Really enjoyed the whole experience of racing an American Mdot race and would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants an early season race to keep the motivation during winter training.
Turbo update:
Jonny Hotchkiss had a very strong race and he was absolutely flying when I saw him on the run. Watch out for him mixing it with the top pros later in the season.
The newest Turbo recruit, Mark McNerney had a good race too and crossed the line in 4.46 which secured him the last role down spot for the World Champs in Clearwater. What makes the result more impressive is that he broke pretty much every rule in the “how to prepare for a triathlon” handbook! Admittedly, he’d been looking at buying a bike in the US for a while, but I’m not sure that is a good enough excuse to pick up a brand new Felt DA time trial bike at 6pm on Friday, ride it for 5mins and then race on it at 7am the next morning! To compliment the bike, he also opted for a brand new tri-suit, shoes and cleats. It all adds to the ‘adventure’ I guess! 
Our times:
Jonny Swim-28:16, Cycle-2:21, Run-1:17 4:10:35
Dion Swim-25:30, Cycle-2:28, Run-1:28 4:27:50
Mark Swim-28:52, Cycle-2:36, Run-1:36 4:46:38
This was my first Half Ironman so I wasn’t really sure how to pace it so decided on the “backing off olympic a touch” approach and just hoped the wheels wouldn’t come off.
Unfortunately the swim wasn’t a mass start as the harbour was too narrow to accommodate the 2,000 athletes. Instead, each AG was set off separately with a 3min gap between waves. M25-29 was the 18th and last wave to start and knowing there are 2,000+ athletes ahead was a little daunting and led to the most Zig Zag swim Mark and I have ever done as we bridged the 3min gap to the wave ahead in the first minute. The water was a chilly 57 degrees and felt really crisp and fast so it was a shame we couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm and start swimming fast without crashing into people in front. The pros have got it easy being able to race in clear water! Andy Potts’ time of 22:35 (68sec 100m pace), 3mins faster than the next pro was absolutely awesome and it’s great to see a swimmer leading the race from start to finish.
Out on the bike, people were strung out down the road as far as the eye could see and for the first time ever I actually passed people on the bike which makes everything seem so much easier. For the first 30 miles, I was averaging over 43kph but then came the cheeky 20% hills which brought the average for the 90km down to 38kph. I know lance said ‘it’s not about the bike’ but in my case, I think it it is! The new Sigma Kronos is fast/fast/fast (and looks kinda pimp too which always adds that extra little bit of speed 
)It’s nice to fly past 100s of Cervelo P3s on a bike that’s half the price. The Americans certainly like their carbon. I didn’t realise there were that many P3s in the world, let alone in California!
The run was always going to be slow as I’ve been injured for most of the winter but I was still planning to keep the first lap nice and controlled and then pick it up for the 2nd 10k. All was going to plan in so far as the first lap was steady but unfortunately the second lap was even steadier which put me out of contention with the leaders and meant I could just enjoy the atmosphere rather than worrying about racing too hard.
Dion
)It’s nice to fly past 100s of Cervelo P3s on a bike that’s half the price. The Americans certainly like their carbon. I didn’t realise there were that many P3s in the world, let alone in California!
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