Ironman 70.3 Victoria Race Report!
This weekend the entire family went up to Victoria BC, Canada for my second half ironman in two years and fourth 70.3 distance event overall.
If there’s a theme to the race weekend it was that getting anywhere was a challenge to be overcome. For Ferries to the island I was unable to get a reservation and we had to spend an extra 6 hours in a nice small town on my daughters birthday. We made it fun, going bowling and lots of book shops which the kids love! We also had lunch at a nice and cozy coffee shop. My family and in-laws were patient and it was actually a really nice time at a picturesque PNW city!
The ferry itself was pretty cool — the inside felt like a bus terminal but it was moving. Foggy and not that cold, the kids enjoyed being on the outside deck and seeing sea planes taking off etc when we got closer. We had a great dinner at the hotel that evening to celebrate my youngest’s 8th birthday.
Race Morning
The Shuttle Situation
Race participants had to park about 2 miles from the start, then take a shuttle to the start line. They had plenty of buses etc but getting into the parking lot was actually the hardest part. Race morning it took about 45 minutes from turning onto the freeway to parked.
The Swim
After standing around in wetsuits for about 45 minutes, we were cleared to enter the water!
My swim in my full sleeve wetsuit felt GREAT. I didn’t feel clunky like I normally do in open water swims even after being in good swim shape. I did better at charting a path in the water to avoid people, and was able to keep my head down and swim due to the rectangular nature of the swim course. Thanks goes to Todd who kayaked while I practiced swimming a couple weeks prior to the race in 44 degree water!
The Bike
A mistake I’d made was putting on aero bars just a couple of weeks before the race and felt too short when hunched down, so had raised my seat a little. I’d done a short ride with them like that and it felt ok, but a theory I have is that it was in fact too high because I felt like I was reaching too much on the entire bike course. After about 15 miles I realized there was no way I was going to hit my goal of 3 hours, so mostly enjoyed the bike after that — still trying to go fast but not stressing out about it, stopping to ask people if they needed help changing a flat etc.
The bike was a beautiful course! I didn’t like the first 10 miles or so of going through neighborhoods as much as I did the soaring views of the ocean, some nice hills, passing farms and that kind of thing. There were some also great downhills and a searing “big hill” that wasn’t as bad as people said, and made the downhill that much more fun! Nutrition wise I ate all of my things, and drank both of my water bottles — one had endurance ‘tailwind’ fuel, the other had a more salt mixture because I wanted to not cramp on the run.
The Run
After 3:30 on the bike, it was time for the main reason I chose this race — the run! The beauty of the run course did not disappoint — the trail run was just non-flat enough to be interesting but not hard. I started cramping at the first kilometer so had to walk — my quads and calves in particular were having trouble. I also saw my friend Jonah whom I’d seen at the start of the bike finishing his second lap as I was finishing my first. The second lap I felt a lot more strong, having ingested pretzels and as much gatorade etc as I could on the first lap and it started kicking in.
On my pace chart you can see where I had to stop and stretch more often in the beginning, was mostly fine in the middle, then at the end cramped really bad but was bound and determined to finish strong! The picture above shows how ‘strong’ I was feeling!
Perspective
So time-wise, not my best race. BUT from a pure racing perspective, 100% my favorite race I’ve EVER done. Partly because it was quite the journey to get there, but mostly because even though I was struggling I finished the race. If I wasn’t in ‘good shape’ I wouldn’t have been able to complete a 70.3 mile race regardless of pushing through.
On the way to this race, I was able to:
hit my fastest 10K run times
I lost weight
learned better running techniques and honed my swim stroke to the best it’s been since 2008
made great friends and memories
AND I got to bring my family to Canada!
Training Thoughts
I had training buddies for swimming (Steffen and Jonah), running (Jeff, Ari, Jon) and even virtual cycling (Adam, Lars, Becca)!. But need to make more time for real world cycling with hills etc. But my normal schedule overall seemed to work pretty well and wasn’t too disruptive to family life:
Monday: Morning weights, night run
Tuesday: Morning swim, afternoon stretch
Wednesday: Morning virtual cycle, evening run
Thursday: morning swim, afternoon cycle
Friday: Long run?
Saturday or Sunday: (never really did it) Longer ride
Every day I am doing physical therapy exercises to help stretch my back and shoulders which actually helps my foot/right leg from hurting as a result of a car accident in 2015 that I still feel the effects of.
Next up
I signed up for the Washington 70.3 in September and need to do a lot more cycling before then. I’ll get an official bike fit with the aero bars on to see how I can best transfer power in that position. I’ll keep running once a week with my Monday Night Run Club crew of Jeff and Ari, as well as faster runs with Steffen, Jonah, and others!
