70.3 World's Part 1: Get it Hot

 So, in the interest of what's hot right now, I'm introducing a flashforward to the ole bloggie.  We have a 70.3 that happened in Cassadaga, but that's not the hot news right now.  Right now, its all about the crazy ass day at World's 70.3 on September 18th.  So, strike while the irons hot or whatever.  Buckle up kids, this is a multi parter and so full of WTF it'll either make you realize how crazy I am or nod with the realization that....you knew that.

Either way, our story really begins back at Eagleman, where I shocked the hell out of no one but myself by securing a slot for worlds.  A month later, my buddies Ken, Marcus and I were full fledged planning an asinine trip across the country.  Our friend Kim opted for the more sane flight and three night stay, rounding out the crew.

The whole thing was....surreal to me, to say the least.  Three years ago I almost quit being a triathlete.  And here I am.  Off to a worlds stage.  So much has happened since 2019, and I sometimes shake my head at where I'm at.  But, like most things, the strange twist of fate stepped in.  I was off to worlds with....a guy I met back in 2005 when I first started running (Marcus). And with two other friends that....I met while training for my first Ironman in 2010.  Sometimes things happen for odd reasons, but for whatever it was, it seemed right.  We spent six weeks discussing the weather (HOT - forecasted 100 race day) - what to do in Omaha Nebraska (Nothing - but Marcus was obsessed with our halfway point) and did we need swimmers itch cream, cooling sleeves, and a swimskin.  (Ken said yes to the first two and we all brought our swim skins - or borrowed them from um, the outlaw, who hopefully injected it with super swim speed, as it seemed this would be my first ever non wetsuit legal swim.  

Woah.  At 3am Monday morning pre race, we packed three triathletes, three bikes, about 12 bags, 10 pounds of powdered nutrition (thank god there was never a random pull over by the law) and enough snacks to last for a week.  In a RAV 4.  Thank god Marcus is an engineer and my back seat standards aren't high.  We were off!  2200 miles and 36 hours ahead of us - we totally had this.

And we did. For 3 people that really didn't know each other amazingly well prior to this - we had a kick ass time.  We found the benefit of short friends - 3 small bikes and seats and mirrors that never needed to be moved.  Ever. We discovered that Ken and Marcus are twins, down to the same orders at restaurants with "hold the onions".  That Iowa has nothing but corn and windmills (which I was obsessed with until night when they flashed red and looked more like matrix pods).  That Colorado sucks.  It rains, the gas is expensive, and Denver on the weekend is just...no.  (I felt sort of bad because its supposed to be awesome but OMG we hit every bad thing known to man in that state.  We were waiting for locusts).  We also decided (ok, I did) that Iowa and Ohio were interchangeable and that Ohio is now Iowa 2.0.  That Nebraska is the best state in the union (I might move).  And that sketchy diners make good stories.  2200 miles and 35 hours later, he hit the land of Utah - where it was unbelievably gorgeous and HOT AS HELL.  We started looking at every grade of hill as rideable or not - and if that 16% grade on the course for the race was accurate (hello nerves!).

We checked into the GORGEOUS Air BnB Tuesday and immediately went on a 3 mile run in the 95 degree heat to acclimate.  Cause, ya know, four days pre race would do it.  There is no flat land in Utah and the first mile netted a 200ft plus gain.  Fantastic.  

And that  was our week pre race.  Train, check out the course (hilly AF).  Get excited at check in and collect our worlds qualifier coin (OMG so cool).  Kim got in Wednesday night and joined us for a ride and swim Thursday (temp - 78 degrees - would they dump ice in the lake?).  We played with the weather app every five minutes - Ken reading us from two different apps and Kim and I requesting our preferred weather (Kim and Rae's app).  There was alot of chatter about the race format - it was originally supposed to be a two day event and now collapsed into one day, which meant 4000 athletes on teh course and the men starting first.  This, of course, screwed over the women who weren't starting until 9am or later and would be baking in the sun.  Some people bitched about this and I accepted it for what it was - something I couldn't change and DID I MENTION I WAS AT FREAKING WORLDS??  I hoped the heat would hold off, and as of Friday, it looked like there might be rain around noon, which I secretly hoped would hold off until 130 to get me off the bike (the last 8 miles were a screaming downhill and did NOT look like fun in the rain).

Pre race activities included carb loading.  A trip to Zion.  The totally overrated Athletes dinner.  And a fantastic brake failure Friday afternoon the sent me to the mechanics at 3pm the day before the race (Did I really need brakes?  I mean, those are optional, right??)  Freak outs (relatively) done, we got to bed by 9pm. 

Race morning dawned....not that early.  The boys were set to start at 8:22, me at 9:10 and Kim at 9:36.  We were up and out at 5:30am, which was basically 7:30 to us as we never time adjusted.  When I found out I qualified, I had the goal to break 6 hours.  My coach told me to have a blast and not worry about a goal - this was the Boston of marathoning.  The Kona of 70.3s.  AMAZING to be there.  I agreed.  But why not have some goals?  Since I had accounted for intense heat and a crazy hilly course (4000 ft on the bike and 1260 on the run) as well as a non wetsuit legal swim (called at 430am race day) - which is slower - I went for realism.

 I hoped for a 40 minute swim, 3:15 bike and 2:00 run, which, with transitions, might be just under 6.  Transitions seemed long, so we would see - there wasn't much difference to me from a 5:55 and a 6:10, I was more interested in where I shook out overall in the world.  There were 200 women in my age group and about 1300 overall - so - lets dance!

Pre race, we got into transition about 630.  Since I had two hours to kill and basically nothing to do (this was a two transition race so all gear had been dropped off the day before - I had to pump up tires, put my nutrition on my bike, and pee a zillion times). I took care of business, grabbed my bagels for breakfast, and set out to watch the pros start at 650.  I saw Sam Long careen into a porta potty.  LCB exit the water super fast and take off right in front of me!  And Daniella Ryf and Holly Lawrence follow suit in chase.  SO. FREAKING. COOL.  With that done, I prepped myself to race, taking in every second around me.  It was electric.  The mecca of racing.  And I was so darned incredibly grateful to be there.  Before I left NY, Biz had given me an envelope for every day with a drawing that I could pick at random.  The ones I had opened so far read - I love you mom! - this one was a heart that read - GO GO GO!  I tucked it into my pocket and promised to do just that!

Swim - 40:28 1:56/100

As I said earlier, this was my first ever non wetsuit swim. 

  All my practice swims had felt good, but slow.  Usually my Garmin shorts a swim, and this time was no different - but in a race, everyone (roughly) swims the same!  They sent us off in waves of 10 every 5 seconds in the reservoir.  The water was great - a little choppy but not too bad, nice temp, and even though there were a ton of people in the water, it wasn't a boxing match.  I stayed in the same group throughout and felt really comfortable - aside from the fact that my butt kept sinking whenever I sighted, it was perfect.  The chop got a little stronger on the way in, but for someone used to swimming in a lake, it was no big deal.  I exited the water pretty much exactly as I had predicted, and ran up the dock to transition.  Transition was about .3 miles long and you had to stop halfway and ditch your swim gear in a bag and change out for bike gear (just like a full ironman).  I made the decision to ditch my HRM in my bike bag as it had rubbed my arm really badly during the swim.  Also opted for a non aero helmet - with the forecast calling for 100 degrees last week I didn't think it would be wise.  Race morning was only about 70 so far, but with the possible rain and/or heat, who knew.  I was outta transition in just under 5 minutes and cruising down the parkway to turn left on the highway when I looked up...and saw the black sky right in front of me.  With lightening.  

Well, this will be interesting, I thought...and I turned directly into the path of destruction....

(to be continued)