Ironman Canada 2012: Race Day

I got up at 3:29AM, one minute before my alarm went off. I slept well. I ate dinner at 6:30PM and went to bed an hour later. Ellen was in the living room trying to figure out ways to drive to the bike course to avoid road closure. I was surprised she was up that early. She had to move the car from the hotel parking lot to the street behind us because Lake Shore Drive was closed starting 4AM until midnight. The run course passed our hotel. I did my usual stuff, ate oatmeal and banana, stretched, hydrate and took a shower. I couldn't stand not taking a shower in the morning. I know I would sweat but at least, it was clean sweat (I made that up. Clean sweat?). Around 4:45AM, I ate my second breakfast, Apple Pie bonk breaker. It was small and packed in calories. I tried to eat at least 400 calories that morning.

The plan was to go leave the hotel at 5AM. The transition opened at 5AM and closed at 6AM. At 5:10AM, Eric and Sarah weren't ready yet, so Susan and I took off. We got there 10 minutes later and were body marked and dropped off our special need bags. I brought a pump with me. The last thing I wanted to be doing was to wait in line for a bike pump. I found bird's poop on my rear tire. It was tiny and I considered that a good luck (It's an Indonesian thing, when something like that happened, it was considered good fortune.. weird). After I was done, I gave it to Susan. I went through the transition area again. I wasn't nervous but just ready to start. It was funny to watch people around me. Some people laid on the grass and closed their eyes. Some were pretty chatty. Some were stretching. It was a little cold that morning, probably around 60's F. I put my wetsuit on up to my waist and walked to the porter potty lines where I found Susan, Eric and Sarah. We, then, walked back to the bike area. Sarah was standing by her bike when a volunteer asked her repeatedly if Sarah's bike was hers. He told her that her rear tube blew off when she wasn't around. He took it to the mechanic and they put a new tube. What a relief! Thank God it happened before the race and somebody cared to look for the bike and changed the tube.

At 6:45AM, the pros started. I could hear the cheering from the transition area but I wasn't interested in watching them start. We walked to the beach. When I passed the timing mat, a lady volunteer tapped me on the shoulder to wish me good luck, I smiled and thanked her. She only said that to me, I felt special. The swim course was clock-wise. I wanted to be at least 50 meters from the buoys. I was fine swimming farther as long as I didn't get kicked a lot. I was concerned I would lose my goggles if somebody accidentally pulled them from the side. I was legally blind without contracts.... seriously. The swim start was so wide. It almost took over the whole beach.

You can't even see the buoys. It's where the arrow is pointing. The red star was approximately where I was among 2,600 athletes

After scouting the area, I decided to be in the middle, width wise, and about a third from the front. I called Susan and Sarah to say good bye since they kept going and wanted to stand in the back. We all hugged. Eric walked towards us and gave me a bear hug. I wished them good luck, be safe and have fun. I choked up. I had my goggles on, they didn't see me tearing up. I don't know why I felt really emotional.  I trained with them every Saturday for the past 7-8 months. We went through good rides, bad rides, fun rides, crappy rides, flats (well, that's just Eric), everything... It was as if we went to the war and went our separate ways. I was on my own.

While I was waiting for the gun to go off, I asked a few guys around me what their goal time was. They said 1:20. I felt good. You wanted to swim around people with the same pace. If I swam closer to the buoys, I would love to do 1:15, but 1:20 was good enough. I had my watch on but I wasn't planning to look at the time when I finished swimming since I didn't want to get disappointed. After all, 5 minutes didn't mean anything compared to 14-15 hour finish time. All athletes had to stand behind the flags. Once the gun went off, the flags were lifted up. Off we went. I felt pretty calm. My heart wasn't racing. There were other races I felt a lot more nervous before the swim, not this time. The water was clear. I could see my hands as they entered the water. I could see people swimming around me. I was sighting at the mountain. I felt I was swimming closer to the buoys which made me nervous because I didn't want to get trapped around the first turn buoy. After a while, I saw a couple of white boats. I was getting closer to the first turn. I swallowed water a bit when I turned to breath. People were swimming closer to me compared to the beginning of the swim. Since I could see the pack in front of me, I decided to sight less and followed people. I felt I was turning right but not too sure. Pretty sure, I saw a white buoy, which was a turn buoy. I popped my head out and did some breast strokes. I could see the hotels. That meant I was on the way home to the finish. A guy breast stroke next to me said "isn't this fun?". Sure it was.

I started to swim smart, found human speedboats (swimmers with strong kicks) and followed them, not at their feet, but swam at their hips. That way I had less chance getting kicked in the head but still drafted off them. I found good swimmers to draft. I could see their relaxed faces in the water, high elbows, good hip rotations and their legs kicking from the hips. It was fun watching people. I, then, heard a guy talking loud. I thought it was a volunteer on a kayak directing the athletes. Duh! That was the voice of the announcer. I was getting really close to the end of the swim. People started swimming aggressive. They kicked harder. Their arms moved faster. I could see the bottom of the lake as I approached the beach. I swam until my hands touched the bottom. I stood up. I felt I had a great swim. I looked at my watch, 8:15AM. I ran to the timing mat.

Swim Time- 1 hour and 14 minutes

I found the wetsuit strippers. I sat on the ground. They pulled my wetsuit down. The girl said you were an easy one. I would hate that job, it was like doing squats 500 times. I thanked them as I ran to grab my bag. The changing tent was half full. I sat on a chair. A volunteer just got done helping another athlete. I asked her for help. She opened my bag. I put on my socks, shoes, helmet and glasses. She put my wetsuit and goggles in the bag. I took off.

My heart rate was 154, which was not bad. A little high but normal since I just swam. The first 35 miles of the ride were relatively flat with the exception of one steep hill around mile 14. At mile 5, my stomach started acting up. I didn't think much of it but it kept getting worse. Acid indigestion was the problem. I've had this problem during some training and race days but this time was different. The medication that I took before the swim didn't work. I took one more dose. I tried to keep calm. I couldn't stay aero because it felt a lot worse. It was hard not to stay aero on flat. A lot of people passed me, which I didn't care. I played my own game. Save plenty for the run.

Two hours later I started getting frustrated with the pain. It wouldn't go away. I tried to throw up but I couldn't. My friend, Bill, told me if you think you go slow, go slower, it's a long day. I certainly did that. I prayed that God would take away the pain. The first bible verse came to mind was My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. In normal circumstances, I would get more annoyed and definitely not happy with the answer. But I was at a different place. It gave me peace and confidence that I would be okay.

Somebody says don't let what you can't do prevent you from doing something that you can do. I made sure I ate 220 calories per hour. If I had a huge calorie deficit, I would bonk and that would be the end of the race. A race official on a motorcycle passed me and called out my number. She said I needed to watch the draft zone. The rule was 7 meters between me and the athlete in front of me. I knew that but when people passed me three at a time, it was harder to keep that distance. What was I supposed to do? pedal backward? I just apologized and thanked them for the warning. At least I didn't get a penalty.

At mile 40, we rode behind Husky gas station. After that turn, we started climbing 7.4 miles on Richter Pass. In the middle of the climb, two ambulances with siren blaring passed us as we crawled going up hill. It wasn't a good feeling. There was an accident or something on the descent. A day before the race, my sister asked me to be careful. From the way she said it, I knew she was pretty concerned. My parents didn't know I was doing this. I promised her that I would be safe.

I heard somebody said "Monika from Sandy Springs?" My race number on my back had my first name, so no surprise if he knew my name, but Sandy Springs, how did he know? Did I have UPS logo on my jersey? It was Cecil. He was the guy that I met at Cadence Bikes when I dropped off the bike to be shipped last week. He was 62 years young and this race was his 13th IM. We talked about time goals and we had similar goals for each leg. I asked him how swim was. He said it wasn't good. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had a good swim. There were a lot of spectators on the side of the street. A teenybopper with a giant Justin Bieber poster. A guy offered a bottle of tequila. Posters and cowbells were everywhere. As I was descending, I saw dried blood on the ground. It had to be from the accident.

At mile 50, I couldn't take the pain anymore. The acid indigestion turned to gas indigestion. People went to the emergency room thinking they had a heart attack which turned out to be gas indigestion. Extremenly painful. I stopped at a water station with potter potties. Without going too much details, after the stop, I got back on the bike and felt like a new person. I felt 200% better. There were many rolling hills between Richter Pass and the out and back stretch. Well, it was supposed to be out and back but they changed the course. I was a little confused why we made a couple of U turns. Did I miss a turn? How did I get back to the main road? I saw Eric and Sarah but not Susan. Since she's a Type 1 diabetes, she took a long time in Transition because she had to test her blood sugar and make sure it wasn't too high or too low. I grabbed my special need bag at mile 75. A few miles later, we were back on the main road.

On the "out and back" stretch

Before the Yellow Lake climb, I saw another ambulance in the middle of the road. The EMT was treating an athlete that was lying on the ground. I couldn't look. I didn't want to know. It would freak me out.

Yellow Lake climb, as expected, was long. A couple of short breaks in between three climbs. As I descended, my chain got stuck. I got off the bike to fix it. Sarah passed me. Back to town, a guy, as he was passing me, said "only a marathon left" with excitement. Only? On Main Street, the crowd was getting bigger. Penticton was a city of 30,000 people. They embraced IM Canada every year. Everybody came out to cheer (and watched us suffer). I finished the bike in 7.5 hours. I would like to finish in 7 hours but I wasn't disappointed. My legs felt fresh as I jogged to the changing tent. The volunteer that helped me was great. She strapped my Garmin on my wrist and running belt on my waist as I put my running socks and shoes on. Team work! I applied sunscreen on my face. There was no mirror. I was afraid I looked like a ghost. I looked to the left, a girl was applying pink lip gloss. Funny.

A little too much sunscreen

As I was running out of the transition, I saw Sarah. She told me to go for it. That's what I like about her, she was always encouraging. Running was my time to shine. No more stomach pain. Everything felt great. I settled in 11 minute pace. I drank water every water stop and took a squirt of EFS. My running mantra was "one two Kalamazoo... three four Jersey Shore..." I repeated the words over and over again. They matched my strides. Mile one and two were on an out and back stretch. I saw Eric who was ahead of me. I passed him a couple of miles later. He looked great. As I was running on Main Street, I saw Susan at the end of her ride. She had a smile on her face. We were all doing great.

This was a marathon but I couldn't think of running for 26.2 miles. I made mini goals. The first goal was 10K. After I passed the 10K mark, the next goal was the turn around at mile 13.1. I stopped for a porter potty a couple of times. A few people stopped and started throwing up. Not pretty. I passed a woman who had her 2012 check list printed on the back of her shirt. 1. Get married, checked. 2. Have a baby, checked. 3. Ironman, unchecked. Interesting... and these were 2012 goals? I asked how old her baby was. She said 3 months. Holy cow! How did she train for this?

Around mile 10, my quads felt tighter. I tried to think about something else. I knew Mary was ahead of me. Her PT Solution blue and gold top stood out. I recognized her right away. She was about 5 miles ahead of me. I said something encouraging but I could tell she wasn't feeling to be on top of the world.

Mile 11 was a long uphill. I shortened the strides. It was hard but I didn't walk. As I was running downhill, I noticed everybody on the other side walked the uphill. It hurt running downhill, so it hurt more running uphill on the way back. I was wondering how Cecil was doing. Since I met him only once, I wasn't sure if I could recognize him right away. Literally 15 seconds later, a guy who looked like him ran on the other side. I tried to read the name on his bib. It was Cecil!  I said something like, good job, keep it up. He looked he was hurting a bit.

The turn around at Mile 13 was where we picked up our special need bag. I had a PB&J sandwich, socks and a head lamp, just in case it got too dark later. I was too focused getting stuff out of the bag. I didn't run through the timing mat. A volunteer chased the guy besides me and asked him if he passed the timing mat. He did, but I didn't, so I ran back. The turn around area was like a block party. Loud music, lots of volunteers and spectators, people were dressing up to entertain us. A race volunteer said "you're on your way home, folks!" Somehow those words sounded so sweet. 13 miles to go.

Mile 15 hill was next. I ran at the beginning and started walking the rest of it. I lengthened my strides. At the crest, I picked up running again. I looked to my left, and realized that the hill that I ran on Mile 11 was really long. I couldn't believe that I didn't walk. It gave me a shot of adrenaline. With 10 miles to go, I started doing the count down, the remaining miles were going down to a single digit. I felt really good and started checking my pace, I ran faster than the first 13 miles. I knew good feeling in a race didn't last long but I wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could. Miles were ticking off and I still felt great. I was dreading "the wall" and miraculously it never came.  The stomach pain turned to be a blessing. I saved plenty for the run. I kept passing people left and right. With 5 miles to go, I decided to aim for 14 hours finish time. I did all the math in my head and it looked very obtainable. Back on Main Street, there were a lot more people on the street cheering for us. I saw Susan's cheering squad. I high fived Ellen, Jessie and Belinda. I picked up my pace. It was hard to believe that I ran a negative split marathon.

The longest mile was the last 1.2 miles. I ran passed the hotel we stayed. It felt like I was running for a long time on Lake Shore Drive. I could hear the announcer and see the finish arch. I said a prayer. I was extremely grateful I could toe off at the start line healthy and finish this race in one piece. When I watched people finishing an Ironman, I always wondering what it felt like, what kind of emotion they were feeling, what they were thinking moments before crossing the finish. For me, it was pure excitement. It wasn't so much about running through the finishing chutes, but the journey to get there.

I raised my hands and jumped in the air before I hit the tape. Too bad the race photo didn't capture that.