"Nicole Craig, You Are and Ironman!"

Nikki is an Ironman!

Ironman Coeur d'Alene was amazing!  Nikki and Bruce finished at 11:45pm and had an amazing time!  For details and more pictures, see the Nikki's ridiculously long race report HERE.

Countdown to Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2012 (Aka How to Almost Derail a Year of Preparation 3 weeks before.)

It's May, and IM CDA is in June.  Yikes!  Its very surreal to see something you've worked so hard and so long for come up so fast.

 

Nikki's last race in prep for IMCDA was the Columbia Triathlon.  Columbia is notorious for being crowded, hectic and very hilly...perfect practice for an Ironman!  It was the first very hot day of the year, and The Team Z Coach kindly told Nikki the night before the race that this is "The single hardest Olympic distance run course in the country."  Awesome.  Note to Ed: Silence is Golden.  Especially the night before a race.

 

Here is the transition, 3000 people (around the same size as a standard Ironman field.)

 

 

Training rides and runs have gone from "hot" to "surface-of-the-sun" requiring more frequent stops and creative cooling-down techniques.

 

On Nikki's last long ride (120 miles, 3 weeks before Ironman) she had little oopsie at mile 54.  Her bike and a patch of dirt got into a fight, resulting in some sort of damage to the scaphoid bone in her wrist.  (Possibly broken...won't know until the bone starts to grow back.)  Some very friendly strangers threw her and her vomit-and-blood covered bike in their SUV and drove her to the emergency room. (somewhere...Leesburg, maybe?)

Huge thanks go out to our friend Sam who kindly drove 60 miles (one way) out of DC to pick her up, also bringing clothes and shoes.  (Because Murphy's Law clearly states that the day you end up in the ER is also the day you decide to "test out" your race day clothing and are inevitably sitting in the hospital dressed like a $3 hooker in bike shoes.)

 

Huge thanks also go to friend Liz for putting on Nikki's deodorant and doing her hair for two days.  And, to the stranger in our elevator who kindly didn't run away screaming when Nikki had to ask her to unclip her sports bra.

 

Friends always come to the rescue..."Oh, you can't do your 20 mile run and are having an emotional breakdown because you might not be able to race your Ironman?  Come to brunch!  We'll even cut your food for you."

 

Note: Writing left-handed is HARD. 

 

 

After two days of emotional turmoil and uncertainty, the Orthopedic surgeon at Fort Belvoir gave his blessing for Nikki to finish her training and race IMCDA.  "You can't damage it any more than it is, so if you can go through the pain, go for it."  He even gave Nikki a handy brace that allowed the doing of hair, application of deodorant and removal for swim practice.

Hair by Liz

You might have a question...where was Michael during all of this??  KOREA.  Where he went without leaving Nikki information on where was going, staying or how to contact him.  He regrets these actions.

 

 

Now the countdown begins!  There is a LOT of preparation into an Ironman race, particularly one three time-zones away.  This is the chart on the bathroom wall just to keep Nikki's head on straight (you should see the Excel spreadsheets!)