DETOUR : Loveland Lake to Lake Olympic Triathlon

This race never happened for me this summer. Quite unexpectedly my summer became one I will cherish for always. At the beginning of June we found out my mother had stage 4 rapidly growing small cell lung cancer. We spent the summer primarily in California loving my mother and each other. With 10 children and 30 grandchildren my mother was surrounded by LOVE for the last 7 weeks of her life. She died on July 19, 2013.

Hawaii Ironman 70.3 - Race Recap

Hawaii 70.3 Ironman 

June 2, 2013

This was probably the hardest race I have done to this point. And my time was the longest I've ever had for a half Iron distance race. But relative to the field, I was still about where I usually am, for a decent, but not fabulous race. Which means everyone was affected by the conditions, not just me! A couple friends who have done this race before said the conditions were the worst they've ever raced here, and their times reflected that. 

The heat and humidity were high (temp from 80-90 and humidity was the same!) - coming from Colorado, that kills!!  Then there was the wind! Choppy water made for a longer than normal swim time, and wind on the bike was whipping! Gusts up to 40 mph. I really had to hold onto the handle bars at some points to not get blown over! Nonetheless I still felt pretty good on the swim and the bike, all things considered. It was the heat on the run that got me. Much of the run course is on a golf course with some of the run actually on the grass, it was like a steam room stepping onto the grass to run, I literally felt like I was cutting through the air with each step.

I'm not sure where the smile came from! Unless this was at the beginning of the run when I still felt ok!

 We took the whole family with us and had a wonderful vacation the week following the race!

Phoenix Marathon - March 2, 2013

Phoenix Marathon - March 2, 2013

This was the marathon that I was most prepared for, my training had all been spot on - and I had hit all the prescribed paces at or faster than needed to hit my goal of under 3:40 (8:23 pace per mile).  This was also another attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon so that I could skip going to run it in 2013 (the race I had qualified for) and run it instead when my husband was going to run it in 2014.

And as you can see the course elevation lends itself to a fast race.

BUT . . . (with these long endurance races it seems more often than not, there is a big old BUT . . . )

I did not anticipate what 4 days (Mon-Thurs) of the week of the race, spent walking around Disneyland and California Adventure, from morning until late night- would do to my run. I thought, "I've trained hard, tapered well, I'm ready. Surely WALKING around all week won't affect my run on Saturday - after all, I'll rest on Friday." Big fat  WRONG!!! 

This IS a great race though! I would definitely consider doing it again! Well run, great course, good temperature (50s to start and 70s at finish). I was great through about half way. Then I started to feel more tired than I should have at that point. You can see by my Garmin stats that it just kept getting slower and slower. By mile 17 I was still on track to make it, but was worried. my FEET hurt in ways they have NEVER hurt during a race (obviously from all the walking around that week prior to the race). By 21/22 I knew it was not happening but still tried to plod on! I finally let myself walk a good portion of miles 24 and 25, then picked it up to run the last little bit (slowly!!)

Official Results:

The day after this race I booked my hotel and flight for Boston 2013, now not knowing if I would EVER be able to qualify again, I had to go and do the race, even if it meant going there all by myself.

Sidenote: We had a WONDERFUL time in Disneyland with our kids and our Lyons extended family - and in the end, that is way more important than a marathon.