From Jordan Jones:
With the real US triathlon season beginning in May, it’s challenging to find early season races to test triathlon fitness. That’s why I made the trip to the inaugural Rev3 Triathlon Costa Rica last week.
Rev3 Triathlon is a relatively new entrant to the race market and have been building a loyal following of racers through their US race series. After traveling to Costa Rica for the first time I can see why they decided to add a race there. It’s a fairly quick flight (5 hours of total flying time from Denver), it has good roads for biking, weather was great (hot but not humid, it felt like Denver in the summer), and it’s easy as a Central American destination in terms of safety, clean water, plenty of good food, etc. Check out the video to see a phenomenal yet simple local breakfast.
I roomed with fellow elites Andrew Starykowicz and freshman Damian Hill making for a good time. Damian is from Portland, OR via Alaska (and we’re talking hardcore Alaska with a family of fisherman near the Aleutian Islands).
Now to the race. The swim was 2 loops in a protected bay with just a little chop. I got out well and was dangling behind the pack, almost there, but the pace picked up at the first buoy 300m in and I was on my own the rest of the swim. Unfortunately the swim was a bit long and I was on my own for a LONG ways. The leaders got out in 22:XX and I was 3 minutes back in 9th place.
The bike was certainly the crown jewel of the race and a bad ace course. The first and last 2 miles were on a private road connecting the resort, where the race was staged, to the public road. And man were those some hilly miles – 3 hills, each about 1:30 of all-in biking to get up. Onto the bike, up down, up down, up down. I was in my easiest gear, averaging 425 watts up the hills, with only 50 rpm! I like it, many courses can be wimpy and it’s cool when the course itself actually presents a challenge rather than just going fast being the challenge. These weren’t insane, but enough to ruminate over the day before the race.
After passing Rom Akerson and reaching the 1st bike turnaround I saw that it was basically a group of 8 around 3 minutes up. Included in that group were Leo Chacon, Huerta, Starykowicz, Reed, Cunningham, Fleischmann and Guillaume.
Onto the run I moved up one more spot into 7th, I was trying to work up to the 5th and 6th guys, Starykowicz and Guillaume but they had too much on me at a little over a minute up.
Looking at the results, I’m happy with bike and run but I didn’t execute on the swim. I HAVE to make those packs to make real improvements over last year. It was good to at least almost be there at the 1st buoy but almost doesn’t cut it on race day, either you do it or you don’t. The consistent 30k swim weeks are paying off but I still have to game the swim on race day.
