About 15 min after I posted on Saturday morning, I was getting ready to put my bike and gear in the back of my car when I noticed my front tire was flat. Turns out the valve stem was bad on the tube and therefore the tube couldn't hold air. Thank goodness it decided to fail now and not during the race. Once the tire was changed, Melissa and I loaded up my car, and we were off to Pink Berry for some frozen yumminess...
...then we were off to Conroe! The rest of the day and evening was spent picking up my packet, checking out the swim course and transition area, eating a pre-race Mexican dinner, and then some relaxing. This just happened to be the evening of Daylight Savings, so I fortunately got an extra hour of sleep, which I actually took advantage of. The alarm went off at 4:45 am. I got my gear together and we made our way to La Torretta Del Lago Resort, the site of the 2011 Oilman Texas Triathlon. I set up my transition spot, and then Melissa and I made our way to the swim start.
1.2 Mile Swim: 44: 50
My age group was the first wave to go. I typically like to make it a goal to catch someone in the wave ahead of me. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to do that in this race. Although, the official race clock would show my actual race time as I crossed the finish line, which is a cool thing (good for photo ops!). As the race began, I had a temporary moment of panic. The water was pretty cold and I felt my wetsuit was choking me. After about a minute, the panic subsided, and I just got my swim on. Then there was some confusion in the water as to where we had to go. The race folks on land told us something different than the race folks on canoes in the water. So all of us girls swam one way when we needed to swim another. We weren't happy about that at all. But oh well. Then when I made my way to the home stretch, I actually got up out of the water and started walking since the water level was so low. I had been swimming for 41 minutes, so I was fine with walking the final 50 or so yards to the swim exit.
T1: 5:35
56 Mile Bike: 3:44:18
There was nothing pleasant about this ride. I was happy to see that the city actually paved some of that rough road (apparently called chip seal), but turns out it was only for about 3 miles. The rest of that 7 miles of chip seal felt like eternity to get through. Then came the wind. It wasn't horrible, but combine a ~10 mph head/side wind WHILE going through hills, just didn't come easy to me. My legs felt like jello at the end of 56 miles.
T2: 2:54
T2 seemed to last forever. For the run, put on my calf compression sleeves (which worked great!) and grabbed some Gu and a Nutri-Grain bar. As I was leaving transition, I realized I forgot to take off my cycling gloves! Oops! Thats the second time this year I've done that!
As I began the run, I knew the bike ride took alot out of me, so I devised a plan that I would run until I hit the half mile marker, and I would walk for a minute, then run to the mile marker/water station. That lasted for a few miles, but then I ended up walking more than I expected. The run course was a 3 loop course through the resort and surrounding neighborhood. This was an advantage since I was able to see my great cheering squad! Not only was Melissa there to support me, but my two other friends, Erin and Beth came up that day as well to cheer me on! It was such a rewarding feeling to see them each time. On the 2nd loop, I started having doubts that since I had been taking longer on the run that I expected, that I just may not make the 8 hour cut off. This brought me to a really bad place. The 2nd loop was by far the hardest mentally. Then once I started the 3rd loop, I looked at my total time on my watch and saw that I could make the cutoff with only 4.2 miles left to go. My mood picked up, but then with about 3 miles left, I felt some weird shooting pain in my left ankle. The pain was enough to make me stop and walk. Once it was gone I began running again. This continued to the point where I began feeling it in my right ankle. So I walked a majority of those last 3 miles. As I came up to my awesome entourage and the finish line, I actually picked it up and fought through the pain to end my first half ironman experience with a smile on my face.
Total time: 7:37:05
Once I crossed the finish line, my friends were immediately by my side. And let me tell you, I was pretty emotional, just taking in the whole experience and knowing I was done. I had finished the race. My friends surrounded me in a huge group hug and we were all in tears. It was the greatest feeling I had all day. A moment I will never forget.
