Rest & Test Week: Eagleman 70.3

The block leading up to Eagleman, my debut 70.3 race, was intense! I started school, I started heat acclimation training in Florida and I started my summer work schedule...and I felt like I was training the most I had ever trained.

Vacation to Florida

The great tan lines provided by training
in the sun in Florida!

Heat acclimation training began the day after Kinetic Sprint last month, when I headed down to Florida for a week's vacation. I was told I had to train in the heat of the day to get used to the heat and humidity that Eagleman would bring. So, I did, and it was brutal. On top of the brutal heat came the start of school. Let me tell you, taking two years off of school and going back is very challenging, especially when you're on vacation and don't want to think about anything other than relaxing. My vacation was packed full of good meals, laying out by the pool, studying and training and experiencing how brutal the sun can be if not properly hydrated...there was one run that I ended up cutting short because I face planted into my pool because I couldn't go on. I think it was for this early heat acclimation training that made me keep going at Eagleman. 

Veterinary Technology School

So I'm back in school and sometimes I feel like I'm drowning because I forgot what it's like to be a student after taking two years off. I'm taking a full load of four classes this semester, on top of working full time and training loads. But if you know me well, you know that me without a full plate, is just not me. Keeping a sport and going to school keeps my time management superb and really focuses me on what I need to get done. However, with the start of school came more skipped workouts then I have ever had in the past. Dan understands it though, he understands school and being super busy and he tells me to do the best that I can, so I make my cutoff 8pm. If my workouts aren't completed by then, I scrap it or end the workout then because I have to get in at least two hours of homework every night to stay on top of things. Time management is the key to my life.

So the week of Eagleman was also test week in school. Thus, rest & test week. I panicked when I first thought of this because races come with a lot of stress with me and being not great at tests also comes with a lot of stress, so I didn't know how well that week would go. However, it worked perfectly and I can't wait for next month when it happens again for Williamsburg. With the rest of the race came the necessary time to study and take my tests 

Eagleman 70.3 

This is the real reason you are reading my blog, isn't it? You want to read all about the epic heat we all had to endure and how that translated into our races on Sunday. Well, I'll gladly tell you about my debut to the 70.3 world.

Pre-Race

Dan, Meghan and I drove down to Cambridge on Friday night after work and had a great (but terribly serviced) dinner before heading to bed. Saturday morning we got an early start to the day and headed to the race site for check in and a swim. It hadn't been declared yet whether the race would be wetsuit legal or not, but seeing how Dan's and my shake-out swim went, we were crossing our fingers for wetsuit illegal, while Meghan and Brian were hoping were wetsuit legal. For the non swimmers out there, a wetsuit provides a HUGE advantage as it helps floating and body positioning in the water, two things that swimmers already possess.

Surprised Coach!

After our swim, we went and checked in, and got a quick shake-out ride in. That ride was the best I felt in a long time and it made me really look forward to the bike portion of the race. I'm glad that I went on that ride because I always forget how it feels to have race wheels on, and with the wind, I could certainly feel myself being pushed...

Back to the hotel for packing and race prep. We did yoga, physical therapy and played cards for about 4 hours while salt loading which would help us retain water as it got hotter and hotter outside on race morning.

GRN MCHN Eagleman athletes reppin' the new kit

Oh, and almost forgot the best part: surprising our amazing coach with the GRN MCHN kits! Meghan and I began working on them in October of 2015 and after a long process were finally got them and surprised Dan with them! It was a pretty awesome reveal and he had no idea that it was happening. We want to represent him and his coaching and all the awesome things he does for us.





Swim (29:03)
Sometimes I think that I'll be fine before a swim race, but always, without fail, I get nervous. It's my strongest leg, but I still got nervous before because thoughts of letting myself down and not being happy with my times came through my mind. We entered the water for our in water start and all the girls lines up between the buoys. I stood in front with one of the relay men who explained the course to me and a few other girls. I really love the comradery of the sport because all the girls in my wave were wishing each other luck and apologies for the possibility of kicking each other in the face when we went off.

The gun went off and we were off. I thought that the guy I was talking to would be a good one to hang onto, but within the first 15 seconds I knew I was out of my league. I looked right and left and saw no one around so I knew I was alone in this battle. Within minutes I hit the men's wave in front of us and began weaving my way in and out around them trying my best not to kick them, but took a few kicks to the stomach, as well. Sighting was so much easier for me than kinetic last month. The buoys were bigger and brighter and I knew exactly where I was going. 

Soon there were four different color caps around me and it was a battle to get where I wanted to go, so that meant swimming over some people. Sorry! I did get cursed at twice. One section of the rectangle was choppy but after turning the corner, it was smooth sailing from there. My shoulder started to cramp up and I saw another green cap swimming past me, so I stayed on her feet for the remainder of the swim...she beat me out of the water by 4 seconds. I was second AG out of the water.

Overall I'm happy with the swim, but it's not my best work. Wetsuits freak me out and I think that was a big constricting matter on my big swimmer shoulders, but I've got time to improve!

Transition 1 (2:34)
Wetsuit strippers are my heroes! They made that transition so much easier than my previous races. I did my best to run in to my bike, but the swim took a lot more out of me than I thought, so I did a powerwalk over to my bike and got my things out. Meghan and I were in bad places in transition because we had a far way to go with our bike before we got out, but I think I did the "think slow, act fast" thing pretty well.

Bike (2:48:54) 
Having completed only one half distance aquabike, I knew that this bike wasn't going to be a problem. I'd trained hard and for many hours on the bike and I was prepared for the heat I would face while on the bike. My goal for the bike was to go sub 2:45, and granted the conditions of the race with the wind and the heat, 2:48 is not bad.

Everyone said that the course was windy, but I didn't feel the wind until the last 8 miles. From get go I put my head down and I just rode it on out. My heart rate coming off the swim was 175 and it remained that high (minus 6 bpm) the whole ride. I tried to lower it by breathing, but slowing my legs down, but nothing helped, I decided it was a lost caused due to the heat.

I was passing people like crazy and they were cheering me on as I went, sometimes I looked down and saw my speed at 25mph...sooo fast!

My nutrition in the early stages of the bike was a bust. Within the first 40 minutes I had already consumed 1.5 of my 3 bottles of Infinit. Typically I don't like to grab from aid stations but I did the first two just to get water in me because clearly I needed it after that swim. The next two aid stations I flew by without even lifting my head.

At one point in the race I was about to make a turn and a policeman was standing there screaming at me to stop. I stopped and clipped out because an ambulance was speeding down the road and was going to hit me if I hadn't of stopped. I was pissed and was very blunt about that, but after the ambulance passed I pushed out a mega wattage of 628 to get back going...I regretted that wattage about 2 minutes later.

Those last 8 miles though....sufferfest on the bike started. I was going 25 mph when I turned the corner and hit that wind and then I noticed my wattage spike and my speed immediately drop to 12 mph. A man passed me and said "Mother nature is finally making us work. We've gotta work hard these last 8," and he was certainly right about that. I'm a lightweight person, and when you have headwind and crosswinds coming at you at 25mph, I was swaying all over the place. For the first time the whole race, I got out of aero just so I wouldn't blow into the next lane of traffic. I pushed and pulled my feet and waiting for the wind to change and finally it did with 3 miles left.

It was really challenging seeing all the runners who were already out on the course. I knew that I was going to spend a long time out there and was scared that I would be left out there due to the amount of people that were on the course when I passed them on my bike. I saw my sister and cheered her on and she gave me a thumbs up as we went our different directions.

Overall, I'm happy. For the wind and the heat, I pulled off a great ride. Although not as quick as I wanted, it was 3 minutes faster than Timberman last year!

Transition 2 (1:43) 
I came in fast to transition and did what I needed to do. Re-racked bike, helmet, threw my shoes on and grabbed the things I could put on on my way out. I stopped for about 20 seconds at a volunteer so she could spray my back with sunscreen (I didn't get burned), and then I was off.

Run (2:34:32)
Crap it was hot! I started out just going what my legs could ta
ke me and at mile three I saw my sister, Julie Patterson, who was at mile 10...she was walking. I cheered for her to keep going and she looked at me and said "You'll have a better run split that me this race." Well, that's what I wanted to hear from my pro sister. If she was having a hard time, what was this going to be like for me?

Dan had told me to stop and walk through all the aid stations and I wasn't entirely happy about that. My thought was that if I stopped and walked, I wouldn't be able to start running again. I was wrong. My body was happy to have that time to stop and walk and gather what I needed before going again. I was fueling on Base Salt and Infinit in a flask. When I could get to an aid station, I would take a shot of the Infinit and wash it down with water before grabbing water to dump on my head and ice to dump down my sports bra. The aid stations are what I began to live for on that run.

After a few more miles I crossed paths with Dan and Joe Rosati and I gave them a thumbs down to vocalize how I was feeling at that moment...like s**t. Dan said something like "this heat sucks" and I nodded and kept going. Between miles 4-7 my knee hurt real bad and I had a lot of walking. In that moment of walking I began crying thinking that I was letting myself and Dan down and I would be the last person out on the course because I was walking so slowly, but with the encouragement of the others running past me, I started my "Ironman shuffle" again.

At mile 9 I ran into this gentleman who was packing his shirt with bags of ice and he offered me a plastic bag which I gladly accepted and filled with ice to keep down my shirt. That bag alone lowered my HR by 11bpm. At mile 10 I realized I had run 2 miles more than I ever had and my legs were still moving beneath me. I found a 16 year old on the course and found out that he was a high school swimmer who drew the short straw (the run) for his family relay. We ran the rest of the race together.

So many people were stopping around us and I was giving what I could to them in terms of inspiration and motivation to keep them going because in that moment, I needed someone to do the same for me. I told Sterling (16 year old) that I was fading and that he should go in front of me as I didn't want to hold him back. He looked at me and told me that we were going to finish thing together and he would slow down for me. Sterling was my saving grace on the last 5k of that run and I couldn't have made it without it.

Pain, exhaustion and heat were fighting my body but when we saw that finish line we looked at each other and said, "Let's go" and we both exerted what we had left to the finish line. I gave him a big hug before the waterworks began.

Team GRN MCHN (missing Josh)

I started hysterically crying when I got to the water dump station, where volunteers were dumping water on athletes to cool them down. I think my body was in shock by the cold and realizing how hot I was. I bent over and medical ran right up to me asking if I was okay. I cried and said that I was hot and the next thing I know I had a volunteer with a hose just spraying my back off. Medical wouldn't let me go until I had someone to take me, but Dan was right there for me. He gave me a big hug and told me great job and he was proud of me....I was still crying. I remember him asking if I needed food or water and I said I needed to cool off so I did...in the river.

Looking back, that run pushed me in ways that I didn't think were possible. I hurt in ways that I'd never felt and I experienced a heat that I'd never experienced, despite the hours of sauna and Florida training time. All of that being said, I made it. Having never run a half marathon, and having been injured for such a long time last year and being able to complete that after being out in the sun for more than 3 hours is pretty amazing and I am blessed to have been able to do it. With the help of my friends, family and coach, I not only completed my first ever half ironman, I did it in sub 6 hours and got 7th in my age group!

Final Time: 5:56:46

So much exhaustion...I couldn't stay awake even if I was trying

Aftermath
I honestly don't think I have ever experienced such awful pain in my life before....and that pain continued for days after. The race also came with extreme dehydration and exhaustion, things that prevented me from doing my workouts this week after. I couldn't go into work on Monday, the day after the race, because my urine showed that something was clearly wrong and I should've gotten an IV drip to rehydrate myself; instead I just drank gallons of water. I felt like a slacker for skipping so many workouts but Dan agreed that it would be better for me to get rest then burn up the small amounts of energy that I have.

Although hot and miserable, I can't wait for my next 70.3. Between now and then I have to get things right with my knee again, and run two Olympic distances, have another three sets of exams and then have a great 70.3 amongst the tallest rollercoasters in the world at Rev3 Cedar Point. Thank you for all the support and best wishes, I certainly couldn't do what I do without all of you!