Noosa

The next stop in Amanda and LSF's 2013 Aussie Adventure was Noosa, a small surfer town on Australia's Sunshine Coast.  This was also the last stop that LSF and I were together.  After Noosa, she flew back to Sydney and then the States, while I continued further north to Cairns for some scuba diving and rainforest tramping.  But more on that later (since my travel days are winding down, I'm trying to stretch my writing material to delay the inevitable "I really have nothing to talk about other than my training" phase, which I know will make for some truly riveting reading).

Life Saving competition training

Neither LSF nor I knew what to expect from Noosa.  The town didn't even show up in our guide books.  But it had a Starwood Resort (a quite nice one, too) and that was really all we needed to grant it the starring role in our itinerary.

Turns out, Noosa is a total hidden gem.  Some fancy resorts, sure, but mostly just a totally laid-back surf town surrounded by rainforest-y National Parks.  When we arrived in town, we parked our (sensible rental) car amongst a row of rusted-out hippy camper vans, and were immediately asked by two shirtless surfers if we were in town for "the competition."  It took a couple confused looks for him to realize we had no clue what competition was going on.  Lucky us, we arrived just in time for the annual Noosa Festival of Surf, one of the biggest surf competitions in Australia.   The dudes who asked us that question must have been smoking something all day, because there was absolutely no way that LSF (dressed in essentially business casual) nor I (Lululemon head-to-toe with running shoes) could ever be confused for casual surfers, much less the kinds that enter big hippy surfing festivals.  We did quite enjoy watching, though. 

Surfing Competition

As we had done in the Gold Coast, LSF and I quickly hightailed it to the local Surf Life Saving Club, congratulating ourselves all along the way on just how resourceful and authentic we were for figuring out the amazingness of Surf Clubs.  In our minds, we were the only tourists, ever, who were so smart.  I think we're still sticking with that opinion.

We had one full day in Noosa, which we spent mostly hiking 7 kilometers from the Noosa Heads Surf Life Saving Club, through the Noosa National Park, to (you guessed it) the Sunshine Beach Surf Life Saving Club, where we got lunch.  Sensing a theme?

The hike was beautiful and varied.  During our little hike, we got poured on, and then sunburnt.  For a while, we were walking on wheel-chair accessible sidewalks.  But for an even longer while, we were completely lost, as the path totally disappeared, and we just forged ahead along the coast, celebrating whenever we saw other footprints, even if it looked like they'd been there for days, and crossing our fingers that we weren't going WAY off course.  And then, like magic, the path reappeared. 

During our little trek, both because we are lawyers (or law school graduates, as the case may be) and because we are sorta dorks (yes, these are possibly synonymous descriptors), we had a lengthy debate on the actual definition of hiking vs. just walking.  LSF initially said "hiking" requires use of a walking stick, which I soundly rejected because I ain't never used no walking stick and I am sure I have done some hiking in my life.  At first, I said hiking was just being on a soft surface, as opposed to a sidewalk that's been built by the forest rangers.  But that might not work either.  There's a soft path along Lake Michigan, and I certainly wouldn't call walking on that path hiking.  My final view:  it's hiking if at some point, you end up just a little (or a lot) lost and worried that you've somehow gotten off path.  For me, someone who once got lost walking from the El station to my own (not new) home, that casts a pretty large net, but I think it works.  And what we did on the way from Noosa to Sunshine Beach--- definitely hiking.

Anyway, much credit to LSF, a city-girl through and through, who told me at various points throughout our Aussie trip that she was not a fan of: 1) nature (subsequently clarified that it was only animals she had a problem with, and implicitly, I think, limiting that dislike to creepy crawly, not cute, sorts of animals, as she did see pretty keen to spot kangaroos and koalas (fail, on both grounds, by the way)); 2) sun; 3) sand; or 4) breakfast.  Yet she happily joined along in that 7K hike, through nature, over sand, and in the sun, without eating a single thing before starting, and I think even enjoyed it a little.  That's a good travel companion, right there!

Proof that LSF exists and that we lost the trail and just hiked along the coast for a while

Sunshine Beach

By that evening, we were both back in our comfort zone, that being the "live it up for the last night we're together on this trip" zone.  There was a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of wine, and maybe another bottle of wine consumed.  It was a performance I was quite proud of, really.  This Aussie Bender's going to have to come to a close soon, but I've enjoyed it.

Every last drop.  I'd have broken open that bottle and licked the inside if I thought that'd work

It was a sad moment when LSF and I parted ways.  It was a good trip, a great chance to catch up with an old friend who I hadn't seen nearly enough of, and for me, a much-needed opportunity to unwind after a disappointing race. 

Oh yeah, and I didn't go blind.  My eye's fine.  Sorry, assorted relatives, for causing concern.  Yes, I know eyes are not replaceable.  I'll be less flip about it next time. 

Heaven on Earth, aka Aussie Surf Life Saving Clubs

Good news!  After less than one week in Australia, LSF and I have found, and celebrated, the greatest thing about Australian culture that exists....and that is local Surf Life Saving Clubs. 

Backing up a bit.  Saturday morning, we left Sydney, flew to Brisbane and then drove to the Gold Coast area of Australia.  After spending several days amidst the hustle and bustle that is Sydney, Gold Coast was quite the different experience.   The Gold Coast area's largely tourism-based, with huge surfing beaches overshadowed by large condo buildings/ resorts, theme parks, and little else.   The beaches are lovely, but at this point the waves are so rough that the beaches are almost all closed due to dangerous conditions (it had apparently rained for almost 6 weeks straight in Brisbane before we arrived, so I suspect the conditions were due to that weather event).  

 

We got into town, had lunch in a fancy seaside restaurant, wandered around our resort a little, and then tried to figure out what exactly we we could do on the Gold Coast beyond just laying in the sun, which both of us are sort of over at this point.

A short half-mile walk later, and we'd found our happy place:  the Southport Surf Life Saving Club.

 

I wish I could speak intelligently about Surf Life Saving in Australia, but even with the help of Wikipedia, I still haven't been able to figure out exactly how to describe it other than to say it's a big part of Aussie culture.  Life saving is not only a job/ career (I was a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool in high school/ college and never knew it was a feasible career alternative), it's also a sport.... Aussie kids get involved in life saving competitions that involve ocean swimming, running, kayaking, etc.  They have a championship surf life saving events known as the "Iron Man" series (how the WTC hasn't put a stop to that, I have no idea) which I've seen broadcast on TV several times.  It is, in short, a big deal. 

Me in the Surf Club. Kindly ignore the stink eye (see below)

The local towns all have surf clubs to support these endeavors, and the best word I can use to describe these clubs is.....heaven.  These are local gathering spots that have: 1) cheap drinks; 2) gambling; 3) extensive and affordable dinner menus; 4) heaps of friendly Aussies; 5) Aussie sports on TV; 6) prime views of the ocean.   Once we stumbled on our local surf club and discovered the magic contained within, we were hooked.  In two days, LSF and I visited the local surf club THREE times.  Twice for dinner, and once for lunch.  I guess when you find something that's amazing, why keep looking elsewhere?

 

Of course, we did stuff other than hanging out at the surf club when we were in Gold Coast, but not all that much.  Mostly, we drove inland and hiked through a rainforest.  We saw a waterfall, took some pictures, escaped most of the rain, and then just barely managed to navigate our way back to home.

This morning, after our two days in the Gold Coast, we checked out and moved on to Noosa, an awesome little hippie-dippy surf town that also has its own Surf Life Saving Club that we, of course, found within minutes.  

The trip to Noosa would have been uneventful but for the fact that I'm pretty much on the verge of blindness.   I walked away from my race last weekend with very few physical complaints (spending more time walking than running during the last 13 miles will leave your legs feeling pretty darn fresh post-race) except for a painful eye that I assumed was just due to runny sunscreen.    Eight days later, the eye has been hurting more and more every day, I'm having a hard time keeping it open, my vision is slightly cloudy, and most troubling, I have absolutely no tolerance for sunlight whatsover in that eye.  That's be OK were we not in a place where the UV index is 12 on a scale of 10 (no joke).  Keeping it open enough to drive to Noosa was torture today, and the only solution I could think of was to do this:

Yes, that is two pairs of sunglasses. 

I know, I know, the double sunglasses look is super hot and will certainly be sweeping the Paris runways soon enough.  I'm also bringing back the "sunglasses at night" look. 

And yes, I am aware that I should see a doctor, but grumble grumble grumble, I'm on vacation, questionable insurance situation, I'm tougher than that, etc. etc. grumble grumble.   But if any of you are optical experts, feel free to drop me an email with reassurances that I am not, in fact, losing my sight.

More on Noosa later, but let's just say, after a mere two hours in this town I was already quite seriously looking into the possibility of moving in for awhile.  I'm booked to come back to the States on March 19, but so many of you have been posting such wonderful pictures of snow on Facebook that I'm strongly considering extending my stay in the Southern hemisphere until conditions at home are a bit more hospitable for a girl whose blood has gotten very thin, indeed.  So, thanks for that, friends!

Aussie Adventure, Part Two

It's been an adventurous couple days for me and LSF here in the Land Down Under.  When I left off, we'd been doing a pretty good job of both exploring Sydney and drinking wine.  No changes there.  Fun fact:  when you have 8 trillion Starwood points (still an official figure), the hotels seem happy to either: 1) give you bottles of wine; or 2) give you access to Executive Centers that have many bottles of wine.  Still not complaining.

Anyway, I have lots of pictures and I'm only halfway through my first cup of coffee, which is code for "I am essentially brain dead," so I'll just let the pictures from the last few days in Sydney take the lead here.

 

We took a ferry to the zoo.  I'm ordinarily not really all that into zoos, but we did want to make sure we saw some Aussie animals, so we made the trek, hurdled over small children and strollers and happy families and what not, hightailed it to Aussie Animal section, and saw what we were looking for, roos and koalas:

 

 To add to the list of things that I'm not impressed with:  the activity level of Australian animals.   Kanagaroos lay around all day.  And there was clearly some mistake in the evolutionary process with koalas, as they derive 100% of their nutrition from.....a plant that has just about zero nutritional value.  So they munch on eucalyptus for about 4 hours a day, just to derive enough energy to allow them to maintain a minimum level of life, and sleep the rest of the time.   That the little guy above was awake at all, and actually moving, seemed to be a big deal.   Cute as a button, though, huh?

My new motto

Later that day, we took another ferry to Manly Beach, where we laid in the sun until LSF got ridiculously, blisteringly sunburnt (an occurrence that has happened every single time we have vacationed in a warm weather location), and then headed to a local pub to drink beers and relive our glory days from law school by playing trivia.

I can't speak for LSF, but being on a pub trivia team in law school that was nothing short of a dynasty was indeed the pinnacle of my achievements at the time, so when we got through two rounds of Australian pub trivia and realized we were losing badly because all the flipping questions were about Aussie things, we decided not to tarnish our heretofore flawless record and, instead, quit and went home.

In the spirit of re-living the law school glory days (or at least the law school friend wedding circuit glory days), we devoted the next day to a wine tasting tour in the Hunter Valley.

 The views were spectactular, our tasting friends were quite entertaining, and the wineries were all very welcoming, but I will say that Hunter Valley wine is not my favorite.  Semillon and Shiraz are the "stars" of the region, and neither excite me, but they had alcohol in them and so I drank them happily. 

As you can see here, I started the day trying to be all sophisticated wine-drinker extraordinaire.  Hey, I was in the Wine Club at Harvard, so as you can imagine, I have been exposed to the most pretentious of pretentious wine drinkers ever ("the nose has a floral overtone, with hints of tobacco and a bit of barnyard.  So complex.  So intriguing.")   First wine, I tried that tactic a little, but quickly diverted into my own scale of assessing wine-- smells good, smells bad, tastes good, tastes bad, but unless it tastes really bad, I'm still more than happy to drink it.

The Situation was Deteriorating (hi PStas)

The next day we took a long, scenic walk from Coogee Beach to Bondi Beach, snapping pictures along the way.  It's good for me to have LSF here.  She just came from real winter, and is so excited to see the beach and the sun and all of that.  I've been in summer mode for a while now, so I forget sometimes how awesome it is to be outside without a coat in March.

Aussies just really love playing at the beach

Swam in this pool, which is pretty much a life highlight

And with that, our Sydney time was over.  We're now in the Gold Coast region--- much more touristy, a little hotter, a little more intense, sun-wise.  I am literally having a hard time keeping my eyes open due to the glare of the sun.  Which is bad, since I'm the one doing the driving. 

The Land of Oz

G'day, mates!

It's about four days post-Ironman New Zealand, and I've moved on.  As I expressed in my last blog, I finished the race feeling bummed about the outcome, but not entirely discouraged and still happy with the overall experience.  That lasted less than a day, and then I was more in the sad, frustrated, embarrassed and even a little angry phase.  Fortunately, I managed to pull myself out of that fairly quickly.  Now I'm in the "moving on" phase.  There are lots of things to figure out, nutritionally, physically, mentally etc. etc. etc., but that'll be on another day. 

Because now I'm in Australia and probably too hungover and distracted to engage in any sort of deep or even not-so-deep thinking.

Sydney Harbour

One of my good friends from law school, we'll call her LSF (law school friend), flew on over from the States yesterday and we met up in Sydney.   We'll be here a few days, then move north to the Brisbane area for a bit, then she leaves and I continue on to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.  LSF travels a ton for work and has thus amassed about 800 trillion Starwood points (that's an official count), so we're hopping from fancy schmancy hotel to fancy schmancy hotel, and I am most certainly not complaining.  

Yesterday, after getting settled in, we just walked around Sydney for a while, checking out the neighborhoods, walking across the Harbour bridge, wandering through the Royal Botanic Gardens.  

Those folks climbing the bridge are insane

Interspersed within the sight-seeing was some good drinking and eating.   I'm taking my "recovery"/ mid-season break seriously, and debauchery is not just a likely outcome of this trip (debauchery is, quite frankly, the foundational rock of my friendship with LSF), but an actual goal for me.   There may have been some beers at noon yesterday.  I may have consumed a glass (or two) of red wine while actually laying in bed, which is only the second-least classy thing I've done in the last week.  (The least classy, of course, was during the race, in the late stages of my epic meltdown, when I became so consumed by insane hunger that I actually asked some spectators, who were having a picnic, for food, ("I'm sorry, this is totally rude, but I'm in a really, really bad place and I'm so, so hungry") and ran off with a few crackers and hummus.   True story.)

Opera House

Botanic Gardens

In the evening, we hit up Sydney's Chinatown, which really ought to be called Pan-Asia Town, had Indonesian food for dinner and Taiwanese dessert.   Apparently both Indonesian and Taiwanese desserts often incorporate black beans.  I want to  be adventurous in my dining, but black beans and dessert....I just can't get my mind around that one.  So I went with some mango/ crushed ice concoction, and that suited me just fine.  I could get used to this wining and dining and desserting life.

One thing we're not doing:  talking about triathlon.  I needed a mental break, and it's a nice relief to be traveling with someone who heard about the distances involved in an Ironman and asked the inevitable question:  "wait, you do that all in ONE DAY?"   She also made the very astute observation about the current state of our circle of friends from law school:  "it amazes me, six years out from law school, how so many of our friends are not only no longer practicing law, but are not even working at all."   There's a quote for our law school's recruiting website, right there:)

 

 

This is upside down and also remarkably dramatic

IMNZ Race Report

Well, I didn't set any speed records at Ironman New Zealand today, so I think I'm going to go ahead and attempt a speed record in posting an Ironman Race Report.  Part because I want to just get it out, start to process it, and move on as quickly as possible, part because it's fresh in my mind, part because I'm going to be a little busy over the next couple days getting ready to head to Australia for 10 days or so.  Maybe I'll update this with more details later, maybe not. 

Long story short, I didn't have the day I wanted.  Didn't meet my place goals, didn't meet my time goals, didn't meet all my process goal.

But that's a negative, and not entirely complete view of things.  I also had a goal of enjoying the day and soaking in the Ironman experience.  And, for about 130 miles of the 140.6 mile race, I really did enjoy myself.  There was just a really, really bad 10 mile stretch.  In terms of the Ironman experience, hey, I experienced ALL of it.  Very, very high highs and very, very low lows.  So....some goals accomplished?

The results:
Swim: 56:07 (2nd in AG)
Bike: 5:34:02 (3rd in AG)
Run: 4:14:30 (ouch) (10th in AG - double ouch)
Overall:  10:5152 /8th in Age Group

Pre-Race
I'm not making excuses, but I am going to be a little more honest here than I have been.  I've been dealing with a pissed off knee/ quad ever since Auckland 70.3 and a bit before.  I've been filling my days in Auckland with lots and lots and lots of trips to physiotherapists and massage therapists, trying to get it under control.  It's been stressful mentally, much more than I've let on to anyone.  I have a history of what appear to be minor knee issues actually being extremely serous, and to say I've flipped out about this knee stuff is an understatement.  My coach thinks she's seem a lot of stressing about my knee, the truth is, she has only been made privvy to a small portion of it.

The knee wasn't an issue today.  At all.  What was an issue was that I have thrown extremely unhealthy amounts of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories into my body for weeks on end.  I knew it was a bad idea, that those rip up your stomach, create issues with fluid and elecrolyte balances, mess with your kidney, and that it was an extra bad idea when getting ready to do an Ironman, which absolutely requires your gut to be functioning perfectly, especially in hot weather.  Add in the stress which I've tried somewhat unsuccessfully to deal with and/or pretend didn't exist, and I was a ticking time bomb.  I was told to get off the pills, and I didn't.  Self-sabotage?  Just straight up stupidity?  I don't know.  But I paid for it today.

Aside from that, the pre-race stuff was uneventful.  I wasn't all that nervous this morning.  I did keep making dumb mistakes.  I screwed up putting on my race tattoo.  I almost forgot my nutrition.  I broke a valve on the tube when pumping my tires up.  But I was pretty chill about the misteps.

Swim
I'd heard the swim at Ironman New Zealand wasn't too physical.  Not exactly my experience, at least at the beginning.  I got pummeled more than I ever have, my googles were knocked off, my legs were grabbed.  But it got better quickly.  Lake Taupo is beautiful, perfectly clear, and I enjoyed checking out all the stuff on the bottom.  I can't say I felt amazing in the water, I didn't, and I got a little mentally low.  But just before we got in the water, I heard Mike Reilly say, "the only thing you can control today is your attitude."  I repeated that as a mantra, and just kept telling myself to stay smooth and enjoy the swim, the part of the race that generally causes me the least amount of anxiety.  This was an out-and-back, essentially, so it felt LONG, but I just relaxed, started counting my strokes (counting to 100 strokes repeatedly seems to help me stay mentally engaged in open water) and went with the flow.


I thought I was swimming slow, and when I got out of the water, I saw 1:10 on the clock, and my belief was confirmed.  Turned out, that was actually the clock from the pro swim and my swim was something like 56 minutes, a HUGE PR for me.  So it was a fast day, and that time kept me excited all through the bike.

T1
The first transition at Ironman New Zealand is not fun.  Long (like 400-500 meters to run) with a pretty tricky set of grass covered stairs to climb.  But, it got done without event.

Bike
Oh, my God.  I loved the bike.  I was nervous about the bike.  It's a two-looper, it has a quick stretch through town, climbs for about the first 10K, then is a long, boring out and back to Reporoa (the turn-around is at 28 miles or so).  The road to Reporoa is quiet (very few spectators out there), rolling, windy (with winds that change direction through the day), and of course has the rough roads I've been so fond of in New Zealand.   I figured it'd be  mental challenge to stay focused.

I took the first 10K extra easy since it's uphill.   Another member of Ken Glah's group told me yesterday that he considered that first 10K to be the most dangerous part of the course.  It's easy to overdo it, with the crowds at the beginning and then the long climb (and of course, feeling awesome getting on the bike).  I agreed, so I backed off of it significantly.

After that, I settled in and started eating and drinking a lot.  It was already getting hot, so I took in a ton of water.  I also took in a ton of salt.  Mentally, I broke the course up into 10Ks.  This might be the cheesiest idea out there, but I've found as a triathlete, and as a person who has had sports of some kind in my life since age 7, I still carry a lot of lessons that I learned from my previous athletic experiences.   So for each 10K, I thought about a specific year in my life.  I thought about things I did, athletically, that year, the highs and the lows, and mostly, what I learned from them or how they made me better.  Of course that lead to thinking about people who've had a significant impact in my life, either through sports or otherwise.  I thought about them, I kept telling myself that even if they weren't watching, I wanted to make them proud, and it gave me strength.  Super cheesy, yeah.  But it worked.   I had one overarching thought during that time, and it was that:  I am the sum total of ALL of my experiences, and all of my interactions, good and bad, athletic and otherwise, and there are a lot of good lessons to keep in mind. 

Of course I also used the time to eat and drink and salt and all that.   I executed my nutrition plan flawlessly.  In hindsight, it may be time to take that nutrition plan right back to the drawing board, but that analysis is for another day.

Cheesy point number two: I cried on the bike.  But, they were tears of joy.  That's not my style and I have no idea where it came from.  ALL day (well, for the most part), I smiled at every spectator out there.  You know, enjoying the experience, all that.  They LOVED it.  I got so many great cheers back, people were so nice, that coming back into Taupo before the second loop, I started bawling with a big ole grin.  Where it came from, I have no idea.  But I think inside me, there are a lot of pent up emotions about this time in New Zealand in general.  I have loved it here.  And I think the Kiwis cheering for me just brought that to the surface.  I was madly, wildly, passionately in love with New Zealand, and I just couldn't stop crying.

Of course that changed when my bike seat got a little more uncomfortable and the winds picked up, but I finished the bike course off in a great place mentally, with a PR split by almost 15 minutes (would have been more if those crazy headwinds hadn't picked up the last hour+), and generally felt like I was just having the perfect day.

T2
Sunblock was order of business #1.   It as getting HOT.


Run
Well, I started out in the nice happy place I was in for the bike.  My legs didn't feel great those first couple miles and I was a little slower than I expected, but I didn't panic at all, mentally kept telling myself that it would come around, and just kept smiling.   It did start coming around, and my pace settled right where I wanted it.   I felt quite good for the first 8+ mile loop, and was very optimistic that I was on track for a dream day.   Stomach felt a bit rough, so I made a little port-o-pot stop at mile 9, felt much better afterwards, and figured it was clear sailing until then.

Until mile 12, and I got hit by a truck.  Not literally.  But it felt like that.  Just like that, in a split second, I went from feeling quite good, to hardly being able to lift my feet off the ground.  I was getting bloated and hot, got tunnel vision quite quickly, and started to feel dizzy.  I'd been drinking a ton and taking in lots of salt, so I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong.

I hobbled forward and stopped at the med tent, and when I stood still, the world started spinning.  I wanted the medic to give me advice, to tell me what I needed.  He wouldn't, he just told me to lay down.  I knew if I did that, there was a good chance my day would be over, so I declined, stood for a couple minutes, and then walked on to the aid station, where I tried everything--- pretzels, a Mars bar, Coke, more water.  Probably a mistake, but I was in a bad, bad place.  I think I had a 16 minute mile there.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my stomach then began to revolt.  The dizziness stopped, but my stomach bloated out until I looked like I was pregnant.  Then the stomach started cramping, to the point where I couldn't run more than 20 steps without the pain overwhelming me and making it impossible to breathe.  That lasted for the next 10 miles, plus or minus.   Those were a BAD 10 miles.  There was another lengthy Med Tent visit with a nice 4 minute sit.  There were multiple (mostly unproductive) bathroom visits.  Three or four times, I tried to make myself vomit, tried to get whatever was doing this to my stomach out.  Didn't work.  It felt like a nightmare.

Adam found me at that point, disturbed when he'd spotted me trying to throw up by the side of the road.  I asked him to get his phone and email my coach to ask for advice.  Not a whole lot of diagnostic work one can do from overseas, but she told me to switch to sports drinks.  I tried, but every time I put anything into my body, the excruciating cramps would start again.  But it was hot and I didn't want to stop hydrating or eating, so every aid station (and bathroom break) was followed by several futile attempts to run again. 

The sad thing was, my legs felt GREAT.  When my gut allowed me to run, I was running fast, blowing by people, and not feeling anything like I should have felt (leg and lung-wise) for that point in the race.  But I just couldn't keep it going for more than a couple minutes without the stomach saying no, not gonna happen.

Finally, around mile 21 I had access to my Special Needs bag (three loop course, we could get it at any of 3 points we passed).  I'd packed some Maalox tabs, so I started chomping on those.  It didn't completely solve the issues, but it helped enough that I could run a whole lot more in that last 5 miles than I had been.  Still, legs felt great. Lungs felt great.  In a way, it was heatbreaking.

Those last 5 miles, I put the smile back on.  There were a few tears during that rough 10 mile patch, I admit.  From the pain, from the mental anguish of being so close to a dream day and having it slip away due to nutritional problems, just because, well, I wanted to be better.   But for the last 5 miles, I put back on the brave face, knowing my marathon time and what I thought, two hours ago, was a sure-fire Ironman PR were shot to pieces, and just tried to enjoy the experience again.  I smiled and thanked everyone who cheered for me, and I finished strong.  My last mile was among my fastest.

Even though I was gutted by my time and my place, I was smiling ear to ear when I crossed that finish line.  I truly was happy.  There was so much good to take away from the day....I swam and biked great, I ran lots of miles great.  Taupo was out in full force for this race, it was a beautiful day, and it was a great celebration of New Zealand triathlon.  And this wasn't a mental melt-down-- for me, those hurt more.  This was a physical issue, and it's fixable.   It will be fixed.

Not my day, but still going to smile about it

Post-Race
I was in the med tent within minutes of my finish and of course, the consensus was that I set myself up for failure with the amount of NSAIDs I've been taking.   Add in a hot day, probably insufficient pre-race hydration, and basically I screwed myself over.  Yes, I'm kicking myself.  But Ken Glah (who had a great day out there) made me feel better after the race.  He reminded me that these things happen and you learn from them.  In his words, "it should make you feel better, in a way, when you think forward to Hawaii.  This wasn't fitness.   You're plenty fit and you will be in October.  This is something that can be easily fixed."


Yeah, I'll probably mourn this a little, but not in an unhealthy or overly lengthy way.  These Ironmans, they are beasts, and you cannot make stupid mistakes like I did.  But I'll be back stronger and with more experience.  And with lots of amazing memories.