Boise 70.3 Recap

The preparations for Boise went everything but smooth. I showed up at my massage therapist at the wrong time, spent way too much time dealing with borrowed race wheels (that Coach was trying to talk me into) only to decide that I was not going to use them, left my race bag at home (the boys were getting ready to go camping and there was stuff everywhere), and I started my period. I was stressed! But I was hoping that the more things that would go wrong before the race, the smoother the race itself.

I got to hang out with Coach M and HT (Coach Heath Thurston) all weekend long. What a treat! Coach M is just the cutest girl you will ever meet and HT is a tease and a jokester. It is a good combination. We drove up to Boise Thursday with our friend Marci and we all stayed at Rob’s house. In one room. Good times.

Thursday consisted of pre-race meeting, packet pick-up, bike drop-off, fabulous and fun dinner with the HT training group, and getting 3 transition bags ready. That took all day and I was still getting stuff ready at 10 pm. Good thing we did not have to get up early.

Marci, me, HT, Melanie at bike check-in

The race did not start until noon, so there was plenty of time in the morning to put the shoes in T1 downtown, drive up to the reservoir, check out the famous pros, chat with the many friends that came up here from Utah, and bask in the warm sunshine before hitting the freezing water. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to warm up at all (whether on land or in the water). All our stuff had to be bagged early, there just was no room to run around, and we could not enter the water until 2 minutes before our start. I really like and need a warm-up but I told myself that a 5-hour race is plenty of time to get warm and getting into the 53 degree water too early would be a mistake anyway. So I lined up with all the other gals in my age group and we had so much fun that I missed HT exiting the water right next to us - in 2^nd place! Sorry, Coachie!

Who is that goof?

We walked onto the dock, jumped into the water, gasped, tried to get used to the cold while treading water for 2 minutes, and off we went! I honestly was not too worried about the cold. Somehow I would survive. One thing I have learned from reading Lance Armstrong’s books multiple times is that I need to make adverse conditions my friend. If I can handle them just a little better than my competitors, I can use them to my advantage! And the water really was not too bad. I was actually able to draft behind some other girls (which hardly ever happens) for about 1/3 of the way until we ran into more and more waves that had started in front of us and things got a little crazy. Having a buoy about every 100 meters made sighting a breeze and I actually quite enjoyed myself in the water.

Swim Highlight: plenty of buoys

Swim Lowlight: masses of people to swim through

It did not even cross my mind to look at the clock when I exited the water. I knew there were a bunch of girls from my wave (female 18-34) ahead of me. That was fine with me. I really did not expect to come out of the water in first, nor was I planning on winning my age group. In this race I was just a little fish in a huge pond. I did have some goals that Coach M came up with and I was going to try to nail them. I am not good at coming up with goals myself. My main goal is always to ‘push hard and have fun’. (Coach already let me know that my goals for 70.3 Worlds need to be a little more specific than that!) I am just not interested in kicking my own butt so hard that I am either puking, fainting, or visiting the medical tent. Maybe I need some help in this area of (non-existing) mental toughness…

David Warden, teammate and co-owner of PowerTri, did some research and, thanks to his post here, I now know that I exited the water in 4th place, passed one girl in transition, and was 4 minutes behind the leader in my AG. On race day I had no clue who was where in front of me. One girl passed me early on but I was not ready to pick up my speed quite yet. After about 10 miles another girl passed and I decided to let her go as well and concentrate on my own race. The third girl passing me was not going much faster than me and so I decided to stick with her.

The bike course was hillier than expected which is always a pleasant surprise. I like hills. Being one of the last waves to start, there were so many racers ahead of us that I had plenty of entertainment on the bike. With more than 1,000 racers on the roads ahead of us, it was actually extremely difficult not to be drafting at any given time. At mile 30 we reeled in one of the girls and then the 3 of us kept leap-frogging each other until mile 50. I enjoyed racing ‘with‘ these other 2 gals who were all decked out in fancy gear and looking super fast.

I was feeling really good the last 6 miles and was able catch the other girl in front and then pull away from them on my way into T2. Again, I did not know who was still ahead of me but I remember thinking: “What if the 4 of us are at the front of our group?” That was an exciting thought I did not dare to entertain. As it turns out, I was 2nd in T2. One girl just smoked us all on the bike but never started the run. T2 was quite a challenge. I like it simple in transition but today was going to be complicated. I was told to race with my Garmin, so somehow I needed to remember to take it off the bike and attach it to my wrist. Petrified that I was going to leave T2 without it (and be grounded by Coach forever), I decided to stuff it into my chest area while still on the bike and then deal with it while running.

Bike highlights: good company and feeling strong

Bike lowlights: realizing that my bike is (below) low-end, nutrition issues

I also needed to pick up a flask of EFS liquid shot, a little tube with salt tablets, and my watchband. In order to be able to adjust my race belt and put on my visor while running, I had to stuff the flask, tube, and band into my chest area as well. Good thing there is not much in there to start with. It was a little more complicated to retrieve it all than I expected. It must have been quite entertaining to the spectators lining downtown. I hope I was not too revealing.

I started the run (unaware) in 1st feeling great and cruising along (too) fast. I did not realize it was too fast until a terrible side ache hit me at mile 3 that forced me to slow down quite a bit. Luckily, it only lasted a mile or so.

Unfortunately, my nutrition was pretty much off all day. I still can’t figure out why but my guess is that it has to do with the afternoon start. I was planning on taking EFS drink on the bike + water + a couple of gels, and then the EFS liquid shot on the run. I had practiced it plenty in training and it always worked just great. So I was not worried about it at all until I was starting to have stomach issues on the bike. That is never a good sign because you start to wonder what your stomach is going to do on the run. I had less EFS drink on the bike and more gels than planned which messed up my salt intake some but I just could not drink more of it. I think my stomach was already sick of all the simple carbohydrates I had been feeding it since breakfast. I am not a fan of the late start.

I could not handle the EFS liquid shot on the run either. After realizing that I really needed some more calories on the second loop of the run, I decided to go with coke and it worked. Somewhat. I could tell that I was slowing down and I was very surprised that still no girl had caught up to me. I was certain I was going to get run down. The second loop was tough but it was very encouraging to see so many good friends and fellow Utah athletes out there on the course. It was a big sufferfest with 1,500 of my closest friends! It made my day!

With about 1 mile to go, a girl went by me. She was flying! I looked at her calf and it said 27. Phew! Not in my age group. I did not even try to stay with her. I was already hurting a lot and I had no clue that we were racing for 1st female amateur! Honestly, I don’t think I could have stayed with her even if I had known but I sure would’ve tried harder! She beat my by 30 seconds which is quite a lot. (I know HT is thinking that if I had used his race wheels, I would've beat her but I don't regret my decision at all.)

Run Highlight: friends galore on the course

Run Lowlight: positive splits

Besides nutrition issues, the race went very well and things sort of came together and I am very excited to be toeing the line at the 70.3 World Championships in September. Until then, I have a lot of work to do…

Tired but happy

Huge congrats to everyone who raced! Utah definitely pulled off a lot of amazing performances in Boise. I won’t go into details because I know I will miss at least a few. I love you, guys!

Huge thanks to PowerTri, HT training, and my super supportive family! Could not do it without you!