Friday, June 19, 2015

Legend Free State Triathlon


The Legend Free State Triathlon Half Iron was my last race for this year!!! It's nothing at all to be sad about but I'm taking a little racing hiatus  for Evan to be born and let him get settled in and when I can sleep regular again whenever that will be.

I made the exciting scenic trip to Kansas the Friday before! Really it wasn't that bad. Nice weather with the country music blaring on the radio. Plenty of country stations to go through on the radio.


I was in Lawrence last year when the Ironman was the production company putting it on and I loved the town.  This year I was eating pizza on a patio and reading a book on a Friday night. 


I woke up to rain Saturday morning so I bailed on my bike ride and did a short run instead followed by a short pool swim in this awesome long course pool. 



The rest of the time was spent at breakfast, lunch, and dinner in Lawrence and mostly on the well known Massachusetts St. in downtown. That place is a cool area with awesome downtown vibes.

Sunday morning I was ready to knock it out.


The race started with a good swim for me with choppy waters! The swim was rectangular and I seemed to have jumped out to a good start and sighted reasonably well. The last stretch to the swim finish seemed to have taken forever. You could see the  swim finish from a distance but it seemed we were never going to get there.  Onto the bike the same thing as Knoxville, I was struggling to find my legs. In addition too there was a straight headwind heading out no matter which direction we turned into. I was literally on the struggle bus trying to make it up some of the hills unlike last year when I did this course. I knew something was wrong when I was getting passed by older guys that weigh a lot more. I was on top of my nutrition plan - I simply didn't have any legs on the bike. Coming in back to transition with the tailwind at the very end I was still struggling and soft pedaling the last 5-10 miles. The run went worse than the swim and I had wanted to dnf as soon as I got off the bike, but I kept going one step at at time. What kind of dad would I be if I dropped out of my last race before Evan was born?  This only set the fire for maybe late next year even if it's sprints and 5k run races. Those require a higher pain threshold anyways.

In the mean time I'll probably get some blood testing done later in the year to figure out what's going on. Regardless how the last two half-iron's turned out my Wife and I are super excited about Evan being born in just a few weeks.

Thank you for all the help and support this year! We got off to a fantastic start with a couple of top finishes and overall wins. Thank you to my Wife and family, Coach Jeremy of Mind Right Multisport, Cobb Cycling & Cobb Mobb. Most of all - Thank you to Christ for the talents, the drive and abilities to get it done.