Ironman 70.3 World Championshps (St. George) - Part 5 of 6 (Run)

 

After a rather speedy T2 of 2:27 (as compared to the almost five minutes the last time on this course due to having to lace up an ankle brace), I was ready to attack this brutal run course that promised almost a thousand feet of climbing in 13.1 miles.  The weather had mostly blown through by this point, but the roads were still a bit wet which actually made pretty good running conditions overall.

I was not entirely sure what pace I could run for this course, because it was so different than anything I had run before (at least successfully).  The first loop I focused on keeping the base under control but still close to what I had run in Ironman Boulder 70.3.  It's always a dicey game to try to figure out how fast is too fast, but I came through the first 10k in just under 47:00 minutes which was a really good start.

The real kicker on this course is that normally you would run up this big hill and do some out and backs on mostly rolling stuff and then scream back into town, but for the World Championships they had you run a four block section from the top of the big hill straight back to downtown (following a section of road that seems barely runable it is so steep) and then you get to repeat the entire circle a second time.  This is a picture of me coming around the circle to start the climb back up for round two!  Was feeling really great at this point still and was enjoying pushing myself.  At this point I was still holding an average pace somewhere near 7:50/mile or so.

The second lap was harder than the first but kept trying to hold it together through all of the hills.  I was able to sustain my pace for the most part through the whole run, though the last mile or mile and a half started to hurt.  I ended up power walking a 25 yard section up the one last kicker before you drop back down to town, which was a bit disappointing but I was able to get myself running again.

The final half mile was filed with pain and suffering as I asked everything from my quads as I ran down into town with everything I still had.  Nothing quite compares to seeing this amazing finish line coming up in the near distance!  The crowd was amazing.  They were going bananas and tons of people just lined the streets from corner to corner cheering away.  This picture shows both the joy and the agony that this race demands out of its competitors 

This is the amazing finish that awaits you when you complete the Ironman 70.3 World Championship.  My total run time was 1:44:40, which was a personal best run within a 70.3 Ironman.  I was absolutely thrilled with that effort given this venue and the difficulty of the course. Though I slowed a slight bit at the end, the average pace was 8:06 / mile.  My run was 189th out of 350th for my Age Group.