NOLA Ironman 70.3 Post Race

(Thanks for all the great comments on my race report. It was a hell of a day! I’m glad I was able to share that whole story with you. Thanks again for the comments!!)

So, when we left off, I had just finished the New Orleans 70.3 in 5:28:25, which was a PR by 5:33. My left hammy was still sore from whatever I did to it on the bike, but I was THRILLED that I was able to have had such a great run! I remarked in my race report that I had been flying when I hit the line - I didn’t track my splits, but I’m SURE I negative split the half marathon. I have proof of how much I was booking it. Here’s a photo from just before hitting the carpet, which signals the start of the finishers chute. Note where I am (I’m the one who’s legs look duck-like), and note the man in black on the right:

Compare that with one of the photos I showed in my race report when I’m about to hit the line. Note how far ahead I am of that same man in black:

Like I said: bookin’ it like a librarian.

There was still a little more drama left in my day. A volunteer bent down to remove my timing chip. She took off the 2 safety pins (I’m always paranoid that I’ll lose it) and un-did the Velcro. She took it off and looked at me. “Uhh, sir... there’s no chip....”

What.

Long story short: I had a slight pedal-to-pedal collision with another biker at one of the water stops on the bike, and we hit on the side where I was wearing my chip. I told the lady that it must have busted the chip right off. She quickly had me go talk to someone in the tent next to the line, and they confirmed that they had manually recorded my number when I crossed the line, so I was good! WHEW!!

As it turns out, I had an official bike split and T2 time, so the crash must have just broke the chip’s little “arms,” but it didn’t fall off until sometime during the run. A day after the race, I snapped a photo of my scratched ankle that shows the only remnants of that little chip-breaking encounter with a stranger:

So once that was taken care of, I talked with a few bloggers in the finishers area: Chloe (who I walked with before the race), Melissa, and Amy (who I passed on the bike - but I failed to mention before that she passed me back with about 8 miles left), among others.

In the food and drink area, I ran into Chris McCormack and got to touch him AGAIN! I told him, “Hey, nice job out there.” (I didn’t know how he finished, but I figured, hey, he’s Macca, so it must have been OK.) He asked how I did. I told him I PRed. He said, “In this heat? Way to go, man!” Praise from Caesar himself!! Thanks Macca!!!

Wil had my camera and was snapping photos of the finisher’s chute. Here are some shots she got of the pros doing their thing. Here’s the winner, Brent McMachon:

Here’s Chris McCormack (Macca) finishing hard in 2nd place:

It’s nice to see that even the pros are in pain once they finish:

Chris McDonald, who I got to talk to 2 days earlier, and who’s mantra helped get me through the run, finished in 13th place overall:

Pharmie thinks this photo’s pretty “hunky”

Natscha Badmann finished first for the women:

Linsey Corbin, who we also met 2 days before (and who is known for finishing races while wearing a cowboy hat), finished in 7th for the women:

Finally, Heather Gollnick, who we also met 2 days before, finished in 11th:

Wil didn’t get any photos of Desiree Ficker finishing. Sorry Des fans. Here are some great photos of everyone in our group finishing the race:

Sweet came in first


Then Robby

I came in next, but Wil missed me at the line and felt horrible. Ain’t no thang. So she snapped a photo of me when I was talking to her:

JP, the one who I ran with for a bit, came in next:

Then TriSaraTops finished:

Stu gave me a thumbs up as I was standing next to Wil who grabbed a shot of him finishing:

Rural Girl finished strong:

And soon enough, my lovely Pharmie crossed the line:

We all gathered in the shade just outside of the finishers area, and then we decided to leave pretty quick because JP had to get back to catch his flight. So we didn’t get to see TriCajun and his wife, Lisa, finish the race. They did the whole thing together:

The sweetest thing is that they DANCED across the finish line together:

(OK, off the record, can I just say that Lisa is SMOKIN’ for having 4 teenagers! Nice work Lisa! And way to go TriCajun! OK, now we can be back “on the record.”)

While we waited for the bus to take us back to transition, Chad found me and said “hi.” We chatted for a minute as I tried to avoid the sun. We got back to transition (after a great, air-conditioned, cushy-seated, charter bus ride), Pharmie and I took our bikes to the Bicycle World tent so they could be shipped back to us, helped the Evotri gang haul their stuff back to the van, and we all went back to the house. Pharmie and I compared sunburns. I did NOT have a watch line a few hours earlier, but now my arm looked like this:

I was also “tattooed” with my race number, 1169:

Pharmie had the most impressive burn lines. She had a DOUBLE line on her legs - her bike shorts covered quite a bit of her legs, but in T2 she took off those bike shorts, and she just had shorter tri-shorts on under that. So she’s got 2 lines on both legs:

But her back was the worst. This HURT:

Yawouch. We DID apply A LOT of sunscreen before the race, but I think we needed to reapply in both T1 and T2. We’re pale Minnesotans, we’re not used to the sun in early April. Lesson learned.

We all showered up and hit the town. We were STARVING. I ordered a ton of big, rosemary-BBQ shrimp:

I had to shuck them and pull off all the body parts I didn’t want to eat. Here’s the pile of shrimp “husks:”

They were SO GOOD! The strong rosemary with the spicy BBQ was a great flavor combination. They were quite messy to eat though:

Then, all of us hit Bourbon Street:

Pharmie and Rural Girl were “boozin’ it up” in the streets:

We popped into one bar that had a mechanical bull. Sweet had ridden it a few days before, and someone said I needed to try it. Ya don’t have to ask me twice:

I’m NOT falling off here. Really.

Pharmie was taking a video. I didn’t want to put up the whole thing, so I took some screenshots. This is Pharmie’s favorite part when I mounted the bull for the second time and got some sweet, sweet air:

Well, after going up and down Bourbon Street, it was time for all of us to hit the hay. We got up early the next day (Monday) to load up and catch our flight home. On Tuesday, I was back to teaching. I tried to eat pretty healthy right after the race to help my recovery. Here’s some great cheese pasta and a mixed berry Monkey Shake from 1010Wellness:

That night, I iced my butt in bed. Don’t be looking for an ice-pack in this photo - it’s practically up my butt:

(but notice my red arms and nose)

My sunburn on my face started peeling on Wednesday. It was nasty. A few days later my arms and neck started peeling. Here’s what my left arm looked like on Saturday morning:

It’s harder to see my number, but THANKFULLY
“69” is still VERY readable. Great. Thanks Mother Nature.

Later on Saturday when I was sitting at the table grading projects, I started to peel my arm. Here are some of the bigger chunks I got off:

If you know me REALLY well, you’ll know EXACTLY what I did with this skin. I didn’t tell Pharmie what I did with this, but I know that she’ll know exactly where that peeled skin went. Do you have a guess as to where that skin ended up? Be specific. The first correct guess will win a prize. I can’t guarantee that I won’t just mail you a wheat penny or some crap, but hey, a prize is a prize. So quityerbitchin. ;)

Anyway, that concludes the massive story of our trip. We’re SO GLAD we went and did this augural event, but we don’t know that we’d do another long course, far away, early season tri like this again. Here are the links to all the great buddies we hung out with during our trip: Pharmie, Stu, Rural Girl, Robby, TriSaraTops, Tri-Cajun, JP, Wil, and Sweet

My butt/hammy is still a little sore, but I think I’ll try running for the first time since the event either tonight or tomorrow. I’m thinking about a 4 mile “Mud Run” this weekend, and then a group of 5 of us are going to the Winter BeGone Duathlon in just under 2 weeks! YAY for “Multi-Sport Season” in MN!!