Whirlpool Steelhead 70.3 Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The race turned into a duathlon, and since I'd never run one before, I was a bit nervous. I placed myself at the front and center, and when the gun went off, I kept the pace comfortable and stayed right behind the lead girls. With about 2 minutes left in the run, I took the lead and kept it going into T1.
Average pace was 6:40min/mile.

Swim ;) Obviously, running plays to my strengths, but I've been improving my swim times, and was hoping to prove that at this race. Oh well!

This took too long. My ponytail was in the wrong spot, and I couldn't get my helmet on, so I spent most of T1 messing with my hair- so stupid!

Jumped on the bike and took off. The headwinds were pretty nasty, so my HR was through the roof from the get go. I was in wave 7 out of 17, so there were plenty of people already out on the course, but not too many. There were a ton of girls ahead of me though, mostly from different waves, but it still gets my competitive drive going and helped get over the weird feeling of the swim being canceled.

Once I got in the groove, everything felt great. My legs felt strong and my speed was exactly where I wanted it. The course is relatively flat, with a few rollers to keep it interesting and it was a ton of fun. I spent a lot of time coming up and passing other racers. Each passing mile felt great and I was thrilled that I kept my focus up the whole time. Jim (birkierunner) came up to me around mile 17, and flew by like I was standing still, saying "nice bike...punk" ;) I tried to catch him, but he's ridiculously fast, even for an old guy ;)

Now I must rant:
I didn't see much drafting or pacelines, but there were a ton of people out there that are completely ignorant of a rule that is just as important- RIDE TO YOUR FRIGGIN' RIGHT. I got pretty irritated when a group of men and women were out there acting like they were on a group ride, going 3-a-breast, chatting and not passing and not following the darn rules. The more competitive people get a lot of crap and are accused of drafting at almost every major race, but man, it is just as annoying and just as 'unfair' when there are these huge packs of leisurely riders blocking the entire road at a race that everyone knows has 2700 participants and the roads aren't closed. It forces other riders to either slam on their brakes and yell at you for 5 minutes to move over, or to cross the double yellow line to get around. This course didn't need to be frustrating- it wasn't actually that crowded- people just chose to ignore the rules. OK, I'll stop complaining now ;)

I was having a blissfully wonderful ride, with visions of a PR dancing in my head, when all of a sudden I feel my bike thumping. Dammit, my back tire went flat. I'd been having issues with my valve extenders for the new race wheels, but thought I'd solved the problem. When I hopped off my bike, I was praying to the Trigods that it was only that, and not a flat tubbie. Well, karma was on my side, because it was only a leak, instead of a ruined tire, so with my CO2 cartridge I was able to inflate it back up to pressure. A bagallion racers zoomed by me, but I only lost 2 minutes in the ordeal.

Once I got back on my bike, it took a bit to get back into the game mentally. Once I did, we turned the other direction and had the most wonderfully amazing tailwind for almost 20 miles. It felt like flying :) Man, I love riding my bike (when the tire is inflated). I made it back to the spot where I had been before the flat, and made a bit more progress. There weren't too many girls out there from my AG, so that was encouraging. I passed my cheering section and flew into T2, feeling great about my best bike average BY FAR. The course was short by 2 miles, but my average speed, even including the flat-time was 22.2mph- AWESOME (for me!!)


Check, re-check and triple re-check my darn race wheels.

Great T2! I've been practicing this a lot, and I think I improved. I did my flying dismount, ran over some guys' foot, and got my shoes back on in a hurry.

Not much

As soon as I got off the bike, I assessed the damage I had done to my legs and felt nothing. Nada. No pain, no tightness, nothing. It was totally bizzarre. I had just ridden my bike as hard as I could manage for 56 (54) miles, and my legs felt pretty much nothing. They also didn't feel like running, exactly, but they just didn't have that heavy brick feeling that I was dreading. I mean, by average HR on the bike is usually around 140-150, but I pushed so hard that I AVERAGED a 160 on the bike- I should be suffering! So, I took it easy for the first mile. Then I took it easy for the second mile. After I finished the 3rd mile, and my legs were still feeling good, I decided to put them through a world of hurt and go for a PR on the run.

My average pace at that point was 7:40ish. I was still really bummed about the flat tire incident, but decided I could either let that keep eating at me, or just suck it up and still try and place overall. Of course, I decided to race. Each step I tried harder than the last and each person I saw became my next target. I couldn't smile or thank volunteers, or slow down to grab my water or gatorade- I was on a friggin' mission. I passed a lot of folks on the first lap of the run course and before I knew it, it was time to go out on the second lap.

The second lap gets quite crowded, but with the crowds you get more moving targets. In my sun-beaten, delirious mind, I started playing a video game in my head, and I made all the other racers move backwards, while I was moving forward and needed to avoid the targets, or else loose all my points. Each mile was more painful, but somehow easier and I kept seeing my average pace drop- 7:30, 7:25....

By mile 10, it was so close to being over, and I kept thinking about how much better I felt than at Musselman. I also thought about how I absolutely have to destroy these last 3 miles because I have no wimpy back-up excuse, like, oh, sorry I couldn't push it, I vomited this morning- because everything was going great. So, I ran faster. My average pace dropped even more, and at the last mile, I was at my goal- 7:15's. I also found ONE more girl in my age group and took off. I passed her at mile 12.5 and kept my lead.

The last mile has a few turns and then they send you through the sand dunes. I was so very careful not to trip and fall, but I also kept checking back behind me to make sure I wasn't going to lose the race in a sprint to the finish, again. Thankfully, there was no eventful finish, and I got to cross the line standing up, smiling, running and not crawling. It was awesome :)





Run faster. My pacing was pretty good, but I still left a tiny part of me out on the course.

I chatted a ton with the other racers about the race and the swim. I also realized that if we had the swim portion, and I had swam a similar time as last year, it would have been about 22 minutes more to my time. That would've been a 4:40 half-ironman for me, and that realization felt like a million bucks. If that had been real, that would've been a 15 minute PR.

Since things were a bit screwy because of the swim cancellation, we had to hang around for a while at the race site. Eventually I got my spot to Clearwater, and a few hours later, they had the award ceremony. I knew that there was 1 pro woman there, so I didn't know if she'd be included in the awards or not. Turns out she wasn't, so I got the award for 3rd place overall woman, which was a food processor!! I was so friggin' excited to win that thing because I have wanted one for 2 years now. It's actually turned into a joke between my boyfriend and I because he wouldn't agree to get one, so when I saw the prize was a food processor, I just about died. At that point, I was happy to have gotten the flat, because if I had been 2 minutes faster, I would've gotten 2nd, and won a toaster oven instead ;) Now that I can process my food, I'll be able to spend less time cooking and more time training!!

Also, I just want to say THANK YOU so much to all of the awesome BTers- both virtual friends and the real friends that I made this weekend. I had an amazing time at the BT 'jazz' house, and our pre-race and post-race antics will haunt me, er, I mean, stay with me, happily, forever. Trixie, triok, amiine, birkierunner, whizzzzzz, coredump, brickey, sweetP, rottieguy, matt3liv, rkrueser, marnavett and crew, yeats- you guys are the most hysterical, insane and wonderful people I've met. Oh, and coach Jorge rocks.


Not a whole lot. I am extremely happy with how I executed this race- both tactically and within my own abilities. I hope I just keep getting faster!! :) I am very happy to be going to Clearwater again, because I've had a great season so far, and I'm thrilled that it's not over yet. Hopefully the weather won't suck in Florida!


The organizers of this race had an un-enviable decision to make and they did the best they could, given the situation. Those waves and riptides were insane, and the coast guard had issued a red-flag warning for the area. There wasn't anything they could do about the swim, but they quickly changed everything around and the race started with a re-routed run and bike course within an hour. Pretty impressive.

The biggest issue with this race is it's size. They had tried to address this issue by scheduling the waves at 6 minutes apart. When the race started 1 hour late, they HAD to shorten that gap, and with only a 2 mile start, the course was obviously going to feel tight. Some times that's unavoidable, but sometimes, the athletes are to blame and not the RD. If you don't want to participate in a big event with a lot of other athletes, do NOT do this race. It is crowded. It's not hard to figure out that the course will be crowded when it allows 2700 participants- PLAN ACCORDINGLY and anticipate that. That being said, they do a great job of organizing every last detail of the race, and I had an amazing time. This is my second Steelhead and I'll go out to try and win it the third time around ;)