the area where they were handing out your special needs bags. I had packed 1 cookie and Tylenol in my bag. I rode right passed it. Bottle 6…bottle 7 of Ironman perform and I had to pee…AGAIN. By now I had accepted the fact that I had to get off my bike to pee but I figured I’d strategize as much as possible. I decided to wait until I got to the top of a hill, (okay, maybe I should say “hill”, the course was pretty flat). When I climbed the hill, I let my heart rate raise slightly my planned max. When I got to the top of the hill, I got off my bike and watched my heart rate fall as I took care of business. *Fun Fact* I can’t “go” unless my heart rate is at approximately 134 or less. A man passed me when I was squatting at the top of the hill and made awkward eye contact with me before looking at the puddle below me. When I got back on my bike and rode up near him I said, “I wish I had a penis! It’s just not fair!” He looked at me and said, “you’re right! That must stink!” I looked at his calf as I rode passed him and saw that he was 60 years old! I can’t believe I just said the word P3nis to a 60 year old man. Sometime in the second half of the ride I caught up to coach Tony. It was kind of funny how it happened. It took about 30 minutes from the minute I saw him until the minute I caught him because there was such a small difference in our speeds. When I got close to him I rode along side of him and talked about how the race was going (technically you’re not supposed to ride side by side). He said he was sticking with the plan and I said I was as well. All of the sudden a bike went FLYING by us. This man was FAST. This man was “Super Dave”, Dave Kutcher. I jokingly yelled “see you on the run” to Dave because I was still sticking with the theory that a slower bike equaled a faster run. I pulled away from Tony and hoped to see him passing me later in the race. Near the end of the 112 mile spin, I started to get REALLY excited. I kept thinking about how GREAT I felt. Yes, I was definitely sore in my back and my neck but I wasn’t exhausted. When I saw spectators, I smiled big and yelled “I love my bike! This was fun!” As I got closer, a man yelled “40th woman on the bike” to me. WHAT THE SH!T B@LLS?! 40th woman on the bike? WHY in G*ds name would he tell me that? And how does he know? And WHO cares? Oh jeeze, I care…NOW. I dealt with this information calmly and tried to rationalize. There was no way he really knew how many women had passed him and this information was NOT important to me. I wasn’t racing anyone but myself. But 40th? Really? I decided to ignore this information (and I still don’t know if he was correct or not). I kept my spirits high, but I wasn’t definitely thinking I was going to start the run and get passed by 2000 people. When I got near the bike finish, I un-velcroed my shoes, put my barefeet (which I still couldn’t feel) on the tops of my shoes, swung my leg over and ran with my bike until a volunteer took it. “Bye Igor!” My bike ride took me 5:40 and was at a pace of 19.8mph. 700/2403 Top 30%.

I ran towards my transition 2 bag, grabbed it and went into the changing tent. I WAS THE ONLY ONE IN THERE. I took my helmet and glasses off and emptied my bag. A volunteer was helping me. I grabbed my body glide and put it in all the places where I could potentially get chafing while running (armpits, along the edges of my sports bra, legs, neck…everywhere). She tried to hand me my extra running outfit but I explained to her that I didn’t plan on changing. I put my socks on, running shoes, hat, sun glasses and headed out for my first marathon EVER. I stopped to get sunscreen (they turned me into a GHOST), then headed for the portapotties. I had to pee AGAIN! I think the reason I had to pee so much was because I hadn’t been sweating like I had planned on sweating. Normally I lose several pounds of water weight an hour from sweating but since it was so frickin’ cold on the bike I hardly lost an ounce. Transition time was 4:42.