Bandits Challenge

Just got back from a great weekend of racing and training up in the mountains of North Carolina. On Saturday, I raced the Bandits Challenge Triathlon up in Wilkesboro, NC. This race is often regarded as one of the toughest international distance tri's in the country for its challenging bike course and leg breaking hills on the run. The run in particular has a hill that about 90% of the field end up walking due to how steep it is.

Going into the race, I was not sure how things were going to go. I felt ok, but definitely had some fatigue from the last few weeks of training. Getting in on the swim, I felt smooth, but not very powerful. I still came out of the water first, with my buddy Dave Sokolofsky on my heels and the next closest guy about a minute back. Once I got on the bike though I started to feel a lot better. I managed to lop off 3 minutes from my bike split from last year, and came into t2 only 30 seconds down from Dave. I had worked pretty hard on the bike to try and maintain my lead, so I was a little worried about how my legs would feel once I got off and running. Much to my delight, my legs felt pretty good, and I was able to start turning over a very fast clip. I passed Dave within the first mile and held my lead to the end. I ended up taking the victory by over two and a half minutes and breaking the course record by over a minute. Dave was eventually passed by fellow Wilmington triathlete Tom Clifford, who came in second, while Dave held on for third. Overall, a great day for Wilmington triathlete's, sweeping the top 3 spots at the hilliest triathlon in North Carolina

The day after the race, me, Tom, and a couple guys hung around to ride some mountains for training. We ended up riding the 3 Mountain Madness course in Winston-Salem. Although I was tired and pretty broken down, I still managed to put in three and a half hours of quality mountain riding.

The training we did yesterday combined with the race on Saturday gives me an enormous amount of confidence heading into Nationals in 2 weeks. I was not rested for this weekend, so I'm very excited to see how I feel when I taper down.