St. Croix Race Report, Better Late than Never?

Ok, ok, I will finally write my race report from St. Croix. The swim went pretty well. The water was crystal clear and I saw everything: sunken ship, colorful fish, garbage can, sand, and a lawn chair. There were some small buoys at the beginning that may have been a swim zone for hotel guests, but we had to swim around them so the beginning was a pick cluster and got interesting. After that we turned and were heading pretty much straight into the waves. I had no idea where I was but I saw two girls up a little ways. They were headed out left, a ways from the buoys, I stuck near the buoys and caught them at the turn buoy. Then I cut in too narrow and they stayed on track. I caught them about half way to the last turn buoy and we swam all together to it. After the last turn I swam away from them a little bit and was second out of the water.

T1 went pretty well and then I was passed within the first mile by a certain world champion. Well, it was fun while it lasted. I expected to be passed by a few on the bike. The bike was beautiful and challenging. The Beast (a few photos of that above, though even the photos don't do it justice) was brutal. Harder than I thought it would be. At one point I was sure walking up would be faster. The rest of the course was either up, down and twisty, and with a grusome headwind. Came of the bike in 8th.

T2 was just fine. The run was a little rought. I felt really full and sick again. So I will be working on fixing that this next few weeks. Run was a little hillier than I expected and my time was a handful of minutes slower than I would have liked. Overall it was still a pretty good race though and I finished in 8th.

St. Croix is a wonderful race and a wonderful place. It is a gorgeous island and the people there are the friendliest people you can find. I would love to do this race again someday. I have updated my race schedule, but it still may change~sometimes I'm indecisice and sometimes it's fun to be spontaneous!