Cameron, Michelle, and I signed up for this race back in January or February. I did this race as my first half ironman in 2006 and enjoyed it then. I knew racing this 4 weeks after IMAZ might not have been the brightest idea, but I thought it sounded like fun. I was right. The weekend was awesome and I had a pretty good race as well.
We packed up my huge car and headed out around noon on Thursday. The drive was pretty uneventful except for hitting traffic at 4:30 in Baton Rouge. It took us about an hour to get through. I drove to Biloxi where we ate dinner and I made Cameron drive the rest of the way to Pensacola, where we stayed for the night. Friday morning we got up and drove the rest of the way to Panama City Beach, arriving just before noon. We checked into our condo and I was very pleased. It was awesome, on the 18th floor, overlooking the beach. We then went to packet pickup and registration which took way too long. We waited in line for over an hour and decided next time we'll stroll in around 5pm to pick up our stuff. We grabbed lunch and I finally got to hit the beach - which is all I had wanted to do all day! After playing on the beach for a while we went to get our bikes to check them into transition. First, Michelle had bike practice. She was practicing her new mount and dismount technique in the parking lot for a while. It was pretty funny to watch. We went to the athlete dinner at 5:30 and again saw the line was way too long. Instead we went inside and sat down for 45 minutes until the line died down, and then went back outside and ate dinner. As usual, it was a pretty awful meal. Afterwards we went back the condo and got everything organized for race morning.
I woke up around 4:15 when I heard the first rustling out of Cameron and Michelle's bedroom. I finally got up around 5 and we started getting ready. I opened our balcony door to look down at the ocean, but I couldn't see anything. It was super foggy. We took the rest of our transition stuff down, got body marked, and then came back to the condo to put on our wetsuits. Staying at the race site is very, very nice. Again I opened the door on the balcony to check out the scene below, but it was still pretty foggy. I could hear the waves crashing down pretty violently, but couldn't see enough to know what to expect. Then we walked onto the beach. Oh wow. The surf was crazy and there were swells as far as the course went. The buoys were all over the place and hard to see in the mist and fog that were mixing with the rising sun. I wasn't super excited about the prospect of racing for the next 6-7 hours, especially in the water the way it was, and especially coming off an ironman 4 weeks earlier. All of sudden Michelle went from nervous to super giddy and excited and it was just what I needed. Her excitement was contagious and I was ready to go. We were the last of 3 women's waves, each spread 5 minutes apart. We saw one poor woman in the first wave just standing in knee deep water afraid to go any farther. I don't know if she ever made it past the breakers or not.
Once the horn went off for our wave there wasn't any looking back. Trying to get through the breakers was crazy. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, but I had no real way of judging my progress because I wasn't going to turn around to see how far I had or hadn't gone. I kept waiting for breakers to pass and then I saw the first buoy and realized I was past the breakers. That just meant the swells were just as big as the breakers, and that was how it was going to be for the entire swim. I almost panicked for the first time in a long long time on the swim. I started to wonder if I was going to get sea sick. Each time I was on top of a wave and it dropped, my stomach didn't seem to drop with me. I was probably halfway out before I finally got my wits about me and was able to at least swim in some sort of orderly fashion. Sighting was pretty difficult because you could only see the next buoy if you were on the top of a wave and if the buoy was on top of a wave as well. One good thing about the swim is that people spread out very quickly. I can't complain about being punched or kicked or people being in my way, at least for the most part.
I didn't let myself look at my watch because I was afraid it was going to be awful and I didn't want to deal with that during my swim. I figured I would deal with that later on. I finally made it to the first turn buoy and was relieved to finally be swimming in a different direction. 200 more yards and I was at the 2nd turn buoy and heading back to shore. I was hoping the waves would help carry me in a bit, but I'm not sure they really helped. The way back didn't seem as bad, but I don't know if it was the waves or just the fact that I was heading back to shore. The breakers weren't too hard to get back over, and I actually body surfed for a short while on one wave. I did have trouble at the very end with the undertow. I could see the sand being taken back out to sea with the waves, and I was going along with it! How revolting to be almost there, yet moving backwards. I finally stood up when there was no longer enough water left to swim and ran up the beach. I looked at my watch and saw 38:xx and was shocked that what seemed like 3 hours of hell was only 38 minutes. Running up the beach was hard because the sand is so soft. They had showers at the end of the beach, like a human carwash, and I took my wetsuit off here.
Total swim time - 38:19
2006 swim time - 44:23
T1 was pretty uneventful other than the fact that you had to run a pretty long way to get to your bike. I was in and out as usual and on my way.
T1 time - 2:59
2006 T1 time - 4:01
The bike was where it was time to really test my legs and see what they felt like doing 4 weeks after an Ironman. The bike course heads east for 3 miles, then west for 3 miles (puts you back at the resort), then west for 7 more miles along the ocean, then north away from the beach, over the intercoastal canal, and then back east until the turn around at mile 30. Then you go back the way you came for 26 miles, back to where you started. The wind was from the SW, so you got some pretty good speed the first 3 miles and then it was in your face for the next 10. I felt pretty good and was excited to see that my average mph was very respectable. I also wasn't getting passed by absolutely everyone, just mostly everyone. Once I was over the bridge and back with the tailwind, I was able to hold a pretty good pace. I hit the mile 30 turnaround with a 19.0 mph average. Wow. That is fast for me. I knew I'd lose some of that between mile 30 and 49, but also knew the last 7 miles I would have a tailwind again so I would be able to make up some of the lost time. Into the headwind my average steadily dropped, but not very fast at all. I would have been happy with even a 17.5mph split and I knew I had that in the bag. In fact, by the time I turned south and went back over the bridge, I was still well over 18.0. What a great feeling! Somewhere along the bike course I laughed to myself, giddily thinking how awesome it is to train for a full something and then go race a half something. I probably had more bike miles under my belt from the previous 5 months than a lot of the people out there and it paid off. The bike was pretty much effortless for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That doesn't happen very often. The only issue I had is my butt hurt really bad. I failed to realize that I hadn't sat on a bike seat for more than an hour at a time in four weeks. My butt was definitely out of bike-seat shape.
Once I hit the beach and made the last turn around mile 49, I knew I was home free. When I did this race in 06, I remember thinking that was the longest stretch of road I had ever been on. This time was different as I'd been looking forward to it since mile 30. I knew the wind would be at my back and I could enjoy it. The wind didn't end up helping as much as I expected, and was more of a cross wind than a straight tailwind, but it was still far better than a headwind. My average held steady as I made sure I took in the last of my nutrition and started to mentally prepare for T2 and the run. I started looking at my overall time and thought I might be running by 3:50. Wow -that is pretty cool too! I made it back into transition and had my own personal message to get off my bike. One of my online friends was on the loud speaker telling people were to dismount and out of no where comes "KATHLEEN!! Get off your bike NOW!!" It was pretty funny.
Bike time - 3:01, 18.5 mph
2006 bike time - 3:31, 15.9 mph
T2 was uneventful again. I knew I wasn't going to be as fast as I was in a sprint transition, but told myself that was ok because I was having to prepare for a much longer run. I also had to put socks on which takes a little time.
T2 time - 1:45
2006 T2 time - 3:25
Once out on the run I decided I was going to run 4/1 intervals because they worked so well for me at the last half ironman I did in October. I looked down and saw 3:45 on my watch and thought "holy s***!" I couldn't believe I was running that early into the race. Briefly I had visions of coming in under 6 hours total. All I had to do was run a 2:15 half marathon. I had run 1:56 and 1:57 stand alone half marathons earlier in the year, and thought a 2:15 sounded do-able. However, my dreams of a 2:15 half went out the door quickly over the first few miles of the run. I knew I'd still have a pretty big PR for the overall distance, so I wasn't too torn up about seeing sub-6 go out the door (it wasn't really in the door that long anyway!). The skies were still overcast, so I wasn't too hot. It was humid and I noticed almost immediately that the iced sponges did not do a very good job of cooling me off because I was left just wet, not really cooled off. My 4/1's lasted for a decent while, but then I started walking more often than that. I ended up on more of a 2/1, 1/1 interval for several more miles. I was putting out a pretty poor effort on the run, but I couldn't be too surprised about that considering I had only run 17 miles total in the 4 weeks since IMAZ. The sun came out at mile 5 and then it was just plain hot. Very hot, and very humid. It felt worse than the dry 95+ degree temps we had in AZ.
Some people flew right by me, but I was still flying right by others. Many people looked like they were literally melting on the run. We got to the state park, aka hell, and it pretty much lived up to its name. I told myself to be excited about the park though because once I was out of it, it meant I was on my way home. The volunteers at each aid station were awesome, most of them little kids. I watched my average pace get slower and slower as the race went on, but tried my best to hold on long enough for a 2:30 run split. Around mile 9 Michelle came up behind me. I'd been hoping all along she would catch me and that we could run together. There was only one problem with that plan though: Michelle had actually been training for the run when I hadn't. I stayed with her for all of 3 minutes and almost died and had to let her go. She was doing awesome. Around mile 10 or 11 I resorted to flat out 1/1 intervals. I was basically sprinting for a minute and then walking for a minute. I'm sure people thought I was pretty weird, but it was working. I was staying even with the same people who were just running straight. Just after mile 11, I met Liz. We had been leapfrogging each other for the last few miles and she finally asked what intervals I was doing and said she'd come along. She had done this race last year in 5:32, so she was having a pretty bad day for her. She also ran faster than me, so our one minute of running at a time ended up being even faster than I was going before. She was hurting and upset with herself, but was still good company. I told her at one point she was helping me get a PR if that made her feel any better! Oh yeah, she was 50. I told her I wanted to be like her when I grow up and she told me "good for you for getting out here and doing this at 27!" Clearly, we had a mutual respect for each other.
We finally rounded the last corner with about a half mile to go (or so I thought). In 2006 when I did this race I started to kick at 12.9 when I thought I had .2 miles to go, and nearly died because it ended up being about .5 miles to go. I blamed that on a gps malfunction. Turns out it is a course measurement malfunction! The run course is really about 13.4 miles long as opposed to 13.1 miles long. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is about 3 extra minutes of running, and makes a huge difference when you think you are sprinting to the end and the end is a lot further away than you think. I was just plain mad by that point! I finally finished and was happy to be done.
Run time - 2:32
2006 run time - 2:55
Total time - 6:16
2006 total time - 7:18
I saw Cameron and Michelle right after I finished and we all congratulated each other on awesome races. Michelle conquered her half ironman demons by taking over an hour off her previous half ironman time. We headed straight for the pizza. Ugh - it was covered in mushrooms and onions and jalapenos and all sorts of not-ok-on-pizza stuff. I picked it all off and was still able to enjoy.
We packed up my huge car and headed out around noon on Thursday. The drive was pretty uneventful except for hitting traffic at 4:30 in Baton Rouge. It took us about an hour to get through. I drove to Biloxi where we ate dinner and I made Cameron drive the rest of the way to Pensacola, where we stayed for the night. Friday morning we got up and drove the rest of the way to Panama City Beach, arriving just before noon. We checked into our condo and I was very pleased. It was awesome, on the 18th floor, overlooking the beach. We then went to packet pickup and registration which took way too long. We waited in line for over an hour and decided next time we'll stroll in around 5pm to pick up our stuff. We grabbed lunch and I finally got to hit the beach - which is all I had wanted to do all day! After playing on the beach for a while we went to get our bikes to check them into transition. First, Michelle had bike practice. She was practicing her new mount and dismount technique in the parking lot for a while. It was pretty funny to watch. We went to the athlete dinner at 5:30 and again saw the line was way too long. Instead we went inside and sat down for 45 minutes until the line died down, and then went back outside and ate dinner. As usual, it was a pretty awful meal. Afterwards we went back the condo and got everything organized for race morning.
Our hotel room in Pensacola (we don't travel light)
I woke up around 4:15 when I heard the first rustling out of Cameron and Michelle's bedroom. I finally got up around 5 and we started getting ready. I opened our balcony door to look down at the ocean, but I couldn't see anything. It was super foggy. We took the rest of our transition stuff down, got body marked, and then came back to the condo to put on our wetsuits. Staying at the race site is very, very nice. Again I opened the door on the balcony to check out the scene below, but it was still pretty foggy. I could hear the waves crashing down pretty violently, but couldn't see enough to know what to expect. Then we walked onto the beach. Oh wow. The surf was crazy and there were swells as far as the course went. The buoys were all over the place and hard to see in the mist and fog that were mixing with the rising sun. I wasn't super excited about the prospect of racing for the next 6-7 hours, especially in the water the way it was, and especially coming off an ironman 4 weeks earlier. All of sudden Michelle went from nervous to super giddy and excited and it was just what I needed. Her excitement was contagious and I was ready to go. We were the last of 3 women's waves, each spread 5 minutes apart. We saw one poor woman in the first wave just standing in knee deep water afraid to go any farther. I don't know if she ever made it past the breakers or not.
Once the horn went off for our wave there wasn't any looking back. Trying to get through the breakers was crazy. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere, but I had no real way of judging my progress because I wasn't going to turn around to see how far I had or hadn't gone. I kept waiting for breakers to pass and then I saw the first buoy and realized I was past the breakers. That just meant the swells were just as big as the breakers, and that was how it was going to be for the entire swim. I almost panicked for the first time in a long long time on the swim. I started to wonder if I was going to get sea sick. Each time I was on top of a wave and it dropped, my stomach didn't seem to drop with me. I was probably halfway out before I finally got my wits about me and was able to at least swim in some sort of orderly fashion. Sighting was pretty difficult because you could only see the next buoy if you were on the top of a wave and if the buoy was on top of a wave as well. One good thing about the swim is that people spread out very quickly. I can't complain about being punched or kicked or people being in my way, at least for the most part.
I didn't let myself look at my watch because I was afraid it was going to be awful and I didn't want to deal with that during my swim. I figured I would deal with that later on. I finally made it to the first turn buoy and was relieved to finally be swimming in a different direction. 200 more yards and I was at the 2nd turn buoy and heading back to shore. I was hoping the waves would help carry me in a bit, but I'm not sure they really helped. The way back didn't seem as bad, but I don't know if it was the waves or just the fact that I was heading back to shore. The breakers weren't too hard to get back over, and I actually body surfed for a short while on one wave. I did have trouble at the very end with the undertow. I could see the sand being taken back out to sea with the waves, and I was going along with it! How revolting to be almost there, yet moving backwards. I finally stood up when there was no longer enough water left to swim and ran up the beach. I looked at my watch and saw 38:xx and was shocked that what seemed like 3 hours of hell was only 38 minutes. Running up the beach was hard because the sand is so soft. They had showers at the end of the beach, like a human carwash, and I took my wetsuit off here.
Total swim time - 38:19
2006 swim time - 44:23
T1 was pretty uneventful other than the fact that you had to run a pretty long way to get to your bike. I was in and out as usual and on my way.
T1 time - 2:59
2006 T1 time - 4:01
The bike was where it was time to really test my legs and see what they felt like doing 4 weeks after an Ironman. The bike course heads east for 3 miles, then west for 3 miles (puts you back at the resort), then west for 7 more miles along the ocean, then north away from the beach, over the intercoastal canal, and then back east until the turn around at mile 30. Then you go back the way you came for 26 miles, back to where you started. The wind was from the SW, so you got some pretty good speed the first 3 miles and then it was in your face for the next 10. I felt pretty good and was excited to see that my average mph was very respectable. I also wasn't getting passed by absolutely everyone, just mostly everyone. Once I was over the bridge and back with the tailwind, I was able to hold a pretty good pace. I hit the mile 30 turnaround with a 19.0 mph average. Wow. That is fast for me. I knew I'd lose some of that between mile 30 and 49, but also knew the last 7 miles I would have a tailwind again so I would be able to make up some of the lost time. Into the headwind my average steadily dropped, but not very fast at all. I would have been happy with even a 17.5mph split and I knew I had that in the bag. In fact, by the time I turned south and went back over the bridge, I was still well over 18.0. What a great feeling! Somewhere along the bike course I laughed to myself, giddily thinking how awesome it is to train for a full something and then go race a half something. I probably had more bike miles under my belt from the previous 5 months than a lot of the people out there and it paid off. The bike was pretty much effortless for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That doesn't happen very often. The only issue I had is my butt hurt really bad. I failed to realize that I hadn't sat on a bike seat for more than an hour at a time in four weeks. My butt was definitely out of bike-seat shape.
Once I hit the beach and made the last turn around mile 49, I knew I was home free. When I did this race in 06, I remember thinking that was the longest stretch of road I had ever been on. This time was different as I'd been looking forward to it since mile 30. I knew the wind would be at my back and I could enjoy it. The wind didn't end up helping as much as I expected, and was more of a cross wind than a straight tailwind, but it was still far better than a headwind. My average held steady as I made sure I took in the last of my nutrition and started to mentally prepare for T2 and the run. I started looking at my overall time and thought I might be running by 3:50. Wow -that is pretty cool too! I made it back into transition and had my own personal message to get off my bike. One of my online friends was on the loud speaker telling people were to dismount and out of no where comes "KATHLEEN!! Get off your bike NOW!!" It was pretty funny.
Bike time - 3:01, 18.5 mph
2006 bike time - 3:31, 15.9 mph
T2 was uneventful again. I knew I wasn't going to be as fast as I was in a sprint transition, but told myself that was ok because I was having to prepare for a much longer run. I also had to put socks on which takes a little time.
T2 time - 1:45
2006 T2 time - 3:25
Once out on the run I decided I was going to run 4/1 intervals because they worked so well for me at the last half ironman I did in October. I looked down and saw 3:45 on my watch and thought "holy s***!" I couldn't believe I was running that early into the race. Briefly I had visions of coming in under 6 hours total. All I had to do was run a 2:15 half marathon. I had run 1:56 and 1:57 stand alone half marathons earlier in the year, and thought a 2:15 sounded do-able. However, my dreams of a 2:15 half went out the door quickly over the first few miles of the run. I knew I'd still have a pretty big PR for the overall distance, so I wasn't too torn up about seeing sub-6 go out the door (it wasn't really in the door that long anyway!). The skies were still overcast, so I wasn't too hot. It was humid and I noticed almost immediately that the iced sponges did not do a very good job of cooling me off because I was left just wet, not really cooled off. My 4/1's lasted for a decent while, but then I started walking more often than that. I ended up on more of a 2/1, 1/1 interval for several more miles. I was putting out a pretty poor effort on the run, but I couldn't be too surprised about that considering I had only run 17 miles total in the 4 weeks since IMAZ. The sun came out at mile 5 and then it was just plain hot. Very hot, and very humid. It felt worse than the dry 95+ degree temps we had in AZ.
Some people flew right by me, but I was still flying right by others. Many people looked like they were literally melting on the run. We got to the state park, aka hell, and it pretty much lived up to its name. I told myself to be excited about the park though because once I was out of it, it meant I was on my way home. The volunteers at each aid station were awesome, most of them little kids. I watched my average pace get slower and slower as the race went on, but tried my best to hold on long enough for a 2:30 run split. Around mile 9 Michelle came up behind me. I'd been hoping all along she would catch me and that we could run together. There was only one problem with that plan though: Michelle had actually been training for the run when I hadn't. I stayed with her for all of 3 minutes and almost died and had to let her go. She was doing awesome. Around mile 10 or 11 I resorted to flat out 1/1 intervals. I was basically sprinting for a minute and then walking for a minute. I'm sure people thought I was pretty weird, but it was working. I was staying even with the same people who were just running straight. Just after mile 11, I met Liz. We had been leapfrogging each other for the last few miles and she finally asked what intervals I was doing and said she'd come along. She had done this race last year in 5:32, so she was having a pretty bad day for her. She also ran faster than me, so our one minute of running at a time ended up being even faster than I was going before. She was hurting and upset with herself, but was still good company. I told her at one point she was helping me get a PR if that made her feel any better! Oh yeah, she was 50. I told her I wanted to be like her when I grow up and she told me "good for you for getting out here and doing this at 27!" Clearly, we had a mutual respect for each other.
We finally rounded the last corner with about a half mile to go (or so I thought). In 2006 when I did this race I started to kick at 12.9 when I thought I had .2 miles to go, and nearly died because it ended up being about .5 miles to go. I blamed that on a gps malfunction. Turns out it is a course measurement malfunction! The run course is really about 13.4 miles long as opposed to 13.1 miles long. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is about 3 extra minutes of running, and makes a huge difference when you think you are sprinting to the end and the end is a lot further away than you think. I was just plain mad by that point! I finally finished and was happy to be done.
Run time - 2:32
2006 run time - 2:55
Total time - 6:16
2006 total time - 7:18
I saw Cameron and Michelle right after I finished and we all congratulated each other on awesome races. Michelle conquered her half ironman demons by taking over an hour off her previous half ironman time. We headed straight for the pizza. Ugh - it was covered in mushrooms and onions and jalapenos and all sorts of not-ok-on-pizza stuff. I picked it all off and was still able to enjoy.
Shortly after we got all of our stuff and took it back up to the room and then headed down to the bar by the pool. We drank fruity drinks that were very much deserved. We walked around on the beach for a bit after that, but Cameron decided walking hurt too much, so we settled for lounging by the pool. It was the most relaxed I have been in ages and just felt awesome. What a reward for racing so well!
We eventually cleaned up and went to dinner where we didn't eat nearly as much as we thought we would, but I still cleaned my entire plate of chocolate volcano ice cream explosion thing.
We were up and out pretty early Sunday morning and hit the road by 8:30. A short 12 hours and family dinner in Beaumont later and we were home in Houston.
Sunday morning beach view - red flag day
Finally home!
All in all, it has been a pretty amazing 8 months for me. This was PR #14 in that time. My next half ironman won't be until November, but you can bet I'll be looking to PR at that race as well. I know now that I am capable of going under 6 hours and 8 months ago I would have thought there was no way. Ever.
Comments
Gotta purchase a Lotto ticket while your still setting your PRs!
I'm the freaky chick that would have loved the rough surf. Great bike split on a windy course.
I will agree with you, there are days here in H-town where the heat and humidity are way worse than what we encountered in IMAZ on the run in the heat.
Is the next race Ironstar?