For all the details (good and bad), keep reading!
3:30am on race day never excited me as much as it did on Saturday, October 8th.
I was so thankful to be going into Kona 2016 with a healthy (albeit possibly undertrained) body that I practically popped out of bed. This year, there was no question of IF I was going to finish, and that really excited me.
Ryan wakes up a touch earlier (3am) to get his body moving since he’s a slower mover in the morning than I am. I drank some canned coffee (next year we’ll make sure to have a coffee maker in our room!), had a banana with peanut butter, and gathered my race day stuff after lounging around a bit to let the body wake up.
We dropped off our bike special needs (containing a flat kit and a PowerBar PB&J bar, both of which I was hoping I wouldn’t need) and our run special needs (containing socks, a PowerGel, and another PowerBar PB&J Bar) before standing in line to get body marked.
We then head to the next station: weigh-in. After eating and drinking a good 2lbs worth of food, this is always enjoyable (sarcasm).
As I was treading water, I felt my timing chip loosen a bit. I always put a safety pin on just in case, but it was still feeling kind of loose. So, with 12 minutes to kill, I entertained myself by trying to tread water and unpin the pin, tighten my timing chip’s Velcro, and re-pin the pin.
At least I made a few ladies laugh.
Goal – 1:15:32
Actual – 1:15
Kona swim PR
77th age group (out of 92), 448 female, 1713 overall (out of 2316)
Bonus – I swam extra (meaning I swam faster than the 1:15 if I had just swam the 2.4miles instead of 500yards extra!). Just getting my money’s worth apparently.
Despite being pushed around quite a bit in the beginning, I found my line (just inside of the buoys) and most girls stayed to the outside. I focused on “monkey arms” and really pulling the water back with each stroke. I’ve found with the swim that having little cues like these really help keep me focused and honest throughout the swim. At one point one of the guys on the paddle board was swimming along side me and smiling at me, which made me laugh a bit in my head.
The swim out to the turnaround felt like it was taking forever. One of the hardest things for me with swimming is not knowing how I am doing. With running, I can calculate my pace based on where I’m at in the race and make a prediction as to where I’ll finish (time). Same with the bike, though that has taken some practice over the years. With the swim, you can’t just look at your watch… normally.
36:23 at 2650 (more than halfway)…I was on pace to be just over 1:10 if I maintained this pace. While I knew I could do that, I also knew that coming back is usually harder. I am weaving around the slower males and catching some of the females who started out too hard or were swerving and losing ground.
4025… 1:09. Um, that’s what I swam in Lake Placid. WITH a wetsuit. I was pretty happy to have been swimming so well, yet annoyed that I still was so far away from finishing. I just kept pushing, knowing that going extra distance is just something I’ll have to work on for next time!
My Garmin showed I swam 4550 in 1:15… regardless, 1:15 is a 2+ minute PR for a Kona swim, so I was pretty darn happy exiting the water.
3:14
I’m used to the transition tent being pretty empty when I arrive since there aren’t many super slow swimmers at Kona. Well, my 1:15 put me in the tent at a pretty popular time. There were NO chairs available for me to sit on, so I just tore off my swimskin, cap and goggles and took out my bike shoes and handed my bag to a volunteer. Unfortunately, I got stuck behind a guy dilly-dallying out to his bike so that cost me some easy time that I’d just have to make up on the bike.
Goal – 5:25 (a bit ambitious)
Actual – 5:30:26
20.34mi/hr, Kona bike split PR
16th age group, 90th female overall, 1040 overall
3:42
I nearly fell over handing my bike to a volunteer. I had left my shoes on my bike per usual (I HATE running in bike shoes), but boy did my legs just want to sit down. A girl (in my age group) passed me during this transition time. The way T2 works in Kona is: after you hand your bike to a volunteer, you run the perimeter of the pier (where the bikes are racked) until you get to the Run Bags, grab your bag, and head to the changing tent. Once I was in the tent, again there were not many places where I could sit.
I quickly put on a blister block band-aid as I had felt something rubbing on my toe during the bike. I had almost put my socks and both shoes on by the time a volunteer got to me and asked if I needed help. This is new territory again for me, as I generally enter the tent when it is pretty dead!
Goal – 3:10
Actual – 3:20:50 (7:39 pace) better than Kona Year 1, but not a PR
5th age group, 45th female overall, 592 overall
Where do I begin?
Despite being “slow” compared to my usual first mile (or really, marathon in general), my 6:50 brought tears to my eyes.
Just one year ago, I was hobbling in pain to run a 7:56 during my first mile. I had mixed emotions during the run: ecstatic to be actually running, pain free, yet frustrated that my minimal (3.5 months) of run training over the past year had not brought my standard run back.
Fortunately, one was well within reach, and the girl in 4th seemed possible if my run started to come back (spoiler alert: it didn’t. I am still searching for it…).
OVERALL STATS
5th place female 30-34
1st American (amateur, female)
10:13:44 (7min Kona PR)
PR in both the swim (non-wetsuit legal) and bike
YES, I'm thrilled that I was able to finish as well as I did considering it took 7 months (October - April) to figure out my foot, and then 2 more months (May - June) of no running due to a stress fracture from my freak bike fall.
BUT... I know I can do better. My run was totally off, but the reality is that even if I had my 3:0x run, it would have only pushed me up to 2nd (at best) on the podium. My swim is still limiting me, so I'm more motivated than ever to figure things out in the water. My run will come back eventually...I just need more than 4 months to undo what 9 months of no running created!
Kona 2016 did not disappoint. If anything, it left Ryan and I even more motivated to work harder over the next year to put ourselves higher up on that podium.
- EGO for supporting us for the past few years on this incredible journey
- Sammy's Bikes for the most popular bike in Kona (seriously!) and keeping it in great shape!
- Saucony for the best running shoes around!
- PowerBar for the proper sports nutrition to help me dig deep and push hard
- Roka for giving me every advantage possible in the water with the awesome swimskin and goggles
- Ice Friction for making our chains super fast!
- Coach Bill Bishop for pushing me harder on the bike, especially when running was not possible.
- Coach Steve Brandes for getting me faster in the water.
- Dr. Chin (The Running Institute) and Katy Sandberg for helping me through the whole plantar tear process and rebuild.
- #LPPartee friends (Megan, Mark, Jess, Nate, Trina, John, Brittany) for always including me and checking in with me throughout this past year, even after IMLP was over.
- SO many friends and family for reaching out to me and keeping my spirits high; I can't even explain how big of a difference this made at times when I just felt like throwing in the towel.
- Ryan... for taking such care in my return to running, for going with me to every freaking Dr and PT appointment over the past year, for doing everything and anything possible to make things easier for me, and most importantly, for believing in my comeback even more than I believed in myself.
- And, last but not least, God for not just getting me through these past 12 months, but using me to help others through similar issues. While this was not part of MY plan, I know that everything happens for a reason and trust that things are going to continue to improve from here on out.