Hey Everyone!
I arrived in my hometown of San Francisco yesterday evening ready to take on the stacked field at TriCal’s Treasure Island ITU Race. This year it’s part of the USAT Elite Race series – a series of draft legal ITU races with larger-than-normal prize purses.
This will be my first race back since my bike crash back in May. It’s bittersweet, because while I’m elated to get back out there, my fitness isn’t where it was prior to that accident. I missed about 40 days of training and I’ve worked hard as of late to get as much of it back. What I would say, it’s not that I’ve lost too much time in each discipline (probably 2-3 seconds per 100 in the pool and that equivalent in the bike and run), but it’s really about how I feel. The time difference isn’t much but it hurts a lot more! Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to getting those competitive juices flowing again!
This course is unique. It’s situated on Treasure Island (the island in the middle of the Bay Bridge) and it consists of a two lap swim, a 6 lap bike, and a 3 lap run. What’s unique is the bike course. Each lap consists of at least a dozen 90 degree turns on what I consider to be pretty precarious road conditions. The Elite race, due particularly to it being a draft-legal race, tends to see a higher-than-normal number of bike crashes. Whether or not bike crashes happen tomorrow, it’s such a competitive field that there will be enough action going on to satisfy anyone!
If you’re in the bay area and are interested in seeing a fun, competitive race, come out to Treasure Island tomorrow Saturday, July 9 around noon and watch a number of Olympic hopefuls mix it up! Let’s get into it!
Hope to see you out there. Thanks for checking in. Talk soon!
-HH
