Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Chris McDonald's WINNING Rockman Race Report

Chris McDonald wins on ISM Adamo Racing!!


Hi ,
Well week one of the double is in the bank . This past Sunday I race at Rockman Half in Rockford Illinois .

On all accounts my travel to the race was very uneventful and I arrived in Rockford on Friday afternoon for a Sunday race . The weather man was telling me 75 and sunny for the weekend ... well Saturday it rained 60% of the day and then sunday was not a whole lot better .

Race morning dawned dark and omious. I went about my duties and got all things organized tehn lined up in the water for the 7am start , found my position and we were off . As we started there was one lady who dropped us like a dirty shirt , within 200 meters she had a 20 meter gap??? what the? I was later to find out she was a gold medalist in the 4 x 100 relay for the USA .

Onto the bike . This is really were I wanted to hit the front and get a gap on the feild. However my body didnt exactly agree , I did get to the lead and get a small gap but I just was not really able to push like I wanted to . This was my first race riding with my new Zipp 900 power tapp disc so it is interesting to look back and see that I really was only able to ride an Ironman effort for the entire duration of the ride . I came in with a split just over 2:10 and avg power of 296 watts. Although I did manage to break the old bike course record by some 5 min :-)

When I hit T2 I had roughly a 1:40 lead on 2nd . I decided I would run 4 miles hard ( the first turn around ) and then re-evaluate . I did just this and managed to get the gap out to 3 min . I must say I felt really bad for the lead cyclist , As we hit one of the bridges on the run course ( on a down hill ) he hit a wet metal plate on the bridge and hit the deck . I flet quite bad as he jumped up and chased afterme with quite the chunk out of his knee and spent the next hour rubbing his hip .
With the gap out to 3 min and racing next weekend I wanted to leave as much in the tank as possible there were 4 total out and backs on the course so I was able to temper my effort and hold my gap to 2nd and come in with my 3rd win of the season.

Right now I am sitting in the chicago airport on my way to baltimore for the second round at eagleman 70.3 in cambridge maryland.
Cheers Chris

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