I will be racing St. Anthony’s this weekend. St. Anthony’s is one of the more prestigious Olympic distance non-draft races left in the USA. It has been a race that I have wanted to do for a few years and this year it fits in perfectly, one month after 70.3 Oceanside and 5 weeks before 70.3 Victoria. I chose this race because I want to test myself against a faster and more intense race. Compared to a 70.3 race it will have a lot more top end speed and not a lot of time to settle in. I will need to be alert from start to finish.
I have not raced an Olympic distance race for almost two years. My last Olympic distance race was Las Olas Florida in early 2015. This will be a very exciting to get back to some all out racing. I am also very interested to see how much I have improved over the past years. There will also be a few friends that I have not raced in a while that I look forward to competing against. Both John Rasmussen and Eric Lagerstrom have been racing the ITU circuit and I have not had the chance to race them in a while so it will be a lot of fun to challenge my friends at a race.
I did not changed my training very much for this race since 70.3 races still will be my main focus for 2017 but we have put in a few short and fast workouts to sharpen my top end speed. For this race the swim will be crucial and to be able to close with a fast run. The bike is very technical compared to most non-draft races so that will cool to get to test out my bike handling skills.