S-as in super bowl sucks E-V as in Victory E-R-I-N

This weekend was underlined by horribly early mornings, highlighted by awesome racing, and punctuated with drinking and boring sports.

I'll start with the bad news... The super bowl sucks. Somehow I have gotten to the point where I hate watching sports to the point that I am just looking at the scoreboard to see how much time is left...it's a burn out the clock situation. I don't even do that at work. Me and Cait went to a Superbowl party and I was more interested in chatting with Cait and 'the girls' than watching the game. Even the commercials sucked. What happened to me?

The mornings were early due to the new regime. Under the rule of Jill Savege, mornings will be early and workouts will be difficult. That just sounds right... something about the name Jill Savege I guess. Really Jill is great. She is super calm, positive, and really helpful. We had scheduled a hard morning swim on Saturday that had me up at 6:30 and a TT race on Sunday that had me up at 6:40. Both brutal for me...

Here are the details:

Swim- 4600 or so with the main set being pretty tough

400, 8x 100 on 1:25, 400, 6x 100 on 1:20, 400, 4x 100 on 1:20

Sadly that is the longest and hardest swim I have done in about two years

Bike TT- 20k race north of LA

The wind was brutal (15-20mph) but I was feeling pretty good after a warm up. I saw Jordan Rapp, Jill's husband, warming up. He won Ironman Canada and Arizona and is a beast in general. It was a small race but there was some serious talent. I was super nervous because a 20k is a gut wrenching effort and that kind of discomfort is difficult to deal with. You'd be stupid not be nervous for a 20k. It would be like not being nervous the first time you were interviewed by Oprah. Or not being nervous if Oprah was trying to attack you with a brand.

Anyway, I got to the line and the countdown started. When he hit five, my heart rate was already sky rocketing. I jumped off the line and was sailing with a 20 mph storm at my back. I was hitting 35-43 mph and almost nervous going around corners. I was pushing solid watts and had directions to start conservatively. I hit the halfway with an average of 335 watts and something like 34 mph average...just nuts. The effort was comfortable though and I was ready for the wind in the face section which I knew was going to be ugly.

The wind hit me in the face and the effort went through the roof. My speed dropped by about 15 mph. I kept thinking, just gun it and it will be over faster. Get under thirty minutes and no one can laugh at that time. I thought I was fast but basically just didn't want to embarrass myself. Before the start I was thinking that 33 minutes would be a realistic time. Under 30 would be nuts, I kept thinking but I kept glancing at the clock and it looked possible.

I was spitting, huffing, and nearly throwing up, but I was reeling people in all over the place. Honestly I haven't breathed that ragged...maybe ever. I saw the trees that were near the finish and went all in. I hit the line and felt totally decimated.

The second half I ended up averaging 375 watts!

Total time: 29:52 which was good enough for 4th place overall! I went toe to toe with some BIG guns and was right there and even beat some pros!

average watts: 355

I couldn't believe the result really.

I might be more proud of this race than any I can think of in recent memory...