One World Cup Down...

…many more planned in the future!
Yesterday I raced in my first triathlon World Cup race in Ishigaki, Japan…I finished in 16th place…I had a ton of fun…and I learned a LOT of things for the future.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, I was number 31 (out of 29 competitors:) so I was pretty much the last person to be called out to the starting pontoon to pick my starting position. It doesn’t really matter where I end up…I sprint like mad when the horn sounds so that I  get in front and clear of the field. I had no problems doing that yesterday; I was leading after about 10 meters! The two lap swim course had a lot of currents flowing around…I was glad that I swam a warm up loop right before the start so that I was comfortable knowing where to angle for the shortest distance.
Well, the shortest distance was pretty short…my swim time was 16:12! That’s like world record pace if I had been in a pool for 1500 meters…oh well, they can’t get it right every time, but I just wish that they would error on the LONG side instead of the short side of 1500m.
According to the splits, I exited the water about 1:40 ahead of the next women. I was on my bike and already hammering up the first hill on the course. There is only one point on the bike course where I could view who was behind me…and where the chase pack could see how close they were to catching me…that was on the first hill/bridge of each lap. I had a nice big gap and worked pretty hard by myself for the first 2 laps (I wanted to make sure that I got the bike prime at the end of the 2nd lap as well as the swim prime at the end of the first lap of the swim). I heard time splits after 2 laps and knew the pack was catching me so I rode the 3rd lap nice and easy hoping that the first chase pack of 6 would catch me and we could ride hard together.
Unfortunately, since I could only see the packs one time each lap…when they caught me, it was a huge pack of 20 (three chase packs had joined into one)! I was a bit upset because once you get big group like that…no one can break away and everyone starts the run together. After I let myself mope for about 30 seconds, I refocused on staying safe for the rest of the ride, and started thinking about having a strong 10k run.
The weather was great…I couldn’t have asked for anything better…the skies were overcast with thick dark clouds, a cool breeze was blowing from the north, and every now-and-then it would mist rain. I had no fears of overheating on this race (which is a big problem for me) so I could concentrate on racing as fast as possible.
The 3 lap run course took us up the bridge 4 times. My motivation during the run was to count down the number of times I had left to climb the bridge…1 down, 3 to go…2 down, 2 to go, etc. I had terrific speed on the first lap, I was running great, catching some girls, and even passing them! Well, that lasted until about 5k…and then I realized I might have started out with a bit too much enthusiasm:)! The 2nd and 3rd lap were not beautiful…but I knew that all I had to focus on was my running form and it would get me to the finish line…eventually, that happened: I crossed the finish line of my first World Cup! 16th place and within 8% of the winner’s time (finishing outside 8% of the winners time does not get you any World Cup points) and getting 5 points next to my name on the world rankings.
After recovering (getting some fluids and food) and changing out of my race suit…I ran around the race course cheering for the American men (4 out of the top 6 finishers were from the USA: Hunter 2nd, Andy 3rd, Matt 5th, Mark 6th)! At 7pm that night, we all went to the post-race party, ate yakisoba, danced to the Japan rock and roll band, and celebrated that the race was over!
I’ve just finished packing my bike box and I have about 10 minutes until I catch a ride to the Ishigaki airport for my flight to Tokyo. I’m looking forward to getting to Tokyo because I have a 25 hour layover and I can’t wait to go exploring the city. I will be spending the night in the same airport hotel as I did when arriving in Japan and hopefully I will have time to say hello again. Later, Gators!