"Stephanie Melkonian from Chicago, IL you are now an Ironman!!!"

NOte: I started this WEEEEKS ago- which is why i am referencing"this past week" but i got soo side tracked with school that i am just now getting around to finishing it... enjoy




That is what i heard from the race director as i cross the finish line this past saturday. What an incredible feeling!! What i am going to do here is give you guys a play by play of race weekend/race day, and bear with me.. its gonna be long. but, so was the race so deal with it.

Thursday Nov 30th: I fly into Panama city and am immediatly hit by the waves of people with triathlon gear in the panama city airport. lets face it, no one flys there on a random weekend in November untless something is doing on. i start to get the rush everytime i fly in somewhere for a race. its the "omg can we jsut get the race over with becuase i cant stand looking at all these people and trying to decide which of them is going to kick my ass on rce day" feeling.

i get to the hotel, check into my room and preparations are on their way. I missed "last call" check in for the race, which was ridiculously set at 4 pm so i would have to check in the next morning with the rest of the slackers. I did however make it in time to get my bicycle from tri bike transport.... which i will say right now is the most amazgin service EVER. "Hassle free" is the understatment of the century. it was like a miricle.

Friday Nov 31st: Wake up, got weighed and check in- missed registration for next years race, but thats ok, ill find another to do. i checked my bike into transition, packed my gear backs ( 1 for swim to bike, 1 for bike to run and 2 special needs bags) i made my peanut butter and nutella sandiches for my special needs bad, and packed a baggie of saltines and advil for good measure. I am ready to go for the next day! Go to bed at 7:30 p.m... like a champ.

SATURDAY NOV 1st!! RACE DAY!!

Wake up at 4:15: had some instant coffee, a PB and nutella sanwich for breakfast and downed some water. the nerves were starting to hit already and as usual wreaked havoc on my digestive system ( TMI i know, but any endurance athlete knows this happens, and it SUCKS). I start making my way over to transition and body marking. I fill my bike water bottles with some water, pumped up my tiresand checked to make sure i had all the equipment necessary to change a flat just in case ( i was praying to God i wouldnt get a flat- is there ia patron saint of cycling?? if so he may have been watching over me - it being all saints day and all).

around 530 I head over to body marking. Go 2006!!! i got a few "what the hell is she thinking" stares when the body marker asked my age and i said 23. For those of you unfamiliar with tri's it is in general a sport for those in their 30s and 40s (believe it or not your edurance peaks, esp for women, durng these years- plus these people tend to have the money to support their habit)
after i was all marked up and ready to go i put my sweats back on (it was rather chilly that early in the morning) and walked my special needs bag over to the drop off tent.

i put my wetsuit around 6:20 in the morning. this is a long process and generally takes atleast 10 minutes to get on straight. the gun was going off at 7 and the nerves were building up like crazy. I was nauseus, cold, nervous and totally blocking out everyone around me. a started to make my way to swim start....

7 am- the gun goes off! Oh my god, a mass sim start will 2200 people?!?! men and women, elites and newbies all thrashing around. we are packed so tightly because no one wants to deviate from the course too far at risk of adding distanec to the swim, but what this does is create some severe traffic. the first mile was like driving in bumper to bumpter traffic, but imagine that in traffic, everyone has their window open and one hangout the window holding a baseball bat and thrashing the people in the next car with it. thats what swimming the open water ironman course is like. I wwas getting pulled, kicked and pushed out of the way... it was AWESOMEEEEE.... and horrible all at the same time.

I finished the first 1.2 mile loop of the swim, ran out of the water to the aid station, drank a sip of water and ran back into the gulf for the second loop of the swim. it was only at this point where people started to spread out and i could breath. I had already swallowed about a gallon of salt water at this point.. what i wasnt feeling it yet, so so far, so good. Unfortunatly, around mile 1.8 of the swim something horrible happened.... i was stung by a jelly fish!!!1
WHAT THE HELL!! my right arm went numb and i had to stop and just scream OW OW OW OW for about 2 minutes. i took a look at my arm, didnt see anything swelling up and decided i would be fine. I dragged my right arm for about 15 minutes until the pain started to wear off, thank god.

I was out of the water in about an hour and 12 minutes. not bad at all given my brush with dangerous aquatic life.i ran out onto the side to the thousands of screaming spectators who were still enthusiastic about the days events. i started to unzip the top of my wetsuit to get prepared to move into transition and change into my cycling gear. I reached a sandy area where a group of volunteers endearingly named "wetsuit strippers" were waiting for out arrival.

i wasnt really sure what their job was until, well i got there. I was shoved to the ground upon which two volunteers pulled at the legs of my wetsuit and yanked it off. MUCH faster than doing it myself though much more disconcerting.

now onto the 112 mile bike ride. this was, by far, the most daunting part of the day. 112 miles is ALOT. what am i supposed to do the whole time.... i usually sing to myself during rce because, well you arnt allowed to use an ipod, but i dont think i even know that many songs. anyway i hop on my bike and get on my way. MAN is it windy.. you would thinking training in chicago i woudl be used to this, but it turns out, on race day thats not the case. i started trudging along against the wind.

now the caliber of athlete an an ironman is MUCH higher than your run of the mill triathlon, even the big ones. Also the male to female ration is pretty disparate. i had beaten quite a few people out of the water, so all the big male cyclists started to rush past me. I didnt really care about that since they are men and even though i kick alot of male ass while racing, the ironman is a totally different game... and well these people are fast. anyway i tried to mae sure not TOO many women past me. worked out ok.

i hit mile 53 and got special needs bag #1. i had a horrible side stitch from the salt water intake, so i shoved my sandwich into my mouth, used a porta potty ( MAN i had to pee) and took an advil....the aid stations every mile were definatly a godsend. i fueled up on gatorade and bananas ad prepped myself for the second half of the ride.

around mile 60 we turned a corner and went with the wind!! every one was giddy at this developement. unfortunatly, it was shortlived. around mile 80, we turned another corner, and through some mystery of physics we were against the wind again. ugh. Now this is where the riding got almos tun bearable. cycling for anything over 80 miles is seriously tedious especially if you have no one to chit chat with. i was going out of my mind. mile 90 i started to hallucinate.... the mile marker looked like a 900 which i obviously interpreted to me a 100 until i was about 2 feet away and realized i still had 22 miles to ride. damnit.


mile 112... FINALLY back to transition. the bike ride was brutal, and unfortuantly, a little slower than i would have hoped but between bathroom breaks, the wind and my general discomfort near the end of the ride, it wasnt half bad.

the volunteers handed me my run gear bag as i ran into transition ... i hear everyone jokingly say "Whooooos ready for a maarattthoon?" as if we wernt tired enough. truth me told, i had been looking forward to the run since about mile 40 of the ride. i put on my shoes, and my brand ne ironman cap and went on my way.

26.2 miles. wow. miles 1-16 were almost perfect. steady pace not to fast, but definatly moving. i took advnagtage of the aids stations at everymile. I snuck snacks here and there and treally tried to stay away from gel packs as fuel. they make me neasues, are disgusting, and really at this point all i needed was simple carbs and the aid station good ( pretzels, cookies fruit) was just what i needed.

after mile 16 of the run though my legs were like columns of concrete. every muscle was strained particularly around my knee causing my knee to take a beating. this meant some excrutiating knee pain. At this point i decided i wanted to finish happy and if this meant sacrificing some time, that was ok. I ran a mile, walked a minute from mile sixteen to the end. the knee injury i think was originially sustained during a bike accident months ago and unfortunatly came back to haunt me. Near the end of the run the aids stations busted out cookies, coke and chicken broth. the broth was no appealing as the whole run all i had been really wanting was some sort of pastry. So i went for the cookies- and i must say, those drug store generic brand cookies have never tasted so good.

it got dark on my second loop and i ran blind from one light generator to the next. the sense on anonimity was actually a relief as not only could other people not see me, but i had no idea of the progress of the people around me. Also, the finish line glistened like a light house in the distance. i could see the finish line with the food tent, the race director on the pedestal and the constant flash of the camera as people crossed the finish line. I was almost there!!!

the last 6 miles of the run were brutal. but as i got closer to the finish line, ,the now sparse population of spectators became more substantial and the crowds toward the finish line ere just what i needed for that final kick. I started to sprint- no matter how much pain i was in i had to finish with some pride... you know how it goes.

cross the finish line and i was SOOO happy. hearing the race director say that i was no an "ironman" was the best moment of the day! i am definatly doing this again- despite the tough moments of the day.... somone told me at the beggining of the day that doing an ironman was like childbirth- if you remembered how bad it hurt, you would never do it again. but once its over- obviously the benefits overshadow all that. im gonna have to say i agree.