TriAptitude Coaching

Well, my friends, I got to race this past weekend for the first time in over 18 months and it was glorious! I will try to make this race report as informative yet brief as I can in the hopes that it serves as a helpful tool for those who are preparing to race in the US on an Ironman course.

In a nutshell, my race went very well and I came in with a strong swim and bike on new discipline courses here in StG but I struggled a bit on the run course which remains perhaps the toughest in North America. This is nothing new for me here in StG. I have had challenges on this run course before. Let’s be honest, it is hard as hell – with 1300 ft of elevation gain and one climb topping an 8% grade, I find it a mental and physical challenge. I also did not find it surprising given I was pushing a bit harder than I normally would on the bike and holding a much higher wattage than I most likely should have. But, I felt good at the time and my RPE seemed to be where I wanted and needed it to be. My main concern going into the race was my left foot which had been sore the taper week. I was worried how it would feel off the bike and on the run. My race plan? Like most athletes, I hoped to shake off the cobwebs of the past few years, find my triathlon legs again and pull together a happy day of swim, bike and run. My added emphasis was on figuring out what would work and what would not work for me heading into Ironman Couer d’Alene coming up in 8 weeks. For me, St George was scheduled as a tune up race for the big one in Idaho. This Saturday was my fourth time racing the StG 70.3 course having done so also in 2013, 2015 and 2019.

Before I get into the actual race day report let me say that I felt that Ironman and St George put on a great event and it all went fairly smoothly from a logistical standpoint. Sadly, there was a death during the swim at Sand Hollow. My condolences go out to that athlete’s family. It is always heartbreaking when we lose one of our own at an event. Most often when it happens during the swim, it is a heart related issue which causes distress in the water. This was the case in St George on Saturday.

Check in procedures went smoothly for registration and gear check. We had appointment times which allowed athletes more space during those times and made the process much more efficient than in the past. That being said, there were over 3500 athletes racing and with additional family and friends in attendance, this event was extremely large. If I had not been fully vaccinated, I would have felt more anxious at the venue. PreRace when we were lined up in the swim corrals, I was very concerned as we were not distanced at all and many athletes took off their masks long before they were suppose to do so. I feel that there is need of improvement for future races.

I was lucky enough to have my good friend Audra road trip with me to Utah for the race. It is approximately a 9 hour drive from Evergreen to St George. We left early Thursday morning and arrived at 4pm to check in to our hotel and get settled in. I had a 6pm appointment time to check in at athlete registration. Our hotel was only a few miles from Town Square so check in was quick and easy. We got it done and then headed out to a great little cafe called Gaia’s Garden for dinner. I had a delicious southwestern rice bowl and avocado toast. Audra and I headed back to the hotel and I was asleep by 9:30pm, exhausted by the drive to Utah and eager to rest up for the weekend.

Friday was spent organizing my gear for transitions and doing my prerace workouts and gear checks. I started with a 10 mile bike ride to make sure everything was a go mechanically and that my power meter was working, my new cleats were adjusted correctly, my bike helmet was positioned correctly for a comfortable fit and to keep my muscles firing for race day. All checked out fine. I did a quick 20 minute tune up run with drills afterwards. I noticed a pain in my left heel which seemed sharper than I had experienced in the days prior. I had felt some niggles on that foot the past month. My coach and I had chatted about how to avoid aggravating it and I had been diligent about doing all my icing, stretching and plantar fascia exercises. But, on Friday morning, it was not feeling very good and I was a little bit concerned about what that might mean for race day. I ate a quick breakfast out by the hotel pool and headed off to Sand Hollow reservoir for a practice swim. This was my first open water swim in almost two years and it caused me a little bit of worry. I love open water swimming and I’m normally not fearful but I definitely needed a practice swim and reassurance that I remembered how to wear my wetsuit and swim in cold water 🤣. Once that was done, I felt ready.

Bike check for me was at 4pm so I went back to meet Audra at the hotel, I packed my gear bags for Transition 1 and Transition 2 and then I rested for a few hours until it was time to drop all the gear. We headed to T2 in Town Square first to drop off my run bag. Then, we headed out to Sand Hollow to drop my bike and bike gear off in T1. By that time it was HOT 🥵. The temp was around 94 degrees and I was sweating in the car with the AC on 🤣 I made mental notes of where my bike was racked and how far my run was going to be from the swim exit to the bike exit of T1. It was a little over .3 miles and there was no doubt this run on pavement was going to hurt that left foot. But, it would be what it would be and I tried to focus only on what was in my control. Dinner Friday night was pretty simple! Turkey sandwich on honey grain bread with hummus and carrots. I had been hydrating for days in advance given the forecast for hot temps on course. I thought I was prepared for the heat and had planned well enough to prevent my cramping on the run. We’ll come back to that in a minute. Lesson #1 of the day. Make note. Bedtime….well, I do not remember when I fell asleep but I do know I set my alarm for 3:15am. I kind of fell to the side in my bed and I do not remember anything else that night after 9pm. Audra, however, tells me there was a barking dog across the hallway yapping away, and she came into the room with a very squeaky door and I remained motionless 🤣, and that there were families in the pool whooping it up until about 11pm. I, apparently, did not care about any of that 🤣

Morning routine for race day? Alarm went off at 3:15am, I took a quick shower and made some coffee, I ate a blueberry pancake Kodiak cup and I made a PBandJ for transition. I double checked all of my Infinit bottles and put them in a cooler for the car along with a few packs of ProBar chews, Advil, salt tablets and a banana. Timing chip was on my left ankle, team jacket and sweatpants on my body over my race kit and I thought I was ready to go! Audra was sweet enough to wake up early to drop me off for the shuttle bus which left at 4:25 am for Sand Hollow. The bus ride was about 30 minutes and we cruised into T1 right as it opened at 5am. The advantage of getting to the swim start first is that you get first dibs on the bathroom and the bike pumps. I got those two important things out of the way quickly and I felt a sense of relief. Next job? Put nutrition on the bike and lay out gear so it is easy to switch out of swim and into bike and get out of T1 as quickly as possible.

Swim Start

Ironman started lining us up a bit early for the swim start and this stressed many of us out. With over 45 minutes before race start, the announcer told us that we had to be in our wetsuits and lining up right away if our projected swim time was 34 minutes or less. Well, that is me and I was not near ready to get lined up so I ran to the bathroom one last time, then back to my bike to put on my wetsuit and grab my prepared nutrition and water, and then tried to fit in a quick warm up. I cruised into my swim wave about 10 minutes later and then promptly waited for the next 35 minutes until the race began. Uuuuggghhh. Ironman always makes us “Hurry up and Wait” which drives me insane. In this particular case, it was not well thought out either because they had far too many of us much too close together in this scenario.

At 7:09, my beep went off and I ran into the water to start my day. It was a rolling start so racers were evenly spaced going into the water and this was both reassuring and comfortable for me. I found my pace quickly and calmly and just swam. It was an uneventful swim for me and I felt good the entire way. No panic, worry, off course swimming or being kicked around by other athletes. Just me in my space, swimming my pace and following some feet along the way. I finished my swim in 33 minutes. This is my fastest swim time at St George by over a minute. I am thrilled with this because 1) I had not done an OWS for 22 months and 2) I did not grow up as a swimmer so anytime I cut down my swim time, I am proud of myself for putting in the effort to get there.

The run to my bike was definitely longer than I would have liked on my foot with no run shoes but I did what I had to do. I called out, “Excuse me!” to one athlete as I passed and that man laughed and called back, “You are fast. You look like you might be competitive.” 🤣 I told him that if the day went well, I hoped that I would be! But, I was mostly just happy to be racing and putting in my best effort. I ran over to my bike, removed my wetsuit, put on my sunglasses and helmet, grabbed some socks and quickly debated- socks or no socks on the bike? I decided to put them on, threw on my cycling shoes, grabbed my bike and ran to Bike Out. In Couer d’Alene, I will not be wearing socks on the bike. More on that later. Make note of Lesson #2 of the day.

On the bike, things went smoothly. I found my pace quickly and eased into the bike course. I really had no issues at all on the bike. The one thing I noticed that foretold of a possible issue on the upcoming run was a slight cramp developing in my left hamstring on one of the more aggressive hill climbs. “Watch that.”, I told myself. “That could be a problem on the run.” The signature climb on this 3600 ft bike course is Snow Canyon at mile 42. it is a 4-5 mile climb with the last two being very pitchy at 10-12% incline in spots. Being from Colorado, this did not worry me much. I ride similar terrain at home. And, I had ridden Snow Canyon multiple times previously. I knew how to pace it and what to expect. The ride went very well and I PRed by over 6 minutes. I came in to T2 at 2:50 ride time. My anticipated bike time was 2:56.

My transition to the run was fine but nothing spectacular. I could have saved a lot more time if I had not run down the wrong aisle with my bike by mistake and if I had not cared that my run belt was on backwards. Or maybe I was just wasting a little bit of time waiting to get my heart rate down. Who knows! But lessons were learned here so that I do not make the same mistakes in Couer d’Alene. My biggest take away on reflection here? When I race again there will be no socks on the bike, I will put on dry socks for the run, I will take Infinit TripWire in transition to get ahead of any possible cramping in my legs.

Off Onto The Run

So, my legs felt surprising light going into the run for the first few miles of the uphill section of our run course. I started to feel a little twinge in my left hamstring and I grabbed a salt tablet pronto. At mile 2.5, I became acutely aware of my left heel and a soreness developing. No bueno. I reworked my game plan in my mind and decided that longer walk intervals were needed until that twinge went away with more sodium and electrolytes and I would modify my run as needed to make sure I did not injure my foot on this training race. So, the steep uphills became a speed walk for me so that I could keep that foot safe and also keep my heart rate down. Then, I could pick up the pace on my downhills and focus on great form and mid foot strike to keep the weight off of my heel. And this was my run strategy. I knew it would not be the run that I had hoped for but I also knew that it would work so that I finished well and safely with no regrets of pushing too hard and hurting myself before CDA.

So, I stuck with it and I managed a decent run split with more walking than I have done in a 70.3 race ever before. But, lucky for me, I have really long legs and I walk very fast so I could still keep my average pace between 9:45- 10:15 minutes per mile. I came in on the run about 10 minutes slower than I had hoped but the good news is that I came in on the swim and bike about 10 minutes faster than I had planned. So, it did even out. Final finish time was 5:46 and that put me #6 out of 89 women aged 50-54. It also guaranteed me a qualification slot to the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship.

Okay, so let’s revisit a few of my learning points above. They are not as much learning points as reminder points for an athlete who has been off the race course for almost two years and just needed a race to reinforce race day strategies and nutrition. I usually do not wear socks on the bike and I chose to do so in St George because I have fairly new triathlon cycling shoes and I had not yet had the chance to do a longer ride in them. Usually, we say, do not try anything new on race day and I am very dedicated to that concept. In this case, my older shoes broke and I had no choice. My new triathlon shoes are amazing! I love them. But, I was worried about potential rubbing and cold feet on the bike. Lesson #1 of the day is “Do my long rides in prep for IMCDA in the coming weeks with no socks and make sure that will work for me on race day in Idaho.” It was a great thing to experience in StG so I can modify as needed for the big dance on June 27. Lesson #2 of the day is “Revisit my run nutrition and prerace hydration in the days leading into the race.” My new Infinit custom run blend is fantastic and I have loved it in my training. My problem on race day was that when taken in the soft bottle as I did, it got very shaken up and foamy. I could not always get a good swig out of it when I need it and in the end, I did not get as much sodium and electrolytes into my system as I needed to prevent late race cramps in my left hamstring. So, I need to rethink that aspect of my race. My Infinit bike formula is perfect and on target. So, that stays the same and I reevaluate how to fuel running off the bike to make sure my sodium and calorie intake is where it needs to be. To piggy back on that, I also need to chat with my sport nutrition buddy Colin at Infinit and discuss my prehydration. Although I was hydrated well going into the race, did I not have enough sodium beforehand? That is an important factor for me as I am a very heavy sweater with a normal to high sodium concentration in my sweat. So, I lose a lot of sodium in hot conditions and I cramp easily.

I am very pleased with my entire race and feel terrific about how it went considering this was my first event back since October 2019. Coming up is Ironman Couer d’Alene on June 27. Thank you so much to everyone who reached out with well wishes and congratulations. I appreciate all of you so much!