After 109 days of vowing revenge, I got it. In my second crack at the Ironman 70.3 distance, I was able to not only win my age group but come in at 11th overall in the age-group standings. Not bad for someone who picked up the sport last year!
I want to first off thank everyone who helped me this spring on my trip. I do believe that putting in all those hours helped me have a great race. After finishing California 70.3 I knew what I had to do to improve.
I’ll give you a short race recap so I won’t waste your time.
Swim: Hardest that I’ve ever done. It was a beach start running into the ocean. The course was 900ms out, 100 across and then 900 back in. Getting kicked and punched along with swallowing so much salt water was what made it so tough.
Looking at the clock when I finished the swim I knew this was going to be a special day.
Bike: The terrain was rolling with some bigger hills. It felt like you were either maxing out in your 12 in the back or out of the saddle pumping.Hammer time. Thats all I can say. Equipped with a tri spoke front, and a sub-9 rear disc I put everything I had into my bike. I jostled with a few riders but managed to go the entire ride without anyone passing me.
Run: Wow. I had heard about this "hill" from other athletes. Me being me, I skipped the race briefing only to be rudely awaken with a wall of pavement. It came after the first mile, a 400 meter section of road that caused almost all the athletes around me to walk. It was steep!
The rest of the run was nice. All I can say is thank god for the aid stations! Lots of water was dumped over my head on this hot day!
There you go, my race in a nut shell. I think my ’10 weeks to a better time trial’ paid off, as well as my swim lessons.
Next up, a lot of rest! I’m going to take a couple of weeks to re-group and prepare for my journey to the Ironman World Championships in Clearwater Florida. Should be a good time!
Thanks for reading!
Happy (Rest Week!) Tranin!
Cliff
[...] Even though this may not be the most ethical thing to do, I am going to give this week’s award to our very own Cliff Worden-Rogers! If you haven’t been following along, Cliff raced his 2nd half-ironman this Sunday at the Ironman Rhode Island 70.3. His first was the Ironman California 70.3, this March in Oceanside, California (check out a video of that race here). In that race, Cliff got a rough intro into the Ironman racing world and vowed to put in the work to improve. His goal was to secure a spot in the World Champs this November in Florida at the race in Rhode Island. And, did he ever!! He improve his swim time by over 10 minutes, his bike by 17 minutes, and his run by another minute to drop his overall time from 4:54:39 to 4:26:01! He dropped from 160th position overall to 25th and won his Age Group! Now that’s an impressive improvement in just over 3 months. Read Cliff’s race report here. [...]
Fantastic dear
grandson, I send you and big hug and a kiss 00000000000000XX