Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report – Part I

Preface

I debated over how candid I wanted to be in my race report.  You know, we all like to leave details out sometimes, right?  I couldn’t be honest about the race if I didn’t detail it properly though, and perhaps other people can learn from my mistake.  I truly believe it was one mistake that led to my downfall on this race.  It probably isn’t even so much of a mistake as opposed to a “who knew?” kind of thing.  Anyhow, be forewarned, that some of this may be a little bit TMI…

Pre-Race

It has been an interesting few days in Seattle, some of which I hinted at yesterday.  I discovered Saturday afternoon that my left cleat was falling apart so I quickly found a bike shop to get it replaced.

This morning I put my team tri top on and realized that the stitching was coming apart near the bottom of the zipper.

Then as I was bending over to put some things away in my bag my mom inadvertently noticed that a hole had developed in the rear seam of my tri shorts.  A pair of Zoot shorts that I have ONLY used to race in.  Seriously, I was apparently just falling apart all over the place.  Omen?  Luckily I had brought along a spare pair of shorts so no one was getting a show on the bike. ;)

Because my pre-race nutrition strategy had worked well at GWN I did the same thing this morning.  A peanut butter and jam sandwich 2 hours before my start.  A banana a half an hour later.  A gel 30 minutes before getting in the water.  All systems looked like go for a good race.

Transition opened up at 4:30 am, pros were set to go at 6:30 and my wave was up at 6:50.  We left the hotel at 4:30, got to Lake Stevens by 5:00 and I had plenty of time to get everything done.  Bikes were checked in on Saturday afternoon, so I had minimal gear to haul Sunday morning.  We had the option to purchase “premium” parking for the race for the Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce for $20.  I hummed and hawed over it, but ultimately I went for it.  If that took one less stressor out of the day, then it would be worth it.  It turns out that I was assigned to the lot closest to transition.  It was awesome and I was glad I spent the $20.

Before the race I noticed a familiar face in front of me heading towards transition.  Biggest Loser Matt Hoover was racing today.  I had heard that he will be racing Kona this year and he’s been doing some tune up races for the big day.  I guess Lake Stevens was one of them.

The swim start was delayed about 20 minutes as there was still a fair bit of fog on the water.  Not the best to swim in, but it definitely looked amazing.  After watching the pro men go I got into my wetsuit, then headed near the water for a quick warm up swim.  Pretty soon they were calling my wave to line up on the dock so it was go time!!