Race Day!!

Race day came and went quickly! I woke up at 3am as planned and we departed the condo by 3:45am. I guess I was a little bit ambitious in my arrival time because nobody was there yet except the volunteers. In fact, I was the first person in line for body marking! The only good thing about our early arrival was the parking. :)

They started body marking promptly on time at 4:45am. After body marking, I went to transition and discovered that I forgot my fluids. What a moment of panic and frustration that was. Fortunately, my dad and mom were there to help. My dad drove back to the condo in the crazy traffic while my mom sat in our parking spot. :) At 5:40 they returned with my frozen fluids! What an amateur move that was though and boy did it cause me some GI issues. And I will leave it at that. Apparently something similar happened to the male Army rep, Robert Killian, so it wasn't only me. We sat around a little bit while the crowd filled in and I got prepped for the race. The pros were started at 6:30am. Once the pros were off, the amateurs walked down the ramp to get in the water. It was amazing to see them start. The water had a float with a Ford vehicle on it in the middle of the bay! :) Spectators were lined up along the pier and the atmosphere was incredible! I got in the water and started shivering immediately, more due to nervousness than actually feeling cold though. At about 6:47am I began swimming out to the swim start to get positioned. I tried to stay to the left (direction of swim was clockwise around the buoys) so that I didn't get mowed over and slightly towards the front. The swim start was mass chaos with lots of arms and legs swinging and kicking. I got kicked in the face once too----something that surprisingly has never happened to me. The swim was nice and the water was fairly calm. I got into a good rhythm but was interrupted periodically by some wildly thrashing swimmer that nearly dunked me. I had another oh crap moment when I thought my chip (that is secured by a neoprene strap on the ankle) had fallen off and then later, I thought it got loose. I also had to keep pulling my swimcap down as it was constantly rolling back to the middle of my head. I figured that I had all my bad luck out when I forgot my fluids, but apparently not. In spite of all this, I had the swim of my life and I was certain that it was going to be a terrible time. I swam the 2.4 mi swim in 1 hour and 7 minutes. After finishing the swim they route you to your bike gear bag and then into the changing tent. I took my time and came out of the tent in roughly 5 minutes. I was wearing my bike shoes and I totally slipped on the turf. But since this is the World Championships and "big boy" rules apply, nobody offered a hand to help me up. I got up and went to retrieve my bike, being careful not to slip. Then I was off on the bike leg. I tried not to get caught up in the hype and keep my heart rate down but it was hovering in the 150's which is not smart for a race like this. There were more people than I expected with flats on the bike route. I finally lucked out in that regard. The bike route scenery was incredible! You travel north on the Queen K highway towards Hawi. There were gently rolling hills until you reach approximagely mile 55. Then some killer gusting winds hit us and I was out of my aero bars trying to stay stable on my bike. This lasted through mile 75 or so. It was very discouraging. When I reached Hawi the young kids that were handing out special foods bags missed me. I went to grab my bag but he was too far away. :( I knew it was my bag because I had attached pink string to the bag for easy identification. This was a trick that I observed at Ironman Florida. So I moved on and just let it go. The bike hand up stations were great. I took a lot longer than I expected on the bike. :(

Alright, I am writing this post-race at 10pm and I am wiped out. I will follow up and write more tomorrow!