There's no sugar-coating it - this race went terribly. And the post-race was even worse. Here's the break-down:
Swim
Surprisingly, the swim was the best part of this race for me - 19:22 for 750m, which is actually a swim personal best. The course was fairly straight-forward, a 3-sided rectangle (out, across and back) but it was extremely shallow for the first half. As in, I could reach down and touch the bottom. As a matter of fact, I almost bashed my hand off big rocks several times. I probably could have walked most of the course, but they specifically banned that at the beginning. For the second race in a row, I wasn't last out of the water, beating 2 people (out of 42). If I had known what was to come, I would have gladly done the swim 3 times instead.
T1
Nothing special to report here. Because I wore my long-sleeved wetsuit, it took a little longer to get off and I took the time to make sure I didn't accidentally rip off my timing chip in the process (it's been known to happen). Maybe it was because of the wetsuit or because I spent less time in the water than I normally do, but my legs were not as frozen and jelly-like as they often are coming out of the water.
Bike
Oh, the bike. The bike is normally my strongest leg but today it kicked my butt. Well, first the last minute course change didn't help. According to the course published on the website, it was a 9.9km loop (to be done twice) that involved a fairly substantial climb up to the Ecole Polyvalente de La Baie (those of you from the region know the hill I'm talking about) and then the rest was mostly downhill. At the pre-race meeting, suddenly it was announced that the course had changed and the loop was now ~7km and we would have to do it 3 times for a total of 22km instead. Which meant going up that cursed hill thrice instead of twice. When the race organizer announced this, I actually thought some people might strangle him - there were definitely hints of a mutiny in the making.
And it turned out to be just as bad as I thought it would be. I actually saw people getting off their bikes and walking up parts of the hill (it's steep!). The descent was a lot more fun, obviously, and it gave me legs a chance to recover. I tried to maximize my speed by being brave and not braking (normally, I'm a big fat chicken going down hills) which backfired when I reached an unannounced left turn. I got to the intersection and I thought I was going straight. Turns out, I actually had to go left. Now, do you know what happens when you suddenly slam on your brakes on a road bike that's going ~40km/h? Your back tire starts to slide out from under you and I nearly went down. How I recovered is beyond me but that was the end of me being brave - my bike time probably could have a been a little bit better, but I wasn't risking a major crash.
By the third loop, I was completely beat. I have no idea how the half-Ironman competitors did it - they had to do the loop 8 or 9 times to get to their 90km bike distance. At the top of the hill, at the school, they had a water station so on the last one, I decided to grab a bottle and promptly drank half of it. Bad idea. I threw up (while biking, mind you) no less than 3 times on the way down and generally felt like crap for the rest of the race because of it. Total bike time (including both transitions): 1:05:21. Not good at all.
T2
Again, nothing special here. I walked my bike into transition instead of running. At this point, I was so thankful to be done that I didn't really care about my time anymore. I ate two Shot Blocks and shuffled my way out onto the run course.
Run
The run course was a 2.5km loop on the bike path down by the waterfront. About half of it is flat and the rest is a fairly long hill as you go over a bridge and a descent coming down. Because you do the loop twice, you get to go over this bridge 4 times, which means 4 fairly long hills. My first km off the bike was atrocious - I think it took me almost 8 minutes. My legs were so shot because of the bike, it was all I could do to just keep my legs moving forward. I was also having some stomach cramps because of the water I drank earlier. My pace picked up on the second lap, mostly because I knew that the faster I ran, the faster I finished and the faster I got to go home. In the end, my time was 38:06 but I did beat one person. Yay!?
Total race time: 2:02:48
Post-race
Now here's my day gets really interesting. Because I had parked the car a few streets over from the race site, I decided to ride my bike there (very slowly, mind you). It seemed like a good idea at the time. That is, until I crashed. I was about 6 feet from the car when the bag I was carrying on my shoulder slipped down my arm, got caught in the front wheel and up over the handlebars I went. I'm sure it would have made a great America's Funniest Home Video. It's a good thing I was wearing my helmet because I hit the ground hard. First, my elbow hit (presently quite bruised with minor scrapes), then my hip (still waiting for the bruise to emerge but man does it hurt like hell) and finally my head. I lay on the ground for a few seconds while I tried to figure out what had happened and in the meantime, a couple cars had stopped and several people rushed over to see if I was okay. At the time, I thought I was - turns out, I was wrong. I was pretty sure I had a minor concussion so I went into the nearest store and asked to use their phone. I called Chris to see if he could call somebody to come pick me up (seeing as we only have the one car) because I wasn't sure I should drive home. Turns out, none of our friends were home. So then, it was decided that Chris would call a cab, get to La Baie and drive me home. But the cab took forever (of course). I think I waited out front of this men's clothing store for close to a half hour. I just kept feeling worse and worse. Nauseous, dizzy, fuzzy, stomach cramps, headache - you name it. At one point, the stomach pains got so bad that I decided I needed to find a washroom and fast. So I got up and walked down the street to the cafe to use their facilities but I didn't even make it in the door and I knew something was terribly wrong. I suddenly got so dizzy that I thought I was going to fall over. My vision went all blurry with bright splotches of light and I thought I was going to be sick. I made my way back to the clothing store, since I'd already explained the situation to the man there. When I walked in the door, I must have looked afright because he immediately said to call an ambulance. Eventually, the paramedics got there and started taking my vitals and whatnot. I tried desperately to explain in French what happened but my mind was so fuzzy that it was difficult to put together sentences. Which of course they took as another symptom, but hey. The paramedics (who were really hot, btw - just saying) advised me that I should go to the hospital, so off we went in the ambulance. Before we left, I gave my car keys to the man at the shop and he said he would wait for Chris and tell him what happened (on that note, I should call him tomorrow and thank him again). We got to the hospital and long story short, it was either a minor concussion or heatstroke or possibly both. The paramedics said one thing, the nurses said another and the doctor said something else. Once Chris got to the hospital, they let me go home with instructions on symptoms to watch for. As soon as I got back to the house, it was shower, food then bed. I'm still feeling like crap and every time I stand up, I get really dizzy but hopefully my headache'll be gone by tomorrow. See, I told you this race sucked!
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