This is a very delayed race recap, I was waiting for JMR to finish editing the photos he took during the race, but he hasn’t had time, so I figured I better get this out of my brain before I completely forget everything before the next race 🙂

To be really honest, I wasn’t super excited about this race. I had originally wanted to do Steelhead 70.3 but my coach had convinced me to ‘try something new’ and this race fell around a similar time and was also only a 5ish hour drive away, so I figured I would sign up and ‘try something new’.

We arrived Friday evening (stayed in a hotel downtown), and Saturday morning I was up early-ish doing my usual 70.3 pre-race routine of getting coffee, doing some reading and then heading to check in at 9a and then listening to the athlete briefing at 10a. JMR tagged along with me, sometimes he prefers to avoid the race festivities/chaos but post-Covid everything seems less hyped up and more calm, which is also a little sad too. I tried to pay attention during the briefing since the courses (all three!) seemed a little confusing, the swim had three left turns and then two right turns… the bike.. had a lot of turns and loops, and the run, yep, lots of loops. All I managed to take away was remembering the turns on the swim and that on the bike there were railroad tracks at miles 7/41 (I might have that wrong, but somewhere around there) and then at mile 28(?) there was a huge steel plate that we needed to go very slowly over.

Also, it wasn’t until a month or so before the race that I looked at the bike course and realized it was hilly! For some reason I figured it would be flat because Des Moines, IA sounded…flat. Well, it wasn’t with around 2,500 ft gain. On a normal day I wouldn’t mind a hilly course, but my bike training was still slowly ramping up with my A race in October and I had only ridden flatter terrain when riding outside (which I hadn’t done much of either, mostly trainer rides). So, I just felt a little unprepared. But with a race that ‘early’ in my season, that’s how it was going to be, otherwise if I had been training super hard, I could be burned out by the time October rolled around. My coach said this would be a good race to test my current fitness.

Race morning I was up around 4a, and due to my stomach being a bit off (I woke up with with angry stomach around 11a the night before), I just ate a Bobo’s oat bar and then took 2 Pepto Bismol hoping they would keep my stomach calm (Imodium seems too drastic and can cause other issues as it slows digestion so I try to save that for mid-race if really needed). We then drove to transition, I got my transition set up, and then we walked to the swim start where I waited in the porta potty line until 10 minutes before the swim start! 10 minutes is NOT enough time for putting on a wetsuit while warm and stressed and still having to get into the swim corral. I barely got up to my planned swim wave within the corral before the gun went off, yikes, that was cutting it much closer than I like.

Soon it was my turn to line up and run into the water, off I went thinking ‘here we go’, and trying to get into a rhythm. Why is it when I swim in a pool I feel strong and confident, but in a race in a lake around other swimmers it’s like I forgot how to swim? All form goes out the window, I’m sighting every stroke, it’s a mess. Finally about halfway in, I was able to calm down and get into a rhythm and feel like I was actually swimming. Once I got to the exit I saw my time, 36ish minutes, I was pretty happy considering how the first half of the swim felt! I ran to transition, took what felt like 10 years to dry my feet/put on socks and then helmet, sunglasses and was off.

The bike start/end goes through a park and does little loops around it and I really struggled getting into any kind of groove as I didn’t feel like I could ‘open up’ and start pushing with all of these little turns on bike paths. Finally when we hit the open road I was able to get into a better groove, only to have a million turns and u-turns. One thing that was in the back of my mind was ‘arrive alive’. It sounds dramatic, I know, but with the goal race in October, I just wasn’t willing to be aggressive with my u-turns and lost a lot of energy/speed slowing way down (too slow in hindsight), all SIX of the u-turns. There was also some serious headwind during the last hour and between that and the turns, I was just not feeling the bike course. I think I rode the last 10 miles pretty angry thinking ‘when will this be over’ and seeing that I was going to ride an almost 3 hour split was bumming me out. Oh boy.

Off the bike into transition and back out to the run, I had a sudden thought ‘I could just stop now, call it a good training day and skip the run’, and thought about it for a few paces. Then I thought, ‘I can fake it for 13.1 miles… just keep moving’. So I kept moving, remembering to just take it 1 mile at a time. I also really had to pee and it was uncomfortable, and thought if I could just pee, the run would be more bearable. However I was running in new shoes I wasn’t ready to commit to peeing while running, so .25 miles away from the next porta potty, I stripped my kit down to my waist, ready to hop in and hop out. I think the guys volunteering looked a little confused seeing me flying by, half undressed. I think the stop was pretty quick, then I fussed with my sleeves and zipping up my kit for the next .25 miles, but was definitely worth it as I already felt better and able to focus on pushing the pace. I reminded myself to just kept focusing on one mile at a time. I also kept asking myself ‘am I giving the best I can do right now?’ and confirming ‘yes’ or if not, pushing the pace a little bit. Then when I look back on the race and think ‘if I had only…’ I know at the time I was doing my best and it shuts down that thinking.

We got really lucky with the weather, it was mid 70’s and cloudy all day. I was prepared for the run to be a sufferfest, as in previous years it has been HOT and there is hardly any shade. I kept thinking about how lucky I was and that I had to keep pushing as I might not get another race with such ideal weather. About three miles to go I could feel my legs really slowing down and getting heavy, and I tried to keep pushing but the pace was slowing. Finally with about a mile to go I got a second wind and was able to push as we were back in downtown and I knew the finish line was around some corner 🙂 Finally I could hear the announcer and music and tried to find an extra gear and push, I made the last right turn and flew down the finish chute, feeling a huge relief crossing that finish line!

JMR met me at the finish and told me my time and I was shocked it was 5:39:58. I was pretty thrilled to be under 5:40 with the much slower than expected bike time. I still can’t seem to figure out how to get speed in my legs during the run, but at least I’m now consistently getting under 2 hours, now to get under 1:50! Then when JMR checked my place, he said I was 6th?!?! I have never placed that high in an Ironman branded race before, holy cow! Top 5 gets awards and that is a goal of mine, to place top 5 in an Ironman race (I won’t be picky, 70.3 or full, however usually 70.3’s are more competitive for me). I will say one positive of not being top 5 was that we could head back to transition to get my bike and gear and hit the road to be home by 7p. With awards not being until 4p, we wouldn’t have gotten home until close to midnight. But that is going to keep me coming back racing again for sure… so close!!

I will say that after racing Des Moines my view of it has changed, it was a fun race and very well run. I really liked the swim and run course – even with the swim turns, it seemed to make it go by faster to keep focusing on the next turn, and the run course being 3 loops had tons of support/cheering so that was also very motivating. The bike, well, I still am not a fan of the bike, not because of the hills, but because of all of the turns, however most of the pavement was in good condition and it was a closed course, so those might outweigh the negative of the u-turns. I have no idea what races I am doing next year, but I am not ruling out Des Moines 70.3 and being a possibility in the future!