Well, its been a while since I have posted anything, so let me bring you all up to speed. My leg is feeling great. I have already been back running for 3 weeks and have built back up to doing hour long training runs. My form has come back fairly quick, and spirits are high.
On to Kure Beach. A few weeks out I while a little worried about trying to race at Kure beach, but in the week leading up to the race, my leg felt great. I ended up having a great race and taking the overall win by 2 minutes. So lets break it down. My first swim was probably the best part of the whole race. There was a very long run-out in shallow water until you were able to swim, so I started dolphin diving in about knee deep water while everyone else was still trying to high step it. This is where years of surfing and lifeguarding experience pays dividends. I ended up putting about a minute on everyone in only 375 meters. Then, the moment of truth: the first run. I settled into a comfortable pace, making sure not to push myself to hard early on and pull something. I soon realized that I was feeling pretty darn good, so I decided to pick it up a bit. For the second run I thought why not see what my leg can do. So, along the straight-away, I really opened up my stride to full race pace and nothing broke! I shut it down a bit towards the end of the run, figuring that there was no sense in pushing it to the point where something would break. I got in for the final swim with a healthy lead, but I still pushed it as hard as I could since there is no substitute for race pace training. Oh yeah, and the bike was good too. I ended up having the fastest bike split on the day. The conditions were challenging, with a tail wind going out and a head wind coming back on the two loop straight out and back course.
So that was my race. This was a great ice breaker, considering I have not done a full tri since April. I'm so stoked that my leg is feeling better and I can finally train again. Looking forward, this was a great tune up race for the Geneva ITU Continental Cup this weekend. This will be my second draft legal race, and my first pro draft legal. I've got my Kestrel RT-800 all dialed in and ready to go. I've already done a few criteriums on it and love the way in handles. For a while I was kind of anti-carbon frames, but I can honestly say I am a believer now. The carbon really does soak up road vibration and keeps you feeling fresher on longer rides.
Well thats it for now. I should have a report posted from my ITU race posted sometime next week.
