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I am an Ironman!!!

But you already knew that, since I did post about it earlier this week 😉

So what comes next? Obviously, the Ironman Maryland race report!

Ironman maryland prep and jitters

Oh, the most nerve-wrecking part of the race! Every time I thought about everything that goes into getting to the starting line gave me the worst anxiety! First, I had to find a place to stay. Ironman Maryland takes place on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. If you’ve never been, here is what you need to know: it’s a middle-of-nowhere type of place with not much of touristy stuff. So, as you can expect, accommodations for the visitors are very limited.

Before even getting to Cambridge

I was supposed to do this race in 2020 (I think it’s probably a blessing in disguise that I had to train for an extra year – I doubt I would have done this well a year ago on the bike). Since I already made travel plans for September 2020, I took advantage and visited Cambridge. It’s a good thing, too: I got to see the town and learn its dynamics. Here are some lessons I am grateful I learned way ahead of the race:

Hotel

Town is lovely, but it’s a sleepy coastal town, without super large amount of tourism. This means that there aren’t that terribly many hotel and AirBnB choices around. So I reserved a hotel room the day I got registered for Ironman Maryland 2021. I would recommend that to anybody!

Food options

Endurance athletes are notorious for specific dietary restrictions, especially before a big race. Unfortunately, prior visit to Cambridge told me that there are relatively few food options (considering number of people descending on a small town all at once) and on Friday before the race, I expected everybody would be looking for restaurants serving pasta in large quantities. I chose to bring my own food for the days coming up to the race and I was happy about it. Knowing I had the right type and amount of food waiting for me in the hotel fridge went a long way to ease my anxiety!

I’m here. Now what?

I got to Cambridge shortly after lunch on Thursday, as planned. My hotel room wasn’t ready yet and I was scheduled to check-in for the race between 3pm and 4pm, so I had plenty of time. I decided to use my time wisely.

Practice swim

Since back home I don’t have access to open water swimming, I decided to go straight for the ‘beach’ in Gerry Boyle park and get a quick swim in. It was starting to rain, but I figured I would be in the water anyway, so what is having water both above and below?

Changing into a swimsuit turned out to be a bigger challenge than expected. The only things in the park were some gazebos and port-a-potties getting set up for the race. There were some people around, so I didn’t want to change without hiding somewhere. FYI: port-a-potties are not awesome for changing clothes – cramped as hell! At least they were clean…

Note: please observe safe open water swim practices!

And off I went! Water in Choptank was actually really warm, so I wasn’t thrilled with the wetsuit. I got stung by a couple of jellyfish and quickly realized that it’s not that bad (for me – plenty of people have bad reactions and I am not discounting their experiences; my personal ones were just not bad). My left armpit hurt and I was fully convinced that it was a big sting. I figured out it later: nope, it was chafing. I never tried swimming without sleeves under the wetsuit. It convinced me that there was no way I would be swimming in a wetsuit unless they made it mandatory.

I swam for less than 5 minutes. Remember that rain I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago? Well, at this point it changed into a serious storm. When I saw lightning hit a radio pole in Gerry Boyle Park, I decided it was high time to head out.

Believe it or not, this time I changed under the cover of a towel. I decided that’s a lot easier than going into a port-a-pottie.

Trying to check in

Ironman Maryland flags - Poland is represented! — Ironman Maryland flags – Poland is represented!

Of course this couldn’t go smoothly! They closed the athlete village due to the storm. I went to the hotel for a bit and unloaded all my stuff. Since I pack each ‘subject’ into a separate bad (regular clothes, swim, bike, etc), it was a lot to carry.

Once that was done, I went to wait in line. It was kind of fun. I immediately made some friends. There were two guys with a cute dog (oh, how much I enjoyed petting the little guy!) and ‘the kid’ (he will be a recurring character in the story).

We chatted some and three out of four of us were first-timers. I thought I was the least prepared person ever and why in the world I thought I belonged there. But then I got to listen to ‘the kid’ talk. He didn’t even read the athlete guide! (pro tip: always read the athlete guide). His nutrition plan was ‘I figured there would be something at the aid stations’. Yes, our ‘entertainment’ in line was helping him understand proper race fueling. Well, at least he wasn’t traumatized by facebook group’s freak-outs about jellyfish!

Letters from the students

It turns out that students from the local elementary students write letters to the athletes. I somehow got these two:

What a wonderful idea!

Parking and getting to the starting line

I decided this should be a special section, as I learned over the course of my racing (even if I haven’t done too many) that figuring out how you get to the starting line and what happens to your car if you drove is a must-have. Cambridge is not exactly know for its omnipresent parking. I was fortunate enough to see on a facebook group a pastor offering parking right next to the finish line. I am so grateful that I pounced on it! It was an awesome accommodation and made my life so much easier!

I have struggled in the past with transportation, most notably in Vermont (because Burlington doesn’t have enough traffic to have Uber in the morning) and at Disney (because I had to return to Disney Springs, not a resort and for some reason, that was a problem). So keep that in mind: have ironclad plans for commuting.

Sherpa

I have a friend who said he would be there for me. Well, he dropped off the surface of the earth in weeks coming up to the race. I wonder what happened to him…

So here I was on Friday morning: freaked out at my first Ironman and completely alone. I chatted with random strangers over hotel breakfast. A nice gentleman asked if I am really sherpa-less at my first Ironman race. When I confirmed, he volunteered himself. He said he loves race atmosphere and he comes down just to enjoy it. He completed a couple of races, but he also likes to hang out and make burgers for people at the finish line. Of course I took him up on his offer! Bike pick-up was a mile away from the finish line. And I just wanted somebody to be there for me in general.

As it turns out, Lester (if you’ve done an Ironman in the US, you may have met him! Apparently many have!) lives in the same town as me. I realized a bit later that I have actually crossed paths with him before! It sure was nice to have support who knew it all!

Gear check-in

Yes, I know – I put my bike backwards 😅. This was direction for people on the other side. Oh, well…

It took me a minute to figure out how to put stickers and I actually enlisted Lester’s help. Ironically, he put the front one wrong and gear check made me realign it LOL.

My bottles were filled with nutrition powder and the pouch had protein bars in it. Toolbox obviously contained a small tool kit and spare tubes.

Pro tip: don’t mix sport drinks any earlier than you have to. Other athletes told me to worry about ants. I also knew something else from experience: they become ‘science experiments’ extremely fast. Big water jug on race day morning did the trick. I also dropped off gear bags (shoes, helmet, more food, socks etc. – I had nightmares later that I forgot something crucial!)

On the way back, I ran into ‘the kid’ by athlete village. He was standing with the sheet of stickers, his bike and a very puzzled look on his face. Yes, I stopped to help him. One thing I noticed and found a bit distressing: no tool kit. He said he was relying on race support for the tools and even if he had his own, he wouldn’t know what to do with them. That made me so worried for him!

Athlete briefing

This was the most boring part of the race experience. So all you need to know is that I went there and I made sure that they won’t make me wear the dreaded wetsuit.

Morning of the race

Ok, let’s move this story along! I barely slept the night before the race I was so anxious! I got dressed in my little peach-like tri suit and a sweatshirt, ate breakfast (some sandwiches) and headed out. The night before the race they made it wetsuit legal, as so many people were concerned about the jellyfish. I kept in mind my deep discomfort from being bound around the chest, water temperature and my reaction to jellyfish (or lack thereof). Decision was easy for me: no wetsuit!

I did have second thoughts when I was waiting in line to a port-a-pottie (totally nerve wrecking! It took forever!), since I was the only one in sight without a wetsuit. But at this point, there was no turning around.

I also ran into the kid. He had nothing with him but the wetsuit. I offered him a water bottle with sports cap, since I didn’t know what the aid station at T1 would have (they had water, but not in sport bottles).

There was a heavy-set gentleman behind me in line. He was racing and he has done multiple full ironmans before. He said that people keep judging him because he is not built like other athletes. I can honestly say: I wasn’t judging him and I told him so. I generally don’t believe in judging other people. And yes, I checked how he did and confirmed my suspicion – it took hi an hour less to get the whole thing done than it took me.

For a quick chuckle: here is me on the start line. Boy, did I stick out!

Swim – oh, the fear of jellyfish!

I had serious doubts before entering the water, courtesy of being surrounded by all those wetsuits! However, based on how many people suffered dehydration out of the water (and I am prone to that), I think I was better off without a wetsuit. I heard quite a few people got really sick from the jellyfish and I feel really bad for them!

As I was headed into the water, the announcer took one look at me and yelled ‘oh, you brave soul! No wetsuit!’, so I reminded him we talked about it. He replied that we sure did.

At Ironman Maryland, they do a wave start: 3 people every 3 seconds. It’s supposed to help stretch people out. It did, but definitely not very effectively. I got beat up a lot on the swim course. There was even some guy who seriously pushed me under the water and it felt like he tried to drown me. He dislodged my goggles, making them leak. That was not cool! I swam over to a kayak and held on for a bit, getting myself put back together.

I heard a really bad story about getting beat up on the swim during a different triathlon to somebody else. A guy got into a melee so bad that he lost his shorts and had to call for somebody to get him something to cover up as he was standing in the exit of the swim.

I thought the course was well marked and easy to follow. But apparently the leaders took a wrong turn at some point and got a few hundred yards extra of swimming.

At the beginning of lap 2, I got to walk for a minute. It was nice, as it allowed me to fix my goggles and quickly regroup.

At the swim exit, people quickly started to walk. I decided to do that as well, but joke was on me: those were tall guys. I’m a 5’2″ woman… I made a rather disgraceful move and swam a bit further. For a good laugh, here is my picture at swim exit:

Swim distance: 2.4 miles

Swim time: 1:25:12

T1

When we got out of the water, we got sent through the space above to grab our bike gear bags. There were volunteers all over the place, helping us find bags and navigate the area. After that, it was ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right. In the tent, it was time to change and get ready. I actually put my helmet while opening my bag, so I spent all the time with a helmet on my head 😅.

There was a multitude of chairs around, so we got to sit comfortably. A number of female volunteers ran around, offering all sorts of help. For example, one of the ladies held a towel to cover an athlete trying to get out of swimsuit and into bike shorts (nudity was not allowed, but many wanted to fully change). I just focused on my thing, got my bike jersey on, socks, shoes and such. Worst mistake: I didn’t wipe my face well enough before putting on sunscreen. I’m allergic to that… My right cheekbone still hurt at the finish line!

T1 time: 7:53

Bike – Ironman Maryland’s flat course

This is by far the longest part of the race, although by not as much as I would have expected.

To my utter shock, I spent a good long time in the beginning on passing other cyclists. Me??? How??? I always thought that I was the slowest cyclist alive! Alas, I did well, at least in the beginning. Ironman Maryland’s bike course actually pretty good for me – I lose a lot more proportionately on the hills. I checked on the tracker app and yes, I did lose some ground relative to the leaders. But this was not the point for me – all I wanted was to finish.

Since it takes a good chunk of a day to ride 112 miles, many things have happened. I chatted to a number of people, especially in the beginning. You’d think that people would stretch out a lot over the distance, but you’d be surprised how long it takes. I was good 70 miles in before I felt like I had plenty of room around me. It definitely made me very self-aware and kept the ‘no drafting’ rule front and center in the mind.

There was Ms. 999 I made friends with. A lady who was dressed in blue with daisies on her bike. A guy I leapfrogged with for like 20 miles. Oh, and let’s not forget a lady with a clearly Slavic accent. She gave me 3 guesses, so I guessed: Czechia, Croatia and Russia. She was Polish 😆. So I said my goodbyes in Polish and rode away, laughing.

But not everything was a laughing matter. Around mile 72, I saw out of a corner of my eye a bike turn sideways and go airborne. People keep asking me what happened. No idea! I was focusing on my pedaling and sore back! I was one of the first two cyclists to reach the lady. The other guy handed me his bike and went to take the lady’s bike off of her (her gears, chains and pedals were on her face and there was blood. He kept trying to convince her to stay still, concerned about back injuries. She was just whimpering in pain. So my thought was to figure out how to get help, since we didn’t have phones (race rule). Fortunately, I saw a car stopped on the street and I yelled at the cyclist nearest to him to get the driver to call 911. I know, maybe the cyclist or the driver thought of it on their own. But seeing that somebody was calling for an ambulance made me feel better. A couple of minutes later, another cyclist approached the scene and started talking calmly to the lady, found her name on the Road ID bracelet etc. At this point, I decided I wasn’t contributing anything positive to the situation any more and I left.

I know at least some of you want to know what happened. It was the first thing I looked for on the facebook group next morning. The lady ended up with a broken clavicle and a broken wrist. I was so happy to find out that no permanent damage occured!

I found out from the same post that there was a number of serious crashes along the way. As far as I know, everybody will recover. One of the victims even made ambulance change their mind about taking him to the hospital and finished the race 😱.

Back to some lighter stories.

Majority of the roads were pretty good. But not all… There was one that was particularly nasty. It was between aid stop 2 and aid stop 3. It made me have to pee so badly that I actually wanted to pee my pants. I considered begging somebody living nearby to use their bathroom. It sure hurt to pedal at some point! I was DESPERATE by the time I got to aid station on mile 42. Funny thing: I was on that road on loop 2 and I HAD to stop to pee at the same aid station again! Nice aid station, but they ran out of water, when everybody wanted water, not Gatorade. Unfortunately, race day was extremely (for the area) hot and humid.

When I had to go through split between ‘to loop 2’ and ‘to T2’, traffic controller yelled that everybody going to T2 needs to turn left. It was flattering that he thought I was that far into my bike ride…

Did I mention my back did get sore from all that aero position? The course is flat and windy, so a lot of people spend the entire time in the aero position. I am prone to back soreness during bike rides, but I did feel better when I found out that others had the same issues after 6+ hours bent over and pedaling. It actually got so bad that I had to stop at the last aid station (mile 100 or so?) to stretch! I announced loudly that this is why I was getting on the ground. I still had somebody run up to me to check if I was ok.

Tons of other things happened on the bike, but I don’t thing any of them were actually even remotely interesting.

Bike distance: 112 miles

Bike time: 6:39:04

T2 – I can see the end of Ironman Maryland on the horizon!

Once we re-racked our bikes, we ran for our red bags. Ok, maybe ‘ran’ is overselling it a bit. I really didn’t feel a need to move fast. I knew I needed to preserve energy.

I actually don’t know what took so long in this transition. Maybe it was just walking a lot around with the bike? Maybe I just reorganized myself slowly? Well, it doesn’t matter. Eventually, I got my act together and got going. At this point, the leaders were already well into their run. Good for them.

Oh, and when I was picking up my bike ‘kid’s’ bike was gone. It was back there when I was dropping mine off.

T2 time: 12:38

Run – community’s finest moment

I was definitely tired by the time I got around to running. It made me remember all the marathons, when I would carb load carefully, made sure to rest up and generally threated over it… This was a whole another experience!

Very quickly into the run, I realized one of my socks (fresh pair – I was concerned that the bike ones would be already wet and ‘abused’) twisted. So I sat down on a curb and proceeded to fix it. Suddenly, a lady showed up with a backpack. She offered me fresh socks, chapstick, bandaids… It was so funny! I have no idea where she came from! I took to calling her in my own ‘runner’s fairy godmother’. She was awesome!

Running was hard. I walked through all the aid stations. I frequently alternated between running and walking. I had with me water bottle with liquid nutrition. I had more bananas and Gatorade along the way. At some point, I almost threw up. Diana told me that it’s probably because my blood sugar spiked. I am sure it was totally out of control!

I saw ‘the kid’ again on the run. When he lapped me. His finish time was a bit over 12 hours. Good for him!

But I kept going. And going. And going. I am glad there was a lady there waving a flag all night and with kind words to every runner (although many of us were runners in name only and we just walked). Since we were running up and down the same streets, I got to see a lot of people many, many times. I wished all the best to them, albeit mostly silently. If they had energy to pass me, I was psyched for them!

When the sun was setting, I sat down with my special needs bag to have an apple (maybe this is where I went wrong…) and grab a light. I didn’t really need it, but I didn’t know that yet. I made one crucial mistake at this point: I sat down. OMG! Getting up was HARD! It made me feel better that I saw a few people making the same mistake as me.

I learned something interesting about myself: when an awful crisis hit me around mile 19, I encouraged myself in Polish. Who would have known… I usually think in English.

Once the crisis started to set in, I actually started to have problems controlling sobbing. Fortunately, that lasted only like a minute, when somebody caught up to me and we chatted. This lady saved my butt there! From that point on, I did my best to stay close to other people, preferably join with them. It helped A LOT.

When the sun was setting, aid stations brought out broth. I thought it sounded gross. And I was just off of almost vomiting in the middle of the course. So I stayed away from that. But when we hit the aid station in Gerry Boyle Park on my last stretch, people I was with talked me into having one (they may have said only something like ‘it’s really good’, but who cares – they sold me on it 😉). I wish I knew earlier how awesome it was! It was the best thing I ever tasted! And gave me so much energy! I felt like a completely new person!

As we were leaving that area, I heard my sherpa yell to get my attention. He said that my current time elapsed was 14:06. I only had a mile and a half to go. Do you know what that meant? I had a shot for under 14:30! So I took off running. Maybe objectively it wasn’t really fast, but to me, at that time, it was a full on sprint. I didn’t stop again until after the finish line. Here is a shot of me going down the ‘Finish line this way’ lane:

Run distance: 26.2 miles

Run time: 5:56:26

After Ironman Maryland

Finish time: 14:21:14

I will be honest: I don’t remember them saying the famous line ‘Agata Borradori, you are an Ironman’. I was way too dazed! Once I crossed, a volunteer gave me a congratulatory hug and asked if I was ok. My answer may have been yes, but I was not really clear as to what now. She told me to just stand there. Not a problem, it’s not like I had my own ideas. She asked me for my t-shirt size and disappeared with the answer (small). Next thing I knew another volunteer showed up and she said she was there to get my timing chip. I started to bend down to get it, but she told me to just stand there and she took care of it. My volunteer came back, asked me if I was still ok and started handing me stuff: a hat, a shirt and a medal. I vaguely recall trying (with limited success) to put on the medal and the hat, as she led me to where they took finisher pictures. I somehow made my way to the morning clothes bag (and a sweatshirt), food (by the time I tried eating it, it was cold) and out of the way.

I am glad my sherpa told me many times where and how to find him. I slowly hobbled over and he pointed to a chair in his tent, telling me to have seat in a lawn chair. Gladly… He offered me a beverage: choice of water, Gatorade or beer. Answer was easy. I never want to have another Gatorade in my life. And I still had to get myself back to the hotel, so beer was out of the question. Lester the sherpa also made me a fresh burger. Real food! I do feel a bit bad – I wasn’t able to finish it. I was just too tired to eat!

Soon enough, it was time to go. Fortunately, Lester retrieved all of my stuff, so I didn’t have to go anywhere first. We just grabbed it and he walked me to my car. He helped me load up and I drove back to the hotel. It was a TOUGH drive. I kept biting on my fingers to stay alert. Ironically, I couldn’t fall asleep once I made it to bed.

An accidentally smart thing I did: I just dropped all of my tri clothes on the floor when I got to the hotel. This way, they dried. I heard a lot of people had to deal with really nasty, wet stuff. By the time I got to it in the morning, the stuff was dry (although still not smelling like the roses LOL).

Gift I gave to myself: I had an extra night in the hotel. I genuinely spent all day in bed, watching tv. It was amazing! I did leave for lunch. I promised myself fried crabs from one of the restaurants. They discontinued that dish 😭. But crabcakes were good, too. I also got takeout Chinese and beer for dinner. But that’s like all of the not-in-bed time for the day.

By the time I drove home on Monday, I felt pretty good. Well, except that walking after sitting in the car for over two hours was tough. But I recovered quickly and I’m as good as new now.

What’s next?

Yes, I know, it hasn’t even been a week, but I’m already talking about next challenge. I have to have something to do… I know that my next race will be Big Sur Marathon (I tried 2020, 2021, so three times is a charm?).

I think it’s time to focus on qualifying for Boston Marathon. I am still way too slow. But on the plus side, a marathon all on its own doesn’t sound that daunting any more, does it?

I will do more triathlons in the future. Just not full iron distance. I want my Saturdays back! I agree with my friend Colin: 70.3 is the perfect distance! So the challenges here are obvious: start with getting under 6 hours (the one in Gdynia was 6:18) and then try to qualify for World Championships. I know it’s a very much a stretch goal. But wasn’t a 140.6 a huge stretch when I decided to do it as well?

Well, I will need this for my new pursuits:

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