Twin Cities Rocked

I was really interested to see how this race would play out. I was unsure of how the fast swim and hilly course would effect everyone. Given the start roster I figured that Ryan Giuliano would win, Patrick would take second and I even had Matt edging out Devon. I was pleasantly surprised to see Patrick take it rather easily. Devon ended up edging out Matt but that could have been a different story if not for Matt's timing chip falling off three times. Although you never now how it will play out if everything goes perfect. Then Ryan coming in 4th. Given his talent I'm guessing he trained through the race or flat out exhausted himself on the swim.

I was leaning towards coming in 6th figuring Josh Blankenheim would catch me on the run again. Although David Holden and Brett Lovaas were wild cards. In fact I had no idea how 5th through 8th would turn out. I also hated how bad last weekend hurt and did not want a repeat performance of exploding on the run.

In order to beat Josh I knew two things needed to happen. One, I needed a huge lead out of the water. Two, I needed to be fresh on the run and put together a solid run split. In order to do that I wanted to not push quite as hard on the bike hoping to save the legs some.

One issue that came up last minute was the Sheriff's department wouldn't let us do a Elite Wave start so we had to do time trail style. This gave Josh an advantage since he could jump in the time trial start right behind me. Josh is not quite as good of a swimmer but could jump in behind me a use me as a draft. The bonus for me was the water was too warm for wetsuits to be worn.

The swim started great. Since we couldn't warm up I did a few push ups prior to jumping in to get the blood flowing to the upper body a little. I knew Josh was right behind me but I didn't want to push too hard too soon since we hadn't warmed up. The strategy worked perfect. I found my form for the first few hundred yards when all of a sudden it felt like, yeah, there it is, repeat. I started hitting it hard but never felt like I was even pushing hard. For the most part it felt effortless. The good news was I dropped Josh and then some as I came out of the water with over an minute and a half lead on him. On top of that I came out right behind Patrick, Matt and Brendon O'flannigan. Patrick and I are even but Matt and Brendon usual blow me up pretty good.

For T1 I left my shoes in since there was a little bit of an incline to start and then a short flat until Ohio Hill. I knew I needed to build speed as much as possible prior to the hill. I took Ohio very cautiously so I didn't blow up right away and stayed in my seat. I then kept a rather fast casual pace. I never overly did it but also kept pedaling hard. I felt like it was more of a Half Ironman Pace than Olympic pace when it was all said and done. I came into transition with Ryan Giuliano and knew he was going to outrun me. As soon as I started running I knew it was going to be more comfortable than last weekend. My legs felt pretty fresh and my stride was long. I kept it conservative up the Wabasha bridge and down the back side on to Shepard Rd. Once on the relatively flat Shepard I started pushing a little harder. Just after the Turn around Josh was almost exactly a quarter mile behind me. I figured I had about 1:25ish on him. Although I thought he would catch me I didn't panic but picked up the pace a touch and then started to increase it as I felt more and more comfortable. I took the hill back up to the Wabasha bridge a little harder but never blew up. On the way down I had to find a clean stride and push hard to the end. As I made a left turn loop I looked to see if Josh was behind me. I was shocked to see he was not within short sight of me. At this point I had a ton left in the tank, felt fantastic and was able hold a fast pace for the final stretch to the finish.

This race had to go down as one of my best races. I put together a great three leg race and felt like I could have kept going. At the end I was thinking that I could hold close to this pace for a Half Ironman. I still need to work on my run but I felt like my form was good through the hole 10k. Now I just need to increase the speed. Now I have a few weeks off to work on the run before Turtleman Duathlon.