Not the race I wanted, but it ended on a good note. For whatever reason, I just didn't seem to be firing on all cylinders on Sunday. After a subpar swim to start the day, I got on the bike and it felt like I was already in the middle of an Ironman. I just lacked that freshness that I usually feel at the start of a race. Nevertheless, I rolled on hoping to warm into the day. Things never really improved and somewhere between miles 30-35 I realized my front tire was flat. I stopped and pulled the wheel off to find a tack/nail in the tire. I changed the tire and got back on the road. At this point I was probably the last male pro on the bike course or at least very close to that. I rolled along at an easy effort for a little while and decided that I would try to get something out the rest of the day. I decided that I would ride 4:30 as hard as I could followed by 30 seconds easy (we had a cross/tail wind now so I could float a little) all the way back to T2.

This gave me something to work with and I rolled the last 15+ miles of the course following this pattern. I got into T2 and changed into my running gear. I had planned to just run a steady pace and finish off the day.

I started running and I actually felt ok which was the polar opposite to how I felt at the beginning of the swim and bike. I took a split and saw I was running a little faster than 6:00/mile and it seemed like trying to hold this pace to the finish would be a good challenge to end the day.

I managed to do just that and even though I didn't catch very many people, it still felt good to feel like I was racing again.

This brings my four week racing block to a close. I got some nice experience out of the three races and I definitely think I can take what I learned into Ironman Texas. Now its time to start training again and move my fitness up before May 21st.

until later,