Your wait is over...welcome to my race report for my very first Half Ironman Triathlon: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run = 70.3 miles
A few days before the race I got my carbs and electrolytes in and got pretty quiet (more than normal I think)...my mind was racing. Time to pack. Friday afternoon Rohini and I left from work, RIGHT on time, thank goodness. Ate right, got plenty of sleep, I'm good, I'm ready!!
Flash forward to race morning 4:15- I'm up...5:10 am saw Mary. She asked me how I was, I quietly choked back some tears and said "I'm fine." It was dark so she couldn't tell that I wanted to crawl under a rock and cry, ha ha. 5:15 - We are at the tent, awesome! Go rack the bike, set up transition, get chip, check, check, check....now...FOOD! I need to eat, so I went to the tent to get some food and a little bit of coffee. I didn't talk to many people (I hope people don't think I'm unsocial!).
6:45am - I'm finally in my wet suit, thank you Michele Tucker. :-) The wet suit pro!! Es whispers to me "count your strokes, it will calm you down." We walk into the water and the gun went off. We walked to the first buoy, YES!!! Water was beautiful and I could swim so I was good, right?! NOPE, wrong......yes I can swim, but not in the OCEAN-like lake. Every time I went to try again to swim normally I either got a mouth FULL of water, mouth AND nose full of water or a foot getting ready to kick me. So I swam the first half on my back, as I still got kicked, grabbed and smacked. I got to a kayak, told the guy my chest hurt. He started to call someone and I said, "NO, no, no, do NOT take me out of this water, I have to finish! I just have to catch my breath and burp." And holy smokes, he loosened up the wet suit and I just let it rip (such a lady), and after we were done laughing, he zipped me back up and off I go. After all there were no more waves to pass me. They were all past me (except another guy who said "we can do this, come on"), so off I/we go. I swam the rest of the way just fine. Then I heard my Dad, who was at my first swim/triathlon. (Someday ask him about it, ha ha! Not a good swim.) I think when I told him that I had to swim 1.2 miles he wanted to see me do it with his very own eyes, so he came to NY a day early (for work) to see me. So I heard him and started to swim a little faster. I just wanted to get the hell out of the water before the cut-off. I heard a couple of cow bells and FINALLY was at out of the water, an hour and sixteen minutes. Ugh, just made the cut-off by 20 minutes, I think. Said hello to my Dad and chat while making my way to....
T1. Get wet suit off, go potty, get the rest of my stuff and I'm out. Say goodbye to my Dad and I'm on my way. Thanking GOD that I'm out of the water (yes still)...
The bike: Pretty uneventful, I LOVED the bike! I was aero for most of it, rockin’ the hills until the road told me to slow down (literally, chalk on the road said 'slow down'). Then came mile 42-ish. I think that was the hill that was a killer. I was thinking, "I'm not getting of this bike, keep going, pull, PULL, pull, almost there"...ah, thank God (again). YES, I made it without getting off. I was starting to hurt but I wasn’t stopping, unless I hit a water stop, I did stop at those to keep up my nutrition. Oh and speaking of nutrition, I ate blocks and GU's without stopping. :-) Which may sound lame to y'all but that’s another big step for me, as someone who couldn't even take her hands off her handle bars a year ago. I'm still SUPER glad that I got an aero water bottle from my friend Andrew. That thing has saved me in so many ways. Then came mile 48-ish! Who decided to put potholes and gravel at the END of 56 miles??!! REALLY!!! Ouchy, OMG ouch!! Then came the finish of the bike. Ed met me right before my dismount and stopped me. He said, "Kerry, if they take your chip, run and meet me outside of transition." I was in tears. “OMG I didn't make it!" Ed said, "I don't know yet, just get your sneakers on and meet me outside of transition!" I get to the dismount area (no one is there). I get off of the bike and walk towards transition, and a guy walks up to me. He says, "Hi, how are you?" (“How do you think I am, asshole??!” is what I was thinking in my head. He's got such an awful job, I get it.) I said, "I'm fine." He said, "I'm sorry, but I have to take your chip." As I am in tears, I hear Ed in the background saying something. I walk to rack my bike, and I got myself and my stuff together. I'm putting my shoes on and some lady walks up to me. "Are you # 650?" (Me, inside voice again – “WELL DUH I'M THE ONLY ONE HERE!!!”). I say "yes". She says, "well I don't know how long they are going to keep the course open for you." Another athlete says to me "Just get your stuff and GO, run!" The girl leaves. I got up and ran out, met Ed and got a strong pep talk while I ran out. Passing all of those who are finishing, I'm running out. I ran the first mile pretty fast, I had my water bottle because I wasn’t sure if I'd get the things that everyone else got. I stopped at all the open water stops, got some ice to chew on and ice for my water bottle. There was no food and no salt. I ran and ran for as long as I could. Passed a few Z’ers and some great volunteers! I saw Michele Tucker, gave her a hug and moved on. I asked her to save me some ice cream. Then came that hill…am I supposed to go up there? Well the arrows say to do it, so I guess I do! Did I sign up for X-Terra (a off road Triathlon) by accident? NO! I made it up surprisingly well. A lovely volunteer was on top of that hill (who was still there when I went past again). I started walking briskly, until I couldn’t run anymore. Then I realized that I was alone. Nobody else was passing me (coming IN). I couldn’t run. I had no idea what mile I was at on the course. I just told myself to keep moving forward, and don't stop. So I didn't stop, I kept moving forward. I wondered if I was cut out for this, why I was doing this, what time it was, what mile I was at, oh this is embarrassing, and I'm hungry! Then came this gravel road. "Oh for GOD’S SAKE!!! REALLY??! Ugh, ok I can do this. I did Savageman. I can do this, just walk. So I walked, and walked…does this road end? It must, since everyone else did it. At the end of the road this little girl ran up to me. Oh gosh what is she going to tell me? The little girl said, "I brought you some ice and water. My mom said that if you want to stop and give up she can call someone to come get you. We were looking for you." I said, "Oh, thanks hun! No, I'm ok, I don't want to quit. I have 5 miles or so to go." The little girl said "Ok, I'll go tell my mom. (She screams at the top of her lungs running to her mom…) “MOM, SHE DOESN’T WANT TO QUIT. SHE DOESN’T WANT TO QUIT. SHE WANTS TO KEEP ON GOING!" OMG, this is so embarrassing! I passed them and thanked them for the support. Kept walking. Three miles to the finish. Random guy rolls up to me on his bike (non-race bike) and starts chatting. "Hi, how are you?" I said, "I'm just trying to finish this race!" Blah blah blah, we keep talking since he's keeping my mind off of things. One mile from the finish I see Ed rolling up on someone’s bike (Oh for God’s sake), “I'M COMING!" I yelled. “Got some cold Gatorade and water!", Ed says and we all walk down to the finish. Ed rolls his head, and I see the tent and start running. I see and hear everyone hanging out and cheering on the sidelines and I hear Emily Wyant yell from the water. I see Ed bent down with a finisher’s medal yelling at me, so I ran to Ed. He gave me a HUGE hug and then told me to go run to my finish line. I ran to/through my finish line (everything from the race was taken down) made out of caution tape. (Kind of fitting, don’tcha think? ;-)) I got my finishers pics that Kevin Alvey took for me. I got huge hugs and ice cream! :-) My best guess for my time is 9.5 hours of racing. I learned a lot that day! And I learned a lot about myself.
I've thought about this a lot. Do I count as being a half Ironman finisher? Maybe not, according to the books, but I did the distance. All of it, every step of it. How many other people can say that? I'll do it again, and I'll do it faster, better and on time!! This makes it easy to get a PR, huh? I'm not sure how many people cried with me that day but I sure did feel the love from people that I didn't even know as well as all of my friends. Thank you, Team Z. Thank you for waiting for me when you could have left on the bike course, and thank you for taking pictures when all of the camera people have left and moved on. Thank you for the cow bells and horns. Thank you for the ICE CREAM!! Thank you for my finisher’s medal. Thank you all who waited for me (a little embarrassing…), and thank you for my finish line. Thank you for my pep talks and the advice. I'm not very talkative in groups and usually stay by myself or hang out with the people that I already know, so if you stayed just to hang out and ended up cheering for me, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Though it sounds corny, it was totally worth the 9.5 hours, the tired body, the tears and the loss of toenails (Ok, TMI! Sorry! LOL). If you are still reading this, you are a trooper too! :-) Thank you!! EVERYONE!
It was a long day!!!
Kerry Broughton
"To get something that you've never had, you must do something that you've never done."
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