Leading up to the B2B Iron distance race, I have raced a few times mostly for fun. I went down to White Lake for the specialty race called "Club Wars" where we were suppose to race other clubs. I was not one of Setups better promoted races and they had a poorly concieved scoring system for the club challenge, so it ended up being more of an intra-club race. And what a race it was!Lucky and Mark K. were racing and bragging rights where on the table. The race was longer then a sprint and shorter then an international. I knocked out a decent swim, I got out of the water ahead of Lucky and I could see Mark ahead of me running down the swim finish dock. Because I was so close to Mark opted of socks which I had planned to wear to save my feet for the iron man and took off after Mark. I did not have my strongest ride but still managed to put several minutes between me and the boys. When I took off on the five mile out & back run I downshifted to made sure I was in good shape for the finish. At 2.5 miles, I turned the corner and started looking for lucky and mark who I knew would be in fast pursuit. Checking my watch, I found I had about 2-2:15 minutes advantage over two of the best running triathletes in nc. They were closing but I turned on the afterburners and spanked them both! I rode down to the race with the gracious, Dawn Petty (which was pleasant and smack free.) and after the race I rode home 100 miles as part of my B2B iron training. People thought this was crazy. Even the crazy people thought it was crazy; I do not understand why.
You have got to do the miles.I also did the hillsbourgh race. I was suppose to do Lake Norman but I wanted to focus on my Iron training so I ended up going to watch some neighbors race at a local race. Reistration was still up on race morning so I signed up that morning. I was a little worn down but I did alright.... And then I rode home.
The last race of the season before the ironman was the Wilmington race. I wanted to do this race because the swim covers the last 1500 meters of the B2B course. Because this was a Sprint race with a long swim, I did not have high expectations that I could get many series points. My pal JW beat me out of the water by 20-30 seconds but I tracked him down with the 5th fastest bike split in the race and then I posted my first sub 20 tri-5k. The net time was not fast enough for the podium (4th in age group), but it was good enough for 31/1200 and my first score above .82. The strong finished secured my 4th place finish in the NC Triathlon Series. I moved up from 10th last year. Jackets go to the top 5 so this was good.Now back to the Ironman training. 100+ mile rides and 20 mile runs. Triathlon training has always been fun, but I can honestly say, iron training is a lonely grind
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