Clearlake 101 race
I was finally able to put together a proper race. I haven't raced smart this year until this weekend. My confidence has been shaken since Kona last year.
Going into the Clearlake 101, I only had a few goals in this order:
-Finish without walking, like the Bradenton 101
-Place not as the last pro
-Place above the first amateur
Two days before I flew out to CA, my home-stay fell through. I was flying 3000 miles with no where to sleep. The day before I left, I was blessed to be set up with the most incredible family - a set of retired grandparents and 4 granddaughters. They are God-fearing folks who went way out of their way to take care of me. By the end of the week, I was "Mister Sister" the older brother to the girls. I'm only now flying home and already miss my new family.
I recon'd the course in the days before the race and was really intimidated by how tough the run course was - steep up and down for almost the entire course. My race plan was to ride very conservatively, hope that a few athletes were underestimating the run course, and then use fresh legs to make progress on the run.
I put in a good block of swim training since the Bradenton race (had an embarrassingly slow swim) and was expecting to come out of the water a little closer to the leaders. Much to my chagrin, I actually came out of the water even further down despite having swum at a higher effort. My bike was the last off of the male pro rack - yeesh.
The bike course wasn't particularly hard, but a little wind, a few hills, and some really bad pavement kept everyone's pace quite a bit slower. The pavement was so rough that I hit one bad patch that left me with a broken armrest with about half of the course to ride. With a little craning of the shoulder and arm, I was able to still ride pretty relaxed.
I came off of the bike in 9th and was hoping that my plan would work and I would run past maybe two athletes and into a paying place a.k.a. "in the money." One athlete did end up dropping due to a breathing problem, but no one cracked as I had planned. These guys are just really experienced. I hit my nutrition just right through the bike and was able to eat and drink all that I could want through the run. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect.
My average speed on the bike and run were pretty slow. But, looking at the difficulty of the course, I'm happy. In fact, I only finished 20-25 minutes faster than my disaster race in Bradenton and consider this race a success.
I met all three of my goals listed above. I really needed to validate my choice to race as a professional this year - for my own confidence and to show my wife that I may just stand a chance at making it. She sacrifices a lot so that I can train and race.
I love having the opportunity to thank God, Melanie, my family (old and new), and my great sponsors: Premiere Sports Travel - the name says it all (sportstravel.com), 2XU - performance clothing and wetsuits (2XU.com), Synaptis - customized learning solutions (synaptis.com), and Inside-Out Sports - the greatest tri store (insideoutsports.com).
Thanks to Tractor for the sweet helmet!
