Bring It On: In it to ............ Finish It...plus a little better

For those of you who aren't familiar with the great Bring It On movie series, one of them has the title of Bring It On: In it to Win it. (hold on, I have to google and see what kind of punctuation a movie title gets? Underline, quotes, bold? ...)Ok, so you can either underline or italicize. ANYWAYS.. after spending the weekend in St. George on the race course, I've come to realize that while my first, and most important goal is to finish it, I think I can do a little better than just making the time cutoff. Definitely not In it to Win it, but I think having the expectations to do more than just finishing is a good goal for me.

Before visiting St. George, I just wanted to cross that finish line no matter what. As Liz and I were driving the 6.5 hours there, we said that we would be completely satisfied finishing. Don't get me wrong.. finishing is STILL what I would be completely satisfied with, but after months of people talking up the course and saying how hard it will be, how we're crazy to do it, blah, blah, blah... I started to get minimal expectations for myself just because everyone was saying what an insane race this is going to be. Yes, the bike course sucks...and yes, the run course sucks even more -- but it is do-able. I don't want to sound cocky or make it seem that I am going to finish with a lightning fast time on the course because that's not what I'm trying to say at all. All I'm saying is that how I viewed the course is completely different after going there. I now know that it is not impossible to complete. Basically, I should have done what Felipe told me to do a long time ago and not listen to what other people (especially the people who aren't racing!) are saying about the course and just be concerned with my own race. I will write what I think about the course, but this may not be of any help to someone who is a better cyclist or runner ..if ya know what I mean.

On to the good stuff-

Bike course:
Leaving T1, we immediately go downhill (yeah!) It is mostly flat for the first couple of miles and then we go up a long, slow climb that looks a lot worse than it actually is. I mean, it sucks, but your legs are fresh and we only have to climb it once, so it really isn't that bad at all. Oh, let me interrupt myself here: *Looks and landscape is so deceiving. You may see a long ass hill like the first climb of the day and it looks like a monster, but then it isn't that bad. On the other hand, you come across short hills that don't look that bad and it is steep as *%^#. I had to gauge a lot of what I was doing off my mph to realize that even though it looked flat, I was only going X mph.* OK... it took us 90 minutes to get from T1 to "Hot Corner" (a place where athletes pass by 3-4times I believe). During those 90 minutes, we had some rollers, nothing too horrible. I was able to keep Kathy within sight on all of those climbs, so they must have not been that bad. Once we got to "Hot Corner," that began the loop. Again, we would have climbs, but then plenty of time to recover your legs on downhills or flats. Nothing really stands out to me except the one short, inside of Torrey Pines hill, and the switch back. The Torrey Pines-ish hill comes right after you go over a little bridge and the switchback comes when you see the house on top of the mountain. Be ware!!! That switchback is a beeeeeezy! It wouldn't be so bad if the last little bit of it weren't so steep. As soon as you turn the corner, you think you're done and then you have to use everything you have to get up the last little bit. It was fine for the first loop, but on the second loop that will definitely be donkey. After the switchback, there's one more Torrey Pines-ish climb... long and pretty steady, not too bad.. but we also stopped to refuel before we climbed it, so it may be worse than we think. After that climb, though, there is some wonderful downhill which I loved. We were lucky and didn't get nailed with any wind, but some guy who rides this loop all the time says that the wind changes everyday, and it usually is worse in the afternoon. Great.

Here is what I am nervous about on the bike: I am scared that I am going to go out too hard on the bike and then have sh*t left for the run. Everyone says, "pace yourself, pace yourself." But, how?! I have yet to figure out how to save enough energy for the run without feeling like I am sandbagging the bike. Help??

Run course:
We finished the first loop + the 20 something miles to the first loop in about 4 hours, so we needed to tack on some more distance. We rode the run course back to Joey's car. Um.. it is hard. And hilly. And steep. On the bike, I was tempted to get out of my saddle (I bought a new Profile Design saddle, btw. Love it.) it was that steep. The second part of the run course wasn't really an accurate description of what it will be like since we were on our bikes, but at least we got to see it somehow. The next day we ran 60 minutes from T2 on the course, and luckily the first mile or so isn't horribly hilly. The run definitely isn't easy and it is going to be a quad killer because there are a lot of steep downhill areas. The run UP near "Hot Corner" is going to be horrible, so I hope no one sips haterade if I walk up that bad boy on the second loop.

All in all, this course is definitely difficult and it is going to be a LONG day. I think seeing and experiencing the course helped a lot.. and it made race day actually seem like a tangible thing. For so long, I've just been saying that I am racing Ironman St. George, but now that I've actually been there and been on the course, it isn't something that I can just talk about now! I know that I am going to talk with Lipe about pacing because I think that is the key to this race. Anyways, this was just the way I experienced the course, so if you're racing - I hope it was helpful. I am now slothing around today because today is an OFF day!!! I haven't seen "OFF" on my schedule in a longggggg time!! Recovery weeks are the BEST.

Good luck to everyone racing Oceanside!!