About two weeks ago, three people emailed one weekend to make sure I was ok after I hadn't posted on twitter/facebook/blog or anything for a while. This made me realize that I have so many great friends I have made doing endurance sports and it's been a long time since I've been online and posted anything.
To those that were concerned, thank you, I appreciate your messages. I'm 100% fine, actually I'm really good. There have just been other things in my life that required my attention and triathlon took a back seat for a little while. We sold our house which was a challenge having a two year old and me working at home the majority of the time. Then we found a new house but couldn't move for a few days and then had some projects we had to do. We are thrilled with the new house and very fortunate we could sell our old house and move, but it was very stressful and time consuming. At the same time I took on more responsibility at work and have been working long hours for a while now. Anyway, that all meant that I had to miss some workouts and I had zero time for being on facebook/slowtwitch/etc. I ended up missing two races in May due to moving which made Leon's Tri my first real race of the year.
Swim 20:27 – I started the swim wide and just wanted to have a solid swim to measure my fitness. The swim felt awesome. I was never once breathing hard and out in no time. I'm sure the course was a bit short as I went 20:27, but it felt and looked the same as last year and I went about a full minute faster. The biggest difference is last year I came out of the water exhausted and swam really hard, this year it felt like a warm up. I believe I was in about 15th overall after the swim and I had the 36th fastest swim of the day…. very unusual for me. All the swimming over the winter is paying off.
Bike 1:00:04 – Last year I crushed the bike and made up a ton of ground, but then fell apart on the run. So this year I held back and really focused on just relaxing and taking in some nutrition for the first half. Then in the second half I tried to ride a little harder but my legs weren't feeling it, so I backed down. I ended up holding 5 watts less than last year and came into T2 in 7th (compared to 3rd last year.
To those that were concerned, thank you, I appreciate your messages. I'm 100% fine, actually I'm really good. There have just been other things in my life that required my attention and triathlon took a back seat for a little while. We sold our house which was a challenge having a two year old and me working at home the majority of the time. Then we found a new house but couldn't move for a few days and then had some projects we had to do. We are thrilled with the new house and very fortunate we could sell our old house and move, but it was very stressful and time consuming. At the same time I took on more responsibility at work and have been working long hours for a while now. Anyway, that all meant that I had to miss some workouts and I had zero time for being on facebook/slowtwitch/etc. I ended up missing two races in May due to moving which made Leon's Tri my first real race of the year.
Swim 20:27 – I started the swim wide and just wanted to have a solid swim to measure my fitness. The swim felt awesome. I was never once breathing hard and out in no time. I'm sure the course was a bit short as I went 20:27, but it felt and looked the same as last year and I went about a full minute faster. The biggest difference is last year I came out of the water exhausted and swam really hard, this year it felt like a warm up. I believe I was in about 15th overall after the swim and I had the 36th fastest swim of the day…. very unusual for me. All the swimming over the winter is paying off.
Bike 1:00:04 – Last year I crushed the bike and made up a ton of ground, but then fell apart on the run. So this year I held back and really focused on just relaxing and taking in some nutrition for the first half. Then in the second half I tried to ride a little harder but my legs weren't feeling it, so I backed down. I ended up holding 5 watts less than last year and came into T2 in 7th (compared to 3rd last year.
Run 36:50 – I felt pretty good leaving T2 but just like on the bike my legs just weren't there today. This has happened before and usually they just need a mile to get going, so I figured if I just held on and didn't force it I would be able to speed up. Well, my legs never felt better and I never picked up the pace. The good news is, I never felt worse and never slowed down either. It was kind of strange because I felt like I could have held the same pace for 13.1 miles, but I just couldn't speed up at all.
2:00:01 – 9th overall
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this race, but now that it is over, I guess it turned out exactly like I should have expected. My weakness has always been and is still the swim. Over the winter I focused on swimming and swam much more than ever before while riding/running a little less. That seems to have paid off because I swam faster and felt better than ever coming out of the water. Both my bike and run were just a little slower that I would have liked/expected, but it's the first race of the season and I still have a few months to get them back.
Overall, it was uneventful but great start to the season. I had absolutely zero issues with gear/nutrition/pacing/anything and was in full control of my race the entire time. To make the day even better I raced on a team with a few of my Zoot Ultra Tri Team teammates and we won the Co-Ed team challenge.
The highlight of the day had to be when my two year old daughter got body marked before the race, told me she was going to show me how to swim, and then was waiting for me at the finish line to run with me. As usual thank you to Theresa and Abigail for supporting all of my training and racing, and to Zoot and our Ultra team sponsors. On that note, I had the opportunity to race in the Zoot Kiawe. For about 3 years now, I've felt the Ultra Race 2.0 were the best Zoot shoes ever made, but the Kiawe is very quickly changing my mind. If you are look for a light weight race shoe for tri's, definitely take a look at the Kiawe.
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