Half Ironman Kansas
WELL HERE I AM A COUPLE OF DAYS AFTER MY RACE AT THE 70.3 KANSAS RACE.
Wow, Kansas is just amazing, the people, the weather the and the city is just perfect. I arrived a few days before the race and was homestayed with an INCREDIBLE FAMILY, KENT, LIZ, MARK AND MAREE DOBBINS. It is just so amazing to have family's open up there homes and offer you everything and anything. Also at the house there was Linsey Corbin and her husband Chris....what a super super super cool couple.....I think armando and I have made some friends for life....
Race day the weather was always going to be a touch and go scenario....do i use a Zipp disc, a 1080? not too sure depending on how much the wind was going to get up. But too bad, I checked in my bike with the Disc. The course is soooooooooooo similiar to Kona it was just perfect in more ways than one. The wind, the heat and the rolling hills were all just a mirror image of kona, so perfect practice for the big day in october.
The swim was a non wetsuit.....so a little bit different than my normal race, but what the heck, put on my 2XU tri suit and hit the water hard, not so much a belly flop but pretty close to it. The gun went off and away we were, a very simple swim, easy to navigate and the lake was good. I came out of the water in just over 30 mins feeling pretty fresh, not able to go any faster but felt comfortable all the way.
Thru transition lightning fast, well at least I thought so but Sam Mcglone ran right past me and managed to climb on her bike just a little ahead of me. Yeah so I had some targets up ahead. My goal of this race was to bike fast, like the old jo lawn, so here we go, I put it in the big chain ring and my P3 just rocketed off up the road. I had made up some time on the super fish, Pip Taylor, and Andrea Fisher and had past Sam and was now leading the race. Something I really like to do, just go for it. The bike course is very exposed, up and down long climbs. I felt comfortable and my body was responding well. I just put my head down and biked my butt off. I managed to get a few minutes up my sleeve as everything was going to plan. The volunteers, marshalls and spectators were all awesome right on target in everyway imagineable.
Back into T2 racked my bike and slipped on my new asics ds racers and took off. I had 4.5 minutes up on Sam.....mmmmmmm not thinking anything special or tactical, just having fun I plugged away at the miles.....but for some stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid....(get my point) reason I didn't wear socks.....i thought it was only a half ironman...short and fast but...ugh I started to feel parts of my feet tearing off in my shoes....thinking just try not to touch the ground and see if that doesn't hurt. but when you have some of the fastes half ironman runners coming up behind you...you just gotta do what you can and give it everything. Sam was making some time out of me, I managed to hold her off for a bit, but then she just nailed down some fast miles and finally caught me around 11 miles..............I dug deep as she soared past me, never loosing site of her fleet feet. Just not enough ground left to go sam crossed the line just 29 seconds ahead of me....congrats to sam she delivered a well timed performance...
I was happy and a little annoyed that I had made a mistake but that is why we do races during the season....we have to practice new stuff and try new things.....and I certainly tried some new things and gained some more experience, which i will carry over with me in my next race Lubbock and then off course for kona in october...........
CONGRATS TO TERRENZO WHO HAD AN AWESOME RACE.....BRINGING IT HOME ALL THE WAY FOR THE KIWIS, AND TO SAM FOR HANGING TOUGH......
THE RACE HERE IN KANSAS WAS GREAT, WE ARE STILL HERE IN LAWRENCE, LIZ AND KENT DOBBINS ARE JUST AMAZING IT LOOKS LIKE ARMANDO AND I HAVE ANOTHER SET OF ADOPTED PARENTS HERE TOO, JUST LIKE ALL OF OUR OTHER HOMESTAYS AROUND THE WORLD.......
