The last week I've been in China to race in this year's ParaTriathlon World Championship. Saturday night was a good friends wedding but the previous week had been so busy with work and final preparations to leave for China that I had not started to pack. I stayed up all night before leaving to pack and clean. Arriving in China was pretty easy although getting to the hotel took about 5 hours between waiting for my bike, clearing customs and immigration, waiting for the ITU bus and driving around Beijing. I was rooming with Travis (see pic below)
The rest of the week was full of final training, race meetings and similar. Race day rolled around. Our start was at 3:45 pm so after a light morning jog I spent the day relaxing, reading, repacking my race bag and trying to get my head in the right spot to race. Most of the morning I felt pretty keyed up and nervous and anxious. I was trying to take Phil 4:6 to heart. I made a few calls home to talk with people which helped a lot. Then decided to start reading Psalms. I started at the beginning and just read. By the time I got to chapter 18 I was starting to put my trust in God and by chapter 24 I was calm and focused. There is something about those poems which calms the soul. I think its the raw emotion that the writers display.
I road up to the race site about 3k's away to check into the athletes lounge. I the way up I noticed that the front break on wasn't retracting quite right and was causing some rubbing on one side. Lucky for me Specialized was on site with their Team. I stopped by and they were able to get it mostly working. Turns out that the cable is catching where it comes out of the stem.
Checking into the lounge and then getting my transition area set up was pretty easy to do. I got in my run warmup but ran out of time to do a swim warm up. There is no temperature cut off for wearing a wetsuit for paraTriathletes. I was planning on not wearing a wetsuit because the water was pretty warm, however one of athlete put on a wetsuit and within about 30 seconds everyone had one on.
We all lined up for introductions, starting with the Tri-6 athletes and working towards the Tri-1 we were all introduced. I got an ok spot on the starting pontoon. Close to some of the fast swimmers with them on the correct side for my breathing to be able to watch them. The start was fast and furious as always. I hung with the lead pack for the first 100m then got dropped. I need to learn to go out strong then settle to stay on the feet of the leaders instead of building throughout the swim. After the second buoy I started to catch people eventually I found a good pair of feet to follow for the rest of the swim.
I booked it into transition and with the help of my handler quickly got the wetsuit off and onto the bike. Exiting transition I jumped on my bike and slid my feel into the shoes. Or at least that was the plan. In reality I jumped on the bike, slid one foot into the shoe and then kicked the other shoe off the peddle. the 10-15 seconds I lost going back to get my shoe was the difference between 7th and 8th.
On the bike I was generating good power but people who I out biked last year pasted me. Even one of the AK athletes was able to hold with me for a while on one of the climbs. I found out after the race that I had a slow leak in the rear tire and I road most of the race with a low tire. The bike course was challenging and interesting with two 12% incline climbs and some semi technical descents. The first loop I didn't realize that I could use the whole road and stayed in my lane. I'm too used to having to follow the rules of the road. Even with the low tire I was pretty fast. The course was 2k longer and much more challenging than the pancake flat course last year in Budapest and I road essentially the same time. Thats what training and a much faster bike will do for you! I'm bummed that I wasn't able to use the rocket ship of a bike that Specialized sent me to its full potential but sometimes you just have bad luck.
Transition two was smooth and fast. Then it was off to a four loop run. I ran my heart out. On each loop there was a 180 turn where you could get a time check on athletes in front and behind you. I was closing a 30 second gap with a Dutch athlete and trying to stay away from a German behind me. On the third lap the German passed me and I passed the Dutchman. The German started to build his lead to 15 seconds but on the last straight before the finish I started to close. Each step got be a bit closer. Around the final 180 turn you need to swing wide to get to the 300 meter finishing shoot. When I went to make the wide turn two wheel chair athletes pinned me into the turn. I had to slow up to almost a walk to get around them. By then the German I was chasing was gone. I finished 11 seconds behind him in 8th place.
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| With my handler after the race |
All in all it was a good race, much better than last year. The field this year was much more competitive than previous years. The Tri-4 field continues to be the most competitive in ParaTriathlon. Its good to compete and I've had a good year with 2 wins (Madrid and NYC) I'm much more competitive than I was last year. Over the course of the off season I'll be focused training to produce more wins next year.
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