Last Race of the Year!

2018 saw many changes in our lives, from purchasing our first home together to work and health changes. Don’t worry, my underlying sarcastic nature hasn’t changed and I always approach my own failures and life with a bit of fatalistic humor. We enter the final month of the year grateful for each other and looking forward to a smooth ride … smoother ride … in 2019.

We are looking forward to visiting long time friends on our trip to San Diego and I’ve been preparing for a big race at La Quinta Indian Wells Ironman 70.3. At the end of 2017, I looked for sponsors and relationships that were going to help propel me to my personal goals in triathlon as I’m not getting any younger. Though coming of age as a Hobbit means a lot of extra meals are possible, probably shouldn’t have been candy-centric though, huh? Well that’s the curse of having to provide for a neighborhood of kids during Halloween, gotta make sure you have enough and I did give all my sweet tarts away to an office of computer nerds.

My training has hovered around 14 endurance hours during this build up and was built around longer running mileage (training for a half PR, which I nailed :) while using a Zwift FTP training program that has helped me be successful in the past with improving bike splits. Pikes Peak Athletics, the masters swimming program that has turned me from a middle-back of the pack swimmer to a continually improving middle of the pack swimmer, moved this year from the Olympic Training Center to their own facility less than 3 miles from our new house. I’ve had little excuse not to swim which was a good thing during this wild ride of a year and especially after nights that involved my favorite running team and beer sponsor, Fossil Craft Beer ;).

On top of the training, I made the best effort this year to acquire as much free speed as possible on the bike (and maybe eventually with 4% on the run). The focused FTP programs make training a plug and play effort so adding in my new equipment comes with the idea of getting the most out of that. I ride a Quintana Roo PRsix, which is as light and stiff as I could ever hope for. To my trusty steed I’ve added upgraded bar tape and a triathlon specific saddle from Velo which allow for gloveless riding in an aero position to be achieved with comfort and singular focus while upgrading to a Hyper Speed System and ceramic bottom bracket bearings from SLF Motion to take as much friction as possible out of my drivetrain. For this race I’ve also finally gone to latex inner tubes. After a 2:13 bike split at Boulder where I thought I was in 2:10 shape, it’s time to prove it, and obviously now I can’t claim it’s because I don’t ride with the best equipment.

Feel free to follow along my race on December 9th, bib number 372. Thanks for reading!