Pushing off the dock for finals.
Colleen and myself after the races.
I'd had a few good workouts leading up to the race so I was confident that while it may not be a PR type race things would go smoothly and it would be a fun no pressure race to see where things sat on the short course front.
The day and course promised to be tough: it was HOT and humid out, around 80 when the race started, and already windy. The dead flat course is misleading as the wind and sun can really take their toll if you are not careful.
The swim went amazingly well and as always my Xterra Vendetta helped me along to the fastest swim split of the day. I really cannot say enough good things about this suit.
Out quickly onto the bike in first i took the first few minutes of the race to settle down and then started pushing, knowing the guys behind me would be coming up fast. Somehow I managed to hold off 2nd place until right before the end of the bike. With around 2 miles to go he went by and I did my best to hang on. By the time the run started he had opened up a gap of around 20 seconds and would lead from there until about 1.3 miles into the run. At that point I slowly worked my way past him and then upped the pace to try and open up a gap. after 2 minutes of pushing, I turned back to see it had worked and Jasper had fallen off the pace. I knew he was hurting as he is normally a very strong runner, but the heat was getting worse and it would only be a matter of time before i started feeling it as well.
The run back from the turn around was hot and windy, and very painful, but rather uneventful. I was alone or running back by runners heading out the whole way. By this point it really felt like running next to a blast furnace, everything was cooking.
Rounding the last curve and heading into the finishing shoot I took a quick look at my watch and a huge grin spread over my face. Not only was a I walking away with my first overall win in this distance, but a huge PR of 7 minutes.
A huge thanks to Zoot, Nuun, Xterra, and Gu for all their help.
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