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I had a fantastic swim (for me, it’s all relative), and had people around me the whole time. Sure, they were slow people, but I beat more than a few out of the water. Coach Jeff (yep, Mach3’s very own!) gave me a tip on sighting (look up without taking your whole head out of the water- just eyeballs forward and then turn for a breath), and it worked like a charm – I was only ONCE off course (I had to go back and swim around one buoy- I didn’t want to be DQ’d and I wasn’t sure if that’s what the kayak guy wanted me to do; better safe than sorry!) Staying on course and staying with people made my swim time ten minutes faster than last year. A sleeved wetsuit made my body MUCH warmer than last year, and I exited the swim with a smile on my face ready for the bike.

Transition is awesome in an Ironman – a volunteer pretty much does everything for you that you can’t do (my gal got my hair out of a tenacious scrunchie and fed me Shot blocks). I cut eight minutes off my T1 time from last year and ran to get my bike – imagine my surprise to see that mine wasn’t the only one in transition! Sweet!

I headed out on the bike with a huge smile – it really is a privilege to be out there and I enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the fastest (and slowest) racers out there with me. Lap One I was hit with the wind, this time going out on the Beeline (last year it was coming back to town). I was averaging 5 mph (seriously) and trying to figure out if my legs would be able to get much farther. I seriously considered getting off the bike at this point and calling it a day. But, I decided to make it to the turn-around and see how the tailwind felt.

Um, the tailwind? Felt. Awesome. I was averaging 18 mph without pedaling and 23 when I turned it up a notch. I started to do some math and realized I might just make the first cut-off (3:10 p.m. at the Mill Ave. bridge). I rocketed through town and headed back out, to find the wind had died down a bit and my legs were nice and loosened up by now. I was on a new saddle and it was fantastic- no pressure or pain just sit-bone soreness that I was able to ignore. I felt good heading out and even in the wind was determined to get to the turn around and try to make it back to town by 3:10. I had many nice folks tell me to keep going, and one guy told me to downshift and MOVE – I did this and found that I was okay pushing that gear up the hill and could move faster.

I hit the turnaround at 2:00 p.m. and had one hour and ten minutes to get back to town- I pushed hard on the way back and figured out there was no way I could make the 4:15 cut-off back on the Beeline, but I was going to make the 3:10 cut. I found myself passing many people through town, I assumed they were on their third lap but I later found out most of them were on their second lap as well, and many of them DNFed – I found a Clydesdale who was struggling and told him we were going to make this cut off and we needed to push – we were crossing the bridge at 3:08 and I told him to GO, he seemed energized and we both made it over the mat at 3:09 p.m. I saw my family and told them what was going on- it would take me until 4:54 to get out to the Beeline turn-around, which means I missed the cut–off by a solid 40 minutes.

Disappointed? A tad. I love running, and I swear I’d have tried my best to take on the heat for a marathon, if given the chance. But in the end I left it out on the race course, and I rode over 75 miles on a bike for the first time ever (I know, I should ride a century before the next one).

On a side note, my nutrition was great; I took in 200 calories an hour and sipped water and Gatorade every twenty minutes or so, and I took two e-Caps an hour with water. I was salty when I was done, but I felt great. I had no day-after soreness anywhere but my sit bones and upper back, and I feel fine now, two days later. If it weren’t for the horrendous sunburn on my back and upper right thigh, I might not know I was outside for eight hours in the sun.

Best of all? This race is DOABLE. This race no longer intimidates me, and I went into it with excitement and no fear (cough, and no training). I will conquer this race, and when I do it will be that much sweeter.

So… when? I thought about IMAZ09, but I think next year is my husband’s turn (it is hard to watch and not want to do one of these!). We did find out that five kids is just too many to have at a race course (if you remove “at a race course” from that sentence, you can talk like my father-in-law!), for one person. So when either of us does this again, we’ll bring reinforcements.

And next time, I will have the benefit of training to get my swim time down a bit and I think I’ll make those bike cut-offs without a problem. I’ll have to see how the run goes, but I think the third time just might be the charm for me. And it just might be in November. 2008. Two words: Community Fund. See you out there?

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