The ' what not to do' race report

So this past week I did the white lake 1/2 Ironman. With 2 halves under my belt this was going to be cake right, so with no taper or real decrease in training intensity i headed out Friday to do just another half- no biggie right? .... Uhm no, wrong.
We started the day with the temp being ~75 degrees at 7am, hot and muggy. Even I had to eventually take off my sweats because I was hot. The water temp was 65 degrees so I had to fight the sticky sweat and try and get that damn wetsuit on. I thought of Jill and Catherine the whole time because they would have ditched that thing and still done awesome. Anyways at the cost of being too cold I tried not to get too exhausted as I yanked the neoprene over my body. After it was finally somewhat on (hanging crotch) I got in the water to catch up with the other 6 Duke people doing the race. After an eternity we finally started...of course I chose the goggles without the tint and the sun blazed in my eyes the whole way. The buoys (yellow) were hard to site as the men under 40 in the wave before us had yellow caps and boy were they ALL over the place. Anyways i got through my 'strongest leg' after swimming probably double the distance by zig zagging all over the bloody lake. I got to the transition and HAD to pee...
Lucky for me i had the spot closest to the end so as I yanked the wet suit off and put on my biking shoes I just sat in the grass and ..peed (my tri suit was ON). Yes, of course it was the longest pee of my life and all I could think of was crappy transition time as the clocked ticked on.
The bike was great...after I finally got clipped in and going.. it wasn't anything too epic however I was very nervous of biting it in front of all the spectators. I was enjoying how lovely and easy the bike felt as well as trying to get away from the mob so I could try and reach for my water and gu's. Now I have ridden this bike once before and not practiced reaching here and there so I decided to wait till i got settled and away from the others... bad move i would pay for it later. I did get eating and drinking an hour into it. Anyways after fighting a pretty significant head wind for most of the ride i was done. I think its the first half I finished and didn't hate myself. My legs felt good and ready for the run.
Transition was quick, smooth and I got a nice big bite of my banana. I decided to run with a water bottle pack which for the first mile was annoying as heck. Apparently at mile 1 I lost my water bottle so I gave the pack to the next closest volunteer hoping to get that $50 thing back on my way back. Everything went as planned but by mile 4 the temp was now at 95 degrees and I could feel it. I picked up ice towels at every stop trying to stay above the heat. At mile 6.5 I started pushing the pace as I was half way done and figured I felt great and I could finish the race easy right? nope wrong again. At mile 10 I stopped at the aide station for my ice towels and some water and they were OUT. What ??? out ??? yes so apparently it was so damn hot that people had taken more than their share (how can you limit it ? lawsuit comes to mind!) so us stragglers in the back half of the pack had to just deal with it. At probably mile 10.5 I started to notice the ground getting a little blurry. I tried to run a little further and bam started feeling lightheaded and woozy. The panic button hit because (this is why being a PT is a curse) I knew these were signs and symptoms of heat illness (homeostasis gets messed up body starts overheating). All i could think of is how much damage I was doing to my body practicing for my Ironman race.
But then the coolest thing happened. This lady running by stopped to ask if I was okay. I said No. She proceeded to walk with me for the next few minutes. I felt a little better after she shared her pretzels with me and I encouraged her to start running. I promised her I was okay. As soon as she started running I felt my breathing get shallow and the panic spread through me again. If i was alone it would take a while before EMS came by and I was scared of the consequences... so I yelled out to her that I was not still ok, she came back. The rest is kind of blurry but we got to the aide station at mile 12 where I got water, 2-3 orange slices and some ice (which I put in my sports bra - it made my boobs like huge ;) ) I finally felt better at close to mile 13 and of course my guardian angel lady was right there with me!!! We ran the last .3 -.5 miles to cross the finish line and I cried like a child because I was so grateful to this wonderful lady who had just thrown away her own race to help me through mine. Made me think about why I do triathlons...
The last race i did some lady spectator fell off her bike and hit her helmet on the street... i ran past because i was at pace to finish the race sub 6 hours ... i did tell the police officer down the road to go help...but i didn't stop.
Anyways the point of this really long narrative is to talk about HEAT and NUTRITION. On the bike i was eating every 30mins and that was NOT enough. The heat made me crave stuff every 20mins. I also needed something solid other than Gu's - a bite of a cliff bar would have been great...too bad i didnt have any
So despite the fact that we are all in different climates I encourage everyone to do a couple of trainer/ treadmill workouts with the heat turned on because Louisville will be 95 degrees on the bike and most of the run, and of course your body responds very differently than the weather we are currently working out it. I was not prepared for it and that's why we practice right?
On that note, I'm just glad that I am alive, and that lady who ran with me is going to get a free race entry to her next race on me.

Be safe and train smart. Love y'all.