Week 14 and St. George 70.3
Fresh back from San Diego, I already had another trip on the books for Thursday night, St. George 70.3! Get a sandwich and a cup of coffee to read this one, it's a little long! :)The beginning of the week was actually a little easier. Coach and I decided we weren't going to taper (i.e. rest) for this race, because it was early season and just should be a test of my fitness. That being said, she didn't kill me quite as hard at the beginning of the week.
Monday: off (I was actually REALLY glad for this day. The extra cycling and running in SD left my legs screaming)
Tuesday: 1:30 bike
Wend: 45 min run, 50 min swim
Thur: Off (and travel to st. George)
Fri: 20 min bike, 10 min run, and a quick dip in the lake to test out the water
Saturday: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run-- RACE DAY
Sunday: 1 hour bike to spin out and recover!
The beginning of the week I actually felt pretty terrible. Tired and the legs just felt SO heavy. I think I got pretty dehydrated in San Diego (what? You shouldn't recover from 80 mile bike rides with beer? No fun!)
I left after work Thursday night to fly into Vegas. Of course, there is no easy way to get to St. George, but Vegas appeared to be the easiest. I took the last flight out, which might have been bad idea. By the time I actually got to my hotel and got to sleep, it was like 12:30 Vegas time and 1:30am Mountain Time. Tiring day for sure!! I about lost it on the baggage people at Southwest when they told me my bike would come out on the regular baggage carousel. Yea, I don't think so. Luckily they were wrong and someone rolled it up. :)
Friday morning I woke up about 7:30am, had a quick breakfast and got out of the hotel to drive to St. George. I didn't realize St. George was still on Mountain time, so I lost an hour on the drive, which was a little stressful as I had a packed day! Rolled into town about 11am, and went to the expo to get all checked in.
Ironman wrist band, legit! I still have it on! What's the rule on taking it off?! :)
After check in, I of course had to stop at the ironman store. Damn it. I ended up with new dark goggles for open water swimming (mine kept coming apart at the nose piece. Not what you want to happen on race day. Actually, I saw a girl's goggles break as her wave was about to go off. How awful). I also got a sweatshirt with St. George, the finisher's shirt (luckily it didn't seem to jinx it), a really soft tee-shirt, something for a family member, two tank tops (hey, one was only $9.99), a sticker (for the bike case--new tradition--every place the bike bag goes, it gets a sticker), and a pair of compression sleeves that were on super good sale too! I also got a shirt at the base tent that said "That's a horrible idea.... what time?" :) I did resist the urge to buy a new kit though, so there is that :)
After I finished up at the expo, I drove over to the hotel and ran into my tri-animals group! For those of you who don't know it's a tri-team based out of Colorado Springs (though people are from everywhere!). It's a great group of people, and even though I only had met one of them before, I felt like I already knew many of them from our facebook interactions! We all rolled out to the lake where the swim was (about 30 minutes away from downtown St. George), to go test the water, check our bikes in (yes you have to leave them over night), and shake the travel bugs out.
We swam here, right around that big rock, actually
I had to unpack my bike in the parking lot, but thanks to the new case it was super easy! I just pulled out the wheels, pumped them up and put them on. I had a momentary panic about 3 miles into the bike ride when my bike wouldn't shift. I have electronic shifting (so cool, you just push a button), and i just hadn't clipped the battery back in totally correctly (you take it out to travel so that your bike doesn't shift if something hits the buttons). I stopped and fixed that and was good to go again, thank goodness!!
After the bike and a quick 1 mile run, I got in the lake for a super quick swim. This sign had greeted us when we drove in. NOOO!! Go ahead, google swimmers itch. It's not something I ever want to get in my life! Yikes! As a result, once we were done swimming, I drove back to the hotel as quickly as possible and scrubbed myself and my wetsuit down. The water was chilly (about 63 degrees), but I felt like I could handle it. I tried swimming with the neoprene cap that I bought, but I felt like it was choking me, so about 1/2 way through my 300 yard swim, I took it off, shoved it up the leg of my wetsuit and finished the swim feeling just fine.
After throughly scrubbing myself, I set out with a friend to drive the bike course and see what tomorrow had in store for us. For those who don't know, St. George is said to be the hardest half ironman course in North America. This year, it was the north american championship race for the pro's as well. The bike has about 3.500 feet of gain, and the run about 1,000 feet. I was super nervous for all the hills, and I don't that driving the bike course made my nerves any less, but at least I knew what I was facing.
After dinner, we finished driving the bike course, I stopped at the store for some breakfast supplies (oh, and butter and eggs thinking I could make my scratch cookies, but when I got back to the room and really looked at my kitchen, I had no oven. Crap!), packed all my transition bags, and wrote my mantra's on my hands.
Doing mantra's on my hands is a new thing for me this season. I'm not sure that it really worked (more details below), but I thought it would maybe help. They sort of got washed off in the craziness of swimming and sunscreen and sweating, but I could faintly see the outline all day. I didn't sleep very well the night before, but that's pretty normal for me.
Alarm went off at 4am (my least favorite part of racing!), and it was time to quickly shove breakfast down my throat (2 oatmeals, banana, and sausage, along with some coffee, and water), do my morning business, get dressed, and walk over to T2 (so for this race we had two transitions. T1 was by the lake, where we grabbed our bikes, then T2 was downtown, where we dropped off our bikes and started running), set up run gear, and get on a bus over to T1. The mood was light but I think on the inside I was so nervous, I don't even really remember anything. Fortunately, I had managed to pack everything that I needed!
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| Carley and I in T1 getting set up before swimming
I was in one of the last swim waves, so I hung out for awhile before getting my wetsuit on. I had brought a second swim cap, to do a double cap and try and keep the head a little warmer, but at the last minute, decided not to do it, because I was worried about both the caps (and hence my googles coming off).
SWIM: So they set us off with only 2 minutes between the waves instead of 4 minutes. This kinda sucked for me. As a faster swimmer, I always catch the waves in front of me, and when they are only 2 minutes apart, I catch ALOT more people. I felt like the entire swim, I was just swimming over people. I got kicked and pushed and roughed around. Though I did my fair share of it too. I felt like the swim took FOREVER! And I struggled to really feel like I was catching my breath. I'm not sure if it was the wetsuit, or just because it was my first real open water swim of the season, but my HR was through the roof I later found out! I really expected to see like a 40 minute swim, it just felt forever. But when I got out, I saw my garmin had 30:11! My official time was 30:21, but still good enough for a SWIM PR!! Not bad for early season, and swimming over everyone. I guess actually swimming more than a couple times before the race helps! I had backed off the last half or so and ran into some waves, so I know I'll get under that 30 minute number soon. I was second in my age group for the swim, so that was awesome. Some point I'd love to get that number one spot!!
T1: I ran quickly to a wetsuit stripper, who actually kinda struggled to get it off me, but we got it done, and then ran into T1. Since this was a 2 transition, you had to stuff your wetsuit into a plastic bag, grab your bike and go. I had tied my bag to the rack, but had tried to not tie it too tight, so that I couldn't get it undone with cold wet hands. Well, I apparently tied it a little too lose, and it blew off! Fortunately, I was able to find it just down a few spots, and stuffed my wetsuit into it. I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't find it! (they bring those bags back to the finish area and then you pick it up at the end of the race). I got everything sorted out and got on the bike.
Bike: I settled into the bike pretty well. At first my heart rate was super high. So I really tried to calm myself down and just ride. About mile 2, I ended up pulling my gu's off my top tube because they were rubbing my leg. What I didn't realize was that when I ripped them off, I opened one. Of course I just shoved them all in my back pocket, so I discovered a few miles down the road that I had a sticky sticky mess all over ALL of my nutrition. Awesome! On top of it, my aero bottle for some reason was leaking badly (still need to figure out why), so my hands and the front of my bike were a sticky mess all day long! Grr...
About maybe 10 miles into the bike, I got called for a passing on the right penalty. I was PISSED! I had moved over to cross a cattle card on the board that was on the shoulder. In the process, I passed people who were in the middle of the road. I called out on your right, but an official on a motorcycle flagged me. It's technically against the rules, but the official has discretion in applying those rules and could have given me a pass considering it was a cattle guard. He didn't though. I'd like to say that I took it in stride and got over it quickly and didn't waste any energy in getting pissed. But that would be a complete and total lie. Right about this time, we started going over hills and it felt like EVERYONE was passing me on the uphills. I'm not gonna lie, I went to a pretty dark place. I cursed everyone and anyone. A guy flew past me and told me good job, and I totally cussed him out under my breath (though he totally heard me. Ooops). I told myself that after IMAZ in November, I was done with ironman racing. At first I said I was going to do non-ironman triathlons. Then I told myself I'd just be done with triathlons. Screw it. Who wants to pay money to suffer like this? To have the swim canceled (Austin), bike up ridicilous hills (St. George), in awful heat (every single ironman I've ever done), and in wind (St. George, Harvest Moon). Really? Can't I find some other way to get some satisfaction. Then I saw a bike crash happen at the second aid station. A guy next to me was ALL over the road after getting a water bottle. I went to pass him and said on the left to try and wake him up. He verred WAY right without looking, and a guy behind him hit his back wheel. It didn't look like they were going very fast, and they were right by the aid station with volunteers and lots of medical people, so I kept going. I knew the accident wasn't my fault, but it pissed me off to see that nonetheless. Learn how to ride while getting a water bottle, or just pull over at the aid station (I actually did that at the third aid station because I needed two bottles by that point!)
I'm not quite sure how I convinced myself to stop being so angry and keep riding. Somehow, I managed to get myself to forget about the penalty, but it didn't mean I was happy. Quite honestly, the bike was entirely miserable. I was slow going up hill, and what limited downhills there were, we couldn't go fast because of cross winds. The scenery was pretty, I'll give the course that, but man, was it rough. Snow canyon was our last hill (3,500 feet of elevation gain), around mile 40. I got to the top of that and was so glad to be done. But I couldn't just power down the downhill, as we had a nasty cross wind. My best bike time is 3 hours. I knew that would be hard to match on this course, but I was hoping I could get sort of close. But I ended up with 3:43...
T2: T2 is always a mixed blessing for me. By the time I get there on the bike, I'm always ready to be OFF the bike, but I hate running. On top of it, due to being in one of the last swim waves, and being slower on the bike than many, there were people already finishing the race. It's a little demoralizing to see everyone done, and know that you've got almost 3 hours left (yep, I'm a slow ass runner). I got my shoes off, socks and running shoes on, and "ran out" of T2, stopping to get some sunscreen put on my back by volunteers (though I ended up burned anyways!)
Run: So I have an idea. Let's make the first 3 miles of the run all up hill? Yea, that will feel good when you first get off the bike. Yea, so I was still in a little bit of a dark place. lol. for those of you who don't know, I HATE RUNNING! It's
 
After finishing, I had to stop and catch my breath for a few minutes, but got my picture taken, and waited for a friend to cross the line. We had some pizza, got a mini massage (my back was hurting!), and then collected our gear and went back to the hotel.
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Then it was on to Inn and out! I gobbled up animal style fries and a double cheese burger and a chocolate shake. A quick stop at the liquor store, to discover that they had my favorite wine, Justin. I bought a bottle to celebrate.
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| This almost made the race worth it. Almost. |
After we all had eaten and showered, we ended up hanging out on the patio at our hotel, drinking and talking for a couple of hours. I know I've said it before, but one of the most fantastic things about triathlons, is the people you meet. Except for Carley and Frank, I hadn't met any of these people before this weekend. But they opened me into their group with open arms and we had a blast together! I can't wait to race with them again! (see, I'm starting to accept the fact that I'll race again).
I hit the sack about 10pm, and slept pretty well, all things considered. Sunday morning, I woke up and joined a few people who were still around for breakfast (blueberry pancakes and bacon, yum!). Coach had told me to do an hour easy bike ride. I didn't even want to look at my bike. But I got on and just road on some of the side streets around the hotel. It wasn't my favorite hour on the bike, but I was proud of myself for getting it done. After that, I packed up my stuff, and got in the car to drive to Vegas. My brother, his wife, and my nephew live in Vegas, so I was able to have lunch with them and spend a few hours before flying back to Denver. My nephew got out his favorite shirt to wear for me too!
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| So glad to be done!! |
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