TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED (Page 24)

Originally posted by krazytallchick

Hey Lou, did you get signed up for IM Chattanooga?

To keep everyone in the loop, supposedly it sold out in 3 minutes, but there is so many stories going around on when exactly it did sell out. It all started out when WTC was giving early registration to those who were a part of a tri club in the area. If you were a member of that club you were able to registrar before everyone else. Because so many people were trying to sign up and was in a holding path after entering all their information and then was bumped out of their registration WTC is trying to make it up to them. If WTC was able to see that you were trying to register and got booted out they are giving them a week to decide if they want to sign up for Wisconsin, Florida and one more IM in 2014. I guess because of that and Active.com screwed up registration that they pushed back on-line registration for Wisconsin a week.

Kathy (KTC)

Originally posted by mkennedy0525

Thanks everyone! I did it! Sometimes I think it is completely unreal and that some other person took over my body and did it. Then I try to move and realize that it was definitely me.

The swim got moved from it's original location. I am so glad they had a back-up. The swim is usually in Lake Erie. We ended up swimming in the bay on the opposite side of Cedar Point. The water was choppy when we got to the more open area but it was swimmable. We basically swam around an island. That made sighting pretty easy. We didn't have a mass start since we started off a boat ramp. It was a time trial instead. I liked that even more. I didn't have much bumping, hitting, etc. My goal (if I were having a great swim) was 2:00. I was super excited when I looked at my watch and saw 1:42. I know that is slow for most people but that was a HUGE gift for me for this race. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like and I wanted every extra minute I could get. Because they moved the swim, we had .6 mile run to transition. They told us we should get stickers for our cars that say 141.2! Yes! I am an Ultra Ironman!!!!

The weather that caused the huge waves, small craft advisory and rip tide advisory included 20mph winds! Yep. And most of the bike seemed to go right into it. If we didn't have a headwind, it was coming at you from the side. Those with race wheels were really have problems. I managed to pull off an average of 16mph. My goal was to not drop below 15mph. With the wind, I wasn't sure what would happen. I was thrilled to see the good time (for me).

Next was the run. I felt great going into it. I thought for sure I would easily run the first half and then see what happened from there. That is not what happened. I ran the first 3-4 miles and then started walking. UGH! I was tired and sore and knew I had enough time to walk the whole thing if I needed to but that would make for a very long evening. Since my watch was set to beep every 5 minutes, I walked 5 then ran 5. This worked to get me past the 1/2 way point. Then the wheels started coming off. I was walking and when my watch beeped, I ignored it. Oh, I am sure at the time I came up with good excuses. I tried running some more and found myself looking at my watch after only 1 minute wondering if the 5 minutes were up. I finally made the decision to walk (it was less painful). I told myself that if I am going to walk, I will "walk with a purpose". I began walking determined to keep it at a 15:00 pace or better. In looking at my splits, I have 7-8 miles at the end that I was walking 12:30 average pace!!!!!

The finish came and my parents, husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were able to walk into the finish chute and cross the finish line with me! That moment was PRICELESS! And yes, as I crossed the finish line I cried my eyes out! What an amazing experience. Finish time 15:03:36 I'll take that.

Rev3 will be adding more and more races. I highly recommend them. They are very spectator friendly, less expensive than Ironman and don't sell out in less than 5 minutes. The staff is wonderful. The medal this year actually lights up! I think Ironman has some serious competition on the rise.

Now time to plan 2014! What to do? What to do?

Originally posted by MikeMcK

Whew. Okay. The good news is I did not come in dead last. That's right, there were three chumps slower than me.

But in all seriousness, I'm surprisingly happy with such a low ranking. I know I was slow going in and had predicted a finishing time around five hours.

The breakdown:

0.6 Mile Swim: 25:57
T1: 3:41
39 Mile Bike: 2:49
T2: 1:26
10k Run: 1:17
Overall: 4:39:04

Because of the non-standard lengths on the swim and bike it's hard to compare, but the run was a PR. When I did an Olympic in '09 the run took me 1:32. So I went faster with a much longer ride.

The day started out late, there was a half-ironman at the same time and they began at 7am. Meanwhile us Olympic Plusers hung out until 8:30. Not bad since I got to sleep in before a race.

The water was 71 degrees, so I did wear my wetsuit for the buoyancy. I do think this helped. I was nervous about getting smashed so I started the swim far in the back. I ended up passing a few people, but mostly took it easy since I wasn't sure if I'd have the strength for the bike if I went all out. Got kicked a couple of times and one woman who was zig-zagging ran into my left side and then my right side a minute or two later. Both times it was almost perpendicular. I'm guessing she had some trouble sighting.

Transition was slow, but I expected that. I wanted to be sure I left with everything so I took my time. Last year I forgot my cycling gloves so I was anxious about making the same mistake.

The course map said the bike route was mostly flat. It lied. According to Strava, there was over 3000 feet of gain, and I believe it. That's not Lake Placid or anything, but it was a lot of up and down, both steep climbs and slow, long climbs full of false flats. True, there was some opportunity for fast decants, but on my '05 stock Specialized Allez I can't take advantage like those on the TT bikes. Plus my wonky drive train kept me out of the middle ring for most of the race. Which was fine. Even at ~14mph I was faster than many of my training rides on much flatter routes. Passed some people on the bike, got passed by more including three racers running a straight up pace line. Seriously, it was like watching Team Pursuit the way they were switching pulls. Very annoying, but what can you do? I had to race my race.

T2 was good, except for my neighbor who threw his wetsuit onto all of my stuff. Guess he was going for a world record so he couldn't be bothered. Because of this I started off in wet shoes, but it really was the last thing on my mind after a half mile. Almost instantly my calves seized. I should have done more brick workouts to train my muscles for the transition I guess. I kept shuffling along (relentless forward progress, after all) and took a banana at the first water station. The stiffness went away and I kept going. I decided before the race I would run walk, walking 30 seconds every 4.5 minutes. That's a little more walking than I do in my training runs, but also I figured I would need it after the ride. The run was an out an back with a sharp climb, a decent, a mile-long climb, and then a little bit of flat to the turn around. It went fairly well except for one unmarked section where I convinced myself I had left the route. In the end I ran faster than I did in training, so I was pleased with that. I'll start working on my speed next week so I can try and improve in that area.

I knew I wasn't going to do anything but finish this year and I did that, so I'm happy. Maybe next year I'll do it again and try to set a course PR.

For now I'm thinking about a half-marathon in October and then maybe Syracuse 70.3 next summer. I'd still like to go for Ironman Kentucky (which never seemed to sell out this year for some reason, what's up with that?), but I'll just have to be sure I can devote that much time and money to racing. And buy a Cervelo time trial bike so I can get aero.

I know I was a half-lurker this summer, but I do want to thank everyone on the team for their help and support. Even just reading your stories kept me going when I was thinking I was considering quitting earlier in the summer. Seriously, thank you so much!

Mike

Originally posted by mkennedy0525

Thanks everyone! I did it! Sometimes I think it is completely unreal and that some other person took over my body and did it. Then I try to move and realize that it was definitely me.

The swim got moved from it's original location. I am so glad they had a back-up. The swim is usually in Lake Erie. We ended up swimming in the bay on the opposite side of Cedar Point. The water was choppy when we got to the more open area but it was swimmable. We basically swam around an island. That made sighting pretty easy. We didn't have a mass start since we started off a boat ramp. It was a time trial instead. I liked that even more. I didn't have much bumping, hitting, etc. My goal (if I were having a great swim) was 2:00. I was super excited when I looked at my watch and saw 1:42. I know that is slow for most people but that was a HUGE gift for me for this race. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like and I wanted every extra minute I could get. Because they moved the swim, we had .6 mile run to transition. They told us we should get stickers for our cars that say 141.2! Yes! I am an Ultra Ironman!!!!

The weather that caused the huge waves, small craft advisory and rip tide advisory included 20mph winds! Yep. And most of the bike seemed to go right into it. If we didn't have a headwind, it was coming at you from the side. Those with race wheels were really have problems. I managed to pull off an average of 16mph. My goal was to not drop below 15mph. With the wind, I wasn't sure what would happen. I was thrilled to see the good time (for me).

Next was the run. I felt great going into it. I thought for sure I would easily run the first half and then see what happened from there. That is not what happened. I ran the first 3-4 miles and then started walking. UGH! I was tired and sore and knew I had enough time to walk the whole thing if I needed to but that would make for a very long evening. Since my watch was set to beep every 5 minutes, I walked 5 then ran 5. This worked to get me past the 1/2 way point. Then the wheels started coming off. I was walking and when my watch beeped, I ignored it. Oh, I am sure at the time I came up with good excuses. I tried running some more and found myself looking at my watch after only 1 minute wondering if the 5 minutes were up. I finally made the decision to walk (it was less painful). I told myself that if I am going to walk, I will "walk with a purpose". I began walking determined to keep it at a 15:00 pace or better. In looking at my splits, I have 7-8 miles at the end that I was walking 12:30 average pace!!!!!

The finish came and my parents, husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were able to walk into the finish chute and cross the finish line with me! That moment was PRICELESS! And yes, as I crossed the finish line I cried my eyes out! What an amazing experience. Finish time 15:03:36 I'll take that.

Rev3 will be adding more and more races. I highly recommend them. They are very spectator friendly, less expensive than Ironman and don't sell out in less than 5 minutes. The staff is wonderful. The medal this year actually lights up! I think Ironman has some serious competition on the rise.

Now time to plan 2014! What to do? What to do?