Sunday May 2nd - RACE DAY ST CROIX US VIRGIN ISLANDS - 70.3 #4
Up at 4:30 and excited! I have been looking forward to this race and the challenge of the beast. I took in my normal breakfast of Rokitfuel and our host/owner of the Arawalk Bay woke up early and put out some extra breakfast for the athletes that were staying here. The owners, Jennifer and her husband Lionel, really have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome here in St Croix. They say that their guest are like family and should be treated as such.
After a smooth transition set up, the announcer of the race announces that wetsuits are optional; however, if you had any intention of competing for age group awards or world champion slots you could not wear them. That didn’t include me so I grabbed my suit and headed to the water. The swim start was 200 meters away on a little island across from transition. I threw on my wetsuit not really paying attention to what others were doing, jumped in the water and swam across to the race start. Once I reached the other side, I notice that there were only about 4 or so athletes wearing a wetsuit. I wonder if that was an indication that I had either made the wrong decision, due to the water temperature, or that there was only 4 of us that thought we were not going to be fast enough to compete. I soon found out that it was the temp of the water - it was hot! I stood water side with my wetsuit on waiting for the pros to go, anxiously waiting for the gun to fire so I could get going. I wanted to get this swim over with and get my already overheating body out of this wetsuit. The water was indeed warm and I could tell instantly that it was going to be a hot swim and I needed to be careful to not go too hard. So I took it easy and enjoyed the swim...turns out to be a decent strategy as I posted a decent personal swim time of 34:09.
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