Updating 172.7 miles!!

As I am used to do in triathlon, here goes 3 (race reports) at once!!

Sep 30th, LA Herbalife Triathlon: Feeling practically at home, I raced the traditional olympic distance race. Starting from Venice beach and racing up to downtown! I had a good swim but getting out of the water I got two big waves on my back, I couldn't ride them, so I just took a big breath and let them "pull" me (kinda submerse ride, ok I almost drowned!! haha). On the bike and run I went as fast as I could, it was really hurting! I finished in 13th place with 1h56min02sec.

Oct 14th, The Magic Mountain Man: The toughest 70.3 triathlon in the US, the bike course has 6.800 feet gain on elevation over 56miles! While competing I thought something was wrong as my watch was marking 1h30min into the race and my bike computer showed me at only mile 10 on the bike!! :-O The course was great and besides the toughness, powered by strong winds, I really had fun racing at Castaic Lake! I was the first one to cross the finish line at 5h11min31sec!! So couldn't be better!! :-)

Oct 28th, Austin 70.3: This was my last and best 70.3 of this season!! So its fair to spend a few more lines describing the affair!

Everything was going great even before getting the flight from LAX, where Jennifer Tetrick and I were with 2 bikes packed in one box trying to save a hundred bucks but instead we saved 200 hundred!!
On the trip I was telling Jen that we should try to watch the bats. I've been to Austin several times, but never had the chance to watch them! There are thousands of bats under a bridge, and every day when the sun goes down they leave in a huge pack flying away from under the bridge!!

Out of the airport we went freezing to the hotel, dropped everything there and went to Jack and Adams bike shop to get some warm racing gear (gloves and toe covers were the urgent items!). As the sun was setting down we decided to jog 20 minutes at the Town Lake, which is a couple yards from the bike shop, and guess what!? Passing under a bridge we could hear a bunch of high pitched noises, and when I saw all those people on the other side, I got it immediately! "Stop!" I said, "lets watch the bats!" And 1 or 2 minutes later there was a huge cloud of bats flying out from under the bridge!! Darn cool!!

On Saturday was the race briefing, we also went for a short ride on the course and a some swim strokes at Barton Springs, definitively my favorite swim pool!!

"PENDING LARRY QUOTE"

The race...

My swim was astonishing!! I started with a good rhythm and suddenly I was leading with two other guys. It felt easy to hold that pace. So I thought "Something is not right, Andy Potts is here, so there is no way the swim could feel that easy!" I looked forward 3 or 4 times trying to find someone ahead of us, but that was it, no other competitor on the sight. Awesome!! I left the water in 3rd position and ready to smash the pedals!!

I felt great on the bike, but had a big negative point: lack of confidence... I was going all out, but when others passed me I did not try to ride on their pace while maintaining legal distance. Finally, I rode near two athletes who caught me on mile 15.
On the run, it took a while for me to warm up. I got some quad cramps but could manage after the first 4 miles. I finished strong and happy in 6th place at 4h03min47sec.

Curiously Jennifer and I had raced the Long Horn 70.3 three years before!! I stole the idea from her's race report at Jennifer's blog to compare the times on both editions and I was surprised, only two seconds faster!! While in 2009 my t2 was longer due to a draft penalty, this year I spent more time at t1 as I wore a jacket and gloves!!

2009 - 15th place

00:23:23  t1-1'56"

02:21:51  t2-2'48"

01:13:51

tot- 04:03:49

2012 - 6th place

00:23:10  t1-2'08"

02:20:20  t2-1'20"

01:16:49

tot- 04:03:47