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St. Croix 70.3 - bike tips

There’s no better feeling than finishing a race with a strong effort. Perhaps you invision leaving it all out on the course in the last mile or maybe you remember your last race, sprinting to the finish with your hands in the air. It’s not easy to finish a race strong, especially in an endurance race but with the right pacing strategy with a well-fueled and hydrated body, every athlete has it in him/her to experience how amazing it feels to give a full-throttle effort to the finish line. But no athlete likes to remember the end of a race as being a horrible finish or perhaps, not having any gas left in the tank the last few miles. Feeling empty, depleted and dwelling on not being able to race strong to the finish line is not something you plan for and even with the best intentions to pace your own race, you never know what the body will do throughout an endurance race.  It’s far too common that athletes will talk about the end of the race either with positive and motivat

St. Croix 70.3 RR - pre race + 1.2 mile swim

You never know what the body will do on race day. The body can play games on you – tummy upset, feeling aches/twinges  you have never felt before, nerves out the wazoo and legs that feel like jello one minute and lead the next, as if they wouldn’t respond to any type of movement (even walking to the transition area). But no matter how you feel on race day morning, you have to trust that your body will know exactly what to do when the race starts. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Perhaps at some races you will feel amazing before the race and you will be itching to get your party with your body started but this doesn’t mean that you still do not have that unknown of what the body will do as you swim, bike and run for x-miles. Even if you are 100% prepared and ready to go, you may even find yourself completely stressed and overwhelmed by things that you cannot control which also adds to the emotions of racing. Considering that age group triathletes balance a lot while

St. Croix 70.3 - FINISHERS!

In 2012, Karel and I searched for a challenging half ironman for us to share the experience together. We chose Branson 70.3. You see, Karel made the jump into triathlons in 2012 and he wanted a course that challenged him for his first 70.3 distance. I was on board for this course because not only would we get to travel somewhere new (and if you know me well, you know I love to race to travel and travel to race) but this course had a lot of climbing and that was exactly what I love in a bike course.  Perhaps this seems a bit crazy to choose a course that has been ranked as one of the hardest bike courses (although, after riding both Branson 70.3 and St Croix 70.3 I may need to disagree on this) for Karel’s first half IM but we enjoy a challenge when it comes to racing. We certainly do not take for granted that 70.3 or 140.6 miles is a long way for the human body to go but we thrive off challenges, especially when it comes to swimming, biking and then running on difficult co

St. Croix 70.3 - Pre race

May 3 rd Around 5:45am I was out of bed and started the coffee. The forecast called for a slightly higher change of rain today (from the normal 30% to 50%) so I wasn’t sure if we would stay dry for our race warm-up ride but all worked out and it didn’t rain until late morning (a light shower with the sun still shinning). After a pre-warm-up snack of banana w/ cinnamon, nut butter and raisins/granola and glass of water we were on our bikes around 7:15am. My legs were itching to be on my bike so I really welcomed this ride. We rode the last 18-miles of the bike course (which goes by our cottage) in the same direction of the course and it was nice to get familiar with a few turns and key sections on the road that should be avoided. As I mentioned before, the roads are super bumpy so that adds to some of the difficulty of this beautiful course. The more I can ride/see a course to recognize where I need to shift gears (again – thank goodness for Di2!), where I do not have to s

St. Croix 70.3 - Day 2

May 2 nd After a great night of sleep and waking up without an alarm at 5:45am (the sun comes up early here!) we both enjoyed a cup of coffee on our patio while watching the ocean. Funny how watching the ocean is so relaxing and calming. It’s important to wake up the body and to keep the body from getting lazy/sluggish on race week so the timing and duration of workouts is key. The day before the race is a warm-up day whereas three days out we will still do a slightly longer brick or three workouts w/ a swim included (maybe 2 hours or 2.5 hours with no more than 30 min run off the bike). If we are racing on a flatter course, we will typically do 2-3 x 90sec – 2 min faster efforts w/ double or triple the time recovery. If we are doing a hilly course, we will typically do a few short climbs to wake up the legs. After the 1 hour ride or so we will do a short 10-15 min run w/ a few short pick ups to get a good cadence with the legs off the bike. I typically reserve the

St. Croix 70.3 - Day 1

May 1st - Thursday This race is termed “beauty and the BEAST” because the course is beautiful but it comes with every type of challenge on the bike. There is wind, rough roads, heat, humidity and a lot of climbing. The beast is a well-known section of this difficult 56-mile bike course for the half ironman and it is around ½ mile long and the incline ranges from 11-21%. After you tackle the beast, there is a windy stretch of road to descend down from the beast. However, what we found out during our 90 minutes ride on Thurs with our new triathlete friend and tour-guide, the entire course is difficult! There is hardly any stretch of road that isn’t without some challenge. The road conditions are bumpy with potholes and lots of bumps, there is non-stop climbing and descending so you must have great bike skills on this course (and electronic shifting on a tri bike comes in super handy since a lot of time while riding will be NOT on aero bars – although a tri bike still puts the hips in