I’m now only a couple days out from the Ironman 70.3 Muncie, therefore I decided to look back at the notes I recorded after my last 70.3.   My previous 70.3 occurred on September 6, 2008.  It was before the TTF blog, before Facebook and during a time when people were emailing back and forth as a manner of communication.  My audience was small but I still sent my family & friends LOOOOONNNNNGGGG emails on every detail that they didn’t care about of the race.  Thanks to Mom, Abby S & Lisa E for reading those and many other emails!

The Great Illini Challenge on September 6, 2008 was my first and most current 70.3.  I have not raced a triathlon since that day.  I do, however, have a crazy beautiful toddler which hubby and I started raising in my time off triathlon.  See hubby, Michael & Aby below. 

Some might wonder if I’m nervous since I haven’t raced triathlon for so long.  No, I’m not yet.  Triathlon is where it’s at for me.  I feel at home there and things just click. 

Some might wonder why I picked a 70.3 distance as my return to triathlon.  Timing.  I would have preferred to start with an International/Olympic distance race but timing didn’t work out.  I don’t have a ton of $$ to be racing so I picked just two triathlons (Muncie 7/7 & Great Illini 9/1) for the 2012 season and those were both the 70.3 distance.

Photos & Notes on the Swim/Bike from Great Illini 2008:

I tried to be calm and smooth on the swim, I didn’t stress about speed, but just took it easy because I knew that it was going to be the easiest part of the day so I wanted to enjoy it and come out of the water fresh. My goggles did fog up 2x but I just stopped and wiped the fog out and continued on my way, no problem!

** It might be more enjoyable to try to swim the entire 70.3 miles!

Transition was certainly not the frenzied event that it is in shorter TRI races. We were relaxed, joking around with one another, talking with our families, and pretty much stalling to AVOID getting on our bikes! In my relaxed state, I managed to forget my energy gels in transition.  Bad, really bad.

The bike had a great first half, on great roads that were freshly paved. There were lots of very large rolling hills. It was a “what goes down, must go up” theme. The hills also made me realize almost immediately that at some point in transit, something happened to my bike and the chain was loose. Not good, I needed  gears badly with the large hills and they were making a lot of noise and not shifting properly. My chain then popped off at mile 7 at the bottom of a very large hill.

**Mile 10 of bike: Riding is such a great time for self reflection, prayer & quiet thinking.
***Mile 17: It is such a beautiful day, the road is smooth, the sun is shining, and I love these hills!
**Mile 20: Wow, I got up to 33 mph coming down that hill; and it isn’t even bad going up because I get to stand and it allows me to stretch my quads a little! This is really great!
**Mile 40: Why didn’t I make up for sale signs for my bike before I came??
**Mile 41: No biggie about the for sale signs, maybe mom can sell it while I run? No, I’ll just put it on Craig’s List tomorrow!
**Mile 42: A triathlon tattoo was a really bad idea! Wonder if I can have it turned into a cross? I really like crosses!
**Mile 44: There is no shame that a full iron distance person just passed me. I am sure he was a really fast swimmer!!!
**Mile 47: Gel = life/energy and being able to finish the race! If I weren’t so tried I would be really excited.
**Racking the bike = awesome feeling of “last ride”, I don’t even need to sell it, we’ll just throw it in the lake because I’ll get better gas mileage on the way home!

I don’t think we need to relive the run portion of the 70.3 since I won’t be doing the run portion this time.  Although, I’m not looking forward to a DNF, I’ve certainly accepted it.  My strongest part of a TRI is always the run but it’s not meant to be this time around.  So I will be swimming & biking and am thankful I can handle that much!

** Happy TRIing **  Amanda – TooTallFritz ** amanda@tootallfritz.com