Two weeks into solid training and my first race of this block is done and dusted.

Today was the Vineman 70.3 (half Ironman) in Sonoma country, just north of San Francisco near Napa valley where all the great vineyards are, hence the name Vineman.

It was probably one of the strongest half Ironman races of the year with most of the big names. The swim was straight forward, up and down a river, then a large bunch formed on the bike which was not the best as the course had a lot of small climbs and corners and there was a big yoyo effect through the group, I suppose all the accelerations did pay off as a few people started struggling near the end. I got off the bike in 4th about 3minutes off the leader but managed to string out a 20 second lead over Craig Alexander, one of my main competitors but he pulled that back within the first 2km, which was a huge shock to me as I thought I was moving fast. His pace didn't slow, but I managed to hang in there, struggling at times. We caught the leader Steve Larsen about half way through the run and Craig slowed up a bit, I thought I would test his legs and keep the pace going, I gained a small lead and it kept growing, I didn't know what was going on, was he playing with me or had his legs gone. I wasn't going to hang around to find out so I kept pushing along. With 1mile to go someone yelled that I was on for a course record, I was already giving it my all so all I could do was try and hold on a bit longer. I crossed the line in 3.49.30 about 30 seconds under the record and got a large 3L bottle of La Crema wine, who knows what I am going to do with that.

So all in all not a bad day at the office. In fact the last few days have been great, I have been staying with Chris Legh at this great homestay in Santa Rosa, the Devore's, where tradition says their house has a great curse where someone who stays their will be victorious. Well let's hope they don't wash the sheets!!! Okay that sounds dirty, but you know what I mean.

Quick turn around today, already back on my way to the airport to head down to San Diego for a day before going back to Portland to work on my recovery before getting back into some serious miles. My brother and I purchased a nice small car so I should have a bit more independance and save some $ on gas.

Next stop for me is TimberMan 70.3 in a month so will check in again soon.

Regards
Terenzo

There's one part of this sport that I never will get bored of having to deal with. "Racing" and getting to do it in some of the most beautiful places on this planet!!

Kitzbuhel is in the heart of the Austrian alps. With green rolling hills and mountain peaks that look so step Only a crazy man would try to ski down them ( which they do by the way) its hard to think about racing!. luckily for me though i left my skis at home and all the other tourist stuff is on hold until after Beijing!!

This race was all about finishing off a block of training that had lasted over 10 weeks. You all know I've been based in Font Romeu, at the French Altitude training center during that time. I've done some other races directly from there but this was slightly different as it was at the end of my block and presented some other challenges because of it.
Awhile ago we had looked at where I could take and easier week in this last month before Beijing. Of course when time is so tight its not easy to work this into a programme for such an important race. But rest to is just as important. Something had to give, either I tapper up for Kitzbuhel and be a bit more fresh for the race and start my last block of hard training directly after. Or train right through Kitzbuhel, not be too fresh for the race and take my easier week after it. We decided to go with the second option as I was ticking along nicley in Font Romeu. So just rolled the training through Kitzbuhel.

It's a great feeling coming directly from altitude ( well for me anyway ). I have the feeling that I can breath through a straw sometimes.... which as you can imagine is good for the head if your heart rate is around 180+. I did have some clear objectives in the race though and I'd really try to focus on them and not get caught up with what other guys were up to. To say i want to have a good swim, bike and run is fine but by cutting it down even further to the bare specifics you can get so much more out of the day.

THE RACE-
My swim was going ok until around 1000 meters into it. Then some kind sole in front of me lost the feet of the guy he was swimming behind ( I know who he was, and he knows I know it was him! if you know what I mean...) I realised it slightly too late and over the last 500 meters a gap opened to the front guys. I pushed past "him" and took 5 guys with me into transition.
We jumped on our bikes and pushed really hard to get back to the front of the race. I wanted to push on the bike at the start anyway. I just thought it would be from the front, not to get there. Not to worry, the gap of 20 seconds slowly came down and by 10k we were back on. After that the front group was about 20 strong. No one really was doing much for the rest of the ride and in the end the 3rd group caught us to make 50 guys heading into T2 for the run. I made sure as I always do that I would be in front off the bike.
With a big group like this one of two things always seem to eventuate. Someone generally just streaks it in the first ks guys try to follow and they blow up. Or everyone just runs quite controlled in a big group until guys get dropped from the change in pace. It actually happened both way's today. Ivan Rana who had not won a world cup since 2003 blew us away on the first 2k by himself. And then behind him a group of 8 guys ran together 15 seconds back including myself, Bevan and Athens Bronze medalist Sven Riedier. For the next 8k this is pretty much how it stayed. Rana in front by 15 seconds, but our group kept getting smaller and smaller every lap. In the end it came down to racing for second as Ivan had well his best day for over 4 years. I waited as long as I could for the sprint into the finish. And in the end sprinted Sven for 2nd.
It was all I could have asked for with all things considering. The race had everything, and it was a great hit out 4 and a bit weeks before Beijing.

I'm now heading back to my Home in Germany for a easy few days of training post altitude and post race. I'll start to get back into it near the end of the week and then I have a little sprint race on the 2nd of August in Germany. It will almost be like my last quality session before Beijing.
We then head over to Jeju Korea to meet up with the New Zealand team for 12 days prior to traveling to Beijing for the BIG race on August the 19th.

So hope all is well with everyone, take care and speak soon.
Kris

Hello Friends and Sponsors
On the 19th of July I raced my 1st Olympic distance triathlon of the year the Evergreen International Triathlon 2 hours south of Chicago! After coming out to do a swim clinic and race last year and getting caught short with a couple of talented young triathletes giving me a beating I came back very motivated to win.

Also to make it tougher on me I had scheduled 2 swim clinics and had a total of 75 people over the two clinics.

I woke at 5am for the 7am start to lighting and pouring rain a bit of a worry as would hate the swim to be canceled, the lighting stopped but it kept pouring down but was warm rain so I was ok with it.

The water was a barmy 77.8deg F so I thought there would be no wetsuits but they allowed them I hadn't brought mine down to the race so had to go with the Blueseventy point 3zero.
The gun went off and we were away and I pushed hard then settled in only managed to get a gap of 20 seconds as some of the guys had wetsuits which make them a lot faster.

On the bike I felt great and the new uniform was really comfortable and I put the pedal to the metal and wanted to get away from any runners! I got to the turn around and then new we had a bit of a tailwind and was down hill so really push hard going to T2!
The corners where a little sketchy but I attacked them and rode 58mins for the wet 40k! I was nearly a minute faster than the next guy!-

On the run my legs felt a bit heavy for the first 3 miles but then I picked up the pace and was running 5.40miles for the last 3 miles and won the race by nearly 2 minutes. It was really pleasing as I've changed a few things with my bike position so the changes are starting to feel good and I'm now looking forward to Ironman Canada in 5 week and training very hard.

Will keep you posted as may race the 5430 Half Ironman here in Boulder, Colorado as my last hit out but will treat it more as a very hard training day!

Cheers Rhodsey