SaturdayI got to Santa Cruz around 12:30 pm, picked up my bib packet at the tiny expo and proceeded to check into the Dream Inn. After loading all my crap into the room, I changed into my swim gear and met the team for a short swim at the pier. The hot temperature in Santa Cruz must have been mid 80's and I really didn't want to wear the wetsuit. I'm glad Coach Paul made us do so. The ocean was absolutely freezing. We swam for about 15 minutes. I went back to the hotel to get my bike and did 10 minutes of riding on our own with Melissa and Christine. We were also told to do a 10 minute run, but I skipped it. Instead I spent the time laying out everything as I would at transition and then packed it all up. Then it was time for the pasta party for some mediocre food and then walked down the pier with my teammates as they all wanted ice cream. Since i'm lactose, I didn't want to kill my roommate, Eddy in the middle of his sleep. I got a cookie instead. During the walk back I couldn't help to think that the pier was super long and we had to swim around it tomorrow? I went to bed at 9:30 pm
SundayI woke up at 1:00 am to the sounds of sea lions and crashing waves. I tossed and turned for about 30 minutes until I went back to sleep. I woke up at 4:30 am with morning wake-up call following 4 minutes later. Took a shower and got all my crap ready. We met the team at the lobby at 5:50 am and walked in the dark with my headlamp to the transition area. When we got there, it was extremely packed. I walked in and who do I see marking people? It was T! My first thoughts were why are you here this early and why do you have a marker? Anyhoot, I got T to mark me up. It felt like good luck.
I found a spot for my bike and took everything out. As I was laying all the gear I was getting pretty nervous. I took out a piece of colored chalk and drew a big fat arrow so I would know which isle my bike was in. I proceeded to walk down the beach with teammates Melissa and Chrissy and that's when I saw my amazing cheer crew. Thank you Claudia, Rocky, Olivia, Deb, and Lisa. We then continued to walk to the beach to the start. There I saw the rest of my awesome cheer crew. Thank you to Linds, Monica, and Merla. After some instructions from the race director it was time to start.
Am I really doing this?The first wave (green cap) went first. Five minutes later at 7:12 am, it was my wave (orange cap). Three, two, one and I ran into the water and dove in. Surprisingly I wasn't trampled on during the scramble in the beginning. There was some people swimming next to me, but that's the extent of the craziness. As soon as I looked up, the speedsters in my wave were pulling away from me. That was fine. I kept telling myself, this is my race and i'm gonna enjoy it dammit! I used those speedsters to sight because I figured they probably knew where to go. Before I knew it, I was already past the pier. Unfortunately there was another buoy further away. As I made the turn, the waters were very choppy. I felt like I was going nowhere. Meanwhile it was demoralizing to see people in yellow and red swim caps passing me up.
my wave (orange caps)The swim back to the shore felt like forever. As I got nearer, I could hear the cheering (even with my ear plugs) and when I could swim no more, I stood up and proceeded to run, albeit being in a slightly dizzy state. I ran up the ramp, got some water, and saw my kick-ass cheering crew and a little further saw my family going nuts. Thank you dad, mom, sis & BIL. I saw Captain Anthea and she pointed to wear my sandals were. I finished the 1.2 mile swim in 45:34, which was a 37:58 mile. Much improvement from my last mile swim.
I put on my sandals and somehow jogged with them all the way back to transition. As I got there, I hear "Phil" and it was Carol! I was surprised and thrilled to see her there. I entered transition and saw many competitors jump into two inflatable kiddy pools to clean off their sandy feet. I was already protected by swim booties so I instead went straight to change. My T1 time ended up taking 6:56.
running into T1 (still wet)As I exited T1, I immediately had to climb a hill. My family was midway up the hill cheering me on very enthusiastically.
going up the hill after T1At the top of the hill was again my awesome cheer crew going bananas and a little past them was my wonderful teammates screaming their heads off. I made it through the residential streets fine. I was feeling great. Then I hit the Highway 1 stretch. Nothing but headwinds going out. However, it didn't seem to affect all the supreme athletes in their time trial helmets passing me on the left on their nifty aero'd out tri bikes. My thought was how are they only now passing me?
The ride course consisted of mostly large rolling hills. The ride out was extremely foggy. There were parts of the ride where we had sun breaks, but it was mostly fog. I had to constantly wipe the moisture of my sunglasses to see. Sometimes that didn't help as it was just too foggy. So foggy in fact that I ran over a tree bark because I couldn't see it. I thought for sure I was going to get a flat. No flat, although later in the ride I stopped to check my tires and my rear tire seemed to have loss some air. I contemplated just letting all the air out and shooting it up with CO2, but didn't want to take the chance if I did get a flat later.
At mile 12 I ripped the wrapper of my Clif Bar only to have the bar itself fly onto the street. I was going to be abandon it, but (1) that is considered littering and I could possibly be time penalized for that (2), I needed that Clif Bar for my bike nutrition. I waited for some cyclists to ride by (thankfully not ride over it) and ate it. Yes nasty, but I needed the food. At the second water bottle exchange, I pulled over so I can reload my cytomax powder into the water bottle. Unfortunately, I was a victim of a ride by. I got pelted on the calf by a half filled water bottle from a rider exchanging his bottles. The volunteer said I should keep going because it's a "battle zone here". No kidding.
By mile 22 I was not feeling the ride. It was dragging. I looked at the top of my bento box where I had placed a picture of Brenda on it and placed the "H" tag for Deb's dad, Henry who passed away from Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia at the beginning of this season. I told myself to just keep pedaling. By mile 26, I hit the turnaround at exactly 2 hours. That was longer than what I had predicated. Fortunately, I knew the ride back had the tailwind, so the possibility of finishing the bike under 4 hours was very likely. Being on the bike for so long was very lonely. I spent some time looking at the pic of Brenda and started talking to her. The bike ride had some ups and downs. There would be one moment when I felt great and then a low. Regardless I kept telling myself to take in everything because this may be the only time i'd do this.
By mile 40, I had enough of the bike. I stopped frequently to stretch out my lower back which was aching. Around mile 50, it got a little sad because I could see all the supreme athletes doing their run since part of the run course was parallel with Highway 1. Mile 53, I turned back into the residential areas and made the final turn towards transition.
There were my awesome teammates, friend cheer crew, and family cheering me on, right where I needed them. I finished the 56 mile bike ride in 3:46:50 (14.8 mph), which was probably 16 minutes longer than what I had hoped for.
T2I dismounted and walked my bike into transition. The bike to run change was fairly quick, but I stopped to do some hip and hamstring stretches. They were way tight. I hung around T2 for 2:56.
Run 2 sports down and 1 to go! I was feeling great and knew I was going to finish. I ran up the same hill I rode for the bike and there was my family telling me how proud they were. Then I passed my friends and teammates.
high-fivin' East Bay TRI crew
About half mile into the run, my quads were cramping really bad as a result of the bike. The cramping pain was equivalent to my quad cramping experience at Grizzly Peak Century, which was horrifyingly bad. I tried walking, but it hurt to even walk. I was frightened because I had 12 miles to go. I was officially in panic mode. Did my not visualizing the run during the week actually come to fruition? If I couldn't walk, how was I going to finish? I did the swim and the bike only to be forced to quit on the run? I didn't think so.
Quick thinking I reached for the salt tablet I packed because in my mind, cramps = need more salt. I typically don't even carry salt tablets, but decided last minute to pack it. I popped one in. Meanwhile, I was convincing myself I still had to try to run and hope for the best. I was probably jogging at a snail's pace, but it felt a lot more comfortable than trying to walk. I just remembered what the coaches taught me at track when tiring. That was to focus on form and just drop the foot directly down to the ground. Amazingly I still got through the first mile in about 11 minutes. Then I got to the second mile at around 22 minutes total time. By the third mile, I knew the cramps had gone away, but I was still being cautious. There was no need to try get a half marathon PR. I was happy with 11 minute miles. The new plan was to run as much as I could, take a short 30 second walking break mid-mile, walk through the water stops, and another 30 second walk after reaching a mile marker. Coach Paul did mention at our pre-race talk that we had to be flexible on the fly during the race. So as you can see I just made something up when things were looking bad. I didn't care. As long as I was able to keep moving that was a good sign.
All the while I was taking GU every :00 and :30 of the hour, and drinking Cytomax every :15 and :45 of the hour. By mile 6, I was taking a lot more walking breaks; however, each walking break was never longer than 30 seconds because I knew if I walked longer, I would be ultimately walking the rest of the race, which I didn't want to do. With the run being an out and back, I was lightened up everytime I saw a teammate of mine and every "GO TEAM!" really got me through the run. I did some talking with some of the other runners, but it didn't last long as I would pass them up or they would pass me up. By mile 9, it seemed like every few minutes I was taking a 30 second walking break.
I reached mile 10 and told myself it's just a 5k from here. At that I point I knew I was going to finish and was trying to do math in my head. I knew I was not going to break 7 hours total, but I was fine with that. I also knew I was going to be under 8 hours. I was reflecting on the overall experience and realized I had fun. If I kept whatever pace I was at, I knew I was going to be under 2:45 half marathon time, which I was going to gladly take. By mile 12 I could see the boardwalk from Sea Cliff and I was stoked that in a mere 11 minutes or so I was going to see everyone at the finish line.
I made my way down past the Dream Inn, cheered by other TNT support crew, and made it to the sand on the beach. I ran down to the compact sand and went underneath the pier. Then I had no clue where to run because kids were playing with the sand and families were laying out on the beach. I ran wherever I could and kept my eye on the finish line.
towards the finshI then saw and heard Captain Janet let out a big scream. My teammates high-fived me to the turn for the finish. I immediately saw my cheer crew, my family, and then finish line. I was high-stepping it because it was difficult to run in the soft sand. I heard my name as I crossed the finish and could not believe it was finally over. I finished the 13.1 mile run in 2:33:21 (11:42/mile) and finished the entire 70.3 mile race with an official time of 7:15:40. Best of all, I had a fun time.
the finish
Many thanks to my friends, family, generous donors (over $3000 raised!), those who cheered me on race day, those who sent me e-mail, phone and text messages, and last but not least all those who have impacted my life since I first stepped foot into that first TNT info meeting back in '05. It's because of all of you, i'm a half ironman and a TNT triple crowner!
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Fundraising Thanks!
Thank you to
Kat,
Ray, and
Cheryl!
