Just back from one of the best vacations of my life (even though it was technically only 3 days long). The trip to St. Croix was an all day adventure…left the house Thursday at 5:45am and arrived to my hotel in St. Croix at 11:45pm on Thursday. The trip went incredibly smooth and for the first time, I had company the whole way (my man Dean, who was also participating in the race). The trip over was perfect and amazingly, our bikes and luggage were waiting for us on the baggage belt as we walked off the plane!...a very unusual scenario for St. Croix! Our first day in St. Croix was action-packed, so we were quickly off to bed and up and rolling by 7:30am. After a quick bike build and some good coffee, we headed off to the infamous climb (the Beast) to check out the hill and do a little 45 minute spin. We were back in town in time for the 11am group swim and had a wonderful ocean swim and had a chance to catch up with some good buddies from the MarkAllenOnline team, as well as several other acquaintances from the triathlon world. After a great lunch at Rum Runners with friends, we headed off for a sail to Buck Island on my good buddies luxury sailboat, “the Crissy.” That was without a doubt the most fun I’ve ever had on a boat! Saturday came and went quickly, and next thing I knew it was time to race!Race morning was calm, cloudless, and nice and toasty out. Personally I was hoping for high winds, big waves, and rain on the technical bike course (as we would have had if the race was 1 day earlier) to give me a big advantage on the swim and bike course, but that wasn’t to be. The race directors ended up separating the 40-44 yr old women into their own wave (2nd to last), and that resulted in me taking the early lead on the swim with someone incessantly tapping my feet for the first 200 yds. Finally someone else passed me on the left and I jumped on her feet for the next 5 minutes. She was a great person to draft off of, as she pushed me to my aerobic limit and I knew I would have a great swim time if I could stay with her. Unfortunately she somehow managed to create a 15 ft gap during the commotion of passing one of the early buoys, and despite my attempt to accelerate, I wasn’t able to close the gap. The water was a bit choppy until we made the far turn and headed back to shore. I had a blast swimming the back half, swimming along with the ocean current. I felt like I was moving through the water really well and my swim split was over 1.5 minutes faster than last year, despite having no draft at all for 90% of the swim! T1 was lonely with what appeared to be a full load of bikes on the old lady rack…always a good feeling. I took off and hopped on the bike with my shoes clipped into my pedals as I always do, quickly realizing that I managed to forget to open the Velcro on my shoes during my transition setup! Needless to say, I spent a little time slowly coasting along the road as I tried to undo my Velcro straps and get my feet into closed shoes. Of course at one point I pulled the lower strap completely out of its holder and I had to thread the little strap of Velcro into the small slit on the shoe while holding my line on the road. After probably 40 seconds of fiddling with shoe straps…I was off on my favorite race leg…the bike! I just received my new Cervelo P3 carbon bike from Outspokin Bike Shop about 10 days before the race, so it was fairly new to me, but I felt ultra comfortable on it. I raced the bike leg hard (as I always do), realizing about half way through that I forgot something…my mid-ride PowerBar snack! I managed to get about 200 calories/hr in via liquids, but I realized I had a bit of a bonk going on the back side of the race when I grabbed a powergel at an aid station (something I would normally never consume), and felt like a million bucks about 10 minutes later. I’m not sure where my head was race morning when I set up transition…but the whole trip felt more like a fantastic vacation than a race, so I guess I had a relaxed Caribbean mentality going on race morning (not conducive to remembering important details like opening shoe straps and providing nutrition).
After feeling quite strong for the last 10 miles following my gel supplement, I made it to transition in 1st place in my AG, and right on my heels was the woman who has been passing me on the run in every WTC race, including Kona (Peggy Yetman). I figured I needed a 16 minute lead off the bike to fend her off (she’s an amazing runner), but instead, she took 3 minutes out of my bike split and came in with me (and beat me out of transition as well)! At least I didn’t have to watch her run by me like I was standing still (a sight I’m getting sick of ; ). The only good news about all of this is it didn’t matter if she beat me, as she already had an automatic qualifying spot to Kona from winning our AG last year. Now, my goal was not to get passed by anyone else! The run went really well for me…I even had several moments when I felt fantastic and was able to pick up the pace to 7:30 for a few miles in the middle, despite a complete lack of heat or humidity acclimation in my body. It’s funny how I just seem to love the heat and humidity of the Caribbean because it so reminds me of Kona (even when fresh out of a cold and dry winter in Colorado). I ended up finishing in 5:15:01 (2nd AG, 4th amateur), just under 2 minutes slower than my last attempt at this race, but with both a faster swim and run split than last year. Overall, the entire trip experience was one to be forever remembered. Great race…great friends…good times!
