Mid Summer Olympic Distance Triathlon:

This race was one of the races I was looking forward to for a couple of reasons. One, was that I was finally had a realistic chance of breaking 2 hours in an Olympic distance Triathlon. Two, it was going to be my last race of the season because I injured my right hip flexor about a month ago, and know that I needed to let it heal, instead of continuing on and trying to push through it. The hip was somewhat bothering me but then after Lake Stevens 70.3 it has been more serious.

Unfortunately for the first time of the races history they had to cancel the swim due to a algae bloom in the water. This information was sent to us just one day before the race. It was decided that it would be a 5k run, 40k bike, and 5k run. Then, the night before the race they changed the distance once again to a one mile run, 40k bike, and 10k run.

My goal was to go hard but not kill myself for the 1st mile and put in a solid bike, and run everyone that I needed to down on the 10k run to win. Looking at the field I thought I would probably be in 2nd or 3rd position at the start of the 10k run. Uber biker Dave Gettle was there, and I knew he would be heading out on the run first but would not be a factor for the overall win. I saw Tim Dodson there, who i knew was both a solid runner and biker. I knew I could put some time on him on the 10k portion but thought we would be pretty equal on the bike.

I did my usual warm up before a run race, which I haven't had to do in a long time. I did a few strides, and waited for the gun to go off. I found myself in the lead at the start of the run, and held that position for the first half mile. Then two runners past me at once, Tim Dodson and Francisco Mayo. Both of whom are in the Masters division. I decided that I wouldn't be putting much time on them if I took off so I just decided to stay right behind them for the remainder of the run. I entered T1 in 3rd position with a slow transition from a bit higher heart rate then I usually have in a triathlon. While running out of transition with my bike I noticed that my aero bottle was falling off my bike. Instead of risking loosing an expensive aero bottle I saw my gf Christine and tossed her the bottle. The downside to this was I was not going to have anything to drink on the bike leg.

The bike leg was a train wreck. I had no power due to my week injured hip flexor (So I hope that was the reason!) I constantly got passed and I saw race contenders Tim Dodson and David Garcia get further and further away. Each time I tried to pedal with a harder gear my rpm's dropped significantly and my legs would fatigue. I just had no power. I had to make due pushing an easy gear at a very high RPM and hope that I would still have running legs to make up the time that I significantly lost.

Once I got on the run I was in 8th position. Christine told me I was 5 minutes back from Gettle, who was in 1st. I knew that Tim Dodson, who was in 2nd position at the start of the run was probably going to be the biggest factor, but I was not sure if I could make a full five minutes up on Gettle in only a 10k. Once I got on the run I started to get my running legs back but felt the weakness in my right hip flexor. I didn't seem too tired, or dehydrated even though I did not have an ounce of fluid during the 40k bike. My legs felt light and I felt strong, other then a little tightness in my hip flexor. I didn't seem to bother me as much as it did on the bike though. I steadily started to pass slower runners and by the turn around I knew that I had made time up on everyone but knew there was no way I was going to pass Tim Dodson. He was going to win, but at the turn around point David Gettle and David Garcia were within reach. I started to push a bit harder and made up more time. At about the 4.5 mile mark I finally reached Gettle, which put me in 3rd position. I glued my eyes on Garcia's rear end, and hoped that I could find an extra gear to catch him by the end of the race. Once I got out of the bike path and saw Garcia up the road, knowing there was less then a mile left and he was looking strong, I gave up hope. I tried to keep my cadence, and once I hit the park I actually started to run even faster. I ended up placing 3rd overall, only 21 seconds behind Garcia, and over 2:30 ahead of Gettle.




Overall I was happy with my performance and it was a good race to end the season on. I was hoping go out with a win, but today just wasn't my day. I am looking forward to taking a break and letting my hip heal so I can come back stronger then ever, and have an amazing 2014 season.

Thanks for reading and good luck with the rest of your races!