Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells Recap

Dec 12, 2022

Welcome to my first ever blog post! This is entirely new territory so bear with me as I slowly figure out what it is I’m doing. My goal with these posts is to give anyone who’s interested a look into the racing/training/behind the scenes stuff that goes into professional triathlon. You will also get some insight into how my mind works… don't say I didn’t warn you. Anyways, my first go at this is my race report for Indian Wells, hope you enjoy!

Pre-Race:

Flew into San Diego Thursday afternoon and stayed with my former Mines teammate Derek. After a little jog along the beach, we joined another Mines Alumn, Nathan, for their weekly trivia night at the local brewery. I was next to useless but we still pulled off a clutch come-from-behind performance to get 3rd.

Derek took off for work the next morning while I built the bike and watched the Colorado Mines boys pull off a dominating win with the women an excellent 3rd at NCAA D2 cross nationals. Got me pretty pumped for the race. Hopped in the car and drove out to my airbnb in Indian Wells. Spotted a nice stretch of road halfway and got my pre race bike efforts in. Also stopped at a very warm pool for a little shakeout swim.

Saturday was a busy day involving swim, bike, run, race briefing, and transition set up. Indian Wells has separate T1 and T2 which means setting up T2 the day before and dropping the bike at T1. We also had to rinse our wetsuits in chlorine to protect the lake from whatever gross stuff you left on your wetsuit from the last race. I like to be lazy the day before a race so have never been a fan of separate transitions and all of the extra complications but at least it keeps the mind occupied.

The Swim (23:26 4th)

Absolutely freezing. Either I’ve lost way more weight than I thought or this year was significantly colder. 57  Fahrenheit just isn’t fun to swim in. Lined up to the left since the water was only waist deep. Not sure what those other folks were thinking, treading water on the other side, but to each their own. Got out great. Very little bumping and was immediately leading my side. Drifted over to the other pack and merged into 3rd at about 300 meters. Perfect position. Right up until the guy ahead of me made a sharp right in the wrong direction. This created a gap that I was rather slow to close. The guy behind me surged and filled in the gap (thanks bud) and normal swimming resumed. A little past halfway I had an interesting moment where I lost all feeling and control in my left hand. It was pretty much just flopping around and being generally useless. I chalked this up to the freezing temps rather than something more sinister and kept paddling along. Luckily the pace had relaxed and it worked its way out after a couple minutes. No harm done besides slipping into 4th. Not quite the alleged panic attack Lionel had but it caused a bit of worry. Came out of the water with a group of 6. Perfect for a nice breakaway group and exactly what I was hoping for.

The Bike:  2:12:56 (12th)  Average Power: 310 Watts Normalized Power: 316 Watts

T1 was terrible. Numb hands made getting my wetsuit off almost impossible. I think I lost about 15 seconds violently ripping at it around my ankles. A poor mount made things worse and I was about 20 seconds behind the group of 4 out front. Flew past Justin Riele who seemed to be having issues of his own only to have him drop me a few minutes later. Legs had nothing to give. They felt like I was already 90 mins into the ride. Could have been the cold or just mental frustration at T1 but I couldn’t close on the front guys.

Luckily it was a day without bike packs. Sam and Jackson had good swims and proceeded to rip the field open immediately. Pretty sure the biggest group in the top 20 was 3 guys. I don’t have the bike legs for a straight up flat TT (yet) and that's pretty much what this thing turned into. After about 40 mins my hands finally warmed up and I was able to start taking on fluids and calories. Kept my own pace so that I could run well and let Lionel ride past me at the halfway point. Had a good bit of fun on the race track. It was a pleasant break after grinding away on long straight roads with no company. Danilo and Matt weren’t too far up the road so that kept me motivated the last miles of the ride.

The Run: 1:15:57 (11th)

Mediocre. Everyone ran slow so I don’t feel terrible about my run split. Last year I took a wrong turn and never got on the golf course. This year I got the enjoyment of the constant up/down, twist and turn. Impossible to find a rhythm but a good course for runners. Caught Danilo at 4 miles to move into 8th place and money. Thought I might have a shot at 7th but the guy started to pull away on the second lap. Once this became apparent I started looking behind me for guys like Ari Klau and Trevor Foley who could easily run me down if I started falling apart. Running up and down the golf course allowed for easy viewing of what was going on in front or behind. A nice luxury that I took advantage of. I had a solid lead on the chasers so just kept powering forward at a sustainable pace with plans to push the last mile if I could manage it. Ended up crossing the finish line in no-man's land and an 8th place finish.

Post Race:

Overall it was an ok day. It certainly could have been worse but once again I feel like I’m not reaching my potential in racing. More strength on the bike and better T1/awareness is going to be a focus in the off season. Sam Long was 11 mins faster than me on a fair bike course. I’ll concede that a flat, cold course plays to his strengths but I should not be losing that much time on the bike to anyone in any situation.

Hope you enjoyed my recap. Let me know if there is too much or too little commentary and if there is anything else you would like to know in these race recaps. I’m planning to be consistent with this blogging stuff and will post a recap after every race as well as updates and possibly some controversial content (I hear people love that stuff and I’ve got things to say). Have fun looking around at the website my sister designed for me and I’ll see you guys in 2023.