Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report

The Becker Buzz
July 8, 2007

Lake Stevens 70.3
Swim: 26:51 Bike: 2:21:20 Run: 1:21:17 Finish 4:11:36
10th Overall
I headed out to the Northwest on Thursday before the race to hopefully see a little bit of the course, as well as the beautiful scenery. The northwest is beautiful!! The city of Seattle itself is a bit crowded, but does have its draws. The city is comprised of “hills,” or neighborhoods that overlook various waterways and other geographical features. The backside of the neighborhood where I am staying has a view that will raise a few hairs on anyone’s neck. If you look to the left, you see Mt. Rainier. If you look right, you look across the Puget Sound at the Olympic Mountains. Definitely a “WOW” factor going on here.

Ok, onto the race. I was able to drive both the bike and the run, which was good, but it would definitely have helped to have ridden the loop before the race. No worries at all however. My race plan was to try to swim with the pack, ride my own race and then have a good run.

Race Day:

The weather was cloudy and cool at the start, with temps around 50*, so I made sure to get in a good solid warm-up. I tried a longer swim warm-up of 20-30min, just as I would in the pool, and after this race I will make sure to keep it in my routine.

I racked my red rocket (the TTX) and thought I was ready to roll. However, halfway through my swim warm-up I realize that I forgot to lay my socks out for the run. I cut across the course, cut through transition, got them out and thought I was set again (more to come on this a bit later in my report).

I adjusted my Full Sleeved Blue Seventy Helix and before I knew it, I was on the starting dock. As the National Anthem played, I looked around. “Where did all of these guys come from?” I wondered. There were over 20 male pros at the start.

My plan was to find Chris Legh and stick to him like glue. I somehow managed to lose him right before the gun went off (only to later realize he moved behind me). Gun goes off, I find feet and we are cruising. About 800m into the swim I look to my left and there is Chris. “Great.” I thought. “This is right where I want to be. We zigzagged all over the place (the pack does NOT swim straight) and things were good until about 1600m into the swim. Somehow, the notion popped into my head that I had forgotten to put my Power Tap computer on my bike. I spent the remainder of the swim debating what I should do. To add to things, the pack was going left and the exit was to the right. I decided to break off, which proved to be a bad idea. It is MUCH faster to sit in the group, no matter what! I only lost about 25sec to them, but it would have been nice to have gotten pulled through entire swim. Still, I exited in 26:51 a big PR for me.

I got to my bike and decided to leave the computer in my bag. I didn’t know exactly where it was and I was supposed to ride by HR anyway. I got on and just couldn’t get things rolling. I was cautious about going too hard on the first of two challenging loops, but the legs were just not there and my HR was beginning to fall. I had a few cyclists go by and just tried to keep my head in it. At about 25 miles, things started to feel a little better, but my HR was still low. Then I just decided to DRILL the first 10miles of climbing on the second loop to re-pass and pull away from a few others. I got back to transition less than happy about my ride, but I did manage to negative split the loops by about 3 minutes.

As I headed out on the run, I was told I was in 12th. I could see a few guys up the road, but didn’t make any progress as I the first two miles were a bit slow. Then at mile 2, Jordan Jones, a great runner from Boulder, came by. I made a decision to stick to him and to my surprise I did. We were clicking off miles just under and just over 6min pace. My HR was not as high as I would have liked, but I just focused on hanging tough.

I managed to pass Jordan back and catch Adam Jensen, who was just sixth as Ironman Coeur D’Alene and Brent Lorenzen in the final miles. I came across with a solid run of 1:21 and in 10th overall.

I was a bit tired from all of the IM training, as was indicated by my low HR’s, but I was satisfied that I went as well as I did. The main focus is September 9th. Now I am taking it easy for a few days, before starting the next block of training.

Thank you to my great host family, my friends and family, as well my sponsors who believe in me. Here are some related links as always:

Lake Stevens 70.3 Results: http://www.pem-usa.com/racedata/ls07/LS07elite.html

My Coach Luis Vargas: www.luisvargas.com

Timex Team Site: http://teamtimex.timexblogs.com/
Madison Trek Bike Store: www.trekstoremadison.com
Fleet Feet Madison: www.fleetfeetmadison.com
Blue Seventy Wetsuits: www.blueseventy.com

Comments

sentania said…
Congrats on a great result! Not a bad field to finish 10th in

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