On Sunday morning, the alarms went off at 3:30 and 3:40 (just in case). Of course, by that time, we were already up and eating breakfast. Who can sleep the night before an Ironman?
There was a lot of good energy in the house as we all ate, used the bathrooms, and gathered our special needs bags. We took a few cars down to the lake and walked over to our tri club's tent. Gerry had set up his own tent right behind the club tent and we used that as our home base for the day.
First, we dropped off our special needs bags for the run and the bike. These are bags that you can access halfway into the bike or run to get anything you may need or drop things off. For example, in my bike special needs bag, I have a second set of food and two tubes in case I get a flat or two on the first loop of the bike. In my run special needs bag, I have a long-sleeved shirt in case it's getting cool and a packet of Tums (for what I hope is an obvious reason - I hope I don't need them!).
We walked over to the transition area. I un-taped my gear bags so that I could easily open them during transition and headed over to my bike. There were only a couple of other people around my area at that time. It was nice to have the space. I unwrapped the bag off the back of the bike, put my nutrition on the bike (water bottles and Bento box full of food), pumped up the tires, checked to make sure the bike was shifting and in a decent gear for the beginning of the ride. Back to the tent to get the damn wetsuit on!
At the tent, I had some time to sit and relax before getting ready for the swim, but soon it was time to put my wetsuit on. This is the worst part of my day! Not only do I not like wearing a wetsuit (despite the advantages), I am really slow at putting it on. It's just annoying. We were all milling about and goofing around before heading over to the water. Check out the IM tattoo on my chest...
I've experienced two mass swim starts at IMLP in the past and I have to say that I have never had a problem. There was always a lot of people and it was always crowded, but this year was much worse. There was no mass start this year. Instead, they announced a couple months ago that we would be doing a time trial start. Athletes would walk into the water and their time would start when they cross the timing mat, similar to a big marathon start. We were instructed to line up according to our projected time. Randy, Keith, and I got into the 1:01-1:10 group. When the cannon went off, we slowly walked to the water's edge. Once we crossed the mat, it was time to dive in!
Randy was right in front of me, so I decided to see how long I could stay on his feet. The buoys are numbered to the turns. Eight down and nine back, then repeat for loop #2.
Loop #1 - I stayed with Randy until somewhere between buoys 4 & 5. At that point, I got pushed to the outside. Oh well, I was still in the thick of it, but I was getting into a groove. After going around the second turn buoy, two things happened. The first is that I got punched in the side of my head, right on my ear. It hurt a lot and I was stunned, but no damage was done. The second is that I found Randy again! I looked up to sight and there he was! So, I hopped back on his feet. I thought it would be cool if we came out of the water together. Unfortunately, I lost him again. This time, I got pushed to the inside of the rectangular swim course. It's not against the rules to be on the inside, as long as you go to the outside of the turn buoys, but they asked us not to swim in there. The problem was, I couldn't get back to the other side! There were others on the inside as well, so I just kept going. I jumped back to the outside when it was time to go around the dock to finish the first loop. As soon as my hands hit the bottom of the lake, I stood up to run over the timing mat. I was surprised to see Randy about 30 seconds in front of me! I'd found him again!
Loop #2 - This was a little better on the way out. I was able to stay within sight of the underwater cable until the two turns. On the way back in, however, it got bad. I once again was pushed to the inside of the rectangle, but this time was different. Due to the time trial start, we were starting to catch up to the big groups of slower swimmers who had started 10-15 minutes after us, and were just finishing their first loop. It's one thing to have to go around a few slower swimmers - I'm used to that. It's entirely different when you come up on a large group of them. This time trial start was bad for all of us. My group had to fight their way through them and they were getting hammered. This was the first time I felt unsafe in an Ironman swim, even though they told us that it was going to be easier. I made it out and hoped Randy was okay through all of that! Funny thing... as soon as my hands hit the bottom, I stood up to run over the timing mat and there was Randy, about 30 seconds in front of me....AGAIN!! He didn't see me, but it made me smile to know we were practically together the whole time.
I was hoping to go under 1:10 again in the swim, but I also knew that was dependent on the conditions of the swim. My time was 1:09:09, a 42-second PR from 2008 and the 13th fastest in my age group (out of 103 starters).
I got my wetsuit peeled off by one of the volunteers (if only I could just get someone to put it on for me!) and jogged to the transition area. I grabbed my T1 bag and headed into the women's changing tent. There was plenty of room (one perk of the time trial start) and I had a volunteer help me with everything. I changed out of my bathing suit and into my bike clothes. At one point, as I was putting my jersey on, I looked out the opening of the tent and saw Randy running by toward the bikes! Too bad I'm so slow in transition or we could have started our rides together! Anyway, as I finished up, the amazing volunteer put everything back together for me and I ran out to get my bike. They have a great system set up. Volunteers call numbers out and other volunteers get our bikes. Not everyone's bike is waiting for them, but mine was. I ran out of the oval, mounted the bike, and headed out for my ride around the Adirondacks...
Congratulations on a great swim! You really put together an amazing race. (FYI, I'm thom2022 from H&F.) :)
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