The week that was

Of course the week was dominated by my race at IM California 70.3. As a consequence of the taper my volume was down:

4500 yards swimming
144 miles on the bike
24 miles running
13 hours of training/racing

As to the race itself, I'll post a formal race report in a couple of days but here are the highlights:

I had 207 people entered in my AG with 1 slot available--realistically i had no chance of getting this (in fact the winner of my AG slot did a 4:30--on a very difficult bike course). As you know I was also entered in the XC competition. In this competition there were 6 guys entered for 2 slots. As i looked at the field, I was the 5th oldest and probably the 4th fastest. One of the competitors was Paul Gompers who is currently the American junior record holder for the marathon (2:15 at age 19), a former US Olympic Team member and a guy who did a 4:10 at clearwater last year. As luck would have it though, the split was made at 50 years and I ended up only having to beat one other executive. Preston is a great triathlete but at 65 years of age, I figured I had a surplus of relative fitness and a tremendous opportunity to get a Kona slot. As a result, I decided to follow a very conservative race strategy.

I started wide on the swim and stayed there--swimming a longer route but avoiding most opportunities for contact from other swimmers. I felt fantastic on the swim and frankly just cruised it at about 90% of my normal effort. I finished in 33:07 which is just a little shy of my best Half-IM swim PB. I know i can go at least 1.5-2 minutes faster and I hope to prove that at NOLA in three weeks. In any event I put 10 minutes on Preston and added another 2 in T1. I didn't know this as my wave was before his but with a 33 my scouting of Preston's prior races led me to believe that I had about a 10 minute lead heading onto the bike.

I set up my TT bike very conservatively. I went with my 404/808 training clincher wheel set as a precaution against a tubular flat and the risks associated with that. I brought 3 spare tubes, 3 CO2 cartidges, a spare tire, several bike tools. I'm sure this set-up cost me 3-5 minutes versus my normal set-up but I didn't care as my motto for the ride was "No Drama". I rode conservatively, especially on all of the climbs and descents. It was quite windy in places and certainly a challenging course. I felt great and ended up with a 2:44 bike split which was probably about 10 minutes slower than I was capable of it. Despite this conservative approach my lead grew to almost 20 minutes heading out of T2. Anders cautioned me to run conservatively which of-course was the plan anyways. I figured, after hearing about my T1 lead that I was ahead by 20-30 minutes heading out for the run.

I cruised the first half of the run at about a 1:52 pace--this is my basic easy long-run training pace. I felt great and really enjoyed the sights and sounds even though it was quite hot. I tired and slowed towards the end--probably a function of my limited bike training to date, even though I was taking it easy, as I became quite dehydrated. None the less I averaged 9 minute miles for a 1:58 and change and ended up with a slow 5:22 but most importantly a solid 33 minute victory and the Kona slot.

Both Paul and Preston managed to snag their AG slots (Paul won 45-49 with a 4:27) so it was a good day for the XCers.

As i mentioned above, I'll post a detailed RR in a few days.