5th at 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 Liuzhou +(what happened in Oceanside)

What a whirlwind trip! As my first "real" races of the season, the Oceanside->Liuzhou double got me excited. It motivated some of the best training I have ever done and allowed me to put up some massive sessions at the Qt2 PRO camp in February/ early March. According to the numbers, I went into these races with a level of fitness that I have never had before. I am reaching a point in my career where some level of risk in training is required to find out what it will take to reach the next level. I think Jesse and I both knew we were right on the line of all that training load resulting in a great race performance or being one step too far. I unusually struggled through some sessions in the final two weeks of training in Boulder which is quite uncommon for me. We more or less aired on the side of caution in the final approach and despite not having the confidence that I did immediately post-camp, I still felt like I could deliver some serious performances. At the end of the day, I was confident in our preparation and pumped to get two chances to test it out on course.

Picture: Talbot Cox

70.3 Oceanside started off well with one of my best ever swims, exiting the water in 5th place. Once onto dry land, it was a totally different story. I immediately got dropped from guys I would typically be able to ride with and then the entire mens field came through me on the bike. Obviously something was wrong and around mile 25, I decided to save my legs for 70.3 Liuzhou the following weekend. I hate DNF'ing races. That being said, I am starting to rely more and more on prize money to pay bills. So although it was hard, from a business perspective it was the right call.

Picture: Scott Smith

Honestly, after the race I was pretty down on myself. More than disappointed, I was just confused. It's hard to expect one thing and have reality end up being the polar opposite. My parents had flown in from New York and Jeanni was there too. They all attempted to lift me up but it wasn't until I boarded the flight to China where I was able to switch focus, forget about Oceanside and put my energy into redeeming myself at 70.3 Liuzhou, 6 days later.

Travel to China went as well as it ever has for me (this was my 5th trip to China in the past 15 months!) and having done this race last year, I felt very comfortable arriving in Liuzhou. I settled into my "China" routine of staying on American time zone (going to bed at 7pm and waking up at 2am), eating club sandwiches and spending the majority of the day inside my hotel room. Everything was going great until Wednesday morning when I went out for a 50 minute run right at sunrise and severely sprained my ankle twisting it on a crack in the sidewalk. I had immediate pain, swelling and bruising.

(not optimal)

I spent the next 48 hours in serious discomfort. I could barely walk from the bed to the bathroom in the first 24 hours it was so painful and stiff. I RICE'd it over the course of that time and although it wasn't perfect, it did start to feel better the day before the race. It rapidly improved over the course of the final day before the race and the night before I knew I would be OK to start.

I always love helping out at the IRONKIDS before the race. Their stoke is so high and the smiles on their faces after crossing the finish line are priceless. 

Race morning I felt happy and strong but I knew things would have to go my way in order to compete against the field that assembled in Liuzhou. The headliners included 2x Olympic gold medalist Alistair Brownlee and arguably the best long course athlete ever in Craig Alexander. These two overshadowed a handful of other incredibly fast dudes that included 70.3 winners Sam Betten, Mitch Robbins, Guy Crawford and Felipe Azevedo.

Once again, I proved the development of my strength in the water with a front pack swim. Solid transition and onto the bikes where Crowie immediately started hammering away at the front trying to limit our losses to Brownlee. I had to work very hard to stay onto the back of the group but after about 10 minutes the pace slowed and I went to the front. My legs came around and I felt very good. I put my head down, rode hard and looked back to see a 30 meter gap open up. I made a noticeable acceleration to try and get away that I think Crowie took note of. He pulled the group back up to me and from that point onward, I knew there was no breaking up the pack on this flat and fast course.

Around 25km, I felt the clamp that holds on my saddle come loose. I typically run the saddle slammed all the way forward but as the bolt came undone, it got pushed all the way back. My position was ultra stretched out and that made it challenging to push power. Every 10km or so it would come a little bit more undone. It went from just slamming back, to sliding up and down and then ultimately got to the point where the top part of the clamp completely fell off the bike. I was able to keep the saddle on the post with the pressure of my body against the bottom clamp. I rode like that for 50km! With 15km to go, the saddle fell off the bottom rails after hitting a bump and at that point I thought I was in trouble.... But I was so freaking determined to finish this race. I rode the final 15k of the race either standing out of the saddle or sitting on the seat post clamp. Through pure grit I made it back to T2 with the group...

I take 100% ownership for the mechanical issue. There was nothing wrong with the clamp. I should have checked that bolt after the bumpy ride in Oceanside last weekend. I am sure it was a bit loose going in and the few bumps on course gave it that little bit of force to wiggle it free. I am super detailed with my bike and rarely have issues like this. I literally disassemble and reassemble every bolt on that bike when I travel, except for that one... I will not make that mistake again. 

Starting the run, it felt like I had borrowed another persons bike that I had never been on before and rode as hard as possible. You can imagine how that felt.... My legs were toasted. Crowie, Sam and Mark Buckingham (Brownlee's training partner) took off up the road and I didn't have very much pop in there to go with them. It was far from my best half marathon but at the end of the day, those guys ran very well and I'm not sure if I would have been able to catch them even if had I not had those challenges on the bike.

Holding strong for 5th 

I always go into races with the objective of a.) winning or b.) being on the podium. If you would have asked me how I would have felt about 5th place at this race a month ago, I would have been angry.  But considering all of the circumstances I have had the last two weeks, I was content. Just getting across the finish line required me to dig deep and find true grit, determination and tenacity. All things that will bode well for my major tests this season, in particular the full distance race.

I'll slowly start shifting my focus to Ironman Boulder here over the course of the next few weeks. Next up will be 70.3 St. George and then I will start my overload training for the big one.

When things don't go exactly how you want them to, you find out who really has your back. I shared some of my trials and tribulations through social media and had a lot of people reaching out in support- thank you.

Also a huge shout out to Jeanni, Jesse and my parents who's unwavering support is amazing. I'm a lucky dude to have them all believing in me so much.

I'm hoping that I got some of this crap out of the way and that we can move a little more smoothly into the meat of the season. There is still a lot of racing to go this year!

Until next time....
JM

Men's top 6: Alistair Brownlee, Criag Alexander, Sam Betten, Mark Buckingham, me, Felipe Azevedo.