My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Race

Well it's been two weeks since the Gulf Coast Triathlon so I figure it's about time to post a race report. I know many of you have already heard the story, but I figure I'll post it anyway for everyone else even though it still bothers me to think about the race. As I mentioned previously, this was my worst race EVER! The fact that I've been training really hard and spent a considerable amount of money both on coaching and on travel for the race, not to mention a new bike just increases the level of disappointment. This post is pretty long, since I copied most of it from the report I sent to my coach. I didn't really feel like starting from scratch or editing much.

Just in case you forgot, Gulf Coast is a half-iron distance race. That's a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run - 70.3 miles total. It's a credit to my training - Thanks Brandon! - that this distance doesn't really phase me anymore. I was nervous about the race - not because of the distance, but because this was the first time I was really going to push myself at this distance. I'm not going to include a critique of the event itself. Gulf Coast is one of the longest running races of this distance and they really know what they're doing. It's a great venue and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to race a half-iron.

I arrived in Panama City late Wednesday evening. I had decided to bring most of my food with me so that I could just sleep in and relax on Thursday as my coach had instructed. I went to packet pickup on Thursday and did some shopping at the expo. I cooked and stayed in Thursday night and went to bed early. Friday I had pre-race workouts that I followed exactly. The ride on the tribike went really well. I'd been feeling a bit nervous about riding it in the race because I was still a little wobbly on it when it came to eating and drinking, but I felt confident. I ate well all day on Friday - nothing new, all food I prepared myself, and I felt ready to race. I had been pretty bummed out leading up to the race because I was by myself. Due to an unexpected trip to New York the previous week, Brian couldn't come with me. Now I don't mind doing races on my own, but this was a trip we had planned on doing together so it sucked to be going on my own. By Friday, though, I was feeling good, focused, and ready to get it done. Unfortunately my body had other things in mind.

I didn't sleep that well Friday night, but that's not unusual for me the night before a race. I got up at 4 am and felt hungry, which I thought was a good thing since it's usually hard to eat that early. I started eating some cereal and felt a little queasy, also not unusual when I try to eat at 4am, so I drank some water, stretched a little, and tried to eat some more. I was still queasy so I fixed some oatmeal. I was also feeling pretty warm, but I'm due for my period so a hot flash isn't that unusual - at least according to my doctor. On an aside - everyone knows that I have a great attitude about aging, and that I rarely feel like I'm 38, and I don't consider 38 to be anywhere near old, but damn it! when I get a hot flash, I feel old, and it sucks! Back to the story. At that point, I had to use the bathroom and not in a good way, but I had eaten a lot of fruit and veggies the day before, and I'm very regular so I still didn't think much of it. Then I started eating the oatmeal and that was pretty much it - I started throwing up, and pooping (sorry - I don't really know a polite way to say that). Once everything was out of me, I felt better but I still couldn't eat. Oh well! I headed to the race, got set up and it was time to go. Now I'm sure quite a few of you are thinking that I can't believe she went to the race, but I have to say that as long as I wasn't trying to eat, I didn't feel bad, and I was able to drink without any problems. I was hoping that I had eaten enough the day before to get me through the swim, and that I could eat on the bike. I was able to eat a banana before the race started so at least I had a little something in me, and I drank a lot of water so I felt somewhat hydrated.

I decided to take it easy on the swim, since that's my weakest event right now anyway, and I didn't want to burn up all my energy. The water was really choppy on the swim - it was very overcast over the Gulf and I'm guessing there was a storm out there somewhere. Swimming out was hard, but swimming back in was even worse. I swear I was swimming in place at several points. When I got in and went to stand up both my calves charliehorsed and I screamed and collapsed - in the water. Two lifeguards had to come in and pick me up - one grabbed me under the armpits, the other picked me up under the knees. It was beyond humiliating and I pretty much had a meltdown right there on the beach after they stood me up - I was so frustrated. I started walking towards transition and gave serious thought to dropping out, my calves had stopped charliehorsing but were quite sore. I got into transition - sat down, ate another banana, drank a bottle mixed with Nuun (electrolyte tablets) - love that stuff! - and decided I just didn't feel that bad - except the calves. I figured if I could stand back up that was a good thing. I knew I wouldn't be able to push that hard or the calves would charliehorse again, but I at least wanted to get out on the bike and see how I felt. I figured I could always stop if things weren't going well.

I didn't ride well, but I rode the tribike well - so at least there's that. I was able to have some good spin - close to 90rpm, which is good for me on the tribike. It's amazing what you can do when you have no other option. I had to keep the resistance low on the bike so I wasn't putting a lot of pressure on my calves, which meant high spin in easy gears. Unfortunately, I couldn't eat my energy bars - I almost threw up when I tried - so I had to stick with bananas and Clif shots. Thankfully, they were giving out Mango which is one of two flavors of Clifshot I can tolerate. I actually stopped at the aid station around mile 20 - on and ate 2 bananas and chugged an entire bottle of gatorade. The bike course is an out and back. There was a 12 mile section where it was a fierce headwind, and I almost quit. Honestly, the main reason I didn't is that I probably would have had to wait quite a while for a ride back so I figured I'd keep going if I could. Any time I tried to push the pace a little into the wind my calves started twinging so I was going only about 13-14 mph. Being in aero in that wind made a huge difference. If I had been on my roadbike - I would have quit. It took me almost 4hrs to finish the bike, which is beyond frustrating.

Back in transition, I thought again about quitting but, again, I wanted to see how things felt. I had a hard time lifting my bike on to the rack, which considering how light it is, is not a good thing. I sat down again to put on my shoes - I didn't really care about transition times at this point, put on more sunscreen, grabbed the rest of my stuff and walked out of transition. I walked about 400 meters then started trotting - calling it a run would be too kind. I was sloooowwww. When I got to the first aid station - I stopped, had them fill up my water bottle, and dropped some Nuun in - I went through an entire tube of Nuun on the run, which is 1.5 gallons of fluid according to the tube. I grabbed a bunch of oranges, a banana, and two packs of Clif Shot bloks - think Gummy Bears made out of Clif Shots, in a cube shape. It was nice to actually chew something. Like the bike, I never felt bad on the run - until close to the end - but I just couldn't push the pace. The athletes I was passing - at my superfast 13 min mile pace - kept commenting on how strong I looked, which actually made me feel worse because all I kept thinking was "I'm not supposed to be back here. I should be done by now." I would never say that, of course, because those athletes have worked just as hard as I have, were giving it their best effort, and I would never belittle anyone's effort, but it just added to my frustration. I had some nice conversations, but it was not much fun. I must have looked bad around mile 10 - the heat and 8 hours of effort on nothing but bananas, Clif shots, and oranges was finally taking its toll. There was a Team-in-Training coach that had brought a big group of athletes from NY, who ran with me for a mile. He was nice and it was good to have company. The last 3 miles were tough. I knew at the very least, I could walk it in.

I finished, got more Gatorade, and just walked around a bit. The only post-race food left at that point was oranges and bananas - two things I don't want to eat for quite a while. I didn't really hang out - I wanted to get back to transition to my phone so I could let people know I was okay. I usually text Joey and Maggie after races, and I had told Brian I would call him. A couple of people suggested I go get an I.V. but I really just didn't feel bad enough to justify that. Joey told me to go get an I.V. after he yelled at me for racing at all, and then not dropping out after the swim. Of course he was right, but I never felt so bad that I couldn't go on, I just never felt good enough to go hard. I deserved a little chewing out, and he made me laugh, too. Actually it was really good to hear someone as experienced at racing as Joey tell me I should have quit. Rachel and Maggie both said very nice things on the phone that made me cry, but also made me feel better. It really sucked being there alone under those conditions, but having great friends always helps. I didn't get an I.V. - I just wanted to get my stuff and get back to the condo. I didn't have a whole lot of bland food in the condo, but I ate some plain pasta - blech!, and a big bowl of peas and carrots, and went to sleep for a while. When I woke up, I ate and drank some more and went back to bed.

I had a late checkout on Sunday so I just slept in and took it easy. I felt considerably better and was able to eat my normal breakfast of oatmeal and eggwhite omelet. I left the cheese out just in case. I hadn't cleaned up any of my stuff or packed so I spent the afternoon doing that. Before I left town, I went to Dirty Dick's Crabhouse and got some crabcakes. That was supposed to be my post-race meal and damn it! I wasn't leaving town without some crabcakes.

The general consensus is that I had eaten something that didn't agree with me because it passed so quickly; although I have had stomach flus that have also passed that quickly, but it didn't feel like a stomach flu or virus. In general, it was a miserable experience, but there are some positives that I can take away from it.

I think my coach said it best when he responded to my email about the race:

"You had a tough week last week, and often times it is not the training that puts us over the edge. It is everything else. So, when you couple that with the travel, being in a different place by yourself, riding a bike that feels great but might not be 100% great, and other travel related stuff you can sometimes get a less than desirable outcome.

Overall, it sounds like it could have been food poisoning or some type of virus, especially if it 'passed' in less than 12 hours. I probably would have stopped after the swim as well as you were probably very dehydrated after an early morning of vomiting and other less than pleasant things! Let me get back to you with a little bit more, but...

On one hand I'm glad that you pushed through. On the other, stopping probably would have been a little bit smarter. When you do the IM this year, remember this experience. In the span of 140.6 miles you will probably go through several peaks and valleys, and none will be as low as this one. We'll take these next couple of weeks very easy to recover and regroup a bit. "

Did I mention that I love my coach?