Silverman Report 2: Susan

this will read more like an adventure race than an honest-to-goodness ironman distance race. i guess i like to add all sorts of drama to my race day antics in order to get the most out of the experience...but here, i added too many. and man, do i regret it. well, really only that this was my race to lose.

i did the race and finished in 16:43 ish....but i missed the bike cut off by 9 minutes and they took my chip...... so i finished unofficially to NOT take 3rd place. i am totally hacked at myself and disappointed. and i totally totally loved loved loved the cool award...i so wanted one. wish they had a "she stuck it out like a fool" award.

but i am a warrior!!! if a foolish one.

Silverman race in Las Vegas is very difficult - i say this simply b/c it IS. every single finisher has my utmost respect.

the race claims it is the HARDEST ironman distance race...with 10,000-12,000 feet of climbing on the bike. it always challenges me. maybe cuz i am a Floridian, maybe b/c it is so late in the season, maybe b/c i do way too much athletically before i arrive in Las Vegas to tackle it...whatever, it just wears me out from start to finish. the whole thing.

and, as usual, conditions at the start were not cooperative....and my friend Barb who has been on Team USA with me every year was talking about not making cutoffs at World Championships this year as we made the bus ride over to the swim start....apparently for me, that was bad juju and of course, i failed to eat at my fave sushi restaurant like i do before all my other ironmans...! dang, i am good at compounding mistakes...but Barb also did not make the bike cut off...dang the foreboding.

but back to the race report...the swim started out nicely...however, the wind and rain were coming in and struck with about 1/3 - 1/2 of the swim to go...the 2-5 foot swells during the last 1/3 really took it out of me. i used literally any stroke i could to get in. the water really churned up and i struggled to make it back to T1...several folks gave up...but i didn't. i kept being blown off course and could not see the buoys as i would have to struggle to site...you would look up and take water straight in the face. i had to spin around several times to gag after taking in a breath of water...

i used up some time i would later determine i did not have.

and i feel really bad about this: i had CONNED my friend Blaine into doing the full race. he beat me out of the water by 1 minute, and even tho i had to really suit up for the cold weather and wind, i was thru transition faster than he was.

i had on a skull cap under my helmet, i borrowed some additional bike shorts from my friend victor (cuz i rented a bike to save myself some money on the flight charges for the bike and i knew this race would probably just be a survivor-athon).

the bike was a specialized but it was a road bike and the seat was really really really hard. victor gave me the bibs and since i have never used them, i put my jersey on then had to take it back off since i forgot to put the shorts over my tri shorts first :) and i had on a vest and arm warmers. i even shoved gloves into my back pocket.

i chose, as a neighborly gesture, to wait on Blaine after i came out of the T1 tent. this might have been another strategic error. i again lost some valuable time since he also took a bathroom break after we got past the timing mat.

...then we headed off - always 3 bike lengths apart - on a really hard bike course. in the beginning, i struggled in the wind and rain and cold weather. i am sure that having Blaine in my sites helped with the mental game of gutting out the bike. but he soon petered out and i went off and left him to struggle, thinking he would always have me in his sites. maybe i could return the favor for him.

i did not see him again until the turn around of the bike and he was about a mile back. i was coming undone on the false flats heading into special needs around mile 52. i really could not believe, in my fave sport of biking, that i could literally be going as slow as i was and still be upright. but i just could not get the bike to go any faster and i was starting to get dizzy and coming outside of myself. i kept lulling myself into continuing to go by saying, don't stop now and rest on the side of the road like you want to, but keep going to your McDonalds burger at special needs...

overall, i really don't think i could have gone faster on the bike. if i ever developed some energy to "attack" the climbs, it petered out pretty quickly as i climbed the next hill...check out the bike profile on www.silvermannv.com and understand that there is very little way to practice for this in pancake flat florida...

at special needs i came in and got some assistance getting off the bike and i immediately sat down to "get right with the world"..i was shaky/shivering and kinda dizzy. i ate my burger and drank my red bull and made my second drink of sustained energy. on the first 50 miles, i had had one bottle of that and 2 gus. i only had a green acai drink for breakfast. maybe another foolish mistake?

also, my nether regions were so sore on this bike. i had borrowed some aero clip on bars that were WAY TOO SHORT for me which changed up my whole posture. and the shifting on this bike was so different from mine...mine are bar end shifters. this road bike posture sat me on the seat differently so every angle of my sit bones were annoyed with me...thanks victor for the additional padding.

i also found that having to come out of the cramped aero position (altho it was windy so i was grateful that i had some other posture to reduce the head wind resistance) to push the brakes levers left or right or use my thumb to move the gears the other way. i think it took me (since i rented it the day before and only rode it around transition a bit before "checking it in") 10 miles of the race to figure out which way to move them to go easier or harder.

that couldn't have helped me with speed. and if i was down grasping the gears and went to shift, i would accidentally squeeze the brake lever as i shifted, slowing myself down accidentally. and of course, since it was not MY bike, the derailleurs were not working perfectly and i had to finagle the shifter every time i shifted - which on this course, is about every 15 seconds - to get it to move to the middle ring. altho i was extremely grateful for the third ring.

i did feel really badly as i had convinced Blaine to do the full and he was also sick with a head cold. with the conditions, it was not the year the course was forgiving. he struggled mightily. i saw him at the half way point and he was going to give up :) he later sagged in from the special needs area (stopping once as they passed me in the van to cheer me on)...i really needed that!

after my special needs short stop, i headed back out and felt much better...the rest of the course was difficult in that there were a lot of climbs...but all of them doable. i never set land speed records, but i thought i was consistent. i climbed out of the "bowl" and at mile 90 started to come undone again. i was racing to make the first bike cut off at the tunnel at 3:45 at mile 92. i made that by a half an hour and assumed i was home free...but here is my rookie mistake.

i had been biking with the thought that the total bike cut off time was 5:30 (like all ironmans - but this race started at 6:30 so i only had til 5 pm, even tho race director here gives folks til midnite, which allows a total of .5 hour over normal ironman times - but i needed the extra half hour on the bike) ...

so on the bike path with the "3 sister" short steep mountains of 20 percent grade at times, i biked 1.5 of them and walked the bike up the other ones to save my legs. this bike trail appears to me ALWAYS to be a false flat and the little downhills are short and quickly over. i just put my head down and gutted and gutted and gutted it out. but at mile 102 when i came off the path, i was just so undone and had no energy (i had only had one more gu and my sustained energy drink). i made a huge compounded mistake and i stopped to get some sustenance and sat in a chair eating broth with noodles and some nuts and some power bar...wonder how much time i lost then?

b/c then i got back on the bike and with more energy, pedaled faster. and there are a bunch of downhills on the way back into town except for a few quick climbs to the down hill and a long uphill into T2. you can really make up some time...but not when you are focusing on the WRONG time.

and here is where the story gets sad.

i was 9 minutes late getting back when i came into T2 and the race director Frank was waiting for me. he said that he was sorry but he couldn't let me go on. i have known Frank since i did the inaugural race 3 races ago and he knows i always struggle here. i really thought he was kidding.

i had worked so hard to get up the hills into transition and i just stared at him waiting on him to say, "just kidding, go girl and kick some course butt"..but he didn't. i just stood there. then i said "you are kidding, right?" and he said, "no". and i said, "but i made the cutoff" and he said, "no you didn't", and i said, "well, when was it?" and he said, "5". and my watch said it was 5:09.

i was absolutely devastated. i couldn't even respond, i could only stare at him. but he said he had to take my chip, so i grudgingly handed it over like it was a dream sequence. i have NEVER not made a cut off (altho i have always come close here) and i asked if i could go on to do the marathon since i was not thru and i KNEW i could do it in under 17 hours...i don't recall Frank's response, but i don't recall hearing NO. my friend Blaine said he had been fearing this as he waited and he wondered how i would handle it...guess i passed.

and to make matters worse, i had been chosen by the film crew to be interviewed for a show they are making for NBC on the silverman race to be aired later this year. i guess my race resume of pure-extreme-athletic-nuttiness made me stand out. and Spencer, my new friend, was there to capture MY FAILURE on the camera and i was so taken aback with the news that i teared up a bit since i literally could not believe this was happening and i was "interviewed" saying, thru tears, that "i came here to do 3 ironmans in 3 weeks and i was going to do it!" and so i, with my head still not wrapped around "this failure", headed off to the changing tent....

but in all my chaos, i grabbed the wrong bag (84 and not 64) and tried to go into the men's tent. i was directed into the right tent and came back out when i opened the bag and wondered why there were different clothes in it...so Spencer was right there and helped me find the right bag and back inside i went. i made the same "bib" mistake again as i took my jersey off and put some long sleeve underarmor on over my arm warmers cuz it was really cold out and then realized i had to take my shirt off again to get the bibs off since i did not want to run in them...and then put on my compression socks and shoes and put my vest back on and got ready to head out.

there was a young girl who walked in the tent when i was in there and she had tears on her face too. i asked what happened and she told me that she too had missed the bike cut off by 2 minutes. (Blaine later told me she was also devastated when she came in and threw her helmet down...guess i missed that option) i told her that she was still an ironman waiting to happen and to lace up and come out with me. i thought maybe she would, but i headed out and never saw her again.

Blaine was waiting and he was kind enuff to accompany me for the long hours ahead. i drank my red bull and was quite cold but just started running. i ran the down hills and the straight aways and then walked the uphills. it is a 2 looped course that i have done 3 other times - though always with positive results. i felt like a fraud out there since i had been "banished" from the race for the inability to do things in the time constraints...

but i knew i could do a sub 6 hour marathon to get in under 17, so that is just what i did. there were no heroic attempts to run up hills or run faster or pass people or anything. i just tired to remember why i loved ironmans and why i loved seeing new places, meeting new people and putting myself to athletic tests. and maybe learning something new about myself....and so i did.

i encouraged folks along the way, thanked the volunteers and tried not to feel too chagrined when others would encourage me - as i still felt like a silverman fraud -- even tho i had done it 3 other times successfully (which i had to keep reminding myself). i saw Spencer at the rock quarry on the course and tried to be upbeat Susan but i was still feeling sorry for myself a bit and still disappointed in what was clearly mine to have thrown away. he said he would see me at the finish and i knew he was a man of his word. therefore, i would be a woman of mine.

i ran when i could and walked really fast when i couldn't. i really appreciated Blaine's company and liked showing off the silverman course to him...esp. the views of the strip as you came back down the big long hill after the little quarry out and back.

we made the turn around and headed out to do the 2nd loop and there was Spencer waiting to cheer me on and get some good stories. we told him that i had passed 2 half iron athletes so i was making good time :) and we chatted a bit before sadly, i had to head on back out.

i was not too hungry so i had only a few gus and some liquids but i skipped many stations as i felt i was not working hard enuff to warrant food. i would finish later regretting this decision as i felt poorly starting at mile 20.

Blaine's hip started bothering him and so on 2 sections, i went it alone and it was one of those sections where i got a little teary again at just how foolish i had been. but i snapped out of it and ran with 2 women that i passed and cheered them on.

Blaine and i ran the little walking path back and ran right thru the finishing chute to make 16:43...and to complete my 3rd ironman distance race in 3 weeks. and i was so glad to see my friend Victor who was kind enuff to come back out near midnight to find his friend who has rocks for brains.

dang you, silverman!!! i shall return victorious!!! see ya next year!