Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Sooke 1/2 Iron Update

I had my final race tune-up before IM Florida this past Sunday. The Sooke 1/2 Ironman was the final race in the West Coast series, and it was a good way to get in another race simulation.

I decided to use the day as a good training weekend, not bothering to rest too much going into the race. To top it off, the course was tough (toughest bike of the year, and the run beats you up as well).

I led out of the water by 4 minutes, and started out on the bike. I've been trying to get comfortable in my new front end set-up for Florida, so this was a good opportunity to test it out for 86km of riding. The course was basically 4 laps of a 20km loop, plus a lil extra to get to T2 (which was 5km down the road). I was riding along nice and steady until just after the climb on the third loop, when all of a sudden a guy went flying by. I had no idea who it was, and he just pulled away from me, despite my efforts to try and match him. I ended up coming off the bike 4 min down on him.

I started out the run fairly strong, trying to cut the gap down, but it wasn't possible. I was 6 min down at 10km, and knew that I was going to be stuck with 2nd. It turns out after the race that the guy was Chris Boudreaux, who used to train up here in Victoria with the crew before I got out here. He is a strong athlete. He just missed out on Jasper Blake's course record.

All in all, a solid day, some good race prep, and after a couple easy days, it'll be back to some miles, with a couple good days of some riding planned this week. I'll switch over from my current events focus to more of my training in the future

Results can be found here


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats Dano!
I hear the bike course in Florida is FLAT. Good Luck.

Daniel Wells said...

Yes...Florida is flat. I'm looking forward to it.

Anonymous said...

Way to go Dano..Great race.

BK

Jeremy Hopwood said...

Daniel..great race.

How do you set up the profile cage on the front end to take a bottle? Is it taped or strapped to your aero bars

Daniel Wells said...

Jeremy,

I have attached it with basic electrical ties. I have the cage in between the bars, and then one tie to the left, one to the right, and one to the back holding it in place.

I think for it to work properly, your aerobars have to be pretty narrow. Jordan Rapp used this method at IM Arizona in the spring, and it actually more aero than a regular front aero bottle.