Coming into this race I knew I was already low on recovery and not sure I had fully beaten my cold.  I had already lost two days earlier in the week to yet another battle of summer cold annoyingness.   The other twist on this race is that my new Quintanna Roo bike had finally showed up.   I was very excited to get it out on the course, but knew that I was violating the break equipment in fully before racing.

The race itself turned into a clear sign that I was turning back to normal though.  The swim was a cool even pace that I picked up as I turned the bouy at the shore to race up along the sand.   Coming out of the water there were a few people out on the bike already, but that only meant some folks to pass.  

The bike was the only real struggle for a few reasons.   First I did manage to pass a few folks, but I was owned by two others on road bikes showing that my fit and training in an aero position hadn’t kicked in.   I had done three training rides on the bike on the trainer averaging 230-250W which is significantly lower than my 300W FTP so this was not surprising.   The second issue was that there was a nice continuous stream of rain coming down.   This meant wet roads which only made me more of a chicken.  Lastly, I found that my handlebars had not been totally torqued down so on every major bump I felt them rotate downward which was disconcerting to say the least.   So off of my normal speed I definitely lost a few minutes.

On the run I was back at it though.  Cranking at a 7:03/mile pace I was able to pass two folks in the field and narrow in on the rest of the field.   It was cold and drizzly which makes for perfect running weather as always.  

I was 5 minutes slower than three years ago and only managed to squeeze third in my age group in a very small race, but I was considerably more stable than I was two weeks before in Milwaukee and glad to know that 2021 wasn’t going to be a total waste of a season.   One race left and hopefully we can get some good recovery in and training on the new bike to make it a real winner!