2/3 of 1/2 damn near killed me.

Since triaTHlon THursday was rained out, and today was so beautiful, I decided to attempt a 1/2 ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run). The pool doesn’t open until 7 am on Saturday and I wanted to get going earlier, so I hopped on my bike with 56 miles ahead of me for the first leg of the three. The ride to Philly then to Phoenixville and back made the total distance of 56 miles. I wasn’t laboring too much, I tried to relax my muscles when I felt like I was tense. The easiest thing to do is tense up. When I actually paid attention, I could feel my grip on the handlebars. I found it easier to relax those muscles first, then I move on to the rest of my body. Just over 3 hours later, I pulled back into my driveway and took a huge spill (maybe I was too relaxed). My tire went off of the pavers into the grass just long enough that I couldn’t pull back on. My feet are attached to the pedals, so moving them off in time to catch myself wasn’t going to happen. And over I went! I’ve heard stories about people breaking their arms trying to catch themselves, I did no such thing. I tucked and rolled (sort of an aikido type self preservation fall). My foot did eventually come off though, but it was the wrong foot as I saw it above me with a nice sky blue background. I stood up, looked around and walked to the back of the house as I’ve done a thousand times. None of the neighbors were out. Thank goodness, because I would probably only gotten a 9.5 from the Russian neighbor (she a tough one).

One huge mistake (besides the fall) I made today was not fueling up during the ride. It didn’t even cross my mind. I ate sweet potatoes and veggie loaf (mmm veggie loaf) for breakfast and only brought one bottle of water with me on the ride. I should have had some sort of nutrition about 1 1/2 hours into the ride. The only time I thought about it was at mile 50 when I was getting hungry. That shouldn’t have happened. After the sure-to-have-gone-viral missed YouTube video fall, I grabbed some cereal (I have no other food in the house (sad but true)), two bananas and some oj with branch chain amino acids mixed in.

My body was already feeling the lack of nutrition which means it was too late to recover. But I tried anyway! I put on my running shoes, got my Garmin GPS and headed out the door. I saw the neighbor (he didn’t mention the epic fall….thank goodness) and told him I may need to have him pick me up in an hour if I can’t go any farther. Just a side note…. there is no way in this world I would ever call for help plus this neighbor is horrible with directions and I might as well just crawl home by the time he’d get to me.

My run started surprisingly quick (as it started down hill), and the goal for today was to run 13.1 miles.  I decided to slow down a bit to save my energy for when I really needed it. It’s funny the games I play with myself when I run. First, it’s relatively boring so I need to distract myself. And B) It’s fun to think of how you can actually fool yourself into thinking you can do more than you thought was possible. The first mile down becomes 1/13 finished, but only .3 miles later it becomes 1/10 finished (1.3 of 13). The second mile down is 2/13. Since I have no concept of what 2/13 is, I made it sound really impressive in my head. A little over a 1/2 mile away and I’m already 1/5 the way there! This is going to be easy. The percentages drop so significantly, until….. they don’t anymore. Somewhere around mile 5, I decided to break the rest of the run into halves. That meant I only had to do four miles twice (8 more miles). I can run four miles, I do it every Tuesday and Thursday, and once I do it once, it should be easy to do again, right? UMMMM, AHHHH, not quite, so it seemed today. I hit the wall. It was a figurative wall, I know after hitting the ground earlier, you may be confused to think it was a real wall, but it wasn’t. With only 4 miles to go, my head was pounding, my pace was noticeably slower and C) my shirt felt like it weighed 50 pounds.

The only thing I could think of was how good I was going to feel later when I finished. I’d pat myself on the back, text my friends and family and walk a little taller because of it. What a great concept. It lasted about 15 seconds…

There’s not much you can think of that would take your mind off of a pounding head, but I tried, and kept going. I figured out where the turn around point would be so I could get home right at 13.1 miles and not waste any movement.  Here’s a little side story: When I walked Coal (the best, smartest, friendliest dog in the world) he had a habit of picking up the pace when we turned around in our walks to head home. I know he had a radar knowing where he was and no matter the distance or direction, he’d always know when we were heading home. I thought about him today when I turned around to head home. I channeled my inner Coal and he told me to pick up the pace because we’re heading home. Thanks for the distraction buddy, now I only have 1/10 of the way to go. I can do that in my sleep. Well, maybe not sleep, but when I’m tired.

I climbed W 4th Ave, crossed Fayette St and headed toward the Fellowship House. I was hoping to see the same neighbor (not the tough Russian one) as I strolled easily up the driveway as if it was no problem to run for 2 hours straight after riding a bike for 3. That made me think of something! Next week I’m going to test 5 Hours Energy Drink! Let’s see if it really works.

When I got home, I texted everyone like I knew I would and thought about how tough this event is going to be. It’s no joke. It’s going to kick my butt for the next couple of months…. then it’s my turn to kick it’s.

So what do you do when 2/3 of 1/2 damn near kill you? You do the last third! My 1.2 mile swim completed my first ever 1/2 ironman. I’m proud of myself.  Now it’s time to sleep.