Scared little man, mental meltdown and bouncing back

The title sort of sums up my weekend. My debut in half IM didn't go as expected.

I was physically prepared for the event, but didn't realize that my worst enemy would be me and my negative thoughts. All kinda started already before the swim when I was standing in a bathroom line and realized how hot the day will be. I couldn't resist the repulsive idea of running a HM in hot weather. But the full tidal wave of negative attitude and pure unwillingness the accept that I'm not functioning as easily as I was hoping for started already after 20 minutes into biking. I had hard time to ride among so many riders and didn't understand the way how to ride in a group and enjoy the embedded advantage without drafting. Now I know how important this is. Then I started to think about that how in hell I can manage to run a HM in hot weather. Bad mistake. Instead, I should have had to focus on biking and let the rest of the day just be there. 

My mental meltdown peaked at T2 and kept pushing me down during the entire run. The only thing that kept me going was pure hate against giving up. It was around 30C and I was shivering quite many times during the run. To me this is a sign of physical malfunction. I didn't focus on anything else but looking forward for the next water stop enabling me to throw cold water on myself or those two tiny hills which I allowed myself to WALK. Oh yes, I walked. And I walked even more. 

At the finish I was done. Totally done. I got burned. But I finished. And this simple fact makes my half IM debut awful but an important learning experience. This is not a running race. I'm not competing against anyone else than myself. And that makes this sport a challenge. Lucky thing is that I can share these thoughts and experiences with sweetie and rest of TuUL team. That makes this much more enjoyable. 

Summary:
Swim: Goal was 38 minutes. I swam 35:37.
Bike: Goal was 2:30. I biked 2:35.
Run: Goal was 1:30. I ran/walked 1:50.
Finishing time: 5:09:06

I was really disappointed that I lost the race to myself. So yesterday I was selling my bike and my IM registration. For really cheap price. But today I'm more that ready to continue. I have five weeks to go before IM Copenhagen. Bring it on!

Photos by Kaisa Utriainen