Ironman St George Race Report

I’m finally getting around to writing my race report for Ironman St. George, and what a race it was…. I don’t even know where to start. A little over a year ago, I was deep in training for Ironman Coeur D’Alene. I was excited to participate in my first ironman and had heard rumors about a new Ironman Course in St. George Utah. This immediately piqued my interest, as Zion National Park is one of my favorite national parks. It is astoundingly beautiful and the thought of doing a race there was something I was ready to jump on. A few weeks later, the rumors were confirmed and as soon as I saw the announcement that registration was open, I jumped on it and registered. Keep in mind, they had not published the race course yet or any of the elevation profiles. Note to self….. NEVER sign up for a race without looking at the course profile first! As I was soon to find out, I had just signed up for one of the most difficult Ironman courses.
I signed up with Texas Iron and hired Jamie Cleveland to be my coach in November of last year to prepare for this ironman. Little did I know at the time, that I was about to encounter a lot of setbacks in my training. A brutal Texas winter, the death of my dad, the death of my cat, the loss of my job, getting off of anti depressants after over 15 years on them (and dealing with all the side effects including 10 pounds of weight gain), and the end of a relationship were all factors that affected my training; however, I did the best that I could as life is unpredictable and you can’t control everything. Just as you can’t control the weather…You have to pick up the pieces, work with what you have, and continue moving forward, so that is what I did. Leading up to this race, I had only managed one 100+ mile ride, and I only had one 20+ mile run under my belt, but I had continuously trained from June of 2009, so I felt that I could do it.
As mentioned it was not an easy road and I certainly had my breakdowns. At one point, I had an emotional breakdown and Jamie actually brought up the suggestion of dropping out of the race. He told me I should take a day or two to think it over and get back to him. It only took me a few hours to text him that I was NOT quitting, and thank god I didn’t, because I was about to have another surprise and it was a good one. On April 15th, World Triathlon Corporation announced the 200 lottery slot winners for Ironman Grand Championships in Hawaii, and guess who was on the list!!!!
Yep, yours truly! I had bought that lottery ticket last year and never dreamed that I would get picked my first year of trying. Ok, I lie, I did dream I would get picked and that’s why I purchased the ticket to begin with. I just had a funny feeling that on my first try that this would be the year to get it, and with all the crap I’ve gone through recently, it was a welcome win!! All I had to do now, was validate that slot by completing either a full or a half ironman by August 31st. Anything I did prior to October of last year doesn’t count, so I had to prove that I could compete in Hawaii, so I absolutely had to walk across the finish line for Ironman St George within 17 hours. If that doesn’t motivate me to finish, then I don’t know what will….
I had heard that wind could be a factor in St. George, so was mentally preparing myself for it. I however was not prepared for the up to 48mph winds the night I arrived. Driving from Las Vegas to St George, I could feel my car being blown on the highway, good lord, I had concerns now that the swim might be called off. On Thursday and Friday I went out to the lake for some practice swims. Unlike, Ironman Coeur D’Alene, they did not have a Gatorade practice swim course set up. There were some buoys to mark off a swimming area, so I got in wetsuit and all and swam. I had no difficulty and did not feel that the water was that cold; however, I’m an anomaly. I hate cold water just as much as the next person; however, I have been blessed with the ability to handle cold better than others. On one hand that is good and I’m sure I was the envy of many; however, what a lot of people don’t realize is that I do not have a high tolerance for heat. I overheat more than the average person, and I get athletic asthma in extreme heat and humidity. That is why I choose destination races that are in cooler environments. I did worry that Southwestern Utah had the potential to get hot, but I was blessed with cooler temperatures for this race, as with this course, as so many others can tell you, I don’t think I could have handled it, had it been hot. Anyways, back to the practice swims. The water temperature was said to be in the upper 50’s. I had a neoprene head cap so I wore it; however, I really do think I would have been fine without it. A lot of people were wearing neoprene footies but I don’t have any and honestly didn’t need them.
On race morning I decided to go ahead and wear my neoprene head cap. Once I got in the water, I was immediately fine. My feet never got cold and I swam out to the far left of the race start. It was a floating start. A lot of people opted to stay on the beach, but I didn’t want that swim to the start line to figure in to my time, so at about 5 minutes to the starting gun, I swam out to the far left of the starting buoy. The start was not as bad as Coeur D’Alene was, probably, because I had swam out instead of holding back with the masses. I did get hit pretty hard in the head and swallowed some water and had to stop and choke it out. I had my little moment of panic and then just kept swimming. I don’t know who had the genius idea of giving everybody the same color swim caps as the buoys, but it made for difficult sighting. The men had orange caps and the women had yellow caps, and the buoys were, you guessed it, yellow and orange. Once we made the turn around into the sun, the sighting got even harder as it was hard to see the yellow buoys heading into the sun, luckily, I always had a pack of people around me so if I couldn’t see the buoy, I at least had a lot of people to follow. I’m pretty happy that I stayed spot on the buoy line and did not swim off course. I probably sighted more than I needed too. I was feeling the urge to pee but couldn’t manage it and that was making my swim uncomfortable and I was very ready for it to be over. I kept thinking I was getting close to the end, only to find it was another turn. I did a good job at trying to draft off of other swimmers. Jamie would be so proud. I was really hoping that he noticed me drafting off the swimmer in front of me in the last few hundred meters of the swim. Once I got out of the swim, it was nice to see my coach right there at the swim finish cheering me on. I immediately rushed to a line of port-a-potties trying desperately to find an empty one. No small task which was to be an omen for the rest of this race. I got into transition dried off, and put on my bike clothes. Transition was pretty uneventful, I had a lady helping me, and I spent a lot of time slathering on sunscreen, which was good, because I did not get sunburnt at all during this race. I highly recommend wearing white long sleeves and using special sunblock. The sunblock I use smears on pure white and it’s natural and organic. It’s called JASON Sunbrellas. Good stuff!
Anyhow, I started off the bike feeling great. I wasn’t cold at all, and the wind didn’t seem too bad. This was a very hilly bike course and as the day wore on the wind picked up. I had seen a weather report that said winds were going to be from 10 to 20mph the day of the race. The miles seemed to go by pretty quickly at first. My bike computer decided to act up on me and wasn’t recording the miles, all I was getting was my mph. No biggie, I knew there were aid stations every 15 miles so that gave me a good gauge as to where I was. Once, we got onto the loop portion of the course, things started to get much harder. The wind picked up and the hills were brutal. I’d say the hardest portion was once we made the turnoff past the Indian reservation towards gunlock. There are some wicked hills leading up to the switchback which the locals refer to as “the wall”, that should give you an idea of what a hill it was. There were tons of people walking their bikes up the hills. Talk about a mental de-motivator. It’s hard enough to drive the course the day before and see the hills, it’s even harder when you see people ahead of you walking their bikes up the hill, it really makes you doubt whether you can do it. I was determined not to have to get off my bike and walk it up the hills, and I’m proud to say that I did it! I can’t remember the grades of these hills but I know they were above 10%. I’m so glad that I had a 12/27 cassette put on my bike. Had it been super hot, I’m sure my athletic asthma would have prevented me from making it up these hills. I must have been super hydrated too, as I had to pee three times on the bike course and all three times I ended up going on the side of the road. All of the port-a-potties at the aid stations had lines of people 20 deep, and with the toughness of this course, I didn’t want to waste the precious time I had standing in line. I was worried about the bike cutoff, so I just went on the side of the road and quite frankly, once you are doing an ironman, you really don’t care who sees you pee. One funny thing did happen though…. They made it a point of saying in the rules that you are not to pee on the side of the road, and at one point when I was doing so, a race car pulled up, I was scared I was going to get a penalty, but luckily the two guys in the car that had stopped to see what I was doing, looked pretty embarrassed and they just rode on. Lucky me. I was stressed for time, and as it was, I ended up beating the cut off time by only about 35 minutes. The ride back in to town was refreshing as most of it was downhill and it almost made up for all of the brutal hills. Notice I said almost…..
I was so happy to ride into transition 2 but I have to say it was so stressful to pass all the people on the run course knowing how far behind you are. That last 2 miles of the bike seemed like the longest 2 miles ever. I had a lot of time to prepare for my bike dismount. Again, I hope I made Jamie proud by dismounting my bike, leaving my shoes on the bike as he taught me. Anyhow, I ran into transition and some concerned volunteers mad me eat a slice of pizza for my shaking. I grabbed the pizza put on my run shorts and headed out. The first two miles were all up hill. It was hard to get my legs moving and I eventually gave up and started walking. I had 7 hours left to finish the race and I was mentally trying to calculate in my head if I had the time to walk the entire marathon. Luckily, I did, but as stubborn as I am I decided I would try my best to run the downhills and straight aways and walk the uphills. I did a pretty good job of doing that. Let me say that the majority of this course was up hill, so I did A LOT of walking. No biggie though, as everyone was walking this course. It was so wonderful to see Jamie and all the other Texas Iron team mates on the course. Great to see Richard and Ralph from T3 out there and my friend Susan as well. Richard and I got to walk together briefly. I’m proud of him for running in the last 4 miles. Once it got completely dark outside, I opted to walk the last 6 miles in. I just didn’t want to risk spraining my ankle in the dark. I have to say, I am very lucky that we had favorable weather conditions. The highs were in the mid to low 60’s and it didn’t even get too cold once nightfall hit. There was absolutely no humidity on this course which is awesome for my breathing, but awful for my skin. I managed to avoid getting sunburnt, but the dryness wreaked havoc on my skin and lips. My lips were all scabbed up the next day, and are still in the process of healing and it’s been a week. In the last 4 miles of the course I met two really cool guys who had done about 20 or so ironmans between them. We all opted to walk in together to the last 100 meters before running in to the finish line. I’m so glad I met them, Robin and Charles are both very talented age groupers who had some bike difficulties and decided to walk it in together once they realized they weren’t vying for any age grouper slots. Robin, had done Kona, and when I told them about my lottery slot they were very happy for me. He also told me that Kona is a much easier course than St. George!! Hallelujah! However, I’m sure the heat and the wind is what will get me in Kona. All, I had to do was walk across the finish line in St. George to validate my slot, so I opted to walk in with them and enjoy the finish. All in all it took me 40 minutes longer to do this course than my previous ironman, and I’m pretty happy with it. I probably could have run more and cut that time down by half an hour, but I had no desire or need to. I’m just happy I finished and it also goes to show that you do not need to train to the extremes to do an Ironman. I missed a lot of my training days and long rides and I did just fine, however, I did have a high level of fitness from continually training for the past two years. I only took two weeks off after Ironman CDA last year, and this year, I’ve decided to take the month off, before I start the grind again. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this break, and I can’t tell you how excited I am about Ironman Hawaii!!! Thanks to all my friends and family who have supported me!! Stay tuned for details on my fundraising efforts for Colon Cancer for Ironman Hawaii!!!