Ironman 70.3 World Championship Team Race Recap: It’s the Freaking Desert!

We triathletes obsess, and I mean usually in an unhealthy, crazy, psychotic way, about the weather on race day. We start as soon as any weather outlet will start predicting race conditions of any sort, even if that someone only has a Lowe’s rain gauge in their yard and willing to post it on the internet. It can be bad … temperature, humidity, cloud cover, precipitation and especially wind speed and for the bike crazy, I mean savvy, it’s all about wind direction. This obsession can certainly wear out a battery on an iPhone checking 18 different weather apps in the 48 hours preceding the race.

St. George is in the desert. 90 miles or so northeast of Las Vegas and the direct route on I-15 takes you right through the northwest corner of Arizona. It’s the desert. September average rain fall is 0.6 inches over the past 100 or so years. Did I mention it was the desert?

Race morning started early as usual, and especially early for a point-to-point race involving shuttles to the swim start. It was cloudy … huh? There was a 50% chance of rain in the afternoon. Hmmm… And humid for desert standards of about 40% when it had been 10% relative humidity all the other days. It’s not going to rain, nah. The athletes were scheduled to start the swim in an age group start, as opposed to what we did in May which was a swim seed start meaning you started the race by your predicted swim time for the course regardless of your age. That was a great move by Ironman in my opinion. The age group start means that everyone in your age group starts together and faces the same conditions, which is usually heat and wind in St. George. Jeff was to start the swim at 0813 and Julia at 0935 MDT. Long wait for Julia.

Let me tell you, it rained, stormed, hailed, rained some more and the sky lit up multiple times with lightening, in the desert! It was very unnerving for the spectators/sherpas, so imagine being in the water and on a bike with 25mm width tires going 20+ mph! Oh my! It was pretty epic to say the least, but it is a World Championship and if it were easy, all of us triathletes would be there. St. George is a brutal course, but the September 18 “desert conditions”, made a tough race even tougher and more memorable. St. George Regional Airport recorded 0.8 inches, which is 0.2 inches more than the average for the entire month of September. Yep, it's the desert. Enough of George’s babbling, let’s get to the race recaps.

Jeff Brandenburg

Not the result or placing he was trained for but considering the conditions he encountered on the bike, he managed to stay safe and ride to the #1 bike split for his age group after a disappointing swim. Admittedly, the bike took a little more out of him in making sure he stayed upright as wind was swirling at gusts over 25 mph at times! The storm rolled in on the course about 1000 which caught him a little before halfway on the bike, right on the rolling fast section of the course. Scary stuff. Jeff came out of T2 not feeling great for the 2-loop course that averages 98 feet of climbing per mile. In other words, it’s lots and lots of running uphill. Oh, and a section of quad busting downhill headed back to town that is probably 15% gradient. And, the athletes get to do this not once, but twice. Jeff had a good run but not a great run by his standards but when you are at the pointy end of the stick, only a podium placing is considered a success. However, Jeff placed 19th out of 201 in his age group in the World! Still a stellar performance by any measure. Congratulations Jeff!

Photo Credit: Barbara Brandenburg

Julia Norcia (This narrative contains my opinions and may not be Julia’s)

I do not think I could be prouder of what Julia overcame at the Sand Hollow Reservoir and the first half of the bike. Julia is a fantastic triathlete but will tell anyone that will listen that she “lacks confidence swimming” and “open water gives her anxiety”. Not uncommon for us “adult-onset swimmers” that did not swim competitively as a kid. I was not actually at the swim, but I am sitting next to someone on my flight home that described the conditions as “dangerous, treacherous, white-caps, swells, and wind-swept”! I think the statement that sealed the description for me was the analogy, “you know when you put a kitchen mixer beater in water and turn it on the highest setting, that’s what the water looked like!” That visual is unbelievable. Julia was halfway through the swim, when the hurricane conditions hit Hurricane (pronounced Hurr-i-CUN), Utah. In the swim, like in the water! Right there, that moment or moments, there were 1 million reasons to quit … but you know what, she did not! She persevered, took a little cover with a kayak, but then FINISHED THE SWIM. I am still in awe.

Julia made it to the bike and executed her race strategy perfectly. Again, the swim experience could have and should have thrown her off her game both mentally and physically, but by all intents and purposes, she was unflappable. It was still storming on the bike and she rode her bike through the Red Hills of southern Utah with grit and perseverance while staying true to “bike steady” to flatten the course. She did fantastic and her bike split was a little faster than expected but after looking at her metrics was perfect! (I think Julia was holding out on me during training …lol) Out of T2, the sun came out, it was in the 70’s but the humidity was still low (for SC standards) and she loves the run. It showed pretty early on that she was well hydrated and had the nutrition to run well on this ruthless run course. She was clipping off miles consistently, albeit the undulations of the course changed paces somewhat. After the 6.5-mile turnaround, Julia really settled in and started the work as that’s when the 70.3 run really gets hard. Once again, she rose to the occasion and managed herself and the course like a boss. I waited for her at the 10.5-mile mark and cheered her on with some music and some encouragement (maybe I was yelling J) but I got a little smile. That’s when she started getting it done and crushed the little 1.5 mile down and uphill in preparation for the crazy hard downhill 2.1-mile finish. I walked down the hill towards the finish line to roughly the 12-mile mark to see Julia once again. What was very evident on the steep sections was the number of athletes walking or running very gingerly … but Julia came by looking strong and in control, and with another smile! The finish is just hard, and she ran great all the way to line! Julia was 95th in her age group in the 2021 Ironman 70.3 World Championship, a fantastic result! Congratulations Julia!

Photo Credit: Angie Blight

So where did the title come from? In Julia’s Race Executions Strategy, I started like this:

Weather: No rain because it’s the freaking desert!

It is very obvious I have no future in Meteorology, so I’ll stick with Pharmacy.