Garmin Triathlete Sara Spann reflects on Ironman 70.3 Kansas

I felt a little bad for Sunita, Rajat, and Peter, who had driven to Lawrence to stand in the heat and cheer me on. I figured I better do them the honor to muster through and finish. Was seriously debating throwing in the towel at mile 2 on the run. The swim didn’t bother me. It truly was the choppiest lake swim I’ve ever done, but I surprisingly was extremely calm and just powered through it. I remember thinking to myself that I’m really happy my parents took us to all those swimming lessons. I had rode the bike course prior to the race twice, one of the times we did it was Memorial Day, which was equally hot and windy as it was on race day, so no surprises for me there. It was awesome to have the volunteers give us water at the three checkpoints. I mainly sprayed it on myself to keep cool. I was wearing my Camelbak so I had plenty of hydration on me. 

The run. I ended up walking more than I care to admit, and I truly don’t feel accomplished on the run section because I walked/ran so slowly. I started to feel a little queasy in the stomach prior to getting off the bike and had a feeling my run was not going to be an enjoyable experience. I had a towel with me that I dipped in the kiddy pools full of ice water, that was the ticket right there. It helped a lot, however it seemed like it was forever until I could get to the next aid station to do it again. The volunteers again were awesome on this portion, spraying us with hoses and giving us ice. I want to write them all thank you notes!

Sara’s advice to triathletes considering a Forerunner 910XT for swim features:
For a triathlete, I feel this watch is pretty awesome. One of the best features of this watch is having the two alerts (time and distance). Most triathletes have a distance or time goal in mind when they swim. This watch allows you to pre-set an alert to vibrate at either a specific time or distance interval. The vibration feature is much superior to a beep or key tone alert. When you’re wearing a swim cap and you’re underwater, everything is muffled.

The display is big enough that I can read the watch while I’m doing a flip turn to see what distance I’m on, which is awesome, especially when swimming more than 200 yards at a time, (it’s easy to daydream). It has a backlight that lights up every time you press lap for added readability while swimming. It has a whole slew of data fields to choose from; I default mine to three. I use interval distance as the largest field on top for easy readability while swimming, the bottom two data fields or interval time and total distance.

If you are a data freak as most people who buy our products are, the 910XT uploads to Garmin Connect wirelessly and you can keep track of your data that way.

The post Garmin Triathlete Sara Spann reflects on Ironman 70.3 Kansas appeared first on Garmin Blog.