I’m going to try and be super brief to try something different.
Matt Dixon strongly pushed me to start working with Gerry Rodrigues in LA, renown open water swimming guru who immediately set about teaching me to stop trying to swim like a ridiculously hypermobile swimmer and embrace the reality that I’m a tight shouldered little chap who needs to quicken my stroke rate drastically. In the luke warm waters of Buffalo Springs Lake it worked and I was able to exit the water alongside the main players of the race thanks to multiple world champ, Terenzo Bozzone towing the group around the 1.9km course.
Onto the bike and it was immediately apparent that I didn’t have the bike legs of the last few races averaging about 20 watts below what I had done in previous weeks however I took heart as this normally means that the running legs will be there. Unable to stay with Mark Bowstead and Greg Bennet who were really hammering, I fell off the pace at an early turn-around just after (not because of) Terenzo Bozzone came down hard at a U-turn. Amazingly he never even mentioned it post race. Terenzo has a super impressive hard arse attitude that I should probably try and imitate.
Terenzo caught up to me with about a km to go and we ran fairly steady up and out of the canyon. Once on the long hot never ending straight I decided to have a crack at picking up the pace and thankfully was soon on my own. After riding incredibly well Bennet was a fair way ahead however it’s a long hard race so I tried to build the pace in case he exploded. No such luck, however it was enough to secure a 2nd place finish in what would have been a course record if it wasn’t for Bennet being stupidly fast.
It was very cool to finish on the podium with two of my triathlon heroes.
Mike and Marti Greer and the town of Lubbock put on such an amazing community supported event. Special thank you to my homestay, Jeff Key who offered 1st class Texan hospitality.
I hope to be back!
http://www.trizone.com.au/20130701/bennett-and-naeth-dominant-in-buffalo-springs/
http://firstoffthebike.com/races/bennett-and-naeth-win-ironman-70-3-buffalo-springs/
http://www.xtri.com/features/detail/284-itemId.511715870.html
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