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| Wildflower 2008 |
We arrived at Lake San Antonio in the mid-afternoon Friday, after stopping at the parents' house to pick up the racing cape, which my mom had sewn all my honorees' names onto in preparation for the big day. It looked great, and to jump ahead a little, I got tons of compliments on it and support while I was wearing it! But geez, spectators sure have high expectations for how fast a person can go just because she's wearing a cape!
I took a brief swim in the lake on Friday just to "test the waters." Giggle. Perfect conditions! Except way too much algae. In my suit. Bottom and top. On the way back to camp, I stepped on a rusty staple which punctured my heel. Yes, that is correct. Apparently, wearing sandals was a great idea. Unfortunately, the nearest doctor was 50 miles away in King City, and the medical tent was not equipped to give tetanus shots. So I shelved my worries of lockjaw and helped Nate set up the tent.
The evening went by really quickly with all the race registration, pasta consumption, words of inspiration, and so forth. Before I knew it, Nate's cell phone alarm was shaking the tent on Saturday morning. 6am. Time to get the job done.
On the way down to set up my transition spot (1873, near the Mexican flag) Nate and I got separated. Easy to do when you are in a crowd of thousands. Unfortunately, I had my bike but Nate, who was not allowed in transition, had my gear bag. So I racked my bike and started freaking out because the announcer kept saying "only ten minutes until the first swim wave!" Eek! Finally Chris found Nate and thus I got my gear. I set up transition in good time and decided to make a final bathroom stop before wetsuiting up. Pardon me if the next bit of information is an over share, but in the port-o-potty I discovered that my period had started, fewer than 10 minutes before the race. Between that and the rusty staple, things were really shaping up!
I raced a hard race from start to finish. I swam fast and yes, got kicked in the head multiple times. Suffice to say I also did some head kicking myself. Back off, people! We're all going to finish, and none of us is going to win! Let's just have a good time, shall we?
I annihilated the bike ride. At practice weekend, I rode the 56 mile course in 4 hours, 45 minutes. On race day, I rode it in 3 hours, 50 minutes. It felt awesome, but I shouldn't have pushed quite so hard. I really, REALLY wanted to make the cutoff time for the run, so I went all out. I rode for 15 miles with Mika, which may have been an error in judgment, because not only is she fierce and fast, but she also was racing in a relay and hadn't swum the 1.2 miles I had just completed.
Although I got a bee up my sports bra at mile 16 of the bike, it did not sting me badly, and I was able to keep pace and get it out with one gloved hand. I rode the entirety of Nasty Grade in 10 minutes. Awesome.
Because I rocked the bike so hard, the run was grueling. Just painful. I ran hard for the first three miles (my race cape swooping gracefully behind me) and then I started to get really tired. Despite the fatigue, I powered through 8 miles of the run before I just couldn't stave it off any longer. I had to walk. Everybody knows that you always end up adjusting your expectations in any race situation, and I had wanted badly to run the whole 13 miles. But my body was not cooperating. It was over 80 degrees out, no clouds, and I was getting really hot. I couldn't stomach any liquids or solids due to the heat, (and possibly the 62 miles I had under my race belt at that point) so I made a grave error in judgment and basically stopped taking them in. After walking for about 20 minutes (I did manage to run down the pit of despair, but couldn't run back up it) I walked past Coach Bill and he encouraged me to run the last two miles to the finish. I dreaded seeing the "mile 11" marker because I was totally out of steam. But I had to run those last two miles.
What did I do? I thought about how much scarier and more painful cancer must feel than what I was feeling, and I found two TNT racers (one from the East Bay, one from LA) and together we ran the last two miles to victory. I have never felt so happy and proud in my life.
Unfortunately, my happiness and pride were acutely interrupted by intense feelings of nausea and lightheadedness. Nate found me and said "Congratulations! Let's go check out and get to the showers!" To which I replied, "I am going to puke and pass out right now." Thus, we changed our plans and headed to the medical tent.
Although they didn't have any tetanus shots, they decided I was totally dehydrated and I was promptly hooked up to the nectar of the gods: an IV filled with saline. Ahhh, sweet relief.
I felt like my normal self after the IV. Well, my hamstrings were definitely a little more tender than usual, but other than that, no real damage done.
All told, I finished in about 7.5 hours. It was an honest day's work.
P.S. I got my tetanus shot at the Kaiser emergency room at midnight that later that same night...
2 comments:
Oh my gosh Rebecca. I am not sure if I should laugh or cry reading this post. You really, really pushed yourself. Jeff says, "She is hard core!!!" I say, I need to feed you a giant lunch at Toast very soon. You are awesome. You are inspiring. You leap multiple, ginormous buildings in a single bound as far as I'm concerned.
Awww, thanks!
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