2009 ITU ParaTriathlon World Championship Race Report

Saturday September 12 was the 2009 ITU ParaTriathlon World Championship. The competition was tough and I was very nervous at the start.  Usually I go for a nice 15min jog before the start to clear my head and warm up my muscles.  However I ran out of time and was only able to do about 5 mins and then had to rush to get into my wetsuit.  I had a little bit of swim warm up to but mostly my head wasn't in the right spot and I felt rushed.

The gun went off and away we went.  I picked a great starting line and didn't get clobered like in NewYork.  I managed to stay fairly cloe to the leaders into the first bouy at about 200 meters out.  After that we turned parallel to the shore.  Here's where things started to fall apart.  I was swimming long and slow thinking that the tide was coming in and pushing us along.  Come to find out later that it wasn't.  The water was shallow and clear so you could see the bottom for most of the race.  I slowly watched the pebbels and sand go by.  It was rather frusterating.

About half way through the swim one of the Tri-6 (blind) Italian athletes with his guide swam by me.  I jumped on their feet to catch a draft.  For the next 400 metes or so things started looking up.  Here's where I made a fatal mistake.  I left the draft. It looked like they were headed a little off course and I felt like I could swim faster on my own.  The Italians were out of the water almost 5 whole mins before me.  This was the worst swim I've ever done.  Slower than when I was racing with side stroke back in the spring.

I got out of the water, looked at my watch and thought wow, I'm toast.  That was quickly confirmed on the out and back 2 loop bike course when I saw the leader headed back almost 20 mins up on me.  I chased on the bike, probably not as hard as I could have.  With about 8K left to go on the bike I ran over someone's helmet number that had come off.  It stuck to my wheel and mad this wooshing sound, very annoying but I wasn't stopping.  In the last kilometer I caught Brandon, however I had a problem with my race belt in transition and he was out of T2 before me.

The run was ok except that my pacing was off.  I ran the magority of the run in the low 8's and high 7's but ran the last kilometer at a 5:15 pace.  We call this not having good mental toughness.  Idealy the pace should be just about even with a bit faster for a finishing kick.

I know that I had a better race in me and am a bit frustrated I was not able to execute it.  Especially give the stage it was on. This winter I'll be focusing a lot on my weakness and next September be ready to go to the World Championship in Budapest and get myself a podium.

I want to thank all the people who helped support me financially and other wise at the last second to make my trip to Worlds possible, thank you from the bottom of my heart and God Bless you.