The 3rd time was definitely a charm for me. After cracking in both Wildflower and High Clif half ironman races, the run finally came through for me in Racine this past weekend. A short swim, overcast skies and 70 degree temps definitely helped, but I was very happy and surprised with my overall time and especially my run.
I love racing, and it was great to see all my team mates out there (go Wisconsin Multisport!), but I found the race itself a bit disappointing. My swimming has been coming along really well, and although I felt great in the water I knew the course was short as I stood upon the beach in 23:28. I’m not quite sure what my ‘real’ swim time would have been, but I was very happy to only be losing 2 minutes on guys who normally put 4-5 on me.
The bike course was held on horrible roads and the drafting was nuts. I hate to badmouth other triathletes but I just couldn’t help myself as I ‘praised’ (I did so politely at least!) several cyclists on their team time trialing abilities. “Fuck you” was the typical response, further proof that the truth really does hurt. Luckily, by 30 or so miles I was able to mosey up the road and escape the madness of the masses. With the exception of the casualty of my PowerBar gel flask, which was ejected from my singlet pocket around mile 45 due to the never-ending bumps in the road, the rest of the bike was uneventful.
The plan for the run was to go 1:27, but I found myself doing 6:30’s comfortably out of the gate so I decided to hold it there. I wasn’t sure if I was digging my own grave but it felt good and I was making up a bit of ground on the folks in front of me. At 8 I began to pick it up and felt great until Flayter told me someone was “chasing me hard” at 12. I didn’t want to give up a place so close to the line so I drilled the final mile, cursing Flayter’s name the whole way. Of course, there ended up being no one within 2 minutes, but I had a feeling that might be the case!!
Overall a great day, and a big thanks to Roy, Rick and Mike for the support while on course. It was also great to see Bennett, Kim and Barry have great races!
Until next weekend…
Final Stats
4:07:55 overall time
S 23:28
B 2:17:48 / 24.4 MPH / 289 W Avg.
R 1:23:31 / 6:23 MM Avg.
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