The Grand Final

I arrived home from Gold Coast on Monday and as I write this I feel like falling asleep for the next eight hours. It’s 12 PM. I woke up at 2:30 AM again this morning and that’s the third time this week. And I might be coming down with a cold or something. Yes, jet lag is tons of fun! It was completely worth it, though. Racing in my first World Championship was an amazing experience.

I arrived fully a week before the race (I wanted to adapt to the time zone before race day as I think that was a problem for me in Hamburg and London). We got into a pretty relaxed routine of running in the morning, biking at mid-day and swimming in the early afternoon at the Southport pool, all with breaks in between to cook some delicious food in our rooms (despite our hotel being generally backwards and disorganized, they did provide cooking supplies which made cooking in the rooms the best option).

Race day came quickly and I went down to the start with Cam and Jarrod around 1:30 PM. The sun sets in Gold Coast around 5:30pm this time of year so our 3:15pm start meant we would be racing in the late afternoon twilight near the end of the run. After a good swim warmup (the first time I have ever swam in a pool for warm up), it was time to race! The water was 20.5 celsius (cold and non-wetsuit!) but the air was warm so I was happy. I chose start spot #29 next to my room mate Matt Chrabot and after a couple of tense minutes the gun went off. I am happy to report that this was the least violent WCS swim of the year for me (although everyone else would have you believe that it was the most violent!). Near the end of the swim an athlete right ahead of me let a small gap open up – that was unfortunate because myself and a small group of 10 or so athletes spent the first two laps of the bike closing that gap down. With Tim Don, Brad Kahlefeldt, Bruno Pais and Matt Chrabot in my group we had enough fire power to get back up to the lead group. The rest of the bike went according to plan – I stayed near the front and out of trouble. I tried to maintain my position into T2 but everyone swarmed around me and after a near crash I maintained my position near the middle.

Just for the record: The pace everyone took that run out in was absolutely ridiculous. My first lap (2.5K) was 7:23 (that’s sub-30 minute 10k pace) and I WAS IN 38th PLACE!!!! After the first lap I was completely red lined so I dropped out of the group I was in and ran my own race. I expected people to start blowing up ahead of me but no such thing happened. My second lap was 8:25 (33:40 10k pace). I caught onto a group of two runners and recovered a bit, putting my third lap at 8:21. I picked it up on the last lap, running 8:15, and caught caught a couple of guys up the road. I ended up in 37th, running a 32:20 on a 10K course that was probably 200 to 300 meters short.

That’s about it – I went down to watch the women’s race the next day. It was nice to be done and only have to watch other people race! The USA had some good performances lead by Sarah Haskin’s fourth place in the women’s race, Kevin McDowell’s fourth place in the junior men’s race (the highest junior men’s finish since 2005), Jarrod’s 10th place in the overall World Championship series, Greg Billington’s 13th in the U23 men, Lauren Goldstein-Kral’s really fast run to finish 12th in the U23 women, and Jessica Broderick and Jen Howland finishing 16th and 17th in the junior girls race in the highest junior girls finishes for the USA for as long as I can remember!

Taking it out WAY too fast on the first lap of the run! Photo by Jayme Ramson.