IMChoo: First IM means incredibly long race report

Visualization FTW

I thought a LOT about this race beforehand. Some of my thoughts were calculations and helped me figure out time goals, and others were trying to imagine how different parts of the day would feel. I wrote out some of my best-case visualizations and read them to myself in the weeks leading to the race. This helped me to not invent worries and to feel good about my decisions.

Once I reached step 3.c of the morning "Start time uncertainty has been resolved, because you have a place in line." I was ready to try to stay relaxed and wait, but first I had to get there.

Pre-Race - Race day

Check, check, check!

Visualization 1.a "With two alarms, this will be easy. Your race day outfit is laid out and you put on timing chip, tri shorts, sports bra, HRM, tri top, and Garmin. Put on a layer of sunscreen. Over that add warmer clothes, old sneakers"

The checklists continued on race day. I made a ziploc of my race-day race clothes, and velcro'd my timing chip to my tri-top. This meant that I didn't wear it around with me all day on Friday and Saturday while also not worrying about losing it.

My race day breakfast was a fairly significant variation from my regular long-workout-breakfast, but it was hotel-compatible, while my regular breakfast (of egg&cheese burrito) was not. The toaster waffle + salted caramel peanut butter sat really well for the pre-race brick; it had slightly less fat & protein than my regular breakfast, so I wasn't expecting any surprise stomach behavior. I also loaded up on warm liquid calories with instant coffee + instant hot chocolate for a "camping mocha" and two scoops of apple-cinnamon Skratch, which was a great treat while sitting in line. Finally, while in line, I enjoyed one of the free Little Debbie snacks around 6am, so I had 90 minutes of digesting before race start.

But, rewinding a bit, before getting into line and finishing eating, I dropped off special needs bags, and made Katie go stand somewhere obvious wearing blinking green bunny ears. I'd wanted to eliminate the potential stress of not being able to find my wetsuit or chair (or sherpa) and the light up ears were a great solution.

In transition, I said good morning to my bike, put on my bottles and stashed my Gu's, and then taped my nutrition cheat sheet and my pseudo-cue sheet to my handlebars so I would be able to treat this like a training ride. I also set my checklists in a puddle, but thankfully was still able to check things off. Whew!

As it turned out, they had already announced that the race was not wetsuit legal while I was setting up transition, but letting Katie carry my bag of wetsuits back to the room was not acceptable, so, exhibiting excellent sherpa behavior, she continued to carry that bag, the chair, and my drinks around for me.

My paranoid schedule that had us waking up at 4A and at transition when it opened at 4:30A, worked out super well and we were on an early shuttle, and were able to join up with Jen in the swim line.

Getting in line resolved one of the major controllable uncertainties in the day and as I settled into the chair to wait, it was easy to continue working on eating my breakfast and drinking my calories.

From the half, I had these notes to myself:

  ·        Get on shuttle early and get in line for swim. Getting into the water early, and hence onto the bike course early was perfect for me – avoid passing people on the bike.
  ·        Bring something to sit on while in line. Send it back with your sherpa
  ·        Gu or other small snacky before swim start

Success! on all counts, except that my snackys were more like 300 calories :)


My family came out to the swim start line at a much more rational time, good wishes were shared all around, and loads of photos were taken.

Happy it is almost time to go

Swim

From the half, these were my swim notes:

  ·        Flow controlled by upstream dam. 8000 cu ft/whatever for 70.3 race day. 24000 cu ft/whatever last year on IM day. Calibrate expectations
  ·        Remember to start watch on the dock
  ·        Practice jumping in and starting swimming at swim practice. If I feel breathless at practice, the next day, jump in and swim slower.
  ·        70 degree water was ok with long sleeve wetsuit. For race day, last year, it was too warm for wetsuit. Research swim skins

For race day, we were looking at 6000 whatevers, so while it was a nice current, it wasn't the raging torrent that last year's swimmers had. I kept my planned swim goal the same, twice the half time, rounded up to the nearest 5 minutes, but was willing to accept whatever it showed when I came out of the water, since it was non-wetsuit :(

My visualization paragraphs for swimming included the great sentence "Your wetsuit is eager to give you a cozy hug" but unfortunately my wetsuit will have to wait for another day to embrace me.

I had researched swim skins, and decided that since I couldn't rent one and since they were expensive, I would just wear my tightest tritop and move on with my life.

I had some anxiety jumping from the dock at the half in May and had been practicing jumping in at all swim practices since then. While jumping in still doesn't feel easy, knowing I had done all that practice helped on race day. When we were being rushed down to the dock, I knew I had done everything I could have to get ready to jump off that dock, so I did it!

No excuses, no regrets.

My next visualization sentences were
"5.a. Stay relaxed & steady – start time uncertainty has been resolved!
5.b. How many buoys are there? Count them down."

This led to the first, and probably biggest, mental hurdle I had in the day (which should tell you how perfect the rest of the day was). 10 minutes into the swim, my watch buzzed, and I was just at the third buoy!! Since the announcer had said they were going to be about 100m apart, that would have meant a record slowest swim. I worried about that for a breath or two, decided the swim felt good, so probably the buoys are farther apart, and calmed myself down.

Starting to worry 10-20 minutes into my day also almost kicked off a spiral of crazy, but I worked on focusing on where I was, not on the big picture, or in other words, I stayed "in the box". I used that box All Day Long! and it never let me down.

The announcer had also said the buoys would switch color half way through. When that happened around 30 minutes into the swim, and after 10 buoys of the first color, I extrapolated that there would probably be 10 of the other color, and stopped worrying I was going unnaturally slowly.

The rest of the swim went well. I dunked someone, but he bobbed up OK, and I apologized. Otherwise, it was a very spacious swim. Every once in a while, I jumped on someone's hip to draft as they passed me, but generally kept it super relaxed -- even to the extent that I consciously noticed I was sliding my hand through the back of my stroke instead of pushing the water. Oh well! I decided not to try too hard to fix it, but it is an area for improvement and something I wouldn't've gotten away with if we hadn't had the current assist.

In a glaring oversight of prep, I had thought we would only swim under two bridges, until I was sighting and realized there were actually three. I'd only been driving/walking across these bridges for the last 3 days, and somehow didn't put that together.

I finished the swim in 1:02, which was perfect.