Calgary 70.3

Well its now 3 half Ironman's in 4 weeks. A 1st and two 4ths, Calgary the last of the three.

It was another early start to the day with a 3:20am alarm wake up, it is never easy getting up this early but I do seem to be getting a little accustomed to these start times with the last couple of races being quite similar.

The swim began out of town at Ghost lake, maybe its called that because of how freezing it was??? I had tried to go for a swim the day before as part of my pre race day prep but lasted all of about 3mins having to hop out because of mega brain freeze!!! Race morning I made sure I was a little more prepared, well mentally anyway.

I was pretty eager to push the pace in the swim this weekend and try split the field, this would have been a bit more effective if the temperature was warmer but the cold really slowed my turnover and I wasn't able to push as hard as I could. As it was I exited the swim first with the eventual winner Tim O'Donnell and 3rd place finisher Brian Fleischmann. Tim was in another league today as he took off through transition and that was the last we saw of him all day.

The bike leg wasn't to exciting, well being a point to point race you don't really get to see much of your competition unless you are passing or being passed. So Brian and I rode over the undulating bike course together which finished in Calgary. I wasn't feeling that flash on the bike today, maybe the last couple of races and the altitude had effects on my body but I tried to stay positive and continue to push on. At least the cycle leg had amazing scenery, the mountains in the back ground and the quite roads made it feel pretty fast and took a bit of the pain off my mind!

Onto the run I hoped to find the legs I had in Vineman, but today wasn't to be and it was pretty darn tough out there, I managed to get into a bit of a rhythm but over the last 5km really started to suffer and slipped back to 4th. Not to bad of a day but room for improvement.

So am pretty happy with how things are going, its nice to be in the money at each race. Like always I am getting to meet some really cool people on tour, my home stay Dave and Carla were amazing and made my trip so much more enjoyable and relaxing.

Currently I am Bend, Oregon training here for a couple of weeks before heading to Lake Stevens 70.3 on the 14th August and then onto San Fransico for the Triathlon at Alcatraz.