Muncie

Last weekend, Laine and I drove out to Muncie, Indiana for our second triathlon of the year. We registered for this race because it has multiple distance options, so Laine signed up for the Sprint distance while I signed up for the "Endurathon" or 70.3 half-ironman distance. As a side note, this race is the longest running 70.3 race in the world. It's been going on for the past 30 years.

The race snuck up on us and neither of us had put much thought or planning into the weekend. I had booked a free night at a Fairfield way back when and realized on Friday when we were getting ready to leave that the Fairfield was in Indianapolis – about one hour from Muncie. "No big deal" I thought. It wasn't until we were in the car that I remembered that most of Indiana is in the Eastern time zone, meaning that we were going to need to go to bed an hour earlier than we planned and get up an hour earlier as well. The first wave of athletes went off at 7:00 am and my wave was at 7:15. I decided that I needed to be there by 6:30 am at the latest. Count back that hours and that meant a 4:40 am wakeup call – 3:40 am CST.

With the help of some pasta and Tylenol PM, we successfully went to bed at 9:00 am EST and awoke at 4:40 EST. I had just enough time to check my bike into transition, put on a wetsuit and get a good luck kiss from Laine. Her wave would get in the water at 8:30 am, so she had some time to kill.

My swim went pretty well and I saw Laine as I was getting out of the water and then again as I was heading out onto the bike course. By the time I got back from the 56 mile bike, I saw Laine cheering for me on my way into transition to the run – she had already completed her sprint distance triathlon! I forgot my gel in transition out to the 13.1 mile run which panicked me a bit. I was already a bit tired and worried that without some gel the run might feel even longer than it already was sure to be. I noticed some empty gel packets on the side of the road and had an idea. What if someone dropped a full gel packet as they were running? That lifted my spirits and I kept an eagle eye on the side of the road. Sure enough, within a couple minutes I spotted a gel packet that looked like its top hadn't been torn off. I skidded to a halt and grabbed it off the ground, earning a handful of confused looks from participants and spectators. It was worth it though – I had found the Holy Grail. A full Hammer Vanilla gel packet. This was a good sign. If only I could find another I'd be worry free. I must be living right because I found another about 200m down the road.

Armed with 260 calories of sugar I continued onto mile two with my head held high. By mile four my head began to drop. 13.1 miles is a really long way. I realized that I hadn't run that far in about two years. Oh well, I was in it to win it now. As the miles passed my attitude worsened. I thought "I can't possibly sign up for the Ironman again. This is ridiculous". I continued to shuffle through the out and back course and finished the run in 1:46:29 – 8:08 pace. Overall, my time was 5:18:33, which I think is as good as I could have hoped for. I told Laine multiple times that she might need to remind me not to sign up for the Ironman when we go to Madison to volunteer there this year. I'm already beginning to forget about the pain of Muncie…