RACE REPORT – IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
KAILUA-KONA HAWAII
OCTOBER 11, 2008

I have had so many emotions since first finding out I was doing the Ironman World Championships, competing in the race, and finishing, that it is hard to put it all in words. I was very lucky to even have the opportunity to compete in the race and it was a day I will never forget! Racing in Kona was the one of the best days of my life and the most brutal all combined into one. And, YES, I want to do it again.

When I first found out I was a lottery winner (seeing my name scroll across the TV screen during the 70.3 NBC coverage) I panicked. I had been dreaming of one day going to Kona but I never thought it would ever happen. I had put my name in for the lottery after being in Kona to watch the race in 2006. At that point I had never even done an ironman or half ironman. But I knew after watching that race that I had to get there some day. That year I was convinced I was going to get a slot and when the results of the lottery came for 2007 I was upset. I had already signed up for Ironman Florida by that point but I wanted to go to Kona. (So did my family, as who wouldn’t want to be a spectator in Kona rather than Panama City Beach). I was disappointed, but had Ironman Florida all set up so I went on to do that. I had my doubts about putting my name in for the lottery again as I was convinced it was rigged and the only way I would get a slot was if I had a very dramatic life story (which I don’t). So on the last day for lottery applications I decided to try again. I didn’t want to get my hopes up again, I just filled out the required answers then hit submit. I had kind of forgotten about it until I read on the ironman website that there would be a preview of ironman lottery winners on the 70.3 broadcast. I had to watch it!! I really wanted to get a lottery slot. When they started scrolling the names my heart was pounding. I didn’t want to be disappointed again. The names were going so fast I didn’t know where to look. Then I saw what I thought was my name. I was fumbling around trying to get the remote and pause the TV. It was my name!!!! There could not possibly be another Trephina Galloway in Atlanta GA, Right???? I was excited, then petrified. What had I done??????? I wanted this, right?

I was shaking trying to dial the phone to call Angela. She wasn’t answering so I started texting. I had to tell her. No response. (Turns out she was out at dinner). She did call me back after all my frantic texts and by that time I had also noticed Chris Nooks name on the list and Angela shared the news to him. Angela had 2 athletes as lottery winners!! I called my family, they were thrilled. They wanted to go to Hawaii rather than Wisconsin anyway. All I could think of was what have I done????? What have I done??? I kept saying to Ellen “ Oh My God, Oh my god” and then she informs me that I told her I was going to shit in my pants”. That was Sunday April 13, 2008 -6 months before the race.

Sunday April 13 2008 - suddenly I was going to be racing in Kona at the World Championships and all my goals for the year changed. I had wanted to improve times on my swim and bike from IM Florida. I was signed up for IM Wisconsin and I thought that my goals were reasonable and obtainable. But in Kona??? All I wanted to do was get the start line, healthy with no injuries, have a good race, and finish!!! (Of course secretly I still wanted to improve all my times. But realistically I knew that was going to be tough on the Kona course).

My training for the race pretty much went off without any major problems. It was hard for me living in a new city not knowing anyone to ride or run with or where to ride. (Atlanta is not a great place to ride, unless you have a death wish). Thankfully prior to knowing about Kona I had signed up for St Croix 70.3. IT was a great race to get a feel for what Kona was going to be like given the heat and wind. But even more importantly since Delta Airlines lost my luggage and bike (got them back the day before the race) I met a whole group of women from Atlanta also doing the race without their bikes and luggage. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, because when I got back to Atlanta I now had people to train with and learn all the places available to train.

I think training in Atlanta during the summer certainly helped with my heat tolerance for Kona. But nothing can prepare you for those WINDS!!! I also spent a lot of time on the computrainer, which is great if you live in city where riding is tough. (But there are no winds in my basement either). I cannot explain adequately in words just how WINDY the Kona course is. Believe me when I tell you it is VERY VERY WINDY!!!

Race week came before I knew it. It seemed like the 6 months flew by. When I think back about all the hours spent swimming, biking and running it is hard to believe that it flew by, but it did. And finally I was on my way to Kona.

Race Week in Kona is an experience. I had been there in 2006 so I kind of new what to expect. Lots of really fit people running and riding up and down Alii Drive, all trying to look better than the next person. It is intimidating to say the least. After getting to Kona and picking up my bike without any glitches my first experience with the course was my Saturday brick.

My Ride was to start at Hapuna Beach Park and go up to Hawi and back. This didn’t sound too bad. I had ridden this on the computrainer before with no problems. When I got out of the car at Hapuna the door was nearly blown off the car. I couldn’t believe how windy it was. I started to get really anxious. I could barely get things out of the car and keep my bike standing let alone fathom riding in the wind. There was another athlete there getting ready to ride also. He looked like he had done this many times before. I wanted to talk to him and ask were the winds normal, but he looked really serious about his training so I didn’t. I took a deep breath and got on my bike. I had to ride out of the parking lot and then cross over the Queen K highway to go in the right direction up to Hawi. I was too afraid to cross the road on my bike because I was afraid if I slowed down to check for traffic I would literally blow over. It took me a while to stop shaking inside. I almost turned around about 4 miles from Hapuna Beach because of my overwhelming nerves. But I knew I had to do it. In all likelihood the winds would be this bad on race day. The crosswinds were unbelievable! I would literally blow sideways. Then they would stop. I would relax for a minute and just begin to enjoy myself and they would start again. I turned around in Hawi and realized I had been going uphill the whole time. I was so focused on the wind I hadn’t noticed. I got a little more comfortable with the winds going back down to Hapuna, but every time I would relax a huge gust would blow me sideways and I would tense up all over again. I got a flat pulling back into the parking lot at Hapuna – walked the rest of the way to the car, went for a quick run and I was done. The drive back to the condo I couldn’t stop thinking about the wind. I was hoping it was a bad wind day so I had experienced the worst. As it turned out…..it wasn’t.

The rest of the week flew by. I went for a swim most mornings down at the pier. Again, the practice swims were a big spectacle of ultra fit triathletes and their egos. The swimming was somewhat relaxing to me. I may not have looked the part, but I can swim with the best of them so I never felt intimidated. The water was so clear you could see all kinds of tropical fish and the occasional turtle. The only bad part of the practice swims was getting into and out of the ocean. Hundreds of people all checking out the competition, and I had to walk by in a bathing suit.

On Wednesday the majority of my family and friends came into town. Ellen ended up driving to the airport 3 times. My mum and dad came in first, then Miranda and Cathy.

Thursday afternoon Angela arrived. I didn’t go to the airport, Ellen went for the 4th time in 2 days as I was listening to a lecture by the great Paula Newby Frasier. After all it was part of the medical conference we were attending.

One of the highlights of my week was the annual UNDERWEAR RUN! About 2 weeks before I went to Kona I had received a pair of red “GU” underwear to wear in run. Of course I had to take this a step further, as I love dressing up. So let’s just say I added a few items to the outfit. There was no way I was running around in undies and a normal sized bra. The run was hysterical. People had on all kinds of things. My costume was a hit. I am sure by now my photo is all over the internet. Good thing you can’t tell it is me.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of race week were really busy. On Tuesday I did an interview for Ironman Media. They taped a short segment that could be used by any network in the Atlanta area. I guess they chose athletes from all the major metro areas to do this. I was the Atlanta representative. The interview was outside on the Luau grounds at the king Kam hotel. I believe I was the last interview they did. They had told me to wear workout clothes. When I got there they had me change into a very unattractive gray t-shirt with a big Ford logo and Ironman World Championships on it. It didn’t really look too good with my nice pink running skirt that I had worn. The interview was short….. How did I train? What were my goals?, what was I most worried about?….. And then they did a short clip of me running. I am sure the gray t-shirt and pink skirt looked horrible. But I never saw the clip so I guess I will never know.

Thursday I had another interview. This one was with NBC. Yes NBC!!!! I had heard from them right before I left Atlanta. I received a generic mass email asking people to write a short blurb about their life and Ironman. I figured there was no way my response would be interesting enough for NBC coverage. I hadn’t heard anything when I left Atlanta and honestly had kind of forgotten about it. Then I got a call from one of the producers asking me to come for an interview on Thursday at noon. WOW!!!! NBC…. Almost as exciting as the Ironman itself!!!!
They didn’t really tell me much, just to come in normal regular clothes and what time to be there. The interview was fine. Kind of like the last one I had done, only in a dark TV studio with major lighting and equipment. Being that I always wanted to be an actress and not a doctor anyway I thought my performance went pretty well. Then they took me outside and shot footage of me strolling along the beach -kind of cheesy really. When I was in the studio they had me look straight into the camera and say my name, home town and profession about 6 times. I have a couple of the Ironman DVDs and I am assuming they are going to use this at the beginning of the video when they go through lots of names and professions to highlight the diversity of the ironman athletes. All in all it took about 20 minutes and I was done. Well so I thought!

Race Morning came really fast. All day Friday I had been sitting around just waiting for it to be Saturday and before I knew it…. It was. I didn’t really sleep that well. I kept thinking I had missed the alarm. (Even though we had 4 set) At one point I even got up and looked outside and thought it looked to light out to be 2am. I had my usual pre-race breakfast – boost. And it was off to transition.
We all piled in 2 cars and made the short drive down to the pier. Angela came with me to transition. Ellen and Cathy parked the cars and my family staked out a place on the seawall. The morning is a bit of a blur to me. I remember a guy holding a sign with race numbers on it and Angela saying” Hey Trephina that’s you”. Then without warning NBC was following me with a giant camera and light. They filmed me getting body marked, then walking to my bike and setting up transition. It was a bit embarrassing. People kept looking around trying to see if I was anyone famous….. clearly not. Not even close with the outfit and hairdo I had going on.

I tried to get out of transition as quickly as possible. Then I met up with Angela and Ellen and went to meet up with my family on the Sea wall. Chris Nook and his family also came over and we waited all together. I think we had about an hour to wait. It didn’t seem too long.

Before long, Chris and I were walking over to the swim start. We got in the water, did a quick warm up and then stood along the shore waiting for the start. I was getting really nervous. There was a Hawaiian group singing and playing drums. I told Chris the drums were making me really nervous. As soon as the last word of the national anthem was sung, the 1700 athletes made the move to the start line. Kona is a deep water start. Everyone moves out to the mouth of the bay and treads water until the cannon goes off. Chris and I were just bobbing up and down in the water waiting. I told Chris I was going to swim right behind him, but looking around I knew this would be pretty challenging. There were people everywhere. I kept trying to back up from the guy in front of me knowing when the cannon went off he would kick me in the face. The cannon scared me half to death. I don’t know if I missed it or if it wasn’t said, but to me there was no warning just a load boom and we were off.

It was chaos - arms and legs everywhere. There was no free water to even swim in. I kept trying to get into a rhythm, but I was fighting for water. I kept thinking it would thin out, but it never did. When we got to the turn around boat, it was really bad. Someone hit my back and in the process pulled the string on my speed suit, undoing it. For a brief moment I wanted to cry. I knew I couldn’t stop and fix it or I would be pummeled. So I just kept going. I was half full of water. I knew I just had to get back to the beach. I guess the swim went fairly quickly, but I never did feel like I got into a good rhythm because I never found open water. Needless to say I lost Chris within about 3 seconds of starting. When I got out of the water I never even looked up to see my time. I just went on to auto pilot: up the stairs, through the shower (where I bumped into Chris, so I guess maybe we were close in the chaos) and into the changing tent. It was crazy in the tent. People were pushing and shoving. I wanted to very methodically change and make sure I did everything. It was hard to do this with all the pushy type A personalities in the tent. I got out of there fairly quickly and on to my bike. I was very focused on trying to control my heart rate on my bike. This was really hard to do. I wanted to ride faster, but my heart rate was way out of zone. I also felt a little nauseous. I am not sure if that was because I was nervous or all the salt water I inhaled. I just sipped on water and tried to ride conservatively. Once again I had the experience of about 300 or 400 people passing me in the first 5 miles of the bike. It is very hard to watch this happen, especially if you are as competitive as I am. The first few miles of the bike are straight up a hill to a turn around then you come back through town and go out the Queen K highway to Hawi. I saw my family on Kuakini Hwy looking in the wrong direction for me. It made me feel bad because I guess they thought I would have been faster than I was. But when I came back down the hill it was great to see them there. I knew it would be a while before I would see anyone again. I finally got onto the Queen K and felt more settled. I knew it was going to be a long ride, and I was trying to convince myself that it was going to be great. I was a little confused for a while on the bike because they had mile marker signs and kilometer signs. For a while I thought I was further than I was. The ride was great for the first 20 miles. Then the wind began – and so did the longest bike ride I have ever done.

My heart rate never did settle down. I wanted to ask Angela what to do, but I couldn’t. I saw Ellen, Miranda and Angela at Waikoloa for a split second. I tried to spit out “heart rate too high” but the words didn’t come out. It just got worse. The wind started to really pick up and all the way from Waikoloa to the turn for Hawi (Kawaihai) was into a headwind. I kept thinking I would see everyone in Kawaihai, but when I got there they were not there. I did see Eric. I made the turn and expected the worst. I had done this before, a week prior and I knew what to expect. It started out not so bad. Then it started - crosswinds and headwinds. I was going about 8 or 9 mph and doing everything I could to remain calm and not get upset. Those 18 miles took forever. Hawi never seemed to come. I finally got to the turn around and remembered there would be a great downhill were I could hopefully make up some time. I started to panic when I saw the race clock in Hawi. I was calculating in my head how long I had to get back to town and what my slowest average speed could be. I knew I shouldn’t do that, but I couldn’t help myself. I did gain some speed coming back down to Kawaihai but it was not much fun. I was holding onto the bike for dear life as every few seconds a huge gust of wind would blow me almost off the bike. It seemed like it took forever to get back to Kawaihai. Ellen, Miranda and Angela looked like they had been waiting there for a while. I tried to muster up a smile but I was exhausted mentally I was getting really, really hot. All I wanted to do was get back to town. Miranda yelled out to me “NBC around the corner- Smile” and as I made the turn, there they were again. The ride from Kawaihai to the pier was relentless. Headwinds all the way. It seemed like it would never end (kind of like this report). Finally I could see town. I was excited, then disgusted as I passed the energy lab and could see the majority of the field running home. I hadn’t even started the marathon and they were on the last 6 miles. How depressing! Finally I got off the bike. It took almost 8 hours. The longest bike ride I have done to date. I never stopped, never had to pee, and just slowed every aid station to get water.

When I got to the changing tent there were still quite a few people there. I did my complete change including bird bath with baby wipes and teeth cleaning with the brush ups, and I was ready to go. I amused the volunteers in the tent with my complete change. However they did comment on how cute my outfit was!!! Running out of the changing tent I could hear the finish line and it was very depressing. I had to focus on my race. I was here to finish and finish I was going to do!

I started out at a slow jog. Again they send you up a short but fairly steep hill and wind you all around to you get out on Alli drive where you go down about 4 miles, turn around, go up another hill, out on the Queen K to the energy lab and then back into town. It felt like it took a long time to get onto Alii Drive, but the energy of the crowds keep me going. I knew at mile 2.5 on Alii my family would be waiting so I had to at least run to get there. I was really, really tired. It was much harder to run than I was expecting. I wanted to run the entire way and only walk the aid stations. That quickly changed. I couldn’t do it. I was really upset with my bike ride. I was mad. I thought that it would take me 6.5-7 hours not 8. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I almost was making myself hyperventilate. Then I saw Angela. I tried to pull myself together. I was still really mad. But I felt some relief when I saw her. The more I went along the better my mood got and by the time I got to my family I had moved past my anger and just wanted to keep moving to get to the finish line. They were all there lined up in front of the condo in lawn chairs. A vegemite sandwich was waiting for me on the ground. All my dreams of finishing in less the 14 hours were gone. At this point I knew I could make it before midnight, it was just a matter of getting there.

I started talking to other athletes around me. I met several other lottery winners. Basically all the younger athletes around me were lottery winners and all just trying to cross the finish line. I was running and walking. I met up with a woman from Kona who was doing the race for the 5th time. She tried to encourage me to run for 5 minutes with her then walk for one minute. I stayed with her for quite a while. She was trying to catch her son, the youngest competitor in the race who was about 40 minutes ahead of her. I was just trying to survive. We parted ways along the hill up Palani. The first few dark miles on the Queen K were really depressing. It is really dark and lonely. I kept thinking I should have been further than I was. Thank goodness Angela had a bike and kept checking on me. I started counting. 45 seconds running 45 seconds walking. That was all I could do. Finally I got to the Energy Lab. It took what seemed like hours. I had no idea how far I was going to run into the Energy Lab. I could see a light way in the distance, and that was the turn around.

When I finally got down to the turn around I was able to smile when the volunteers told me I won “Best Dressed Athlete of 2008”. Mile 19 and I still looked good!! Good thing I had a boost of confidence about my appearance, as NBC was waiting for me at the entrance to the Energy lab and planned to film me on the run back to town. That was cruel. Who wants to be on TV at mile 20 of an Ironman marathon? When they came up to me I tried so hard to run. My feet were a disaster. I could barely walk, but there was no way I was going to be filmed walking. I had to at least attempt to run. It felt liked they filmed me forever. They asked some silly questions like “How did I feel? Would I make it? What was I going to do when I finished” What the hell did they think I was going to do? Sit down of course! With every step I got closer and closer to town. About 3 or 4 miles out you could hear the finish line. IT was a tease. Those last miles seemed like they took forever. Finally I was at the top of Palani hill - about 1.5 miles to go. I really wanted to run. I just couldn’t. My feet felt like I was walking on bone. I rounded the corner onto Alii drive and began to run. It was amazing! People were cheering and I could see the finish chute. I wanted to slow down and take it all in. Most of it is a blur. I remember seeing Susan and my dad, but no one else. When I crossed the finish line I don’t even remember them saying my name. They put the Lei around my neck and I was grabbed from both sides and whisked off. The whole time I was looking for Ellen….and the rest of my family but I couldn’t see them. The volunteers took me around the back of the King Kam hotel (I think?) and Ellen and Angela were waiting for me there. I was so excited to be finished, but at the same time exhausted and just wanted to sit down.

I was very lucky to be able to compete in Kona at the Ironman World Championships. It is a race like no other. The race was very tough, the hardest thing I have ever done. There is so much of it I cannot even put into words. I was out there for 15 hours and 36 minutes. That is a really long time. It is unbelievable to think that I could even walk after finishing. Finishing the race in Kona is bitter sweet. I am so proud that I was able to complete the race, yet sad that I may never get to do it again. I don’t think any other ironman race will ever compare to the thrill and excitement that surrounds Kona. There is nothing that will ever top running down the finishers chute on Alli Drive- until you do this, it is hard to understand. Kona is not just another Ironman. It is THE IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS and I DID IT!!!

I could not have done this race without the support of my family and coach.

Angela – Thank you so much for getting me to the start line healthy. I would have never even considered doing an Ironman until I met you. I distinctly remember you telling me the first time that we met, that one day I would do an Ironman. I thought you were completely crazy at the time. But here I am 2 Ironman’s later, ready to do another. You are a great coach and friend. Thanks for listening to all my complaints, random thoughts and occasional whining. I am so glad you were able to come to Kona and be a part of the day. It is a day I will never forget!