This was my second time doing this race. I loved the location the first time around, even though my race was a bit subpar in 2019 - mainly because my front brake was rubbing for more than half of the bike... I also made the trip alone that year and flew back right after the race (Saturday evening), so I didn't get to explore any of the many cool state and national parks nearby.
I'm very happy that Justin was able to make the trip with me this time and that we took an extra day after the race to do some hiking. The race went a bit better too. Plus I got to practice packing and unpacking the bike by myself twice, which was very important if I ever want to fly to a race by myself (without using Tribike Transport). Lastly, we stayed in a rather cozy trailer (in our Airbnb host's yard in a very safe neighborhood), which was a fun experience by itself (and made me more aware of our water consumption when showering, washing dishes etc :-D)
Pre-race:
Since we stayed only about 3 miles from transition, I decided to not go to T2 on race morning (which would involve a 25min drive there and then a 25min shuttle ride back to T1). Instead, Justin dropped me off near the entrance to the Sand Hollow Park, which meant that we only had to wake up at 4am instead of 3am :-D The only downside of not going to T2 in the morning was that my run sports drink was not mixed in my handheld bottle and I had to mix it in during the race. But that probably only took 10-15 seconds, so it was still worth it for this race since realistically, I was not exactly contending for the prize money.
Justin drove straight to St George after he dropped me off, which worked out well since he had enough time to spectate at nice locations both on the bike and run + to get some extra trail running in as well. (Our original plan was for him to spectate the swim and possibly the bike turnaround on Sand Hollow Road while being parked at the swim spectator parking lot about a mile from the transition (and maybe 2 miles from the turnaround). But we were worried that driving to St George after the bike was well under way might take forever (due to road closures). I think we made the right decision. Spectating the swim might have been nice but spectating the bike near Snow Canyon and the run at Red Hills Pkwy near the fork for the 2 out-and-backs was much better :-))
Once in transition, all the pre-race tasks went pretty smoothly. We (the pros) were fortunate to be able to warm up in the water for about 10 minutes before our start. The AG athletes were not allowed to warm up - I think this was due to covid protocols (having to re-mask everyone after they were done with warmup + possibly not being able to maintain physical distancing if all ~3000 athletes wanted to do a swim warmup at about the same time?) Still, I think everyone should have gotten a time / place to warmup, especially with the relatively cold water temperature (low 60s). Even if it might not have been feasible near the swim start/finish, it could have been done at the beach where people swam the day before (about 100m to the right of the swim exit) and maybe have separate warmup time windows for people of different speeds / order in the rolling start.
Swim (34:14):
I might have not started as hard / aggressive as I should have and as a result I found myself swimming all by myself. I did my best to still put in a good effort and not get too discouraged. One of my "goals" for the race was to not get caught in the water by the fastest AG swimmers (since I had an 8min head start) but I started getting passed with a few 100m to go... Oh well - at least my bike was not the last one in T1. (I think I was 31st out of 34, including one swim DNF)
T1 (4:14):
The run from the water is pretty long - not because the transition is far away from the water but because everyone needs to run the length of the transition twice and with a 3500 bike capacity, it was pretty long :-D I also fumbled a bit with the top of my trisuit, which I didn't have all the way up for the swim since it feels a bit too restrictive in the shoulders. I probably only lost a few seconds trying to zip the top up while running (unsuccessfully - in the future I should deal with the zipper only once I'm at my bike) but mostly, I think I was just slow doing the usual T1 stuff: taking off the wetsuit and putting on helmet and shoes. Hopefully that will improve with more racing. For comparison, my T1 in 2019 was about a minute faster than this year.
Bike (2:34:46):
The bike course was slightly modified from 2 years ago. It was still about the same distance and elevation or maybe slightly higher in both (by 0.8mi and 170ft respectively according to my watch). Based on my first few 5-mile splits, I thought I was riding relatively well. However, I did not really catch anyone who didn't have a mechanical or obviously had a bad day until I started climbing up Snow Canyon. I suspected this was because of my bigger deficit to the 29-30min swim pack (My swim was 2min slower than in 2019 - probably also because 2 years ago I was on someone else's feet for the whole swim, which makes a significant difference...). Anyway, I was happy to move up 3 places in the last 10 miles of the bike. It was also nice to see Justin at mile 40 :-) Overall, it was a good ride - 9min faster than 2 years ago. The only negative was that my power meter was dropping out a lot, so the average power was a complete bogus.
T2 (3:06):
I think this went a bit better than T1, even though I was still a bit (30 seconds) slower than in 2019.
Run (1:38:05):
I felt like I was running pretty slow for the first mile, but looking back at the data, maybe it was just my watch misreporting the first split... After 2 miles or so, I got into my groove and ran pretty strong. I passed 2 women in the first 6 miles but then got passed by 2 other women between mile 8 and 9. I thought I would try to pick up my pace a bit in the last 2-3 miles (which were all downhill) but then I started having some mild hip and shin pain (which was probably nothing but you never know...), so I decided to ease off a bit, which was the smart thing to do. My run time ended up being about 90 seconds slower than 2 years ago but in hotter conditions this time around.
Total time: 4:54:23 - 24th out of 34 pro women, about 3min faster than in 2019 and definitely a bit more competitive compared to everyone else.
It was great to see Justin on the course and at the finish and to have his company before and after the race. It was also fun to explore Snow Canyon on Sunday - I had no idea that we could climb up many of those orange rocks and also descend down into a few lava tubes. Definitely worth a visit, especially if you have only half a day or so. If we have more than a day in the future, we would love to check out Zion National Park and/or hike one of those 10,000ft+ mountains that seem to be pretty close by!
