There is nothing more fulfilling at any given moment than crossing an item off your bucket list. Perhaps that was all the motivation I needed to finish the race. That and the thought of my friends and family rooting and praying with me as I trudged towards the last kilometers to a finish line. Finishing this Ironman pretty much felt like crossing any other finish line in a race one is doing for the first time. You had a goal in mind, and the realization of that goal will always leave you dumbfounded.
With the cancellation of IM China, which was my target race and the usher of a new race, IM Korea, all I had on my mind was, "let's get this over with". I had no expectations, no aiming for a PR. I knew I did not train specifically for this course, I know I did not train at all for the whole month prior to this race. Period.
A weeks worth of riding the course, swimming the waters with a wetsuit on does not necessarily prepare one for what happens on race day. Here's a recap of the day I wrote on my facebook page:
I had a way too relaxed 4 km swim as I was saving my energy for the bike and run leg. As I was swimming, I kept singing Ave Maria in my head for some weird reason. But the beat kept my stroke. Then one guy swam beside me and he swam like he was doing ballet, so I switched to classical music. Swimming that long in cold water, you have to think of things to keep you occupied. I was just hapy to have made the swim cut-off of 2 hours 20 minutes. I was surprised to finish in 1 hour 47 minutes hours considering I could count with my fingers the number of times I trained for swim. But I was one of the last few ones coming out of the swim.. I took my time taking a shower, changing all my clothes from top and bottom for comfort and slathering petroleum jelly all over the chaffe-prone areas.
BIKE: I started out really well, but once I got to the hills, I was struggling. I did not notice anything wrong until I felt my seat slip and slide around. No wonder I wasn't getting any power into my pedal stroke. After that I was really disheartened to see that most of the athletes had already covered 20kms more that I had. I was still struggling to keep a decent pace up the hills with my seat moving around the whole time, trying hard to look for a bike mechanic but no one that I asked spoke a word of English or understood what I needed. It was frustrating.
After about 100kms into the bike leg, I finally got a guy manning the aid station to tighten my seat. But when he tightened it, I did not notice he did so with the seat slid way back. So I was straining in my aero position the rest of the way. I could feel me neck muscles getting pinched, so much so that I couldn't look to the left. My shoulders hurt like hell when I used the aero bars, so I had to rely on my drop bars to keep me low in the windy sections. I was panicking as I had to make the bike cut-off of what I thought was 8 hours. I learned afterwards that it was 8 hours 30 minutes. Biked the 180 kilometers in 7:45 and got into transition to run with 45 minutes to spare.
RUN: The run was way off what I trained for. The course was either going uphill or downhill. I only ran in flat roads and the distance I had trained for wasn't even half of 42kms. I only had one or two 20 km runs, and it was all either 10k or 15 km max the rest of the time. But I had your names and faces to keep me occupied. The first loop wasn't easy but I finished it as planned in 3 hours. But once it started to get dark at around 8 pm and I still had 21 kilometers to cover, my enthusiasm just died down. By the time I was going into my second loop, most of the athletes were already finishing. I kept in mind all the time I sacrificed just to train for this and I wasn't about to give up that easily. I met another lady along the way, who spoke just enough English to understand when I asked her if we could walk and run at the same pace, just so I wouldn't let my pace slow down considerably. She didn't look like a triathlete whatsoever. She was 49 years old, has two kids, one 21 year old son in the military. And that was our entire conversation for the next ten kilometers. The plan for the rest of it was simple, walk the hills, run the semi-flats and downhills. By the second loop I could feel the blisters in my feet start to burn up. But I kept my mind occupied by finding my pace. I was thankful most of the course was uphill as I had an excuse to walk it, but I had to still walk it as fast as I could, military style. Of course the flats and downhills were just plain torture.
My breaks were every 2.2kms. I ate bananas, drank coke, water and took my gels and anti-fatigue capsules religiously. By the 30th kilometer, my feet just wouldn't move as fast as I wanted it to. My blisters were starting to hurt so bad, I couldn't keep ignoring it as I had the last 20 kilometers.I just kept thinking off all of you and ran a kilometer or two for you :) I wanted to just sit down and rest for a long while, but I know if I did that my leg muscles would cramp and i would not make it to the cut-off. So I trudged into the night, with only one reflective arm band letting the motorists know I was there. This was around 9:30 in the evening and while I still saw brave souls doing the rest of the course, they were few and far in between and most were ahead of me.
The last ten kilometers felt like a daze, I just wanted to see the finish line so bad I wanted to literally scream at my blisters to stop bugging me. By then my leg muscles were also beginning to cramp as it had been really beat up by the pounding of running downhill. The stretch from 4.4 km to 2.2km with the steepest climbs felt like eternity. I was then walking behind a bunch of people who I thankfully caught up with. At least I had their conversation to keep me from stopping and just sleeping in the side of the road even if I never understood a word they said. I was really getting sleepy then, and hungry and needed to go to the bathroom so bad. I hadn't eaten anything the whole day. Just bananas, energy bars and gels the whole 15 hours of it. By then even the cars passing us were getting fewer and fewer at 10:30 in the evening.
When I saw the 2.2. km aid station, I felt like I was in heaven. The run 2.2 km to the finish was all downhill. I ran down as fast as I could and caught up with another athlete from the Philippines who was walking. I told him to come run with me and he told me he couldn't as he had blisters. I told him I had blisters all over as well, but we should just push on. I was glad he listened so we ran down to the finish where someone handed us a Philippine flag to carry to the finish line. It was a proud moment. I can't describe how I felt then. I was relieved, sad and happy it was over. Meyo was there to see me finish.
Best Post-race recovery
An Ironman is never a race to mess with. One should never go into it without proper training, much like I did. But it is also true that most of it is mental. And what kep me mentally tough was the thought of disappointing a lot of you and myself if I didn't finish. That was enough to get me through 42 kilometers, after biking 180 kms and swimming 4 kms.
best support ever
