St Croix Ironman 70.3

5th place, 4.13.07

I can safely say that was the hardest racing experience I have had for some considerable time, if not ever! What a course – choppy (but beautiful) sea swim, hilly and technical bike capped off with a brutally hot and energy sapping run route. I believe I told myself time after time during the second 10k of the run that I would not be returning to race here anytime soon!

It is no surprise to me that the heat and humidity has been seriously hard to acclimate to in a short few days. I was worried how those conditions would affect my ability to race, especially against such accomplised athletes. I therefore approached this race with a little more caution than I perhaps generally tend to. I didn’t want to fall apart on the last 20k of the bike, knowing how exhausting the run was going to be. I believe I found a reasonable half way house out there yesterday – I am pleased with my top 5 result, but know there is much to go away and work on. As always.

The swim went great. I hit the front early on - where I like to be if I can get there. I traded places with Tim O Donnell and mnaged to hit the exit ramp first – first 2 feet down wins the wim prime we were told, so that was a satisfying start.

Very quickly the pace was on during the bike. A young french guy pushed off the front with Terenzo Bozonne and Tim slowly slipping away too. I found myself in a strong quartet including Craig Alexander, Richie Cunningham and Fred Van Lierde, and I think we all made the mistake of believing between us we would reel them all back in. Not so. By mile 30 Craig had taken a potentially horrific, but thankfully nopt serious crash into a pothole (it sounded awful) which ruled him out of the race and the 3 of us simply could not close the gap. We battled the winds, ever increasing heat and rollers of the last 20miles and succumbed to a 1.40 deficit into T2.

I believe everyone suffered on the run course. I didn’t get into a great stride during lap one, but came better as the 2nd lap progressed and moved into the top 5 around 15k. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t much fun, but I got to the finish chute in one piece, and thankful of that. Thoughts of racing again here next year are far from my mind right now, but as I have said so far in the blog, it is one of those iconic races I am glad to be able to tick off my list.

I have had a real nightmare with my travel home – a cancelled flight off the island last night has left me stuck here an extra day which has resulted in me missing my return flight to Edinburgh this evening from Tampa. I will now hang out in St Pete with my ever accomodating homestay Carolyn (thanks so much!) till the next flight home on Wednesday. What a journey!

Huge congrats to Catriona – she stormed it out there and certainly turned a lot of heads in the process. Man, she came 10th overall!

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