Back for another edition of my favorite Ironman 70.3 at Saint George. Last year, my family joined me for the trip and I kind of had a mixed result and fell apart on the back half of the run, so I had high hopes for a redemption chance here this time around. The family didn't make the trip this time, but I had some friends and teammates there to race with. This is Jess Culver and Tyler Anderson, at registration the first afternoon, who I have raced with for many years and are great all-around people.
Sand Hallow is such a beautiful lake and this year didn't disappoint! The red sand is amazing but also gets everywhere and in everything.
The temperature was perfect this year and the water was as warm as I have seen it in several years. Tyler decided to go without a wetsuit for his last swim the day before the race. I wasn't quite as certain on that strategy, but it was a cool refreshing 64 degrees!
After a quick bike spin to do the last little bit of race prep, it was time to head back to transition and rack the bikes for tomorrow. What is kind of fun is that Tyler and I have essentially the same Time Trial bike, though I have a disk wheel and he just run deep dish wheels. We look like pretty legit teammates though with the same bikes rolling together!
Here I am racked and loaded for tomorrow's big race. I couldn't wait, but spoiler alert...it turned out to be a tough and gritty performance and certainly one that will stick with me for a long time.
For the swim: The swim went generally alright. I knew I was a bit shy on swim fitness, but I thought I had been in a good spot more recently with my training in the pool. I ended up swimming a 36:35 which was better than the previous year but still a minute or two slower than my best here. I did a pretty good job of settling into a good rhythm after a few hundred meters and didn't really see a big drop off in pace in the last quarter of the swim. My splits for 500 meters were: 8:10, 8:41, 8:58, and then 8:56.
For the bike: As always, I was excited to be back on dry land. I quickly got myself sorted and felt pretty decent coming out of the water. However, here is where the day really turned. As you exit T1 and start heading around the Sand Hallow lake, the road is lined with the deep red sand. I was adjusting my shoe with one hand about four to five minutes into the bike course. As I came around the back side of the lake only about four or five minutes into the bike course, I was adjusting my shoe with one hand, and I hit a bump or divot in the road. It kicked me to the right a few inches right off the road and my front wheel dug into the deep sand and I went straight over my handlebars at about 20 mph. I kind of yard sailed straight on the pavement and parts went flying. After the initial few seconds of shock and pain, I tried to collect myself and take inventory of what had just happened. My rear water bottle and holder had broken off and were in the middle of the road. My left handlebar with the front brake was basically hanging by a cable and a few strands of carbon fiber from the base bar. I had hit my left knee and ankle pretty hard on the pavement and left some skin to mark my territory there. My disk wheel looked cracked in the back. It wasn't a pretty scene, but as I quickly thought through my options, nothing seemed damaged beyond repair. So, I gather the bike parts that had fallen off and tucked them into my race kit pockets. I straightened out my brakes and handlebars and collected my water bottles from the pavement and remounted my bike to try to carry on. Outside of some pain and not having a front brake, most everything else seemed to be somewhat functional! In looking at the power file, I lost about five to six minutes just sitting or standing there stationary, but then I didn't have too bad of ride after that. My ride time was 2:44:13 with an average power of 175W and normalized power of 195W. That was essentially pretty close to plan actually!
For the run: Coming into transition, I had to look fairly interesting as my kit was a bit torn up and I had some blood running down my hip, knee, and ankle. After a quick transition of 1:24, I was out on the run and trying to get back to plan. I started running 8:30s or so (with trying to do 8:45s on the uphill and 8:15s on the downhill). This seemed to go mostly to plan through the first five or six miles, but I could quickly tell about half-way through that either the adrenaline had been exhausted in my system or that the longer-term contusion damage from the crash was starting to take its toll. Besides just the typical race fatigue that usually hits in the back half of the half-marathon, my knee and ankle really started throbbing and it became a battle of willpower to keep going. I started to have to do some walking and fighting back to some intermittent jogging. This was a battle that lasted throughout the rest of the run. Even coming downhill was painful as I struggled to keep a good pace. In the end, I finished the run in 2:16:56 which might be one of my slowest times I can remember. However, I came across the finish line with literal tears of joy as I didn't give up or give in to the dark thoughts that can sometimes overtake you in these races. I had persevered and finished a race that I could have given up on at any number of points. My total end time was 5:43:46 and 33rd out of 130 in my Age Group. It wasn't the placing I had hoped for, but sometimes these races are about the journey more than the result and this one delivered an experience that I will never forget. My bike will also not forget this race as it will need quite a bit of work to get back to race shape, unfortunately...
