Ironman 70.3 Vineman

On Sunday I raced the third 70.3 in just over 4 weeks. This time it was in sunny California nearly 2 hours north of San Francisco.  It was  the Birst  time I have raced Vineman and I had heard so many good things about  the race from other athletes  that I was excited  to  get  amongst it,  and even more exciting was the world class Bield that the race had attracted. Race morning rolled around and we all soon found ourselves on the start line staring down the narrow shallow river that we had to swim in.

After a good warm up and some hypoxic  swim drills I was conBident in doing what it takes to make the front pack. They counted us down and the gun went off. I started to the right and to my surprise only after 2 strokes and my Birst breath to the left I saw a couple guys already a few body lengths ahead. I was super surprised but didn’t think too much of it till a few of the guys after the race mentioned that with 5 seconds to go a couple athletes went under water and started swimming to get the jump. Now I don’t think that is cool, if you are willing to take little advantages like that what else do they consider ok. Anyway luckily the main group had some fast swimmers and we caught them up half way through the Birst stretch. Other than that the swim was pretty uneventful,  there was a main pack of about 9-10 guys I think and I sat around middle of the pack in 5th, which felt comfortable.  At a couple stretches the river was very shallow so we would all have  to  do  some dolphin dives  to  get through which elevated the  heart  rate more  but it was actually quite fun to mix it up. So I exited the water in 5th and had an awesome transition and was out on the bike 1st which I think was a Birst for me in a 70.3. I kept the pressure on over the Birst few kilometers just to try and catch out anyone not quite paying attention. After 5km or so Ben Collins came to the front to continue pushing the pace. Ben Is a very good rider and a guy I was thinking could be someone to work with today.

Ben set a good pace for the next 30km and I was happy to sit behind but unfortunately so were about 6 other guys including Sam Appleton,  Craig Alexander,  Luke  Bell,  Kevin Collington,  TJ Tollakson and Tim O’Donnell.  I was not feeling the best  I have on a bike today it was a bit of a battle but with that group of class altogether I made the crazy call to attack up a hill about 40km in. If I had been feeling great this may have worked well but all it really did was put me in the box and when Sam Appleton rolled on  through saying ‘we have a small gap lets go’ I was not able to respond and had to hang my head in shame and drop back to the group.  It took quite a while to recover from that and It also escalated the pace as now the guys were trying to chase Sam down. The rest of the ride the group rotated round a bit and we rolled in having ridden a 2.05 for the 90km.

Transition 2 was a long quarter mile run with your bike and I had a bit of an issue which cost me some time. I left there last of the group of 7 about 35sec down, but I was feeling good. I had Luke Bell in my sights Birst and passed him fairly quickly. Next up were two guys TJ and Ben Collins I passed them within the Birst 2 miles and was running well but the rest of the guys were running great too. It stayed like this for most the run, Sam leading Crowie by 2 mins, then Kevin Tim O’Donnell then me. Unfortunately within the last 1km I started to run out of gas and Ben Collins came Blying passed me to take 5th.  So I ended up 6th which I am disappointed with as my goal going in was top 5 but it was still another solid performance and I think shows my consistency. So far this year in the USA at the 70.3s I’ve competed in I have gone 3h 44m, 3.48, 3.52, 3.50 so they are not slow times the competition is just amazing and it’s the reason a lot of us southern hemisphere athletes migrate north for our winter. We get to do what we love all year round. So thanks for the continued support! I am now Binally on an easy week and I am making the most of it till I build up for Timberman 70.3 in mid- August.