Back in the States : Winter Multisport

So the crew made it back to the USA without a hitch. Our bikes flew free, I had an empty seat next me, and 3 movies I had not seen! It was esp. nice to get home and see my little guy before bed that night, he was so excited.

It took me 4-5 solid days to get back to east coast time, I would wake at 4Am and be exhausted by 7pm, but I would hang tough till 9pm to try to expedite the process.

After being home for 4 days, I was back into race mode at the www.channelmultisport.com Fast Splits Winter Triathlon @ Weston MA. This would serve as a qualifier for WInter Tri Worlds in Germany in Feb.

The events were : 5K run, 8K bike, 6K XC ski.

I was a little suspect of my form for the running and skiing as I had not been doing much of either in the last 3 weeks. There also happened to be some good athletes at the race (nearly 60 racers), including Stephen Judice from ME, John Spinney from VT and Jon Arne Erveldson from VT.

Luckily JA and Stephen took the run out at a nice steady pace, and I found my legs pretty quick. I hit T1 in 3rd, about 5sec back, nailed the transition and lead out onto the bike. I threw down a hard tempo to get a gap and was able to ride all the snow sections throughout the race, by the time I hit T2, I think I had 2.5 minutes on Brian Hughes and the rest...

The ski was tough for me, the lack of snow time showed and I skied like a bafoon for most of it, trying to use the 95% rule to ski w/good form and not worry about speed. My calves were cramping throughout and I could hardly V2 because of it...but even w/JA chasing, 2.5 minutes over 6K would be tough to make up...

I held on to win by ~1min and was glad it was over.

Now I need to decide if I am gonna try to go to Germany for Worlds. I might see if I can go as a coach/wax tech/athlete and get some help from USAT.

So for those of you reading this who ride/run/ski...make sure to get out and try a Winter Tri asap!

Train well,
KP