Saturday before Vineman was the usual, easy stuff, bike to make sure it was working, run to make sure that was working and swim to loosen up the arms. Nothing super special. Snuck in a pretty legit napping session after a failed attempt to read some in my current book, Naked Statistics…. Saturday night was dinner with the pro people that we hosted, Valentina Carvallo and her crew. Chicken and rice with some steamed vegetables, pretty dang good cooking by the mother. I still have leftovers so I am pretty pumped about that!
Quick race recap. Last wave of the day was 8:36. Plenty of time to chill. Swim 27:35, not my best. Bike 2:18, really good time. Run 1:25:04, pretty dang good! 4:16:01 total time, 2nd in the age group, 18th overall. Super happy!
Longer race recap. Damn 8:36 is so late to start a half iron, especially with talks of it being in the 90 degree realm later on in the day… so I hydrated up and snuck in some extra sleep. Got up at 5:15 and did the normal confused race day things, checking that list, eating some of that and some of this. That morning was two pieces of toast with peanut butter honey and a banana, some yogurt and OJ. Nothing too different from any other day. Rolled out of the house and sped to the course using the super-secret, oh shit bar grabber, back route with my mom in the passenger seat, holding on for dear life. Arrived in one piece, much to her amazement and set up transition and hung while she parked the car. Did I mention I was in the last wave!? Late! Yikes! Hung out some more talked to some buddies and yelled at Andres as he was heading out on the bike. Took a pitiful picture of him, but it was because he was moving so fast….
Entered the wetsuit and paddled around some and lined up at the start, thinking OK leave it out there today. Gun went off, sprinted off and was in the front pack. Dialed it back and probably dialed it back too much because I drifted off the pack and felt like junk but felt like I was moving too. Whatevs. I counted five different color caps from previous waves as I was swimming, that’s a bunch of slow swimmers! A couple of dolphin dives in the middle of the river and a couple of rock pulling on the bottom later, I arrived at T1. Thought I was getting all mangled in my wetsuit and I was, completely goof ball first timer things going on in transition. Whatever. Hopped on the bike after running in my shoes all the way up the hill, it was super crowded because of the late start.
Bike time was the right time. I knew that there was a large pack probably 10 or so dudes in front of me just from the junk swim I had and the pack that I saw during the swim, so off I went hunting for them! This was the first time in my career where I had a good plan to attack on the bike and felt like the fitness was actually there to do it. So I hammered for a good bit, rested for a little hammered, rested hammered, rested until T2. During the hammering ate and drank and did some passing, but the majority of the age group pack was caught about mile 5 of the bike, yet I still thought that there were a couple of dudes up ahead, so more passing and more calf looking. Eventually at mile 25 I saw another guy, Mike S. of EMJ and yelled HEY at him as I motored by. Love that dude’s laugh! Still out in front thought that there might be another person off the front but wasn’t sure. Then at mile 35 ish, another EMJ guy passed me, well I wasn’t having any of that so I passed him back rather promptly and held him off. Coming into T2 I stretched and shimmied off the bike and followed a large slow group of people in and then ran in and out, again felt like a silly fool with the transition, just forgetting things and being slow. All is good. Left T2 with the EMJ guy, so I was like hey I am Ezra, who are you? Brad A from LA.
Brad, EMJ guy, and I ran the majority of the race together. At the first mile I felt my hamstring being all weird and crampy, so chopped up the stride a little and turned the pace off, mostly to let my body adjust to running rather than biking at that point, smart decision of the run. Another smart decision was I ran with a water bottle. Yeah total rookie look, but hey I sweat a lot and get thirsty. So sipping and sliding through the run, Brad and I ran together until about mile 6. He gapped me at the vineyard and was about 30 seconds ahead at mile 8 turnaround. At that same turn around I saw Mike V of M2, he was cruising, ended up at a 1:18 half and was fastest on the day, Fast! So I knew that Brad and I were going to be doing the 2nd 3rd battle because Mike was moving. Mike passed me at around 11, I told him to get Brad who I had closed the gap to about 10 seconds and was gaining on. Mike and I ran together for about 200 meters and I fell off the pace. At mile 12 I said F it and went for it on the run to close and pass Brad. At the point in the road where the bike comes in and the run comes both in and out all in one lane of traffic is where I got Brad. I passed another EMJ guy, Tom I think, who was just behind Brad and was booking it. Tom yelled out to Brad to warn him of me, go Brad go, but I was on another weird level and flew past him, he didn’t respond and I glided into the chute and looked over the shoulder to make sure he wasn’t there and thankfully he wasn’t otherwise I would have been smoked…!
Finished the run and felt like my heart was exploding. Was a great race! Actually racing not just finishing on an island, like tris normally do where you are all by yourself with no one in your age group around. So that was super fun! Shook hands with Brad as he finished and said congrats to both he and Mike and made my way to the family and Andres and his beer, Thanks Holmes!! Great race, super fun day. Pretty happy!
I did not take a spot at Worlds and I think it rolled pretty far down, they were in the 10th place range when I tuned out. May have given it to another AG, no idea. Things I learned, was triathlon is long, if you have a bad bike/swim/run there is always another activity to refocus on and to have fun with your competitors/other participants.