Deuces Wild Triathlon Festival

Imagine swimming 1.2 miles in a little lake surrounded by pine trees, taking a 57 mile roller coaster ride with your bike, and running 13.1 miles weaving around Fool's Hollow Lake and Campground in Show Low, AZ at 6000 feet, ....when you cross the line, you hear the words...."Beth Kozura, YOU ARE A DEUCEMAN".  The fans roar and you are so happy to be done.  You did it....you completed your first HALF IRONMAN DISTANCE race.  You have completed half the test and half the goal that you set out to do.  You might think that half is not nearly enough to test your readiness for the full ironman, but it is a dress rehearsal, the ultimate brick workout, a training race, mental practice and confidence booster.  It is like the mid-term exam.  You learn (daily training and drills), you do your homework (workouts....practice practice practice), you review, you study, and you take the test (training race) to see how much your body has learned (feedback) and what areas you need to go back and relearn (revise plan).

First of all, if you are looking for a challenging course in a beautiful destination and you enjoy a small town race, I highly recommend Deuceman.  It is a triathlon festival that is put on by Trisports.com which is an online triathlon stores that started in AZ and now partners with USAT.  They also just opened a store in Tempe right across the street from Ironman AZ....so if you forget anything, you will be sure to find it at their store on race morning!  Trisports.com is owned and operated by a triathlete couple who started the concept when they were looking for triathlon gear and their business has boomed along with their mission to give back to the community.  They are very generous and I know first hand because when we reached out to them when they were first getting started they sponsored a big charity run that we helped organize.  The festival offers olympic distance, long course, and xTerra races and youth triathlon.  They also have an amazing raffle to help with their fundraising efforts with awesome triathlete gear including bikes, racing wheels, garmins, helmets, wetsuits, and more.  I was the lucky winner of some new bike gloves and a 200 dollar gift certificate for SKINS products which I am a fan of Compression Wear!

Back to the race....the forecast called for scattered thunder storms, but on race morning the conditions were just right.  The temperatures started in the 50s and went up to the low 70s.  There were 130 athletes in the long course (including the relay teams) which turned out to be a little longer than the actual half IM distance by a mile or two.  We were standing at start and all of a sudden the men who were standing in the water were singing the National Anthem so the women in wave 2 on dry land joined in.  The triathlete men's choir were pretty good and there were a few silly notes added, but it isn't easy singing in cold water.  The water temperature was reported to be around 70.  It did not feel hot or cold...can water not have a temperature.  Many people have talked about having difficulty breathing in water in high altitude, but in the past I have never noticed this phenomenon.  I did feel it a little bit initially at the start, but within a few minutes I was breathing comfortably.  The hard part about this swim was that you started in this cove and had to swim out a few hundred feet and turn right, so you had no preview of where the buoys were placed and what other landmarks to spot.  There were 2 orange basketball buoys and then there were 2 large red triangle bouys where you made the turns.  The course was a triangle, but the bouys were not easy to see.  The course did seem long, but I was comfortable and just slowly passing people the entire time.  I finished 21st in the swim out of 94 individual long course athletes...right in line with my typical swim.  The bad news was to get out of the water, you had to run up a short steep hill.  The good news was at the top, you got a team of strippers to take your wetsuit off.  T1 went smooth, but slow as usual.  I am all about taking my time.  Maybe when I return to shorter distances it will be worthwhile to try to move faster, but in Ironman, I think it is more important to make sure you have everything right.

When I took off for the bike, my heart rate was a bit elevated (I think from running up the hill), so I tried to settle down and take the first 10 miles slow per my coach's instruction even if it meant letting people pass.  The bike was so much fun because it was like a roller coaster ride.  I did not feel like wind was a factor and it seemed much easier than the last time we had rode on this course earlier in the summer.  I felt steadier on the uphills and enjoyed to down hills.  There were 3 long hills near the end, but they just did not seem as difficult as the last time.  I also worked a lot on my nutrition and even though I had some tightness in my right adductor, I did not cramp on the hills like I did previously.  I ate every 10 minutes, 1 Gu Chomp every 10 minutes for the first 50 minutes and then 1/4 bonk bar and then repeated that pattern each hour.  I also took 1 salt tablet every 30 minutes and 1/4 bottle of CarbPro/EFS mix every hour plus 2 bottles of water.  It is part science, part luck, I guess, but I am definitely able to digest the more sugary solids taken every 10 minutes than the drinks, gels, or snacks with too much fiber.  After I reached the highest point of the climb, I felt like I was going to be able to run.

I was happy to get off my bike and again I felt relaxed during T2.  I grabbed my jelly beans, salt, and my Camelback, so I could snack and drink on demand.  I continued taking salt sticks every 30 min and jelly beans every 10 minutes, plus I drank water at every mile and squeezed wet sponges over my head.  It was a bit humid by the time I got to the run.  My clock indicated that I might even break 6:30, but my main goal was to run the entire 13.1 miles.  The course went around the lake and through the campground where people were sitting in lawn chairs cheering the athletes on.  I felt like I was a float in a parade smiling and waving to the crowd.  I should have thrown jelly beans out to the children.  There were a few funny fans including a man and his son who were in costume and playing Rocky Music and an older lady shaky purple pom poms.  There were a lot of young volunteers who were enthusiastically manning the aide stations and were thrilled to hand you a wet sponge and some water.  There was even a section with cows on the side of the road who were passionately mooing at the runners.  The faster I tried to run, the more likely the legs would cramp.  I stayed within my comfort zone and held off cramping.  I thought about enjoying the run and not counting the miles, but you can't help by track the miles with the big signs on the course and all the aide stations, but they were good reminders when to eat and drink.  I tried to enjoy the run and the scenery and not think too much about racing.  I knew that the small field was competitive because athletes posted their predicted finish times so I was not expecting to place.  My legs progressively became tighter and the only time I thought the cramps were going to win were when I had to stop to tie my shoe around mile 10 and the last mile.  I really did not want to walk, so I was able to maintain a steady pace.  It was at this point when I wondered how my legs were going to hold out for another 13.1 miles.  I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know I have 10 more weeks to get them ready.

Results:  Today I finished my first half Ironman distance in 6:33:26.  I finished 21/94 in the swim, 78/94 in the bike and 65/94 in the run.  I finished 7/10 in my age group, 16/27 out of women, and 67?/94 overall.  I was most pleased that if you double this time we are looking at 13 plus hours which gives me 4 extra hours to make the cut off.  I am now moving my appointment for my post race IV, to 10 pm instead of 12 midnight.  I might even have time to go out for a celebratory drink!

10 weeks left to fine tune the engine.  It feels good to be Half Way There!