It’s been a crazy few weeks for me! I had a race to forget in Mexico, my 1st ITU world cup was a disaster so I decided to race the US 70.3 pro championships in Galveston. Really, I just wanted to race Chris Lieto and have some fun after been very annoyed at how I raced the previous weekend. I’m going to keep it short and sweet as it was just a training race really but I had an ok swim, tried to take things to Lieto which was fun and I even managed to get a bit of a gap at one point but on the way back I let him get a gap and then I got a drafting penalty for drafting cars in a moment of weakness, was a bit of a dodgy call but that’s how things go sometimes.

Anyways, I was 2nd off the bike and tried to run hard for 15k until I got passed for 6th when I decided to just jog in and save myself for wildflower 6 days later, I ended up 8th and that was that.

So, before I went off to Wildflower I wanted to race the Austin South Mopac TT on Tuesday night. Previously I had ridden 15min 44sec on the 8 mile course, setting a new course record by just 1 second and I wanted to see how my form was. Anyhow, I ended up riding 15.59, a 30mph ride which I was happy with just 2 days after a 70.3 in tougher conditions that previously.

So, off to wildflower and one of the most beautiful settings of a race I have ever done. Well, it is equally as nice as 70.3 UK but I have done a few running races and TT’s in the Lake District that do just beat it, but is stunning all the same!

I really wanted to do well at Wildflower, it was the 1st race with a big specialized presence and the field was just so strong I wanted to try and race to my potential, something I have felt I haven’t done so far this year. Race day came round soon enough and although feeling a little tired I was really enthusiastic about racing on such a hard course which I feel suits me down to the ground.

The swim was easy enough; I was out at the front but dropped my chain going out of T1 and lost a bit of time but nothing major. On the bike however I really didn’t feel good, I just had to follow the wheels and hope my legs started to warm up. Conrad Stoltz flew past like a machine, I tried to follow but had to let him go and bridge back up to him on the large climb at 40mies, more intelligent racing than anything else. I therefore rolled back to T2 with me and Conrad in 2nd and 3rd and Michael Raelert up the road. I ran out of T2 feeling good and ran in 2nd until 4 miles when Joe Gambles past me going up the biggest hill on the course, it was a killer! I loved the masochist nature of the run though and although Eneko Lanos past me at mile 11 I managed to get home in 4th, a result I was ecstatic about and one I would rate over my win at 70.3 UK last year. It was made even better by the fact that all the Specialized team, male and female, finished in the top 10, it was one good weekend!

So, what next? Well, I hope to get my own back on Eneko at Ironman Lanzarote in 2 weeks, it should be a good race on another really tough course. Between now and then however I have to get back from Austin where I have been staying for the past 7 weeks or so, I have had such a good time and made some friends for life, I’ll be back before long. See you on the road.