A Long Awaited Race Report from Kelowna

Race morning was about 17 C or so, and light rain. The roads were wet on the bike...lots of kick-up from wheels during the race. Usually, the interior of BC is dry, and hot...but not race day.

I was race # 15, and thus was a little before halfway in the field for choosing our start spot. I had a good quick start, getting to the first turn buoy right beside one of my training partners, Andrew McCartney. A Mac had the the inside line at the turn, so I tucked in on his feet at that point. We stayed that way throughout the rest of the swim. After the run up to transition, I was third onto the bike, behind Paul Tichelaar and A Mac. The three of us rode hard at the beginning, trying to get a break from the group. We were a group of three up the climb, before the group (8 guys) caught us on the flats up top. Our group turned out to be fairly strong, including Tichelaar, Wells, Bechtel, McCartney, and Evans (Canada), Messenheimer, Dahlz, Sexton, Collington, Chrabot (USA) and Richmond (New Zealand). Round 2 up the climb was fine, I was towards the front of the group, and we all rode tempo up the climb, no attacks, and I was fine.

Loop three was where I got popped. I wasn't able to get to the front of the group before the climb,without having to put in a large effort to ride to the front of the group before the climb. I took a chance that I would be alright for the climb (preparing to work hard to stay in). About a third of the way up, Tom Evans put in a surge, which spread the group out. I got strung out, and was 10-15m off the back over the top of climb. I put my head down and tried to close that gap...but I just wasn't able to, and soon the group pulled away (and my hopes of a good finish). I ended up riding the last 18km of the bike solo, losing 2:47 to the group. I was swallowed up by the chase group just as we entered T2.

I couldn't get any speed going at the start of the run....I figure it was from the hard 18km solo effort. Who knows. I negative split the run (17:55, 17:05) but that didn't do much, as I finished in 18th place.

Oh how I wish I could have hung in on that climb...I know it was a dumb mistake on my part...and I paid the price for it. If I would have been 3 or 4 bikes further up the group, I would have stayed in, and then I would have been running for a Top 10 finish. I guess that is racing though.

Race Photo's can be viewed here (I couldn't download any of the photos)