Ironman Lake Placid 2014 Race Report Post 2 of 2

Sunday – Race day Woke up nice and early at 4 am. Joe had music playing immediately. We tried to eat , applied race tats (courtesy of Liam), and I sang. This actually kept me calm while looking at the radar and realizing that we were going to be hit with a thunderstorm hopefully after we were out of the water. We quickly were ready and out the door to walk the mile to the swim start. When we arrived at the Team Loco tent after dropping our special needs bags off, there was a mass of people there. It was great to know that all of these people were either doing the race or cheering for us. I was pretty frantic at this point. This race meant so much to me. Wetsuit went on. Grace told me I couldn’t cry. One of my biggest supporters, Sierra (8), told me “Don’t doubt yourself, Kelly. You are ready for this!” (Coach Jamie should watch out for this one – she gives Joe training advice and gives me pep-talks! She will be the next Ironman coach!) And then we were off to the swim start. The swim start was odd for me. This is my first time with the new wave start. The cannon goes off and I go nowhere quickly. We stand around for a while. I positioned myself at the end of the 1:21 to 1:30 group because based on my swim times in training this is where I belonged. It took us about 20 min to get into the water. The woman next to me and I were singing “Call Me Maybe!” And then it was time to get in the water. The chaos began almost immediately. The pull from all of those people in the water was amazing. The pull was bringing you directly on the cable too. But this was where the arms and legs were flying. The new swim start immediately presented a problem as well – those who did not seed themselves in the right place. I was having major issues getting to people who were not swimming the pace they claimed they were capable of. I also was shocked by how many people were treating this swim as if they were in a boxing ring – I’ve never seen arms flailing with such power before and legs were coming sideways with large leg swings. I was in an Ironman competition, right? That type of leg kick is unnecessary. Within the first 10 min of the swim, I got an uppercut to the jaw. It came out of nowhere. It hurt and left me stunned. I kept swimming though trying to remain calm. Then the 1st turn happened. I got pummeled and swallowed a ton of water and just was struggling to maintain my calm. I couldn’t find any open water where I could get into a good swim position. I had my first moment of the day where I thought I wasn’t going to make it out of the swim. I had to again convince myself that I just needed to get back to swimming and I would settle down. I did! I tried to find some open space off of the line but every time I got some space, I would get pulled back toward the line. I finally decided to just stay on the inside of the line and deal with the people. Then about 5 min from the end of the first loop, I got kicked in the left ribs/abs – wow, that hurt. Somehow this actually just made me angry and I somehow got out of a group right at the end of the first loop. I I swam the first loop in a 42:56 which is the fastest I have ever swam a loop! I got out of the water, waved like a lunatic so my family could see me (I knew they weren’t looking for me but I choose to believe that they were.) I went back into the water found my spot on the inside of the line. I got onto someone’s feet (not flailing, side kicking, feet, just nice gentle fluttering feet) and made my way along pretty well. I felt like I was flying. Still getting pummeled here and there by people’s hands and feet. The amount of people who scratched my feet during this swim was crazy – people need to keep their nails shorter!!! At some point it started to rain but, heck, I’m already in the water so rain is just more water. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, then “SWIM TO SHORE!!!!!” All feet in front of me went down. Everyone was stopping. All I saw was confused faces. Then I realized that there was a boat in front of me and kayaks all around and we were being yelled at to “SWIM TO SHORE!!!” We all just looked at them like – shore is ahead of us, why are you blocking our way? Then we heard and saw it all at the same time – lightning spidering its way across the sky and the accompanying thunder that was immediate. We all put our heads in the water and swam as fast as possible to shore. There were other athletes on the dock helping people out of the water since there was only 1 ladder and there were hundreds of us. By the time I got on the dock, I was in tears. This was the second time I thought my day was over and I had no control over this one. We all moved off the dock and waited for someone to tell us what to do. More lightning, thunder, rain. For some reason, I don’t know why, we knew we needed to get to the street and go to transition. We walked up this random person’s driveway to Mirror Lake Drive. We started running down the road toward transition. We were greeted by volunteers running toward us yelling us to go to transition and get on our bikes. So I take off the top of my wetsuit. I’m running down Mirror Lake drive, barefoot, as fast as I can. It hurt!!! There are not nice pointy parts of the road and we were in barefeet and I was sprinting!!! I got out of the water around 30 min into my 2nd loop. I got to transition with a total of 40:58 for the second loop and the running. I swam about ¾ of the second loop. I was on pace to swim a 1:25ish swim. In my last Ironman I had done a 1:34 so I was well on pace to beat my time. We were running to transition but I knew there was no entrance to transition from where we were coming from. When we arrived at just below the tennis courts they had just opened up the chute and were allowing us to go in that was. I was so disappointed that my swim was cut short and then I was rushing to get back on track! T1: Transition was chaos (not that anything from being yelled at to this point was calm but this was just chaos). They had gotten about 1000 to 1500 athletes out of the water at the exact same time and we all were headed to transition. Add to that the fact that there was a huge thunder and lightning storm. The volunteers were being rearranged as we were entering to help us out. Wetsuit strippers were in transition to help us get our wetsuits off. I could hear my family yelling for me but all I needed to do was figure out what was going on with all of these people around me. I retrieved my bike bag and waded through the oval into the change tent. Yes, waded – there was calf deep water in parts of the change tent. It was so crowded athletes were asking if they could just change outside of the tent – yes, get naked in the oval so that they had space. I was running through the tent trying to find a spot when Amanda grabbed my shoulders, yelled “KELLY!!!” and then left the tent. She refocused me to get my mind where it needed to be. I found a small space and started to change. I even put sunscreen on because, hey, you never know. I knew the radar had said that by 9:30 the rain should be out of here and if there is sun, I will burn. There were literally hundreds of women in this tent trying to navigate the what to wear while it was raining. I elected to not wear the raincoat but the arm sleeves and my bike jersey. I left the tent screaming my number over and over but the volunteers were just overwhelmed with us heading through transition and they were trying so hard to get everyone what they needed. The volunteers in transition were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get us what we needed but there were just too many of us to keep up. I left transition in about 11 min. I was finally accounted for in Ironman’s eyes since they had no idea where I was between the end of my 1st loop and my exit onto the bike. Bike I looked at my watch and I realized I had 9 hours to finish the bike. This was my #1 concern – making the bike cutoff. When I saw I had 9 hrs, I knew I was going to be an Ironman today as long as I didn’t have any major issues along the way. We started with a long downhill in the driving rain – well, this could be interesting, I couldn’t see anything. I could hear my name being yelled but I had no idea who it was. I ate almost immediately and planned to follow Coach Jamie’s plan of eating every 10 to 15 min on the bike. It was just pouring rain and there was thunder and lightning everywhere. As we were climbing out all I heard was “Go loco!” All of the thousand of us were now exiting transition at the same time and everyone seemed to know someone on our team or they commented that “All of us should be on team loco today!” I saw a bolt of lightning and heard a massive rumble of thunder as I was climbing out of Placid. I was trying to figure out how this was safe. Everything in my mind told me this was dangerous. I actually remembered the guy who had recently finished an ultra trail run after being hit by lightning so I figured I could do that too! NORMAL PEOPLE SEEK SHELTER IN THESE TYPES OF STORMS – NOT IRONMEN! I actually recalled Coach Jamie telling me “You didn’t sign up for an Easyman. You signed up for an Ironman.” After the fact, my sister showed me the alert for all spectators in the Lake Placid area warning of the severe line of thunder storms that were going to pass over and how they should seek shelter immediately. I realized on the climb out that we were not only in the storm but following it down the hill. Lots of lightning, lots of driving rain. We started going down the Keene descent in the driving rain – oh that hurt. I started noticing a weird rattle and realized it was my teeth chattering because I was freezing. This was the third time I thought I wouldn’t finish the day. I probably should have worn my raincoat. I needed it to stop raining because I was really, really cold. I passed Grace on the descent and she looked as cold as I felt. Plus, it was scary going down the hill with so many people at the same time and in the rain. People like to take risky moves and I was afraid if they fell they were going to take me out too. I got down to the flats and just started eating and pushing so that I could get warm. I started singing “Rain, rain go away” while biking because I just needed to get warm. Grace caught back up to me and we chatted about how her swim was cut short too. I sang “Call me maybe” to her since it was on repeat in my head since the swim start. She rode away from me because she hated that song! We saw Sara and Danny on the Ausable Forks out and back. It finally stopped raining about 2 hrs into the bike and my hands were beginning to not be blue anymore. The rest of the loop was pretty standard. I rode up papa bear and Leigh was there and I told her a secret – “I am going to be an Ironman again today!” I saw my family and friends when we came back into town and all things were better immediately. I rode the first loop in 4:09! I was thrilled with this. The second loop stated warmer than the 1st. I saw Dave, Mary, Billy, and Bob. I was climbing near the hostel and Amanda and Lisa were on the side of the road – we had a little chat as I was going up the hill! The descent went extremely well this time – it was dry!!! Grace and I found each other once again. We talked a little then she would go ahead of me. The second loop was pretty standard. I was a little afraid that I was pushing too hard and that it would impact my run but I kept hearing Danny tell me how to ride when we rode together a couple weeks earlier. Grace and I turned into Wilmington at about the same time and it started raining again (thunder, lightning, the works). There may have been some profanity between the two of us but I will not confirm or deny that. Then as we started to climb near the flume, my chain fell off. Got off, fixed, back on the bike. Grace turned to me when I caught up and told me that I was having a rocking bike and I just couldn’t believe it was happening. I had eaten potatoes, bananas, Honey Stinger waffles, or pineapple every 10 to 15 min the entire time. I had been drinking my skratch nutrition the entire time. I had 3 bottles of water on top of that. I felt great. Grace and I entered transition right next to one another. I was also excited that I had biked an 8:19:11! My fastest bike had been an 8:35 in the previous two Ironman’s that I had done! I knew that if I could keep myself together for the run, I could PR big time and maybe even hit my goal of a low 15 hour Ironman! T2: Transition was fine. I had a volunteer that put my socks and shoes on for me!!! There was a volunteer that put sunscreen on my back under my tri top so that if I moved my top, I wouldn’t burn! I thanked the volunteers for helping me in the 6:41 in transition and I was off running! Run When I started running the first thing I thought was “I think my shoes are on the wrong feet.” I just kept looking down to figure out why my shoes were feeling so weird. I saw and heard my nieces so excited about me being done with the bike. I went out faster than I wanted to 11 min 1st mile. I tried to settle in. I saw Bob, Mary, Dave, and Billy again! I was super excited about being on the run! Almost immediately I saw Joe running toward me. I knew this meant that he smashed his previous PR and I was greeted with a huge smile! Now I could just enjoy my day knowing that Joe rocked his! I then saw Rob and was greeted with a big smile. Liam, probably the biggest smile I saw out there. Clay and Mark – same thing. Jeremiah – same thing. Steve – oh, Steve was just so happy he was going to be an Ironman and that was contagious! Sara told me how excited she was to see me out there. Danny was ecstatic as always. Grace had a big smile on her face. My team knew this was a huge deal for me as well as for them and they loved seeing me out there with them since I wasn’t able to do it in 2012. They made me happy! As I kept running though I just didn’t feel great. This is the fourth time I was thinking I wasn’t going to make it to that finish line by midnight. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I wasn’t nauseous. I didn’t want to eat anything I had though either. I didn’t want to drink the Skratch nutrition I was carrying. I knew my plan was to start drinking coke on the 2nd loop of the run and didn’t want to start earlier than that but my intestines were very bloated. I stopped twice to see if I just needed to use the bathroom. I was hydrated well – I knew this. I just kept running because I kept saying this will pass. I told Joe I felt like crap when I passed him after the 1st loop. He looked so happy with his finish and was now cheering for me – it was really exciting to see him there. At the first aid station out of town I had chicken broth and coca cola. Then Mary came and ran along with me for a little way. It was all I needed to keep myself going. The combination of Mary’s excitement and the sugar and salt from the nutrition was great. The next aid station I had more chicken broth and coca cola. These things were like the nectar of the gods! All things were getting better. I just kept running and telling myself that I came here trained to run a marathon so I was going to run a marathon! I kept running between aid stations, walking aid stations and taking in water, coke and chicken broth and then running again. I saw Sara again and sang to her (“I Could Be your Payback! Let me lean you way back!) I saw Grace again and she was still smiling. I saw Sara again and she told me “I love you!” and I yelled back “Go make that finish line your bitch!” (You can see which one of us is more lady like!) Grace was told to go get her Ironman! She still had a huge smile on her face! Life was still moving along. I saw Bob at one of the aid stations and he got so excited to see me he gave me such a big hug he lifted me off the ground! I kept moving – nothing hurt anymore. I came to run a marathon, so I was running this marathon. I knew I was looking at a low 15 hour Ironman at this point and I just wanted to chip away at the time and try to make it as low 15 as I possibly could. The glow sticks were handed out. I could hear Mike Reilly tell people they were Ironmen and so I started muttering to myself “You are an Ironman! You are an Ironman! When is it my turn to be an Ironman?” I kept running. I got up the Horse Show hill and found Dave on his bike looking for me. I kept running. He was asking me questions and then all of a sudden said “Kelly, do you know you just passed 15 people?” I just wanted to keep running – I wanted to hear Mike Reilly tell me I was an Ironman immediately. I just kept hearing people cheering for me because I was one of the few that was still running. I saw my nieces and sister. Kaelah started running with me singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” changing the lyrics to her Ironman version. I kept running. I just kept getting faster. I wanted to get to that finish line really badly. I had a perpetual smile on my face by this time too. I realized I think it had been there all day long. I was so psyched to be back here where I belonged. I ran into the oval. Found Joe with Grace, Rob, Leigh, Shauna and Colin. I ran over to Joe and gave him a big hug and told him I loved him. He lifted me off the ground and told me to go find the finish line! I heard the crowd cheering and just was so excited. “Kelly Sullivan, 35……..” Mike waited for me to cross that finish line then finished “YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!” I ran a 5:20:45 and negative split the marathon after doing 112 miles and a mixture of swimming and barefoot sprinting 2.4 miles! Total time of 15:20:20! Almost a full hour faster than my last one.

The after: In the week after I was both excited and disappointed. I didn’t get to finish the swim of an Ironman. This was completely out of my control but still I didn’t do the whole 2.4 miles and some of the things said on the internet were pretty mean spirited toward those of us who “Didn’t make the cut.” I basically had a day where I swam 2.2 miles, climbed a ladder, off-roaded barefoot for a little, sprinted .2 miles barefoot (actually the road is longer than the swim so I probably did more than that distance), transitioned, did 112 miles of biking, and 26.2 miles of running. I think that sounds harder than an Ironman both mentally and physically. If I had started up in the swim start where I didn’t belong, I probably would have finished my swim because people completed the swim in 1:25 who did that but I didn’t. In my comeback race, things went a little crazy. I am proud of my day. I also know that I must do another (2016 just not sure where yet) so that I can affirm to myself that I could do the distances as they were set out to be done. I feel great that I accomplished my goal and smashed what I thought I would do on that day though. I am an Ironman! Thank you: My coach Jamie Boward at Mercury Endurance is one of the main reasons I could have done this. He believed in my abilities and trained me to do this well. I did everything he asked of me to make sure I was prepared but he set me up for success. My husband Joe is also a big reason I did this well. He knew I was in the best shape of my life and believed in me. My team(more of a family than a team) made this so much more fun to train for and to participate in because we were all in this together. Thank you to all of you for making this experience so special. To the volunteers, you rocked. And to our spectators – just WOW! You were so motivating and made me excited to get back into town! Thank you to you all! This day was just unbelievable and unforgettable.