I stand in the water, it's up to my hips and I'm stroking in the air, warming up my shoulders and again, praying the right one won't hurt. I've got ROCK STAR suit magic, the water's warm, water all over me because I'm not wearing the wetsuit (note to the girls who are, I will outswim you anyway). I'm nervous - about nothing in particular, but I'd forgotten the intensity of these days, all these long days, 72.3 miles stretched out in front of you between buoys, traffic cones, mile markers.

Nervous dissipates with the dive into the water, I stop thinking and just feel my hips dolphin-kicking me to the surface, breakout stroke and a few more - that's it, there's the pretty freestyle - this is what I know: swim and inside line and few people will follow you. Start off fast enough that I am my own wave, way out front and by the first buoy I've caught the next one. Swim through it. Shake off potential drafters with sprint kicking, my swim speed's not to share. Swallow a whole bunch of lakewater in the process so that as I run to T1, I am pretty confident that I'm going to throw up on top of my bike shoes.

I don't - I run out of T1 with bike shoes that are filled with rain water but not puke - but it takes so long for my tummy to settle on the bike that I don't drink anything for the first half hour, and become ridiculously proud of myself when I DO finish sucking down a bottle of Gatorade. As soon as I've got some calories in my body I feel better, cycling doesn't suck quite so much. (Fine: my legs were spinning quite nicely today. I force-fed myself four gels (taped to the toptube, they looked all cute layered like this: lemon lime, chocolate, lemon lime, chocolate, tear it off and once you've eaten it tuck the wrapper near your hip under your swimsuit) so my legs could keep spinning nicely, so I could set myself up for a good run.

That is, after all, what I came for. I dogged the run at Moosey and this is what I wanted today: the fast run split that I know I'm capable of.

When I run out of T2 I catch five people in the first minute. This is the run plan: People are moving targets. HIT THEM. Nothing feels better than zeroing in on someone's shoulders, passing them, making them watch MY shoulders disappear. It feels almost as vicious as doing it in the water. And oh, the mile markers are going so quickly, I am running under 8s and picking up speed.

Until the mile 9 marker anyway, which is the gate to Hypoglycemic Hell.

It's four miles, keep running like the little demon child you've been playing all day
I'm going to faint
It's only your brain that's sugar-starved, your muscles are fine
They can burn fat, and break down protein too
Furthermore you can't be that hypoglycemic if you can reason your way out of this with ex phys stuff
5k, 5k, 5k, remember how quick that felt last weekend
I'm going to faint, I'm going to collapse,
you're the one who likes to suffer and
here's your suffer spot
two miles to go
AAAA too long
it's like eight laps around the track
you can do that
My hip flexors are so sore. With each step I feel weaker, unsure if my legs are going to keep holding me up - the pace is still fine, even, 7:45s or whatever but ohhhh are we there yet.

I run past two guys at the mile 12 marker. They're walking. "Suck it up, you've got a MILE left." I yell to them but I am yelling at me, how short a mile is, you'll be done in less than eight minutes. The only person who passes ME on the run (aside from a relay runner, and she does not count) does it in this last mile. And he's moving so fast that I don't even think of trying to keep up with him.

I run into the campground and the final tenth is a delight, a big U so you get to run alllll around. If I were running slowly it'd probably suck but I feel good now, so close, and this just feels for show, turn those legs over and sprint toward that line.

your breath will catch when you run over the line
it'll feel like cotton in your throat, your spell of
3 strokes, breathe
pedal, breathe, let your legs spin
breathe, keep turning your legs over, breathe
broken
the magic will stay with you while you're
sitting at the awards ceremony, sipping chocolate soymilk out of the carton [like Juno drinks Sunny D]
glowing because this is the best race you've ever had
but there's something about finishing that brings
happy tears and
breathlessness

click me

Sounds like a lot of work. Congratulations!

I'm impressed with everything but your freakish desire to fixate on the suffering and then report about it. Other than that, an excellent performance.