This was my 6th time participating in the 70.3 Timberman race up in Gilford, NH. It still amazes me how the race has grown since inception 8yrs ago. The location is phenomenal and the race is first class. Leading into the race I was interested to see how a very short taper would work. I was coming off of a pretty signicant 3 week cycle that my coach, Paul Regensburg, had put me thru. In the final days of the cycle my legs were definetely feeling tired and mentally I was fatigued from the intensity work.
At the expo I purchased a pair of metallic lensed goggles after reading my teammate’s, Brian Schanning, race report. It’s funny how over the years you can still pick up great advice that can really help on race day. That was one of my better last minute purchases as race morning was sunny with a bit of wind. The second leg of the swim was directly into the sun and the lenses really helped dull the glare. The swim is held in Lake Winnepausake, which is a beautiful, clear lake. I was in the 2nd M35-39 wave, which was the 5th of the day and 20 mins after the pro start. With 5 minute intervals between waves we were able to have clear water for the first leg of our rectangular swim. My swim strategy was similiar to my previous 70.3 race in Rhode Island. I had a friend racing in my wave, that is a stronger swimmer then I. So I wanted to try to grab his feet and hold that pace as long as I could. I got lucky this time and stayed on his feet for the first section. However, it was a “be careful what you wish for” situation, as I joked with him after the race (he couldn’t swim straight to save his life). As we rounded the first turn buoy, we started to catch some of the previous wave and it started to get really congested. I stayed on my friend’s feet and I was pleased at first as I felt like I was swimming hard to stay there. Then it started to get much more congested, so I made a decision to move left to some clearer water. However, now I was away from the feet that I had been following for half the swim. I tried to focus on my effort and form. The third turn, which took us back into shore, brought some chop. It wasn’t anything serious but some good rolling action. I ended the swim in 29:39 and as I was getting my blueseventy (www.blueseventy.com) wetsuit peeled off, I found out that I had slightly edged out my friend on the swim. This was pretty exciting until I felt a wave of nausea come on as I was buckling my Rudy Project helmut (www.e-rudy.com). It’s funny how going from horizontal to vertical in a quick fashion can bring on that uncomfortable queeziness. Fortunately it passed quickly and I was on my way out of transition and onto my Trek TTX (www.trekbikes.com). I was racing my second 70.3 with a Cycleops Powertap (www.saris.com) and my timex heart rate monitor and I was excited to work on triangulating the two with my perceived effort. I really enjoy having the data feedback, as it is a great reality check. The data helps to hold me back at the beginning of the race and keeps me honest thru the middle section where I tend to flake out a bit. It also helps to remind me to fuel properly as I can notice when I start to lose power and need more calories.

It’s funny how some of the best pre-race strategies can become completely irrelevant during a race. I had traveled up to the race with my friends Showky and fellow Timex teammate, Ian Ray. The night before the race I was mentioning my previous cramping while racing and how my plan was to take 800mg of sodium/hr this time. I spent 15 minutes playing with a tic-tac container to hold about 12 endurolyte tabs. Well, once I got about 20 miles into the bike I realized that I had left my container in my race bag, nice. Fortunately, it was a pretty cool day and I was lucky to finish up the bike in 2:20:19 without cramping. It was a three minute PR for this course and I had almost matched my target power output.
T2 was pretty smooth and I was out onto the run course curious to see how my legs would respond to my recent training load. I settled in and focused on my turnover. The run course is an out and back 2 loops. As I came thru the turnaround at the halfway point of my first loop, I saw the 1st Place bike approaching with Andy Potts right behind. It’s amazing to see these phenomenal pros race. Andy came up on my shoulder and he asked if I wanted to run with him for a little bit. He was starting to, relatively speaking, shut things down as he had +8 mins on second place with 5k left. He was nice enough to let me hold on for dear life for about half a mile, before he cruised in with a 1:14:14 run split and almost 10 minute margin of victory. I know this is going to be his first year racing in Kona, but I’m very excited to watch him race. He is such a tremoundous talent.
After surviving my little mid-race speed work, I settled back in. At mile six, I started to feel a bit fatigued and decided to start the cola shots at the aid stations. This was an immediate boost and helped to carry me for the remainder of the run with good consistency.

I crossed the line with my run PR of 1:21:20 and 4:14:01 overall time. I was pretty psyched as it was a 10 minute PR for the course and put me in 7th place overall, 1st amateur. Thanks for reading and hopefully I didn’t bore you to tears.