My First 70.3 Triathlon...Yeah, I did that...

Me in Front of Transition

One day I might get around to writing about how I ended up signing up for this race but life has been crazy since April (sold our house, moved across the country, bummed a place to stay off my sister for two weeks, have had family and friends visiting and the house we are in is still having workmen coming in and out at random) so I haven’t had time to stop and process almost anything. But I wanted to get my thoughts about how the race went written down before I forget everything so as to be able to (hopefully) learn a thing or two myself.

The race I did was the Ironman Salem Oregon 70.3 in its inaugural year. The format for a 70.3 race is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run. There are what is called “transitions” between the swim and the bike and the bike and the run. Your transition time is counted as part of your overall time. So get what you need and get out! It was my first half distance triathlon so I learned a lot and hope to have the chance to apply what I have learned in new races as I move forward.

Normally I do a post race breakdown of 3 things I think I did well, 3 things I learned and 3 things I would change/ fix. Mostly as an exercise to get the brain juices flowing to think critically about how it all went. The actual number of items for each category can always have more but 3 is the minimum. So here goes:

3 things I learned:

1. They have bike pumps on the wall of T1 (I definitely needed them! My tires were at 37psi instead of 95…)

2. It is really hard to sight while swimming when you are looking straight into the sun. I should have started looking back over my shoulder earlier so as to be able to stay closer to the buoy line.

3. I need more food for post race if I am going to be waiting for the awards. My hands started seizing up around the 3 hour mark after finishing, even after eating all the good post race food provided.

4. Most of the time, you are going faster than you think.

3 things I did well

1. Paced well throughout, I didn’t try to smash the swim or bike and so I didn’t need to slow way down on the back half of the run. 

2. Stuck to the plan on the run/ listened to the advice of my coach for how to keep my core temp cooler

3. Didn’t sweat the small stuff (had to wait 50 min in line at the start, had to stop right outside of T2 to pull dead grass out of my front brake pads etc.)

4. Tossed the watch

3 things I would change/ do differently

1. Bring a 3rd gu on the run

2. Completely change clothes once I finished

3. Wear a hat or visor on the run

4. Have more water on board the bike so as to not be so dependent on the aid stations

Swim Done!

I have to say I really enjoyed this race. Overall. The swim was a bit slow to get started. I think I waited about 50ish minutes from the announced start time to when I got to get into the water. The butterflies started when I was 20 feet from my turn to get in. But I was really happy once I was in the water. There was a slow spot where the river level was barely 1 1/2 feet so you had to do an awkward crawl/ swim hybrid with your arms until you were through it. The trickiest part was sighting. We were swimming directly into sunrise so I couldn’t see anything but the splashes of the swimmers in front of me. Which really aren’t all that helpful in making sure you are going in a straight line. I had to start peeking back over my right shoulder so I could at least see the buoys in arrears. I made a tight turn on the final buoy though and felt like I finished strong. Apparently I forgot to start my watch though…boo! There was a bit of a hike to get back up to transition but it flew by. My legs felt fine so I must have done some extra kicking towards the end because they didn’t hurt at all jogging up the ramp and into transition.

I found my bike no problem. I had listened to the advice of my coach and had found landmarks the day before to make sure I would be able to find my bike without getting lost in the sea of bikes. I did the switcheroo, dumped the watch (since I had forgotten to start it anyway) and got started. My bike split actually surprised me. I felt great almost the whole ride. I kept reminding myself to reign it in and just stay comfortable. Except on the uphill because frankly those were never comfortable.  I had only one water bottle on my bike (the second one I had ordered decided to just not show up in time) so my backup plan was to grab water bottles from the aid stations. It actually worked! I was able to grab water from the volunteers and not be pulled off my bike! I had heard of that happening and was not sure how that was accomplished and I was really nervous about attempting it for the first time! I made sure to get plenty of water in my system and then dump the rest on my head and thighs before leaving the “end of trash” zone. I had no problem with navigating the course. The turns were all well marked, the roads were decently smooth and they had people in place to warn you of tight turns or signage for any parts that were bumpy enough to lose you your water bottle or nutrition. I would say only about 40 percent of the people actually warned you they were passing on your left and I only witnessed one crash. A fellow on a bike about 50 feet in front of me did a sudden veer to the left and into the grass. He popped up right away though and I even saw him pass me a few miles later so I assumed he was fine. I’m not sure what the etiquette is for witnessing a crash in the middle of a bike race...? I am still a total rookie to bike riding and have a ton to learn!

The run is where things got uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable! It was an out and back course so both the first and last mile and a half or so were on pavement. My back was on fire for those portions! The temps were heating up and I felt like I was just slogging along. I tried to keep it slow and I would have SWORN that I was running 12 minute miles! I made sure to dump water on my head and ice down my jersey at each aid station. Still there were times I really wanted to just walk but then I would hear my coach in my head saying “there is no such thing as a good bike split followed by a bad run split”. Aka, if I couldn’t run then I had overbiked so if I didn’t want to have overbiked than I had better put my money where my mouth was and just run the back half of the half. This is where that ditching the watch thing comes in. It just felt slow and painful. But when I finished I found out that I had averaged 10:16 minutes per mile. I was just happy to finally find the finish line so that run time was icing on the cake! 

Me and My Aunt Babs

My support crew and all around cheering squad was my inestimable Aunt Babs. She had told

me my split time after the swim: 27:07! Yeah baby! Thank you for a down river swim! To put that time into perspective, my self seeded predicted time was 37 minutes. My bike split was 3:16:22. Which was the fastest I have ever gone over that distance and then a 2:14:05 for my run. I will take that! My overall finish time including transitions was a 6:06:13. My quads started protesting the moment I stopped running. Then they really stiffened up during the long drive home. They are better now but it was a bit tricky walking downhill for awhile there…which really is to be expected so I shouldn't complain. Many many thanks to my sweet husband who supports me in all my craziness, as long as I don't lose any fingers or toes ;) All in all, it was a great day.

I Finished! 6:06:13!