English
The hard training and isolation in the desert has paid off. I was second at LA triathlon on Sunday and felt it was one of my best runs of the season. This years field was loaded with some of the world’s best that had ever assembled for the LA triathlon event.
It was surprisingly a non wetsuit swim in the Pacific Ocean so a bit nippy and with the Tsunami a couple of days ago the surf was bigger than it would normally be. When I went in for a warm up swim it took me a good 10 minutes to get back in to shore so I knew when the race started it was going to be a tough swim.
The gun went and I had a reasonable start being in the lead group, however coming into the beach I missed a wave that every one else in my group caught which meant I had to play catch up on the bike. I felt average in the early stages of the bike, then after 20k I found myself at the front of the pack & I knew at this point I could have a good race because my running has been going so well over the last couple of weeks.
Greg Bennett attacked towards the end of the bike section and gained a 50m lead but he couldn’t find his running shoes so I took the lead onto the run. I ran hard out of transition and had a small lead but was caught after 2k by Xavier Gomez, Philip Osplay and Greg Bennett. We played cat and mouse until 4-km to go then Gomez put in the final attack up the large hill which put me into second and Ospaly into third. Gomez gained 10 sec on me and I put 15 sec into Ospaly, this was the podium position.
I’m doing Dallas next weekend so will have a very easy week and enjoy the Glitz and Glamour of LA.
Stuart
