Atomic Man

Only 1 month away from Ironman Florida.

Sunday was my final race in my journey towards my first Ironman.  I competed in the Atomic Man Half Ironman Distance Triathlon in Lenoir City, TN (just outside of Knoxville).  I felt like I was prepared for the race, having done swim, bike and run training that was much longer than this race.

The race started a little late because one of the buoys had drifted away and they had to reposition it.  When they were finally ready to start, I was in the first group to go and we took off.  I felt like the swim went pretty well, I didn't push too hard because I wanted to make sure that I finished, but when it was over, I felt like I should have pushed it a little harder.  I always have trouble getting into a good pace on the swim because I know I can swim faster, but in a long distance open water swim, there is no place to rest, so I try to preserve myself.  At the end, I had a respectable swim time, but I could have probably shaved a few minutes off.  I hope I can find somewhere to get a few open water swims in before the race.  My official 1.2 mile swim time was 38 minutes, I was hoping for around 1:05 for my 2.4 mile Ironman swim time, so I need to get out a little faster to get there.

Next came the bike and my day of adventures began.  The race course starts out with 7 miles out and up a hill that they call "cry baby hill."  It was tough, but more because it was cold than it was a tough hill.  It was not nearly as tough as some of the hills that I had done in training, so I was prepared for it.  The bad part about hills is that 100 lb girls fly past me getting up the hill, but my 200 lbs uses gravity to its advantage and returns the favor on the way down.  The bike was going pretty well until I reached the second turn around point around mile 20.  I started noticing that I was feeling every pebble in the road as I was going along, but I wasn't sure why.  I quickly found out as we got to a turnaround point and I about wiped out.  I looked down and saw that my tire was flat and thought, ok I have 2 tubes on my bike, so I can just fix it.  Well, it wasn't as easy as I thought.  I was using my race wheels, which have valve extenders and I could not figure out how to bleed the air out of the tires and I couldn't get the tire off to remove the tube because the tube was half full.  I tried to force it off, but in the process, I broke both of my tire levers.  I worked on it for about 15 minutes before the maintenance guy cam by and helped me get it off.  I finally got back on the road, but I think just about everyone passed me in the process of trying to change the tire. 

I made it about 10 miles on this tube before flat #2 hit me.  I had one more tube and an two broken tire levers and this one was completely flat, so I was able to change it.  I fixed it and got back on the road within a few minutes.  About 5 miles later, flat #3 came and this time I had no extra tube, so I went ahead and removed the tube and tried to figure out what my next option would be.  Honestly, quitting crossed my mind at this point, but I was 10 miles away from anything, so I was going to have to wait for a maintenance vehicle anyway to get a ride back in, so I was just hoping he had an extra tube that he could let me have to finish up and get to the run.  Luckily, he did, but I lost alot of time waiting for him to come by.  That wasn't the last time I saw him, I flatted one more time right before the turn to go back up the hills to the transition area.  We changed my tire and I was able to finish, but I was a little nervous about the down hill because I didn't want to have flat #5 while I was going 40 mph down the hill, so I rode the brakes a little.  At the end, we found a small piece of glass that was stuck in the tire that was protruding through and puncturing my tires.  I am still going to take my tire into the shop to verify that there is not something else.  In all, I lost 55 minutes on the bike waiting for help and changing tires.  That does not include the time that I was being cautious because I didn't want to flat again.

I finally got through that adventure and it was time to run a half marathon.  It was hard to stay motivated on the race at that point because I was still a little frustrated.  The course was extremely hilly and I don't like running hills.  I did have to walk alot up the hills, but I made a conscious effort to not walk when it was down hill or flat.  It was not my best run performance, but I still was able to complete the run in a decent time.  I was glad for it to be over and I can't wait for Ironman Florida, where there are no hills.

Ultimately, I did not reach my goal time of 6 hours, but I was not much over that time if you take away the 55 minutes that I lost because of flat tires.  And to make it worse, when I went back to pick up my bike, the same tire was flat again.

Don't forget to read about my purpose in all of this at http://www.daaa.org/DAAA_ironman.html and feel free to consider donating to this great cause.