After
Immediately someone was there to grab me, in case I collapsed. I didn't. I felt great. No rubbery legs, no fatigue, no light-headedness. I told her that, but she said she still had to stay with me. Someone wrapped a space blanket around me, someone put a medal around my neck, and someone offered me a tshirt, what size would I like? I managed not to cry when they told me they had no smalls, and I had to settle for a medium. I was an Ironman whether or not the shirt was too big to ever wear in public. I also got a finisher's hat. She led me over to the picture wall, and held my stuff while I got a picture of me in my medal. Matt showed up just in time so that we could get a picture of both of us together.
As I was getting my space blanket, I realized I hadn't stopped my watch. I didn't want my finisher's photo to be a picture of me stopping my watch, as so many of my finish line photos are. I stopped it, and finally looked at my watch, for the first time in many hours. I couldn't make any sense of the number at first. My goal was to come in under the time limit, which is 17 hours. My secret unshared goal was to be elated if my finishing time started with a 15. My time started with a 14, and I couldn't believe it. 14:51:41. That wasn't even on my radar as something that could potentially happen. It was unbelievable. But the race clock verified.
Then we headed over to the finisher's area, where Matt took great care of me. Apparently volunteers normally take care of you in there, but I had my own personal volunteer. He got me pizza and water, and put me on the list for a massage. Then he went and got my dry clothes bag, so I could change back into my hoodie and sweat pants. THEN he went and got our transition bags, while I got my massage, and took them back to the car, so that was already taken care of by the time I was done. And he kept telling me how proud of me he was, which meant so much to me. And I still couldn't stop grinning.
Oh, and TriBike Transport rocks. We were tired and sore and ready to go to bed, and had NO desire to deal with the bikes. Then we realized all we had to do was wheel them a couple hundred feet from transition to TriBike Transport, who were still open even though it was after 11 at that point. They took the pedals off for us and wheeled the bikes off to take them back to Austin, so we didn't even have to take them back to the hotel that night. Not a cheap service, but definitely so very worth it.