On May 11th I said goodbye to the OTC in Chula Vista to head off for my first block of racing: ITU PATCO Champs on May 16 and the ITU Austin Conti Cup on May 25. I flew to Fort Worth, TX to train and stay with Barrett Brandon for just over 2 weeks. Fort Worth is conveniently located exactly between Oklahoma City and Austin (3 hrs apart from both).
Swim exit with Barrett and Seymour
The PATCO Champs didn’t play out as I would’ve liked, but nonetheless I salvaged a decent 6th place finish. The swim was brutal but I made it out alive and at the back of the lead pack, 20 seconds down from the leader. However, a fast early pace on the bike allowed a small group of 7 (ultimately 6 – one flatted) to get away. I was riding in the chase pack. It was the most disorganized and unmotivated pack I’ve ever been in. We lost 3 minutes to the breakaway. With 5k to go, our pack was caught by the second chase group, and we formed into one massive, slow, 40-man pack. I attacked going into transition in order to circumvent the chaos of t2. I outran everybody from my pack and caught one guy from the breakaway to nab 6th place. It wasn’t a great result, but given the situation I have to be satisfied with it. It also brought my ranking into the top-50 in the world for the first time ever! My full race report is up on xtri.com.
Leading my pack out of t2
Filed under: Race Reports | Tagged: itu, Oklahoma City, PATCO Champs
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