Ironman Cozumel

Pre-Race

Hotel room oatmeal: 2 envelopes instant oatmeal, 1 spoon stolen from the snack bar, 4 oz water heated in the coffee pot, 1 cup provided in the room.

I woke up about an hour before my alarm at 2:45. Before getting out of bed I tried to visualize the race and run through my strategy one more time. But I can't see into the future. Visualization confuses me. I then got up and used the coffee maker to prepare some oatmeal and reheat my Starbucks (my real reason for getting up this morning). I chomped on an energy bar made entirely of coconut and mowed a banana to top off my potassium levels, and went down to meet Coach Liz and Johnny Tri in the hotel lobby. By the time they turned up I was positively vibrating from my first coffee in over a month (and first caffeinated beverage in over 2 weeks), and I thought I was going to explode. Instead I relieved my tension by chattering incessantly in the cab at JT and Liz, who were considerably more chill than I was.

Transition was uneventful. I lent my pump to half the competitors in transition and spied on Yvonne Van Vlerken. I thought that the pro's would be very introspective and closed-off, but I was surprised to see they were all smiles and chatting with the crowd hanging over the fence outside transition. Finally it was time to clear transition, watch the dolphin show, listen to the national anthem, and watch the pro's go off before getting in the water.

Before transition closed down I heard a girl say, "I wonder if they'll play the Mexican national anthem or just the American one..." I wanted to punch her in the face or stick a tack in her back tire. I had been afraid that this race would be mostly American, and that Cozumel would be the Ironman away from home just like Cancun turns into an American college dorm during spring break (you can pay for everything with American dollars here). I was very pleased to hear that Mexicans made up the largest contingent of racers, even more than Americans. They played the Mexican national anthem at the start, not the American one. And Mexicans actually know the words to their national anthem. None of this hand-on-the-heart humming the parts that you forget the words to stuff. They sing along. "Mexicanos al grito de guerra/el acero aprestad y el bridón..."

The Swim

I decided to line up near the front of the swim because it is better to be swum over than swim through kicking feet. Also, the people toward the back were actually under the dock among the pilings and there was no way I was hanging out under that creepy dock, even if you could see perfectly through the water and check for sea monsters. The current was pushing us back so hard that I found myself doing the old lady breast stroke to hold my position rather than treading water. Even so, I was drifting back in the crowd and people were kicking, punching, and swimming over me. The race hadn't even started yet!

Finally the fog horn went off and away we went. The washing machine effect actually wasn't as bad as I expected. I had people all around me, but I didn't get kicked in the head or punched at all. Just sometimes I would try to bring my arm up out of the water and get my elbow stuck under a torso or stick my hand out in front of me and get a handful of calf instead of water. Usually if I kept on my path and stroked more vigorously the problem resolved itself in a stroke or two.

Since the current was so strong, they changed the swim course to shorten the portion where we would be against the current. We swam about 500m against the current and then turned around to swim 2400m in the easy direction. I never really got out of a crowd during the whole swim, but things had already opened up before the first turn buoy and I could look around. The water was crystal clear and we could see all the way to the bottom, which was sometimes more than 50 feet deep. I didn't see much wildlife except a few divers, but I was mostly concentrating on watching the people over my shoulder rather than the bottom. I figured that as long as I kept someone on my breathing side where I could see them, then I wouldn't have to sight. The water was still choppy, and as we came around the turn buoys on the far side, a giant boat anchored just inside the buoys was sending off 2 or 3' swells. I tried to go around the buoy, and suddenly found myself 3' higher than I had been a minute before. I went to take another stroke and the water was gone as I dropped down another 6 feet.

The swim went quickly. The last 800m or so into the finish all I could think about was how nice it would be to rinse my mouth out. I had swum easily, never going so hard that I was short of breath in the whole swim, so imagine my surprise when I looked at my watch coming out of the water and saw 58:30. Talking to everyone after the race, we all had the swims of our lives so the extra 500m with the current really must have made a difference.

T1
Settle Down!

I grabbed my bag and booked it into the changing tent. Since my race wheels have sew-up tires, I needed to carry that big honkin' tire with me. I planned to put it in my pocket, but I hadn't actually checked the size of my pockets until I hit Cozumel. It was going to be a very tight fit. I tried to get it in, but couldn't. "Can I please get some help over here?" I asked, and a volunteer rushed over to give me a hand.
She tried to shove it in, and after a few seconds she said, "It doesn't fit!"
"Please can you stretch it more??? And squeeze the tire? I don't have anywhere else to put it!" While she shoved at my shirt, I continued to pull stuff out of my bag and put it on: heart rate monitor, sunglasses, shoes. I held onto my race belt so I could put it on when she was done.
Finally my helper said, "I got it!" I thanked her and ran out of the changing tent to my bike, holding the tire in place so it wouldn't bounce out while I ran. I put on my helmet, ran to the mount line, and rode away.

I'd already begun picking people off and was pleased that I'd beat the main pack out of the water. I saw one girl's number flapping in the wind and reached back to see how badly mine was catching wind. Holy shit! Where was it?!?! I must have left it in the transition tent! I had another number in my run bag, but I hadn't brought pins or an extra race belt. I felt around again to see if maybe it was just off to the side. I felt some extra fabric bunched around my waist. I looked down and I was still wearing my swim skin bunched around my waist. DAMMIT! I had to go back. I turned around, rode the .6 miles back to transition, dumped my bike on the nearest open spot and booked it back to the changing tents where I found Coach Liz on her way out. Good! Someone to share my misfortune with! I practically pushed her out of the way to retrieve my race belt from under a chair, ripped off my swim skin which I flung in the nook where my race belt had been, and ran back out to my bike.



My official T1 time (counted from the first time I left) was 6:12, but there was already another 6 minutes on my watch by the time I mounted again. What an idiot!

The Bike
Rolling Temper Tantrum

I tried to convince myself that 6 minutes wasn't a big deal. In all it would work out to less than .5 mph difference over the whole course. I was confident in my biking ability and that it could put me where I wanted to be by T2. The course was more congested now than it had been when I first set out, though, and I had to ride hard to get around the bigger packs without getting stuck inside them. The road was a free-for-all as we covered the first 10-ish miles to the southern tip of the island. I was riding about 23 mph with the tailwind and my heartrate was higher than it was supposed to be, but I wasn't breathing hard, so I chalked it up to nerves, the coffee, and the heat. By the time we turned back north the crowd had thinned out and I was able to spend more and more time on the right side of the road where I was supposed to be. I really didn't want a drafting or blocking penalty, but I also didn't want to spend this whole bike ride not pedaling staying out of the draft zone. Other people didn't seem so worried about penalties.

As we rounded the southern tip of the island, we got closer to the coast and turned into the wind. This was not a good combination. Then, the pavement turned to chip seal, and things got just that much harder. I hunkered down in my aero bars and tried to push through it, but my speed dropped to below 15 mph and hung there until we reached the top of the island again. Nothing that I could do could salvage my speed. My average pace, which I had brought back up to 20 mph despite my encore in T1, dropped nearly 1 mph in 10 miles. My tires were pumped up to a rediculous PSI, and the chip seal shook my bike till I thought my saddle was going to rub my privates clear off. I reminded myself that everyone else was dealing with the same situation, and that as a strong cyclist I should have the upper hand. But a girl from my category who I'd been leap frogging with for several miles finally dropped me when I slowed down for a bottle pick-up. It took me about three tries to get ahold of the wet bottle, and by the time I came out the other side she had broken the elastic and slowly pulled away.

I was drinking fluids like crazy. By the end of the first hour I'd already downed about a liter and a half of liquid, but I was still thirsty. It was in the high 70's (but felt hotter) and extremely humid, and I'd been training in 50-degree weather for months. I slowed down at nearly every water stop for bottles, but I could feel myself falling behind on my hydration anyway. I also had another problem: my feet were killing me! I get really sore feet when I do long, hard rides on hot days, but never after so little time. I hadn't even hit the 40-mile mark and my feet felt like they were in a vice and on fire. I sucked back nuun with desperation and loosened my shoes, but by the time I hit the chip seal again for the second loop and the vibrations started, I was in agony. It hurt to push the pedals, so I tried to increase my cadence to keep my speed up, but my average speed dropped even further. Any goals of a good bike split blew away.

That second loop (of three) in the wind I really started to get downhearted. I didn't want to do this stupid race anymore. I was already in pain and all I had to look forward to was a marathon. I was getting cramps in my butt and groin. I should just stop now. What's the point if you're having a shitty race? The pain will only get worse. Three things kept me on my bike:

1. I have given up and DNFed at so many races recently when things weren't going as I wanted them to. I knew that as much as I was hurting now, I knew I couldn't deal with another DNF.
   
2. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't over until it was over. I could still have a great run, and I had no idea where the other girls in my age group were, or how they were dealing with the tough conditions.
3. Temper tantrums. I moaned and screamed out loud every time I hit a bump or divot in the road. I yelled at the wind. I swore in every language I knew. I felt sorry for myself and I did so out loud. It didn't fix anything, but it made me feel better and gave me the umph to push past this cramp or through that gust for just a few minutes.

The last lap things were looking pretty grim. I was convinced that my feet, which were now the size of blimps (maybe the Hindenburg is a better simile) would never fit into my running shoes, and I couldn't seem to pee. I must have had 2 gallons of liquid during the ride, but I was having trouble seeing, like my glasses were fogged up. Actually my glasses were fogged up, but I was feeling pretty mentally foggy as well. Even though the muscle cramps were gone, I really, truly thought I was going to cry from relief when I reached the end of the bike course, like I'd already finished the Ironman. I couldn't imagine going back out for the hardest part of the race still ahead of me.

I took my feet out of my shoes a good half mile before transition (the course was about a mile long anyway). Hopefully by the time I got off my bike they would be recovered enough to hold my weight without rupturing. When I dismounted the volunteer tried to take my bike before I had even gotten it out from between my legs. He almost knocked me over. "Will you hold on a second?!" I said as I nearly kicked my bike to the ground trying to swing my leg over the top tube. "Okay, now. Thank you." I said and waddled off to the changing tents.

My official bike time was 6:03:09, but my pride won't let me say that without pointing out that it was actually about 5:57:00 because of my T2 encore (and the course was about a mile--3 minutes-- long). Either way, I was already in 4th place, so there was no way that I was going to make up any more places on the marathon. This is me we're talking about.

T2
But I don't WANNA go!

A volunteer already had my bag ready as I lurched toward the tents. I was hoping he would have to look for it for a few precious seconds so I could chill, but there he was, holding it out before I even reached him. Damn. I ducked into the tent where a naked lady was just standing there right inside the flap. Once around the naked lady, I started mindfully going through my transition bag. No way I was going to do something stupid this time around. I finally wedged my Hindenburgs into my shoes, made the other necessary costume changes, and lurched back out of the changing tents in 3:05. I was in a sorry state... as in sorry to be alive.

The Marathon
Attrition

Maybe it was naive of me to think that I could have run a fast marathon, but I really, really believed I could set a marathon PR if I stuck to the plan. I had done some runs off some pretty tough bike rides (including two 110-mile rides), and my pace had always settled into the low 8's by the second mile. I had had some steady long runs where I had held my sub-8:10 pace from the first mile to the last. I thought my run had turned a corner. And maybe if it had been a cloudy, dry, 60-degree day that's what might have happened. But I wasn't in Boston in October, I was on a tropical island near the equator and it was hot and humid and the Hindenburg swelling and burning had spread up my whole legs to a dull, bloated throb from hips to toes.

The first mile took us through town, and everyone in Cozumel was lining the streets cheering like crazy. Little kids were chanting "Si se puede!" while their mothers screamed "Arriba las mujeres!" and everyone had plastic bottles filled with pebbles to make noise. It was so loud I thought that the noise would knock me over. I was still emotional from the bike and almost burst out crying (from relief, happiness, self-pity, and frustration) before I hit the first aid station. By the time we got out of town around mile two I had gotten my composure back and I was morosely coming to the realization that I still had 24 miles to go before I could let my emotions take over.

Although my pace dropped about 25 sec/mile over each of the first 5 miles (from 8:30 at mile 1 to 10:09 at mile 5), I was feeling okay. I remember thinking, When I get back into town, then I'll just have to run half a lap back out and I'll already be half way done. It didn't seem like much, but that was before the contents of my gel flasks took effect...

Since my stomach can be so finicky on the run, my coach suggested that I mix a very concentrated mixture of 800 calories of sports drink with just a little water. Once I tasted it out on the course, though, there was no fooling me. It tasted just like a pukey, syrupy, gross, disgusting gel. I started farting immediately. I didn't even care who was around, I just let 'er rip. I haven't had the phantom poo problem in months, and I certainly didn't want it to come back today because I was too modest to break wind in public in front of hundreds of people. The gel tasted gross, so I was taking only itty bitty sips every mile, and pretty soon my stomach shut down anyway. On top of that, I'd stopped sweating. I could feel the salt seeping into my skin and I felt feverish.

When I got back for the end of the first loop, Greyt Times (who was just starting the run) spotted me from the other side of the road. I wanted to know how her race was going, but she looked great and I wanted sympathy more than I wanted to relive the bike course through her, even for a second. "My stomach's completely shut down! I'm shitting my brains out!" I yelled across the street for all to hear.
"Are you okay?" she asked, genuine concern on her face.
"Yes, yes. I'll be fine!" I said in that mother's guilt-trip kind of way.

Tri Beaner had come down to Cozumel to support Greyt Times, and she had been there to cheer for me at every loop of the bike. Now she was near the start/finish area for the run. She asked how I was doing and I told her I was in tough shape. I wanted more sympathy, and I wanted it now! When I came back around a minute or two later, she looked concerned. "Do you need anything? Are you okay?" She was so sincere I almost started to feel guilty, but not that bad. I was okay, I guess, but I had also stopped sweating and my stomach was shutting down. I could be dying! My pace had dropped to about 10:30 per mile by this point, but I was still "running" at least.

I got a chance to see Yvonne Van Vlerken and Bree Wee three times as they finished the second half of the marathon. I cheered for each of them (and yelled "GO BELLA!" for about 3 chicks in pink, convinced each time that that was her). They both responded, half-waving and Yvonne even tried to muster a smile, and I felt bad because it obviously required a huge amount of effort. I certainly hadn't been responding to all the people who had been cheering along the way, and boy oh boy did they cheer. I just couldn't manage it. I had too much to think about convincing myself to keep running at more than a shuffle.

By mile 11, though, things were going horribly wrong. My stomach had completely turned off and I was risking losing "it" from both ends. Farting was no longer relieving the tension and my legs were still throbbing from the bike. My goal had been to "race for the medical tent" (race so hard that I left it all out there), but I wasn't willing to finish with shit in my shorts. I will collapse to the ground like a limp noodle in full view of a jumbotron, but not with poop on my pants. If I didn't start walking more, then I was going to shit myself and there would be nothing I could do about it. I began walking the aid stations and plodding at an easy pace in between, but by mile 16 the blender in my intestines left me no alternative. I ducked into a porta-pottie and pooped the kind of loud, nasty poop with groans and everything that you hope never to hear in a public restroom. When I felt like I could move again, I looked for the TP. There was none. No hand sanitizer either. I pulled my soaking wet shorts up over my soon-to-be-very chafed and angry ass and hit the course again.

Coming in to the turn-around I could see people running in for the finish. I wished I were finishing. I still had 8.7 miles to run. I took another pit stop around mile 19, and when I opened the door, there was Greyt Times. "You poor thing!" she said as soon as she saw my face. I still hadn't had a chance to ask her about her race, and I wanted to ask but she ducked into the can before I could get a word out. Also, someone had shit on the seat in there, and it wasn't me. I really wanted her to know that even though my bowels were turning to mush, I wouldn't shit on the seat. But she had closed the door before I could say anything, and I needed to get this thing done and over with anyway.

A few miles up the road I saw Coach Liz (who was going the other way) stretching out her quad. She would later wind up burried under ice and towels in the medical tent, but for now her muscles were just seizing up and not responding as muscles should. I set myself the goal of catching her before the end and began running through aid stations again. Now that the sun had set, it was cooler and my body was feeling better. I felt like I was running at a good cadence, and would have guessed I was running 9-minute miles. My form even felt good. Other than what felt like a developing shin splint in my right leg (which is red like a bruise today), my legs felt fresher than they had all day. I was stunned when I looked down and saw that I was going about 11-minute mile pace. I really thought I was running great.

I stopped eating bananas after the second potty trip because I was convinced I would get E.coli from my unwashed hands, and made due sipping on about 6 oz of Coke. I never did catch Coach Liz, but I think I only walked to keep the poop chute under control twice in those last 8 miles. As I approached town I reached back to scratch a mosquito bite on my shoulder and cried out in pain. I thought I'd torn something, but the muscle had just seized up. Best not to make any extra movements until after this thing is over. Finally I was coming into town: just 2 miles to go. A lot of the people had gone home, but I realized that if I hurried I might make it in under 12 hours, so I used that to push me for the last two miles. With a fraction of a mile to go, I passed Tri Beaner for the last time and she congratulated me with a smack on my ass. All I could think about was how there had been no toilet paper and my shorts were soaked. I wondered if I had a skid mark up my butt, and THAT's what I was thinking as I rounded the last bend to the finishing chute with a few seconds to the 12-hour mark. By my recollection I crossed in 12:00:08, but the official time says I crossed in 12:00:24. Whatever. My marathon time: 4:49:28 (4:44:44 with potty breaks taken out) was 17 seconds faster than my first marathon ever.

Post Race

I was pretty overcome and all I wanted to do was sit down, but there were no chairs in the finishing area. I came through the back and found the medical tent. "Can I please just come in and sit down?" I asked. They told me to go over to the massage chairs waaaaay over there. "No, I don't want a massage. I just need... Let me..." But they turned me away. Later that night the medical staff would ask me several times if I needed assistance as I lay on the ground for a good 2 hours waiting for them to release Coach Liz, but now with shit in my shorts and unable to walk straight they sent me 100 yards farther away to sit in the buggy grass by the massage tables. (For the record, the skid mark was just my own paranoia.)

I went back to the hotel, took a quick shower, and scooted back to the finishing area in time to catch (but not see) Greyt Times and Coach Liz finish. I tried to find Greyt Times in the scramble at the finisher's area to tell her that the poop on the seat in the porta potty wasn't mine and find out about her race, but I ran into Tri Beaner first, who told me I should make sure Coach Liz was okay. So I posted myself outside the med tent, flat on my back and was lucky enough to greet Johnny Tri and Greyhound as they finished.

The more people I talked to, the better I felt about my race falling apart. Everyone had had a hard day out there, and my problems with the heat and nutrition were no worse than Coach Liz's potassium deficiency, Johnny Tri's giant English-muffin-sized blister, Bree Wee's curtled nutrition bottle, or Greyhound's crushed dreams on the bike. I'd taken on the conditions and they'd been too much for my goals, but the only thing I could have done to execute my race better would have been to move the race several meridians north. By the end of the race I felt strong. I was not only running, but still picking my feet up off the ground (I think). It wasn't a death march. All my stomach problems had even made me run so easy that my legs felt relatively fresh, and it wasn't a big deal walking back to the finish from my hotel.

Moreover, if I'd come closer to my goals (my primary goal had been to break 11 hours), then I might have qualified for Kona (update: actually, I still would have been far off). While I was out on the run I tried to convince myself that if I kept moving, the girls in front of me might blow up before the end. What the hell kind of race is this that you hope to win not with superior athletic ability, but because your opponent's body falls apart before yours? I thought. What's the point of all this attrition? The chance to do it all again in even tougher conditions? It's not a race if you're barely struggling to cover the distance, thats masochism. I mean, I even saw pro's like Bella Bayliss walking. Imagine if a baseball pitcher just threw a few pitches underhanded when his arm got tired. He would NEVER make it to the major leagues. This was a stupid fucking sport. Nope, I was very, very happy that this would be my last Ironman. Leave the attrition up to the lunatics who are into that sort of thing.

Pre-race

Greyt Times and I pose for an underwater picture while previewing the swim.

The Travel

I was more nervous for the travel than I was for the race itself. Getting from Boston to Cozumel was my real Ironman. My flight left Boston at 6:00 on Thanksgiving morning, which meant a 3:30 wake-up call to get to the airport on time. I got about 4 hours' sleep and wouldn't fall asleep again for another 21 hours.

After a 1-hour flight to New York, I sat in the terminal playing solitaire during my 9-hour layover. I had fucked up loading my audiobooks couldn't get my wifi working, so there wasn't much else to do than play solitaire on the terminal floor. My next flight to Cancun was unpleasant. The Russian couple next to me promptly fell asleep, leaving me trapped in the window seat with a full bladder for hours. The woman was farting, and the man behind me kept yelling rude and snide comments at other passengers.

By the time I arrived at my fleabag room in Cancun, I was exhausted and starving. I hadn't eaten in about 11 hours, so I went to the hotel bar to grab a snack. I asked for something light and he offered me quesadillas. Quesadillas! Great! I thought. No meat and no dangerous veggies that might carry water-born pathogens. I ordered them to go and took them to my room. When I opened them they looked delicious... and full of chicken. I left my quesadillas untouched and ate a granola bar for Thanksgiving dinner.

Don't know why this one didn't come out. It was broad daylight. Anyway, this was my flag to let bloggers know I was at the swim course already.

In the morning I woke up early... too early for the continental breakfast, and got a cab back to the airport. The driver, a guy named Jose Luis (who was very excited to point out that he had two grandchildren and no grey hairs) decided to give me a Spanish lesson. "In espanish we call that a bi-ci-cle-ta."
"I know," I said.
"Bi-ci-cle-ta, it means bicycle."
"Ya lo se." I know, I told him. "Antes de esta rececion economica ganaba la vida con el espanol." Before the recession I earned a living speaking Spanish. After that the conversation came much easier, which was good because we couldn't figure out where the hell we were going. Jose Luis took me to the terminal where a sky cap took one look at the bike and told me I was going to have to go to the charter terminal. Huh? I had booked this flight through Priceline. Charter my ass.

Jose Luis dropped me off outside the private, gated charter parking lot and gave me some brochures for hotels when I came back through Cancun. Then a well-dressed airport employee came out and took my bags from me. I tried to protest (I didn't want to tip him), but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He then lead me in to the "terminal" which had 2 vending machines, about 9 chairs, and a little counter with a folding chair behind it. He stepped behind the counter and checked me in. Then he lead me nextdoor to the "comfortable" waiting room (it looked like the lobby of a plush, modern hotel) and handed me a menu for breakfast. None of this seemed right, but I was starving.

I ordered a quesadilla sin el pollo, nomas de queso (without the chicken, just cheese) this time. The guy looked at me like I was nuts, but he called in the order anyway. "Yeah, she doesn't want the chicken. Just cheese. I don't know why. She said just cheese. Can you do that? Okay, thank you, bye."

When I had finished my quesadilla, my friend the skycap/receptionist/butler came and got me and introduced me to the three rich Mexican women I'd be flying with. "She came for the race," he said.
"Oh, congratulations," the over-baked ladies in lots of jewlery told me. Then they went through the metal detector. The alarm went off for each one of them. "It must be my earrings," one said. "Oh, it's this necklace," said the next.
I started to take off my belt and the skycap/receptionist/butler held up his hand to say it wasn't necessary. He told me to put my 1.5-liter bottle through the X-ray and I stepped through the metal detector, setting it off. They waved the wand over me and let me go, even though the thing beeped like crazy around my belt and pockets. We then climbed on a tiny 12-seat cargo plane and flew 15 minutes over to Cozumel.

In Cozumel I had already made another several friends by the time I made it to my room. People were thrilled to find an American who spoke Spanish without that twangy high-school accent, I think. I wondered how many drunk American college students had actually said to these people, "Yo quiero Taco Bell!"

Registration, Etc.

I re-built my bike, unpacked, and set out for registration. Surprisingly I floated through without running into too many obnoxious Mdot dorks. Then I went to the supermarket to try to scrounge up some food. Here are some challenges at the Mexican supermarket:

• I was desperate for fresh fruits and veggies, but since I wasn't supposed to eat anything I couldn't peel, all I could find were those little finger bananas.
• Meat everywhere.
  
• I had no fridge or kitchenette in my room, so I was limited to things I could cook in the coffee pot. Luckily, unopened milk doesn't have to be refrigerated here.
• Mexicans wield shopping carts like torpedos. This was far more dangerous than riding on Cozumel's one road.

When I got home, I had a quick bite and took my bike out for a spin. I was flying at 24 mph without much effort. Wow, so this is what it feels like to be rested and ride on truly flat ground! I thought. I was already signing bike sponsorship contracts in my head. Then, after 20 minutes I turned into the 15-mph headwind. My speed dropped precipitously. The contracts and sponsorship deals blew away.

After a quick shower it was back to the expo center for the mandatory pre-race meeting. Greyt Times spotted me, and we sat together. "Because there are so many of you," the MC explained, "we won't be answering any questions at this meeting." She then went on to read us the race packet, almost word-for-word. None of it was very helpful, since I had already read the athlete's guid cover to cover in the airport in New York. Luckily, Greyt Times had been here for several days and had obviously done more homework than I had. Her information about the currents and wind was far more helpful than the mandatory meeting.

Some rules about the race that inconvenience me:

• No swim warm-up before the race.
• No pre-race bike warm-up either. Bikes must stay in transition.
• Race numbers cannot be folded or cut, and must be worn on the bike. The race number is about the size of an 8.5x11 piece of paper and is going to tear off in the wind if I don't fold it.
• Only food in the Special Needs bags, no spare tubes, socks, CO2 or pumps. I mean, I wasn't really going to use them anyway, but that's just dumb!

Meeting the Tri-Geeks
My new tri-buddies pose with me at the pasta dinner under an foreboding sign.

I shared a cab to the pasta dinner with a couple of college kids, and when we got out of the car I would have rather spent the evening talking to anyone than a couple of overexcited frat boys. So when the group in front of us in line mentioned that they had done Vineman, I piped up. These guys were masters-aged all-out, full-blown, Mdot tattooed, multiple-Ironmans-a-year, bona fide tri-geeks using Ironman for their mid-life crises. For some reason it didn't bother me until I looked over and there was a video camera pointed in my face, and Thing Two was making a muscle right next to me, showing the ring of Mdots tattooed around his bicep. With my face in the background. On camera. Still, they were very nice and not condescending as I expected the Mdot crowd to be. Actually, I'm finding that the Mdot geeks here are well behaved. Maybe it's because this is probably the one place where they can't brag about having done an Ironman and expect everyone around them to fall to their knees in admiration.

Meeting the Swim

From left to right: me, Greyhound, Coach Liz, Greyt Times, Johnny Tri.
"You're a lot shorter than you look on your blog," Greyhound told me. I get that a lot.

I woke up early and rode the 4.5 miles to the swim course to meet up with Coach Liz and Johnny Tri. We also picked up Greyt Times and all did a quick swim together. Everyone was taking a set of stairs and swimming under the dock to get in the water, but I HATE swimming under things, so I just did a cannonball into the water. It was so warm! I was also scared that we were going to see a lot of fish, but luckily we only saw very little fish and they kept their distance. I was safe... ish.

I hate seeing living things in the water almost as much as I hate swimming under things. What if the fish attacked me? As soon as I'd done my cannonball, something stung my foot, so yes these were dangerous waters. Also, there were dolphins penned up on the inside of the dock. Most people were excited by this, but I had heard stories of mistreated dolphins attacking and raping people. If there was ever a sea animal that was almost as scary as a shark, it was a dolphin. No swimming with the dolphins for me, thank you very much.

The Rest
I thought this one was pretty cool... and funny.

The remainder of D-Day Eve has gone relatively uneventfully. I've had mini dramas about which shoes to wear, whether to use lace locks, whether to put water in my running bottle and flasks now or tomorrow... but for the most part I've been getting bored in my hotel room a lot.

I was secretly pretty disappointed that they wrote my number on me, they didn't stamp it. I wanted a stamp, dammit!

At the bike check-in I was wandering around aimlessly when a teenage volunteer came up to me. "Te puedo sacar una foto?" Can I take your picture? he asked. I couldn't imagine why, but I couldn't think of a reason why not either, so we put our arms around each other and another volunteer took a picture. I thought of telling him that I wasn't a pro or anything like that, but I figured that whatever he wanted it for, I wouldn't bother to let him know I wasn't whoever he thought I might be. I just hope he doesn't use it for anything perverted.

I can't really begrudge adolescent volunteers for wanting photos. I took a picture of Yvonne Van Vlerken's tiny little bike because it'll probably be the one that rides the fastest tomorrow.

Every local I've spoken to here has been so nice. They all seem really excited for the race. Businesses everywhere have signs saying "Welcome Ironman athletes!" and whenever people ask if you came for the Ironman, they do so with a huge smile on their faces. Maybe it's because the race brings money in the offseason. Maybe it's because triathletes are better behaved than the usual drunken spring break crop. Maybe it's that they feel like something exciting is finally happening in their little town. But cars yield on the highway, everyone wishes me good luck, and one cabbie even stepped out of his car with a huge grin and waved his "OFFICIAL IRONMAN CAB" t-shirt at me as I rode by. I'm pretty excited for tomorrow...

Exceeding Expectations

Last year the Patriot half ironman was a real breakthrough race for me. While I talked all about pee on my blog, that was my first real win of the year and the first time I really saw that I might be on to something on the bike. That was a great race for me, I wish they all could come together like that race did... well, maybe without the bit about pee in my shoes.

This year I only signed up for the Aquabike. All I could remember of last year's run was getting passed, and passed, and passed, and wanting to cry when I saw the uphill into the finish. Fuck that. So even though in the triathlon world, an aquabike seems to be a "respectable DNF," it was sure a hell of a lot better than running. I showed up at Big Red's house with reheated coffee at 4:25 am and we were on the road singing along to P!nk songs in her Little Purple Car by 4:30 in the morning. Check-in and marking went uneventfully. Michelle (who also makes me pee my pants) turned up minutes behind Red and me, and I spent the morning hopping back and forth from my rack to theirs, nervously drinking from a 2 gallon jug of water. I racked my bike, made for the porta-potties as usual, and set up my transition area. By "set up my transition area" I mean that I took my cycling shoes out of my bag and clipped my helmet to my handlebars. Aaaaah, only doing 1 event is great!

Well, okay... it was a bit more complicated than that. I also had to set up my drink bottles. If you remember from my last race, I had a bit of a problem with my aero bottle rubbing on my front wheel. I took the bottle over to show Michelle and Big Red the groove on the bottom. You could have rolled a marble down that groove. "Holy cow!" Michelle screamed, appropriately impressed. "You essentially rode that whole race with your brakes on!" So it is a matter of public record, the groove was deep, and I am a badass (Michelle, please back me up on this). I was nervous about that bottle. I must have fucked with it a dozen times trying to figure out a way to make it sit above the wheel, but since I still didn't have a way to hold it in place, there wasn't much I could do. ...Which lead to another question, how many bottles to carry on my frame? I had only planned to carry one, but if I had to dump the aero bottle then I would need to slow down for more bottle handoffs. But if I carried an extra bottle, that would be a LOT of extra weight on my bike. I wound up filling all the bottles and deciding that I'd dump one of the frame bottles if the aero bottle worked. It didn't, so now if any of you want to see the DEEP ASS GROOVE that my wheel made in the bottom of my bottle, you'll have to search in the weeds at the side of the road in Freetown, MA.

I've already peed in my wet suit twice... and I haven't been in water any deeper than my waist yet!

For some reason I was INCREDIBLY nervous for this race. Maybe it was because I had put really high expectations on myself. Maybe it was because I was thinking about the whole event all at once swim, bike, transitions, and all. Maybe it was the fact that I was in the last wave, and I had to wait half an hour after the first starters to actually get in the water. Maybe it was the 20 oz Starbucks coffee I'd had on the way over. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to put the sticker with my number on the front of my new sperm hat (aero helmet), and I got even more nervous. Do they DQ for that kind of thing? By the time Grease Monkey (who had driven down later) found me in the bull pen, I was so wound up that I thought I would explode.

The Swim
1,500 yards cleverly disguised as 1.2 miles

I was in the same wave as the relay swimmers and the fat people waves (sorry, I just don't believe in Clydesdales and Athenas), so I was kind of expecting all the relays to take off ahead of me, and all the fatties to fall behind me. That's what happened. I think. The swim can be so isolating, you can only see such a small space ahead of or behind you, that unless you're in a pack it can be so hard to tell how you're swimming. I was alone for the whole swim out to the far buoy.

I'd been really working on my swim, getting wet every chance I could since I got back from France, and my mojo finally seemed to be coming back. I wasn't swimming as well as I had been last winter, but well enough. As I was swimming, I could feel that I was having a good swim. I felt strong. The buoys were coming quickly. The far buoy came quickly. We had to swim around 1 cross-buoy before we could turn back to the beach, and after the turn was when I caught up with 2 guys from my wave: The Kicker and The Drafter. I easily got around The Drafter (over and over as The Kicker pulled him through), but I just couldn't seem to get by The Kicker. I got a mouthful. I got another mouthful. And another, this one went down. UGH! Not again! The water was a really, really nasty thick shade of red. I felt nauseous only until the next turn buoy, though, when I was finally able to get around The Kicker and swim into shore.

Most of the swim back was spent getting around the blue caps from the wave in front of me, and the odd orange cap from the wave in front of that. The swim was over so quickly! I could live with that. I don't dislike the swim, but it always makes me anxious and I'm always eager to get out of the water and get on my bike already. I looked down at my watch as I was coming out of the water: I was in the 22 minute range! That couldn't be right... Looking at my times and others' times, it seems likely that the swim was 1500 yards instead of 1.2 miles (about 500 yards short).

Official time: 23:16
Official pace: 1:06 per 100 yd (I'm going to the Olympics!)
Estimated real pace: 1:32 per 100 yd
Division (Aquabike) place: 8/27 (30%)
Estimated overall place: 75/307 (24%)
Improvement on last year: 9:33 (not really though)

T1

Transition should have been easy, but I was worried about that stupid sticker for my helmet. I rooted through my bag and found the envelope with my run number still in it, and there was the sticker for my helmet. I fiddled with it for what seemed like forever, and was probably only about 4 seconds. I couldn't get the paper off the adhesive on the back. I gave up. I went to put on my shoes. It felt like it took forever. It probably took about 10 seconds. Helmet on, garmin on, glasses on, let's get the hell out of here!

T1 time: 2:45

The Bike
58 miles of Get outta my way!

As soon as I'd started riding I checked my water bottle. It had slid down and was rubbing my wheel again. I tried to shift it higher in its cradle, but nothing I did would make it sit higher, so I just pulled it out and chucked it at the side of the road. I felt bad about littering, but felt that the Universe owed me this one after all the Gatorade bottles I've had chucked at my head by snotty teenagers. It was probably the best decision I've ever made in a race.

What I hate most about being in a late wave is that you have to fight your way through the whole, entire field. It felt like it took forever for my legs to come around, but I was still passing everybody. I practically lived on the left side of the road for the first loop yelling "LEFT! COMING UP ON YOUR LEFT! YOU HAVE A RIDER COMING UP ON YOUR LEFT!" over and over again. You should all know that even though I'm super cocky on my blog, I'm actually a pretty nice person out on the race course. I'll say "excuse me" and "please" and whenever possible I'll use full sentences to let people know that I'm coming. It seemed like every time I came into a turn, I was about to pass somebody. I would try to yell, "YOU'VE GOT A RIDER COMING IN BEHIND YOU, I'M GOING TO PASS YOU AS WE COME THROUGH THE TURN!!!" That way it seems like I'm being nice. Really, though, I'm just making sure that nobody does anything stupid like swerve, or get mad and sprint past me and get in my way. Plus, in a turn if they think they're going to be passed, they'll slow down even more. Hey, it makes my life easier!

On the back half of the first loop, the traffic was getting bad. There were cars backed up way down the road making it hard to pass, and I was in the thick of the pack at this point. At one point a pickup pinched me into the shoulder and almost drove me off the road and I had to brake hard. I was glad I'd done a lot of urban riding and had developed a sixth sense for when drivers are going to be stupid, so I wasn't in my aero bars at the time. I know it's hard for races to get permits to close off entire roads for a morning, but I wish that they would at least find a way to keep one lane closed so no one gets hurt.

As I was coming back towards transition to begin the second loop I checked my average speed for the first time. For the past 29 miles I'd been averaging 22.4 mph! The next time I looked down it had come up to 22.5! I was so excited. I had set a best-case-scenario goal pace of 22 mph and here I was going half a mile per hour faster and feeling great! I felt like I could negative split this thing.

On the second loop I had already fought my way through much of the pack, and the farther I rode, the clearer the road got. Thank goodness! Before long I spotted Michelle up the road! She had left 20 minutes ahead of me, and I hadn't expected to catch her at all, let alone so early in the bike. Then again, I was having the ride of my life. I yelled something encouraging to her as I passed, and then I said, "I'm averaging 22.6 mph!" I just had to share my excitement with someone. That .6 at the end only lasted for a few more minutes, though as I irrevocably dropped back down to 22.5.

The course is flat, but there are some rollers that can take you up 60–100 feet before they're done with you. On the second loop they broke up my momentum a little bit and took the wind out of my sails as I began to give some of my speed back. I could feel my legs were getting tired. I tried to eat and drink whenever possible, but I was having trouble finding times when the road was smooth enough and my breathing easy enough to take my hands off my bars and reach for a bottle or food, and then swallow it. Still, nobody passed me. There were maybe two or three guys who thought they could pass me, and pulled ahead of me once or twice but I passed them all and they stayed passed. To be fair, all the real guns had gotten a head start on me and never got the chance to pass me, but it was still fun. I didn't come up on Big Red until well after I found Michelle, which surprised me because she was having knee problems and had a terrible cold. But if there's anyone who can step up to the plate, it's Big Red. I tried to yell something encouraging to her as I rode by, but I forget what I said. Whatever it was, she made fun of me afterward, saying that I was even a ballbuster when I was trying to be supportive.

Finally I reached the final loop around the lake for the second time. I had given up a lot of speed on the second lap. While I'd averaged 22.5 on the first lap, I only averaged 22 on the second lap, for an average speed of 22.3 by the end. I know that I shouldn't be disappointed with that 22 mph for the second loop, seeing as it was my best-case-scenario goal to start with, but it still irked me. Why had I slowed down so much? I crossed the 56-mile mark in 2:30:37, but still had 2 miles to go to the finish. Three minutes and sixteen seconds later, I was dismounting my bike (Garmin says the course was only 57.14 miles).

Unofficial bike time: 2:33:53
Unofficial average speed: 22.3 mph
Average heartrate: 173 Max heartrate: 193
Gender bike rank (all women, all divisions): second

Improvement on last year: 12:04, 1.4 mph

The Run
Now that's my kind of triathlon!

I racked my bike on the Aquabike rack that they had set up and started sprinting towards the finish line. I had already taken off my bike shoes, so I ran the .12 miles through the finishing chute barefoot in my ass hat/aero helmet. Grease Monkey was screaming for me the whole way, and something happened that has never happened before...
... I finished the race smiling!

Official bike time: 2:35:29
Official bike speed: 22.4 mph
Unofficial run pace: 7:19 min/mi (haha! Wouldn't it be great if I could have held THAT for another 13 miles!)
Total time: 3:01:28
Women's Aquabike finish: 1st place
Overall Aquabike finish: 4th place
Overall Women's Swim/T1/Bike rank: 2nd
Improvement on last year's swim/bike time: 19:07
Gap on the next Aquabike woman: 22+ min.
How much I beat Bobby's Swim/Bike time by: 14:27 (another one off the list!)

The Aftermath

Immediately my ass cramped up. After a short visit to the PT booth to get stretched, Grease Monkey and I cheered Michelle through T2 before going to catch Bobby finish in a PR time of 4:55, and then we got to see Michelle finish her first half ironman, and finally Big Red come through, finishing strong on a busted knee.

As I was picking up my stuff from transition a chick I'd never seen before in my life said, "Are you Claire?" Oh god! I've pissed somebody off again! was my first thought.
"Yeeeeees..." I said, warily. I was ready to run once she started swinging. She looked sweet enough though. I wondered if I could take her in a fight?
"I read your blog!" Now I was really ready to run away once she started swinging! But she didn't take a single shot, amazingly. I was so flattered! I felt famous to have lurkers that recognized me (and didn't want to kill me). Thanks, PJ, you made me feel famous! And everyone should wish PJ luck in the Rhode Island 70.3 in 2 weeks.

Finally I got to shove food into my face and wait for the awards ceremony. At the picnic table, a woman struck up a conversation with me. I didn't know it till later, but she was the 45-49 winner. "I think I passed you on the course," she said. "Were you wearing a red, white, and blue helmet?"
"No, it was black and red."
"No, really, I think it was you. What color was your helmet? Does it have some grey in it?"
I couldn't resist. "It couldn't have been me," I said, trying not to let my attitude show through. "Nobody passed me."
"But..."
"Nobody."

They announced my name, gave me my award, and then went on to announce that they were giving premes for the fastest swim, bike, and run times. Even though they excluded elites, aquabikes, and relays, I still wanted to hear what the fastest women's bike time was. "2:43:24?! I rode faster than that!" I whined.
Michelle smacked me in the sunburn on my shoulder. "Yeah, but you didn't have to run," she said.
"Still, I beat it by 8 minutes," I sulked. "I could have WALKED a half marathon after I rode..." Actually, it wouldn't have mattered, because the woman who won overall still rode about 5 minutes into me. Now that really IS fast!

Breaking It Down

I've been trying to figure out what I did right this year to have such a better race than last year. I think it's due to a few things (in no particular order):

1. My phyxie: I've put hundreds of miles onto my fixed gear this year, which has not only smoothed out my pedal stroke, but more importantly it has taught me to climb little hills in a WAY bigger gear than I normally might. So now when a short little roller comes up, I can stay in a much higher gear and keep up my speed over the top of it.
2. Suffering! I've been working since last fall to learn how to suffer. This time last year I was still racing where I felt comfortable, never going balls to the wall and always saving something for later. Now I've gotten a lot of practice at feeling uncomfortable, and I'm comfortable there. That whole ride I was sucking wind and at the point where if I pushed any harder, I would have dug myself into a hole that I couldn't easily get out of. Maybe in physiological terms I've raised my lactate threshold. All I know is that I can hurt a lot more now without actually hurting.
3. Yeah, I'm sure the mountains helped.
4. Riding more, not running: Last year I'd put in about 20 fewer hours by race day than I have this year, even though the race was 3 weeks later last year. Also, since I'm not wasting my time running, my legs are much fitter for my rides, and I have more free time to ride more.
   
5. Running: Alright, alright, I'll admit it. That block I did last winter where I ran my ass off did put me in phenomenal aerobic shape. I noticed that I was putting up the same times on the road this year AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON (when I wasn't in shape) than I was last year when I was in shape. So yeah, the running helped.
   

... almost done...

Well my grand adventure is nearly over. I shipped off Shane back to San Francisco yesterday morning, and my flight leaves tonight. By the time I get home, I will have been gone for one day more than 4 weeks, and one day less than a month. I will have been in, or within spitting distance of 8 countries and nations and ordered Starbucks in 4 different languages. So much has happened that I'm sure that not all of it can find its way into the blog. When I get home I'll be sure to post pictures and write more detailed accounts of everything that we've done. But in the meantime, here's the short version of what I've been up to over the past 29 days:

April 29 - Leave Boston

April 30 - Arrive in London. See a kid I grew up with on TV.

May 1 - Shane arrives in London.

May 2 - Fly to Paris. Paris begins a long 2 weeks of learning that in 3 years of French classes, I learned diddly squat. Begin the perfect the art of smiling like a fool whenever someone speaks to me.

May 5 - Drive across France... which is NOT as big as Texas. It might be more like the size of Wisconsin.

May 6 - Do a ride around Lake Geneva. Have a screaming match with Shane. Have the sinking sensation that this trip might have been a huge mistake.

May 7 - Ride up Alpe d'Huez. Have to stop on the third switchback and almost yack all over myself. Slow my pace down and make it to the top. Shane gets 3 flats, and our first of many rides is truncated.

May 8 - Shane needs a rest day, so we ride up Alpe d'Huez again and call it a day.

May 9 - Try to do a 150-mile ride, but after it takes us about 4 hours to go the 30 miles up Croix de Fer, we turn around and come home.

May 10 - Try to ride up the Col d' Izoard. After exactly 1 hour we hit a barrier saying the road is closed. Hike our bikes over the barrier, and a quarter mile away find that the road is covered in snow. I am convinced I am going to die on the Col d'Allos on the way to Nice.

May 11 - Spend the day in Nice and Cannes. After so many aborted rides in the Alps, I'm dying for a ride around the sunny hills of Nice, but Shane insists on a rest day. I secretly stew.

May 12 - Ride up Mt. Ventoux. Almost get blown off the side of the mountain, but climbed like I was doping. All is right with the world again.

May 13 - Drive to the foot of the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees. We wound up in a tiny little town that was grey and yucky and all the camp sites we closed. We both got the heebie jeebies.

May 14 - Decide that the weather report is too bad to even try the Tourmalet. Turns out it was closed anyway, since Contador had tried not 2 days earlier to ride up it. We hightail it out of the spooky little inbred town and head off to Spain.

May 15 - Go for a short ride over the French/Spanish border. After a few miles of climbing, though, I get grouchy and tell Shane I have to poop, so we should go back to the hotel. It was a lie. I've been constipated the whole trip.

May 16 - My birthday. We ride 80 miles through Spain, Andorra, and France on a rout I did 2 years ago. Last time it nearly killed me. This time it feels easy, and it's a great birthday present.

May 17 - Back in Barcelona, I go for a ride with the Dirty Old Men. It's a "Mountain Challenge" day, and after everyone stops at the bottom of a 4-kilometer, 6% hill, we all race to the top. I come in second, losing in a sprint in the last 100 meters. The third place guy was minutes behind. It is an even better birthday present than the ride the day before to have all those dirty old men be beat soundly by a girl.

May 19 - Ride around the hills behind Barcelona. Get stung on the tongue by a bee.

The rest of the time in Barcelona - Sit around getting fat, reminiscing about how miserable I was in the old days, and secretly being sullen about coming back. Vow never to return to Barcelona.

May 22 - Fly back to London. Have never been so glad to be back in civilization in my whole life. Begin falling in love with London.

May 23 - Meet Warrior Woman. Have a lovely day with a nice cup of tea. Learn that I do not have an English accent when WW tells me that I sound "foreign." She is surprised.

May 24 - My friend Emily gets married. I learn about fascinators, ceilidhs, kilts, and that white people in Europe all dance like me. I feel proud of my race and their inability to dance. I also spent the night getting hit on by a 14-year-old that thought I was a professional cyclist. (I also found out later that he'd been told some rather crude generalizations about how American girls feel about fellatio).

May 27 - Leave London

May 28 - Suffer through an 18-hour layover in Reykjavik.

Other things that have happened on this trip:

I've fallen in love with Nutella.

I've also fallen in love with English tea.

I've learned that before May 15, France is très fermé above 2000m.

Something about Spain makes you need a cigarette.

We have spotted 3 celebrities: 2 definite, and one a possibility.

Derry: Freezer Burnout

Note: More pictures coming soon, once Big Red sends them to me. My camera was out of batteries.

The joke with the Boston Prep 16 Miler (or "Derry" as everyone calls it) is that with its dozens of hills and notoriously bad weather, it's "Moderately challenging". Hahaha, get it?? Moderately challenging? It's funny because it's not true. It is a notoriously tough course, often compared in geeky Boston running circles to Stu's 30K, which was possibly the most challenging road race I've ever done.

Here are the reasons I planned to be in Derry, NH this morning, only 2 weeks after my 39.3-miles of racing in Disney World:

1. I was supposed to run it last year, but I was laid up with a vicious case of the flu and a fever of 104º. I had unfinished business with this course.
2. I had planned on running it with Michelle, my "running coach". Also, Gadfly Thom had been pushing this race on me pretty hard for over a year, and Mary and Melissa were going to be there as well.
3. I'm still signed up for the Hyannis Marathon at the end of February. If I'm going to try to qualify for Boston, I was going to have to get back into running pretty quickly.

Here are the reasons I was NOT happy to be in Derry this morning:

1. I had only run twice since Florida, and was not at all in the mood to be slogging through 16 tough miles.
2. Michelle was laid up with the flu, and Melissa's back injury meant she wouldn't be running either.
3. It was zero degrees in Derry when I woke up in the morning, it would still be in single digits when we started, and only reach the teens while we were running. I haven't run outside in the cold since November. I also haven't trained on hills since... I last ran outside!
   

Big Red took over Michelle's number, so at least I had company on the ride up to Derry, with the added bonus that Big Red's car had heated seats. We stopped by Starbucks, and by the time we pulled in to the race parking lot I was so buzzed that my hands were shaking and I was talking a mile a minute. Coffee's pretty much the only buzz I get anymore, so I was living it up (goodness knows I've never experienced the "runner's high"). We spotted Mary (who expressed mild concern about my "excitement level" and trembling hands) right away, and after nearly knocking her over with a bear hug, I got to meet some of the members of her running club.

"And this is María," Mary said. "She reads your blog sometimes." I froze (except for the mild vibrations in my limbs from the coffee). I'm always nervous meeting people who read my blog. My first thought is, This person knows I pee my pants. My second thought is, This person must think I'm an asshole!!! (I've been told that I'm different in person from my blog persona, thank god.) But when María didn't call me an arrogant jerk, or kick me in the shins, I settled down a bit. I tried to get used to the idea that every single one of these people would be faster than me so that I wouldn't be disappointed later.

I spotted Gadfly Thom, and after he told me more than I wanted to know about the hills, I said, "I'm going to kill you for getting me into this." I'd told him this before, and meant it.

"I've never met a triathlete that hates running," he said. He doesn't believe me, I guess.

"Well you know me!" I said. "But I'm not a triathlete. Don't call me that. I'm just someone who does triathlons sometimes."

Mary went for one last bathroom run, and Big Red and I decided to skip the line and just head to the starting line. That was a big mistake. I would wind up feeling pretty uncomfortable for the first few miles until my body began to "reabsorb." We tried to look for a big bush or tree or something on the way to the start, but with waist-deep snow on either side of the road, popping a squat was out of the question. So we held it.

Standing around at the starting line was miserably cold, but once we started running, many people complained about being overdressed. Mary was off like a shot, darting through the crowd before we had even crossed the starting line, and Big Red had given me strict instructions not to run with her because she didn't want to get too competitive and wind up running too hard and injuring herself. If she threw caution to the wind and ran the whole course, 16 miles would be the longest she'd ever run. If not, I was supposed to hop in the car at the finish and drive the course backwards looking for her. So I had resigned myself to running alone when a tiny creature with every inch of skin covered came up next to me. "Hi Claire, it's María!" Thank goodness! Company! I hung with María for a precious few minutes before she sprung on ahead, leaving me with a man that I nicknamed "The Porn Star".

"The Porn Star" (I never did find out his real name) was a 65-year-old man with a big, bushy mustache, who grunted, groaned, sighed, and moaned as he ran. Despite sounding like he was either in ecstasy or agony every 30 seconds, The Porn Star was a very nice man, running at roughly my pace, and an easy talker, so I buddied up with him right away. I really needed someone to distract me from what I was doing, since I'd started to count down the miles before we even hit the first mile marker.

While I was running easily with The Porn Star, Big Red swooped right past me on a downhill. This summer that would have made me furious, but I couldn't have made myself care if I tried today. Red has made such freakish progress this year, and has been so kind and helpful to me outside of training that all I could do was wish her the best. I knew she was going to finish this race today, and that probably her performance was going to be stellar. Also, running hard in this bitter cold and up these hills sounded like hell. I let her go and continued talking about running with The Porn Star until my shoe came untied around mile 3 and I had to let Big Red and The Porn Star put about a minute into me.

Before you make any assumptions about miles 10-13, read on... and remember the elevation profile!

I ran alone for several more miles, and was astounded to find that once my shoe was tied, I was actually passing people. Like people who run. It was slow going, but eventually I picked people off until I was back where I started. I found my way back to Big Red, and passed her at the top of a long hill near the 5-mile mark. Soon after, I found The Porn Star again, and we picked up our conversation right where we left off. He had run a 2:45 marathon back in his day, and it was flattering to hear that I was "looking strong" from someone like that. He asked about a few of my times at different distances, and I explained that in the past year – and especially the past 4 months – I had been really focusing on improving my running. "I've been amazed at the improvement I've been able to make," I said. "I'm still setting PR's at every race, even the bad ones. I used to think that I just had no talent for the sport. I still think I have no talent, but now I see that other people are just willing to work a lot harder at it than I am."

"Well I think you'll continue to make more and more progress," The Porn Star said. "If you've only been running competitively for a couple of years, you still have so much more room to grow."

"I don't think so," I said. "I'm quitting." He laughed at that one. I love it when I find a stranger I'm able to talk honestly with, who takes what I say at face value. (If you haven't figured it out, I'm boring you with our conversation about it, because it's just a way to tell you guys my current thoughts about running. There will be a big decision at the end. See there is a point to my rambling posts!) "I couldn't let myself quit running if I'd never really tried at it," I said. "Now I have, I've seen improvement, and I still don't like it."

"Five marathons is a lot to run for someone who doesn't like to run," he pointed out.

"Marathons used to scare me," I said. "So I just ran them until I felt like I could run one without really stressing out about it. Now I'm not scared of marathons anymore, but I still don't like running them. And anyway, running doesn't agree with my body..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't remember the last race I finished where I didn't feel like I was going to puke at the end. If it's not one end, it's the other... or both. I think it's time to explore things that I find more enjoyable." Do you ever have those moments where you're explaining something to someone, and then suddenly all the pieces fall into place in your head, and suddenly you understand a big question you've been struggling with for a long time? That's often why I write, and that's exactly what happened while I was talking with The Porn Star this morning. I had no reason to run anymore! The problem was, my epiphany came about 7 miles too soon.


Gadfly Thom had warned me that the most brutal hills in Derry were between miles 9 and 12. No one had talked about anything else all morning. We passed the 9-mile marker, and then the road threw itself skyward. I told The Porn Star that this was probably where he was going to drop me, but to my surprise when the grade went above 10% (even getting as high as 20% for a long moment), he was the one who dropped back, never to be seen again. I had been feeling good on the rolling hills up until this point, but as much as I know I should, I never train on hills and I could really feel it. There was a miserable never-ending hill from miles 10.5 to 12 that chewed me up and spit me out. I tried to run a very slow pace so that I wouldn't have to walk, but the hill was mightier than my anaerobic threshold, and there were chunks that I simply had to walk or I would have collapsed gasping into a snow bank.

When the hills were through with me, I was toast. I had brought Starburst as my nutrition for the day, but I found the wrappers hard to peel off with my freezing fingers, then the candies were frozen solid, and there simply wasn't a section on the course flat enough to take the time to unwrap them. I hadn't started eating until about mile 10, and in the cold, my Accelerade hadn't been too appetizing either. Now my glutes and hamstrings were giving out in a way that I hadn't felt since last spring (Angry, I don't want to hear ANY comments about deadlifts, because you know I do them more often than I want to already).

I was surprised that I hit the 13.1-mile mark in less than 2 hours. My god, a year ago I ran a half marathon in a slower time than this on a flat course, and it was my PR! I thought. It didn't do much for the fact that I felt like hell though. I kept looking for an uphill that I could use for an excuse to walk, but it was just my luck that suddenly the hills had gone away. I hit my accelerade hard, but it was too little too late. It was beginning to freeze in the bottle anyway. Come on, Claire. It's just 2 more miles. You have hurt way more than this, and kept running longer and harder before. Instead, all I could think about was the aging effects of extremely cold temperatures on the skin, wondering whether your spit could freeze in your mouth, and how I couldn't get my head around running another marathon in weather like this. My head was swimming and my muscles were sore, but this wasn't the worst I had ever felt in my life. What was wrong with me? I knew I could hold it together for the rest of the race without eating... I only had a mile and a half to go... I just couldn't make myself do it. And then one of those kooky phrases that pops into your head when you're delirious from fatigue dawned on me. This must be what old ice cream feels like when it's been sitting in the back of the freezer for months, I thought. I think I have freezer burn.

Right before the 15-mile mark I stopped to walk and unwrap a couple more Starburst. I worked those candies for the next half a mile before I was able to swallow them, and just as I was cleaning the last of the sticky goo off my molars I heard a familiar voice behind me: "You were supposed to come get me with the car!"

Big Red! We were less than half a mile from the end, and the thought flickered through my mind for a second to try and keep up with her, but I just couldn't deal with the idea. "My ass hurts like hell and I think I'm bonking," I told her.

"Sub-9's or bust, baby!" Big Red called over her shoulder as she ran away.

"Yeah, you have fun with that!" I called after her. That's just how she rolls. She pulls these amazing feats of strength out of her ass and stymies those of us that have to actually work for it. That's okay, I was winding down from my marathon season and she was gearing up for her first. I didn't mind passing on the torch. I managed to stay about 25 to 50 yards behind Big Red for the rest of the race, but made no special effort to keep up with her. Running up the final incline into the parking lot there was a photographer. I held up my hand in front of my face and yelled, "No pictures! No pictures!" Of course he took 2 just to mess with me.

I crossed the finish line in about 2:22:10 about a minute behind Big Red, and for the first time in a long time I didn't think I was going to puke. I was in rougher shape than she was, though. Her only complaint after her longest run ever, was that the balls of her feet hurt. After my first 16 mile run I don't think I got out of bed for 3 days! On the way back to the school, Big Red said to me, "You know, you looked really good when you passed me. You've really got the lean thing down."

"What 'lean thing?'"

"Pose, or Chi, or whatever it is." Really?! I had only done the Silly Walks (not Chi or Pose, Striding On!, but whatever) for about 3 weeks before snow had covered the track where I did my drills. The rest had just been a lot of speed work which seems to iron out wrinkles in your running form.

My turn for ugly hair. I think my face was puffy from the cold.

Inside we caught up with Mary, who'd had some Claire-like stomach problems and had still kicked my butt by about 15 minutes. María looked happy with her 2:12 finish. I was just happy to get some pizza. Too happy, I guess, because a volunteer yelled at me for trying to take more than one piece. I would find out later that I came in something like 46th out of 49 in my age group, running roughly 9:00 miles on an extremely hilly course. I hate running in Boston, running here is so competitive! (Side note: As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Anne and I saw Grandpa coming in to the finish line. We'd been finished for at least 45 minutes. "Red," I said. "A little over a year ago that guy beat me in a race. Can you believe that?!" You've come a long way, baby, I thought.)

As I shoved my second piece of pizza in my mouth (I did manage to scam one more piece), I told Mary, "I don't think I can do Hyannis. I'm too burnt out."

"You say that now, but I know you. You'll complain the whole way, but you'll be on the starting line." I honestly hoped she was wrong. The idea of even continuing to run through the rest of the winter just made me want to crawl into a hole and die, let alone trying to pull the race of my life out of my ass on a cold day. There will be another chance in the fall to fulfil my New Year's Resolution and try to pull out a Boston qualification before 2009 is out. Hopefully I'll be fresher by then. In the meantime, I'm ready to throw in the towel. I've already got a lot of really exciting bike stuff ramping up, that has me really fired up. Running has me burnt out rather than fired up.

I'm facing off with CoaPB again soon. I've got a fixed gear that I can't wait to ride. I'm spending a lot of time with a hott new bike mechanic and track bike geek who has promised to take me to a track to give it a try. I've just got my Randonneurs USA literature and am fleshing out my summer training plan. It's time to turn the page and move on to the next adventure. I'm satisfied enough with what I've done so far. For now anyway...