Notes
Lauren. The one constant for me over the past year as I trained and prepared for Timberman. She was with me at San Francisco and made it "worth the hurt". She was on my co-ed team that missed a brick by a few seconds at Mill Cities. She signaled the bell lap for me as I finally broke 5 minutes for the mile at BU in the early winter. We both met and exceeded the challenge in Bermuda. Survived Spartan CA (barely). She was there at midnight at the 60 mile mark when I DNF'ed at Rocky. We both survived the brutal test that was Boston. Ran amuck on Cranberry island at the 50K. And here she was, on the Timberman run course, constantly cheering me on and nagging me to drop my god damn arms, once again. Thanks, Honey Badger. So, after swimming for 40 mins and biking for 2:45, all I had to do now was bang out a sub 1:30 and I'd be close to a sub 5 hr half IM. How hard could that be? Very effin hard as my legs would soon discover. I felt great leaving T2, and was able to hammer a 6:37 first mile. Shit, I could do this all day! Yeah, no. Mile 2 was almost as fast, but it came with a price. I was now paying for what I did on the bike. Like I said, I stood way too much on the uphill climbs on the bike, so by mile 2 of the run, both of my quads were seizing up on me. Fortunately, the one thing that I learned at Cranberry was that the legs cramps will work itself out as long as you keep moving. So that's what I did. I just kept pushing and blocked out the pain of the quad cramps. I was back down below 7 min miles for miles 3 and 4, but that was going to be the last time that I'd see 6's on my watch for the rest of my run. I saw Bash around mile 4, as he was coming back in to finish his first loop, and he looked strong. I later found out that he was suffering from the same legs cramps. I knew he was definitely on his way to his first sub 5 hr half IM. I, on the other hand, still had 9 miles and about an hour+ of running ahead of me. I began to pick my spots. Slow and easy on the uphills, and killed it on the downhills. I was able to keep my average mile pace below 8's for the next 6 miles doing this, but was running out of steam as the day got warmer. I was also running out of time, and by mile 10 I knew that sub 5 was out of the question. I now just wanted to finish strong like I always try to do at every race. Leave everything on the course. Even with giving everything I had, I could only manage a relatively pedestrian 8:30 pace for miles 11 and 12, although I was still passing a ton of people. I passed about 500+ people, since coming out of the water. There weren't too many other runners who were looking fresh, and I think I was passed by only about 5-10 runners on the run portion. Once I saw the mile 12 marker I knew it was time to bring it home. The last mile is a downhill finish and there was nothing that was going to stop me. Not cramping, not dehydration, not the remaining age groupers in front of me. It felt faster than what my watch indicated, but I nailed the final run mile in 7:24, cramps be damned. Bash was the first to greet me and I gave him a big, fat hug for getting me into this mess in the first place. Thanks, bro. The rest of the team eventually came over and we gathered for pictures and discussed the race. Official finish: 5:11:40. I wasn't tired or thirsty or looking for food. I was, however, hungry. Hungry for more. Now where the hell do I sign up for Ironman Florida?