Beach to Battleship DNF

By now many of you have noticed I don't have a finish time for the Beach 2 Battleship 140.6 race.

I chose to pull myself at the turnaround for the marathon. At that point I had been walking for 2 miles with pain, limping up the bridges. It was pretty clear that slogging out another 13.1 miles could do long term damage. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.

Up until that point it had been an epic day. PRs all around. 1:07 Swim, 7:05ish for the bike in spite of a diabolical headwind for the last 40 miles, The first 6.5 miles of the marathon rocked. Passed it in 1:15 with energy to spare. I was easily sliding into 10:20 pace but made a point to hold back so I could maintain for the rest of the marathon. But the aching in my achilles tendon that had started on the bike had never gone away and its voice grew louder and louder until it would not be denied. Walk intervals didn't help. Walking only didn't help. Lots of time to think. And my decision was crystal clear.

So I chose to stop and fight another day. I have big plans for next year and 3 months of rehab would not fit in my plan for world domination. It was the right choice but it still makes me cry.

The support has been overwhelming even though I know many would have made a different choice. Leaving the course at mile 127.5 was not an easy decision nor was it the first thing that popped in my head. Believe me, I thought about all the scorn that could come my way. I abandoned the race with the same despair that you would abandon a beloved sailboat that sank in a sudden storm. I have come so far. It was such an epic day! But there is too much at stake to mess up my achilles tendon to satisfy my ego.

Not excited.

The Beach to Battleship full ironman is waiting for me on Saturday.  And I could not be less excited.  If one more person dares me to race their training partner or asks me how fast I will finish, I will scream.  When you're an ironman fledgling like me, time predictions seems so arrogant. In a perfect world I'd be hoping for 13:something but that never happened.  Quite the opposite.  So much has gone wrong along the way.  My jeans are falling off but I've been sick most of my taper.  Have a sore throat and cough today, in fact. Either Gatens is right and I'm apathetic because of hidden confidence or....I'm f$cked. 

But I do know that my body can go 140.6 if I'm healthy.  Maybe not as fast as I'd hoped but my head is in the right place.  And most of this race is mental.  You have to believe that if you rode 120 miles on lemonade and oatmeal cookies you can make it to the run.  And having earned the ironman title means I have nothing to prove on race day.  Nothing to lose by pushing hard at the end of the run.  Nothing to lose by calling it a day if old injuries seek vengeance. I won't know until I get there, assuming I get there.

It's just such a long day. It will be cold for this Florida girl in a short sleeved wetsuit.  And I know it will hurt because it's a freaking ironman.  Plus the unknowable crisis that awaits. I can't teach 2 classes without a crisis. Who knows what will happen on race day?  The key is to make it out of the swim, then have a fun ride through North Carolina coastline, then see the sites through downtown Wilmington.  Right?  I hope.

Taper: the list making phase

The Taper Cold is on it's way out so I've moved into the next taper phase which is List Making.  Don't want to forget anything so I have started making exhaustive lists of every small item I could possible need over the entire Ironman weekend.

Might take a break from list making to get in an easy bike ride before lunch.  Gotta test out the lungs.

Taper cold

Posting this for posterity: Yep. I caught a cold during my Beach to Battleship taper.  Probably from one of the students on the weekend field trip. Nothing like 14 total hours in a small van to transmit germs. And it's been pretty harsh. Low grade fever with bad sore throat that has morphed into a stuffy nose, mild sore throat and mild ear ache. But my doctor's receptionist doesn't think I'm sick enough for an office visit because the office is packed with swine flu (H1N1) and normal flu patients.  Bleah.

Hopefully, my immune system will kick it to the curb by the end of the week.

The Relentless Rides Again!

My bike is back from the mechanic's shop.  After 3 years of service as my only training/race bike, several parts had simply worn out.  To celebrate her return from dry dock, she and I shared a steady 4 hour ride on Thursday.   The ride is about 35% nicer.  It accelerates a little faster, holds speed longer if you coast, and all the gears work which makes climbing bridges much easier.  The only thing left it to replace the aerobar arm pad.  Yeah!

A comparison

The memory of Ironman Florida feels like this:

Kill Bill

Looking forward to Beach to Battleship feels like this:

Pirates of the Caribbean

Taper Time!

Yes, I have reached the time in Ironman training where you begin The Taper.  A few normal friends (i.e. not crazed endurance athletes) who follow me on Facebook have asked me "what is a taper?"  In fact, one of them asked me that when I ran into her on my 2.5 hour run today.

So, I told her the taper is when you start backing off your training to get your body ready for the big day.  She smirked "Backing off?  And you're running how far today?"

OK, OK.  Good point.  Tapering is not like taking a 3 week vacation from workouts until race day. The idea is to back off the amount of time you workout but keep the intensity.  Imagine the edge of a knife.  You want to reach the sharpest edge right before your race. With three weeks left to go, an average athlete like me can't gain much more fitness that will help me on race day.  But I can hurt my race.

As you back off your workouts, the body starts to repair all the dings and dents you've created during training.  You still have a few hard workouts every week but they are shorter.  For example 2 hours running instead of 3.  Only a 4 hour ride instead of 7. It gets shorter and shorter as race day approaches. It's not uncommon for athletes to get sick during the taper so I'm trying to avoid sick people.

The other thing that happens is what I call Taper Madness.  I've spent the last 6 months convincing myself that 4 hours isn't really a long bike ride and following that with a 2 hour run in Sunday is normal.  As my physical focus starts to relax, my brain has way way too much time to think.  About everything.  Life.  The universe.  How fast I could go on race day.  Everything that could go wrong on race day.  Which chicken you choose becomes a HUGE decision.

Basically, the nervous energy builds and builds.  It will be needed on race day but it's hard to accomodate this new mental roommate.

For Ironman Florida in 2007, the taper madness was tempered by the fact that I still had to finish my PhD manuscript.  All that energy had a place to go.  Not so much this time.  It will be a fun ride to race day. To my husband: I love you, honey. :)

So that my friends is my opinion of the taper.  Feel free to add your best stories.