Today I raced at the Brick Duahtlon in Waterloo. It was a very cold day, there was lots of wind. There was off and on rain, and when I went for my warm up on my bike it started to hail. The wind was just unreal.
The race started at 11:00. The first run was 4km and I started out strong leading the way. Taylor Reid ran with me for most of the run. We paced one another till I gave a kick at the end of the run. I ended up with 3:19 pace and I wasn't working to hard. I entered into T1 in 3rd and came out on the bike in first(fast transitions).
I pushed hard to stay in the lead but there was a crazy head wind. David Sharratt passed me around the 6km mark of the race and shortly after I got passed again. I was still fighting a crazy head wind and as I hit the turn around I got the bike up to high 50's and never looked back after that. On some of the down hill's I pushed the bike speed up to 75-80kmh, I was riding on 808's so I didn't stay in my aero bars for down hills(wind was pushing me around).
As I was coming back to the transition area I saw David Sharratt leaving onto the run. I had another fast transition and as I took my first steps on the run it felt like I was standing still. I stared to warm up as I hit the 1km mark. On the turn around I ran into a hard head wind so that slowed me down. I kept pushing to the finish and ended up 3rd overall and 1st in my age group.
All in all the day went well. The only thing I want to work on is running off the bike. I think with out the wind I would have av 40km on the bike and in the second run I think I could have been running 3:30 pace. I look forward to my first triathlon of the year on june 1st.
Karsten Madsen
