Thoughts on Ironman Victoria 70.3

My thoughts in a nutshell about Victoria 70.3: The race went perfectly. Of course I would have liked to be a minute and a half faster to clinch first, but in terms of my race execution, I couldn’t have been happier. Especially because the couple weeks leading up to the race, I was going through some mental battles. It was nice to take the trip to Victoria with some close friends who were also racing, and this helped put my mind in a good place.

Race morning started early with a 4am wake up call. Race start was 6am with Pro women taking off at 6:03. The women’s field was quite a bit smaller than the last couple races I had done, so unfortunately when I lost the feet of the group in front of me, I was alone for the whole swim. I still managed a 29min swim, which was decent for me but still 4min behind the leader.

The bike course in Victoria has a lot of turns, and is not flat, so riding consistently steady was a challenge. I focused on keeping the power numbers as steady as possible and was able to ride my way into second but still 2.5minutes down on the leader.

As I headed out on the run, my legs felt great! I quickly settled into a rhythm, trying to keep as relaxed as possible. The run course is beautiful, following a path around the lake. The only downfall is that my GPS wasn’t working properly because of all the trees, so I had no idea how fast I was running. I tried to keep tabs at each KM marker, and found that I was running 4:05-4:15kms. I’m not going to lie that I was a little scared that I would blow up. My fastest half marathon was here last year in a time of 1:32. I have had huge goals over the last year to break that 1:30 mark, and knew if I could keep this pace up that today could be the day. I chose to put my head down and just go with it, not worrying about looking at my watch. There is one little out and back section that gives you a chance to see other competitors if you are close enough together, and being a 2 loop course, you get this chance twice. At this point, I was 2min down from the leader, but third was just as close to me. I knew I was going to have to have the run of my life to hang onto second, or potentially first. Running scared, I definitely hit that dark place with about 5km to go. I plugged on, and at that out and back section, found myself closer to first and third place nowhere in sight. There was only 3km to go, and in the end, ended up finishing a minute and a half off the leader, and finally breaking that 1:30 mark with a 1:28run (second fastest of the day). While I would have loved the victory, I couldn’t have been happier with EVERYTHING including my nutrition. I have only been with F2C for a couple months, and have seen huge gains within the last month! My stomach was the best it has ever been both during and after the race, which for me, I am used to feeling pretty sick post-race. So overall, a VERY good day! Now into full training for Ironman Canada! The countdown is on!