If you ain't first, you're last...Ironman Austin 70.3 Race Report

We all know the popular line from Will Ferrell’s movie, Talladega Night’s, “If you ain’t first you’re last.” While there is some truth to this statement in that society loves winners and forgets second place soon after the race, there are other places besides first (and last). Let’s face it second place sucks. Finishing second is very tough because you are so close to the top yet just didn’t quite make it. Close but no cigar. So close, yet so far away. To the victor go the spoils. It pays to be a winner. These are all some of my favorite lines. I hate to lose, but I definitely love to win more. If I HAD to lose to somebody then I am glad it was Andy Potts. Andy Potts is a class act, a true professional, and man of principle and integrity.

 

When I saw Andy was racing this weekend. I knew he would be hard to beat, because Andy only toes the start line if he believes he has a chance to win. Although he just finished 7^th (and top American) 15 days ago at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, Andy brought his “A” game to Austin, just like he always does. The other tough competitor of the day was 2x Ironman World Champion Chris McCormack who was coming off a disappointing DNF at the Ironman World Championship. Chris has won more triathlons than most pros have raced. There were plenty of competitors on the start line who I was concerned about, but Macca and Potts are both World Champions.

Race morning was quite chilly with temperatures in the 40’s, but the water temperature was 71 degrees. I still believe Ironman needs to modify the wetsuit temperature rules to fall in line with the ITU and WTC, but that is an issue for another blog. There was no swim warm-up allowed for most, but they let the pros in the water 5 minutes before the start. I smashed a Red Bull and cola flavored PowerBar Gel Blasts on the way to the swim start. I wore my TYR Freak of Nature wetsuit for the swim and my TYR Special Ops Custom goggles. The cold air temp wreaked havoc on my goggles as soon as I lifted my head out of the water the goggles fogged and I spent the first part of the swim, just trying to figure out where I was going. The official sunrise wasn’t until 7:40 AM and we started at 7:30 AM. This didn’t help my poor visibility. I did a lot of pulling in a small group that was actually second pack (third back from Andy), until we came closer to shore and I couldn’t make out where I was supposed to be swimming so I dropped back and let someone else be my eyes and just followed the bubbles. I came out of the water with Macca, Bryan Rhodes, and Tim Marr, but it was not a good swim. I was close to 2:30 down on Potts, so I had my work cut out for me. I lost more time in T1 putting on arm warmers and gloves, in retrospect, I should have done without the arm warmers and just put the gloves on while riding, oh well. I ended up losing :50 seconds  to Rhodesy and Macca in T1, but I caught them soon enough and was in hot pursuit of Potts. I pulled behind Potts at mile 30, and passed him shortly after. He kept a legal distance behind me for a bit, then I made a few attempts to stretch the elastic and break him, it took a couple tries but it worked, and I was clear with a small lead around mile 40. The bike course was one loop with very rough roads, but the course itself was beautiful with undulating and winding roads lined with trees and real Texas ranch land. I enjoy a one loop bike course, and I enjoy undulating hills to play to my strengths on the bike. I fueled the bike leg with Green Apple PowerBar Energy Gel, hey it’s apple season, what goes better in the fall than some apple cider? I biked into T2 with a good, but not good enough lead on Potts (maybe 40 seconds). My 2:08 bike split was the fastest on the day by a couple of minutes. The new Black Dimond bike was simply amazing at both absorbing the road vibrations and making me incredibly aerodynamic.  I was running very well and had a goal to run 1:15 (based off my current Ironman focused training). I was right on track through the first lap, and Andy finally caught me right after the first of 3 laps on the run. I chose to wear the lighter weight Mizuno Wave Ronin shoes, but will wear the more supportive Wave Elixir at IM AZ.  The run course was cool. It was hilly, but not huge hills (not the 119 ft advertised, more like 931 vertical feet of climbing).  There was a bit of off road gravel and some hard packed dirt with mostly straight running, but a few twists, and NO dead turn-around points. Both ends of the loop contained lollipop sweeps to turn you around to comfortably maintain your pace and rhythm. I fueled the run with Coke and water. I didn’t start the Coke right away, but still did most of the run off of Coke. Once Potts caught me, I stayed with him for a bit, but he dropped me on a downhill. I was putting time back into him on the up hills, but it wasn’t quite enough. I maintained the gap at 12 seconds through mile 9, but Andy pulled the throttle back just a little bit at mile 10 to make sure to give himself a comfortable lead and not get stuck in a sprint finish with me. (Quick flashback to a 2009 TYR photo shoot in New Hampshire where Tim Taber took a cool photo of Andy and I doing a sprint finish on a gravel road, I’ll let Andy tell you who won!). I was digging deep to try and close from mile 11, but just as I started to dig I was having a few muscle cramps and just wasn’t really able to open it up like I wanted. I ended up finishing just over 30 seconds behind Andy (who ran a 1:14:06). I was pissed for losing this race that I really wanted to win, but also proud of my effort on the day. I had a great day, I just came a bit short at the end. Chris McCormack rounded out the podium after serving a 2 minute penalty for drafting on the bike, and he had a slightly faster 1:15:02 run split to my 1:15:27. The podium was great company. 

Recovery starts now as I have Ironman Arizona in exactly 3 weeks. I still have some key hard training sessions to complete but the bulk of the work is done, there is just some fine tuning left. After finishing second twice at Ironman Arizona (2008 and fall of 2009), I look forward to fighting for a victory (hoping the third time’s a charm). Arizona is a course I know well, and doing all my preparation in Tucson, just 100 miles away, is a huge advantage.  Let’s face it second sucks…here’s to not finishing last (preferably first) in Tempe on November 18. 

Work Hard,

TJ

For those interested in power data: Below is a copy of my SRM file: 323 avg power, 329 normalized power, pedal time of 2:07:20

 

Potts, Andy	USA	00:22:34	02:11:21	01:14:06	03:51:29	1
Tollakson, Tj	USA	00:24:46	02:08:12	01:15:27	03:52:07	2
McCormack, Chris		00:24:48	02:12:48	01:15:02	03:55:24	3
Symonds, Jeff	CAN	00:25:10	02:10:44	01:17:31	03:56:29	4
Marsh, Brandon	USA	00:23:14	02:16:31	01:18:43	04:01:50	5