It's Wed, back to work, company gone.. NOW I'm tired! It has been a REALLY fast week, kind of a blur! I can't believe how quickly everything went. I also can't believe I haven't really sat down/rested since about Thursday last week.
Reflecting back, I'm sad I missed much of the pre-race AM. I didn't really hang/chat with anyone as I was a bit frantic with the ambulance, but I thanked my brother for taking my 'issue' of the day away. I also told him if he didn't want to see me race, there were other ways out of it. He made it to the finish line though.
After the race was great. It was so awesome to have my friends there and honestly being last I had what was left of the finish line to myself. That was pretty cool, even though the shoot with all the ironman logos and the photo area was gone, WHO CARES!? right?
I didn't feel that fatigued after the race. My body is fine with the exception of a couple EDS related pains. Quads, Hamstrings, Arms, all GREAT! I ran MY race and I didn't push to limits that would bonk, or just make me a pile of mush. My foot and hip still hurt though. They are both out of place and I will see the chiropractor to put them back today. I do believe if my foot was in the right place I would have been 20min or so faster on the run, but OH WELL :).
I also have a nasty blister on my little toe. I had a picture but I'll spare you. It really looks like someone scalped my toe, 100% of the skin is gone from about 50% of the toe.
But that's it!.. really! I feel great! I love the support from all of you, it was super awesome!
Of course though, there had to be one buzzkill, right? I thought "do I write about it or not?" well I am, partly because this woman is inconsiderate, partly because I want people to think about things before they post them publicly (yea I know this blog is public).
A woman complained about me on the Amica 70.3 facebook page. Well not me, but she was mad that I posted my awesome finish photo over there. Seriously though, cool picture if I do say so myself.
She complained that they arbitrarily pulled people from the course and she shouldn't have been pulled since I wasn't. This is from her:
"....And if you say there are sbr cutoff times than that should be for everybody. Anybody who doesn't make the cutoff should be pulled. Especially the part at the athlete meeting when it was said 81/2 hours is the official cutoff time. So hmmmm how can someone finish in 10:05? Why didnt anybody say there was an unifficial cutoff and as long as you cross the finish line whenever you still get your time posted AND a medal?? I mean good for the woman who crossed last. But that also could have been me. . But I DNF BECAUSE I FOLLOWED THE RULES"
She said on her personal page "On the ironman face pages it clearly shows a woman who took ten hours to complete the race...so much for cutting her off at the time cutoffs. "
Well, I have a few things to say about this. First of all, 10 hrs is the CLOCK time, not my finish time. I finished in 9:31. Since the last wave went off at 7am, I was :31 min over the cutoff. NOT TWO HOURS LADY!
Second I made EVERY SINGLE CUTOFF except the FINISH. It is very clear in the rules that you WILL be pulled if you do not meet the cutoffs for swim, bike, and loop 1 of the run. I called and made sure, I said "will you stop me from walking the streets of Providence if I don't make the final by 8 hrs 30 min after the last swim wave?" I was told, no but your chip will be pulled and you will have to sign a waiver. Fine with me!
I did everything I could to make my cutoffs and did it just fine! 8:15AM was the swim cutoff, I was outta there by 7:25AM. 12:30 was the bike cutoff, I was outta there by 11:40PM. 1:55PM was the first loop of the run cutoff, I was outta there by 1:45.
Now the lady that thinks she was treated unfairly and that I didn't follow the rules: She started at 6:05, and took 1hr 25 min for the swim with a 10 min transition time to get to her bike! Getting her out of the swim area at 7:40. She got to mile 47 and was pulled at approximately 12:30. This means she was pacing to take 5 hrs 30 min on the bike! Last month She posted on the Amica facebook page that the "bike wasn't bad" and the "run hills were ok." She also posted "I had a PR on my Providence half marathon: 3:06" I have a question on this, how did she expect to not get pulled with times like that? If she were my workout buddy I would have said "get it in gear sister, know your times." Now if she could pull off another 3:06 (which she wouldn't compare like doing a standalone run), she would have had about 10:40 to finish. A full HOUR behind me, and 100 minutes after the cutoff!
I would normally be super encouraging to people that struggle, but she didn't have issues (her wall is PUBLIC), and she wanted to blame me. The only issue she thinks she has is that "that woman had 10 hrs to finish". She had an extra 50 minutes to get to that run cutoff! That's a TON of extra time. If anything lady, you were given a huge benefit over me.
I have a problem with her demeaning my finish. She did write back to me that "I should be happy I got to cross the finish line... and she didn't mean anything mean." Well, I worked for it, knew EXACTLY what I had to do to make it happen, and I DID!!
I'm not particularly worried about me, I finished.. and other than my swim which I'm a little mad at, I'm very happy with my race. That 10 min extra on the swim wouldn't have made a difference. My bike was exactly where I thought it would be, actually about 20 min faster. My run could have been better but I had a collapsed ankle and a hip out of place, so that's what it is!
She shouldn't have brought me into her excuse for 'not finishing.' ESPECIALLY publicly. Well guess what lady, now you're public too! Ironman did exactly what they said they would. I would never blame someone else for my race! It is MY RACE, I KNEW what I needed to do..
AND I DID IT!
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