Monday, October 29, 2007

SOMA highlights

There is only one way to describe how SOMA was yesterday - and that is HOT. My overall time was 5:37. I was on track for 5 hours until the afternoon, when we reached record temperatures of 97 degrees and it killed my run.

The swim was long, everyone's times were a lot longer than 1.2 miles should have taken them. Starting out swimming West was a breeze, until we had to turn around and swim East into the sun. I couldn't see anything and I'm sure I zig-zagged all over the top of the 70-year-old men that were in the wave ahead of me. It was probably my favorite of the three events though, considering it was cold and somewhat relaxing. My swim time was 40 minutes by the time I got pulled out of the lake, almost broke my leg when the guy dropped me on the platform and ran around to the transition area. I averaged 18.6 mph on the bike, which is slow but still an improvement for me from my last race. There were tons of u-turns and the hills slowed me down a lot. After a three-hour bike I was so excited to start the run. I kept saying to myself, "you are going to kill this run!" Heading out of transition I was running under seven-minute miles and people were warning me to slow down, but I was feeling awesome so I kept running strong. They had aid stations every mile and I kept pouring multiple cups of ice water over my head at each one of them. That is, until mile 4. No aid station at mile 4! All of a sudden my body started to heat up and I felt like I was running through an oven. It was hard to breathe and it drained all my energy. After mile six I started dieing. Every time I drank gatorade it came right back up, but I knew my body needed electrolytes, salt and calories or I would be face down in a mile so I kept drinking. By mile 8 I was probably running 9 minute miles. I have never ran that slow during a race. I passed Ted, then Jorge and realized everyone was suffering from the heat, not just me. I could hear sirens in the background and could see ambulence lights flashing on the road by the finish line. I finished with tears in my eyes and muttering "I want to die" as Brian ran next to me to the finish. My half marathon time was 1:51 by the time I stumbled over the line. I couldn't hardly eat or drink for some time afterwards.

So all in all, this race was an experience. I knocked off almost a half hour from my time at the Great Illini half Iroman, which is very surprising considering the weather. As they say, no pain, no gain. Give me a year or two, I'll be killing everyone out there! As for now, I think I'll just lay around for the next couple days!

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