Race Report: 2024 Ironman 70.3 St. George

Howdy, and welcome to my third season of racing triathlons. This year, I'm starting my season again with Ironman 70.3 St. George, a race I did for the first time last year and enjoyed enormously, despite some issues during the swim and the run. I wanted to come back and try to improve on that effort. Last year, I managed to pull off a sub-six finish, with a total time of 5:55:12, so my goal was simply to be faster than that, with a stretch goal of finishing in 5:30. That seemed attainable if I shaved ten minutes of the bike and run, plus a few more from the swim and transitions, but I also knew it was very aggressive; I got lucky last year with the great weather and cool temperature, and it seemed unlikely that would happen again. Sure enough, the forecast this year indicated a high of 31ºC on race day, but I was confident I could still beat last year's time at least. Spoiler alert: That, uh, did not happen. Pre-race prep I drove from Jackson Hole the Thursday before the race, and arrived in St. George early enough that I had plenty of time check into my hotel, unpack my gear, and walk a couple of blocks to the Ironman Village and check in for the race. With that taken care of, I went back to the hotel, changed into running clothes, and went out on a short 30-minute shakedown run while it was still warm out. May is still very much winter in Jackson Hole; it was -7ºC and snowing when I left for St. George, and still snowing when I got back, so this race is too early in the year for me to have built any heat adaptations. A single run in the heat wasn't going to make any difference, but it felt great nonetheless and was a nice way to put a bow on my training plan before the race. The view from my bike trainer the day before leaving for St. George. The next day, I spent the morning packing and repacking and checking and double-checking my gear bags, which I packed (and repacked) like so: Morning clothes bag: Two pairs of Roka R1 swim goggles (one as a spare, just in case) Swim cap Timing chip Two bottles of Maurten Drink Mix 320 for the bike leg A bottle of water to drink in T1 and rinse my feet A Pelican G40 case to stash my phone and hotel room key A hoodie Headphones (not for the race, obviously, but to use while waiting to start) TriSlide spray A Maurten 100 Caf 100 gel to eat before the swim N95 mask for the shuttle Headlamp Garmin 1040 Solar bike computer Garmin HRM-Pro Plus heart rate band Bike gear bag: S-Works Evade III helmet Fizik Transiro Infinito R1 Knit shoes Socks Roka Matador Air sunglasses Rapha Pro Team gloves A sports towel A travel-size can of SPF 50 sunscreen Pill bottle with sodium caps, Tylenol and Imodium Run gear bag: Race belt with my bib Hat Hoka Rocket X 2 shoes An extra pair of socks, just in case A sports towel A travel-size can of SPF 50 sunscreen Pill bottle with sodium caps, Tylenol and Imodium That afternoon, I attended the pre-race briefing at the Ironman Village before checking in my gear. The process was the same as last year: drive over to Sand Hollow State Park to rack the bike in T1 with the bike gear bag, pick up the timing chip before leaving, and then drive back to downtown St. George to drop off the run gear bag in T2. I headed back to my hotel room to quadruple-check my morning clothes bag, prepare my bottles of Maurten for the bike, shave my legs, take a bath, and try to wind down for a good night of sleep. That last one didn't quite happen; for whatever reason I couldn't get a full night of sleep the entire time I was in St. George. My bike, after checking it in at Sand Hollow State Park. On race day, after tossing and turning all night, I got up at 3:00 AM, took a COVID test, ate a bagel with jam, and had coffee while I waited for the result. I then killed some time by doing my Wordle puzzle (got it in three) and putting together a sick pre-race playlist for the drive to Sand Hollow. This year the shuttles were first-come-first-serve with no ticket required, so I walked over to the Ironman Village and hopped on the first one available, arriving at Sand Hollow at around 5:30 AM. It only took me a few minutes to set up my transition, so I spent the rest of my time stretching and trying to stay warm in the brisk 12ºF morning. Shortly before 6:45 AM I donned my wetsuit, ate my gel, handed over my morning clothes bag to a volunteer and headed to the swim staging area. I seeded myself in the 43–46 minute group and chatted with folks while we waited to start. The male pros started at 6:50 AM and the women shortly after. It was cool to see Sam Long and Paula Findlay running by after finishing their swim; the path leading from the swim exit back to transition is right next to the staging area with the people waiting to start, so you get to cheer everyone as they finish their swim and run to their bikes. T1 in Sand Hollow State Park, at 6:00 AM. It took an hour for me to make my way to the starting chutes, and at 7:51 AM, I finally started my race. The swim Last year, I struggled with this swim for three reasons. First of all, I came to the swim with the wrong mindset: I went in expecting to have a bad time, and that's exactly what I got. Second, I had a hard time dealing with the cold; and third, I think my sleeved wetsuit restricted my shoulder movement too much and made it hard to maintain good form. The first issue was easy to sort out: as I learned in Coeur d’Alene last year, simply changing my mindset to look forward to the swim instead of dreading it goes a long way (I think I was also better prepared for this swim in terms of fitness than I was last year, which definitely helped). The other two were a little trickier: I didn't want to wear my sleeved wetsuit or buy a new one, so I used my sleeveless wetsuit (a Roka Maverick Pro II) for better shoulder mobility, even though I'd probably be even colder in it. Fortunately, the water was a little warmer than last year, at 17ºC, according to the Sand Hollow State Park website. I saw a number of people wearing sleeveless wetsuits around me in the swim staging area, and one dude in front of me was wearing nothing but swim trunks, which I found oddly reassuring. That said, when my race started and I finally dived in, it still felt like a goddamn punch in the face, and the cold shock response was overwhelming. The way I deal with it when I swim in open water is to keep my head above water for the first few strokes, and start dipping my face in until I can regain control of my breathing and swim normally, but it took me a very long time to get there on this swim. I was still fighting my gasp reflex minutes into the swim, and I started to wonder if I had made a huge mistake wearing the sleeveless wetsuit. I saw a volunteer on a paddleboard nearby and for one brief moment I imagined myself holding on to the side, out of breath, quitting the race. I found the mere idea of giving up a hundred meters into the race intolerable, so I pressed on and managed to get my breathing under control shortly afterwards. Those first few minutes were stressful, but the rest of the swim felt great; I got into a good rhythm, focused on my form, had no trouble at all sighting the buoys, and after a while, actually started enjoying how good the chilly water felt on my arms. It was an uneventful swim, although it was congested, with an almost constant washing machine effect, particularly around the turn buoys. It was difficult at times to swim past other swimmers, which slowed me down quite a bit. I finished in 46:48, just a little faster than last year, but psychologically it feels like a big win nonetheless. I still got lots of work to do on my swim, but I'm confident I can do better next time. I really wish Ironman could set up a warm-up area in Sand Hollow, though; it would make this swim far more tolerable. T1 I felt a little dizzy coming out of the water, which sometimes happens when I swim in cold water, so I took it slow in T1 to give it a chance to go away. I spent 12:57 there, longer than I would have liked, but I didn't want to hop on the bike too fast and risk crashing. Besides, I was confident I could make up some of that time on the bike, no big deal. The bike By the time I put on my cycling gear and packed my wetsuit and goggles, my dizziness had cleared up, so I grabbed my bike and headed out. The bike course was exactly the same as last year, leaving Sand Hollow and following the local highways surrounded by the spectacular desert views of southern Utah, before getting back to St. George for the pièce de résistance, the roughly 8-kilometer-long climb through Snow Canyon State Park. It's a very hilly course, which I really enjoy, with 1,080 m of elevation gain. It's also a very safe course, with lots of road closures and tons of space between the athletes and car traffic, except for a couple narrow sections where it felt a little risky to pass folks. The pavement was smooth and clean of debris almost the entire route, although there were a few places where the road got fairly bumpy, with one in particular that had become a veritable graveyard of ejected bottles. I don't remember that from last year, but maybe that's simply what a year's worth of car traffic does to the roads. View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava. I felt good about my bike fitness coming into this race, but I knew it would be warmer than last year, so I planned to pace more conservatively than normal. I usually aim for 84% intensity for 70.3s, but for this race set a lower target of 80%, since the temperature would rise to at least 27ºC during the bike leg, and it would be particularly noticeable during the climbs. My goal was to have a strong bike leg, but not so strong that I fell apart during what I expected to be a very hot run later on. With that intensity, Best Bike Split estimated a finish time of 2:40, which put me in the green zone of my pacing chart, and would still have been a ten-minute improvement on last year's time. My nutrition consisted of two 24 oz bottles of Maurten Drink Mix 320, for about 80 g/h of carbs, supplemented with water from the aid stations. As usual, I used my Specialized Aethos road bike, with aerobars, for this race. Bike pacing table for Ironman 70.3 races. | Credit: TriStar Athletes I followed my plan fairly closely after leaving Sand Hollow, staying in aero for the flats and attacking the climbs with gusto. I think even my descending skills have gotten better, or at least I felt more confident barreling down those hills in an aero tuck. However, about halfway through the ride, I started feeling the beginnings of an abdominal cramp, like the one I had last year at Ironman Coeur d’Alene. Goddammit, not again. Was I going too hard? Was it the aero position? Was it the Maurten? I didn't know, but I'll be damned if I was going to let it stop me from finishing another race, so I dialed back my effort, sat up on the hoods, and stopped drinking the Maurten mix. In Coeur d’Alene, I stuck to my nutrition plan on the bike despite my symptoms, which made it incredibly uncomfortable to run with my gut full of liquid sloshing around, and prevented me from fueling on the run until I inevitably bonked. I wanted to avoid that at all costs, so I under-fueled the rest of the bike leg to give my stomach a chance to clear all the liquid, and then hope I could make up enough of the deficit on the run to finish the race without bonking. I'm not sure if that was the best course of action or an overreaction on my part, but my symptoms didn't worsen, and by the time I got to Snow Canyon they had mostly cleared up. I put a decent effort climbing Snow Canyon, probably harder than I should have, given that I wasn't fueling properly, but I had been looking forward to this climb and wanted to enjoy it. It was hot and grueling, but the camaraderie and banter with the folks I was riding with was enormously fun---the race director joked last year that "you may be questioning your life choices" in Snow Canyon, but for me it just reinforces how much I enjoy this sport. I made it to the top in 27:16, and after grabbing some water at the aid station, it was a fast descent back into T2 in downtown St. George. (Pro tip: dump some water on yourself at this aid station at the top of Snow Canyon; the wind on the descent will cool you down in time for T2.) Almost at the top of Snow Canyon. | Credit: FinisherPix My intensity by the end of the bike leg was 70%, with a final time of 2:55:38, 15 minutes slower than I planned. Not the end of the world, but it was frustrating to miss the mark because of the same problem I had in Coeur d’Alene. T2 I spent 10:33 in T2. By now my race goals were shot, so I had no reason to rush---I just wanted to finish. I took my time getting my shoes on and spraying on another layer of sunscreen, ate a Maurten 160 gel I had on my bike, drank some water, and headed out on the run course. The run I knew this run was going to be challenging, but it's one thing what the weather forecast says, and another what it actually feels like out on the course, with the heat radiating off of the pavement and the sun beating down on you. In that heat, after riding a three-hour bike leg on half of my planned fueling, I couldn't hold my target pace of 5:00 min/km. I slowly jogged at 5:45 min/km and walked through every aid station to drink water and shove ice down my trisuit and under my hat. Not me pretending to run in front of the FinisherPix photographer. | Credit: FinisherPix After throwing my fueling plan out the window during the bike leg, I wasn't sure what to do about it now. My original plan was to have a Maurten 100 gel roughly every 20–25 minutes, about 60 g/h of carbs, which has worked well for me in previous races. I didn't know if I should do that and risk upsetting my stomach again or cut back like I did for the bike and risk bonking. I ended up roughly halving my intake: I had the Maurten 160 I grabbed in T2 and a Maurten 100 gel at the beginning of the second lap, plus sips of Coke at the last few aid stations. I don't think my sodium loss was an issue here, but just to be safe, I had a cup of the Mortal Hydration mix they were giving out at the aid stations. The course was largely the same as last year, two laps around downtown St. George, starting with a short segment through Main Street, with an average grade of 4.5%, followed by a long segment through Diagonal Street, with a mild grade of 1.2%. This year, the loop around the Vernon Worthen Park near the end of each lap was replaced by a segment along Bluff Street before looping around Dixie Red Hills Golf Club and heading back on Diagonal Street for the second lap or finish line. I didn't notice it last year because the weather was so nice, but other than the short pedestrian tunnel under Bluff Street, this course has no shade at all, so there was little relief from the heat, except for the volunteers with hoses along the course, to whom I'm extremely grateful. View this course on Garmin Connect or Strava. The first lap went by quickly, and I started the second one feeling good despite my slow pace. A couple of miles into it, though, I really started to suffer. The heat felt oppressive, my energy was dwindling, and frankly I was just mentally done, so I slowed down to a walk halfway through the lap. I started bargaining with myself: "just try to make it back to Diagonal Street," "just try to make it to the next aid station," "just try to make it to that tree," "just... keep moving." I alternated between running and walking the rest of the way, but found the wherewithal to run the last stretch so I could at least get a good finish line photo. I look happier in this photo than I actually was. | Credit: FinisherPix I finished the 21.1 km run in 2:25:59, for a final time of 6:31:54. I was nowhere near my goal; this result wasn't just worse than last year's, it's my worst result to date in a 70.3. I was glad to finish the race, but felt disappointed, more than I was by the DNF in Coeur d’Alene. There, I had given it everything I had and I was certain there was nothing more I could have done; here, I know I could have done better. Random notes & observations Last year I raved about the Airbnb I found close to the Ironman Village, but I'm back to using hotels this year, after a bad experience with Airbnb (the travel insurance I bought from them refused to cover me when wildfires and a no-travel order from the British Columbia government forced the cancellation of Ironman Canada last summer). It sucks not to have a full kitchen, but I can make do with a microwave and a mini fridge, and at least hotels have reasonable cancellation policies. I stayed at the Best Western Coral Hills, just two blocks away from the finish line, and strongly recommend it. They even had all-night breakfast for the athletes the morning of the race. I don't usually eat out a lot during races because I'm in pre-race nutrition mode, but that new coffee shop close to the Ironman Village, FS Coffee Company, is really good. A breakfast sandwich, delicious pastry, and good coffee the morning after the race fixed me right up. Highly recommended. With the news that Mortal Hydration would replace Gatorade Endurance at Ironman races in North America this summer, I bought a sampler at the expo to try out before the race. The bike aid stations were handing out the mango flavor premixed in bottles of water, and the run aid stations had cups with the berry flavor. However, nobody could tell me if either of them was the regular or salty version, which I would need to know if I wanted to rely on this for my electrolyte needs. Not that I would, because the flavor... yuck. The mango one isn't bad, but the berry one made me gag the first time I tried it. It tasted like unset Jell-O, and was sickeningly sweet. Fingers crossed, this might be the last time I use my Aethos in a triathlon, but man, I love this bike. Climbs are pure joy on it. A big thank you as usual to the folks at Open Range Cycles for the last-minute tune up; the bike felt great. After riding for an hour and a half with my feet soaking wet inside waterlogged bike shoes from that downpour at Ironman Coeur d’Alene last year, I bought a very expensive pair of triathlon shoes, the Fizik Transiro Infinito R1 Knit and... I didn't love them on this race. They caused some mildly painful hotspots on the bottom of my feet that lasted well into the run. Maybe I need to find some inserts for them, but I think I might go back to my Giro Regimes for my next race. I'm not quite sure what to do about the digestion issues I keep having before races. After Coeur d’Alene, I suspected sodium depletion, or air ingestion during the swim. I didn't have any issues with the latter during the swim, and felt fine coming out of the water; for the former, I preloaded sodium before the race, and I don't think I would have been depleted so quickly. It's possible it's the Maurten, but my symptoms in Coeur d’Alene started before I had any, and I've used Maurten without issues during training and in previous races. I think my next step is to try to find a sports dietitian to help me solve this mystery. If there's a silver lining to the run, it's that my knee felt great and didn't bother me at all. It seems that I've at least managed to get past this one issue, which I'm grateful for. What's next? While this result feels like a setback, my main goal this year is to complete a full Ironman later this summer in Penticton, so this doesn't really matter all that much. Next month I have Ironman 70.3 Boulder and Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene, both of which will be good practice to get dialed in ahead of Ironman Canada in August. In the words of Rocky Balboa, "it ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward, how much you can take, and keep moving forward; that's how winning is done!" That's the attitude I try to take with these outcomes. As for Ironman 70.3 St. George, I still love this race, no matter how hard it is, maybe because of how freaking hard it is. In fact, I already registered for next year's race, so... Snow Canyon, here I come again.