The 2014 tri racing season is in a full swing. Just returned from the Grand Rapids Triathlon, where I was fortunate to qualify for the June 2015 Long Distance World Championship in Matola, Sweden. It was a challenging day which started at 7:10 in the Thornapple River with a wetsuit-legal swim. Wearing the most comfortable BlueSeventy wetsuit, I swam the 1.2 miles in 36 min. Getting out of the water in 18th place and spending longer in the transition than planned I knew I had some work to do and time to make up.
The swim-to-run transition took almost twice as long as it should have but once on the bike there was no looking back. The 56 mile course was picturesque and, for the most part, flat. The bike "engine" was working well and help deliver negative bike splits for each of the two 28-mile segments, 1:15 and 1:13, respectively.
Onto the run after a 2 hr 28 min bike split with a chance to break 5 hours.
Things got a bit hairy in the middle of the course after loosing a few additional minutes due to a forced stop. My nutrition plan did work out to well on that day. In the end, however, I crossed the finish line in 4 hrs 58 min and secured a qualifying slot for a trip to Sweden.
