Thursday, March 1, 2012

Frost Yer Fanny Du at Texas Motor Speedway

Coming off a solid off-season which also included a bit of running I decided to take Jack Weiss invitation to do the Frost Yer Fanny Duathlon February 19th. Like the name implies, it was a chilly 40 something degrees on race day but - comparing to the conditions back in November when I won the Duathlon hosted at Texas Motor Speedway - there was almost zero wind on Sunday morning.

The race was also the USAT SWM Region's Championship so the entry list featured a few more heavy hitters (obviously, great runners!) and I knew it would be tough to try to "repeat" on that course. Run #1 (2miles) was painful as usual and I just tried to pace myself and follow a good "draft" around the inner track of Texas Motor Speedway. I thought I was about a minute behind entering T1 and felt somewhat comfortable getting on the bike, which was going to be my 2nd ride on it. Big thanks to Austin Tri-Cyclist which is my bike sponsor for this year with some sweet Cervelo gear. Since there was barely any wind I felt fast and kept catching and passing guys who started ahead of me, including the 40+ wave athletes who started 2min ahead my age group (30+). The only thing I "kind of forgot" was the fact that the young guns (29 and under) started 2min behind us. So coming first into T2 I was just a little bit worried about a strong runner, Patrick Schuster, who came into T2 just 30seconds later than me. Little did I know that he actually started 2minutes ahead of me and was no threat for the Overall. SO I thought: "Oh sh#%, that guy is going to run me down"! My legs felt jello and my feet were cold & numb I could barely feel them hitting the tarmac with every step. It was painful. Somehow I managed to hold him off and came in at 1:00:45 which was more than 2minutes faster than back in November at Brenda's Du. Turns out, it wasn't enough to actually win the Overall as two guys (William Huffman and Michael Wilkinson) who started 2minutes behind me did MUCH faster runs (10:03 vs. my two equal 11:52 splits). Pretty amazing. While I still got my AG win it was a bit of a bummer to miss out on the USAT Regional Championships by less than 40seconds in an hour event.

Again, special thanks to Jack Weiss of Iron Head Productions for a great race and Austin Tri-Cyclist for equipping this roadie with the fastest TT rig out there - Cervelo's P4!

 The P4 claims fastest bike of the day! weird number placement, I know. I make fun of it, too...

a bit pre-mature celebration here, since the "young guns" who started 2min behind me got me by 40seconds in the Overall. Lesson learned.

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