Last weekend my Riptide team mate and I traveled down to Ironman 70.3 New Orleans. I felt great going into the race and confident about my chances of an overall amateur podium finish, and securing a worlds spot in my new home state of Nevada! Great weather in the Sierra Nevadas this winter afforded me the opportunity to put in a little more outdoor training than usual, which I feel is key for early season racing. With 70.3 worlds, Hyvee, USAT Nationals, and Xterra Nationals all within one month of each other later this season, I wanted to just get myself super fit with base training and not sharpen too much too early. Everything seemed to be falling into place, and I truly mean everything. Wedding plans are all set for later this summer, work is going well, and I feel great about my training; life’s good!
Back to the race… I was able to get a flight from Reno to Denver to pick up Cy so we could get into NOLA together. My parents drove up from Florida so my dad could race therefore transportation and hotel was all set. We arrived Friday afternoon for the Sunday race, and between walking around trying to find the expo and packet pickup Friday afternoon we decided to skip any workout that day and just rest the legs. The plan is usually to keep the evenings before the race low stress and get to bed early, which proved difficult as we were trying to get a table for 6 (joined by our friends Kyle Leto and Heidi) on Bourbon street, on a Friday night. Dinner was great; we got to bed a little late, but no harm done.
The next morning we awoke to some serious wind as we made out way down to the race site for the pre-race swim, bike, and run. 20-30 MPH winds created some pretty good chop so we skipped the lake swim, no sense in tiring ourselves out the day before the race, and did a bike/run instead. No one was too disappointed about missing the swim, lake Pontchartrain is nasty! My legs felt great, fresh and strong on both the bike and the run. We were done with all the pre-race stuff early, and I was confident about my chances on race day.
RACE MORNING
Up at 4am, good breakfast, cup of coffee, in the car, and at the race site about 1:45 before our wave was scheduled to start. As Cy, my dad, and I made our way into transition the normal cheery voice over the loud speaker wasn’t so friendly this morning. “Due to safety concerns…” Oh no! “we have decided to cancel…” Don’t say swim, say run, come on run. “SWIM” What? How? Why?
The water was choppy, not half as bad as yesterday, and in 5 years of racing these conditions wouldn’t even crack my top 20 worst swims. We had 12 foot overheads in Mazatlan, 6 foot swells in Tahoe, and every Alcatraz swim EVER was probably worse than this. All those races were prepared for the conditions, with athlete safety being the main concern, and they all went on as planned. Am I biased because in the world of age group triathlon I am a good swimmer, you bet, but a lot of athletes expressed the same sentiments, and I didn’t hear a single person say they were glad the swim was canceled.
So now it was time to get my head back in the game and prepare for a bike/run. I knew I still had a great shot of top 2-3 in my age group which would get me my worlds spot. The race would now start as a time trial bike send off (2 riders every second!) This is good because you are passing people all the time, but it does make the course a little crowded with 2000 people all starting the bike within about 20 min of each other. The bike course is mostly an out and back, on surprisingly good roads given the condition of every other road around the city. We had a pretty stiff head wind on the way out, but I felt strong and was only passed by two guys by the turn around. The road was pancake flat, the guys that passed me were big guys, so I told myself to just keep them in site and get them on the run. I could feel my power dropping after about 40 miles as I started to fatigue, but I was still moving fast with the tail wind and passing people. About 3 miles from the end of the bike another guy in my AG caught me and we entered T2 about 10 seconds apart.
With the TT start I could only guess that I was sitting in 4th in my AG, not where I wanted to be after the bike, but I was pretty sure I could catch the two big guys on the run. I made up the 10 seconds on that guy in transition and we exited T2 together, he was fast, really fast, he ended up winning our age group, and left me in the dust! I was running well, for me, about 6:20 pace, and caught the two other guys ahead of me by mile 2. Now I’m in second, maybe.
With good off season base training my run felt solid. I joined up with one of the pro women at mile 3 and we ran in the high 6:20 range for quite a while. That is until about 10-10.5 miles in. My legs were getting heavy, my pace was plummeting, and I just couldn’t seem to get my turnover going like I could earlier. I’m still not sure what happened, my nutrition seemed decent, I was prepared for the distance, and the weather in NOLA was better than we could have hoped for. My legs just wouldn’t move fast enough those last 3 miles. I struggled in with a 1:28 half marathon, about 4-5 min off of where I wanted to be. I was passed by 2 guys in those three miles, so I knew I was no better than 4th and fearful of what was going on behind me.
8th, that’s right 8th in my AG and 20th overall. Not at all what I wanted, and no chance for a Worlds slot. I’m disappointed but that’s how it goes some times. On the bright side my dad won his age group by about 30 min and probably would have done even better with the swim! And my buddy Kyle Leto, who is an amazing swimmer, still finished 10th in a very deep 40 person pro field! Awesome job mate; I think you could have been on the podium if it was a tri.
Cy and I spent the next few hours recovering and getting ready for a night on Bourbon st. It was nice spending time with my parents, Cy, Kyle, and Heidi, but after about an hour out at the bars I honestly couldn’t wait to get back to my girls at home. It’s funny how one person can change your whole world, you never think it is going to happen to you, but it does, and I am so thankful for it.
It was tough being away from family and work for 4 days so I’m going to stay pretty local, Nevada and NCal, for the rest of the season. I’d still like to do Hyvee if the family can come with me. Next up is Aimee’s marathon, and then the Xterrra Pacific Champs for me.
Good luck to everyone out there, train hard, and happy racing.
Matt
