Tiszaujvaros

Swim/Bike/??? - The World Cup on the weekend was nothing short of crazy. It seems that essentially the 2nd division of ITU racing, World Cups, has just gotten a new injection of talent and speed.  Let's go through a few stats. The winner of the World Cup on the weeeknd would have cleaned up Gomez in 2008, and every other winner of in the history of the race for that matter. My time on the weekend would have gotten 4th in 2008, even though I finished 48th in 2010. I understand that this is a bit too objective to take seriously, but it's interesting nonetheless. My Kiwi brethren told me that Shane Reed ran to victory in 2002 wth a 32:30 or thereabouts run split, which wouldn't have seen a top 30 in 2010. Etc etc, this game is getting increasingly tough.

So I led the race for 3/4ths or the distance, only to finish back in 48th place. I was very motivated to make sure I was in a small front group on the bike today, and the best way for that to happen was to puch the pace on the swim. I guess if you want something done you have to do it yourself, so that's what I did until a Jap was happy to swim past me at about 1300m. Good on you mate, save it for the first KM on the bike next time :) The first 5km on the bike is where it all happened. My SRM rile showed speeds of 53km/h (all flat roads, no wind) and consistent power about 400W. Our group was down to five by the time we hit the first lap in town. I would say we worked well, but definetly could have worked better. For the effort I put in on the bike, I would have expected a gap of about 3 minutes by T2, not the 1 minute we had. I guess a motivated chase pack of 60 guys is to blame. One minute ultimately was not enough for my tired legs, and I succumbed to some bad numbers.

So my European trip is over now, and I'm on my way back home down under. It feels like I'm at the end of one journey, yet at the same time I feel like I'm starting one much bigger. I have a few new ideas, hopefully I can write about them soon.

Burgs