70.3 Lake Stevens
Wow! What a great course and the spectalors on the run were awesome. The course was a lot tougher that a lot of athletes expected. Two loops of a hilly bike followed by a rolling run added to the difficulty.
Race morning we were greeted with chilly conditions and the Lake temperature being in the 70's created a pretty specular fog. Any other race it would not have been possible to swim but this course was unique in the fact there was an unwater cable that made navigation a breeze. Althougth it took a little while for me to find it on the way back. Luckily I swim straight...well I think I do anyway. I did have a few thoughts going through my head that this could be the longest 1.2mile swim ever if I did not find the cable or land at some point.
I exited the swim in 3rd place and while I was enduring the morning crispness and my feet were pretty much number at least there were plenty of hills on the bike to warm me up a little. It took we a little while to get up to speed maybe from the cold or the slight fatigue I had in my legs from training pretty hard leading into this event. I caught one competitor and got passed by one so as I transition from the bike to the run I was still in 3rd.
I found my legs pretty quickly on the run but my feet remained numb for a few miles before they actually thawed out. My main concern apart from catching the leaders was to see how much time Pablo had pput on me during the bike as his wave started 10mins after mine. At around 8km I got to see the two leaders running side by side. Which actually spurred me on to try to pick up my pace. Then I was motivated even more when I saw Pablo at around the same point I had seen the leaders. Darn he had a great bike and made up a chunk of change on me. So now I was really motivated to push even harder.
The next chance I saw the leader was with about 3km to go and we where around the same time gap but I had definetly closed the gap on 2nd. But I did not quite get the opportunity to catch 2nd as the finishline loomed a little too quickly.
So all in all I was happy how I felt and very excited to be back on the Podium. Even though Pablo cruched me on the bike I did out swim and run him.:)