IRONMAN Arizona 2009…
All people say this journey started a year ago from when they registered for the race, more accurately, you have to consider your craziness months in advanced, then logistically figure out who, what, where, when, why and how…
Who: Wendy calls me her arch mimesis because I talk her into doing these crazy schemes…This is true, but without her, training would cease to exist…she is the task master and bike router extraordinaire!!!
Why: Arizona November 2009…We were looking for a late season event so that we had plenty of time to train and so we could take advantage of the summer training weather. Oh and did I mention Arizona fell on my BIRTHDAY?! Love me the birthdays!!!! And it’s SUNNY! Who doesn’t want a break from the Seattle weather?! In November 2008, I was on a road trip and call three days ahead to a Starbucks in Centralia to make sure they had internet connection and pulled in two hours before registration opened so that I could make sure we had plenty of time!!! It took me almost 2 hours of refreshing the page before I was officially registered for Ironman Arizona. Boy Howdy, no turning back now…training day 1, June 1, 2009!
Because of the overwhelming generosity of the fine folks of RTB, the premier triathlon club in the Pac NW, we had a copy of Gale Bernhard’s Multisport training guide, which we decided to follow…26 week plan. We also modified the run portion of training to include the Jeff Galloway method of running. For every endurance run, lasting over an hour we would run five minutes and walk for a minute…I think this really helped me mentally. Having completed a handful of marathons previously and always having a mental problem J knowing I only had to run for five minutes at a time really made this whole craziness seem doable!
This summer-- also to my training partners dismay, I added a lot of 100 mile bike rides (about every other weekend)…our plan didn’t call for 6+hour rides until a little over a month out from the event, but I really wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and free tanning we could get by being out in the elements…I am really glad we did, case by the time our long rides came about, my ass was sitting in my garage, doing spinerval videos…by myself for that matter…my advice to all that have a hard time doing training sessions inside…DON’T watch a movie, DO a spinerval video…much more effective and makes the time go by faster…its an actual workout, not just spinning your wheels…
Ok, moving on, after a year of training, eating and sleeping, I was finally packed, my bike was on its way south--courtesy of tribike transports (the only way to deal with your bike if you are going outside of the immediate area) and I was headed to the Sunny State of Arizona!!!
I honestly thought I would be a lot more emotional getting on the plane, getting my adventure on its way…It was pretty intimidating arriving at the village with all the athletes …but as many a smart Ironmen before me have said…I did the time, it was now time to do the crime!
On Friday morning we took a quick drip in Tempe Town Lake…I just have to wonder what kind of water other triathletes are use to swimming in because the lake was no worse than Beaver Lake and a balmy 63 degrees. It was actually a little bit cold, I was worried that on Sunday it would be a problem…but then again I thought of 2500 athletes churning the water and doing what they do…not like I could do anything about it so no need to worry. After that I drove the course…fingers crossed Sunday would be just like today…no wind…After that mandatory athlete meeting and confirmation Mike Reilly would be commentating…I was worried we would get the backup guy and that would totally have sucked… J
Saturday consisted of a quick 20 minute workout and then legs up for the rest of the day…Dinner at my brothers house then back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep…when I got to the hotel, I noticed my sister in law sitting in a chair in the lobby…Holy Crap! My brother and his wife surprised me, very cool…Then up stairs for a good night sleep…In real life I have a really hard time sleeping, but that night I was relaxed, surprisingly relaxed, asleep by 9PM dreaming of sugar plums and trips to Disneyland!
3:30 AM wake up call, breakfast of oatmeal and half a bagel with pb&j…then it was bathroom jockeying till 5AM…family in the lobby and awesome birthday wishes…who’s crazy idea was it to do this on my birthday anyway…it was actually pretty cool! Off to Tempe Town Lake…dropped off special needs, more pictures and oh wait…bathroom! Walking back to transition I noticed the current on the lake was picking up and I knew the perfect conditioned we had hoped for were, well not going to be perfect!
The water temp was 63 degrees…waiting on the dock to get in the lake, security asked us to get out of the way so that Rudy Garcia-Tolson could enter…damn, if he can do this, then so could I…that’s it…in I go…With a hug to Wendy and “today you will be an Ironman…see you at the finish” I jumped in…
It was a little warmer actually than I expected and I was presently surprised…today was going to be a good day! I swam out past the bridge about 200 meters and claimed my piece of lake close to the starting buoy. Mike Reilly got on the mic…I was so freaking excited…today I was going to be an Ironman…and then Mike asked “who’s going to be an Ironman today?” Yea I was…that was going to be me!!! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…boom…and we are off…at first we were all doing the water polo swim--head out of the water, just to damn messy for anything else…it took about .5 mile or so for the field to thin out. Finally a chance to swim, I just kept repeating to myself, what my brother in law Bryan told me…”just keep it long”…I knew I was in for a long day, so I didn’t want to over exert myself in the first discipline . I had a harder time fighting for my water space then I did swimming. Took me about half way through to get into the buoy line and once I got there I got kicked in the head, my goggles were knocked off my face and I got a huge cramp in my calf…It took me a minute to get my cramp out and it freaked me out a little considering I still have about 139 miles left to go…I hoped that it was only because the water was cold and I kept going…
Getting out was another experience cause we got to get out on aluminum steeps that barely touched the water…you had to swim to the step and use your knees to get you onto step.
Swim time 1:09:00
T1 run to bag area and yelled out number for bag…I had “personalized” my bag, but note to self for next time…not the bag, but on top…someone had used xmas garland…I liked that (feel free to use my idea for your next race), helmet, shoes, glasses, number…good to go…existing tent to bike volunteers stopped me to put on sunscreen…I yelled “just the face”…they didn’t listen…check out the pictures, I look like a doof…my sister said that when I existed T1 she realized how serious I was about this race cause I let people put sunscreen on me…yuck!!! T1 4:41
Bike: Yet again I heard a voice in my head…Phil Spencer said, your entire race is determined in the first 40 miles of the bike ride…I didn’t want to go out too strong, make sure I maintain an 18mph…no problem…winding out of the city I felt great, no wind, easy stroke, not a problem…then I turned onto the Beeline highway…luckily the road had just been repaved, but the wind hit you like a brick…the 18mph I had easily enjoyed turned into a 12mph fight up over 10 miles of false flats…but boy howdy that downhill was well worth it…Right at the turn around back into town, I encountered my first bike pee…not by me, but the guy in front of me…I was so disgusted…we JUST passed porta potties and there was no line…luckily I caught on quickly and back off before I effected…so wrong…so so so so wrong! After that, I kept a look out for Wendy, it gave me something to keep my mind distracted from the pain I was experiencing from the seat…I finally found her about 25 miles in and yelled “the downhill is worth it…keep going”…turning back into town, I realized that the wind was picking up and that the second loop was going to be more of the same. At this point I was settling in, staying consistent and on my nutrition plan…again drawing on previous Ironman experiences (thanks Ann) I had a watch on my bike that beeped every fifteen minutes (freaked out the bikers around me J) that reminded me to drink my carbpro and eat a piece of powerbar of which I had cut into pieces the night before. One loop down, two to go..My favorite quote of the day (And I am being factitious) a women said to a friend as I made the second turn into town turn, “Oh my God, look at the size of that girls calf’s”…Bitch! Anyway…moving on…The second loop was much windier. I saw Rudy again heading out on his first lap as I was coming back into town, I wanted to yell great job, but didn’t want to take away anything from him…he is out in the field, just like the rest of us, so I kept my mouth shut…at about mile 65 TJ Torkelson came whizzing by me and I looked down at my cyclometer to see just how far ahead of me he was and I looked up right as I was heading into a large orange cone...I hit it—“come on, can I not have a race without crashing?!” luckily I was able to recover and I continued on my way…on the third lap, the winds had changed yet again and the head wind I encountered the first two times, became a nasty little cross wind…I was feeling good and just kept telling myself to keep it steady, don’t push to hard, cause the hardest part was about to come. At this point I was just enjoying myself. I could not believe that I was already finishing up my 112 mile bike ride…I felt like it was noon… …I biked into T2 and saw 7 hours straight up on the clock, I was pretty stoked…
Bike 5:49:21
Remember garland for next time, dang nabbit…transition was bag--socks, shoes, Garmin and visor…stopping at the sunscreen station I got molested again and slathered in sunscreen.
T2 2:21
Headed out on the run I was trying to get my Garmin to start intervals of 5/1, but as always I was having technical difficulties. I also dropped my fuel belt (again thanks PhilJ) and that got quite a laugh from the crowed. I decided to screw the watch and just run until I had settled into a rhythm. From the very beginning yet another coach, Debbie from Fitness Forward, told me to just walk the aid stations…so again I listened. There were a few times that I considered giving exception to the walking rule…like it would be ok if I walked up/down the hill, etc. I decided that if I started making exceptions that pretty soon I would be walking more than I was running, so I didn’t allow any exceptions…aid stations—and that was it! Again I stuck to my nutrition plan...hydration and carbpro and powergels every five miles…unfortunately, I am not sure if it was the Arizona air or if I was started to get sick, but by about half way through, my throat was on fire. The lemon lime Gatorade I had been drinking all day, stung like no other…so at each station I grabbed first orange Gatorade, then a cup of the most foul tasting temped watered down chicken broth and then a swig of coke…the bubbles soothed my throat! Since I didn’t train with any of the foods, I kept it simple , but made sure I stayed on plan the entire run…and by then that was the hardest part. My second favorite quote of the day (and this one I am serious about) was at about mile 20…This really tall, thin pretty women can running up alongside me and said “Wow, you look really strong, hardly like you are working at all” I replied, well we only have 6 miles left and she said…”I am only on my second loop…I can only hope I look as good as you do on my third lap.” That gave me a nice little boost and I carried on my merry way…just kept putting one foot in front of the other…with only about 2.5 miles to go, I heard the MC at one of the rest stops call out “go Wendy”…I hoped it was my Wendy and within a few minutes, I heard “well isn’t that the sexiest damn ironman I have ever seen…” We ran and talked together for a minute and then Wendy was off again…with about a mile to go, Wendy slowed down and told me to hurry, up, she wanted to hear Mike Reilly call my name…and she emotionally pushed me forward…she started yelling at the crowd that I was going to be an Ironman, that today was my birthday…It was really great…we held hands the last few hundred feet before I had to veer off into the finishers shoot…it was really great to have Wendy there at my final moment…with that, I was off…running as fast as I could…why is that last .2 always so damn long…and then finally those words I have been waiting for more than a year to hear…”Caitlin Norton from Kirkland, WA, YOU are an IRONMAN…”
Damn Right!! Run 4:46:24
Total Time 11:51:46
What are my final thoughts? Make a plan and STICK with it. Make a plan B, use in case of emergency, but don’t freak out. I gotta say, I was surprised how calm I stayed all day…I knew I had done all I could to prepare, now it just came down to execution…and Enjoy the day…the one piece of advice EVERYONE told me was to smile and enjoy the experience, you only get one first time…and thank the volunteers…I did that and thanked everyone that called my name…really helped keep me in the moment!
I really enjoyed every moment of this journey..Every time something would get hard, I would remind myself what I was working towards…and an Ironman wouldn’t give it…so I never did…
This year 2696 miles SBR
Almost 420 hours working out
216636 calories burned
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