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| Into the transition tent and all the chairs are full. Sit on the floor and turn myself into a runner. Doesn’t take long at all and I am heading out of the tent in less than two minutes. Reach for the split button and... My heart sinks as I realise that I am going to have to run the entire marathon with no watch. Bummer! I scan the line of bikes waiting to go into the holding area and spot a little kid with my Kestrel. I run up and say, I need my watch. He hands me a cycling shoe! He is a bit scared with this crazed triathlete breathlessly saying, "watch, watch, I need my watch!". Eventually we connect and I get my watch. My relief lasted exactly as long as it took me to start running. Bike to Run Transition (second transition = T2): 0:02 My stride is short, I feel like crap, it is hot and I think that I just might lose my Ironman chunder virginity. Things are looking very bleak. People are running past me. My legs are begging for permission to stop running (if you could call seven-minute Ks running!). Oh how it hurts! I get to the 2K marker and my heart sinks when I look at my watch and see that the split is 14 minutes. I do some rough math and realise that I am on 4.5 hour marathon time. Oh the shame, what an unmitigated disaster. I walk an aid station and stick to my plan of alternating water/cola and water/sport drink (no prizes for guessing which famous ironman recommended this strategy). Right away I am into the cola. I arrive at the 4K marker with an eight minute split. I know that I am NOT running four-minute Ks and then hope that the average is correct putting me two minutes behind 3:30 marathon time. I immediately feel better and realise that I can salvage something from this situation. This was the moment that I gave up on a sub-3:30 time and started to focus on pulling enough back to get myself to a sub-10 overall. Mentally, I find myself really drained. My HR is good and I am able to drive it up to around 140. I realise that I am not pushing as hard as I was in Hawaii but I don’t care. My pace is mentally all I can handle, physically I know that I can do more but mentally I am toast. No excuses, I just did not have the mental power to push myself any harder. The race had beaten me down and I had lost my killer instinct. IM was winning the battle and I was in survival mode. |  Run lap #1: |