SOMA

 

 Pre SOMA, my anxiety level was really pretty low, or so I thought, I think sleep tells the real story.  I went to bed at 8:00 pm, really 8:00 and was dead tired, but I woke up every half hour checking the time, I finally got up about 3:45.  No, that was not my intention but sometimes the body has other ideas.  I checked on the tracking and added the kids phones to my account so they would have the updates, I must  have done something wrong, no one got updates.  My stomach was yucky and I was pretty sure I was going to throw up, that was how I felt all day.

In transition, I checked my bike the night before so I just had to set out my "stuff".  My wave didn't go off until 7:00 am but they close transition at 6:15.  This is me, Linda, Caroline and Kim. Kate also found me right before the swim start.
I will add more pictures from Dad's camera, I haven't looked at them yet. Red Rock's results are not loading, so these times aren't exact:

SWIM:  58 minutes, big disappointment, huge disappointment, I really thought my swim was getting better and that is much slower than IMAZ 2010. I didn't have any panic but I was wearing my new goggles with the blue tint.  The defogger didn't work and the glare of the sunrise was literally blinding, I know I lost some time clearing my goggles and trying to see where I was, but I am not sure I lost 8 minutes, my goal was 50 minutes--in the pool every morning now. I did learn a new trick from the fun ladies in my wave, I was trying to adjust the shoulder of my wetsuit and this lady told me to have Dad blow in my sleeve, seriously this is cool he blew in the cuff of my sleeve, the whole arm puffed up and it felt much better. So, lessons learned 1) Wear my old tried and true mirrored goggles  2) Use spit for defogger  3) Make sure you have hubby or a really good friend to blow up your wet suit sleeve!

T1:  I gave myself 10 minutes in T1 in my goals, a hefty amount of time, but it made for nice round numbers, I wanted to be out of T1 by 8:00 am, with my bad swim I hurried in T1 and was out in 3-4 minutes, putting me a little past my original goal, I am happy with T1

BIKE:  3:47 This is a pretty flat, fast course but it has a lot of turns and turnarounds. My goal was 4 hours which would be an average speed of 14.  It's a three loop course, my first loop average was 16, second 15.5, I'm not sure what my final loop was (Garmin probs, as usual) but my overall average was 14.7.  I was disappointed I couldn't keep up the 16, it got hot, and a little windy, but overall pleased.  IMO the Soma course is harder than IMAZ.  IMAZ has less turns and you have that nice straight shot up and down the Beeline.  Slower than my IMAZ time even with wind, I'm hoping the problem is just the turns, right!

T2:  I was happy to be off my bike, I enjoyed all the honks and waves of encouragement from those driving away from the race, when I still had a half marathon to run!  T2 was 3-4 minutes also, which is better than I thought it would be, I couldn't stand and change my shoes so I plopped down and took my time.  Hit the porty on the way out and I was off.

RUN:  My goal was to run a 2:30 half, I was not even close, I think I ran about 3:01 :(  I had no legs when I started and finally about half an hour in I was rolling, from that point on I picked up my pace.  On the second loop I found Linda and we walked and chatted for awhile.  It was hot but the aid stations rocked, I filled my jersey with ice front and back at every station, one station had pirates and home made cookies, the volunteers were awesome.

FINISH:  I revised my finish goal during the race from 7:30 to 8:00, when I came in the clock said 8:32, I was close.  Craig met me near the finish and picked out a "not today" for me, she was walking but was significantly ahead of me, I didn't think I could do it without barfing, but what the heck, I gave it my best shot and passed her. And there was Annette, cheering me on at the finish!!! On the way home when I checked my results 7:59!!!! (I wouldn't have made it without my "not today").  My wave was the last wave, 30 minutes after the first, and apparently it started 2 minutes late!  Fifth out of 7 in my age group, I'll take it!

 

THANK YOUS:  I am forever grateful for a wonderful husband who is out there supporting me at all my races, I appreciate it a lot since many spouses do not.  He is the best.  Thank you to my IMAZ buddies, it makes coming to Arizona a lot more fun I love the support.  And one more huge thank you to the volunteers, thanks for staying so long at all your stations to take care of us stragglers, we, the stragglers especially need you and you were there the whole way!

Grumbly place....

I know all I do is grumble on this blog, but...well....I do grumble a lot, usually to myself but Saturday was an exceptionally grumbly day.  I had a long bike on the schedule and Bri, Sarah and Maddie were coming  to watch the BYU game[ :( sad but that's another story.]  While riding I resolved never to do another Ironman, I wanted to be home getting everything ready for lunch and munchies for the game, I wanted a quick trip to Target to buy some Maddie toys.  Our house has a sad dearth of toys,  especially girl toys.  About half way through the ride my attitude picked up and I thought maybe someday I'll do another Ironman (but only with Craig or one of the kids).  I eventually got to the grocery store and stocked the fridge for game day enjoyment and had a wonderful time enjoying my beautiful Maddie, toddling around.

Grandma did have one toy for Maddie to enjoy!

St. George Marathon 2012 Race Report

This was a different kinda year, Craig was training for a sub 3:00 marathon and pulled a groin muscle in June, then in August had a disc compressing the sciatic nerve with so much pain he couldn't walk.  So much for sub 3 plans.  I have IMAZ on the front burner and decided to treat this as my last longest run, and guess who had to run.  Amazing huh, but Craig decided to give it a try, as always the great and spacious vans were available, they just cruise by with their doors open  beckoning any runner who looks even slightly weary, so he went out with the resolve to give it his best, with the van always being an option (yeah right, if you know him you know that's not really true).
It was a strange feeling this year, usually I'm excited and can't sleep, overwhelmed with anxiousness, but this year-nope.  Maybe 'cause it was just Craig and me for the first time, I'm not sure.  I had absolutely no expectation except to hang with the last pace group which would make Snow Canyon Parkway by the cut-off time.
Speaking of pace groups, there seemed to be so many more runners this year, I'm not sure if that was really so but the road to start was packed full of runners, it can take  ten minutes after the start just to get to the start line, (providing a great opportunity to hit the port-o-pots without a line)!  But anyway, back to the pace groups, the five hour group was right where we were getting on the road, so hey, why not, I haven't broken 5 hours yet, lets just see how long we can keep up.  Craig was doing great, I was ok, I would drift to the back of the group and then catch up a little, keeping the balloons in sight most of the time.  I lost the pace group at some point, but Craig said he could see them and I again managed to catch up, drift back, catch up etc.  At about mile 19 we were still with the pace group but Craig was ready to walk and I unintentionally pulled ahead of the pacer, once I realized I had done that my only thought was, if I can stay in front I will break 5 hours. No really, I guess I had more thoughts, like "anyone can run faster, just depends on how much you want to hurt afterwards"--Craig.  "if you hold back on top you can negative split this", "stick out your chest, open your mouth and suck oxygen"--or something to that effect-- I could still do math in my head (unusual for me at mile 19 and figured I would really have to start to push it right now, to pr, so off I went.  I finished at 4:58, Yay--that first number is a 4 not a 5!!! 4:55 was my moving time, now I've got bigger goals in mind for next year, but if I can just keep shaving off time I will be happy.  I was most excited about a stat on my results--for the final 7.5 miles I passed 297 people and 6 people passed me!  I don't know where my legs came from, maybe all the yoga, but my fastest mile was mile 21.
Craig finished a few minutes after me, (that will never happen again I am quite sure!) but I waited in chute the and gave him his medal as he finished.
This morning I signed Brent, Kerri and me up for the runners series, right now we are thinking about doing the St. George Half in January and Lake to Lake if we can pull off a team in March.  At least Ker and I are thinking that, we'll se what Brent is down for when he's back from Cambodia.