I don't really remember the run from Bike In to the changing tent, nor anyone handing me my bag. But that must all have happened, since I do remember walking into the mudpit that was the changing tent, throwing myself into a chair as someone took my bag, and declaring to the girl in the neighboring chair that this was my fourth Ironman, and by far the hardest one I'd ever done. Melodramatic, perhaps, but I meant it.

As my volunteer was helping me remove my shoes (love the volunteers), I made the completely irrational decision to change my socks. In case, I dunno, it stopped raining suddenly, and someone squeegeed the whole town so that it wasn't a lake out there anymore. But it was nice to have my socks OFF for a second, and witness the shriveled, loose-skinned nightmare that was the bottom of my feet. I was already developing blisters, and I hadn't even started the very-wet-footed run yet.

The volunteer said I could get rid of my two bike wristbands now. I didn't want to, but somehow I took her statement as "You must take off your wristbands," so I did. I told her to put them in my bag, though, because I wanted to keep them. I worked hard for those horrible hair scrunchies! Mine!

Put on dry socks and dry shoes, abandoned my sunglasses as presumably unnecessary (had the presence of mind to ask the volunteer to cram them in my bike shoe so they wouldn't get crushed), put a gu in each of my four pockets, filled my hair with a large variety of hair-restraining barrettes, failed to even consider the fact that perhaps, with as wet as it was, I might want to apply some bodyglide at least to my armpits, turned my number to the front ("Don't forget to turn your number to the front. Oh, this is your fourth Ironman, you know that.." "No, trust me, I know nothing right now. Thank you."), grabbed my salt cannister, and headed out of the tent.

Before I'd even made it OUT of the tent, my shoes and fresh socks were soaking wet.

Mission one, non-optional, was a trip to the portaloo. The run through transition was, as assumed, a complete lake. It seemed pretty impossible to dodge the 1-2 inch deep massive puddles, so I didn't even bother trying, just stomped through them in my desperate flight to the toilet.

And, of course, for as much as my stomach was cramping, nothing wanted to happen. I think waiting so long didn't serve me well. I tried. I waited. I tried harder. I was trying to expedite matters as quickly as possible (it's hard to keep this family-friendly! I need more euphemisms..), and the resulting strain caused my CALVES to cramp up. So I let up. Tried again.. calf cramp. At that point I just had to start laughing. I'm in New Zealand. In a portaloo. Soaking wet. In the middle of an Ironman. And I can't leave the portaloo because my intestines are cramping. And I can't relieve that cramping because it causes my calves to cramp. I'm sure the few people still coming through transition at that point were wondering about the bizarre grunting/laughing noises coming from the portaloo.


I had no pictures to represent this section, so here's a random public toilet in NZ. The portaloo wasn't this nice or this dry.

Eventually I made some progress and realized that was as much as I could do without remaining there another half hour. As it was, since I had nothing better to do, I had made the mistake of looking at my watch. I calculated that if I left transition RIGHT THEN and ran a solid 4 hour marathon, I could have an Ironman PR. Meanwhile my entire body is sore, my legs are cramping, and I can't leave the portaloo. So all looking at my watch did was reassure me there would not be a PR that day.

At 9 minutes, I think that was probably my slowest T2 ever, but I honestly couldn't have shaved any time off (okay, I could have not changed my socks, but that would have been maybe 30 seconds), and since it felt like it had been 20 minutes, 9 was almost a relief.

I ran out of transition, not pleased with how sore my legs were, not sure how I was going to run a marathon.