Rebecca Bollweg – Raleigh 70.3 – Sunday, June 4, 2017

This was my A race for the season. Did Kinetic Oly as a warm up. Drove down early Friday, checked into host hotel, Sheraton. Highly recommend due to its location right at the finish line and a Starbucks a block away. Picked up packet, hit the IM village ($$$) Great village there. I heard better than the past, then relaxed with dinner from Happy and Hale (recommend). Saturday did a little walking and a short jog around but mainly relaxed. Racked bike at T1, about 30 min drive away since it's a point to point race. Decided to drop T bags off in the morning instead. You had the option of doing it Saturday. Sunday up by 3:45am to get to T2 to drop off T2 bag and then take 45 min shuttle (in very nice buses) to swim start. Actually felt pretty relaxed. One banana and half a kind bar with water. Swim IM says 45:30 for 1.2 miles (2:20 pace) but Garmin read 2,235 yd for a 2:03 pace. That's more like it. They only gave 3 min in between swim waves to get us out on the road sooner, so there was a LOT of contact all throughout the swim. I'm sure I saw Missie pass me in the purple cap! In water start, Triangular swim, nice water, not choppy except for waves from other athletes. Managed the contact ok, diverted when I could. It felt long, but kept my breathing steady and just kept going, smooth exit with padding. Walked a bit to T1. Took time to sunscreen again quickly, then headed out. T1 – 4:24 Bike – 3:19:26 (16.9 mph) I was told this course was not "that bad" always considering the hills that we bike all the time here in HC. Well, that is true, the hills were not THAT bad, but man, there were enough of them, constant, with enough of a grade to wear out the legs. Plus with the heat reaching mid 80's, by the time mile 40 came, I was ready to be done. For a long time I was averaging high 17's and was so excited, but that gradually came down over the last 1/3 of the bike. Drank my mix of water, carbo pro, skratch (lemon lime) and ate some gummies, a honey stinger waffle and drank plain water at aid stations. Took Base salt whenever I thought of it. Decided to stop for a min at aid station 2 and 3 (stations at miles 14, 28, 42) to dump water on me and drink water. Last 5ish miles were tough, legs done, still hilly enough. At dismount, there was a long walk down the block to get into T2. Great racking spot near entry. T2 – 4:37 took time to quickly sunscreen Run – 3:01:28 UGH Hot Hot Hot, some shade in pockets. Great spectators and some with spray water to cool you off. As soon as I got off the bike I gave myself the OK to walk/run as much as I needed to, so I walked out of T2, started running and 30 seconds later started walking 🙂 It just wasn't happening. I played games with myself, which is the first time I've done that, where I run to a sign, then walk to a mailbox, run to a tree, walk to the stop light. That worked well and sometimes I could push the run a bit further. It is a fairly fast run course in my opinion (if you run fast :)) with rolling hills and great spectators almost the whole way. It is all throughout the downtown area. When i reached mile two, I saw Bryan and Moe and stopped for a while, maybe 25ish minutes, until Moe got to the ambulance for dehydration and we knew he was ok. Bryan and I shot the &*$% for a while, sharing our inner most thoughts, he became friends with everyone on the course, and around mile 6ish? I went ahead to finish my race. I continued on with the walk /run, dumping ice in bra in front and back and in hat, sipping water, slices of orange and one chip at each aid station (which were every mile). I was thrilled that they never ran out of ice while I was out there. I think maybe one or two stops didn't have it, but most did. I realized at this time that I hadn't urinated since the beginning of the swim, so I knew that wasn't good. It is a two loop course, they are evil taking you right past the finishers chute to continue on. When I was finishing up that second loop and turned the corner and saw that chute, I was ALMOST as happy as when I saw it at IMLP last year. It's a great chute, lots of people lined up long the side, I heard my name but didn't "take in" the finish like you should. Drank a full bottle of water right at the end. All in all, a great race! If the weather was a bit cooler I would definitaly consider doing it again. Stayed for awards to see the awesome Missie Vess get her FOTW cap from Roka and her 2nd place AG award. Met up with all the other MMTC'ers and simply enjoyed being DONE! FYI, IM picks up your T1 bags and transports them back to the finish, along with your morning clothes bag. Oh, and I finally peed when i got back to my hotel room around 4:30. Phew.