Okay... three weeks ago i swam, cycled and ran for 8hours 39mins and became Lizzie Lou Carter - half ironman.
It was amazing.
Tri buddy Suzanne and I stayed at the Bournville Hotel which was about 50 yards from the finish line and maybe a mile from the start. It would have been utterly perfect if the pub next door on Saturday night wasn't doing karaoke! But then again i was so excited/nervous that i probably wouldn't of done much sleeping anyway.
We'd registered Saturday, had the race briefing and cycled our bikes over to the start to rack them in transition ready for Sunday. I did have an exciting moment when we took my bike off the Suzanne's bike rack to find my back tire as flat as a flat thing that's flat (OMG!!!!). Luckily we were parked right by the finish which was also hosting the expo so i took my wheel and went off to find a stall selling new tires and inner tubes. Found one. And the lovely chap there also fixed it for me all for £31 which i though was a bit of a bargain.
What was great about this event was the amount of Southampton tri club and Lordshill Road Runners buddies that were also doing the event. Bumped into James, Stuart, Tamsyn, Jan, Gary (and Ellie), Roelie, Mike :) plus quite a few faces that i recognised from previous events. When we'd racked our bikes in transition, Suzanne and I went along to the shore to check out where we'd be swimming. It was just so beautiful and flat. Absolutely perfect sea conditions. We were getting really excited for the next day.
People ask me why i love triathlons as much as i do. One reason is all the prep. You're servicing three sports, having to organise the transitions, figure out your nutrition - so much to get right with so much that can go wrong (what if my tire had split during the cycle? that would have been the end of my race). We had three bags to sort - green which you put your street clothes into once you'd changed into your wetsuit and this was taken to the finish line. A red bag with your swim to cycle gear - shoes, socks, towel, water bottle, helmet etc... and a blue one with your cycle to run gear in - i had trainers, another pair of socks, more vaseline, running shorts, another bottle of water... Red and blue bags packed Saturday night along with snack boxes and sorting out gels for taping on cross bar. Love it!
Saturday evening was carb loading in an Italian restaurant with Suzanne's ma and pa. Pretty much EVERY table had at least one person on it sporting either a half or full ironman wrist bracelet :)
Bedtime - carb loaded, bikes racked, bags packed - we were READY for our first ever half ironman (the hotel and even sorted out a mini fridge for milk/juice/yoghurts plus we each had a full bowl of cereal with cling film over it seeing as we'd be racing by the time the hotel opened its dining room for breakfast). Lights out, karaoke blaring, weather checked - looked okay, maybe slight chance of a shower at 10am but nothing too horrid to worry about...
Sunday morning after breakfast, after triple checking everything, I met Suzanne down in the lobby at 6am.
I think Suzanne's immortal words of "it's quite windy out" pretty much summed it up.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek
HUGE waves, very windy, the sea was ROUGH. Lots of those white horses. You'd of thought the flipping Guinness advert had been filmed in Weymouth. We walked along the sea front to transition, sneaking looks to our right at the sea every now and again, catching each others eyes and manically laughing. In fact the sea was so choppy that the route was altered, the full ironman competitors were now only doing 1.9km swim (should have done 3.8km) and the start was delayed by 30mins. Yay.
Attached food to bikes, placed red and blue bags in transition by the changing tents and then we headed to the pub/holiday inn's dining room for tea and light hearted banter about the bonkers swim conditions we were all about to experience. The camaraderie of endurance athletes!
and then it was time to get into wetsuits and get to the start
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