Long time away, but want to begin to start chronicling the journey again.
2017. What a year. I'll touch the highlights.
Triathlon for 2017 actually starts in 2016. After looking into the ITU World Championship series, 2017 was announced as the first year the ITU added aquabike as an event. Further, your age group is determined by the age of the year of the competition. That would put me in the 55-59 for the 2017 event, which was being held in Penticton, BC Canada, as a 55 year old, which as we all know means I'd likely have the bests chance ever to qualify since I'd be at the youngest of my age group.
The USA qualifying event was Miami Man in November. I decided that since the top 18 in each age group are eligible for Worlds, I would enter and try to get onto Team USA. Obviously November isn't a good time for a New Englander to race, but the course is pancake flat and therefore weight doesn't matter so trainer rides should be fine. I decided to travel by car and go with my mom. Also, Terry from the Asphalt Junkies lives in Miami, and he was doing the same race. Lots of good reasons to do it!
I'll fast forward to race day. I went into the event without the best training block, but felt ok. My swimming was better than ever. In the weeks leading up to the event, I did a 2125 yard interval each week, with times of 35:30, 36:39, 34:52. That's a good 3-5 minutes faster than I usually do in a half swim, and I felt nice and relaxed at the end. My bike training hadn't been as complete as I had hoped, but I felt pretty well prepared. I knew the week before the race would be tough given we were driving for 2 days, but going with mom added an awesome piece to this endeavor.
Anyway, I started on the bike very comfortable and hoping that the carry on effects of the kick wouldn't be bad. To my surprise, everything felt great. I held my power a little below the overall target of 195 and settled in. The course was flat, and I mean pancake flat. The road surface was pretty good but not super smooth, and the wind was light, so great conditions. I passed a lot of people and the course is so flat there really wasn't any strategy involved except stay in the aerobars and just maintain power.
After the 1 hour mark, I pushed the watts to 200 and continued to evaluate. after one half hour of that, my legs felt ok but my lack of aero training was beginning to take its toll. Without any hills, there was no natural opportunity to get out of the bars and move around a little. he wind had also picked up, so not being aero really cost speed and energy. My legs were starting to get very fatigued, and it was clear over the next 10 miles I wasn't going to hit my time target of 2:22. I was surprised the my legs were really fried. Given the swim I was mentally worried that I wouldn't be able to qualify. I really just pushed the pace as much as I could given how much time I was spending sitting up, and ended up at 2:31:23 and 187 watts.
In the end, the effort was good enough to qualify in the 55-59 group, though I didn't know until about 2 weeks later when USAT sent me the confirmation email.
Despite not having a very good day, I'm going to Worlds!
