May 20, 2009
Becca

First of all, THANK YOU to all of you who sent well-wishes on Saturday!! It was so, so awesome to get back from the race and feel so much support from the group!

So, my first race, the Wildflower Olympic distance in San Luis Obispo, CA, was an AMAZING experience. Absolutely, positively amazing. I think my favorite thing was the transition area – what a total scene! People running around in wetsuits and bike shoes and bathing suits and spandex galore. I have never felt more comfortable in form fitting clothes! I also have to say, I loved having my race number written on my arms and thighs – it made me feel super hardcore!! I was sad to wash it off after the race was over and to be honest didn’t mind that a little of the marker lingered for a couple of days…

The entire week before the race I was battling something (swine flu?) and was feeling super terrible, so I was really nervous that my body would not be able to hold up through the whole race. But the morning we planned to drive down to San Luis Obispo (about a 3.5 hour drive from the SF bay area), I woke up drenched in sweat – and feeling a million times better!!! There was certainly a vicious battle that went on in my body the night before, and luckily my body won!!

Wildflower is a fun/intense race in that you camp out the night before since it is held in a pretty remote area in California. The atmosphere is super friendly and everyone was so happy to be there. One of my good friends is on the Team Type 1 triathlon team so Kathleen and I hung out with them the night before. They were so excited for us to be racing and to hear more about Team WILD, and it definitely made us a lot less stressed to hang out with such a supportive bunch.

I was very, very nervous on Sunday morning and woke up at about 5:45am – although my alarm was not even set for me to get up until 7am! I had slept all of 4 hours the night before, thanks to the assortment of snorers in the tents around us, and the ultra-hard ground we camped on. But no matter – I was UP! It seemed like forever by the time I was finally standing in my wetsuit in a group of about 100 women, waiting for our group to go out. They let us go into the water for a minute to warm and I splashed around and tried to take some deep breaths. I had a Gu up the sleeve of my wetsuit but I was about 200 when I headed to the start line so I figured I’d be ok.
And then we were off!! I think I was kind of in disbelief for the first half of the swim that I was finally, FINALLY doing my first triathlon! Once or twice I just kind of slowed down and looked around and enjoyed the moment. When I got out of the water my legs were incredibly shaky and I was convinced my blood sugar was super low. But when I got the transition area I checked and was 205….ok so maybe that shakiness was adrenaline! But in my rush to transition to the bike and my focus on not forgetting anything, I didn’t stop to think about ONE extremely important thing…I felt low but I WASN’T, and I needed to bolus aggressively to cover the insulin I missed during my swim or else I would skyrocket. So that’s a little foreshadowing for you….

On to the bike. The bike is TOUGH, you gain about 1200 feet of elevation over the 25 miles and the first mile is straight uphill, everyone in the lowest gear just slow pedal-pedal-pedal and try to make it to the top without just plopping over. When I got to the top my friend was there with a cowbell and a camera so that was a nice reward! The hills were tough and after about 8 or 9 miles I started feeling like I was hitting a wall. I was bummed because I thought it was maybe due to me being so sick for a week and not recovering all my strength. I got to the turnaround and I had gotten someone’s race sticker for their helmet stuck to my wheel, so I stopped to take it off and check my blood sugar.

420??? FOUR. HUNDRED. TWENTY?!?! How the heck…ohhhh shit. Yeah. I realized at that moment WHY I felt so crappy. I was SO mad at myself for not thinking things through after the swim and taking the insulin that my body needed. I pulled out my pump and although it was difficult to do since I just wanted to send a whole TON of insulin into my system, I only took about half what my pump told me to. I knew once I got a little in me, my blood sugar would come down fast. My blood felt like sludge and my eyes felt dried out. I decided to keep going but to slow my roll, drink as much water as possible, and just think good thoughts.

By about mile 20 of the bike I was starting to feel AMAZING. It truly is incredible how much better you feel when your blood sugar is in range – like your body can actually FUNCTION! I started passing people and my legs didn’t burn as much on the climbs. I was so, so HAPPY! I got back to the transition area and checked my blood sugar – mid 200s. Ok. I was coming down, and pretty quickly. I had some extra carbs for that feeding period and took off on the run. I felt GREAT. It was hot, and I was a little shaky on my legs at first, but I knew I only had 6 miles of (albeit very hilly) running ahead of me. I felt my blood sugar dropping a couple of times and downed some Gatorade at every rest stop, for carbs and for hydration. Sometimes when I’m running and I need to talk myself through it, I chant in my head “just keep swimming, just keep swimming” like Dorey said in Finding Nemo. I don’t know why but just the beat of it and the image of myself gliding along makes the run feel easier. I used that mantra on a couple of the bigger hills and before I knew it I was on the last mile, allll downhill (yes!!) and then sprinting through the finish line! It was AMAZING!!!
No one I knew was at the finish line when I got there, and for about 30 seconds I was a little bummed that I had no one to share the moment with. But then I realized how amazing that was – I could just BE in the moment, revel in it quietly, take it all in. If my friends had been there they would have asked how it was and I would have started talking right away – and I wouldn’t have had the time to just capture it all in my head. I loved every minute of it. They throw a soaking wet towel at you to wipe off the salt and sweat, put a medal over your head, and lead you to the time chip collectors. You feel sort of like a celebrity, everyone directing you and taking care of you. Even though they are doing it for EVERYONE who crosses that finish line – you are ALL celebrities, you all have the understanding of what it felt like to finish that race.
At least once during each leg of the race I looked around and kind of giggled quietly to myself. I was doing it! I think I honestly only half-believed it at times and a couple of times I said out loud, “I’m doing it! I’m doing my first triathlon!” It was so much work to get there and I gave up so much to make the time to train and take care of my body and LEARN how to do it all – and it was all so, so worth it. Competing in Wildflower gave me so much confidence for our race in October, and it made me so EXCITED about it! What an experience! Just to be surrounded by people who are challenging themselves through swimming, biking, running, and more than all that the MENTAL struggle it is – I mean, WOW.

I also felt very happy that I had made it through a tough diabetes challenge during the race. I was mad at myself for making such a big mistake, but I also think it showed me that when you’re in the moment, it’s easy to overlook the obvious. It was SUCH a good lesson for me to really slow down and FOCUS when I’m making diabetes decisions. An extra 30 seconds of figuring out what to do will save me tons of time NOT having to deal with a super high or super low blood sugar.

WHAT a day. What a great, great, challenging, exhausting, inspiring, did I say GREAT? day. I can’t wait for my next race!!