18th place at New Orleans 70.3 Ironman

Due to strong winds, the race became a Duathlon.

Ok, the winds were not as strong as the picture shows! For those who did not notice my Pinocchio nose, I morphed the trees in the photo! lol
With 5 inch waves, the swim portion could have been done without difficulty!! But the organizers were concerned about problems with the the boats and life-guards ability to keep the race safe.  So we went for a 2 mile run, 51 mile bike and another 13.1 mile run.

I really enjoyed the race.  After so much stress chasing a spot in the Olympic Games, nowadays I am having fun every minute; without pressure or Federative enemies to deal with.

I have been riding in the time trial position for four weeks, but am still not comfortable with it yet, so I suffered on the bike course. Before running I had a 4 minute penalty for drafting and then I went for the half marathon, where I ran 1h13min56sec.

Afterwards, I went to explore the Jazz city with my team-mate, Mighty Mags. The city is really cool and the French Quarter is filled with night clubs and bars where the main theme is Mardi Gras, which resembles Brazilian Carnival!!

Arriving back in Los Angeles, I made some adjustments to the bike, and now I am focusing on Wildflower Half-Ironman, which takes place May 5th, here in California!

Hollywood Half Marathon!

Once more maintaining the numerical regularity of 2012, I placed 12th!! lol

The field was strong and included Kenyan runners! 

I started well and passed the first mile with the leaders.  When I got to the first uphill, my legs started burning! That effect was from a hard week of training...

As this was another hard session for the week, I did not take it any easier. Even after seeing the Kenyans pull further away with each second, I held a strong pace til the end.  The last 3 miles were a long and hard up hill, where I almost collapsed!  I arrived at the end with two stones where my calves were supposed to be! haha

70.3 California!!

In 2012 I always placed #1 or #2, so to maintain number regularity, with my Ironman debut, I finished at #21!!

It was a great race, my only problem was the lack of experience with this distance race.

I arrived at the transition area 1 hour prior to the start.  I thought that this was plenty of time, but suddenly I was lost in the 2.500 bikes looking for the boxes to leave my bag of morning clothes and worrying that I still needed to find the starting line!

I entered in the water, and got a nice position, in less the 2 minutes, the cannon fired and the race was on ...

I had a good swim, leaving the water at 8th. On the bike I felt really uncomfortable with the new time trial position, which in the end cost a lot of time. I started the run frozen, but soon I caught a nice rhythm and  chased down my competitors, gaining many positions!

The worst part of the race were the transitions!  Wet with an average temperature of 54°F, I froze.  T1 was not bad, but at T2 when I left the bike on the rack my hands were numb so it took forever to take my helmet off and put my shoes on. 

I am pretty happy with the result.  I knew I couldn't expect that much especially because of the new bike position, but I think was a good way to kick off my long distance season!

Here it is a video with a bit for the Californian 70.3!!
Have Fun!!