Steelhead, which is one of my favorite races, was unfortunately turned into a TT start on the bike just like New Orleans 70.3 was this year.
I arrived on Friday afternoon to make sure I would be able to hop in Lake Michigan to get in a little open water swim in my wetsuit. I did a nice and easy 25 minute swim and then met up with my homestay before heading to down town St. Joseph to grab some dinner with Nick Waninger and his friend. The swim seemed a little choppy, but nothing that seemed to hint at the fact that the swim might be cancelled.
Saturday morning, Nick gave me a call and we met up to go for a little bike/run warmup before going to grab some lunch with Eric, Beth, and Jamie at Panera. We heard a little talk going around that there were rip current warnings for Lake Michigan and that the swim was looking very doubtful for Sunday's race. Later in the day at the Pro meeting, they told us more of the same and that if the swim was cancelled, we would start in TT order on the bike in reverse order of our race numbers. After the meeting, I hit up a blueberry farm with my dad and brother, who were in Michigan for work and just stuck around to watch me race, and bought 5 pounds of blueberries and one of the best blueberry scones I've ever eaten.
After a good dinner at Chili's with Dad, Ben, Jamie, Eric, and Beth, I went to my homestay's, got everything set out for the morning, and was off to bed.
Sunday morning actually seemed kind of calm when I woke up but I guess it was the calm before the storm. When I arrived at the transition area, the Lake looked like a washing machine and the winds were howling. They had already cancelled the swim when I got there at 5:30. So, instead of setting up my transition area and then walking 1 mile down the beach to the race start, I just hung out with the other pros that arrived WAY too early for the TT start from the transition area. At 7:15, the first pro was off. Since I was #12, I had a little while before I was to start since there were 39 guys on the start list.
Somewhere around 7:25, I was sent off. I had a few guys up the road that I was aiming to catch pretty fast, but with the wind direction, I knew I shouldn't push too hard too early because we had a head wind for the first 10 or so miles. But I knew this meant we would have a tail wind for the last 15 miles of the ride. About 12 miles into the ride, Daniel Bretscher caught me who started 30 seconds behind me. When he passed, I bumped my wattage up 5 - 10 watts and kept him close without drafting. I passed him back and shortly afterwards Chris Legh and Zack Ruble both passed me. Again, I bumped up my effort to keep them close, which I was able to do. We passed a few guys over the next 10 - 20 miles and a few of those guys jumped in and started to ride "a little close." Before we knew it, we were in a group of 8 or so guys. Chris Legh was the strongest cyclist in the group and was pushing the pace up until 35 miles or so. He actually gapped the group several times, only to have one guy chase him down and bring the rest of the group with him. I made sure to ride at a legal distance behind the guy in front of me, and I would pass them when I felt they were slowing so that I could push the pace. I never knew when an official was going to ride by us so I made sure to keep my distance. After catching some more guys, and having a group of almost 15 or so coming into T2. I was off my bike, had a good transition, and was off on the run. Here is my Garmin file for the bike.
Once on the run, I came out just behind Chris Legh and I was wearing my Garmin 310Xt for the first time in a 70.3 race so I made sure to pace myself instead of going out too hard. I was also wearing my HR monitor so I made sure to keep that in check on the hills. I ran a good pace for the first few miles but let Legh get a little up the road. I was running with Bretscher and Jeff Paul for a few miles before Paul fell off. Bretscher and I ran side by side and really pushed each other. It took us a few miles before we were able to reel in Legh but we held about the same pace for most of the run. Right around the 9.5 - 10 mile mark, Bretscher put a little gap on me and I wasn't able to answer. Legh then pulled away a little but nothing significant. It stayed that way for the rest of the run and that is how we crossed the finish line. Unfortunately, they both started behind me so I knew they had beaten me by more than just that small distance between us at the finish. And there were also some guys that started minutes behind me that crossed the line within seconds of me, so I was just hoping to finish inside the top 8. Here is the Garmin file from the run.
My dad and brother weren't far from the finish and my bro had his iphone with the results pulled up. I quickly saw that I biked a 2:06 and change and ran a 1:15 and change, but that only got me 12th place. I was extremely happy with the effort as I averaged over 300 watts for the first time in a 70.3 and also ran my best 13.1 miles off the bike. There were some fantastic finishes by some of the guys that beat me and congrats to all who participated. Beth, Eric, Jamie, and our Master's swim coach Meagan all had fabulous races and no doubt would have finished even better if there were a swim.
Now I'm back to training and working on my normal schedule. My next "big" race is the Rev3 South Carolina race and I'm not exactly sure what is next up. Thanks for reading.
Tony
No comments:
Post a Comment