Race Report: My first Ironman
We camped outside of Penticton for IMCanada. Showed up a few days early, got registered, went to the welcome banquet, got the transition bags ready, dropped them off and started really freaking out. The emotional roller coaster followed the trend of, confident excited nervous OMG WHAT AM I DOING?! thinking about training and back to confident. And around and around I went.
Trying to figure out what you are going to eat on a training ride for 7 hours or so is one thing. You pick out your food, pack it all in your pockets, make sure you have a little extra just in case, and you fill your bottles and go. Trying to figure out what you are going to eat during your ironman… oh man! You have special needs bags, they have food, they have water and Gatorade… you don’t need this or that, and you can’t have anyone help you… no asking family to grab you a sandwich… and that is just the ride. So I sat at camp, on the ground for about 3 hours with every piece of tri gear I own in front of me trying to decide what I needed and what I didn’t. Once I portioned out food and decided exactly what I needed the next challenge was which bag to put it in. For those of you who have done a race with one transition spot and then done pac crest, you know what I am talking about. All gear for T1 goes in one bag, and all gear for T2 goes in another. So 2 sunscreens, two vasolines, two towels etc. Long story short, I think I left a butt print in the grass where I sat and pondered what, how much and where it all should go for race day. It’s no wonder they make you put your gear in transition the day before, you have a lot of prep to do!
Race day:
3:45am
Alarm goes off and I jump out of bed. Not like the normal hit snooze for an hour and then curse the morning because I am now late… I was ready to go! Ate eggs toast and cheerios, the normal pre long ride/run meal. Then I sat around. What do you do when you don’t have to set up your transition? There is no way I was about to “warm up” for an ironman, are you kidding?! I have the whole day to warm up. So I took a little nap. Headed down to get body marked at about 5:30am.
6:00am
In transition, 2000 other people milling around, about half of which were in the porta potty line. I filled my waterbottles and pumped up my tires and joined everyone else waiting for the bathroom.
6:45am
Still in line. I spotted Joe M, and finally had a buddy to be with just before the race. We heard the pros start (didn’t see them because we were still in line), got our wet suits on and headed down to the start.
7:00am
5….4…3…2…1 GO! Time to start. The swim start was unlike any start I had done before. No waves. No boys then girls, no age groups… 2636 people start at the same time. GO! So we walked. Joe and I walked and talked and discussed our swim times, how we would draft off each other, how it was shallow, how we were doing an ironman, how we were still walking...! Then a few minutes later it finally go deep enough to swim and we were off. Whether you wanted to draft or not, whether you knew how to draft or not, when you start in that big of a group, you ARE drafting. The crooked swimmer (you know who you are) were all over the place, and it felt like every time I got in a rhythm I got pinched off by some dude or chic that thought they owned that lane of traffic. UGH! It didn’t matter which way I looked, there were people and I was just gonna have to deal with the breast strokers trying to kick me in the face and the muscle men trying to push me out of the way and the girls clawing my feet. At least I could see the bottom and there weren’t any fish checking me out.
Finally made it to the first turn, at the sail boat. How cool is it that I look down, and there are 5 scuba divers looking up at me waving? Well maybe not look at ME, but at all of us. On the way back in to shore I could see the tall buildings on the horizon… we had swam pretty far out and the buildings were tiny. The bouys were numbered and I thought there were 20. Nope. 23. Next time I will make a note of that as I got excited entirely too early and was repeatedly let down by another bouy showing up. “19 yay, one more! 20 wooo! 21, huh? Oh ok, yay… 22 What? Ok yay! 23 WTF? Ok whatever…” then done.
Out of the water saw friends and family right away. Next up, wetsuit strippers! A GODSEND! I wish I had them at every race, you lay down and they pull your suit right off! Boom, done, no fussing with the stuck foot! Off to the changing tents where the volunteers helped you make sure you didn’t put your shoes on before your socks or shorts… and that you wiped your sunglasses off before you left (because they had sunscreen all over them) and ladies… they helped with the super bunched wet sports bra issue where you cant reach it!
8:39am
Off on the bike and here is where I found out why I should listen to Pam J and not drink half the lake. When you gulp water and air for an hour and a half and you don’t burp, your intestines become pain balloons to the point where you can’t pedal your bike. At this point, I sat on the ground and wondered if I was going to be able to finish an ironman in so much pain. No gas/bloating meds at the aid stations. So I would pedal to 15 mph and coast to 8 and pedal again. For 3+ hours! The problem worked it self out around mile 45 and I was able to start working the hills. The first part of this bike is the fast part and the second half is 3600 feet of climbing. Hmm. At mile 56 I was 4hrs and 28 minutes in, when I should have been 3. Now I had to negative split on the hardest part of the course. And, don’t believe people when they tell you “there is the top” or “this is the last hill.” At IMC, they are LYING! There are more hills. There are more climbs. And that wasn’t the top and that wasn’t the last one. At4:15pm I had 20 miles to go. The cut off was 5:30pm. That was the fastest hour bike ride I have ever had. And the hardest. I sprinted not like a sprint tri but harder! Not like I wanted to win my age group or beat some rival… Like I wanted to break the sound barrier! I have never worked so hard in my life. EVER. And I paid for it later. Regardless, I made it to transition at 5:18pm. 12 minutes from them telling me, sorry. You don’t get to even try the run.
When I was having trouble on the bike at the beginning, I thought I wasn’t going to finish. In fact, I knew it just wasn’t my day. When I got to mile 56, I knew I couldn’t make the cut off. At mile 92 it was now or never. I have never gotten a DNF, and I never will. Not unless someone runs me over. I decided right then and there if I did not give the last 20 miles every last thing I had, I would forever be disappointed in myself and I would let my friends, family and coaches down. So I pushed. And somehow, I made it! (did I mention it was close to 95 degrees?)
5:30pm
Off on the run. “You can walk a marathon in 6 hours if you walk briskly.” –me the day before the race. Well, apparently not if you are 5’4” with shorty legs like me . I started the run and couldn’t really kick my heels up, but did some sort of shuffle thing the first mile. Just fast enough to give Nate a high 5 while he was 100 yards from the finish and I was 25.5 miles from the finish. My run basically went: speed walk ( ¼ mile) to shuffle step (¼) to shuffle jog ( ¼ ) to regular jog to the mile marker and repeat. The run had two cut offs. You had to be to the turn around by 9pm, and you had to be across the finish by 12am.
8:45pm
It was dark and I made the turn. Now I just had to run through the pitch black to the finish.
9:45pm
2 hours to complete 9 miles. Very do-able.
I walked shuffled and ran my way through each mile and just kept going. Each time I would think of how long it normally takes to run that far and how long I had left. A normal 10k is 50 minutes, and I have an hour and a half… a normal 4 mile loop is 31 minutes and I have an hour… a normal mile takes 7-8 and I have 25 minutes… Each mile I calculated the time I had and what a normal pace is. It wasn’t until 6 miles to go that I realized I was going to finish. I was going to make it in time. I had never doubted I could do the distance, but had never imagined I would be gambling with the clock all day. I thought I would do the race in between 13 and 14 hours. 14 being the absolute longest. I even went as far as to tell my family if it is after 10pm, I am probably dead.
I saw Kara around 4 miles to go and she said I looked good and strong and had good form. I had her fooled I wasn’t feeling any of that, but if I looked good, I must not be doing to bad and would just keep running. Then I saw Nate again with their crew and that was the perfect boost for another couple miles.
11:38pm
I rounded the corner onto front street to repeat the out an back I did to start the marathon, only this time the people cheering me on were cheering me to the finish. This was my fastest mile of the run. I forgot that my feet hurt. I forgot I was tired. I forgot I had trouble on the bike. I forgot that I had been racing all day. Every single person on that last mile congratulated me. They said things like “You did it” “You are amazing” “You are an inspiration” “You are an ironman!” I couldn’t help but smile and run a little faster to show them, they were right. I was. I was doing it. I did it. I was almost done and I was finally there. The finish line shoot was alive and crazy with people and cheering. I felt like I won the race and I was one of the last to finish. After a long hard unexpected day, I, Staci Partridge was an Ironman. I did it. To my surprise, I didn’t cry. I have cried at Olympics and halfs but I didn’t cry, I just cheered and smiled. My mom cried. My dad says he didn’t but I think I caught him. My brother cried… everyone was crying and I was proud. Proud of myself. I felt (and still feel like) I can do anything. I made it across that line, and I was the one to push my self.
I finished in 16:44:09. 3hrs and 44 minutes longer than my goal. But you know what? I FINISHED! I am official. I AM AN IRONMAN!
I had been training since last September (with my off and ons like we all have). I had never ran a marathon so I did one in December and in January started my training for this race. I did 9 triathlons this year and placed in all but 2, and won my age group at pac crest and at my hometown sprint. This has been the best year of triathlon of my life. I started racing in 2004. At the time I swore up and down I would never do an ironman because I would NEVER run a marathon. What kind of crazy person would run 26 miles? Let alone do it after 100 something miles of biking. YEAH RIGHT!
Aaron W invited me to join the club and do wildflower. “I can’t run 6 miles” I told him. He said I should think about it. A week later, I signed up. He also told me not to count out an ironman. To that I say Thank you. And I would like to pass that on to everyone else. Don’t count it out. Maybe not now, and maybe not soon, but if you like the sport, nothing will give you more satisfaction than completing your very first Ironman. I say go for it. It takes some commitment, but nothing unreasonable. You can get by on 8-10 hours a week. It is just a few long rides and a few long runs away.
Thank you to Aaron for encouraging me to expand my tri boundaries. You have helped to make the last 4 years of my life very fulfilling.
Thank you to the tri club for having such a supportive network of people and money to help all of us athletes participate in so many races.
Thank you to our coaches, who are always there and help us with every silly tri question we can come up with.
Thank you Taz for your help with my training schedule and various bumps along the way. (Nate and Kara too)
Thank you to my friends and family for supporting me, making signs, taking pictures and cheering me on every step of the way even when you thought I was crazy for doing a 16+ hour race.
Next up? Try like hell to get to Hawaii! (and win some short stuff cuz those are sooo much fun!)
Thanks for reading and good luck to everyone!