Ah yes. I did it again. Why? Because I was restless. Stuck in a painful place with my career where the stress was eating me alive. Depressed because my two kids are grown and off in college. And tequila, well that may have had something to do with it.

I did an IronMan in 2016. It was tough. But, I finished it, I was elated, and I swore I wouldn’t do it again.

Fast forward two years. My friends are over. Did I mention, there was tequila? I swear, tequila is my kryptonite. With it, I am defenseless.

Four shots in, we start looking up Ironman races “just for fun”.

And six shots in, we decide to sign up for one.

Sigh.

The race we chose, was Arizona Ironman, 2018. It was sold out, and the only way to sign up was through the double payment charity route (set me back about $1500 for the entry fee alone, but all that tequila helped me forget I needed to be saving money instead of spending it).

That was in May.

Race was this past weekend, November 18th.

We had six months ahead of us. One thing about me, good or bad, if I say I am going to do it I do it. I was in.

This training period was extra rough on me. Early on, it was good. I had a virtual job and loads of flexible time to play with. Plus, training was light. A heavy workout schedule was good for my mental well being and allowed some great stress relief.

2-3 months in, unavoidably, I left my job amid massive stress, changed jobs, and went to a more routine job that required I go in to an office each day.

That, made training a little tougher. Now in more prolonged workouts, my routine was much more strict. 5am wake ups, rushed workouts and all day workdays left me very little juice to do much when I got home at 6pm.

To add to the chaos, 3 months later, that new job fell through. More stress, another job that required  even heavier hours as well as travel, left me scrambling.  Now in the way later stages and longer hours of my training, I was waking at 3am (poops by 4, hitting the workouts from 4:30-7:30), then, office all day. Getting home at 6 or 6:30 allowed me precisely 1.5 hour to shovel in food, catch up with my husband, and pass out by 8, so I could do it all again the next morning.  This – sucked.

I was wrecked. And forget a social life. My friends wrote me off, my family left me alone to train, my friend who I was sort of training with was on her own schedule. My other friend dropped down to a half vs the full so her schedule was off as well – it was a lonely road.

I also was dealing with a ton of health problems. Hip tendinitis, a bike crash which impaled my chest and left me with a muscle tear, and an ankle bash that grew ridiculous amounts of scar tissue were all part of it (adding thousands of $$ in therapy to my already growing IronMan tab).  These and many other things delayed and exasperated my training, greatly. It was not a barrel of fun. I was really ready to get to the race and be done.

But I pushed through, and ticked off the weeks of training leading me right race weekend.

I’ll start with a solid positive. I had a huge support crew. My husband, my two girls (19 & 21), my friend from work and her parents and my brother and his fiancé were all out there to cheer us on. That helped, more than I ever knew it would.

Pre-Race:

• Friday, check in. Diarrhea sets in as I claim my number, 275, which will forever immortalize my swim, bike and run on that fateful day.
• Wanting to get a sense of the race ahead, we  decide to drive the bike route. 3 loops, one up, one down and one bit flat, making a triangle we endured three times. That up, looks really “up”. Fuck.
• We walked what we could for the run and the swim portion. Saw entrances and exits. Reviewed the maps, visualized the courses. We listened to the athlete review, walked the tent pop up aisles, drank mushroom juice and got our legs iced and compressed. We ate pasta, we drank half a beer. We then tried to sleep. We failed.
• Saturday, day before race! We checked in our bikes, dropped our well and meticulously planned gear-bags. We got an early sushi rice, avocado and salmon roll dinner. We tried another half a beer. We hit our hotels early, prepped our morning gear, and tried to sleep again. We failed.

Race day:

• I fell asleep Saturday at 8:30  – a good sign! And then my motherfucker hotel neighbor decides to stand on his patio and have a heated discussion with his roommate at 1:40am. I was up, I was pissed, I was pounding on the windows to shut them up, and I was wide awake
• I decided to make the best of it, and began working on the coffee and praying for poop to come about 2:30am. I laid in bed as my husband slept and put on some headphone meditations  to help me visualize the race. (Mainly the run, which was my worst bit on the last go-round, and what I feared most).
• We get to the race with plenty of time. Parking was easy, my friend met up with us, and we prepped the best we could.
• Stuffed our bike shirts and packs with PNB & Jelly sandwiches, filled our water bottles.
• Got marked.
• Topped off our tires.
• We were really doing this.

The Swim:

• Wetsuited up, we head over to the swim shoots, which, out of this highly organized race, was the least organized. The time slots we were to align ourselves with were blocked off with a wall and a crowd of people, so we had to stuff in the back, with the two hour time group, which was mainly people who got in late like us, and were pushing and clamoring to get upfront.
• We wait, we shuffle….I am crying and hugging my family aside me as I move forward. My husband, god bless that man, bought a cow bell. A BIG one, and to make me laugh, pulls it out and starts ringing it. It works, lightens my mood, and shortly ,after a couple more “I love you’s” I’m in the 58 degree water moving forward.
• I felt good the first half; slow, steady. I mantra “I am….” then fill in the word with whatever pops in to my head.
  • “I am strong, I am steady, I am calm”….try to get in to the flow, I was doing OK!
• But about half way in, sun is tucked behind a cloud and the water is COLD. My toes start numbing up. I keep pushing, but soon, I have this weird sensation, and my fingers start to curl inward, unwillingly. I try to straighten them, and they keep curling in. Then I get the same “flat” sensation in my arms and shoulders. I look around and realize people are hanging on rafts and sitting on the outside steps, I even hear one lady screaming “kayak kayak!” asking for help,  and I get a brief panic blip that maybe I am getting hypothermia and may not make it though this.
• But that was a brief blip. I was NOT going to let that happen, I was finishing this race, so I pushed in deeper, pumped my frozen arms with flat sloppy hands hitting the water with each stroke, and actually made it out in 1:30. About 15 minutes slower than I wanted, but I WAS DONE.
• The run with frozen bare feet to the bike transition had to have been at least 1/4 mile. My frozen fingers tried to pick the water wax out of my ears and my poor feet ran over rocks and grit on the ground in the fastest shuffle I could push.
• I laid on the ground as I entered the transition area and those amazing volunteers ripped my suit off me, handed me my bag and I ran into the very warm tent (thinking the whole time I can’t believe I am running out in public in a bikini for all the world to see), and plopped on a chair for a sweet moment of rest.
• Another kind volunteer help me get dressed (literally putting socks on my freezing toes), I quickly ate and drank some fuel, and headed out to the bike racks.
• Took 15 minutes in this transition but I finally got on my 20-year old steel bike (which got passed by it’s $20,000 carbon aero-dynamic rich cousin bikes every second), and took off.

The Bike:

• Still COLD, I concentrated on the blood moving through my legs to warm me up and push me along. I took it slow as people flew past me, worked hard to adjust and settle into my hard seat, and mentally prepared myself for about 7 hours of pushing.
• Three laps. First one, was very uncomfortable. I had hundreds of people passing me, deflating my ego a bit, and I could’t find a comfortable sit on my old, sad, saddle. My back hurt, my hip and knee felt tweaky, and I realized my mind was going down the scary negative rabbit hole of “I hate this shit, what the fuck am I doing out here…” thinking.
• It was compounded when, as I was going down the one and only hill  there was at probably 23-25 mph, some asshole literally, hit me, tire to tire causing my bike to jump forward, and my heart to nearly explode. It was divine intervention how I didn’t fall; he hit me so squarely directly from behind that it propelled me forward rather than off to the side. After a brief burst of angry tears (and some curse words) I was fueled with adrenaline and prayed the duration of that lap, which calmed me down.
• I worked through it. Lap two was much calmer. I saw my husband at the turn around who gave me an awesome dose of energy and love and I used my mind to try and focus on positive thoughts and consistent movement. I did a mental practice where I “breathed in” the energy from the desert around me and “breathed out” success and energy, kind of like a wave, to everyone on the course. It helped, I felt OK. Slow, but OK.
• I saw the whole family group at the turnaround for Lap Two which totally filled me with energy and joy, and put a little spring in my spin as I headed out for the final round.
• Lap 3 had some serious wind uphill, then, the with a lovely shift of Mother Nature we also went against on the wind on the final downhill.
• It was a long push. I was back of the pack so the riders between were stretched out and I had more space. I had to move through a little bike yoga to work out the kinks, but got to the transition tent and happily hopped off on wobbly legs offering my bike to the kind volunteer ready to take it as I stumbled towards the transition.
• This race was SO organized. The volunteers called my numbers, they handed me my bag and another volunteer helped me change, peel off old bike clothes, lube up and head out.
• This is where it gets amazing.

The Run:

• I actually felt GOOD. I was tired, and my legs were wobbly, but my pain was light, my brain was working well and my body felt pretty OK! I actually planned on walking, but those legs of mine were shuffling, so I figured I’d just got where my body took me, and I kept moving!
• My family was all around. I saw them and was able to hug them, talk to them, steal some of their energy. My friends made signs, and ran along side me to encourage me. The course was set to loop through the crowds, so most of the way there was support, cheering, signs and high fives.
• The aid stations were exceptional, the people on the course were kind, and somehow my legs kept moving!
• I was slow, the run took me about 5 1/2 hours, but I was finishing this.
• Strong.
• As I got to the finish line, I saw my whole group there calling me, cheering me on! I ran over and hugged them, and got the biggest surge of adrenaline I’ve ever had.

My legs sparked and I pushed into a sprint and crossed that finish line! 14 hours and 45 minutes. Not slowest, certainly no where near the fastest, but done! Success! I was an IronWoman! Part Two!

That finish was so sweet. My medal around my neck, my friends and family got me flowers, their sweet signs waving and open arms for lots of hugs. My sweet, funny husband got me and my friend a shot of tequila with an Ironman shot glass, and I have video of it going down happily.

We ate a slice of pizza, went to a bar with the group for another shot of tequila, toasted good friends and good health, and made our way back to the hotel about 1am.

This race, was a journey on many fronts. A journey through bad jobs. A journey through friendship and support from my inner team. A journey through embracing the suck, and visualizing success and making it happen. A journey, in defining my destiny that day.

This will be my last race. I pushed myself like I never had before. I am a huge believer in doing the impossible, pushing your limits and working through something really hard to get to something really good. But, a part of you has to enjoy it. I did not enjoy this race.

But, I am glad I finished it. I am glad I showed my kids how you can do ANYTHING you put your mind to, and I am glad I showed myself that I still have the mental fortitude to see a challenge through. Applying this to the rest of my life is definitely a skill I will carry with me, and I will still find a bit of pride in claiming “yes, I am in IronMan”

Twice-over in fact.