Race reports are supposed to be an honest evaluation of what worked and what didn't. After this weekend, I'm not sure I can be honest with myself, but here goes.
I never did get excited about doing this race. I was excited to go, but not to race. The week before was scheduling mess. I only ran 6 miles and swam for 1hr total. That's it. My nutrition was random and unplanned. The day before the race was also a contributing factor, because for the ride down I did not eat or drink much. I was tired and too worried about what went on around me to take care of myself.
The icing on the cake was the race delay. A one hour wait on the beach in the rain in a wetsuit left me tired from shivering (btw, why am I always so cold?), hungry, and thirsty. By the time I hit the turn-around buoy my left arm quit pulling and just swept under me uselessly. I started swimming crooked, which contributed to my lackluster time of 47 or so minutes. I did manage to shake most of that off for the bike and held on to a lackluster pace of just under 19mph. Even with that stupid water rack coming loose 2 times, even with the rain, and even with the crappy roads. But reality really came crashing down on the run. I was shot my mile 2. I managed to hold a slower than expected pace between aid stations, but I had to force myself to run between those aid stations. I just kept thinking 'get to the next aid station, then take a rest'. Then the next station, then the next station. My body kept finding excuses to quit: my feet hurt, my head hurt, my chest felt squeezed, my breathing more of a wheezing. The road went on forever, what I thought was a mile was only a few tenths. The only way I could finish was to divorce mind and body, so that's what I did. I focused only on reaching the club tent and seeing the tribe. What an exhilaration to finally see them! But then I stopped when I reached them, came to walk, and really didn't care if I finished.
After I did cross the line, the volunteers apparently took one look at me and saw the truth I refused to see. I couldn't even focus to reach the tent pole to lean on, so someone grabbed my arm. I tried to wrestle away only to have another volunteer grab my other arm. Soon thereafter I was on my back, head down, and feet up with people saying my pulse was thready. Not a good place to be.
What was the real problem though? I did not want to get stuck in the med tent, I viewed that as a sign of weakness. In fighting back, lying to appear normal, and trying to get released, I delayed my treatment by maybe 20-30 minutes. True, I might have eventually collapsed at the club tent (and that would have been WORSE), but I honestly thought I was fine! I had no sense of my condition. I'm supposed to know myself, how I tick, and how I respond to training demands and challenges. Complete self-recognition fail.
Even now as I work through today I'm able come up with reasons I would have been OK on my own. I think to myself that "oh after any race I probably need 1-2L of fluid so I really didn't need 4.3L". I'm thinking of ways to make this a joke, and I'm more worried about what others think of me as an athlete, instead of thinking about how I had trouble staying coherent. Remembering my name being yelled and my face being slapped as they tried to get me to open my eyes should be enough to stop the above line of thought. I need to quit acting like I feel fine (I don't, I feel like I've been through HELL). I need to accept what happened, recover, and learn from it.
I had an awful race at Redman, I know that, but I shouldn't see it as a failure. This had to happen before IMWI, not during it or during the training that I'm planning for. My race planning can be lazy for a sprint or Olympic, but not for a 70.3 and certainly not for a 140.6! Take home lessons? Listen to your body, it sends warning signals for a reason. Take care of yourself and don't ignore your needs. And when a medical professional says you need help, trust him. He might be right. If I can learn from this, it won't be a failure.
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