After a brief hiatus, I am back online. Really going to try and keep up with this thing.
St. Anthony’s is a race I look forward to every year. It was my first pro race four years ago, and I have done it every year since. The flat fast course suits me well and I always seem to have a good race. Unfortunately, this year, due to rough water conditions, the swim had to be relocated and shortened. I still had a great race, and beat my best bike split on this course by about 1 minute. Though, it sucks when you get passed by guys knowing that you usually have a 2 min lead on them out of the water in a normal swim and only had about 30-40 seconds on them with the abbreviated course.
They had told us at the pro meeting that the course change was a possibility, but that they would still try to maintain a 1.5k swim course for the pro’s. However, on race morning we got the word that the course had been changed to a roughly 1k swim to the north of the transition. I would say that given our times, the 50 meter run in, and the ~200 meter run out of the water to the timing mats, that we maybe did about 800 meters of actual swimming. Following the long run out of the water we had about a half mile long run on the concrete sidewalk to get to transition. I was running at a good clip, and my T2 time was still over 3 minutes! A few athletes cut their feet up pretty bad running on the sidewalk. I had a few pieces of skin missing, but nothing major.
On to the bike course, I almost screwed up real bad in the first few hundred yards. Coming out of transition, there is a nasty stretch of road made entirely of brick pavers (think Paris Roubaix on a tri bike). I only carry one water bottle when I am doing an Olympic distance race, which I mount in between my aerobars. I hit a few rough patches right off the bat and my water bottle bounced out of the cage. I caught it with my left hand just as it rolled off my aerobars! Had I dropped it and not recovered it, not only would I not have my sports drink, but I would have been given a 1 minute penalty. In the pro division they make you serve penalties on course by pulling over and unclipping for the full minute!
So, with disaster averted, I settled into my rhythm and got down to business. I knew I was feeling good when I was keeping up with long time pro Brian Fleischman.
Me and Brian rode around each other the entire way, with a few other guys that eventually pulled away towards the end of the bike. I came out of T2 in 18th place and was feeling fairly good. I knew I had pushed the bike hard, but I still had some spring to my step. Kaleb Van Ort and Brian ended up passing me around mile 2 on the run. I wanted to try to stick Brian, but he had picked up his pace dramatically and I could not match him when he went he passed. Kaleb is a sub-4 min miler who ended up running a 31 min 10k, so I did not feel to bad about letting him go!
Once we reached the turn around, I could see that there were several guys all within striking distance of me. With the aid of a tailwind, I started feeling better and picked up the pace a bit. I wanted to maintain my top 20 position, but I was passed at the 5 mile mark by Sean Jefferson (another crazy fast low 29 min 10k runner). I fought to stay on him as the road turned a bit into a head wind, but my legs started to cramp up on me. I almost caught one more guy towards the finish, but just ran out of room. I finished 21st overall on the day about 6 min back from race winner Filip Osplay from the Czech Republic. He sealed the deal with a race best 30:53 10k. This was not my best finish here from a placing perspective, but I was about 1 min faster on the bike and only 30 seconds off my fastest run split. Also, this was by far the most competitive field I have seen at this race in my four years, and by all accounts, the strongest field ever at this race. Of course, had the swim been the normal distance I would have faired better, but I’m not going to dwell on it.
Next up, New Orleans 5150 in on May 15th. Like St. Anthony’s, this race is part of the 5150 Olympic distance race series this year. The course looks flat and fast just like St. Anthony’s, so I’m very excited.
