My end of year #1

2007 was just a crazy year with lots of ups and downs and I hope I will reap all the benefits of 2007 in 2008. I sometimes laugh when I say I have a pro card!

The Races
Cactus Challenge 3rd
Honu Half IM 10th
LA Triathlon 22nd
Texas Tri 1st
Texas Man 1st
Long horn tri 6th
70.3 Worlds 30th

I was very fired up about racing this year, especially after placing 7th at World Champs. I know the field was not stacked as it was this year, but it was still a solid and respectable race. The season started off with the Cactus Challenge in April were I had another poor race. First year at Cactus I was sent the wrong way on the bike and found myself way off the pace coming into the run and just blew up. Last year I went the wrong way on the bike again and was only seconds away from the win! This year I was flat on the bike. Every year I enter this I have flawed.

Honu Half Ironman was in June and I showed up feeling somewhat confident. I had a poor swim and tried to play catch up all day. I did a crash course running program in my final build for this race and ended flat on the run. Placed 10th overall and was not very pleased.

LA triathlon....I am not even going to go there.

Texas man and tri and Longhorn. I finally started to do well. These are great races that I think are so much fun. All of these courses are very Texas and I think i saw more rattlesnakes on the road in these three races then I have seen my entire time I have resided in Texas. Two wins and some much needed confidence ignited my ego. Longhorn was a race I really wanted to do well in. I finally went to the pool and told myself I had to put in the hard yards. I use to be such a strong swimmer and have really fallen off the past few years. Came out of the swim at Longhorn with a massive lead and just waited for the pack to catch me on the bike. The bike was not at 100% so I cruised with the pack know i had a strong to unleash once my feet hit the ground. The plan was going brilliant as the leader only had 2 minutes on us! I came out of T2 with a mission and by mile three the lead was 30 seconds! Beauty, race is the bag I was thinking. Yes, far too cocky and I got whacked with the humble stick in the form of severe cramping like I have never had before. Placed sixth and ended up visiting medical for a while to cool down and get hydrated. I was confident in my form leading up to worlds.

WORLDS! I had received a beautiful package of 700 dollars and some other goodies for placing top ten last year. No stress in the last month leading up to this race. As always if you caught onto my feeling flat theme, work called. This time it was a completely different scenario in why I had to log lots of hours. I started to develop the superman bug and it also killed me at worlds. With very little time to train daily, I just went and hammered every day and was logging some nice numbers on the SRM....too nice and too frequently. I began freaking out about not performing as well as in 2006, I freaked out because I was getting in lots of speed but no distance, I was not happy that I was was very fatigued seven days out from the race. I stopped training five days out from the race and just prayed I would come right. Come race day I had a solid swim out with the main pack and that is about the only positive thing I have to say about the race. My legs were lifeless and I was absolutely furious when I got spit off the back.