After my ordeal at the Dallas PanAm Champs, I was taken back
to Santa Cruz for some recovery time. It was awesome spending time with my
family and recovering with my girlfriend Katie Hursey as she was dealing with an
Achilles injury. We ended up getting an opportunity to live and train in
Boulder, CO until we were both back on track, and it has been amazing! We are
both back to full health and training full time and ready to finish off the
season strong.
My coach Joel Filliol and I decided it would be beneficial to
race the Tri SC because it was a low key, non draft, hometown race that had a
nice little Elite prize purse. Since this was going to be my first race back
after my seizures, it was a great way to kick things off to prove to my parents,
my girlfriend, my coach, USA Triathlon, and myself that everything was truly
back to normal. I didn’t have too high of expectations leading into this race,
but what I really wanted to do was run a legit 31:40 off the bike.
This was an easy trip to make with a direct flight and my TT
bike already being in Santa Cruz at Family Cycling Center. Thanks to all the
guys at the shop (and a front wheel from Bevan Docherty) my race machine was
already dialed in when I got home.
The Race:
The swim was actually pretty warm for the pacific ocean, but it didn’t matter too much as the buoys were set much to close. I wore my garmin the whole race so I could have some numbers to show afterward, and wasn’t surprised when my watch said 12:53 after exiting the two-lap “1500m” swim.
The swim was actually pretty warm for the pacific ocean, but it didn’t matter too much as the buoys were set much to close. I wore my garmin the whole race so I could have some numbers to show afterward, and wasn’t surprised when my watch said 12:53 after exiting the two-lap “1500m” swim.
The run to transition is a significant barefoot barge, and
so after T1 when I got on the bike I had about 1:20 gap to the next athletes.
Once on the bike I just went for it. I tried to hold my cadence about 98-100
the whole time and had a goal time in mind (since I didn’t have power). The
bike was 37k, a little short, but I finished in 52:06 which was just under
three minutes faster than my previous best on this exact course!
Once I hit the run it was truly game time. I had my goal in
mind (3:10k pace) and did my best to stick to it. The course has a sharp 100m
hill just out of transition, and dodging other athletes and casual cruisers
along the open path made it a bit harder to keep on pace, but I was pleasantly
surprised when I hit the 5k turn around (also exactly 5k on my garmin) at 15:50. It’s slightly uphill going out, so I
knew after the turn around it would be a bit easier to even split the last 5k and
I would be able to nail my goal time. I brought it home nice and strong and crossed
the line in total time of 1:39.16 and when I looked at my garmin was stoked to
see 31:41!
Not only was it an awesome first race back, but my parents,
my friend Jason, and my sister (among others) all came out to watch! Even
though this is my 5th year as a professional, this was the first
race my sister has ever seen me compete in.
Next up is Kelowna PanAM cup in Canada, time to start
racking up those ITU points again!
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