Hi everyone,

This past Saturday was the first time in my career that I've had a chance to represent the USA at a major race as I competed in the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in Henderson, Nevada outside of Las Vegas. The standard distance is 4km/120km/30km, but the opening 4km swim was canceled due to unseasonably cold temperatures that dropped the water temperature to 55F, which - combined with air temperatures in the high-30s - made for potentially unsafe conditions according to the ITU's rules on air/water temperature differential. With the race being a split transition race, it was not possible to switch to a duathlon format, so the race went on a no warm-up TT start with athletes leaving every five seconds. This made for a very different race, with the bike being much faster right out of the gate, and - of course - the possibility that being first across the line wouldn't result in a win. As #11, I left relatively early, just ahead of defending world champion Sylvain Sudrie of France and well ahead of Michael Raelert, Joe Gambles, and many of the other favorites. I moved into the lead about 20miles into the bike, but then surrendered the lead to Martin Jensen of Denmark when his power trumped power-to-weight on the downhill stretch starting at about mile 32. I was able to hold onto virtual second-place during the ride, but Martin had a very good ride to come into T2 first by about 5min, giving him a virtual 6min lead with the staggered start over myself and Sylvain Sudrie, who shadowed me for almost the entire ride. I had a good transition and gapped Sudrie a bit, but then he managed to work his way back up in the first two miles. On the first of four laps of the run course, I wasn't able to make any time on Martin, but then his lead started to shrink, and I caught him midway through the third lap. But I was still unable to shake Sudrie, who would have beaten me even if I was able to cross the line ahead of him in a tight finish. So I knew I needed to gap him and also to continue to put time into Raelert and Gambles, who had started about 2.5 minutes behind with the stagger. I broke away near the end of the third lap and was able to extend my lead enough that I was pretty confident I had it wrapped up as I grabbed the stars & stripes on the way into the finish. But it was an anxious few minutes waiting for the second and third place finishers to cross. And it wasn't until we got an official printout that I was really sure I'd won, which made things a bit odd. It was nice to celebrate - but with reservations. Until, that is, I got to stand on the top of the podium, and I got to hear, for the first time ever, the Star Spangled Banner played because of me, which was a truly amazing experience.