This is the third time that I have competed in the Pacific Crest ½ Ironman. This is the only ½ IM that I have ever done. I love this race because the course, particularly the bike course, is absolutely beautiful, as well as very challenging.
It seems that many of my favorite races happen to be in June. During this month, I lower my training volume and increase my intensity. These races become my key workouts for the month. It is interesting to me to see how fatigued I become during this month, even though I am doing half of the volume of a normal month.
In the past years, by the time I got to this race I was pretty wiped out. My attitude in the past was to basically just finish the race. This year I decided to approach it differently. I decided that I would prepare for this race more like I do for an A race, instead of just trying to make it through.
On race morning I got up at 4:45. Everything was organized and ready to go. We went out to breakfast. I had four eggs and an English muffin. Then, on the drive to the bus I drank a tall caramel macchiato and an old fashion doughnut (I love this, it’s a treat that I often take on race day and before a hard workout).
I always enjoy the bus ride up to the lake. It’s nice and quiet. This year, a local Seattle triathlete happened to sit next to me, so we had a nice conversation during the ride. When I arrived at T2 I discovered that one of my pads on my aero bars was missing. I was worried about this for a brief moment… my husband was more worried than me. I thought for a second that I could waste time and energy worrying about it.. or I could just accept this and keep focused on my race… I knew that I could handle this. Last year, when I went to a training camp, I spent the majority of the week riding with a missing pad. I just kept telling myself “It’s no big deal”.
Normally before a race I will go out and run for a couple miles. In this race, T1 and T2 are miles apart, and I did not think to bring extra shoes. So I shifted to Plan B, and went for a longer ride than I normally do. After the ride I put on my wetsuit and headed down to the water. I ran into Hamish on the way to the water. He was all excited; he had just seen Matt Lieto. Last year when we did this race we went to a local bike shop to hear some of the Pro triathletes talk about their training and racing. While waiting for them to speak, Hamish had a question, so he called out to a guy standing next to us. He sat with us and talked for a while… then the announcer said it was time to get started with the talk. We then realized he was one of the speakers, we had no idea.
Later that morning, Matt had recognized Hamish at the race and told him “good luck”… Now, a year later, Matt walked up to Hamish and says “Don’t I know you?” They had another nice conversation. What a nice guy! He really made Hamish’s day, two years in a row.
I knew that my athletes were well prepared. We had spent the past two days together, discussing their race plans, nutrition, etc. I was confident that they were ready to go.
I warmed up for the swim by swimming to the first buoy and back to the swim exit. I always like to do this because I like to know what the footing will be like where I have to exit. The water seemed warmer than I have ever felt it. That was good. I was feeling very good after the warm up, and I was able to stay focused on what I needed to do. Nothing was distracting me.
The race started about 15 minutes late. I was the second to last wave. In my warm up I had no problem sighting the buoys, but when the race started I could not see them at all. I’m not sure if it was the angle of the sun, but sighting them had become impossible. So I just tried to stay in the middle of the pack, and hope that everyone else could see them! I did not swim as straight as I would have liked, and was getting hit and kicked pretty regularly. My swim of 37:13 was about 2 minutes slower than I had hoped for, but it seemed pretty easy and I was very comfortable. The new Helix wetsuit definitely changes the way I feel about the swim. I was surprised at how quickly the swim went by, and how good I felt coming out of the water.
T1 went smoothly. I was excited to get out on this beautiful ride IN THE SUN! 2:13
The Ride: I bought an Ergomo power meter a couple of months ago. I trained with it for one month. On the day of my first race, it broke. I haven’t had it since. So, for the month of June I have been training and racing without a bike computer. I had attached my Garmin onto my bike for this race. The problem was, I didn’t put it in Heart Rate mode before the race started, so I could not read the small print for Heart Rate… so Plan B… I had to go by RPE. I felt fantastic over this entire ride. For the climbs, I just settled in and never let the RPE get into “hard”. I tried to keep what I felt to be an even power output and even heart rate throughout the ride. I never felt like I was working hard. I kept waiting for some fatigue to set into my legs but it never happened. I finished the ride with a 2:54:51. My nutrition for the bike was 250cal of CarboPro/ELoad mixture in each of three bottles. I drank one bottle each hour, and also had 4-5 Endurolytes per hour. At each aid station I would grab a water bottle early, drink what I could as I went through, and then threw it away at the end of the aid station. After the race I felt that I could have ridden faster on the bike.
T2: I came off the bike feeling very strong and ready to run. 2:40.
Run: I decided that for the first 5K I would try to run 20-30 seconds slower than my goal pace, to make sure my HR stayed down. I like to think of the run as a 5K, then two 5 mile runs. 
I was again surprised at how much easier this seemed than in years past, and at how good I felt. The run had always been a big suffer fest for me in the past; just a struggle to finish. I passed a couple of females during the first part of the run, but they were relay and duathletes. I then didn’t see any other women until the last three miles. Then I probably passed about seven or eight ladies. I took four Endurolytes at the start of the run. I drank one fuel belt bottle (6 oz) of COKE every 30 minutes. I grabbed water from every aid station as I ran through. I finished the run in 1:48:29. I was hoping for a 1:45, but was still very happy with this.
In the finish tent I met up with Josh and Scott, who both finished ahead of me. I took a shower, had some food, and had a really nice time as we waited for others to finish.
I had no idea of how I had finished in my AG. Mike thought I was in second place but we weren’t sure. It wasn’t until quite a while later that I learned that I had won my AG and the Masters Championship. Total time: 5:25:17.
UPDATE: I just learned that there is a new Master's champion for this race. Mike was right I was in 2nd place. The new champion is Cary Steinman, who finished in 5:14:02. Not great news for me, but it tells me I need to be that much faster for next year!
