Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Iron Week Review!
Iron Week Part One- Like a Fairy Tale
Julie, Dan and I managed to make ourselves fairly comfy after a crazy flight and screaming babies on a plane. How could we not? We were staying in the most amazing condo ever. Ever. I was really excited to get checked in to the race and all the fun stuff, but most of all I was missing Eric. He was driving up from Orlando and it had been about 5 days since I saw him last. It was our 7 year anniversary and I was really looking forward to spending the evening with him.
Before we could do that, though, Julie and I checked into race, picked up our baggage (ha, no really, there’s like 10000 bags and stickers and numbers you have to pick up), and did some grocery shopping. In case you have ever wondered, WalMart in Florida is no nicer than WalMart in Missouri. However, I guess it’s expectable to shop without shoes there, but you have to have ridiculously tan leather skin to make up for it. There were probably 100 other athletes pushing shopping carts in a race day nutrition daze. All I wanted was twist top Gatorade. I did not care what flavor, but they were all gone!! At least Julie was able to get some.
After we finished our little shopping trip we went back to the condo where my Merpie (pet name, don’t ask, for Eric) was there. I talked to him for a sec and then Dan took Julie and I over to Tom & Adele’s condo about 6 miles away (Eric’s folks). From there we straightened up the bikes and got ready to ride back. Tom had made a comment about not being able to release the brake to make my bike roll. I figured the caliper was pushed against the wheel and that was it. However, when we got there, I realized that the skewer had come out of the drop out, and the only thing holding on the wheel (yes, Jared’s ridiculously nice wheels that I borrowed) was the brake. OMG. I panicked, then figured out everything was okay. Got the wheel checked over, bike checked over, and decided we were good. Julie and I rode back to our condo giggling and laughing the whole way. The wind was ridiculous, but man, it was gorgeous out. We both felt great and we were ready to go.
When I got back to the condo I changed into a swim suit and Eric and I gathered up a blanket and back packs. We had been planning to get the watch the sun go down together and spend some time with each other since the rest of the week was to be hectic. We walked down the beach picking up sea shells and holding hands. It was a total cliché. We could have been on the cover of a Hallmark card. Of course, the sun set was amazing and we exchanged cards and cuddled and talked about the race to come. I told Eric we needed to be heading back since Julie was making lasagna, so he told me to start packing stuff up and he would too. I had my back to him when he said “Hey Court..” so I turned around. And there, on one knee atop a blanket holding the most beautiful diamond ring EVER, Eric proposed. Ugh, I’m teary eyed just thinking about it. I screamed and laughed and cried and said yes and hugged and kissed and cried and said yes….
We eventually made it back to the condo and told Dan and Julie the good news. Wow! What a way to start race week!
Iron Week Part Two- Please, Do NOT Drown
Thursday morning Julie and I got up and headed down to the practice swim. The start of the race was exactly a mile from our condo, so we just walked down the beach with our bags giggling about last night and the days to come.
We found a spot on the sand and then swam out for a ways and stopped and floated for a bit. We decided to head to the next buoy. I got there a bit before Julie did. I was watching this guy clinging to the buoy. I mean, white knuckled grip. I asked if he was ok and he shook his head yes. I floated a minute as Julie swam up. I started to swim again when I looked over at the man on the buoy, it looked like he was trying to swim on top of it. “Hey man, are you okay?” Again the head nod yes, but this time he verbally said HELP HELP. .. well, shit. Here I am, 600 yards from shore, and the guy is gonna drown. I swam over to him and asked if he spoke English. He said “Help” Great, he’s gonna drown and is foreign. “It’s ok, I’m a lifeguard.” “Lifeguard?” he repeated, and relaxed his grip. Okay, so he speaks some English. “Do you speak English?” yes, he replied he did. I told him I could help him but he needed to promise that he was listen to what I was telling him. He agreed. So I asked him what the problem was, he kept saying his heart rate was high because he was scared of the open water. So I changed the subject, it’s a distraction technique, and I was hoping that someone else was noticing what was going on. I knew Julie had seen me go to him when he yelled help, so at least someone could swim to shore if needed. I told him my name and that this was my first IronMan, and that I was a swimmer and a guard and would stay with him. I talked to him about where he was from (Ecuador), I even told him I got engaged the night before. He smiled and seemed to relax. I asked if he would be ok swimming back. He grabbed the buoy again and started to panic. He vigorously shook his head no. I told him I would swim right next to him the whole way. Finally he agreed. Surprisingly, he was a strong swimmer, and I didn’t need to slow my swim pace down to stay next to him. He then stop abruptly and started saying “heart rate too high, I’m scared” So I grabbed his wrist and looked at his HRM. 198 bpm. ONE HUNDRED NINETY EIGHT. I asked his age. 37 I think. Shit, shit, shit, foreign homeboy is gonna have a heart attack .I calmed him back down as we treaded water. I held his hand and I think he may have been crying. He kept saying how sorry he was to bother me, and that he trained so hard for this race but couldn’t get past the second buoy. I kept telling him not to worry about it. I said “let’s just paddle back towards shore with out swimming. Let me know when your HR gets to 140.” About a minute later he said his hr was 132. Great. We swam back near shore. Once he was clamed down enough I agreed to swim out with him a little ways and back. He did fine. Off course we saw some white basketball looking jellies! Eek! On Sunday after the race I ran into him and he said that he swam a 1:06- the same time I swam. I congratulated him on a great race. He gave me a hug and said that without my help he could not have gotten out of the water Thursday. Wow, that made me feel good!
Jules and I walked back to the condo when we thought we saw some stingrays. We waded into the water all excited. WRONG. It was a MASSIVE BLACK jellyfish right on shore. UGH. Freaked me out!!! Julie laughed!
The rest of the day went quickly, and we spent the evening packed like sardines in the banquet hall for the athlete’s meeting.
Iron Week Part Three- Prep
Friday morning Julie and I rode down to the pancake breakfast, ate, made signs and got excellent massages. We headed back to the condo, packed our transition and special needs bags (wow, I didn’t realize how much crap I head until it was all in bags), loaded them in the car, and had the boys follow us back to bike check in.
What a zoo! People were everywhere with their bikes and bags. We got ours settled and racked our bikes. Then we walked around looking at some of the pro’s bikes. Bella Commerford had a P3c with ITU bars! Strange!
After that, we decided to let the boys (Dan- Julie’s hubby, Eric, and Jeff- my brother) have some fun. We took them to scooter rental and said see ya later! They had a blast.
Julie and I went back to the condo, where we had M-Dot cookies from Robyn waiting for us and a box from my friends at work. There were all kinds of good stuff in there! Thank you all so much!
We parked ourselves in the water on the beach and took some time to chat and think about the next day. Then we made ourselves our last meal and ate together before all the guys got back.
Later, Tom & Adele, and my mom & dad would stop in to give us well wishes. Tom and Adele gave us buckeyes for good luck.
I went to bed about 8pm, but woke up shortly after hungry. I mowed down a Clif bar and a bottle of water. Of course, I woke up at midnight to pee, then again about 2am. I pretty much just laid there until 4am. I was ready, I knew I was ready. The night before I took 45min to myself on the balcony to stretch and mentally rehearse my race. I had my focus words: Strength, Courage. I would repeat these words to myself, out loud through out the ride and run.
Iron Week Part Four- I’m Gonna Be an IronMan Today
The morning went by fast. I forced myself to eat a bagel, and drink. Soon, the boys, Julie and myself walked down to the race start. We stocked our bikes and added some stuff to our bags. The next thing I knew, we were climbing into our wetsuits! Go time baby!!
I got a little teary eyed and nervous when I had to tell Eric goodbye. Funny, I remember feeling the exact same way every time before I swam the 200 fly. Pretty sure there’s a big difference there, but for whatever reason I felt the same. We made it to the corral, gave each other hugs and parted ways. I got to about the forth line and near the inside. Right in front of me was Paula Newby Fraser and a video camera. The camera guy panned over me a couple times, and when I was getting focused and putting my goggles on I saw that it was directly pointed at me. Sometimes I’m playful and will wave. This time, I couldn’t even crack a smile. I wanted to do this!
The last song I remember hearing was “Ironman” from Ozzy Osborne. Perfect! The cannon went off, and we all went into the water. The first 200 yards was a washing machine and I swam with my head up. No biggie at all. I had some sighting issues going to the first corner buoy, but I eventually made it there. I pretty always either had quick feet to swim on, or open water, all my choice. I found I was passing a lot of people, so I didn’t try to stay on anyone’s feet, and I especially didn’t want to hit anyone’s timing chip. I did notice that for the most part everyone was courteous and polite, no elbows on purpose or anything like that. When I got out of the water for the first loop, I saw my first split was a 33. Dang, not too shabby for swimming easy! I made the decision before the start not to push the swim. It’s a long day and 3 minutes won’t make a difference. I got a sip of water and headed back in. The second loop was pretty uneventful. Until I swam over some jellyfish. EEK! Then, about 400 yards from shore, I felt like I got stung by a wasp on my face. It hurt, but it wasn’t the most painful thing ever. I just kept swimming; when I was getting a massage after the race, I was telling someone about it. Apparently, a jelly sting is just like a wasp sting. And, yes, I got stung on my face by a jellyfish. UGH!... Soon after the water was only 15 feet deep again (BTW- The water is crystal clear. Even when the shelf drops off you can see about 20 feet below you. It’s amazing!), and I saw a great big crab scurrying along the bottom. It made me smile. I came out of the water and looked at my watch- 1:06. Nice!! Better than I would have thought. The wetsuit strippers tossed me on the ground and I rinsed in the showers. In hindsight, I should I have rinsed better. I had sand caked to my back the whole bike.
2.4 mile Swim- 1:06.08
In the change tent I stripped off my clothes and put on my fresh cycling gear. Luckily, there were only a handful of girls in the tent, so I had two very atentative volunteers to myself. I ran on out to the bike were another young volunteer was waiting with it. She said “Good luck ma’am” and I laughed and thanked her.
T1- 0:06:33
At the very start of the bike we have to snake your way out of the IronMan village to the road. There were people yelling everywhere. I decided to yell too “I’M GOING TO BE AN IRONMAN TODAY!” and the crowd went ballistic! People were screaming and clapping. I felt like a rockstar rolling thru a crowd of my fans.
Right away people began passing me like crazy. I started my nutrition plan, one that I stuck to like clockwork for the rest of the day. I could not believe how hard these people were pushing so early. At about mile 22 my knee that was giving me problems started in. I rode for 5 miles with it until I decided that it was ok to use one of my emergency pain pills. I had put 2 500mg Naproxen in a baggie with my asthma inhaler to have with me on the bike and run. Not sure if the naproxen did it’s job or was just a placebo, but within 20 min the pain had subsided substantially. A good portion of the bike was a blur to me. I saw so many people drafting in packs. I mean, full on pelotons. I decided I wanted no part of it, and the only person I was racing was myself. I let them all go. At one point I rode past a Sin Bin and yelled “Penalty free is the way to be” and they started cheering.
Speaking of cheering, the volunteers at this race are better than anything ever! They really are terrific. What an amazing job they do. Perfect bottle passes, every time. They’re awesome. :)
I didn’t like that the special needs bags were so early. They were at about mile 47. However, I do understand that logistically speaking they needed to do it earlier than the RD’s had planned. Ok, take what you can get. I stopped for a bout 5 minutes, dug thru my bag, pulled out my bike tool in case they were throwing bags away, and got my crackers. YUM!
I kept up the pace I wanted too, even though some of the roads started to get bad- really rough. I was growing concerned about my tubes and tires as I saw a few people with flats. The wind really started to pick up around mile 70. However, at mile 80, I still felt good, better even, than 40 miles before. So many people have told me about their physical and mental breakdowns on the bike at mile 80. I decided that now would be my time. I had planned to build the last 25 miles, but I started a little early. I was battling the wind, but still felt like I was riding strong, even though I wasn’t going as fast. At mile 100 I stopped for a potty break. My tummy wasn’t happy with the gels, but I decided to try to poo to help. I couldn’t go, but I figured the tummy pressure was just gas and I was fine. The next 12 miles I owned. After cresting the bridge, I put my head down and went. I was tired of the wind, I was tired of the drafting. I decided to tell the drafters and mother nature to Eff off. I clicked it down a gear, tucked in as arrow as I could go, and pushed it. One of the best things was pulling out around a pack of over 12 people, all with discs and aero helmets and passing them in one swoop- right in front of my parents. How awesome is that??
112 mile Bike- 6:45.20 @ 16.22 mph
Section 1 73 mile (4:29.34 @ 16.25 mph)
Section 2 39 mile (2:24.46 @ 16.16 mph)
I was unclipped and off my bike so fast. I actually just pulled my feet out of my shoes. I seriously passed about 15 people all stopped and trying to get off their bikes. Ha, I felt fast for just a second, but it was nice. I handed my bike to a volunteer and grabbed my T2 bag from another. I ran into the tent, switched shirts, wrapped my toes- the right side too tightly and it would come back to bite me- gathered my nutrition, and headed out. I stopped to give Eric a hug and a smooch before starting the marathon.
T2- 0:06:05
I was really worried that my lack of long bricks would be my demise, however, my looks felt decent from the get go. By mile four I felt like I was running as comfortably as I could. Sadly, however, right about then I saw Amanda Lavato- one of the pros I really look up to. She was walking and looked like she was cramping. I squeezed her hand when I went passed and said “Amanda, you can do this.” and kept going. I heard her say thank you, which made me run faster. Soon after that I saw a BUNCH of TriSports.com people, some racing, some cheering, including Gail L. of Gorilla Multisport Training. It was great to see her. I also saw Deb, a Memphis transplant now living in North KC. She was one of the costume girls. Yeah, those of you that raced, you know the girls I’m talking about. They were really funny.
I stayed exactly on my nutrition plan of Gu every 45min with a salt tab, and I took water and Gatorade sips at each aide station. At mile 7 I saw the Crab Girl. I don’t remember her first name but her last name was Adam and she had a kit with crabs on it. She was walking a minute, running a minute. She had passed me a couple times back and forth on the bike and said she rode harder than she wanted to. Bummer. As I exited the park I got to thinking about how crazy that will be in the dark. I was right.
About mile 10 I was having the gas problem again. I tried to go a couple times, but eventually gave up. I saw my mom then cheering for people on the course, then I saw my brother who made fun of my run shuffle, thanks Jeff, and my dad. I stopped, switched socks, and saw the massive blister on the end of my pinky toe where I wrapped it. The point of wrapping your feet is to keep from blistering, however, since it was too tight it put a lot of pressure on tip of my toes. I thought about taking the wrap off, but decided against it. New socks, fresh insoles, and more Gu later, I took off for the second half of the marathon. I gave my dad my sunglasses and said “See ya in three!” I still felt good and I knew I had it in my legs to run the rest of the marathon. My longest training run was a 20 miler, and I had walked from 14 on. My longest continual run was 18 in late August. I knew it would be hard, but, somehow, my legs remained really fresh. I started to look at my watch and I knew that if I could just keep my pace under 14 min a mile, I could actually go under 14 hrs! This was something I never dreamed of. My goal was 15:05, and I knew I could beat this. So, by mile 14 I made the decision to run, and never walk between aide stations. However, my stomach dropped at mile 15 and I had to crap, twice. Luckily, I grabbed some Imodium at the special needs, so I took one of those, and my stomach calmed down. I went passed my mom again at mile 16 and she was hollering for EVERYONE. It was pretty funny although I didn’t think it was at the time. She should have volunteered at an aide station; she would have been really good there.
About this time it was getting really dark. I was exiting off of the main roads and heading into the state park. This is pretty much the darkest part of the race, mentally, and literally. There’s not a single light ANYWHERE. The only thing you can see is other people’s glow sticks. At mile 20 I got into a mental dark place when the blister I noticed at mile 13 ruptured. I say ruptured instead of popped because the skin actually ripped away from my toe, which included my toenail. This was terribly painful and it shot stings clear up my leg. I kept hobbling/running for about 5 minutes when I took my last emergency Naproxen (they’re like high does ibuprofen). I decided to focus on my breathing rather than the stabbing in my foot. Eventually the pain subsided. By now I had been repeating Strength, Courage, Strength, Courage, in my head to keep me moving. After the blister, I added one more: HTFU (For all the ST’ers). When I went past the Ford Motivational Mile I saw:
C. Crutcher: B Ur Own Hero U Can
I thought to myself, I can and I will. I can go under 14. Don’t Puss out. HTFU. I tried the coke a couple times, but it wasn’t flat and I didn’t want to upset my stomach. I sipped some broth which warmed me up, but was too hot and I didn’t want to try any more, but was good for a change. However, I did find the occasional slice of watermelon and pretzels are the food of the gods, when, in moderation.
I past Julie for the last time headed in the opposite direction. She was quite a ways behind me, about 6 or 7 miles, but she was running, and looked as good as I saw her the first time (The first time I ran over and gave her a gross sweaty hug). About 30 minutes later I saw my mom, who was a little confused “Jules is half hr behind you!” I was like what? I was only about a mile and a half from the finish, how did she get so close. I was having trouble doing simple math, but realized she meant Julie passed her 30 min ago. By now I had become a clock watcher. I kept checking my watch, trying to do the calculations. I couldn’t multiply and could hardly add. I decided to keep running through the last two aide stations instead of walking.
Soon, I was back out on the main drag and saw Tom and Adele. I started waving really hard, then Adele realized it was me and jumped up and down and said “Keep it up!” I was sure trying!!! Less than a mile to go. However, the last mile really seemed the longest. I thought it would go by quickly, but the way the sound echo’ed I was tricked. I could hear Mike Rielly almost 2 miles away, so for over a mile I thought I was almost at the finish. Finally, I really was getting close.
When I saw the arch and lights I got a little choked up, but smiled instead. I kept looking behind me to be sure I had plenty of room. I did (until right at the finish when some Jackass decided to run into MY finish photo, seriously, pal, you didn’t need to do that). I took my time and started high-fiving people on both sides of the chute. I saw my dad and he stuck his hand out. I gave him a big high five and he yelled something about being proud of me. I couldn’t really hear anything. Kind of like, when you are in a stadium, and you plug your ears…It became a scene from some drama movie- everything got quite, and went into slow motion. I tried to jump across the finish, but I don’t think I made it far off the ground. I vaguely heard Mike Rielly say “Courtney Crutcher, You are an IronMan!”
26.2 mile Run- 6:04.52 @13:55 min/mile
Segment 1- 13.1 miles 2:58.54 @ 13:39 min/mile
Segment 2- 13.1 miles 3:05.58 @ 14:11 min/mile
Right after the finish the handler volunteers caught me and wrapped me in Mylar. They checked to be sure I was ok, and then Dan, Julie’s husband, was the next person to get to me. Eric was in the stand taking pictures so he was still trying to get to the finish. Right away my legs gave out, but I was ok. Then when Eric got to me he pretty much just scooped me up. I started bawling. I was happy, I was tired, I was hurt, but by gawd, I was an IronMan.
Julie finished just over two hours later and actually got her feet off the ground when she jumped across the finish! We both had great races, and I was so proud of us both.