My First Marathon (x2)

When I registered for the Ironman 70.3 Muskoka in Huntsville, Ontario my criteria was a half Ironman around my birthday that wasn't Muncie but I could still drive to, preferably somewhere that wouldn't be crazy hot.  I don't even know if I looked at the course profile before I registered.  I certainly didn't process that the feet of climb listed was in meters, not feet. When I started looking at the course profiles and doing the conversions, finishing became a BHAG (big, hairy, audacious, goal).  Now, I work with goal setting all the time, it's an occupational hazard.  I can set, and achieve, SMAART (specific, measureable, aggressive yet achievable, relevant, and timebound) goals like a champ.  The question was - was this really achievable?  We are talking about a course with 1,265 METERS of climb on the bike and 250 METERS of climb on the run.  And that run is AFTER you've shredded your legs on the bike. I started training the bike course at The Speed Facto

June 12th was the Grand Rapids Triathlon, which was the Athena and Clydesdale USA Triathlon Nationals.  The Athena/Clydesdale national championship is an "open" championship, meaning you don't need to qualify for it at an earlier race.  Athena is women over 165 pounds, Clydesdale is men over 220 pounds.  Ironically enough at my terrible showing at Tri Bonkers earlier I qualified for age group nationals by "winning" my age group - I was the only person in my age group. Anyway, I was doing the Olympic distance race at Grand Rapids - 1500 m swim, 40K bike, 10K run.  Same distance as Tri Bonkers, but on a more reasonable course and with better weather.  David traveled with me and my parents came down from Rogers City to watch me race.  They hadn't watched a tri before.  I was pretty anxious before the race because I didn't want to disappoint my coaches, my parents, David, or myself. The swim was a mass start by wave.  My wave was all of the Athena athlet