Background:
Even though this race has been on my radar since early April when PTO told us they'll be supporting it, I wanted to wait until after St George before committing to more racing. Justin was originally interested in coming along but after the hot weather and altitude at St George, he felt a bit worn down, so decided to pass on more hot weather at even higher altitude ;-) (I don't blame him!) I was a bit hesitant to travel to Show Low by myself (2-hour flight to Phoenix + 3h drive up into the mountains), even though I felt relatively confident about flying with the bike (for the first time without Justin). After thinking it through a bit more, I decided it would be a good experience for me to travel to a race by myself and also to get one more race in before Ironman Coeur D'Alene at the end of June.
Travel:
Justin was kind enough to rent a zipcar and drive me to the airport at 4:30am on Thursday for my 7am flight. I arrived in Phoenix a bit after 9am and was greeted by 90+ degree temperatures (probably 100+ by the time I started the 3-hour drive to Show Low). Thankfully, Show Low was going to be about 20 degrees cooler since it sits at 6,300ft above sea level but even 80-90 degree high temperatures feel very hot for someone from San Francisco where the temperatures rarely rise above 70. The drive was very scenic - highly recommend! (Funnily, to get out of Phoenix / Tempe, I drove on the Beeline Hwy part of IMAZ course - a nice quick trip down the memory lane :-)) I got to Show Low with about 30min to spare before I could check into my hotel, which was just enough time to stop by a bike shop to get my tires inflated, so I could do a little ride or two before the race. I checked into the hotel, got groceries (conveniently walking distance from the hotel), built the bike and went for a very short ride. Everything went relatively well other than what felt like I pulled something in my knee while I was lugging the bike case up the stairs (the hotel had 2 floors but no elevator). I iced the knee for a bit and hoped for the best. Another not so great thing was that the internet in my room was very flaky and I had no data in the town or anywhere nearby. It was both annoying and worrisome since at the very least I wanted to download offline maps for the area, so that I could pre-drive the bike course the next day. Fortunately, I found a decent wifi closer to the hotel office and was able to download my maps and talk to Justin in the evening. And, miraculously, the next morning and thereafter, I had good wifi even in my room.
Day before the race:
A little unconventionally, I started my day with a ride (as opposed to a run) - mainly because I wanted to do a little run on the race course later (around Fool Hollow Lake). My hotel was only a few miles from the lake / race start, so I could easily ride the first and last few miles of the bike course right from my doorstep. I actually drove the first ~15 miles of the bike course backwards on my drive into the town on Thursday and was already a bit concerned since it was a major road with 55-65mph speed limit (and most cars/trucks going 70+ mph), with only one lane in each direction (except for some brief sections with a second lane for passing) and not much of a shoulder. My little pre-ride confirmed my fears - I couldn't really ride in the shoulder (due to debris and a rumble strip) and many of the cars and semi-trucks passing me did not give me much more than a foot or two of space... Fortunately, I only stayed on this road for a few miles, then looped back on a smaller and much nicer road (also part of the course).
Next up was checking out the Fool Hollow Lake and do a little run and swim.
The run ended up being slightly longer than I planned but was very nice - on a trail the whole way. Since the air temperature was well into 80s by the time I finished my run, I decided to do my short pre-race dip without a wetsuit. (Also because I saw no one swimming in that lake in a wetsuit - most of the people were kayaking and a few were hanging out in the water right next to the shore.) It felt a little strange that this whole time I saw pretty much no one who looked like they might be doing a triathlon race on the weekend. No cyclists on the bike course (though I saw one or two near the lake), no one swimming in the lake and no one running near the lake. Maybe everyone did their workouts early in the morning to avoid the heat? Or maybe because this was a pretty small, more casual event than my usual Ironman branded races.
After my 12min dip in the 64F lake, I felt quite refreshed and felt ready to pre-drive the whole bike course. Once again, I was a bit horrified by the roads we were going to ride on the next day. Don't get me wrong - the roads themselves were great - nice rolling hills and pretty scenery but most of them were major roads with no good shoulder and 65mph speed limit... I was just hoping that there wouldn't be much traffic early on Saturday morning.
I picked up my packet right before the athlete briefing at 4pm. The pro meeting (after the general meeting) took a bit longer than I expected - mostly because everyone was confused about the "staggering rule", LOL (next morning we learned that USAT does not have a staggering rule any more, so we didn't need to worry about pulling into a high-speed traffic to avoid penalties ;-)) As a side note, the official pro start list and prize money distribution was sent out only on Thursday, so up till then I had no idea who I was racing and if I had any chance of taking home a little paycheck (not that the knowledge of either of those is very crucial for me at this point but it's always nice to know). From the Thursday email, it looked like there would be 5 women and 6 men on the start line - with prize money going down to 5th. (In the end, it was 5 women and 4 men.) So all I had to do to get a paycheck was to finish, which was a bit more pressure than in my last race where a paycheck was very unlikely. Looking at the start list, I thought I might have a chance at the podium and maybe at a result good enough for re-qualifying for my pro card (finishing within 8% of the winner). Even with all of this on the line, I didn't feel too nervous - after all, as long as I did my best, that was a win in my book :-)
Race morning:
The start was set to be 5:55am for the men, 5:56am for us and 6:00am rolling start for the AG field. The sunrise was around 5am and it was surprisingly light and warm (low 70s?) as I was setting up my transition around 5:30am. The 9 of us had our own transition (separate from the AG 70.3 race and the olympic distance race) - it was definitely the most spacious transition that I've seen - everyone had at least 10ft on each side of their bike :-D
Swim (35:36):
Got only a 2-4 minute warmup in - in retrospect, I probably should have gone down to the swim start earlier to get at least 5-8 minutes of swimming in... I tried to do my best to be focused at the start and swim as hard as possible but barely 30 seconds in, it was clear I got dropped yet again... I continued swimming hard, trying to minimize the time lost. The course was even more lonely than St George since the age group field was pretty small and despite my rather slow swim, only a handful of swimmers caught up with me. I had no idea how far behind the other women I was - I guessed 5-6min to the main pack of 3 and up to 10min behind Dede. (It actually ended up being only 4min to the main pack and 6min to Dede - I guess the course was slow for everyone.) Even though I very much expected that my bike would be the last one in transition, it was still a bit depressing sight...
Bike (2:32:22 - 57.3mi / 22.6mph):
The first mile of the bike had big cracks in the road about every 10 meters. I really didn't want my race to end with a flat tire or worse, so I took it pretty slowly on this section. Once on the main road, I got to work. Disappointingly, my power meter was dead, so I had to gauge my effort by feel and heart rate. (Not that I'm a slave to the powermeter during races but I like to glance at it from time to time to make sure I'm within a certain range... And I definitely like to look at it after a race.) I was in a pretty negative headspace for the first 45min of the bike. The other women were nowhere to be seen and getting passed by a handful of age group men made me feel extra slow. Plus, the first 15 miles of the course had more uphill than downhill, so I was pretty slow in absolute terms as well. Once I turned off the main road, the slight downhill started and I was "flying" at over 25mph for at least 15 miles, which put me in a better mood :-D (I also liked the smaller road much better than the main road, even though the pavement was a bit rough.) Around mile 35, I finally moved to 4th place, which was encouraging. A few miles later, just as I was considering that maybe I should try riding in the shoulder since the traffic was definitely increasing and some of the drivers were passing us a bit close, I saw another competitor (Summer) walking her bike in the shoulder (she got a flat - most likely from the debris in the shoulder). I definitely didn't want to get a flat, so I continued riding just outside of the shoulder and hoped that no other car would pass me close enough for it to be dangerous (rather than just annoying and potentially dangerous). Fortunately, it was only a few miles until we once again turned off from the main road onto a much nicer, smaller road and joined the Olympic distance athletes on their out-and-back course. It was quite refreshing to have people to pass on this section :-D Don't get me wrong - I much prefer the empty course experience as a pro to the often overcrowded course experience as an age group athlete at big Ironman-branded races. But this race was pretty small to start with, so having some company for a few miles felt nice.
Run (1:39:20):
Even though I felt very sorry and a bit disappointed about Summer getting a flat (and eventually DNFing), I also felt pretty excited that I was now in 3rd place. I still had no idea how far back I was from Dede and Marj. Unlike the bike course (which was a single loop with not out-and-backs for us), the run was 2 loops with 3 significant out-and-backs, so I got a pretty good look at my competition several times. At mile 3, the gap looked pretty big (at least 5min to Marj and much more to Dede). The course definitely had more dirt / off-road sections than I expected (40-50% as opposed to 25-30%) and some of the rolling hills were more significant than I thought. Even though I wasn't running very fast (and slowed down slightly in the second lap), I was still doing pretty well. Around mile 8, I could see Marj was only about quarter mile ahead of me. The possibility of catching her gave me a bit of a boost. At mile 10, I made the pass. Marj tried to hang on for about half a mile but after that, the gap gradually widened. I still ran scared and pushed extra hard all the way till the end.
I was very happy to cross the finish line in 2nd (in 4:52:16) - less than 5min behind Dede and with the fastest female run split by almost 8 minutes. Marj was less than 2 minutes behind me, so it was an exciting race all the way to the end :-) On top of that, 2nd place came with prize money high enough to more than cover my travel expenses, which was very nice. But more importantly, my result was good enough to meet the current criteria for pro card re-qualification :-)
Next up: Ironman Coeur D'Alene!
P.S. I'm sorry if my description of the bike course sounds pretty negative. I think the roads were mostly very nice - just the speed limits and some of the drivers were a bit scary. On the other hand, if you are ever in the area and want to ride, there seems to be a lot of very nice mountain biking trails (I got a little taste of them post race and loved it). You can get more info about these at one of the local bike shops and also rent a bike if needed (which is what I did).
