70.3 Half IRONMAN!!! Utah Half - August 28, 2010

This is what I had worked towards all spring and summer long. Completing a Half Ironman! 1.2 miles of swimming, followed by 56 miles of Biking, then you get to run a half marathon - 13 miles.

It seemed so daunting at the beginning of the season and I was scared to death the few days before it. But I knew I had trained as hard as possible - Really. Who else would bike 56 miles and then run the 13 miles as a training?!?! well, I did! And I only made it running about 10 of the miles and then walked about 2 before my husband picked me up. That day was a lesson in hydration and fueling - one I am glad I learned before race day. Although I was still nervous the same thing might happen on race day. But, thankfully, it did not, and race day was as perfect as it could be. 

Exiting the water after 1.2 miles of swimming -The mass start didn't bother me, I have yet to get bloodied up - I'm sure it's just a matter of time - but for now I've had pretty good experiences. I definitely need to learn to swim straight. I kept veering to the left or right and would have to correct myself when I'd site. I started swimming last February. Actually learning how to swim correctly. I am hoping because I am so new to the swim that my times will improve quite a bit over the next year or so.  My goal for the swim was to be under 42 minutes, I was 46 min (169/301) - nothing to brag about - that's for sure - but I guess that includes all the guys too - that makes it a bit more respectable!! My girlfriend who did the race with me was pretty convinced the swim course was longer than 1.2 - I was glad to hear that (and others have reiterated that fact too) - my longest 1.2 in a pool was 44 min and typically race day is faster -and wetsuits make you faster too - So i'll just hope it was long and that my time isn't as bad as I thought it was! power in positive thinking!

My friend Kari and I rode almost the whole bike course together - it was fabulous! The Bike course was mostly flat, so it was just a matter of pedaling through it. My goal was to be under 3 hours, I was 3:01:10 with a 19mph average, and 195/301 (not very good!)

The run is my strongest part - not that it's great - but at least so far in the races I've done, there are very few (females) who pass me on the bike and the run - especially the run. My goal was to run a 9:30 pace (which is not very fast - but after that swim and bike, it was what I realistically hoped for). When I started the run I could not believe how hard it was. I had done so many brick workouts (bike to run in a quick transition) that I felt I would be ready for this, but man oh man it was hard! The first three miles were the worst and I kept telling myself, "wow, you just have to finish," and "I will NEVER do a full ironman, NEVER." and "this is absolutely insane", then I'd see a smiling girl pass me coming the other direction (there were a bunch of out and backs in the loop and we did the loop twice, so you kept seeing the same people as you passed them going the other direction) - there was one girl that in particular made me smile and realize I was doing this because I wanted to. She was always smiling and saying hi to everyone she ran by. I looked forward to seeing her and actually started closing the gap between us as she was maybe a half mile ahead of me at the start of the run. After the three miles passed I got into a groove and just started to reel people in, my goal would be to reel in the next person in front of me, and just focus on that until it was accomplished. At about mile 11ish - I passed my smiling girl , she was sitting down on the side of the path and was not smiling, I talked to her as I passed and asked if she was ok. I told her she was my smiling girl and that I looked forward to her smiles when we passed. I was happy to see her finish a few minutes behind me, to know that she was able to finish. I ended up with a 9:20 min/mile pace and a 2:02:24 run (107/301)
Here I am running in with 2 of my boys! (this was the best pic we got - sorry it's so small!)

Done!!

I had a goal to be under 6 hours, and  achieved that by 7 minutes! 5:53 - I place 2nd in my age group and was the 16th out of 68 females.

Rattlesnake Olympic Triathlon - 8/14/10

Rattlesnake Olympic Triathlon - 8/14/10

I competed in my first Olympic Distance Triathlon on August 14, 2010 - the same day my little brother got married in Las Vegas! We jetted from the tri to the airport and made it by the skin of our teeth to the wedding that began at 4pm.

1500m Swim (just shy of a mile); 26 mile Bike, 10K run (6.2 miles)

I was very pleased with my times for this triathlon. I finished by running an 8:21 min/mile pace for the run portion. the run is last and so becomes the hardest part of the tri because the swim and bike portions can really drain you, and even if they don't, running off the bike is not a normal feeling and can take a few miles to get used to!!

I finished in 2:54:25;  11th out of 48 in my division and 60th out of 236 females

Tri in July - July 17, 2010

Second Sprint Triathlon
Highlands Ranch - Pool Swim 750 m (16:12); hilly 14 mile bike (51:20, 16.4 mph) 4 mile run (34:38, 8:40 min/mile pace) - Total Time: 1:44:42 - 3rd in Age group (11th overall out of 211 females)

1st Sprint Triathlon - June 5, 2010

800m swim, 13 mile bike, 5k run 

getting ready - for sure very nervous!!

i didn't drown!


Finished!!

I finished 2nd in my division and in the top 10 females overall! pretty cool!

8oom Swim - 18 min
13 mile bike - 40 min (19.5 mph avg)
3.1 mile run (5K) - 26 min (8:39min/mile pace)

Total time: 1 hour 28 min

Onto Triathlons

Now that I had run a marathon I definitely thought I was pretty cool and could do the whole triathlon thing. My husband and I had been mountain biking for several years and I enjoyed that quite a lot. Moving to a road bike shouldn't be an issue, I thought. And after I got over the fear of how ridiculously tiny-thin those wheels were, and began to gain confidence going from the gutter to the pavement, I was sure I could do this thing they call triathlon.

I am an athlete aren't I? And typically better than most at whatever I have ever done athletically. I'm not being cocky, just stating the truth as I see it. (Ha! - that does sound quite cocky doesn't it!) Oh Well - call it what you will. I am more competitive than most, and have always driven myself to be the best I can be at any given thing. I am not a professional anything, so there are obviously many, many, many who are much much better than me at any given sport. But for the average joe, and for a mid 30's mom of 5, I think I can hold my own. 

Yet even with my new found bravado as I entertained the idea of triathlon, I couldn't avoid the fact that I did not know how to swim. I could do what I called the Freestyle, but whether or not it was correct, I had NO IDEA! So I enlisted the help of a girlfriend I played volleyball with; who happened to also be a tri coach (it's always good to have friends in high places). She began, painstakingly I am sure, to coach me in my swimming technique. Slowly, but surely, I came along. I would maybe say at that point I was decent, not great, but decent enough that I knew I could do a sprint triathlon (the shortest distances they have for triathlons). 

All the while I am falling in love with this new sport, my significant other is doing the same. And interestingly enough, he was going through the same process: learning to swim, learning to use a road bike, and for him, even learning to run (as a lifelong soccer player - he has the endurance built in, so the running came very easily for him). The tricky part for him was the fact that he had a triple level spinal fusion in July of 2009.  His recovery from that surgery and subsequent ability to run is nothing short of miraculous. We ran together for the first month or two of his running experience, and then he was already faster than me. Darn testosterone.

We signed up for our first Sprint Triathlon, "Tri the Creek" at the Cherry Creek Reservoir in Colorado. June 5th, 2010.

26.2 Miles - October 2009

It is done. I did it. I finished the marathon. Never in my whole life did I EVER think I would run a marathon. I am not a runner, never have been. Even 2 years ago when I started running with my girlfriends it was ONLY because they told me they talk the whole time and I knew it was the best way to stay in shape (or rather get back into shape after having all these babies!) - Even then I laughed at them when they suggested running a marathon. They all do it, have done it, and will do it again. So what changed in the last few years? It is hard to pinpoint the moment(s) that it happened. Once I was running 6 miles 3x/week just for exercise the idea of running 8 on a saturday sounded like fun (what!?!?! FUN!?!?! running 8 miles!?!?! this is NOT the rachel we all have known and loved our whole lives.) Then I ran 10, then 12 - and after each of those runs to say, "Wow! that is the farthest I have EVER run in my life." was a cool and invigorating feeling. And hence, the marathon bug crept in, and stayed.

Saturday, October 3rd, in St. George, Utah - My first Marathon.
The weather was PERFECT - it could not have been better - we started in the dark at about 40 degrees and at 5200 feet elevation. We finished when it was sunny and high 60s and at 2200 ft elevation. Typically you have to take a bus from the finish area up to the start between 4:30-6am - Fortunately for me, Brecken and I stayed with some friends who used to live here, who now are in St. George and who have connections and Eric was able to drive us up to the starting line 15 minutes before it started - so we did not have to stand around in the cold or get up at 4 am (I think I was awake then anyway though!).

The Race
Brecken and I started off together and were feeling really good at the start. Brecken is faster than me and has always been the one to push me in our training, which has been great for me. Knowing that she wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon and because she is a few years younger than me, the time she had to get (3:40) was faster than what I had to get (3:45). We knew at some point she would probably have to take off ahead to make sure she made her qualifying time. So we ran together at the beginning, for about 3 miles, then she got ahead of me and we were going pretty fast for my standards (7:30/mile pace) and so I knew I could not push it harder to keep up, so I let her go and kept that same pace for the first 7 miles (and felt good doing it) - Just after you reach mile 7 is the long hill (about a mile long, but then it's not totally down after that - it's a steady up or slightly up until about mile 12). I dropped to about a 9, 9:30 pace going up the hill and walked a little bit at the end of it. I was still feeling good, really a little bummed to be alone though, and I let it get to me a bit. I am not a person who enjoys running alone, I have never run more than 8 miles alone, so to run the last 23 miles of the race by myself was hard, I had to make myself not think about that though, because I was in the middle of a marathon and I was not going to quit. I did have my music which helped for sure especially because I never run with music - Brecken and I even did our two 20 mile runs without our ipods b/c we always talk instead - so having that as a newdistraction did help!

By mile 13 I was at 1 hour 52 minutes - double that and it's 3 hours and 44 minutes - exactly what I needed to qualify. And the 2nd half of the race is more downhill than the first half so I was confident at that point that I could do it. But every time I checked my pace I was a little bit slower than I needed to be, and I started to get down on myself. I completely believe and understand that it is up to no one but me to motivate myself to run as fast as I need to in order to reach a certain goal or to qualify for anything. That being said, it sure would have helped to have someone next to me to help keep me motivated, and to encourage me to keep running when I wanted to walk, and to talk to. I did walk through most of the aid stations and took water and gatorade at every station, and bananas and oranges at some of them. My calves started getting really tight around the middle of the race and I had one of the volunteers rub icy hot on them which seemed to help. It was interesting to feel all the emotions that I went through - most of them were really good emotions - sense of accomplishment, "wow, am i really doing this", that type of thing - and I found myself getting choked up and having to suppress the emotion because I started to hyperventilate whenever I wanted to start crying!

I didn't ever hit "the wall" that people talk about. And my knee - which has hurt due to IT Band Friction Syndrom in all my long runs during training did not hurt at all the whole marathon. Bill gave me a blessing for that about two weeks ago, and with all the physical therapy and IMS (Intramuscular Stimulation) or "Needling" that I have been doing, it took care of the knee thing.

At mile 20 I started to calculate whether or not I could reach my goal. I could, if I ran the last 6.2 miles at an 8 minute mile pace, which I thought - "maybe I can do this if it really is mostly downhill." So I pushed it, and was under 8 for a few minutes and then a small hill would come and I was back above 9, and even close to a 10 minute pace at some points. So then I found myself thinking - "why am I killing myself to do this when I, realistically, am going to miss my goal by 1 or 2 minutes anyway?!" At about mile 23 I realized it was NOT going to happen and I let myself walk for a while. I was still pretty emotional and started to be amazed at some of the people that were passing me: old women, old men, larger older men, it was nuts! My second goal was to finish under 4 hours. So after walking a bit I started running again, and then I came into the city and all these people are lining the streets cheering for all the runners, and I wanted to walk but I couldn't with all of them watching and cheering! So I finished at 3 hours and 58 minutes - 13 minutes over my Boston Qualifying time. Nonetheless I am proud of myself, I know I did well, and I am actually starting to be glad I did it, and for a first marathon I actually am starting to believe I got a really good time (I am being told this by others), I just always want the best and expect the best from myself, and all the girls I run with are superstars and run super fast, and that is what I am comparing myself to.

The Marathon Results give you all these stats of where you finished in comparison to the rest of the runners. The best one is that I finished ahead of 50% of the men that ran the race (that made me feel good!) and ahead of 70% of the women. But here's a funny one - I had just passed mile 15 when the guy who won the whole marathon finished, and I was at mile 19 when the 1st female finished! That is unfathomable to me!

MY SOUVENIR
At about mile 21 or 22 I thought I felt a small little rock or woodchip in my shoe - just on the side of my big toe, it wasn'tthat annoying so I did not want to stop, sit down, and remove it because I knew I would not want to get up again. So then after the race I took off my shoe and this is the little bugger I found.

Look at that sucker - just ready to burst! The fun things they don' t tell you about - I also have two totally black toenails on my right foot - but they are painted over so you can't see them as easily!

PHOTOS:

Brecken and I on the airplane out (all smiles - I had NO IDEA what was in store!)

6:20am - 25 minutes to start - getting dropped off at the starting line

During the Race

nearing the finish line

so happy to be almost done!

after the race

It all started when . . .

I committed to go running with my girlfriends after having my fourth child. I had run before, I have always been athletic. I preferred the sports that involved a ball though, mainly Volleyball, but basketball as well. I ran while playing those sports, and even had coaches at times that for some unknown reason, thought we were runners, and we ran way more than any regular volleyball or basketball team ever did. Now I only wanted to run to get the excess baby weight off. And the ONLY reason I committed to do it was because my girlfriends said we'd talk the whole time. Now, I knew I would not be talking, I'd be huffing and puffing to keep up, but as long as they talked, I could listen, ask the occasional question, and be distracted from the pounding I was putting my body through. And so it began.

That was the summer of 2006. I ran that weight off and actually began to enjoy and look forward to my 6am runs every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We each had a loop worked out around our homes that was between 5 and 6 miles, and we'd rotate.

Not that I would have called myself a runner at that point, I was just a girl who liked the way the exercise of running made me feel and my body look. I laughed at my girlfriend when she told me she was running a marathon, "Why on earth would you want to do that?" I asked her. I laughed when my running friends asked me if I wanted to sign up for a marathon with them.

But then, as with all of us amateurs, non-running life priorities happened. And so, I got pregnant with our 5th child.  I continued to run until the 24th week of my pregnancy. After my daughter was born in late May, I started again. It was like starting over - the huffing and puffing were back and I was SLOWER than molasses (my favorite homemade cookies call for molasses in them, so I really do know how slow that is.)

I was excited to get the weight off and even began to entertain the idea of a half-marathon (13 miles). When April '09 rolled around my girlfriend somehow convinced me to sign up for the lottery for the St. George Marathon that would be held on October of 2009.  May came around and we found out, we got in. That was a scary and exciting day.

Official training began in early June. The girls I ran with were superstars to say the least, some of them had qualified for the Boston Marathon in the past and they were all fast enough to do it if they wanted to. And so, having them as my only running partners, I set my sights on qualifying also. We trained to do it.