Iron Eagle

When I told Jessi I was going to do Iron Eagle this year, her response was, "I think that's great! You won't get to taper for it though. You'll just train right through it for Blue Lake." Um...ok. Train right through it, huh? Definitely not something I have ever done before. Not really something I ever envisioned myself doing to be honest. But I figured, "hey, why the hell not?"

I woke up on Sunday morning with tired legs and pouring rain. Perfect race combo, right? ;) Eric and I packed up my stuff and headed out to EWU to meet up with Jen. We decided to meet pretty early because last year, it was kind of hard to find a transition spot. We certainly didn't run into that problem this year. We were the first people there!

It was fun to set up and chat with all the Tri Fusion members as they arrived. There were quite a few of us there. I took my bike out for a really quick spin. It felt great so I quickly turned around and headed back because my teeth were already chattering and I was wearing pants and a long sleeved bike jersey! I told Jessi I was considering putting the jersey on for the bike. Her response was, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!" Since she is usually, well alright, ALWAYS right about these things, I decided to take her advice. I also decided that I wasn't going to wear socks. It just took too long for me to get them on at my last race!

We all met up at the pool for the pre race meeting and the race began. Just about all of us Tri Fusion members were in the 3rd heat together, so we still had a while before we had to start.
Here we are sporting our Tri Fusion tats. Thanks, Tim!

Feeling a little nervous here.

When it came to our heat, we found out that they had placed way too many people in it so we were going to have to circle swim. Seriously? A+ decided we would swim together. It would be just like Sunday swims and I could draft off of Jessi. Ok, not feeling so bad about that...until Amanda Burquist hopped in with us. Don't get me wrong, Amanda is incredibly sweet, but she is also wicked fast in the pool. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with her. When it was about time to go, I figured it was rude of me to just assume that Jessi would swim in front of me. Our swim pace is pretty close, so I offered to go in front of her to be considerate. She shocked me by accepting my offer. Oh great! I never thought she would say yes! I was just trying to be nice. So here is my mind set going into the swim. "You need to try and keep up with Amanda for as long as you can." "Don't screw this up or you will screw up the swims of your A+ teammates too! Not to mention the fact that the 2 of them are some of the fastest people here and have a great shot at winning the entire race!!" So I wasn't feeling any pressure at all!!! High fives all around and we were off.
Basically, my swim sucked. Trying to keep up with Amanda was a total joke and I exerted way too much energy in the first 50. From there on out, I felt like crap. Jessi was right on my toes the entire time so there was no slowing down. I had a pretty hard core side ache, but tried my best to just swim through it. Here we are. Note how far ahead of me Amanda is (you can barely see her down on the other end). No drafting for me!
I was so happy when the swim was done and I headed to my bike. I hopped on pretty quick and clipped right in - PHEW! I felt pretty good on the bike. It was absolutely pouring and I could barely see because of all the water on my glasses, but I was never cold. Thank goodness I took Jessi's advice and didn't wear the jersey! I passed quite a few people on the bike which was exciting for me.

It was awesome to see my hubby, my parents, Roger and Emma, Trish's friend, Christina, and Jen's husband, Nick out on the course cheering. Definitely gave me some energy boosts. At about mile 7 my legs were like, "Seriously? Are you really doing this right now?" However the bike was only 10 miles so I refused to shift into an easier gear and rode as hard as I could until the end. When I came into transition, there were 3 people standing right in front of my area. I said, "Excuse me" but I didn't wait for them to move. I think I hit one of them with my bike. Oops!

I really wanted to do well on the run in this race. I have been working on my cadence lately, and I wanted to get it up as fast as I could, especially because I did not do this well at all in my last race. After running up the muddy, gravel hill, I hit the pavement and felt better than I expected to. I accomplished my goal of getting my feet moving pretty quickly and settled in to what I thought felt like a pretty good pace. This run is 3.2 miles long and is pretty hilly. I powered up the hills, though, and the turn around felt like it came a million times faster than last year!

Again, the whole crew was out cheering. I have 2 favorite cheer moments on the run. One is Emma yelling, "Good job Tiffany! You're almost there!" in her sweet little voice. Definitely brought a smile to my face! The second is my mom and dad pulling up next to me in their car. My mom, ever the worrying mother said, "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Are you doing alright?" I could tell she was worried because it was cold and wet outside. This is classic Lynda - always worrying herself to death. I assured her that I was feeling great and kept moving.

At the end of my run, my A+ teammates came out to run me in. Hands down the best part of the race. Their words of encouragement filled me up as I sprinted to the finish. Last year's time: 1:20:45. This year's time: 1:09:43. Boo Yah!!! I was thrilled with the improvement! It landed me in 3rd place in my age group which was 26 to 35 and I was the 5th woman overall! I also averaged 8:20 minute miles! WWWHHHHHAAAATTTT???!!! Obviously Iron Eagle is my new favorite race!

Tim, Jessi and I headed back out onto the course to run Trish in. I could feel that I had some pretty hard core blisters and I almost turned back, but I told Trish I would be there and I certainly didn't want to let her down.

This race was an absolute blast, rain and all. Everyone finished really strong. Congrats to Jessi who was the first woman and to Tim who came in second overall! You guys sure did A+ proud! A huge shout out to Eric and my parents for coming to support me. It means the world to have you guys out there cheering for me. Thank you also to Roger for the awesome pics he got during the race!

Here's what my heels are looking like right about now. They sting like hell, but it was worth it!