Miranda's Triathlon Blog: Utah Day 3: The St. George 70.3 Run Course

I was another beautiful day in St. George today! I woke up to another beautiful sunrise among the pink and orange mountains. The day started off with a swim, then a short bike and then a run on the St. George 70.3 run course.

I had a pretty good swim today. Two sets of 10x100, the first on 1'20/100yd pace and the next on 1'15/100yd pace. The goal being to try and hold 70.3 pace... which is about 1'18/100m in a pool. If I can do that then I will be able to swim in the chase group in the St. George race... amongst some of the top female pros. So...that is my focus for the next month :) I spent the winter working on my technique, developing strength with lots of pull paddles and core work, plus, I worked on getting my top speed a bit quicker (31.5" for a 50m free!). Now I have this new focus, 1'18/100m for 2000m

View from the pool

Next workout was a short bike, which I did on the run course, and then I ran the course itself. Wow, either I am lucky that I know what I'm getting myself into on race day or I'm an idiot for knowing what's coming and being scared by it. I will let you know after the race! The run course is beautiful, but deadly. It starts off with a nice, gradual uphill for about 4km, then, just when your legs are really starting to feel it, there is about 1km of 8-10% grade of uphill. Nice! Then there are some rollers (not gentle rollers, steep rollers!) until a nice downhill to the turnaround, but then you have to run up again. Anyway, I'm sure you get the picture. I managed to run it under control, a nice Zone 2 heart rate got me a time of 1:39. Going to have to be about 10 minutes faster on race day.

The next adventure of my day was a trip to the local tri shop in St. George, High Knees. I met the super friendly people working at the shop and I got to sign the Pro shirt alongside names like Trevor and Heather Wurtele and Angela Naeth. So cool! The shop had some pretty awesome Lazer helmets and other cool gear.

Now, I am at Starbucks, typing my blog because I have no internet access at my hotel. The staff told me it was because they have so many people staying with them. Nice. I guess that's what you get for $60/night :(

Pictures today: