Boise 70.3 Race Report

Whew!

It has been a busy couple of days. Chad and I got back late Tuesday night and I have been on the run trying to unpack and get organised from the trip! Here's how the race went down:

Race Morning:


This was a weird one. Since the race didn't start until 2pm I had a lot of time...or so you would think but I still ended running around like crazy. We were staying outside of Boise so we had to make to 30 min trek into downtown into T2 to drop off my bike to run bag. Then we had to go back out of town to T1 and the reservoir for the swim.

There was limited parking so we parked at the bottom and had about a mile hike up to T1. From this point until the end of the swim everything that could go wrong did. They wouldn't let us put pumps into our morning clothes bags (they were bringing them to the finish for us) so they said they would have a lot of pumps on site. Yeah right. There were 2 people pumping up bike tires for 2000 athletes. Hmmmm. So I stood in line for 45 min waiting to get my bike tires pumped.


My water bottle cage had broken before the race so I stole Chad's to put on my bike....only that it didn't fit. The tech guys looked at me like I was an idiot girl who couldn't manage to put on a cage. Then he tried....guess what...it didn't fit. Did I mention this was all 15 min before I had to get out of transition! I hadn't set up my transition yet either. He got it filed down and put on and then I was rushing around trying to get ready. I had a few minutes to relax and watch the pros start and then it was a rush around again to get into my wetsuit and get down to the start.


Swim


This was by far the worst swim I have ever had. The wind had picked up and the waves were getting bigger and bigger! I swallowed so much water that I was burping it up! Gross. I also had a hard time sighting...the turning buoy's were supposed to be red but something must have happened and when I got to the second turn there was no red buoy. Needless to say I got a little off course trying to find that damn buoy. You could see the other ones for the way back so people were getting confused on where the turn was! It was chaotic! I was soooo happy get out of the water and I burped my way up to transition. My time was 45:50 which is my SLOWEST time ever!


Bike

It took me awhile to shake off my bad attitude about my swim. To put it bluntly I was pissed. I took a deep breath and after about 10-15 min of stewing about it I let it go.

The bike was wet...soaking wet. Overall though I felt I had a good bike. I did my nutrition well, I was more than hydrated from all of the water swallowed on the swim! At times it was raining so hard they had volunteers out with air horns telling people to slow down for certain parts of the course. There were a few bad wipe outs and people were brought back in ambulances; everyone was okay though!

There were some curvy roads which made the course fun and technical. I felt good the entire time and was actually passing people! This never used to happen :)

The only time I was asking myself why I do this was between 70-80 km. I was tired of being wet and starting to get cold. I zoned out for a bit during this long stretch of headwind with a false flat going up! I had to pee sooo bad and I just couldn't make myself go, so I made a potty transition plan. I was going to rack my bike throw all of my gear in my bag, take my shoes and socks and put them on while I was standing in line for the porta potty! It worked like a charm!

Run

When I got to the run I was so happy to be off of my bike and getting splashed slightly less! I had my garmin on and so I was able to pace myself to stay between 6 and 6:30 min/km. This worked well as I wanted to let it rip but could look down and slow myself down.

The first loop went off with out a hitch. At every aid station I would eat 1 sharkie and chase it with water. The second loop came around and Chad (who had to run hard to catch up to me) said I could get under 6:30 if I do the second loop in 60 min. I took the bait and was staying under 6 min/km. This is what lead the the death like feeling that came over me with the last 2 miles. I couldn't eat or drink anything and it was all I had not to throw up. I made it across the finish line in 6:32. Only 2 min off and I would have had it...I still blame my swim! The guy who caught me thought I was going to faint or throw up on him I am sure. I had NOTHING left.

I was so sick for the rest of the night. It would come in waves of hunger and nausea. I have never pushed myself like that in a race. Ironman is a different challenge; it is all about going for a long time and not stopping, this was racing the clock and it hurt.

If you would have asked me if I was excited for my next half my answer would have been no. Now I am curious about Sylvan...we will see what happens!