Someday when I am old and fat and slow you will wonder to yourself -Why the hell is Rachel Ross still on the Timex Multisport Team?- so I’ll clue you in now: it’s the pictures I took of our team management at Kona.

Ever had a fever that made you totally delirious? Apparently I tried to swap bikes with Joe Boeness at the bike drop off on Friday afternoon. I have no recollection of this, but Joe doesn’t lie. I slept/hallucinated the rest of Friday away, and woke up ready to go on race day, after my horse-pill sized ibuprofen to get the fever down. I had my pre-race cry (thank you ironmanlive for catching that on film and replaying it for all at the awards ceremony) and got my sorry butt into the water just in time for the cannon. I decided to line up in the front and let the people who actually know how to swim go over me until I found some feet. It was a little painful, but it bought me a six minutes swim PR, so it was worth all the panicked underwater screaming. Swim: 1:03:50.

I rolled over some duct tape in T1 so I got to listen to it flap for 112 miles against my brakes. It was kind of like that water-drop torture you hear about. It was melted on by the end and is now part of my race wheel. April and I passed each other back and forth for the first 30 miles or so, and yelled back at men making inappropriate comments about body parts they shouldn’t be that close to if riding legally. Shortly after Hawi, my eyeballs started to burn in my head again. I reached for the Tylenol to kill the fever and dropped it – and smartly decided to go on. By Waikoloa I was on fire. Not in a good way. I knew the fever was back and it was high. My thinking was cloudy and I was having funky daydreams. So I sat up and spun it in slowly, dreaming of the 800 mg ibuprofen in my T2 bag. It was hard to watch my goal bike split go by, but I managed to get in with time of 5:28:46.

I started the run and saw the family immediately. My training buddy Wil screamed “you have to run 3:23 or better to break 10 – you can do it!” He later told me “I didn’t think you could do it, you looked like crap.” Thanks, dude. I, on the other hand, had planned on running 7:30s the whole way and breaking 3:20, so I actually did think I could do it. I found a Big Island friend and ran down the first of two girls in my AG that were ahead, chatting all the way. Jeff dropped off, so I ran the second 5 mi back to town with Fernanda Keller, who was not feeling very chatty but was a pleasant companion none the less and steady with her 7:30s. I caught the other girl in my AG on the way back to town. Up Palani was more of a party than a run, I saw my kids, my parents, my Oahu friends, and Macca coming down the hill for the win. Sharpie screamed that she loved me, totally making some nearby perv’s day. The pace was pleasant and I made small talk along the road, even though I swore I’d shut up and run this year. Out at the energy lab I saw my superstar friend Bree Wee ahead in the first amateur position (fortunately for me the girl’s a baby and still in the 25-29 AG) and knew I was the next one behind her. I love the energy lab. It’s beautiful and truly the beginning of the end. Lots of people were puking - apparently they don’t love the energy lab. I tried to pick it up for the last 10K home, but it seems holding 7:30s had become my max. I rolled down Palani and onto Alii fairly confident that sub-10 was in the bag. There is nothing like turning onto Alii and seeing that arch. Though it really should be closer to the actual timing mat.. My marathon split was 3:18:45, for a finish time of 9:56:21. Second age grouper (Bree went 9:47 in her first IM!) and 21^st female.

Then I ate a lot of Taco Bell. I mean a LOT, while floating in the ocean behind the King Kam swatting my kids off of my legs. And then I ate a lot of pasta. And then I drank way too much beer. And that just about sums up the following three days. Shockingly, I’ve relapsed and the flu has taken over again, but now I don’t mind.. I wasn’t going to run today anyway.