One week after throwing myself back into racing, I was back at the start line. The goal of the early season was been to get myself back to race fitness, and what better way to do that than to hard and often. Escape was a big effort, but a relatively short one, and after a few good sessions during the week, Pat, Richard and I were off to Folsom to rep M2 and race fast.

Fast forward to June 29^th and Richard and I were flying through Pleasanton in USAP’s second high speed Olympic distance tri of the month. In the end, the races played out almost identically, so…joint race report!

SWIM

Besides the confusion that was the Folsom swim start, in which all but 10 athletes were 200m behind the startline in the water when the gun went off, the story of the swim went a bit like this:

• Go out hard to be with the lead pack
• Succeed for 400m
• Fall off the pace due to lack of swim strength
• Ride the slower group in

At both races, I got to my bike completely wonky and digging for energy due to big efforts and minimal gains.

BIKE

The bike was very similar in both courses – generally flat with some rollers. Coming off EFA, I was expecting fast riding and bigger watts. It wasn’t to be at either race, as my bigger swim efforts seemed to be enough to zap the energy. Watts were down and I didn’t break an hour on either bike.

The silver lining was that at CIT, I managed to get stronger throughout the bike, instead of limping in like at Folsom.

RUN

The run definitely improved at CIT over FIT. As I was coming off Escape and just getting back to run fitness, FIT’s run saw a struggle to keep 5:40s. By CIT, I was running much faster and attacking the tricky trail hills. I felt good about both runs, given where I was at during the race, and knew that with more run training, I could be much, much faster.

RESULTS

The results followed suit with everything else, almost identical:

Folsom Int’l Tri – 2:07:17 Overall 5^th, Age Group 1^st

 

California Int’l Tri – 2:06:30 Overall 6^th, Age Group 1^st

Happy with the rankings, but I know I’m much faster and would expect sub 2hr. But progressing into health and fitness is the theme!

THANKS

Thanks to M2 community and GU Energy. USAT for putting on quality local races. Pat, Richard and Frank for being great racing buddies. Family and friends for always being the backbone of support – special shout out to Alana D’Onofrio for hosting Richard and I and keeping us well fed!!

Onward and upward…the season takes off from here!