Ironman Arizona 2018 Race Report

Here is a brief history of my Ironmans

• IM St. George 2012 – 16:41
• IM Arizona 2014 – 11:48
• IM Boulder 2015 – 12:14
• IM Arizona 2016 – 10:57
• IM Arizona 2018 – 11:26

I will say, while I am very proud of my finish (I ran from 13th to 7th), I am not happy with my results. I think I trained for, and should have had, a faster day. But I didn’t. I really can’t blame anyone but myself for that.

All the pre-race feels!

Swim 1:11:23 (8th in AG)

My first mistake was the swim. I assumed that the course was the same as it has always been. Well, it wasn’t. We actually started about a half mile down from the normal spot and finished about 300 meters further from where it ended before. The swim was cold, way colder than in the past. Because I wasn’t sure what the new course was like I was a bit in the blind with where the turn around was in relation of the total distance.  Also, the run back to T1 was WAY longer than before. So by the time I got on to my bike I was already 10 minutes behind where I wanted to be.

Longest run to T1 ever!!

Bike 6:00:08 (20th in AG)

The first trip out on the bike was good. I was spot on for my power goal when I hit the turn around. I pedaled as hard as I could back into town trying not to loose too much in my average power. When I hit the turn around I was very disappointing to see my time. Even though I was hitting my power goal, I knew I wasn’t going to make my time goal of 5:45 for the bike. Time goal number 2 missed.

Now, I was not about to quit. Too many people invested a lot of time in me for this race so I was going to fight until the end.

I held my power pretty well until the last trip back to town, and then I started fading. My tummy was off and I was very worried that I could not trust a fart at this point. I got off my bike in just over 6 hours. I took the time to sit down in the port-o-potty to test things just to make sure I wasn’t going to have a code-brown on the run. Everything was ok so I got out on the run.

Run 4:01:47 (8th in AG)

The first two miles were ugly. I was really bummed that I wasn’t going to make any of my time goals but I knew that I really needed to get a couple miles in, east some Tumms, and drink some Coke before I could really assess how the run was going to go. After about 5 miles I started to perk up. It helped immensely that Jen (my coach) and Stuart were all over the course giving me splits on where I was in my age group. I REALLY wanted to make the podium or at least top 10. I was bouncing around 8th all day on the bike. I came out of T2 in 13th, but by mile 10 I had run into 10th! That was all I needed to get my head in the game. I just  kept trying to get the next girl in front of me. As a result I ended up running the last 5K faster than I had been running all day! When I finished I had run myself all the way to 7th!

Start of the run, feeling like crap but my kit is on point!

Sun is going down but I am not giving up. This was where I started to fight hard.

Overall 11:26:32 7th in AG

While I missed every time goal I had I never quit or checked out. I just had to re-adjust my goals to keep myself engaged. It wasn’t a successful race when you look at my times and goals. It was a successful race because I never quit and I was fighting until the very last step. I am SO proud of my finish, even if I didn’t meet my goals.

Highlights of the day included:

• Peeing on my bike
• Peeing at an aid station next to my bike (sorry and thank you volunteers)
• Not peeing on the run (because I peed everywhere else)
• Watching my coach get so excited every time I moved up a place. Every time I saw Jen I would start running faster.
• Reading all the chalk messages Stuart left out there.
• Knowing I gave it everything I had at that moment.

I have NO plans of doing Ironman in 2019. I am decent at the distance, but not good enough to punch my ticket to Kona. I need a year off of trying to figure out how to make that happen. Not really sure how much action this blog will see over the next year. I have all these feelings and emotions but I don’t feel like I can share them with the world so for now they will stay in my head.

As always, thanks for reading!!

Update – I am still around (IMAZ Race Goals)

Long time no blog. Mostly, I haven’t felt I have had anything important or new to say. Training is actually going well. I have been heads down plugging away at it. The run and swim are going well. The bike is the bike (still not my favorite).

I have made some decisions about next year and I plan to take a big step back from triathlon in 2019. I really do think I am physically capable of eventually earning a slot to Kona. But, I do not have the time or resources to make it happen right now so I am gonna give myself a break from obsessing over the goal. Next year my focus will be on having the best Boston Marathon I can and possibly a big cycling adventure in September…

Here are a few pics of what I have been up to for the last couple months.

I took 4th at the Nautica Malibu Triathlon with my local tri team! YAY!!!

Lots and lots of time was spent running. And I loved every minute of it!

Just keep swimming… and I did!

Racing with my eldest in a relay was super fun. Totally his idea to do this again. How can I say no to that?

Oh… my… gourd! I will get another year as a Coeur Sports Ambassador! This teams means the world to me and I am so lucky to be apart of it!

Up next for me is Ironman Arizona! This will be my 3rd time on this course.  I went into the training for this race behind where I wanted to be fitness wise. Thanks to my coach I have gotten to a level I feel really good about. This is my last shot at the full distance for a while so I really do plan on leaving it all out there. Here are my race goals…

• A Goal: Top 10 in AG, 10:45 overall time, 5:45 bike. I think I can do this. The bike is always the biggest unknown for me and I need to stayed engaged and not get lazy on the bike. I feel very confident about my swim and run and I have a good race day plan.
• B Goal: 10:46-10:59 overall time. I just would like to match my race of 2016.
• C Goal: Race the best I can and have fun (I am guaranteed this one!)
• A+++++ Goal: snag a spot to Kona. This race is very competitive and while I have done well in here in the past, the bar is very high to snag that slot. That being said, I am going to give this race everything I can. Everything.

Only hiccup I have had in my training has been over the last two days. My hometown of Thousand Oaks has been hit with some pretty bad wildfires so I have been unable to train for a couple days. The air quality is too dangerous and NOT worth the risk. I would rather go into the race extra rested rather than sick. It is the right decision but still hard to not do any training.

We live at the tip of the yellow arrow. The purple is where the fire burned. The yellow circle was a voluntary evacuation zone. The red was mandatory.

This video was shot out of our house. We were very very lucky.