IM Wisconsin - Humbled by "Kona of the Mid-West"

Not that I qualified, or even got close, but the heat, humidity, and wind of Kona were replicated in Madison this past Sunday; some differences steep hills and tons of mid-western pollution.

Prologue:
Last meal -15:00. Bedtime - 20:00. Hotel fire alarm – 01:00. Alarm clock rings – 03:00. I ate my oatmeal and Gatorade and had a leisurely drive to the race site. I arrived at the race site at 5:00, took my time getting ready: put my bottle of gel on my bike, pumped the tires and generally sat around and stretched.

Swim
Lake Monona was warm and slightly green, but what lake isn’t after this long hot summer. The swim was one of the strangest that I have experienced. To say that the start of the race was WIDE would be an understatement; people were crashing into my right side for the entire first lap. I don’t know what happened during the swim, but my time out of the water was a very slow 1:13

Bike
After what seemed a million turns that started at the top of the parking spiral we got on some straight road. The hills of Wisconsin are beautiful, but as the day wore on and the heat and winds got stronger, my plan to finish the bike between 6:00 – 6:30 became a dream. I didn’t walk any of the hills, but my quads and knees screamed as I made it up the steep climbs. At one hill, the craziness of the Tour de France was replicated with huge crowds and men in devil costumes cheering us on. With the help of a little bit of Advil I limped back to Madison. There were some dark moments during which I questioned why I was doing this to my body, but remembered that the main reason that I do this is because I can and not so long ago I couldn’t. 7:15 makes this one of the slowest bike of my Ironman career.

Run
A beautiful run course: the streets of downtown Madison, the State Capitol, the football stadium, the University of Wisconsin campus along Lake Mendota. By the time I started the run any time goal had long since been dropped: all I wanted to do was finish. The run is my favourite part of an Ironman: being the chatty-cathy that I am, I talk to anyone and everyone that I can. A short few words of encouragement from Barry-KonaExpress-Dmitruk got me through the first of many hills. Along the run I talked to everyone that I could: giving and taking encouragement wherever I could. I crossed the finishing line with a time of 14:12 and two catchers walked me to and from the medical tent two times before releasing me to my anxious parents and aunt.

Epilogue:
Not my best performance, but this was not a day for me to shine; it was a day for me to remember all the reasons why I do this sport: the physical and mental challenge, the camaraderie, and the chocolate chip cookies.