Ironman 70.3 St. Croix - Triathlon

The swim started off beautifully. You could see the divers below you on the course and at the buoys. That was really neat. They waved to you :) There were no buoys in between the turn buoys, so sighting was difficult. There were 4 round buoys at the Hotel on the Cay as a staging box, but otherwise there were only 2 buoys out at the turn around and one at the Fort at the last turn. On the way out it wasn’t a problem as I just followed the swimmers in front of me. About halfway on the return leg, it started pouring rain and the wind was howling. The water got pretty rough and sighting was impossible. I stopped and asked a kayak where the buoy was so that I could find something bigger on shore to use to sight. He just said swim to the next kayak. So I ended up using the kayaks to sight…which made my path very irregular. I finally spotted the fort and the last turn buoy. Once there, sighting was simple. I just followed the wharf until I got to the ramp and was pulled out. There were no steps. The guys literally grabbed your arms and lifted you out.

Not sure what I could have done differently. I could see where we were supposed to be heading, so I did the best that I could. I'm a slow swimmer to begin with but this was an exceptionally bad second half of the swim.

The rain slacked up as I entered T1. I didn’t realize it during the swim but I had to go to the bathroom and I didn’t want to pee myself on the bike so I had a short stop in T1.

cut out the bathroom stop in T1 if I had realized it earlier during the swim

Heading out on the bike, the roads were wet so I paid extra attention on turns and lane markers so I wouldn’t crash. I saw tons of people on the sides of the roads with flats throughout the course. I didn’t see any crashes but found out later that there were several. I did see one poor rider about mile 50 with a broken chain. The whole time out there, I never saw one SAG vehicle or assistance other than volunteers at the aid stations. After the first 8 mile loop in town, the front half of the bike ride was absolutely gorgeous!! Then we hit The Beast. I find it funny now that in my coach's pre-race email that she said “if I need to walk The Beast”….I had aspirations of not walking it at all. I figured that if I could slowly grind up Brockway Summit in Tahoe, I could do this. Yeah right! If I had the chance to pre-ride the course (either on bike or by car), I would have laughed. I made it just to the T in the BeasT before I had to stop and walk it or risk tipping over without being able to unclip. I was in a large group walking up it at that time. One guy did come flying (relatively speaking) past us up The Beast. I think he was a guy that I had passed earlier on the side of the road with a flat. I never saw him again after that. At the top of The Beast, I stopped at that aid station. Those volunteers on the course were AMAZING. Easily the best of any race that I’ve been to EVER! I poured water over my head between openings on my helmet. Drank some, ate a waffle and got going again. I knew that we would be climbing again around mile 40 or so. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. We hit Grassy Point and a few others that I don’t remember the names of. I’m not sure if the back half of the ride wasn’t as pretty as the front half or if I was just plain done but I don’t remember the end of the ride being pretty, lol. My nutrition schedule got thrown off due to the hills and need to focus on the descents (the roads had loose gravel at the bottom of most of the turns).

Perhaps I should have used Infinit (which I used primarily all last season) so that I wouldn't have had to worry about getting waffles out of my bento or pocket.

Once into T2, I got off at the dismount line. My legs were spaghetti. I walked into transition and racked my bike. Took a second to breathe…forgot to take off my HR strap (coach said to take it off to help with breathing. I did have the optical on my Garmin anyway). I figured that I could give it to the hubby since I was running past our hotel room on the run course (we stayed at The Buccaneer). I never did see him though, so it stayed on the whole run. I did unzip the front of my top which helped get some breeze.

Maybe move faster and jog with bike instead of walking but my legs were just toast.

The plan was to run aid station to aid station and walk the aid station to take in fluids and nutrition. I tried to focus on running to the aid station, but I had a hard time even lifting my feet up to jog. I ended up walking way more than planned, but I just wanted to finish. I ended up at an aid station with another lady. We started chatting about how our race plan went to hell. We decided that we would help each other and make sure we both finished this thing and not get pulled from the course…which we did.

I could have left her and run more on the second loop but after she kept me moving on the first loop, I decided that my times were so bad that shaving 15 minutes wasn't worth it.

By the time we finished though, the post race area was being taken apart. There was no food or drink available other than cliff bars and water. I tried to catch a taxi (they use big passenger vans on the island) back to The Buccaneer as the road on the run course was open as we finished (we had to dodge traffic a few times). The taxi driver wouldn’t take me stating that the roads were closed until 4pm. So, I decided not to wait almost an hour for a ride. I wanted to get back to the hotel room, take a shower and get dry as I was tired of being wet all over. I got back onto my bike with my backpack on my shoulders and rode the 2.5-3 miles back to my hotel room. That was the most miserable part of the day. My legs were toast and I had to stay on the horns as if I had tried to get in aerobars with my backpack, I’d end up crashing. I had planned on riding the van back so I had my flip flops on. I had to remember when I stopped at red lights, that I needed to pull the pedal upwards with the top of my foot, and that I couldn’t just lift my foot up as I wasn’t clipped in. LOL…I’ve never ridden my trip bike without clip in shoes before so that was interesting. I didn’t want to put wet shoes back on my prune looking wet feet, so I just kept riding in flip flops.

I finally got back to the hotel, showered and we went to an early dinner, since by that time, I was starving. I think we ate at 5pm and I was in bed by 8:30pm :)


Since this was the last year of IM St. Croix 70.3, I think the financial budget was slim and it was obvious. At packet pickup, your running bib (which was a simple bib number and didn't have your name on it like at other IM races) was in a plastic bag. No backpacks were given out as swag. You did get a white T-shirt with IM ST. Croix on the front of it. There was a small room for bike mechanic (thank goodness because my front brake cable got snapped en route (TSA completely unpacked my bike box when we were flying out of mainland US and didn't repack properly). In the room adjacent to the bike mechanic was the "merchandise." There were CO2 cartridges, cliff bars and 4-5 tank tops with St. Croix on them. That's it. No other merchandise for sale. I had hoped to get the finisher shirt with the participants names on the back. There was none of the gear that you can usually buy at an IM race. The post race festivities were being taken down by the time I finished which is ok as well. I wasn't feeling much like real food at that point. There were no finisher hats or T-shirts..just your medal as you crossed the finish line. You could really tell that this race had a tight budget. Saying all of that, the locals on the island were GREAT!! They were out on the entire course cheering and clapping. This was by far the best race with local's support. I'm sad to see this race going as it truly seemed that the locals were happy we were there racing. We provided them entertainment and spent a lot of money while we were there. We stayed almost a whole week after the race to enjoy the island. The volunteers were AMAZING. Best volunteers at an IM race I've ever been to. They did their best to get you what you asked for and then some!