This past Saturday I raced for the 16th time this season. It's been a long and intense first full season as a professional. I couldn't be more happy with the way it's wrapping up. It was amazing to back up my Elite Sprint National Title performance by placing second at the Lifetime Fitness Series Finale race in Oceanside, CA.The who's who of non-draft triathlon were in attendance including multiple Olympians. This result rivals my National Championship as the biggest of my career and to have them in one right after another confirms for me that I'm headed in the next direction and next year will be very exciting.
Results: http://edge.raceresults360.com/custom/oceanside2013/#/results::138193010984500
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| Photo: Paulo Sousa |
I came out of the water 2 seconds off the lead, behind my training mate Joe Maloy as well as Cameron Dye. From there I started a long acceleration that wouldn't falter until I crossed the line at the end of the run. I had the strongest bike of my career, maintaining a 15-20 second gap to bike leaders Ben Collins, Cam Dye and Stuart Hayes. I started the run with Stuart Hayes, about 30 seconds behind Cam and 40 behind Ben. When we came through 5k Hayes had taken the lead from Cam and I caught Ben. With 2 miles to go, Cam still had 30 seconds on me and Joe Maloy had come up to my shoulder from almost 90 seconds back. The whole time I saw him coming I was thinking, "Without a doubt, Joe WILL catch me. If I want to be on the podium, I have to catch Cam Dye." I fully committed and accelerated, bringing the gap to Cam down to 15 seconds with a mile to go. At 800 meters to go I was almost kicking, dropping Joe and catching Cam 300 meters from the line. I went by, maintained my sprint and finished less than 15 seconds behind winner Stuart Hayes and 2 seconds in front of Cam. I found Joe in the recovery tent a few minutes later and I had to ask him how much money I had won! I hadn't put any pressure on myself going into the race other than to demonstrate how fit I was, and I hadn't even looked at the prize money breakdown.
The result STILL hasn't fully sunk in, but I am over the moon and I know this race was simply an accurate representation of the work that I've put in with the Triathlon Squad over the last year. I live and train every day with Joe and Jason and our Coach Paulo Sousa. It's the heated competition we have every time we get to a hard workout that gave me that extra bit to finish strongly and fully empty the tank. I can't overstate the impact they have had on me this year.
I can't wait until my next Lifetime race, they put on such a great event and I'll come in ready to chase after that elusive top step on the podium!
NEXT RACE:
This coming Saturday I will compete in my last race of the season, the Fearless F1 in San Diego. This is another double super sprint race and I'm looking to cap the season with another strong finish!
