The season started with the Columbia Triathlon. It's claimed to be one of the toughest olympic distance tris in the country due to the hills, I had a good race here, though my result did not show it. I flatted halfway through the bike and lost about 3 minutes fixing that. Ran well off the bike for an early season race and still finding my fitness. Considering the tire flat, I was happy with this race. Swim fitness was still building, so my time was relatively slow as expected.
My second event was the Baltimore 10 miler. A very competitive race. I did this to see get a better idea of where my fitness was at leading into the triathlon season and get a good training day in. I was a couple minutes off my goal of 59 minutes,. I chalk it up to the hilly coarse and a difficult winter to train in.
The third race was Challenge Atlantic City 70.3. This was my first high priority race of the year. It was not intended to be anything else than a very fast race and I did have expectations of going fast. The conditions of the event took a bad turn when rain storms completely turned the coarse inside out. The swim location was moved and the bike coarse was ravaged by debris and sediment. My swim time wasn't great, but good enough. Unfortunately I flatted 2 times during the bike and as it happened I was in the lead at about 35 miles into the race when I flatted. I could only fix the one flat and was shit outa luck with the second flat. There was no bike support provided. I was stuck in the middle of know where and had a nightmare of a time getting back to my stuff. It was so bad that I was refunded my money. Over the day I think they said over 35 people had flats. So this race was a bust!
The next race was Challenge Pocono Mountains 70.3. This was a challenging coarse through the hills of the Poconos, plus it was extremely hot. I had a pretty good swim, and a pretty good bike ( I finally did not flat!). I held back a little bit on the bike due to the heat and also thinking I should save energy for the run. I ended up cramping up pretty bad a couple miles into the run. I couldn't shake them off and ended up walking way too much. The run was a fail. But still finished well overall. And best of all I became a stronger athlete from it.
Last triathlon of the year was Savageman 70.3 "toughest triathlon in the world". Not sure how true that is, but this was a hell of a coarse. The amount of climbing on the bike and on the run was ridiculous. It was the hardest tri I've done yet, but I had a lot of fun. The day was about celebrating a great summer of racing and training and being very fit. I had a good swim, great bike (for using a road bike), and a decent run. I was happy with my race. I cramped up immediately coming off the bike, but that went away and I slogged through hilly run. Races like these are more about completing the coarse rather than getting a new personal record. Stoked to have my name carved into the stone road at the top of 'The Wall'.
Next race was the Baltimore Marathon. I decided to race this about 3 days before the event. I thought it would be a good training day to prepare for a couple ultra marathons coming up. I had not trained for a marathon all year, but the half marathon training and half ironman racing made me more than ready to run a relatively quick marathon. My goal was to just break 3 hours. The last bit of the course was pretty hilly which didn't plan for during the first half of the marathon. I was thinking I could do two 90 minute half marathons. But I slowed the second half to where a sub 3 hours wasn't possible. At least qualified for Boston 2017.
Two weeks after the marathon was the Roseryville 50k ultra marathon trail race in support the veterans. I did this last year and had a fun time. This year was a somewhat different since I ran the majority of it solo, not in a group. Last year I stayed in a group of three until about 20 miles, which helps more mentally than anything else. This year I was gunning to run sub 4 hours for 32 miles. About 8 miles in I rolled my ankle on some tree roots. It was bad enough were I could not put pressure down on it and figured my race was over at that point, I mean another 23 miles on it sounded impossible at first. But I am stubborn and going home without finishing was the absolute last thing I wanted so I walked for about a half mile, then began to run slow on it, and eventually the pain went away and I was back to running normal. I did a 4:07, just over my sub 4 hour goal, but I took it as a personal victory overcoming that setback.
Information about 2016 plans coming soon!
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