Tri Santa Cruz 2014

Finish Line Productions' Tri Santa Cruz is one of my favorite events of the year and it comes at such a good time too. Mid-season is always hard and a fun local event is the perfect way to rejuvenate motivation for the second half of the year. With lots of friends and family around and the race happening in my own back yard it is always a great time.

I want to send a special thanks to the guys at Spokesman Bicycles for getting my bike fixed just in time for the event and setting it up perfectly so that I didn't even have to ride it before the race!

The race went almost exactly how I expected it to go and almost exactly how it went last year with John Dahlz and I battling the whole way and finishing whit him less than ten seconds ahead of me. Tommy Zafares was racing this year and has been racing on the ITU circuit so he is on a different level than John or I right now. Tommy got a solid gap in the swim just like we expected and we never saw him again but John and I stayed close trading positions throughout the race but always staying within 30 seconds of each other. Just like last year John had a gap I could not close in the last few miles of the run and I finished just behind him.

I was happy with my time after not having done too much quality work in the past few months and I am excited to dial in some speed-work to try and nail down some good results in the shorter events I have planned the rest of the year.

Vineman 2014

I wasn't going to do a race report about this years Vineman because I had to pull out and I really didn't know what to say about it. A lot of people have asked about it though so I just wanted to leave a couple of notes about the day.

Everything went perfectly. I had a great swim that felt effortless. Nutrition and hydration on the bike went exactly according to plan...I had to jump off twice because I derailed my chain in the same spot on both loops. I finished the bike feeling spectacular. I know I was ready to run a solid marathon and I was even 10 minutes ahead of my race plan up to that point. What did happen was that riding without socks shifted the insoles in my cycling shoes just the slightest bit and they were putting pressure on a soft part of my feet. I didn't think much about it but late in the bike it really started hurting. When I got off I couldn't even put weight on my feet and basically what had happened was the insoles bruised the bottom of my feet so I couldn't run.

I learned a ton of stuff from preparing for and racing the ironman this year and I am about 50% sure I will try again but the most important thing I learned was that ironman can take your smallest weakness and when it gets compounded over such a distance and so much time, bring you to your knees with it.

Thanks everyone for supporting me along the way and checking in! I am not too disappointed because I know that I was ready to do it and just because I didn't finish doesn't mean I didn't accomplish what I set out to. The preparation was the biggest challenge and the part I get the most from on a personal level.