Boise 70.3 Race Report

Boise, Idaho
Saturday June 12, 2010
by: Charisa Wernick

Boise 70.3 is a 2pm race start, which is slightly different from most triathlons. I loved this. Sleep in, no rushing around in the dark before the race.

The swim is out of town in a reservoir and the water was COLD. The swim consisted of me finding feet to draft on (success!), realizing those feet were going slower than I should be (dangit!), taking off to find new feet and spending the rest of the race chasing and closing on those feet, but never grabbing them. I did not swim crooked. There was some chop and I felt like I was getting blown off course a few times. I swam hard from the gun and worked out there. Some days it comes together, others it doesn’t.

Straight onto the bike and I knew the entire ride was going to be WINDY. I was riding my Zipp disk and I do not regret this at all, the disk is awesome. That being said, there were many times when I rode for long periods of time at this angle: / or sometimes like this: . The winds reminded me of Kona at times.

At about mile 15 a bee somehow found his way into the side of my jersey. The wind was so strong at that point letting go of the handle bars to remove him wasn’t an option. He promptly stung me. Twice. Awesome.

Coming into T2 I did my standard flying dismount. I may have come in a bit too fast on this one though because when my feet hit the ground and I started running I realized I needed to SPRINT because I was still moving so fast. So I promptly pressed on the bike’s brakes, because that’s how you slow down right?! Well, apparently when you’re running next to the bike and press the brakes, the bike stops, but you don’t. So the back end of the QR flew up into the air and I kept moving, which of course caused me to nearly eat asphalt right in front of many spectators. The announcer on the loudspeaker said “Charisa Wernick, pro female is entering T2, and WHOAAAAAA she nearly bit it!” Classic. I’m quite sad I have no photos or video of this - I’m sure it would provide some awesome entertainment and those of you at work might spit coffee out your nose from laughing so hard.

Out onto the run and a spectator tells me I’m in 9th. Oh man I have a lot of work to do because coming into this race I really had my sights set on 5th. So off I ran, hoping I could reel some girls in. By mile 4 I moved into 7th. I spent the rest of the race chasing and closing the gap, but the 1:29 run split ended up being less than 2 minutes shy of getting me into 5th and the money.

Down the finish chute I can see the girl in front of me, but not enough space to catch her… I’m still happy with the race. It was a tough day and I gave it everything I had.
~Charisa Wernick