Austin 70.3 Quick Summary

I hope to have time to do a full racereport this weekend. I should have some good pics to add to the report at that point, but for now I'll just check in with a quick summary.

So I missed a PR by about 3 minutes, and really wanted to crack the 5:30 mark in this race, and I think I was prepared to do so. However the 5:30 mark came and went and I was still about a half mile from the finish line. I think I realized my goal wasn't going to come to fruition about 45 minutes before the race came to an end for me. It is quite odd to know that you have in this case 40 minutes to achieve your goal, and knowing that under normal circumstances (ie a training run) that covering the ground needed to finish in 40 minutes would be a piece of cake, but not being able to will yourself to achieve it. I tried and based on how torn up my legs felt then and now 2 days later, I know I did all I could at that moment. Unfortunately the damage was already done.

The long and short of it is that I had a good swim, though probably burnt one or two matches trying to fight through a group that went out fast but then slowed and around earlier waves of swimmers. I probably went out a little too hot on the bike, had a mechanical issue at mile 15 that twisted my chain and caused ghost shifting in my rear derailluer on every chain revolution for the remaining 41 miles on the bike. Still managed a good bike split (within 1 min of my PR at Florida) though I burnt too many matches on the bike, and I hit the run more fatigued than I had hoped. The speed and rythm were good on the flats and the downhills, but the uphills that I was running in the first loop of the run were taking a lot out of me and I wasn't recovering in between them. so for the 4th out of 4 70.3s, I did some walking, which is something I really wanted to avoid. I still had a run PR of about 2 mins, but I know I can run better, and hoped it would show.

Still, I think this was one of my better races, and is certainly something to build off of. Look for more next weekend.