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August 09, 2006
Steelhead Race Report
Alison Roth seemed to enjoy her first Half Ironman distance, despite some starting-line jitters:
I don’t know what possessed me to sign up for the Steelhead Ironman 70.3 on August 5, but it was obviously something beyond my control. With three sprint races under my belt, I’d never done more than 800M in open water or biked more than 17 miles in a race.
So after my last marathon, in April, I began training. I trained hard when I could, but since I spent most the summer planning my wedding and moving into a new house, it didn’t feel like it was often enough. I had trouble making it to the pool with enough time left in “lap swim” to put in adequate yardage, and I hurt my ankle in early July, resulting in almost a month’s rest from running. In fact, biking was the only discipline I felt truly prepared for. But that said, most of the biking I did was commuting on a mountain bike at less than 15 miles per hour. Don’t get me wrong – I did train. I just didn’t train as consistently as I’d wanted to.
We started the race by jumping off a pier into Lake Michigan. I was racing in a wetsuit for the first time, and the waves weren’t as big as I’d expected, but I still froze for about 15 seconds when the gun went off. It took the girl behind me shouting “go!” for me to take a deep breath and jump. There was the usual jostling at the swim start, but because they started us by age group, it wasn’t that bad. The zipper string on my wetsuit – which I had neglected to tuck in (beginner’s mistake) – kept getting caught around my arm, and as a result I felt like my form was falling apart. “Swim 10 strokes, then look up,” I kept telling myself. It seemed to work, because before long I hit the beach at just under 39 minutes. I couldn’t believe it was over so quickly.
The run to T1 was a good half-mile uphill, but it gave me some time to catch my breath and get my heart rate down. I put on my bike jersey, mounted my bike, and took off. Before long I was passing just as many people as were passing me (a rarity on the bike). I snacked on pretzels, gels and cheez-nips until I felt full enough to stop eating (not a good strategy – I should have spaced it out more evenly). I never really got tired on the bike, but I definitely got bored. Around mile 30, I had to go to the bathroom and was ready to be done. A quick pit stop in a friendly neighbor’s bushes and a couple of Advils to quell my headache, and I got a small surge of energy. It was enough to carry me back to transition.
T2 was uneventful, except that I forgot to take off my gloves. I felt great starting the run – no stiffness or pain (thank you, Thursday-night brick workouts!). But by mile 4, I got some painful side stitches – likely as a result of my poor nutrition plan – and had to walk the next mile. But you know what? Everyone else was walking, too. In fact, by the time I felt well enough to run again, I was the only one running. We went up a long, grueling hill at mile 11, but I barely noticed. I was too excited about the fact that I was almost done. The last mile was mostly downhill and completely exhilarating. I blew a kiss to my fiancé, threw my arms in the air, and “broke the tape.” The volunteers in the finishers’ tent were wonderful. Noticing that I looked a little wobbly on my feet, they helped me through the tent, took off my chip, and handed me a bottle of water.
I wasn’t particularly sore, tired or hungry after I was done, although I did sleep for almost 12 hours that night! I guess I wasn’t as under-trained as I’d thought. And Steelhead was far from the prettiest or most interesting course in the world, but the course support was fantastic and the spectators were great. I would highly recommend this race to anyone doing a Half-IM, especially for the first time.
Wisconsin, 2007? We’ll see…
Posted by admin at August 9, 2006 10:07 AM