Half Finished Half-Ironman
For the last five months, I’ve been training for an Ironman 70.3 event and missing out on a lot of social events and fun times because I have been so tired. I am truly relieved to have some time away from thinking about the race, beating myself up about missing a training session here and there, and feeling like if I don’t get my diet exactly perfect (and trust me, it was far from perfection) that things would fall apart.
I am ready for a break from triathlon. I have even been thinking that maybe this past weekend’s race in Santa Cruz would be my last.
You may be thinking “Hey, Maya, you HAVE been talking non-stop for the past few months about all the training you did for the half-ironman in Santa Cruz this past weekend and even went as far as to post a pre-race photo. So … how did it go?”
That’s valid. I’ve been relaxing in the comfort of friends the last couple of days instead of posting about my 70.3 experience. The truth is I’m afraid to show my face.
I did not complete the race.
I was overly confident. Mistakes were made. Luck was not on my side.
From my perspective, almost everything seemed to be mostly going pretty well up until the night before the race. And despite persistence through each problem that presented itself, another one would pop up. Some of these things just happened because of inexperience with longer race distances and travel-racing. Some of these things came because of blinding optimism.
So it basically started two weeks ago when I found out the bike shop was not going to be able to package my bike for shipping. In the past, shops have packed or reassembled my bike within a day of the service request. So I waited until three days before the anticipated ship date, and brought my bike in. Well, apparently, Labor Day weekend is a very popular time of year and most shops had a 10–14 day wait. But the guy at the bike shop was nice, gave me a box and some packaging he was going to throw out from a bike he assembled, and sent me on my way home. Good thing I didn’t wait until the last second 😬
You can imagine the sinking feeling in my heart as I realized I was going to have to learn how to disassemble and ship my bike on my own via YouTube videos and hope that nothing was damaged in transit right before the biggest race of my life so far.
Besides having no idea what I was doing, there was another problem with assembling my bike at home — I didn’t have any tools with me. Because home, for the moment, was an AirBnB in Seattle, far away from most of my possessions, which were in a storage locker in Richmond, CA. All my bike tools, save for my very basic 8-piece multitool, were in storage.
But the next day I tried my best to follow the instructions in the videos. I panicked multiple times along the way:
- Realizing only one wheel on my bike had an RWS lever (a small handle you can attached to a bolt on a through-axle to unscrew it and remove your tire). Though I later found out the lever itself could be removed and transferred to the other tire.
- Realizing I didn’t have a T25 wrench to undo my stem and remove my handlebars, because in the time since I last adjusted my handlebars myself I switched from the manufacturer’s stem on my bike (which used hex bolts) to a slightly longer stem (which used torx). I later went to REI and got a more comprehensive multitool.
- Realizing I had lost the little plastic spacers for my disc brakes and worrying that at any moment my bike might start to fall over and I would grab it by the brake handle and then not be able to get the brake pads back open because hydraulics. I just folded up some cardboard and shoved it in, hoping for the best.
- Realizing how fragile my rear derailleur was when not actually screwed onto the frame and hoping it didn’t get ripped off of the only thing holding it on — a tiny braided cable. Just taped on a big wad of bubble wrap and prayed.
- Realizing there was no hope for being able to get the disc rotors removed from the wheels. They were metal, so it was probably fine, right? No chance they will get bent or anything like that.
And the real kicker.
- Realizing there was no chance the pedals were coming off.
This last one was the real concern. The frame would likely not fit into the box at all if the pedals were still attached, and even if it did, it would be challenging to fit both wheels in and actually shut the box without compromising the structural integrity of the box and the pedals/cranks themselves.
Did I mention I had waited until the last second? I realized while disassembling my bike that the UPS store I was going to drop my bike at was not open on the weekend, and today was Friday. That meant I could not finish this tomorrow. This bike needed to be at UPS by 5pm today, no exceptions.
So I struggled for over an hour to loosen either of the pedals. Having no bike stand, I tried holding and bracing the bike in every position, even going as far as trying to find a makeshift hammer to pound on my multitool. It wouldn’t budge. I was trying really hard to keep the panic under control because I had already convinced myself that my packaging job would be so bad that my bike would be destroyed and all my dreams of completing the race would be crushed.
But as I inched closer to 4:30pm, I realized that this was my fate. So I used the very technical shove-shove method to fit all the parts into the box, which was now oddly shaped and bowed on both sides, and used about 50 pieces of tape to secure the top of the box closed. At some point, there’s just nothing more you can do.
The day before the race I was feeling pretty calm. I arrived in Santa Cruz early in the day, took my time at the expo, athlete check in, meetings, bike assembly. I actually ate a huge treat — french toast — for the first time in months. I looked over the course. Things were good. There was a small technical detail, which was the transition are was about 1/4 mile from the swim exit. I wasn’t sure if the swim time stopped once you exited the water or when you got to the transition area.
This was actually a non-trivial point. In an olympic-distance race I completed about a month ago, I tried to stay at a comfortable pace and received a bafflingly high time on the swim section, despite it being in a lake. At the pace I had gone then, I would be disqualified. So I spent the weeks in between trying new swim techniques to bring my time down. I successfully (surprisingly!) cut about six minutes off my time in the pool. Even so, pool time is not an exact estimate of how long it would take to complete this distance in the race. Other factors, like currents and tides, wind, etc, come into play and affect how well you do. I was still dangerously close to the 70 minute cut off time for the swim leg of the race.
And wetsuit strip and a quarter mile run after an intense hour-long swim in the ocean was probably going to take me four minutes or so. Four minutes is an eternity in race time. It could be a large enough difference to put my into DNF territory.
Back at my hotel, I spent the rest of the afternoon video chatting with friends to try and keep myself distracted keep my spirits high for the next day. A few hours went by, and everything was rosy. I thought.
As I talked to Nipunn on the phone, I realized I had been subconsciously stretching and massaging my right arm for a while. That’s weird. There was a little twinge there, on the inside of my elbow, only on one side. It never was there before. I hadn’t even exercised that day, and had taken it extremely light the day prior.
And, oh, did that sneaky little mind spiral come on.
Oh no. Is this tendonitis? How can that be right? I have barely even used my arm at all the past few days. Maybe it was because I was laying down weirdly last night for a few minutes in that weird position. Maybe it was because I had to drag my bike down a few blocks to get it assembled. Yea, that’s probably what it was. I’m sure this is going to go back to normal in a few minutes. Heh. Heh. Oh god, if it doesn’t go away by tomorrow I might not be able to swim. Nooooo. Ugh that would be so unfair and such a dumb way to not complete the race. No. No. No. No. I can’t let that happen. Ok I’m going to try and straighten my arm out. EEEEEE, oh my god. No. That doesn’t work anymore. Maybe I can swim with my arm just kinda slightly bent the whole time. I mean it’s bent most of the time anyway. Not sure about how an overhead bent-arm recovery stroke would go though. Ok, maybe I’ll lay face down on the bed and try it out just to see. Hmm, there’s still a pinch, but maybe it’s just tight because I’m freaking out. You got this, Maya. Just force it to relax. Relax relax relax. You’re panicking, this is so ridiculous. You’re going to feel so stupid when you wake up tomorrow and it’s totally fine…
So I tried to keep judging myself about freaking out so much to keep myself in check. I went to Whole Foods and bought $30 worth of Urban Remedy so I could eat something that would make me feel good about myself and stay distracted. Two hours went by. I took ibuprofen and iced my arm. I lied to myself and said I knew it would be better in the morning.
At 1am, I woke up. My arm was killing me in any position I could sleep in that didn’t involve laying my arm on top of my body so it didn’t bear any of its own weight at all.
The spiral set back in. I spent the next hour googling instant remedies for golfer’s elbow and freestyle swimming alternatives. I spent the next hour reading answers to a co-housing questionnaire my friends had filled out to determine if we were compatible roommates while pushing on every knot on the right side of my body between my neck and my wrist. I took an ibuprofen. I tensed my jaw. I fell asleep again around 3am.
My alarm went off at 4am, but I was already awake. I was feeling dread. I ate breakfast with my left hand. I took an ibuprofen. I iced my arm. It felt futile. I already had the feeling that all my time leading up to the race was wasted. Although I wasn’t optimistic, I committed to going down to the water and putting my wetsuit on like any other race day. If all I could do was let my right arm hang and swim with my left, then that was the shot I was going to give. I could barely even get my sweatshirt on, how was I going to swim over a mile? As I walked the 15 minutes to the beach, I gently stretched my arm. I stretched it straight down. I stretched it out to the side. I stretched it up. I rolled my shoulders around.
I wasn’t going down without a fight.
The ocean water was 60° F. The coldest I ever swam in so far. Even with a wetsuit on, which is mandatory at this temperature, I can’t escape the cold. I can barely breathe the first time I put my face in the water. After the second time, it feels like all the skin on my face is on fire with icy flames and my teeth are going to fall out of my head.
My strategy was to bob around on the surface, without moving for a while. Flood my wetsuit a little more. Go face down for a moment and come back up.
Playing in the water by spinning around like this feels like floating, like flying. The combination of cold water, neoprene, and salt makes me basically weightless in comparison to pool swimming.
It’s calming.
There is no parallel to the clearness I can have in the slow movement in water during the early morning hours before a race. Somehow that moment makes all the anxiety melt away.
And it’s not clear if it’s that calm or the chill of the water that makes me completely forget about my right arm for the first time in 12 hours.
At the start line I’m jumpy, but not because I’m nervous. It’s because I dunked myself in frigid water and then stood on the windy beach for 35 minutes, waiting for my turn.
The guy on the microphone says that we must be the party group since we’re going for a slower time. That means we have to smile. I smirk, knowing even a comment like that can’t shake my serenity.
My race started at 7:35am.
Salt water tastes very bad. Worse than I remember. It always tastes worse than I remember. One of the worst things about racing is the taste and feeling in your mouth from the ocean does not come out no matter how much you eat or drink for the rest of the day.
I endure the salt water and the punches of the guy who continues to race past me to the next buoy, only to hold on there for a while and fall behind me. He will then race past me, punching and kicking away. This will continue for all 13 buoys on the swim course, despite the fact the legal swim lane is several meters wide.
About 85% of the way through the swim course I am overwhelmed by emotions, which sometimes happens when I’m racing. There is something about not wanting to be defeated. There is something about wanting to earn a respectable time. I swim twice as fast. I get punched again. I continue to ignore it and swim at a steady pace until my feet are back on the beach.
I guess the swim clock stopped at the edge of the sand. Volunteers help me peel my wetsuit off. I jogged down to transition in a wobbly fashion while still trying to stabilize my legs and steady my head. My first transition took twelve minutes, but I didn’t know it at the time.
When I came out of transition, it was 8:41am. I made it through the swim section with a legal time. I swallowed my small triumph and raced off on my bike.
BUPFFssssssssssssssssss …
Nooooooooooooo! I literally cried out as soon as I heard my tire pop about 10 miles into the bike course. I worried it was the kiss of death for me.
You see, for all the time I spend on my bike, I am not actually proficient at changing tires. In fact, I never previously changed a tire tube without assistance from someone else.
I consciously breathed. I just kept repeating “You know how to do this. You know how to do this. This is fine. It will only be five minutes”. I only had one tube. I only had one chance to get it right.
No pressure, right?
For each step in the tube changing process, I said out loud what I was supposed to do and what common pitfalls were, like I was the narrator on some weird brainwashing video about bikes.
Take the tire off.
Find what punctured it, and remove. Otherwise, you might immediately get another flat.
Are you fucking kidding? A rusty staple. Going long ways. Into my tire. What are the chances a STAPLE, among the flatest of debris on the side of the road, would end up LONG WAYS in my tire?
Unscrew the nut securing the valve.
Open the valve and remove any left over air.
Tire lever one.
Tire lever two.
Flip them in unison.
Remove one bead from the rim.
Remove old tube.
Insert old tube, inflate slightly to keep it in place.
Double, triple check the tube is completely inside the tire.
Tire lever, flip back on the rim. Don’t catch the tube or you’ll get a pinch flat and it’ll all be over.
Tire lever, flip. Tire lever, flip.
Make sure none of the tube is visible, or it’ll get pinched when you reinflated.
Oh shit, there’s some sticking out here.
Maybe I can shove shove shove that little bit under. Ugh, I hope that’s good enough.
Change CO2 canister.
Inflate halfway so the tube and tire can negotiate for space without exploding.
POPPOP … POPPOPPOPPOP ... POP.
Hope that’s just reseating. Check if there’s a leak.
Finish dispensing remaining CO2 cartridge.
Close valve.
Replace tire on frame.
Wait, … what?
Hadn’t my rear derailleur been attached when I started the race? I realized that I never actually checked it after my bike was assembled. Of course, I assumed the bike tech had done a stellar job. And, to that point, I think they had because I’d been shifting gears up until that point.
Another race participant riding up from behind asked if I was ok and all I could say was “I honestly don’t know” as they continued to ride past without any intention of actually stopping to help.
I frantically looked around for the missing bolt and screw. The bolt was nowhere to be found. The screw was hanging loosely onto the frame, doing nothing, completely stripped.
I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I was fumbling and trying to get the derailleur and screw in place. If I could just get it in position, I could at least try to keep them together somehow without the bolt. I had some chews in my jersey I might be able to use to glue it in place? Maybe the extra rubber band from the tube I just changed?
Sweaty, persistent, busted tire tube around my neck. I hear someone call out from behind me if I needed help. It was someone running?
I turned around and as if sent from the heavens above, a roving bike mechanic stood before me. Jason maintained a very calm demeanor while he took my bike to his van and replaced the missing bolt and useless screw.
He even gave me a little push to get me going when it was all said and done.
I don’t wear a watch when I race because it stresses me out. Now, not having a watch was stressing me out. Jason told me it was 10am by the time I got back on my bike. Doing some quick mental math, I had probably been stopped for 30–35 minutes.
I didn’t know if I could eat that much time.
I was so far behind that no one was coming up behind me and passing anymore. There was no one to ask how much time had gone by.
The first half of the bike course in the Santa Cruz 70.3 is primarily uphill and is most notably characterized by a constant, blasting headwind. It was hard to feel that I was going slower than I needed to average if I was going to make it back to the transition area on time.
My stomach was queasy, my lungs were on fire, the sun was blazing in the cloudless sky.
I maintained my pace.
I regretted that I didn’t have any plain water because I had foolishly chosen to fill both my bottles with gatorade. I didn’t need more electrolytes. I could tell by the way my taste buds rejected salty overpowering sweet taste.
I regretted choosing to wear my long sleeved running shirt, which I chose to prevent chafing between my upper arm and my arm pit. I didn’t realize the addition of salt water would cause chafing between the tech shirt and my inner elbows during a multi-hour ride, though in retrospect I probably should have.
I regretted the decision to wear my running shirt again, because it did not have a built in bra, and the sports bra I had chosen was slightly too tight, restricting my breathing and digestion just enough to make me feel I was on the verge of throwing up or passing out for a large portion of the ride. I mitigated this by occasionally using a hand to pull it away from the front of my body while I rode.
As I came to the biggest hill on the course, I groaned and cursed. I remembered what Jenny told me: that I had to keep things in perspective and that it was a treasure to have the ability and luxury to attempt this race. I tried to believe it.
When I hit that turn around, I immediately started flying. When you do something physical, there’s a point when it’s easy to tell you are booking it.
And I was booking it. If the way out was uphill with a headwind, the return course was downhill with a tail wind. Nothing could stop me.
About halfway back, I went past one of those speed signs that tells you how fast you’re driving. I was going 24 miles per hour on a flat road at that point with no sign of slowing down.
There’s something empowering about flying like that. It makes me want to just push a little harder for a little longer. The output of every pedal stroke contributes a meaningful, perceptible bit to the maintenance or increase of speed.
I didn’t even stop at either of the last two rest stops because I had no idea what time it was and didn’t know how close to the cut off I was. I hoped I still had a chance.
The anticlimactic nature of my return to the transition area was extremely disorienting. There was a truck parked on the course in the bikeway, the driver of the truck was taking down barriers. A random person without a name tag and three or four rolls of tape around his wrist like bracelets took my timing chip off without saying anything to me when I got to the gate.
I said “That’s it?”. He just said “827”, my bib number, and walked away.
I wasn’t going to have a chance to attempt the running leg on the race.
I cried. It was that kind of crying that feels like a layer on top of your regular self. Like you can kind of peel it off at times and stop the sadness if you try really hard and pretend to be dead inside. I asked a random guy who had already completed the race what time it was. He said it was just before 1:30pm.
I missed my personal cut off by about 20 minutes.
As I walked back to my hotel room, I lamented how unfair it felt. I hated how the last 5 months of my life had been wasted on training instead of something else. It all felt useless and meaningless.
If only I had not suffered mechanical failure, I could have had a chance!
But at some point during those 15 minutes, I also felt that if I had trained a little harder, maybe I could have eaten the time debt I accrued — that being within 10–15 minutes of my own personal cut off was cutting it too close, and I’d left too much to chance by training with the mindset that pacing myself was better.
Although you might expect that would make me feel worse, it didn’t. It made me feel a lot better. It took away the sense of having been dealt an injustice, and not having control. It meant there was something I could do to change the outcome next time.
Unexpectedly, owning that failure made me engaged and motivated me to try harder instead of attributing responsibility to some force that was “other” in a way that made me unaccountable. It felt powerful. It was soothing.
So, although there were almost-intolerable moments along the way, and the resulting DNF was frustrating, I’m not as emotionally destroyed as you might think I would be from living and breathing this possibility for the last five months.
Things didn’t work out this time, but I deeply feel I persisted through the presented challenges to give it my best, and I’m excited to see what happens in Santa Rosa on May 9, 2020.
