"I HAVE ONE MORE THING TO SAY TO YOU...YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!"

finally, the moment you've been waiting for...Don't pretend like you're not interested...Subaru Ironman Canada 2008 Race Report!!!

The few days leading up to the Ironman were busy busy busy, checking out the athletes village, organizing our gear, dropping off our bikes and bags in the transition area and eating lots and lots of pasta :)
The morning of the race was a little intense. I wanted everything to go perfect...I set my alarm for 4:12am and at 4:45am I heard my dad upstairs "Isn't Paulette out of bed yet?" - I jumped out of bed, grabbed my wetsuit, goggles, bike gear and running room jacket and rushed upstairs for some quick breakfast before pushing my dad out the door to get down to the water!
I was hoping to pass my dad in the swim, but he somehow managed to get out of the water 6 minutes ahead of me. The volunteers on race day were amazing - stripping me (wetsuit) and lathering me up with sunscreen.



Then I was off on my bright yellow bike for the long road ahead of me. I had a few mechanical failures on the bike - around 50K in I had to fix my chain on my bike and then at 140K I had to rely on the road support crew to fix my back cassette...but that wasn't enough to dampen my ironman spirit. I was back on my bike pedaling my little heart out up Yellow Lake mountain - which was a huge struggle seeing as how I did most of my training on the Lakeshore in TO (which is pretty much flatter than the Prairies!).



I felt really strong on the run - which is my favorite of the 3 events, and ran a 4:18 marathon (8 minutes faster than my Dad!). Overall I was still 26 minutes behind him. Coming back into town finishing the run was an unbelievable experience. One of the spectators asked how I was feeling and I couldn't even get out the words. I crossed the finish line in 13 hours 26 minutes. My Dad was there waiting for me, with our friends (and phenomenal support crew) Ellis and Susan, my Grandmother (who was a major trooper and came out at 5:30am to watch us start the swim and stayed until 10pm!! In the rain no less!) and my Uncle Andrew and Karen, who came from Calgary to watch and take pictures.



And then I vomited. And then went home to shower and watch the rest of the finishers come thru.
This was both mine and my Dad's first Ironman and certainly an experience we will always remember. We've both signed up again for next year and can't wait!
Huge thank you to the Running Room and Wigam socks for giving me the opportunity to share this experience with my Dad!

PS. this is a cut and paste blog post of the email I sent to the Running Room as my race report since they funded my lil race entry ;)