Melissa O'Brien's Blog: June 2012

My day started at 4am when my alarm went off. Mike rolled over and I got up anxious to get going. I didn't sleep well but I think there was too much excitment that it didn't even matter. Even though I wasn't hungry I forced down and penut butter and jam sandwich, along with some chocolate milk and got going. Normally I'd eat oatmeal for race morning but with no microwave (I like to make it with milk), I opted for what I knew my stomach could handle.
I hoped on my bike and rode down to where the race was taking place. A few kilometres away. It was dark but there were a bunch of people riding their bikes down. I went directly into transition to rack my bike and lay out my gear that I needed. I was asking all kinds of questions to a fellow athlete like where do we come in for the swim, where do we go out for the bike, etc. She smiled and asked if I was nervous. Ummmm ya :)
Then I got on the shuttle which was driving us down to the ferry. I sat beside a guy who had done the race before and the only advice he gave me was to get off the ferry on shore side so that when you were swimming you didn't have to cross through all the people. Good advice.
When I got on the ferry everyone was sitting in the middle because there was caution tape everywhere. I figured that was sectioned off for the pros but there was one guy sitting alone against the wall. Since it would be over an hour before the boat left I wanted a spot against the wall too so I sat beside him. Turns out he was part of a relay team for challenged athletes. He was paralyzed from the waist down and would be doing the swim portion for his team. He had to swim on his back with his legs tied together and he used paddles on his hands. Very motivating. If this guy can do it, anyone can. Then a guy came on with one arm.......needless to say I looked up results and he beat me on the swim, bike and run. Anyone can do this...........

The Swim (2.5km) - it starts with the pros, then challenged athletes, then everyone else. I was lucky to be sitting with the challenged athletes so I got pretty close to the front when it was our turn. They opened the doors and the rush of people, and the pushing, there was no choice but to jump. No hesitation at all and fear of being jumped on had me swimming as soon as I hit the water. The cold didn't even phase me. I barely noticed it. I was swimming pretty comfortable. But even though I was aiming for the shore, I knew I was being carried by the current. They told us it was a very strong current and it was. I overshot the finish by a bit and had to swim directly against the current to get it. Amazingly I still came out with a time of 43 min 28 sec. The fasted I had ever swim it in the pool was 47 min so the current definitely helped!

The Bike (30km) - it was a 750m run up to transition which is farther then most tri's so they gave us the option of leaving shoes in a bag directly out of the water so we didn't tear up our feet. I'm really glad I did this. I got on my bike and felt good. I wasn't too tierd from the swim and immediately felt right. The hills started right away and although challenging, I guess living in Alberta paid off. I'm used to training with a bit of altitude and there are plenty of hills here. I was breathing hard but being at sea level made it feel way easier. I passed lots of people and got passed by lots as well. Beautiful views, great volunteers dressed up in costumes at aid stations, it was good. Coming back in you're on flat and I could feel my legs were tired but I knew I was way ahead of my expected times so I felt pretty damn good. 1hr 7 min 5 sec.

The run (13km) - dropped my bike and as I was running out of transition I saw the porter potties. I needed to pee since I got out of the swim and I just couldn't hold it anymore. So I wasted 2-3 min standing in line to pee. No big deal to me - I needed to do it. As I came out of the potty I heard the announcer, here comes your winner, Andy Potts has won it again. Wow - the first pro was done in something like 2 hours 2 min. Crazy. Got out on the run and people were passing me like crazy. Although I was running, when I looked at the speed they were passing me at, I may as well have been walking (at least that's what it felt like). But I kept going. I forget but it seems like for the first 15min of running (off of the bike) my ankles hurt so much that I want to stop. In the past I would have stopped, but I've tried hard to work on the mental part of the sport and it paid off. I finally started to feel good just in time for the stairs. I had read the descriptions of all the parts of the race and I knew that run started flat and then would climb but I didn't know it would climb with stairs. Stairs are much harder for me because you have to take the step of how big the stair is. If it was just trail going up I could control how big my steps were. Either way there were lots of people and most were walking and there was no way to get around because the pros were coming back down the stairs. Lucky break for me - I got to walk for about 20 seconds. The rest of the run went well. It was hard. After all those stairs we came out on the highway and got to go down to the beach. There was about 1km running on the sand. I found this the most difficult by far. I was so tired wasn't able to pick up my knees properly. But I refused to walk. Just keep going. Then the sand ladder. It is exactly what it sounds like. All sand with wooden rungs to put your feet in for traction. But with all the sand covering, there wasn't much traction there. Everyone was walking including me. But back up at the top, a little bit more elevation gain to go and then it was downhill. This was great, with 2 more miles (3km) of flat, I could hear the finish line. For me, my goal at this time was not to walk. I wanted to pick up the pace but all I was doing was concentrating on not walking. Keep running! Crossed the finish line with a run time of 1hr 20min 44 sec!

So total time was 3 hr 24min 23 sec.
In my age group I placed 27th out of 77 athletes (pretty happy about that!)
And in total I was 869th out of close to 2000 people!

Loved it! Highly recommend it! Anyone can do it. Its just a decision that you want to and sacrifice for some training!

Thanks to my husband Mike who not only came as my bike mechanic and support crew but gave up countless Friday nights this past winter so I could train at computrain class (a 2 hour bike class I took every Friday night). My mom flew out from Ontario to watch the kids (they are too young and it was too hectic to have them with us although I look forward to when I can bring them along!) And my friends for all the support. On Saturday when I was reading all the comments on my facebook page, it gave me so much motivation to think everyone was cheering for me! IA special thank you to my neighbour and friend Kayla who would watch my kids so I could randomly go and do training related things like chiropractor, open water swim, etc. I appreciate everything from everyone!

Next year maybe and half IM??? :)

Melissa O'Brien's Blog

Tuesday 12 June 2012

I made it!!

Thursday 7 June 2012

This is it!!!

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