First Pro Race, Clermont ITU Pan Am Cup

   Traveling for me is usually not an issue, and as a I woke up the morning before my flight to Clermont I felt like I had nothing but time to kill and get ready until my 2:10pm flight departure. The day before I got my bike all set up and ready to race at Kyle's Bikes. I had disassembled my bike and packed all my stuff into the Ruster Sports Hen House bag. So I lazily ate breakfast, showered and collected what I wanted in my carry-on bag on the kitchen table. I could hear my phone blowing up downstairs over and over again. But no worries, why would someone be in a panic to reach me right now?

Bike is loving life!

  I finally went downstairs and looked at my phone. Craig had called and texted me a whole bunch of times to see how close I was to the airport...but why it's only 9:15. Then it dawns on me that when I was looking at my itinerary I was being dyslexic. 2:10pm is my arrival time and 10:35am is my departure time!! I spent a few seconds screaming at an empty house about my own stupidity and then kicked into overdrive. I threw on clothes, chucked the hen house into the car and swept all of the contents of the kitchen table into my back pack. On the drive to the airport I called my mom to explain the situation and to have her come to the airport at some point so she could pick up my car later in the day.

Just enough down time at the airport to get things organized, yes those are corn tortillas

   Some how I made it with 20 minutes to spare before boarding. My adrenaline was through the roof but luckily the airport wasn't busy and I was able to get checked in and through security very quickly. I even had time to organize the contents of my bag. Hopefully this would be the only crazy part of my trip...We arrived into Florida two days before the race and had a pretty laid back time finding our hotel outside of Clermont.

Spring snow storm in Iowa brought me back inside for training before the race

   The day before the race we got a chance to check out the race venue. It was a bit of a drive (50 min) to get to the race site from out hotel. But the site itself was in the awesome Lake Louisa State Park. The course was an out and back loop climbing 150ft in 2.5 km, so basically flat but just uphill enough to notice. The road was in great condition and twisted through the trees as you went to and from transition. Sometimes it would block the wind and other times it would create a wind tunnel that would blow you over. I had a good session of leg openers and practiced my transitions. Being stuck in the snow and cold of Iowa over the winter I hadn't really had much of a chance to practice my transitions or perform a lot of brick workouts. So those were two things I was feeling a little worried about but happy to get a better hold of the day before the race.

Yes, I know my wetsuit is sagging. I was lazy when putting it on

   The swim course was an in water start 50m off the beach, afterwards we had to run another 50m through sand and then another 200m on a boardwalk to get to the transition. But the interesting thing was the depth of the water at the start meant we could still run/leap the first 50m or so of the swim start. The water depth would change too, meaning you'd have to stop running because it got too deep and then after you dive in you'd have to start running again because it'd be too shallow to swim. So it was going to be an interesting dash into the water and a critical tough run up to T1. Water temp was 60 degrees F so it was going to be a wetsuit swim, Ugh. Being a sprint distance race, this was going to a fast all out effort!

Finish line banner, day before the race

  Race morning started for me at 7:00am, it's nice having the race start at 11:30am. I got to the race course around 8:30 and didn't really know what to do with myself. I may have started to warm up too early but I was at a loss for what to do with all this extra time. Rookie mistakes. I borrowed a random trainer to spin on the bike for a bit, and I got checked in and my transition set up with out any issues. Down to the race start I went, the water was a bit choppy with one foot swells greeting us.

  Not having any ITU points to my name yet, I had a later start position. So I put myself to the far left of the start line and got ready to rock. I knew the swim was going to be an aggressive fight but when the horn went off I found myself on the back foot right away. Leaping through the water to fight for position with the pushing and shoving is not quite what I was ready for. Already I was bleeding critical positions. Once we got swimming I tried to insert myself into the pack but kept find myself on the left edge sucking in a lot waves and getting pushed back by the water. As we hit the swim turnaround I was still in the middle of the race and happy to finally turn around and be out of the waves. I was still having trouble finding someone's feet to hang onto. Now with the waves coming in slightly behind us I began to realize too late that I was on the wrong side again. People were swimming passed me and I was being dropped back. Getting up to run to the beach was one of the most disheartening sights for me. I was at the back of a long line of racers and this race was already getting away from me. This is not where I wanted to be, my race was over after 10min.

Standing on the start line (this was taken from the edge of the beach) I'm on the far left somewhere

   I got to transition to see that there were only a few other bikes left in transition besides mine. This was not good, all I could think about was how I was going to be lapped out of my first race. The closest bike pack was within striking distance. They had a gap of 20-30 seconds on me. In the first 3-4min of my bike leg I averaged 27mph just to catch them. This includes running with my bike to the mount line, getting my feet into my shoes, climbing the slight 150ft incline to the turn around and whipping around a tight 180 degree turn. This hammering effort left me beat, but I knew that I had to make something of my race and I was really happy to have bridged that gap. After a bit of recovery I got to work with a few others in the pack. There were about 8-10 of us originally in the pack with about half of us putting in some work to catch the next pack.

I tried to change my attitude during the race and just be awesome

  Although the course wasn't very technical there was a series of tight corners to maneuver through on every lap when we passed transition. I would put myself on the front of this section and build a 5-10sec gap on the rest of the field just by taking the corners faster, but this didn't gain me much because I wasn't willing to put in another very hard effort to bridge the 60sec gap to the lead pack. Eventually the race played out with two bike packs. The leaders pack of 25 or so and then our pack 90 seconds down with another 25ish racers. Our pack ended up having too much dead weight to be an efficient time trial machine and on the last lap many where simply looking at each other and coasting to get ready for the run. I moved myself to the front to get ready for what was going to be a hectic transition.

  I was in and out in about 22 seconds. My legs felt like jello and my stomach was very unhappy with me. This was probably due to the hard effort on the bike, a lack of brick training leading up to this race and not really knowing how to fuel myself for a race that started so late into the day. I was bleeding spots in the first mile of the run. After that I began to feel stronger and stronger. My legs picked up and I began to remember what it's like to hurt in a race again. I began to pass other competitors and started to enjoy myself. I wish I would've had splits between my two run laps because I am convinced that I did the second lap at least a full minute faster than the first lap.

  Overall I placed 28th out of 47 starters. I was hoping for a top 20 spot to earn a few ITU points but I really shot myself in the foot with how I performed in the swim. Both my swim time was slow and my run time was nothing to brag about either. I expect more out of myself, but luckily it's very early in the year and it's good to get the kinks out now. Although my result was poor, I was very happy with how I handled the race as it unfolded. Mentally it shoots you down to be so far behind at the start and that can be the most dangerous thing that happens. But I was able to muster some strength and make something out of my race. Check out full results here. This Saturday is the Sarasota Pan Am Cup, a full olympic distance race. Hopefully things go better for me there.

Outdoor pool at the YMCA, yes please!

   For the next week I will be staying at a great home stay and training in beautiful Bradenton, FL. I will be spending plenty of time in the pool and doing a few more bricks. Focusing on training and relaxing should give me a great boost leading into Sarasota. Race season is in full swing and I can't wait for more!

It's great to be able to find breakfast on a morning run