Many of you have been asking about my race report for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships, so here it is! It’s not a short one. So grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up for a few minutes.
I made a promise to those that would read this blog that I
would not write on a consistent basis.
Seeing as I have not posted anything in over a month, I feel that I am
holding up my end of the bargain pretty well.
I also made a promise to myself that I would not use this blog to share
negative emotions. If you want drama you
can go watch Jersey Shore or Keeping Up with the Kardashians (I am not even
going to take the time to see if I spelled the right…). I wanted this to be something witty,
educational, and fun. I didn’t want to
be forced to feel like I had to write something, simply because it had been a
week since I last wrote something. That being
said, the suspense is over…race report is below. Read away!
I had a meeting in Flower Mound on Tuesday night, which
ended a bit after 9PM. On my ride home I
had more free time than I usually do to think about things. As I sat in the mess of glaring red
taillights, that used to be known as “121” and now is referred to by many as “WTF,
really”, I began writing my race report in my head. And let me tell you, folks, it was pretty
dang good. Below you will find what my
mind was able to regurgitate, once I finally arrived home at 11PM...thanks to “WTF,
really.”
I got up about 4am on Sunday, September 9th to
eat my pre-race breakfast. Like a good
little athlete, I sat down and ate what seemed like far too much food to handle
at that time of the morning, just so I’d be ready for my swim wave to start
three hours later (and my body would be good and done with all its processing
before I crammed my way into a teeny tiny little speedsuit). Getting ready for the swim portion of a
triathlon is very similar to getting ready to go skiing, especially if you have
to wear a wetsuit. As careful as you are
to pee 27 times before you get all geared up, inevitably, the second you pull
on that last bit of gear you have to pee again.
I ate my breakfast and since I had three hours to kill, I’m
a strong believer in making the best use of your time, I laid down on the couch
and set my alarm for 45 minutes later. I’ll
be totally honest with you. I didn’t sleep
at all during that 45 minutes, but I rested.
I had slept like crap the night before.
In fact, I can’t even guarantee you I really ever slept. I went to bed around 9:30PM on Saturday
night. We had been watching a movie and
I was falling asleep on the couch, so I headed off to bed. I took half a serving of ZZZquil (yes, I do
refer to it as a serving, not a dose, this may be detrimental to my health, but
I’ve personally come to terms with that) and laid down to “sleep”. I always tell my athletes that the most
important night of sleep before a race is two nights before. Why?
Well, I can pretty much guarantee, if you are human, you will want to do
well in your race and you will be so caught up the night before in how to do
everything perfectly so that you end up doing well, that you will fret yourself
out of any potentially good sleep that might have been sneaking your way. That being said, Saturday night consisted of
pretty much no sleep. But Friday, Friday
I slept GREAT!
About 5AM my parents asked me how I was going to get down to
the race. WHAAAAAAT??? They had so kindly been totting me around for
the past couple of days and they ask me this???
EEK! Stressor #1, check. I informed them I would appreciate if they
would be so kind as to take me and we headed down to the swim start around
5:30AM. Yes, I dropped my bike off the
night before and yes, it was a clean transition, and no, I did not need to be
there that early. BUT, I am OCD and Type
A and probably too much of a planner for my own good, so I wanted to be down
there early. Plus, I would have to visit
the porta pottie a multitude of times to pee (does anyone know WHY you have to
pee so much when you’re nervous???), so I wanted to get down there early.
My wave started at 7:15 (I think, I honestly can’t remember
at this point) and I started slipping into my speedsuit a little before 7. I ate my Gu 15 minutes before my wave started
and then I headed down to be corralled into our swim waves.
My stomach was in knots.
It was like my stomach was in a fist fight with itself. There was only one long distance triathlon
that I was not nervous like this before, and that was Coeur d’Alene. I don’t know why, but I had been calm before
my Ironman. Today, not so much. But this nervousness was usual and I know my
race day self well enough to know that once I got my rhythm and warmed up in
the swim it would go away.
Stressor #2, check.
It didn’t go away in the swim. I
felt like crap. Getting to the turn buoy
took an eternity. I headed back toward
the swim exit, but it was nowhere in sight.
How long was this 1.2 mile swim?
The village where the swim start/T1 were located had an Italian theme to
it and there was a bridge crossing the lake that reminded me of the Ponte
Vecchio in Florence, Italy. I knew once
I made it back to the bridge I wasn’t far from the swim exit. However, at this point, I was feeling
terrible. It had taken me forever to
warm up and my swim just wasn’t what I thought it would be.
In the last year I have stopped wearing a watch during the
swim portion of my triathlons. The swim
is my weakest discipline, and knowing that so much of these endurance sports is
mental, I knew I could not look down at my swim time. If it was not what I hoped, or felt, it had
been the rest of my race would be negatively impacted. I got out of the swim, feeling as though it
had been awful, didn’t look at the clock, and therefore had the ability to tell
myself it hadn’t been as bad as I thought it was, it was just nerves.
T1 was a joke.
Really. It was quite
ridiculous. We exited Lake Las Vegas on
the left-hand side of the lake (no, I do not know directionally what side I was
on, so I will stick with left, right, ahead, and behind, for us lay-folk), ran
up a hill, over a bridge, down through a canyon of purple porta potties and to
our bikes. I had looked down on this crevasse
the day before and truly dreaded it. But
to be honest, that portion of T1 ended up being less rough than I had
imagined. I grabbed my bike and headed
up (yes, UP) and out of T1. My wonderful
cheer squad was there yelling for me the whole time. I couldn’t tell you who was where, but I
heard all of them J The T1 exit included a switchback. Yup, that’s right. No jokes here. It was much steeper than I imagined it would
be, but it was over quickly. I mounted
my bike and head like a bat out of hell, oh wait, that is not right…like a snail
up and out of the Lake Las Vegas Resort area onto the main bike course.
A switchback, in T1? Necessary? I think not.
I had done a sweat loss test the day after I arrived in Las
Vegas. It was dry heat and, fingers
crossed, maybe it would be cooler and I wouldn’t sweat as much. WRONG.
30 minute run, 3 pounds lost.
Damn. Unfortunately, I know that
sad truth that I am not cut out for hot weather races. I just cannot replace all the fluids I lose,
for as much as I sweat. Even if I tried
to consume enough liquids, my body would not be able to properly absorb them.
That being said, mile 10 rolled around on the bike and there
was nothing but desert around me (HA, when I proofread this, I realized I had
written “nothing but dessert around me,” THAT would have made for a great bike
course). No water. For those of you not as familiar with
triathlons, most Half Iron distance triathlons have water hand ups on the bike
every 10 miles. I was sucking vapor out
of my aero bottle and began to panic.
This is where knowing your body is so important in training and
races. At this point, I knew I was in
trouble. No, I wasn’t dehydrated yet,
but I knew that if I didn’t get water soon I’d be well on my way. The first bottle hand up wasn’t until about
mile 15 on the bike. Stressor #4, check
(those of you who are perfectionists are wondering where #3 went…keep reading).
I had entered Lake Mead and it was absolutely gorgeous. This portion of the bike course, I would
relate somewhat to a train wreck. You
don’t want to look, but you HAVE to look.
I kept convincing myself that I would not have to climb those distant hills
(mountains?), but as I rode closer I could see little shiny helmets making
their way up. The turnaround provided me
with an absolutely beautiful view. Like something
out of a movie. It was
breathtaking.
The next water hand up wasn’t until mile 30ish on the
bike. I had tried to conserve my water
as best I could at this point, but was sucking vapors again as I came up to
water hand up number two. I was
toast. I had goose bumps and could tell
I was getting dehydrated. It was
somewhere around this point that I started laughing to myself, no not because I
was dehydrated and delusion, but because I knew all eyes were on me that day.
Ironman has this great online tracking system where you can
very thoroughly track (or stalk, as I prefer to call it) your friends that are
competing in an Ironman event. I am a
very avid stalker of my friends on days I am not racing and because of this I
knew exactly what all my friends back home were doing. They were refreshing their computer screens
far too often, wondering what the hell had happened to me. The people I train with are like college
roommates, maybe not as messy and don’t go out drinking as much, but they know
you. They know you better than you could
ever think they do. They know your race
splits well enough to know when you had a slower swim than usual. They know your bike splits well enough to
know that it shouldn’t be taking you as long as it is to get through the bike
portion as it is. And they know your run
splits well enough to know when you’re having a tough day. They do not research this, they do not study
your past races, they just know.
It was at this point in the bike that I began to smile. I was laughing to myself. And then this 60 year old guy came along and
passed me going up a steep climb…my smile faded for a moment and then I read
his bib. “Bruno”. He was from Italy. I smiled again. Go for it 60 year old, Italian Bruno. You’re kicking ass. And then I started laughing to myself. I imagined all my training buddies back in
Fort Worth watching my every move online.
Then I imagined all the texts that the people who were in Las Vegas were
getting from people frantically asking if I was ok. I know this is what was happening, because it
is EXACTLY what I would have been doing.
I couldn’t even tell you the mile marker where I came upon
water hand up #3, but I think it was somewhere near mile 40. Here, I stopped. Yes, you read that right. I stopped.
If you know “race Liesel” you will have read this statement in shock and
then re-read it to ensure you read it correctly. I don’t stop in races. I just don’t.
But here is where my “race smart” mentality kicked in. People often ask me why I think I do so well
in races. I am a naturally gifted
athlete, I will give you that, and I am extremely dedicated to my
training. But, beyond that, I train and
race smart. I know what my body is
capable of and I know what I need to do to succeed. This isn’t to say I don’t still make
mistakes, but I do my best to always remember to train and race smart.
So, yes, I stopped. I
had been informed there would be sunscreen applicators at the exit of T1. If there were, they were not making
themselves very visible. So I had headed
out on the bike, essentially, naked. I’m
white. Let’s not lie to ourselves. I am of German decent and I used to get this
AMAZING bronze tan just from being outside.
However, somewhere along the line, that nice little asset was traded in
by the sun tan gods for a deep red “boiled lobster” look. Stressor #3.
It had been on my mind the entire bike ride. So I stopped (I keep repeating this for
effect, because I DON’T STOP!). I asked
the volunteer for two bottles of water and sunscreen. I filled up my aero bottle and lathered up as
I drank the other bottle. Sometimes ego
has to go out the door in order to race smart.
Racing smart can be the difference from finishing your race (even if it’s
not the time you wanted) and DNFing.
I got back on my bike and headed towards town (T2 was in
Henderson). A little before mile 50 I’d
had enough. I was dehydrated, my legs
were tired and I was disappointed. This
was due to a personal mental error. Part
of racing smart is entering the race knowing what you are capable of. I was competing in the World
Championships. I was racing with some of
the strongest Half Ironman athletes in the World. I, who am used to finishing somewhere near
the top, was very well aware, that my ranking would be flipped in this race and
I would be somewhere near the bottom.
Some of you may be thinking this is negative self-talk. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is quite
plainly just the truth. And I was ok
with the truth. I was ok with it, until
I began to believe what others were saying, when they’d tell me I’d do better
than the 6+ hours I expected on the course.
They were not trying to mess with my mental plan, they were merely being
supportive. They believed in me. BUT, I knew I wasn’t trained as well as I
could be, this was going to be the most difficult Half Ironman I had competed
in, and I was racing with the best in the world.
Because I changed my plan in my head, I began to get
disappointed in my time. My goal bike
time was far gone and I still had many hilly miles ahead of me. So I began to get down on myself. This is why it’s so important to KNOW what
you can do going into a race. To know this
and to know that you are simply being honest with yourself and in your
abilities. You know you best.
I wanted to quit. I
convinced myself to finish the bike. At
least once I finished the bike I would be greeted by my cheer squad and it
would give me the motivation to keep going.
This is where I really missed having all my training buddies racing with
me. When we did Coeur d’Alene, my bike
time was over six hours. But it was the
fastest six hours ever, because I spent the entire time looking for the other
11 people I trained with. Here, in Las
Vegas, I didn’t have that. When it comes
down to it, your final time in triathlon is individual. But, to me it’s a group event. The support you get from your training
buddies, while on the course, is priceless.
I missed having that.
I came into T2 and got really excited. They took my bike for me! I didn’t have to rack it, I just handed it to
some wonderful volunteer who took it off my hands and I headed to my run bag.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAP! I had left my Garmin on
my bike. In my sheer excitement, of this
great red carpet service, I had forgotten my electronic life line. I realized this as I was reaching down to
grab my run bag. Split second decision,
go back and lose time finding my bike and getting it or head out without it? It is at this point, that I will suggest to
anyone reading this that you go back and get your Garmin if you rely on it as
heavily as I do. However, I was
dehydrated and I knew my heart rate was shot.
So I left it. I took off my heart
rate strap and helmet, tossed them in my bag, threw on my shoes and visor and
headed out onto the run course. As you
have well become aware, I decided to give the run a try and not quit.
I came out of the tent and scanned the supporters for my
cheer squad and their red and black shirts.
I scanned and scanned and scanned.
My heart dropped. They were
nowhere. All I wanted was to get a
little encouragement from them. All I
wanted was to see them. There were eight
of them and that’s a pretty big group to get coordinated. I figured they hadn’t left the house in time
to catch me go out on the run.
Since I was Garmin-less it was time to run free. This was going to be a perceived exertion
run. Here goes nothing. When I started all this endurance stuff, I
would go hard at everything and I WOULD NOT STOP nor would I walk. However, in the past few years, and with the
discovery of my ridiculous sweat loss, I have come to rather enjoying walking
the water stops in races. For me, this
is a necessity. Until I master running
and actually being able to consume more water than I spill on myself, I will
walk water stops. I would like to thank
the WTC for providing rather lengthy water stops on the run portion of this
course. Long water stops meant an excuse
to keep walking. So, I walked.
This was by far the most challenging run course I have done
in a Half Ironman. It was a mile+
uphill, a mile+ downhill…times six. It
was brutal. As I came near the end of my
first loop (the run was three loops) I heard hooting and hollering from across
the street. There was my posse J Monica and Cristal had made a sign for
me.
I honestly don’t remember what all the front and back
said. But they had printed out and taped
on pictures of many of my training buddies, so that they “would be here with
me.” I looked over at them, but was
pretty much in the bite me phase at this point, so I’d be lying if I said I
jumped up and down with joy and waved at them.
I looked at them and then looked back ahead. I did not acknowledge them. Now, some of you may believe this is rude,
for those of you who have done an endurance event…you get this.
I cleaned up my attitude after this and as I began lap two I
saw Tim and Jenn. When I saw them I
stopped to talk to them. Yup. I stopped again. I was morphing into the honey badger. I mentioned, in passing, that the course was
brutal, and headed back out. Lap two was
tough and lap three was just cruel. I’d
had a stitch pretty much the entire run and spent my meanders through the water
stops trying to get rid of it. I drank
coke and visited numerous porta potties, only to discover that whatever I was
feeling while running disappeared when I tried to ride myself of it…The last
mile of the course was downhill. I kept
saying “less than a mile” over and over in my head. I wanted to be done and I WANTED WATER.
I finished and was given the biggest medal I have ever received. It was well worth not quitting for that.
Although I had mixed emotions during this race I have walked
away from it as an absolutely amazing experience. It was like the Olympics of triathlon for
me. There were people from all over the
world. The expo was huge and the
atmosphere was just amazing. It was the
toughest Half Iron course I have ever attempted and it is well deserving of
being the World Championship course.
Facebook (oh lovely Facebook!) was plastered with
congratulations from people who had known I was racing. It lifted my spirits. The thing I love, about those I train with,
is they don’t care what your finish time is.
They could care less if you finish first or last, they just care that
you’re out there doing it. At points,
during the race, I felt like I was letting people down. I was there representing everyone I train
with and my time was not what “MY” time would usually be. But I realized it wouldn’t matter to anyone
if I came crawling across the finish line as the sun set. All that mattered was that I was there. For this, I am truly blessed.
WATER!!!
