It’s a big weekend here at Accelerate 3.
Last night’s power talk at the Tempe Trisports went well. Your’s truly wowed the crowd for about an hour discussing why you should use power, the right and wrong way to ride the bike leg in a triathlon and going over some case studies of actual rides from races. It seems like everyone walked away with a little more insight about how to use power and why it’s such a good tool to have. Plus the new Quarq power meters are awesome. Kevin from Sram was there to discuss the changes they made and the new models they launched.
Speaking of Trisports, I realized I’m rolling into my 10th or 11th year of continuous sponsorship from them. My relationship with them started back in 2001 or 2002. I was making the transition from bike racing back to duathlon after several years away from multisport racing. It’s awesome to have such a great giant in the triathlon industry in your corner. I’ve been very fortunate on this front. I’ll let Jeff Spicoli sum up how I feel about this relationship “Awesome! Totally awesome!”
Nick and Sarah make their debut’s into the elite racing. Nick opens his career up at IM South Africa while Sarah opens her career up at the Lifetime Fitness I want to be a crit race Leadman Tempe. I feel a lot of pressure to get their power plans correct, in fact I think I’m more stressed out about these races than any other that they’ve done. You only get one professional debut and I want everything to go right. After looking a the numbers a hundred ways and coming up with the same numbers, while reassuring, doesn’t alleviate the pressure.
There are a few A3 athletes in town for LeadMan as well. Bill is coming from the cold, winter just won’t go away east coast to Tempe to test his early season fintess. Mona is making the long drive up from Tucson to do the Olympic. Should be a good weekend of race results.
On the east coast athletes are also racing the Tour of Battenkill and Belew’s International Triathlon. Battenkill is one of those iconic bike races over dirt roads, short, steep, punchy climbs, some long climbs, mud, rough roads. The American version of a spring classic. Where the men are men and the boys are mud covered and off the back.
I’m returning to racing, well putting a number on and paying an entry fee anyway. It’s been about three years since I’ve raced a long course race and just about two years exactly since I’ve raced anything with a competitive flair. While I think I’m fairly fit, in general, I also haven’t done a lot of specific work to make myself race fit. I’ve done a fair amount of just running and riding around and not a whole lot of intervals, fast workouts or swimming. Tomorrow will either be pretty good or a pretty good implosion. Place your bets, the odds makers are evenly split with no odds in the middle ground. Makes it hard to hedge your bets. The other thing is where did all my gear go? I couldn’t find my aero bottle, had to reinstall latex tubes on all my race wheels, slime them, find my aero helmets, still need to figure out some sort of lace system for my running shoes. Holy crap, not racing is much more simple then racing. It’s total crap. When I become supreme dictator I’m having someone else do these little things for me. I also found out that I have 9 race number belts. Nine, who needs nine? On the other hand who wants to start the run with a sweat stiffened race belt? You can follow the racers around and around and around and around the Tempe leadman crit course here.
That’s all folks, stay tuned for more news later and have a great weekend!