Excellent race-day! Beautiful town! Friends and the friendliest locals around!
This year was supposed to be the Challenge Roth year but then life caught-up and I decided
to defer that one to 2026. This 70.3 became the main race. With Laura and other Nebula
folks racing this race, I was beaucoup excited to race my favourite distance.
Hot days leading up to the race, but thankfully the race morning was cool and yet sunny. Not
sure how I feel about a 10am start though! For sure 7am is early, and 10am is late so
probably 8:30am is ideal?
I love river swims where bridges make sighting easy and there are folks cheering you from
them! I had seen a dead fish in this same river yesterday so aside from sighting all my focus
during the swim was to not gulp down any extra water. Fool’s mission! Swim went well,
adequate friendship with this water had been established and there was no open water
anxiety. I quite enjoyed the cold temperature, lots of cheers and could already see some
5150 athletes on the run course.
Longest T1 ever! I spent 10min in there! Longest ever and hopefully never again! First you
ran to the blue bag, then to your bike and finally you ran with the bike for nearly a km before
you could mount! Oh and saw the funniest poster – Smile if you are not wearing an
underwear! Told you, friendliest folks!
Flat course but they forgot to mention the headwinds that never became tailwinds! There is
some black magic here. In a circular loop why are headwinds always headwinds! Anyways it
was between 50 and 65k when these soul-sucking headwinds started giving me a headache,
and my quads a run for their life. Otherwise, bike was fast, and strong. Fastest bike leg for
me!
Run was a four loop course with plenty of folks cheering and volunteering! Oh, and I love
when they have fresh fruits and sprinklers on the course! Those watermelon slices and
oranges pieces are life-saving and stomach-pleasing! Uneventful run! And the best part-
finish line with the team folks! Medal, shower and repeat!