Happy Birthday to Me!

The start of an ironman swim is a crazy thing with 2,200 swimmers starting at the same time. Ironman Arizona’s deep water start in Tempe Town Lake is really quite an experience. We were treading water just as the glow of the sun was showing up on the horizon for our 7 am start. The announcer was working up the excitement in the racers and the spectators, the national anthem was sung, the starting gun was fired and we were off; one large chaotic mass that had been anticipating, preparing and training for this moment all year.

Swim
The first 1.2 miles we were heading straight into the rising sun so sighting was impossible. Not that I could have changed direction if I had wanted to as I was completely surrounded on both sides and in front and back. I wove around people as others wove around me, getting bumped, kicked, elbowed and half swum over. Fortunately for me I am a confident swimmer and was wearing a wet suit so when someone swam over the lower half of my body, pushing me down, I bobbed right back up. I did get one “sorry ma’am” from what sounded like a southern gentleman. A little after the first mile I got through the turnaround and it opened up enough that I felt like I was actually swimming not just surviving. I finished the 2.4 mile swim in 1 hour and 14 minutes, a minute under my Ironman Florida time.

Then I was running out of the water, getting help from the wetsuit strippers, grabbing my swim to run transition bag, into the changing tent, was lathered down by the sun screen volunteers and then onto the bike, all within seven minutes.

Bike
Just as I crossed the timing mat from the transition area into the bike course, I heard a loud POP. “Oh no, I have a flat!” I thought about how this was going to have a big impact on my overall bike leg time and that it is a good thing I’ve been practicing changing bike flats! I came to a quick stop and I just happened to be right at the bike mechanic tent. They grabbed my bike, put it on a rack, whipped off the tire and while they were changing the tube I had time to suck down a packet of Cliff Shot and gulp some Cytomax. In five minutes I was back in the race and I didn’t even get my hands greasy. If I had changed the flat myself it would have taken fifteen minutes or more. It was my birthday after all and although a flat deflated my tire it didn’t deflate my enthusiasm.

Ahead of me lay the bike course which consisted of three loops for a total of 112 miles. The out leg of each loop had a constant slight incline with a hill at the end. On the first two loops I could feel a headwind on the way out. I was definitely off my expected pace but it was the best I could do. My left hip flexor cramped during the entire first loop and then, thankfully, the pain just went away. I saw my IronTeam support crew at the turnaround after the second loop and Frank yelled that I was in 10th place in my age group. That encouraged me for awhile and then I thought “He couldn’t know that. Frank is so funny.” Turns out they were using an iPhone and Blackberry to track me and I was 10th after the swim.

The wind direction changed during my third loop of the bike course giving me a head wind for the last 12 miles. During those last difficult miles in the heat of the afternoon my inevitable internal dialogue was shifting back and forth from positive to negative. I remember thinking that I should just enjoy the fact that I was out on a long bike ride and I didn’t have to contend with traffic, followed by the thought that today is going to be a suffer-fest. I knew that I had to focus on the positive to be able to finish the race.

I love my bike but after 7 hours and 8 minutes I was happy to get off of it. Not my best bike ride but I didn’t have any more in me. When Cecilia picked my bike up from the transition area at the end of the race my back tire was completely flat again. I probably had a slow leak which may have contributed to the sluggishness of my last loop on the bike.

Run
Now I was in the home stretch! All I had left to do was the 26.2 mile run which was three laps of a crazy configuration that I can’t describe even after completing it three times. I headed out on the run at about 3:30 in the afternoon. I got to see my support group in various spots twice each lap and their encouragement helped to keep me going. On the first lap my main thought was “This is hard.” (Duh….)

It got dark early into my second lap. With the sun going down it started to cool off and I started feeling a lot better. My best average run pace was in the last six miles and I felt the best during the last four miles of the run. My brother had arranged to have a message displayed on an electronic billboard as I crossed a timing mat at the 4th, 12th and 20th mile of the run. I didn’t see it at the 4th mile; at the 12th mile I read it as “B. Bettencourt, run now” (so I broke from my walk into a run); and at the 20th mile I finally read and understood what he really wrote: “B. Bettencourt, run hard sis.” I was running and I ran harder. For some reason my head was clearing and my pace picked up all the way to the finish line.

Finish
Even after 14 hours and 31 minutes of effort, the Ironman finish is pure joy and an adrenaline rush. Here it was six hours after the first person crossed the finish line, the energy was palatable, the place was still packed and strangers were putting their hands out for a congratulatory high five all the way down the finish chute. It would continue to be this way till midnight. Every Ironman race experience is different and each one is special. Ironman was a great gift to myself for my birthday.

I want to give big heartfelt thanks to my IronTeam: My brother, sister, husband and friends (Cecilia & Ray, Bruce & Terry, Frank & Loralee) who came to Arizona to support me. They were in the cold before sunrise at the start, hung through the sun and heat of the day and were at the finish well after dark. They stayed out there all day to cheer me on and made it to my birthday party afterwards. Being a supporter is an endurance event in itself!