My race schedule brought me to New Orleans this weekend for
another 5150. It boasted a quality field so I had my work cut out for me.
Let’s get into it-
Swim: 19:10, :52 back from leader, 11th on the
day.
 |
| No better speedsuit out there! |
Easily the best swim of my career! My hard work as of late
paid dividends on Sunday. During the swim, I didn’t quite know where I was in
retrospect to the field. The course was shaped in an uppercase-N (starting in
the bottom-left) and coming upon the second turn, I caught a glimpse of the
swim leader and he wasn’t much more than 60 meters ahead with less than 400 to
go! That was very motivating! The swim temp was warm, 81 degrees so no wetsuit
obviously but I did wear my
Xterra Velocity-M speedsuit and I’d be lying if I
said it didn’t help!
Bike: 1:00:33, 13th on
the day.
 |
| Well, I look fast... |
The course started out with a quick one mile out-and-back. At
that point, I saw David Thompson, Karl Kahsar and Jordan Jones coming up behind
me (again, great swim!) All were bike powerhouses and it didn’t take long for
them to drop me. I felt good but I guess the rest of the field felt better
because all they did was put time into me! Frankly, I can’t afford to be giving
up so much time on the bike. It completely kills my race. I’ve put in the work
to improve my swim and that’s paid off but now it’s time to improve the bike,
because it NEEDS to happen. I ride a Cervelo, I have a great
Cobb saddle and my
DT Swiss Dicut race wheels are amazing. It’s the engine, NOT the components!
Needs fixing…
Run: 33:15, 2nd on the
day.
 |
| Flyin... | |
 |
| ...in the GoMeb's! |
The next closest rider to me was almost 2:45 ahead, so I ran
alone for the first 8k. It was an out-and-back, 2-lap course so I could see
where the field stood but the gap just didn’t really seem to close until late. At
the last turn-around (about 2.5k from the finish) I counted that Michael Poole,
Allen Gardner, Barrett Brandon and James Seear had about 35-50 seconds on me.
The first two looked to be straining a bit so I thought I might have a chance
to catch them. I put my head down and eventually caught Poole and Gardner with
about a mile to go. I next set my sights on Barrett and he was coming back to
me! I charged but ultimately came up short missing both him and James by 5 and
8 seconds respectively.
So, bittersweet AGAIN. I’m super pumped about my swim and my
run is coming on. My bike? Where is it? Not really sure, but I need to find it
because it’s my total Achilles heel at this point. Maybe I’ll find it at
Raleigh 70.3 this weekend?
Thanks for checking in. Talk soon.
-HH
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