Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Don't Bring a Knife To A Gun Fight in Texas


I like racing Austin 70.3.  This was the third year in which I decided to end the racing season with a jaunt through the rolling hills of Central Texas.  It's a beautiful place in its own way.  

 This was the only sticker I could find the day before the race to smooth out the crack in the earpiece.  An odd coincidence. 





As an aside, "Go Pro" isn't a good description of what I've done because it's not like I get to flip a switch.  What I get is an honest reckoning of my abilities as a triathlete and the chance to race with the best in the world.  Last Sunday I would describe Going Pro as exchanging a walk across the stage for a beat-down.

I actually lined up as a Pro for the first time at Leadman EPIC 250 in Bend in late September.  It was touch and go for two weeks as I had to replace a cracked form on my SpeedConcept but KC and TREKHP.com made sure I had the new fork just in time.  

 Pretty amazing work on their end and a poor wrenching job it turns out on mine.  My shifter broke not long into the ride but the swim was just really a disaster with a missed buoy that I went back for and then some issues sighting and staying on course.  The biggest mistake, though was lining up behind the fastest swimmers in a small field.  Pretty disappointing debut.

So, my race plan for Ironman Austin 70.3 was to avoid those mistakes and then ride hard and run as fast as possible.  It's hard to tell who's who in the morning fog but I knew I wasn't behind the fastest guys like Potts, Rhodes, and Marsh.  I ended up on Patrick Evoe's feet and I didn't let them go for 28:30.  That was just about as hard as I could swim on the day.  There was a bigger group ahead that swam around 28:00.  Aside from improved swim fitness, I need a better start and first 300m to swim with those athletes in the 28 minute group.  

I made my way through T1 as fast as I could.  I would skip the arm warmers if I had to do it over or put them on during the ride.

Instead of passing somewhere around 500 athletes in the first 25 miles of the bike like I did last year at this race, I think I passed five.  Around mile 35 or so I was catching two athletes and I let them yo-yo out there in front of me about 50 seconds up the road for too long and I should have just finished the job.  I ended up catching Nick Thompson but Thomas Gerlach surged a little and I didn't see him for the rest of the ride.  It's always a little easier to try and catch people or hold their pace than it is to race a ghost and there's also a big draft behind one or two athletes going 28mph even at 10-15 meters.  Anyway, the last 10 miles of the ride kind of drags on during the otherwise beautiful course and that's about the only part of the race that didn't fly by.  I rode 2:16 high.  

T2 and a bathroom stop later and I was out onto the run. I started running pretty well right out of T2 and held on to 6:20 pace for the entire run which is about 1:23:00.  I didn't take any risks on the day and I ran down the chute in 16th place. 

Other guys took the run out hard--much harder than I did and they tried to hold on instead of going out steady and a little conservative and trying to change gears.  My conservative strategy wasn't a winning strategy and I probably ran slower because of it.

10th was an achievable goal without some wasted time in T2 a little surge on the bike and taking a little risk on the run.  I can't remember being in a race with that many guys 30 seconds to a minute apart and that's what's thrilling about racing in the professional field. Conceding, of course, that it's much easier to say all this now that the race is behind me and certainly being in front of those guys would create a different dynamic.

It's also pretty easy to measure success racing as a Pro, you get up on stage at the awards ceremony (success) or you pack up your things and go.  There wasn't an enormous difference between 16th and 10th but there was between me and 5th place, the last podium spot.
On Monday I found a hammock after a late lunch at The Salt Lick in Hill Country.  Hammocks have made their way into many a blog entry--usually to illustrate that it's time to relax or time to rest and begin the off-season or whatever...As a I looked through the branches into a steel blue Texas sky I wasn't contemplating any of those, I was instead thinking about what Paulo wrote: "to race at this level, you will need to step up."

Indeed.  I need a bigger gun.

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