Not so Easy in the Big Easy

I was super excited for New Orleans 70.3. This race had a stacked pro field with over 30 competing. This year I’m trying to get a feel for where my strengths are and at what distance in triathlon. New Orleans was my first 70.3 of the season and gave my Coach and me great feedback on where I’m at. Friend and fellow triathlete Carlos Miranda decided last minute to race and joined Erin and I for the 8.5 hour trek on I-10. We left Friday after work and drove straight through finding a hotel on Bourbon St. to put us up for the night until we could move to the race hotel the next day. It was pretty hilarious trying to navigate at Midnight through the small New Orleans side streets to find our hotel. If you haven’t been to Bourbon Street before it’s party central for New Orleans and Friday night it was hopping. We got some strange looks unloading Tri Bikes and had some even stranger conversations with party goers in the elevator ride up to our room.

Saturday morning we all got up and headed over to the race course for a 45 minute bike. The wind was pretty wild and the water was wilder with monster waves. After the bike we got some food and headed over to packet pickup. I hit the Pro meeting at 3 pm, it was pretty cool to see 50 pro men and women sitting in the room, it really showed just how deep the field was. Saturday we caught some good food at Dragos in the Hilton and settled down for the night. My wife Erin’s Birthday was Saturday but we decided to celebrate Sunday after the race.
Sunday morning we got up bright and early to head over to transition and get prepped for the race. I started to get my bike settled in and things set up when an announcement came over the loud speaker. Due to high winds the swim portion was going to be cancelled for the race! This immediately created a buzz among the Pros and different athletes were lobbying for how they felt the race should be adjusted. First we were all going to line up to do a time trial start with 3 seconds between, then we were going to run the outskirts of the transition area and grab our bikes for a mass start, and finally they put it to a vote. The vote ended with us doing a time trial start with 30 seconds between us to help break up any packs. I conversed with my coach, Zane Castro, about the change and how this might adjust my race plan. While swimming is not my strongest leg I was disappointed not to swim. I was looking forward to seeing my overall time and comparing with last year for improvements. I also need more swim starts to work on this leg and pack swimming.

After I warmed up I grabbed my bike and headed over to the start where they were calling off our names to line up. I started 9th of 31 men just behind fellow University of Iowa graduate TJ Tollakson. They sounded the start and we were off one rider every 30 seconds. When it was my turn to go I executed a flying mount brought my bike up to speed and was off in good shape. The plan was to take the first half of the bike conservative and then work the second half hard. With 25 mph winds I didn’t want to burn up right away. Things were going to plan; I held my position until about mile 5 when Massimo Cigana of Italy went by. That’s how it went for the first half of the bike, about every 4-5 miles someone went by. Mile 22 I passed Bryan Rhodes and kept pace until mile 28. At mile 28 I kicked it up a notch and passed John Flanagan. I was pass halfway and started to work the bike a little harder. No one came by the next 10 miles which I took as a good sign things were going in the right direction. About mile 40 my legs got heavy and HR dropped, I was zapped. The next 16 miles I spent fueling for energy and getting passed as I had fallen off pace. I worked to keep my head in the game knowing this is a long race and a lot can change.
Transition went well enough and I was off running. Within the first half mile my left quad was tightening and I was fighting off a cramp. I ran by Cesar Valera and just did my best to keep my pace up. With the exception of the nagging quad the run didn’t go too bad. I held it together and passed a couple more guys before the finish and was closing fast on two more before I ran out of real estate. I finished with a 1:19:06 run and 3:41:17 overall time, this put me 25th out of 31 pro men. A big congrats to Sebastian Kienle of Germany, the man was an animal on the day winning a race full of former Ironman and Ironman 70.3 champs. Erin had a pretty good day finishing 7th in her age-group and averaging 22 mph on the bike! Carlos also did very well, he did two 70.3s on back to back weekends dropping about 16 minutes off the bike/run he did the previous weekend at Galveston.

The post race party was good and later that night we had a blast celebrating Erin’s Birthday. We had some great New Orleans Cajun food, a little gambling at Harrah’s, a few drinks, and caught some live Jazz. What a night! Now I’m looking forward to a solid 5 week training block to get prepped for Cap Tex in Austin. Thanks for reading!