Portsmouth, Ohio United States HFP Racing

Total Time = 2h 26m 8s Overall Rank = 16/ Age Group = Age Group Rank = 14/

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in myself with my AM effort. At the same time, I was feeling good and decided it was time to step up the effort. I started racing at this point, but still kept a look at the numbers.

You bike first in this race, in TT format. It’s an out and back, and the road was freshly paved for the majority of it. This course favored me more than the others as it had some opportunity to go steady and fast. All other races were either up or down, and at 175 lbs I give up a bit.

I started ignoring power caps on the hills and pushing the flats…I just put it in a gear that allowed me to spin hard, if it resulted in 350 watts—whatever. I started caring less about blowing up about half way through this bike. I passed new friends Alaina and Ryan a bit after the turn around, who were building their lead as the co-ed team. They looked strong and were working extremely well together.

Into T2 where the challenge was to get the wet suit on and swim post bike. Plastic bags worked great, got it on and a volunteer came over to help me zip. After a bit of a struggle with that, I was on my way.

No cramps on the swim, until I made the genius move of running out from lap one and high kneeing into the water for lap 2….quad goes into lock up mode, and the brink of cramping, but I get lucky and never goes into full on cramp….note to self, don’t jump on quads heading into a swim after biking 40k.

I finished up the swim, and onto the run, where I immediately sensed the field was slowing down big time. This was a huge boost to my mental state, as I was passing several people.

This is where the event really got fun, as I was chasing Mike C. and being chased by my bud and training partner Matt C…..It would turn out I would never catch Mike, and always get chased down by Matt—but THAT is what the weekend is all about. We would always give each other a quick word of encouragement, and we were racing and having fun.

This is the race where I made a huge jump in the standings, and I went to bed confident with the half iron in the AM. Tired, but excited to go.

16th OA solo racer