After my 15th place finish in Kona, I had a solid week of relaxation and time spent with the family in Hawai’i, but something was rolling around in the back of my mind. Even though I showed myself that I could do a better race at the Ironman World Champs, I didn’t feel that I raced my very best race, and was left with the feeling that I could do one more good effort on the year. Thankfully, it was an easy choice of which race to do, since my parents were headed to Austin so my dad could compete. I don’t necessarily recommend that people race half-ironmans two weeks after an Ironman, but having done it with relative success last year, I went ahead and booked the ticket.
After a week of laying around, I ticked over a couple training sessions back home in Boulder, and then flew out to LA to do a little photo shoot with Zoot. I arrived on Friday and met up with my parents and getting settled. Saturday was pro panel, some light training, a wedding with a friend from Durango (congrats, Randy!), and then off to bed. Pretty atypical way for me to lead into a race, but also quite nice to feel a little less pressure than normal and spend some time focusing on my dad’s race instead of just myself. It was all about hoping the residual fitness would carry me through and give me a chance to be in the mix.
I don’t want to sound like a complainer, but I have to take a moment to say that I don’t love this race like some others I have done. It’s not really a great representation of Austin as a city, and that is a shame since it really is a great place. Additionally, the race morning traffic issues, road surfaces, run trails, and transitions could all use some fine-tuning to make a more classy event.
The swim this year was around 72 degrees, and I suffered badly with the heat of the wetsuit. When I look at my best swims in the last few years, they are almost all non-wetsuit, which bodes well for Kona, but not these situations. Flipping over to do backstroke a couple times and let water into my suit, I was never really in contact with the leaders, and came out with work to do. And since it’s my job, I did work. Telling myself that this would be the last time for 2013 that I had to really dig deep was comforting and motivating, so I laid it on the line, bridging up to a good group of athletes and riding hard. I didn’t have the snappiness to try and distance myself from them, but we came into T2 a couple minutes down, and I was mostly satisfied with the effort.
The run felt terrible for most of the 13 miles, as I battled mind and body to keep the pressure on. Fortunately, the effort paid off, as I ran my way into 3rd by the midpoint, but the battle wasn’t over yet. With only a couple miles to go, some of the other pros were coming good and closing the gap to me, so I had to give everything to make the body suffer through the last few hills and into the stadium. When the dust settled, I held 3rd by about 20-30 seconds, and it was the podium finish that I was hoping for.
More importantly, I was able to get out and cheer my dad to a 3rd place in his age-group, and a PR of 5:30. Not bad for a 60 year old! After the race, we enjoyed an excellent BBQ at Chris McDonald’s place, and then hit the road to Baton Rouge to see a family friend and get a little quality go karting in! Good thing I had my driving suit with me for that one…Kartin’
With only one more race in the Bahamas, it’s time to ease into offseason now and spend some time thinking about how I want to approach 2014. Thanks for following along, and enjoy the holiday season!