Race report: 10th Elite Male at Ironman Brazil
Swim was very rough with choppy water, just made sure to swim as relaxed as I could, I knew part of the field would do the first mistake just right there, still swam OK, 12th elite male out of the water, 3 minutes down on leaders.
Once on the bike I took the first third at a very easy pace, relaxing, coasting and fueling lots, it was by then that Cristian Bustos overtook me and I decided it was a good timing to increase effort, so I used him to guide pace, stayed with this triathlon legend for the remaining length of the bike leg and of course while out there I WAS thinking ´´holy molly, this dude got 2nd in Hawaii once!!!´´ of course I saw Francois out there, he looked relaxed and fast and of course his bike was awesome!
I lost Bustos by the first K in the run, the guy flew and did the day´s best run to finish 3rd, by that time I was 11th I think when Petr Vabrousek went past me also to place high later in the day. When I was around 10km someone cheering out there said that 3 guys in the front were almost walking (well, I was too, but gotta try to run them down), overtook James Booney, Matt Dixon and marcus Ornellas, definitely the highlight point of my race.
Day finished with some athlete from Czech Republic less that 20 seconds behind me, so had to do some solid work by the last kilometer to hold him off and get my dreamed TOP10 podium…
Finished the race in 9:25, times were quite slow as Olaf Sabatchus, race winner made it in 8h50, 30 minutes slower that last year, 2nd place Oscar Galindez did 9h+, also 30minutes slower than 2004, and my time for last year was 9:36 and 34th overall (I was self coached), so could I call it a 40 minute PB 
?
I consider hiring a coach the best investment I´ve made so far to explain the improvement (OK, I raced with an aero helmet too! But it was borrowed), specially if they know what it takes first hand how to get you faster, Marc Becker www.ironguides.net and Brett Sutton are 99% of this result, and the funny thing is if you ever get a chance to chat with them they will tell you ´´There are no secrets´´… that’s what I think today too, but when I first heard what they have to say and first saw a training plan, with some amazing specific sessions, I thought I was doing something right by working out with those people, today I´m sure about it, 4th place Renaldo Colucci (19 years old, oh, and I´m 21 by the way) is also coached by them as is 40-44 female winner .