Goes like this:
Sunday was Williams Lake Sprint Tri. Was a beautiful Memorial Day weekend to be racing. I started my morning off by not waking up to an alarm I had never set and then proceeding out of my house without my wallet. You would think, "what is to come of a day that starts out like this." Luckily the promoter is pretty laid back and let me slide for the time being. Got set up in transition, found a good spot near the run out and it was time to warm up, since I was a bit late. Nice easy jog with some strides and a last minute dip in the water to check the temp.
The race was a dock start so you had to dive in. I have ripped my goggles off my face too many times doing this so I opted for the glorified belly flop. Swim consisted of a 1/2 mile in length around two buoys keeping them to your right. After the last buoy you head back towards the resort and get treated with a face full of sunshine, leaving you with absolutely nothing to sight. Not knowing how I was doing on the swim left me unsure of who was around me and where I was placed. As I come out of the water I realize I am in 4th, which for this race is amazing, I was super pumped, some really fast swimmers at this race. With all 4 of us in transition I made short work of two of my competitors and got biking. Passed the leader and naively thought the race was mine. And then Mike Halstead came whizzing by me about two miles into the bike. I calmly let him do his thing and continued to ride my own race, while never letting him out of my sights, while he made a few attempts to drop me.
Coming off the bike into T2 I was about 25 seconds out. I had a good transition and shaved that down to 20 seconds and went after the leader. About a mile into the run I had closed my gap to 5 seconds and with this added pressure Mike pinned it up a hill and on mile two gapped me to about 30 seconds. Not giving up I picked up the pace last mile and brought the gap back down to 10 seconds but ran out of race track. He crossed the line and Mike Halstead won the race, I crossed the line about 15 seconds later and had one hell of a race. I was very happy with my race. I performed very steadily and calmly all day and rode my own race, which was one of my goals for the day.
This was my first time racing Mr. Halstead head to head and look forward to a potential repeat sometime this season. Hopefully with a different outcome.
On a Side note:
Last year the promoter put on 4 sprint tris at Williams Lake, all ranging from 30 to 40 entrants, this year there had to of been almost a 100 entrants, it is great to see this sport growing!
Woodsy
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