The Race

The timing of my leave coincided with my already scheduled trip to Europe for my first half-Ironman. This was lucky and extremely fortuitous timing, as I was already getting a little anxious about the race.

Due to Spanish elections, my race had to be moved up a day, so I would arrive in Spain only a day before racing. For anyone who has never done a Tri before, this meant I would need to check in to our Air BnB, make sure I had all of my gear in a backpack, head to the race registration, pick up my packet and gear bags, pickup my bike I was renting, get it fitted, and test it out, pack up my gear bags for each event, and then check in my bags and bike. This is A LOT to do in the best of circumstances, but when running on little sleep after sleeping on a plane and traveling for 18 hours, it’s extra special. So, needless to say, it was something I was anticipating, and not necessarily in a good way.

The positive thing was that my leave had provided a week off before I had to leave for the race. This week provided me ample time to ensure I had packed everything I needed, get in all of my taper runs/bikes/swims, and even get a massage! This week was also instrumental in helping me take care of many things I had let sit on the back burner for far too long, the mental to-do list weighing heavy on my mind. If you have ever lost anyone, you will understand that grief is a process, almost like an onion, with many layers that need to be pulled back one by one. The same goes for many of the tactical things that need to occur after someone’s death, things that are many times tightly wound with emotions. And these tasks cannot be accomplished until you’ve processed enough and peeled back enough layers of the onion that these tasks are exposed and ready to be peeled back, too. Also, some of these tasks can only be accomplished my spending many hours during business hours completing them, something that is not easy to do when you’re working these same hours. So, during this week I was able to check off many of these items that had been sitting for almost a year and taking up mind and heart space.

So, with my mind and heart a little lighter, and my bags packed, it was time. I had decided to stay up the night before my flight so that I could a) get on the Spanish timezone, and b) be exhausted enough to sleep on my flight. This may sound like a crazy thing to do - and probably was, but losing that extra day to fight jetlag meant that I HAD to sleep the entirety of the flight if I had any chance of acclimating to the time change quick enough to feel rested on race day. If you know me, you’ll know that I am NOT a night person AT ALL, so this was quite the challenge. I stayed up by running some errands around midnight to get me out of the house, watching all of the Bridget Jones’, and doing a 6:30 AM yoga class. I think I nodded off for about an hour or so, nothing consequential enough to ruin my sleep later in the day. I showed up to the airport a bit of a zombie, and ready to crash, but knowing that I was so close to sleep.

We boarded the flight, and as soon as we were in the air, I put my seat into the flat position, put on my eyeshade, pulled on my blanket, and passed out. I didn’t even wait for dinner to be served, having grabbed something at the airport so I could maximize sleep hours in the air. I had found a deal on a first-class flight when I was booking, so I went ahead and treated myself, knowing that sleep would be crucial before this race. Now that I was on the plane, I just needed everything to go perfectly; we needed our bags to arrive in Madrid, re-check them on a new airline and go through security and make our new flight, and then catch a car from Malaga to Marbella once we landed. This was all pretty tight, but luckily everything went right as scheduled, and before I knew it we were pulling up to our AirBnB, I was dropping my bags, and hopping in a cab with my race gear to head to the race site.

As soon as we pulled up to the race site, I started to get the chills. This was it; 50 weeks of training - of literal blood, sweat, and tears - to get me here. As efficiently as I could, I found the registration table, then went to pick up my bike, get it fitted, and try it out. The bike was a Ventum, which was much nicer than my bike at home, but also had electronic shifting, which I had to get used to. One of my biggest race day fears is getting a flat on the course, but the nice man from France Bike Rentals quickly allayed my fears by explaining that the tires on the bike would auto-seal and inflate if they got a puncture. FANCY!! And, one less thing to worry about. Bike: check. On to the next thing: packing my transition bags and checking in my bike. I got this done as quickly as possible and went to meet up with my friends to stuff my face and go to bed. Oh, yeah. I haven’t mentioned yet my amazing cheerleaders who had made the trip across the pond to support me (and have a little fun after, too). Emily, Britni, and Angie had been scoping out all the spots and already had some tapas on the table ready for me when I sat down, so I didn’t have to waste any time. I took a few bites, and then ran off to get in a quick few mile run just to get my legs moving after the long flight. Luckily, they had picked an outside table right on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean, which made this easy to do. After dinner, we went back to the apartment, I laid everything out that I would need the next morning, and I think I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next thing I knew, my alarm was going off. It was 5AM, and it was race day! In case you’re not familiar with the time zones, 5AM in Marbella is 10PM in Austin, so my body clock was a little off, but my nerves and the excitement of the day had me fully awake. I had met a guy the day before from the UK who was also racing alone, so we shared a car to the race site. It definitely helped to have someone to talk to while waiting for the race to start, because otherwise I would have just been by myself, letting my head and nerves get the best of me. It was a little cold to start - in the low 60s - so we kept moving trying to keep ourselves warm.

It was finally time for the race to start. We watched the Pros take off, and it was amazing. It was my first time watching Pros, and they were so fast, it was inspiring how easy they made it look. Then it was time for us to get in the corrals by our expected swim time, which meant it was time for me to say goodbye to my new friend and walk off alone. Standing in the corral, all alone, is when it really hit me; I am going to do this, all by myself, without Trey by my side. I almost starting crying at this point, but I knew if I started crying, I wouldn’t stop, and a runny nose surely wouldn’t help my breathing in the water, so I held it together. The two women around me - Spaniards - were also racing in their first half-Ironman, so we started chatting, and before I knew it, it was our turn to enter the water. HERE WE GO!!

The first thing that struck me when I got in the water was just how cold it was - the official temp was 67 degrees, I believe, but it felt so much colder. My toes immediately curled up and my breathing tightened. I started to panic a little - I wasn’t breathing normally, and there were so many people around me. However, I had done this before. I started to talk to myself to calm myself down, “count your breaths, you can do this, you have done this so many times before”. Once I started to count my breaths, I started to get into my groove, and that’s when I suddenly realized that the water was COMPLETELY CLEAR. I have never been in a race with clear water, where you can see the people around you; every race in Texas is usually in muddy, brown water where you’re essentially swimming blind except for when you’re coming up and sighting on top of the water. So to be swimming in clear water was a blessing and was GLORIOUS! It was also a beautiful, clear day, with the sun rising and shining and not a cloud in the sky. I settled into my strokes, got my breathing down, and just enjoyed the swim. I was swimming 1.2 miles in a bay off the coast of Spain in the Alboran Sea. I could see probably 30 feet deep. The water was pretty calm, and I had decent buoyancy between my wetsuit and it being saltwater. The next 30 minutes went by so fast, and before I knew it I had rounded the last marker and was headed towards the shore. I had completed the swim in 35 minutes, 24 seconds, even faster than I had expected, and I felt great.

Coming out of the swim with all guys. Clearly I need to work on my transition seeing as how I’m the only one not already removing my wetsuit…

I ran into transition, and this being my first time in a transition setup like this - where all the bags are racked in a separate area from the bikes - I was a little discombobulated. I was having trouble getting everything I needed for my bike out without taking up too much space, and the other women looked intense, so I definitely didn’t want to knock into any of their stuff. This led to my transition taking way longer than it should have - just under 8 minutes - as I headed out on my bike.

The bike was 90km/~55miles, and the first 7 miles or so wound through the city, which was really cool, because the roads were filled with spectators cheering us on. Then we turned and headed up the mountain on the north side of Marbella, and this is where it started to get ugly for me. I guess I accidentally read the meters as feet when I was originally looking at the course, so I was thoroughly unprepared for the climb ahead of me, which was maybe a good thing, because it meant that I had no idea just how long or how high I was going to have to climb. And it was going to be a while. I settled into the climb and just pushed and watched person after person pass me. It turned out to be about 300m of nonstop climb over about 4 miles, a slight downhill, and then another 250m of climb over ~3 miles. To top it off, I was having issues with my straw for my hydration that was on my bike, causing me to slightly panic. This was because my hydration wasn’t just water but also contained calories that were crucial in ensuring I wouldn’t bonk when I got to my run. I knew there would be rest stops, so I decided to just tough out the climb and stop at the first stop to try to fix the straw and get some water and nutrition. I also started to look around me at the scenery, because I’m not sure what else you are supposed to do when you are on a bike going 9 miles an hour. I was on the side of a mountain, biking through a forest. Then, the forest opened up, and I could see straight out to the ocean. It was really quite magnificent. It was in this moment, despite the pain, despite the climb, despite the fact that I wasn’t even halfway done with my race, that I knew I would make it. I was overwhelmed with gratitude - to Trey, for introducing me to the sport, to my friends for traveling with me to support me, to my body for being able to compete, for having the financial resources to even be there in the first place - and I knew that feeling would help push me through.

So I stopped at the first stop, grabbed water and a banana and hopped back on my bike. I had made it past the longest and steepest part of the climb, but it was far from over. In total, I climbed 4,820 ft of elevation, or almost a mile. Looking back, I definitely could have been more prepared, but no matter what, it would have been pretty hard to train for that sort of elevation in Austin. I ended up having to stop two more times because I never could get my straw to work consistently, which really slowed me down. And, since it was an out and back you would think I would be able to make up a lot of time by picking up speed on the downhill coming back, but there was a very strong crosswind, so I was afraid to go too fast. I hit a max speed of 39.4 miles per hour, which if you have never gone that fast on a bike, it feels like you are flying. But, other people were still flying past me! It was crazy, because I was legitimately scared going that fast, and slowed myself down. As we rode back into town, there were even more spectators, getting me super excited to know that I was so close, and feeling pretty good, despite the longer and harder than expected bike. I ended up finishing the bike in 3 hours, 55 minutes, 49 seconds, average 14.1 miles/hr, which was worse than what I had targeted, but not bad given the elevation.

On the bike course, somewhere flat

I made it into transition, racked my bike, and ran towards the bags to get my running gear on. I ended up taking a little longer in transition than I planned yet again, because I ended up eating a little here since I did not get quite the calories I expected on the bike due to the malfunctioning straw. Total time in transition: 5 minutes, 54 seconds.

And then I was off on the final leg, the run, a 13.1 mile half marathon, 2 loop course along the water. It had started to heat up a little, and was probably in the high 70s now, but there was a nice ocean breeze coming off the water that kept it from getting to hot. The course was pretty much completely flat, which was exactly what my legs needed after that ride. I settled into a comfortable rhythm pretty quickly and just began to take in all the sights and sounds, all the “Vamos” and “You’ve got this”. There were so many people there shouting encouragement, it felt so good and was so fun. There was music, laughter, dancing. It just felt so alive. In what seemed like no time at all I was on to my second lap, and I knew exactly what lay ahead. I knew I could do it, and I felt good. I finished my run in a pretty respectable half-marathon time of 2 hours 7 minutes 31 seconds, averaging about 9:45 min/miles. I’ll take it.

When I saw the finish line ahead, I sprinted, knowing that I had done it. I had wanted to break down at so many points throughout the race and start crying because it was so overwhelming and Trey should have been there, but I held it together. But as I crossed the finish line, I just started sobbing, to the point that I was hyperventilating. A couple of people ran over to me and asked if I was ok and if I needed medics, and I started focusing on my breathing and said no, I was ok. I’m sure they thought I was having issues because of the physical challenge I had just put my body through, but this was entirely mental. My final time came in just under the 7 hour goal I had set for myself: 6 hours, 52 minutes, 34 seconds.

Sprinting to the finish

I am so grateful for the opportunity to have completed a half-Ironman, especially in such a beautiful location as Marbella, Spain. If you are considering a destination race, I highly recommend this one. Everyone always says that once you complete a half you will itch to do a full, and as of now, I have zero desire to do a full. I will, however, do more halves. In fact, I just signed up for the Mallorca 70.3 in May 2020 - who’s coming?!