“They don’t call it easy camp” seems to be the phrase of the day. Epic day 1 indeed. The morning started with a 3 km ocean swim. I was nervous about this one. The only real open water swimming I have done in the past was in Lanzarote – but there we swam repeats of a small loop marked with buoys. Today we were set free to complete an L-shaped out and back course marked by only a few buoys. I was super visible this morning in my lime green cap and Easter eggs suit, which has zig zag stripes of bright green, orange, and blue. It makes me smile to look at it ☺. Anyways, as I was nervous about the swim Tara suggested I stick with David, which turned out to be perfect. We were well suited in pace and it was so reassuring to glance over every few strokes and see him there. The swimming here is just amazing – the water is so clear and you can easily see the coral at the ocean floor, spotted with sea urchins and fish.
We got back from the swim and transitioned to our bike workout of the day. Today’s biking goal you ask? Today we conquered the Kona Ironman bike course – 180 km of hills, wind, and constant sunshine. Today’s bike was a test of hydration and nutrition as much as fitness. My longest ride at this point has been some 3-ish hour trainer and road rides and I had hoped to build up my fitness this week at epic camp. I haven’t done a ride that is over 100 miles since probably the end of last summer?! That said, I felt great for the first part of the ride for which I was trained for. The first 2 hours, I stuck close to Tara’s wheel. At times, I am really good at keeping the pack mentality of holding the wheel infront of you. I almost get tunnel vision just staring at the wheel/seat as we barrel up and down the rolling hills. I had Suzanne Zelazo’s (who was at epic camp Lanzarote in 2014) voice in my head as we charged up the hills – “just hold her for one more minute, you can do anything for a minute.” After that minute passed, I repeated the process till we hit the top of the hill to glide down the other side. My problems for the day started to set in as we approached my max training distance. I think in part I was struggling with nutrition today as I just really didn’t feel hungry, I was having trouble taking in real foods during our brief breaks – I tried choking down as many pretzles and animal crackers as my body felt okay, but between breaks when I didn’t want more crackers was when I really start to appreciate the Gu gels and chomps. The flavor of the day? Watermelon! I loved it, my absolute favorite. Even warm, the watermelon Gu Brew tasted refreshing ☺
The afternoon was a struggle for me all in all. We climbed to Hawi and I fell of Tara’s wheel in a bit of a crisis with my ability to finish the day. I hurt and my hip flexors were in pain. I could barely hold the tempo pace at the time and I just felt ridiculous. At the lunch stop I was all about refuling and hydrating and I pushed off from lunch feeling a tich better. After getting over my lunch legs Tara and I took off again forging ahead. The ladder portion of the ride was ugly, but I oddly had good moments where I felt like I was plugging away, interspersed with moments that I felt like falling over. Tara was so supportive through it all, saying that we had come too far to split up and we were in it for the long haul. And haul we did.
The last climb of the day was at the end of our ride to the house, which is located over 1500 ft high. Though this isn’t an impossible climb, its placement at the end of the day is just mentally and physically tough. I struggled … I made it … it was epic.