Hungry Like The Wolfgram: September 2013

With all the racing I did this year and coaching, I've neglected my blog. Rather than post every race report, I'm going to do a bunch of really quick reports with a few longer ones for the bigger races I did this year, which were olympics because I focused on short course racing.

For anyone who has spent several years focusing on Ironman, I recommend a year focused on short course. Not only is it a ton of fun, but you'll get faster. It took me most of the year to find an extra gear, but it finally happened.

I'm looking forward to returning to long course racing next year in my new age group - 40-44.

Some quick race reports:

Cooney Duathlon - May 25 - This was the first race in the Great Lakes Duathlon series and the streak continued. 2nd overall....again. Three in a row. It was a chilly day, but turned into decent weather for racing. I ran fairly conservatively in the first run, rode my way into 4th and then ran my way into 2nd. I negative split the race and was really happy about that. This race is well run and a lot of fun, and I recommend it for anyone in the midwest looking for an early season duathlon.

Lake Mills Sprint Tri - June 2 - A cold, windy day. I was in the first wave and struggled a bit with the cold water and waves, but had a fairly decent swim. The bike was good and I came off the bike in 3rd overall. I lost a few spots on the run and finished 7th overall. They ended up cancelling the swim after our wave and did a TT start so it ended up being kind of a weird race day and there are two sets of results with and without the swim for those of us that did swim.

Cudahy Duathlon - June 9 - Round 2 of the Great Lakes Duathlon series. This bike course for this race is on part of the Age Group Nationals course so I chose to do this race so I could ride part of the course and then go preview the run course after. I came to this race hoping to break my streak and win one of these things, but it didn't happen. I biked my way into the lead just before transition, but got outrun and came in 2nd overall again. Always a bridesmaid....

My next race was the Muskoka 5150 in Canada. I'm going to write up a full race report because that was a bigger race for me since I went there with the goal of qualifying for the 5150 championships in Des Moines....and it was an awesome course and deserves a full post complete with pics. I'll get that post up soon.

Then I'll add a few more race reports, including one of my breakthrough races, Age Group Nationals and the weekend where everything went wrong. Then I'm going to post about my training for my next race, the Beach to Battleship half ironman and then I'll talk about my 2014 plans which has me registered for races I never would have predicted a few months ago.

Here are some pics....