Pre Race Thoughts: IM 70.3 Lake Tahoe

Posted by Katie

Wow, race weekend is here already! I have to say I am really enjoying this whole "race weekend" business. Ironman forces you to register on Friday, check your gear Saturday and then race on Sunday. The benefit here being that the stress of getting everything together is spread out and makes the days a bit more relaxing and makes it more of a vacation.

Friday:
Friday was drive up to Tahoe and check-in day. The drive up to Tahoe was a little interesting due to the King fire which is burning just southwest of the lake. Smoke is unfortunately blowing up towards the Kings Beach / North Lake area and is threatening the air quality in the area (not to mention the fire is only 10% contained). Eek!

Smokeyness

The expo definitely gave me butterflies. Something about walking under a banner that says "Ironman Village" makes it very real. Check-in was a little more involved than your typical running race but pretty quick with lots of volunteers ready to help.

Saturday:
Today there was lots to do, first of course was breakfast and then we went out for a 30min ride. It was cool to see tons of fellow triathletes out there warming up as well. Next Matt and I drove over past Northstar Mountain resort (and over the huge mountain we will need to bike) and parked at a trailhead in a meadow to do our run so we could bring Kona too. I think Kona was disappointed that we kept it to 2 miles (sorry pal, it's just a shake out run...).

My happy place :)

Saturday also involved a ton of logistics... bike and bike gear to T1 by the beach, run gear to T2 in squaw valley (a 40 min drive apart), all between 10am and 3pm. There was a TON of traffic because people had to go between the two sites. Not sure how this could be improved, but it was definitely a bit of a pain. Our group was staying at Kings Beach so it would have been really nice to just drop all gear there and have IM shuttle it to Squaw for us....but oh well, we were able to grab a tasty lunch in Tahoe City. I would definitely advise people doing this race to drop off gear as early as you can (10am) because the traffic just continued to get bad and we saw many triathletes pulling over and hoping on the bike in order to get it to T1 on time.

Pre-Race thoughts: Elevation and Smoke and Thunder OH MY!
Since I have only done a sprint tri prior to this I really have no idea how this thing is going to go. My biggest area of improvement is for sure the swim. Matt and I did a masters swim 2x a week most of the training and an open water swim on the weekends. I finally feel more confident in the swim, crowds still scare me but I am hoping to conquer that tomorrow. The bike is definitely my area of biggest concern. I ended up shortening the longest ride to prepare for an interview so my longest ride of the cycle was 53 miles, way short of the few 60 miles I had planned to do. The run is my most familiar sport so I have a pretty good idea of what kind of run shape I am in which I am pretty happy about.

Then there are race day conditions to deal with ... hence the "elevation and smoke and thunder oh my!". The race is at 6,000ft and has 3,200ft of gain on the bike, certainly a force to be dealt with. Elevation will definitely be felt on the run. Then there is the smoke... Saturday afternoon due to shifting winds, smoke started spilling into the Lake Tahoe area and drifting up towards Kings Beach. As I write this we are closing the windows and doors to block out the smoke. Oh and then there is the forecast... 50-60% chance of rain and lightening. Yes thunder. Sidebar: I am TERRIFIED of thunder/lightening. Once on a hike in Italy a storm moved in and Danielle and I sprinted as hard as I could to get to shelter... the storm was still a mile out. So if there is rumbling happening I am definitely going to go inappropriately fast out of fear and promptly bonk... should be great times.

So there you have it, if you would like to follow myself, Matt, Travers and Mark you can find it here:
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/coverage/athlete-tracker.aspx?race=laketahoe70.3&y=2014#axzz3DuvEOy93

Also super excited to see friendly faces out there on the course, our four super fans/volunteers Rachel, Michelle, Justin and Alison!