Racing begins in 2018

This weekend saw the start of my 2018 triathlon race season. I traveled down to Bariloche, Argentina for this inaugural 70.3 race. Bariloche is located in the southern region of Argentina commonly known as Patagonia and Bariloche is known as the gateway to Patagonia. The city is in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and offers breathtaking views of towering peaks above glacier lakes. Patagonia is truly an outdoor paradise and this areas was made to host a 70.3 event.

I arrived in Bariloche on Thursday night after taking an overnight flight from Houston on Wednesday and connecting in Buenos Aires. The flight from Houston to Beunos Aires was 10 hours so they only do red eye flight. Chris Schroeder, a young Boulder based pro, was on my flight and then became my roommate for the last three nights of the trip (after he spent his first night in an Airbnb). We stayed at the Eco-Ski Hotel which was the race headquarters and very affordable but adequate accommodation. Most of the pro field was staying at this hotel include Terenzo, Jarrod Shoemaker and Alicia Kaye, Igor Amorelli, Dede Greisbauer, and Ken Peterson. It rained most of the day on Friday but we did take a group trip to a small 25m swimming pool for training. There is a lake and beach two blocks from the hotel but the water is colder and rougher than the swim venue. I wanted to get in the lake, but everyone else wanted to swim in the pool so instead of solo open water swimming in a choppy lake, I played it safe and stuck with the group pool swim. Traffic was less than ideal but most of the road surfaces were in good condition and I felt totally safe training on the roads on my bike. The run was a bit tougher for me. There is a large sidewalk along the run course but it is cobblestone so not ideal for fast running. You can run in the street but the traffic is a bit crazy and I don't recommend it. There was a small section of sidewalk with pretty good surface through the downtown area where I did my fast running before the race.

Logistics of the race were a bit tricky as there is a split transition. The swim and T1 are located at the Llao Llao (pronounced shou shou) Resort about 17 km from town. Bike is mandatory on Saturday so I rode my bike to the resort and then caught a ride back with an Ironman Employee. We also had to check in T2 bags on Saturday so it made for a packed day but an easier race day. The race was delayed an hour because of cold weather and the announcement was made on Saturday night to allow athletes to prepare. I didn't wake up race morning until 6:30, that hasn't happened in a very long time.

We took a shuttle to race start at 7:30 AM and transition opened at 8. It was plenty of time, and I stayed warm with plenty of winter clothes. The pros did a short swim warm-up in the clear and 61 degree cold water of the glacier lake. It was a fairly clean start but there are always a few athletes pushing the envelope with the drifting when the start is in-water. I started to the right of the course next to Terenzo and I was quickly  and easily towards the front of the race in the swim. There was a small pack of 5 out of the water together and we all releatively slow out of T1 as we took time to put on warm clothes. The start of the bike saw light rain and wet roads. The first 14K of the bike course was very hilly and technical and my indoor riding skills held me back just a little. Ken Peterson caught the front of the race from 2 min down out of the water by the time we finished the first 14k section. He is a former pro cycling and made us all look stupid slow around the wet and technical descents. I yo-yo'd back and forth with the front three riders for most of the bike holding a gap of around 20 seconds to 1:20. In retrospect I really should have forced a small effort to close this gap completely but I didn't think it was much of a problem during the race because the front of the race was always within contact. Well it was within contact until we did a small second loop and began lapping age group athletes. Once we started lapping athletes the lead motorbike cleared a path for the first three athletes and left me alone to weave and find my own way. Because the lead motorbike was clearing a path for the leaders it was also way too close to the leaders for much of this section, as I saw several times the leader actually passed the motorbike and to be overtaken again for the lead (on a narrow winding 2 lane road with lots of traffic). The last 16 miles of the bike saw my lead go from :50 seconds to 3:30 with no loss of power on my part. This was the race and I had no way of knowing it would be so substantial. Lesson learned. I got off the bike with a pretty significant deficit to the leaders but also a comfortable margin to 5th place behind me. My run has come a long way the last year (considering I was not even running last year at this time), but I still don't have my 4 week run volume over 200 miles which I consider to be the minimum standard for Ironman athletes. I topped out with this block at 180 miles so another 5 miles per week tacked on my average and I'll be there. Nevertheless, I am more durable running now than I have been in a very long. I started the run out and my legs felt really good but there was a stiff headwind than seriously impeded forward progress. The run was 2.5 laps and the first half lap going out was straight into the headwind. This is where using the HR monitor really helps. The effort felt super solid but my pace was so slow I had to use my HR as the guide. Coach Jesse gave me a guideline to keep my hr to 10 beat offset after the first mile. I was 149 avg hr on the bike and kept it hovering right around the 158-160 range for most of the run and finshed with a HR average of 159 and a max hr of 171. This was a solid run for me, but I haven't done any hard race specific training session yet so the next 4 week block will focus on just that coupled with an average weekly volume of around 50 miles per week. I was slowly and gradually reeling in Kennett Peterson and with about 3 miles to go it looked like I was going to catch him and finish in 3rd, but he gave it one last really hard and I was left in the worst possible position in a race, 4th place...17 seconds off the podium. Face it, 2nd sucks, but 4th really sucks. Not only does it drop in prize money but you miss out of the bonus money from sponsors and the really cool podium celebrations and pictures as well. This race gave me some super motivation to stick to the course and really work on the things necessary to cross the line in first once again.