huzzah!!! I PR'd by a whole 11 minutes last weekend at the Big Kahuna half, bringing me closer than ever to that elusive sub-5 half ironman. I've got a homemade sign (Sharpie on a scrap of paper) taped to my dashboard that says "HOW BAD DO YOU WANT SUB-5?" which anyone who parks next to me inevitably notices. One guy I bike with asked if it referred to a sub-5-minute mile. ha!! that's pretty quick! Turns out I missed my sub-5 hours by 5 minutes, but I did bring my time down to a very respectable 5:04, which I am extremely psyched about.
It was my second (and final) half iron of the 2007 season, and of significance, it was an entire 41 minutes faster than my first effort back in April. (my previous PR was set back in 2005.) In April, I was in an unhappy place. I wasn't motivated to train much or really do anything much, and didn't even decide to do the half distance (I was going to bail and do the Olympic) until the day before the race. How I managed to gut out a 5:45 on minimalistic training was somewhat impressive, but oh so painful! My best friends in Dallas kind of shook their heads and told me to imagine how much faster I would go if only I trained. That may have been the first time I realized it would always be painful, but depending on your fitness, the amount of time you are enduring that pain is what changes.
so fast forward to my much happier state of mind and body these days. Yeah, it's still painful. It hurts for everybody. That is something I will continue to struggle with...to learn to...embrace. Right? Because when I go pro, it will still hurt. I'll just be going faster. So I'll hurt just as much but for a shorter amount of time. Right?! anyway, I am really happy with how I did. I need to take a picture of my award, this scary looking totem pole guy who is quite ugly, but he's now my centerpiece at my work desk (actually, the dining table in what was the break room which has been converted to "my office") to scare away evildoers. I officially ended up 3rd in my age group out of 65 (though 2nd at the awards ceremony, don't know how they managed to screw that up), and 16th overall for females--in a huge field that included competitors from all over like Michellie Jones, reigning Ironman World Champion! This really means a lot to me... I'd consider it a breakthrough race, as I haven't yet podium'ed in my new age group in a California race. We all know California triathlons are bigger, more expensive, always sell out, and are much more competitive! So though I have done much better placement-wise in other races around the country, this race feels like my best performance yet.
You can read my official race report on my teamTBB blog. huzzah!!