St. Kitts & Nevis, Caribbean
March 13th: 4:30AM wake up to take the USCO Shuttle to make the 6:30AM flight……………..4 flights and 12hours later……..Land in St. Kitts at 8:56PM (2 hours ahead of Colorado Springs)……..Take a taxi from St. Kitts airport to the boat-dock (aka "The Beach") to take a water taxi 2.3 miles to Nevis Island……….Arrived at homestay’s house around 11:50PM!
Friday morning I went for a nice leisure ride around the entire island of Nevis……..that’s sounds like a lot, but it was really only 19.1 miles around. Followed by a swim and a light run.
Saturday I road the bike course 3 times, it was an out n’ back 4 lap bike course. Swam the swim course twice (2 lap swim) and ran the run course twice (4 lap run).
16th March 2008:
Race Starts 9:45AM:
Swim: Ocean swim, beach start 2 loop course. A much better swim than the previous week. There was a pack of 3 girls in the front swim pack (Rebeccah Wassner USA and 2 Japanese women) and I lead the second swim pack with Margie Shapiro USA and Corona MEX. We came out of the water about 1 min 15 sec back from the front pack.
Bike: Out n’ back, 4 loop course. The roads were much smoother;)! We had a group of three of us and were quickly joined by one of the Japanese women to make it a 4 pack. After about a lap, Margie and I were quick to realize the other 2 were not wanting to take a pull. Eventually we dropped both girls and started to work together to catch the front pack. By the end we made up about 25 seconds, but didn’t catch them. Margie is an incredibly strong rider and being able to work together with her on the bike was an amazing experience!
Run: Out n’ back, 4 loop course. The run felt ok, not great, without the breezy on the bike you started to notice the heat on the run. I was gaining on the second place girl but couldn’t quite run her down. I ended up taking 3rd, and having my first podium this year on a Caribbean Island. Rebeccah won with an incredible run.
Here is a link to a little article on the ITU official website about the race: