What a weekend so far!
Friday I traveled to Foley, Alabama to stay with a friend that recently moved there. Well, actually December will be 1 year for her! Hard to believe it's already been a year almost. They normally camped 6 months out of the year at the beach so when they had the opportunity to sale their house and move they jumped on it. They are in an awesome location! 5 minutes from the outlet and 20-25 minutes from the beach. There are so many different places to run down there. I know they are so happy they finally made the move. I was beyond thankful that she let me stay with her for the race. We haven't seen each other in months! It was so nice to visit with her and catch up. Yes, we text and email but you don't really get to get all the details until you are face to face.
Robbie and I at her house. We had a nice lunch and looked at each others scrapbooks that we'd finished recently. It was a very dreary day on Friday. It rained off and on all day so we didn't mind not going to the beach because we where enjoying each other's company. She gave me a tour of her new house and then we decided to head to Sports and More (my FAVORITE sports clothing store) before I had to be at packet pickup and bike check in at 4pm.
Let me just say that I need to NOT find races in towns where they have stores that I like cause I ended up spending $236 in Sports and More! But it is all well worth it! You can't find deals like his around here so you must stock up whenever you get the chance to go by there. I'm super excited about a light weight Saucony jacket that I got! I have another one that I got a couple years ago that I LOVE and when I saw this one....well, I had to have it. You can't find $89 jackets for $29 around here! It's great for cold weather runs. It's light but keeps the cold air off you. Got another pair of shoes also while I was there! Got to rotate them babies pretty often when you are pounding out the miles.
Just look at that stash.... HAPPY HAPPY ME
After we left Sports and More we headed on down the The Hangout for me to check in. It was still lightly raining! We got there a little before 4pm so we got a really good parking place and decided to walk around and check out the things there were sitting up for the race.
The very long run up the beach after the swim just to get to the bike transition area.
Me checking my tires before taking my bike to check it in at transition. And check out that rain on the car!
Where it would all start and end... The ever popular Hangout at Gulf Shores, Alabama
I got checked in rarely quickly after waiting till 4:20pm for them to open up the packet pickup that was supposed to start at 4pm! While standing in line one of Robbie's friends that lives there came up to check in and joined us in line. She's doing her first half ironman in Augusta, GA soon so Robbie wanted me to meet her. It was great to talk to her. She told me about a camp she went to a couple weeks ago in Augusta where they did the whole course. She said it really set her fears at ease. I asked her how much it cost to see how expensive it was and she said it was $100! I will have to keep this in mind for next year!
There was supposed to be a pasta buffet for us at the Hangout after we checked in but Robbie and I did not see any pasta lines set up anywhere. So I finally asked someone that worked there and they had no idea what I was talking about. So we went to another person...and they knew nothing! So then I remembered I had the printout from the website giving all the race details which told about the pasta buffet so I pulled it out and went to the front desk. When I asked and showed my piece of paper the guy asked me if he could have my paper for a minute. He left and several minutes came back to tell me there was a mess up! Well, long story short...... this race director is not very organized! There was little communication with The Hangout people as to what was supposed to happen! After talking to several people and them all asking to see my paper.... we finally got some pasta! I was starving at this point!
It was very good but it sure was an ordeal to get it.
After our meal we headed back to Robbie's house. I was tired from the drive and standing around waiting to check in so I was ready for my after 5s to relax and head to bed. And yes it was only 7:30pm but I was ready. However, even at home I'm in my after 5s by 8pm and ready to crash. I'm not a night owl at all. I love to turn in early.
4:00am was going to come early! I needed to be at the race site by 5:30pm to check my bike, get everything set up in transition so it would be ready when I came in from swim and then in from biking. I woke up at 3:45am. It's amazing how my body knows on a race day when I need to get up and I never sleep until the alarm goes off. Robbie and I arrived early and got a fairly good parking spot. We parked in a grass parking lot and it had rained a lot during the night and was still sprinkling when we arrived so it was very muddy in the parking lot. My clean car is now a mess.
It wasn't long after I had been in the transition area sitting up that I saw Philip, Kim & Amie arrive so I went to grab a quick picture with them.
Philip checking every one's tires in the background..he's a good man..but don't tell him I said so... :>)
As you can see it's still not daylight but the bike racks are filling up!
Robbie and I standing under a covered area cause it's raining again! I'm just waiting for race time now. It's so dark that you can't see out in the ocean to even see where the buoys are at yet! While we are standing there Robbie says to me that she wants to pray but not sure where we should step off to do it....I told her I'm good with right where we are at. I don't mind people seeing me pray at all. So she said the sweetest prayer for me and the others as we bowed our heads. I can't thank her enough. It meant so much to me! I'm a firm believe in prayer. For some reason I wasn't really nervous this morning, except for the rain and after she said the prayer I was even more relaxed. It was like I was at peace. #GodisGood
Finally... it's close to 6:30am and they are telling us to start lining up at the beach. It is just now getting light and you can finally see the water. Well.... it is not calm like it was the night before! Big waves are rolling in! I looked out there and at that moment I remember something I had saw on a movie that I watched on Thursday night. It's called Chasing Mavericks. Great movie! It's rated PG so that means no cussing or sex! YIPPIE... Plus its based on a true story! I LOVE those kinds of movies! Anyway in this movie an older surfer is training a young kid to surf and one day when they are out in the water a shark appears. The boy panics and the older guy is so mad. He asked him after they got out of the water why he panicked and the boy tells him he is scared. And I LOVE what the guys tells the kid..... "Fear and Panic are two different things! Fear will fuel you but Panic will kill you." I thought about that as I stood there waiting to go in the water. I told myself that I would not panic today! I would not give in to that feeling no matter how big them waves were today! Then the lady started announcing how if you were a strong swimmer with your right arm to aim for the yellow buoys cause the current was pulling people too far to the left. I could feel my panic wanting to come out but I pushed it right back down and then another saying the guy told the young kid in the movie hit me... ... "deep breaths, steady rhythm, drive and glide". So I thought about that and said that would even work for my swim. I had no desire to push to try to be the fastest today. My only goal was to not panic in that open water and finish with no injuries on the bike on the wet streets. I have two marathons coming up and pushing it too hard and ending up hurt was not worth it.
As soon as I hit the water it was like PEACE. I can't explain it but I never felt that panic feeling of my heart beating like crazy and not being able to breath. It was AWESOME. Yes, I swallowed a ton of salt water due to the huge waves that just seemed to endlessly be coming over my head but I didn't panic. I kept telling myself.....deep breath, steady rhythm, drive and glide. And it worked!
I'm so glad Robbie captured me running up the beach from the swim. It was such a good feeling to do the swim at ease! I didn't have to turn over on my back and I never stopped and held on to a buoy or canoe to rest! I was beyond thrilled!
Not a fast swim time...but for me with no panic it was great!!! Slow and Steady was my motto.
When I reached my bike a girl that was doing her first TRI came in and she was breathing heaving and asking several questions about how to start the bike so I sat down on my crate and slowing put on my socks and shoes and talked to her. She started calming down and I encouraged her to just have fun. When I knew she was good, I took my bike off the rack and headed out on the bike. I will say that today I was more nervous about the bike than the swim! I was so worried about the wet roads. They kept telling us to lightly pump the brakes, etc., due to the road conditions. The tires on a road bike are very small and wetness is not good if you need to slow down fast or turn curves! So instead of pushing it really hard ... again I quoted the man's saying.... deep breath, steady rhythm, drive and glide.
I was actually shocked I maintained a 18mph with the wet roads just going steady. Boy if the roads hadn't been wet and I had really pushed it.. I might could have got a 20mph average. BTW there were 2 bike wrecks! Both men and they were scraped up pretty badly!
Thank you Robbie for capturing me heading out on the run. You can tell by that huge mud hole how much it rained off an on!
Not it's time for the RUN. This is what I'm really use to doing..... RUNNING.. I started out of the transition area and my shoe came untied! So I had to stop and tie my right shoe. Then my left shoe was slipping off my foot because it wasn't tight so I had to stop and fix it. I had forgotten to take "auto pause" off my watch settings and didn't realize it until I was looking at results and wondered why my watch time was off a little compared to the timer. Well.... when I stop..my watch time stops on "auto pause" so when I stopped to tie my shoes my watched stopped. It was an easy run out and back and all flat. Again, I did not push myself. I felt so very good and could have ran a lot faster but I kept telling myself why would I do that and take a chance of getting hurt right here before the New York marathon so again I went easy and steady.
Still maintained a 9 min pace just going smooth and steady. :>)
I was so thrilled when I finished because I had the best relaxed and easy race that I've had in awhile! I grabbed a picture afterwards with a couple of my Run4Thekids teammates that also did the race.
Me, Philip, Kim & Amie
I'm so proud of them! Some of us like me has to work hard to accomplish things. I go 2X a week to swim and these 3 rarely ever go swim and then they can all 3 go do a race and kick my butt in swim time! I should be aggravated but I'm so darn happy for them. :>) I mean.. I love Philips jokes...like he told me right B4 swim he wet his pants, Kim is always giving Philip heck (they are married), and Amie is soooooo dang competitive .. I LOVE having them on my team and as running partners! I look forward to doing several more races with them.
Love my shirt from the race!
3rd sprint TRI of the year done! I wasn't even expecting finisher medals today either so this was a BONUS! It was a great race and I would recommend it to anyone, especially if you want to do your first cause the sprint distance is a great one to do to see if you like TRIs or not. I promise that you'll be hooked after you do it. :>)
Thank you Robbie and Kent for such hospitality! Love you both!
Happy Saturday night peeps! 18 miler LSD training run for me tomorrow. :>)
Remember... Believe in yourself! D
WE CRAZY..:>)
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