3:30 am and I hear the screech of the alarm . to be honest I was pretty happy to hear it today as it had been 8 months since I had hear that sound in preparation for an Ironman.
It was the inaugural Ironman Ironman St George. I had visited the area late in 2009 and had a look over the course and thought that this was going to be a tough little race and let me tell you Utah and st George didn’t disappoint .
After the early morning shuttle from downtown st George out the sand hollow I had a few quite minutes to think about things and I was really excited to be racing.
I jumped in the water a good twenty y minutes prior to the start to get used to the frigid 57 deg water and before I knew it we were getting the count down and boom we were off .
I can say that for about the second time in my career things went to plan in the swim . I got off to a good start and found myself sitting second in the lead group with only Luke bell swimming solo off the front . I was completely content with this and just sat and bided my time . once we rounded the last turn buoy things were heating up and I decided to just move to the back of the group and relax.
Once we hit dry land I didn’t waste any time in transition and was second onto the bike with 12 or so guys in tow .
From here I looked around at who was in the group and knew I had some of the strongest guys in the race with . We rolled up luke at around 30 or so miles and now we had a lead group of 6 guys with 3 of them doing the lions share of the work.
There is not a lot to say about the remainder of the bike other than It was very windy and when Wiess came by us it was like being passed by a car!
We hit T2 with the group now down to 4 and Michael had built a solid 6 min lead in the second half on the bike . Ben Hoffman and myself had been working hard to limit the damage to him and we hit the run about 7 seconds apart . I pretty much looked at bens back for the remainder of the marathon . the gap went up and down and ended at around 90 sec . I was happy for Ben to have break through race to take second place . Also a big congratulations to Michael for having a great race.
I was happy to walk away from St George with a podium finish after a frustrating end to my 2009 season.
A big ( huge ) thank you to all my family friends and sponsors . it is a good start to a big year.
Cheers Chris
Chris "Big Sexy" McDonald
Professional Triathlete
3 x Ironman Champion
www.chris-mcdonald.net
It was the inaugural Ironman Ironman St George. I had visited the area late in 2009 and had a look over the course and thought that this was going to be a tough little race and let me tell you Utah and st George didn’t disappoint .
After the early morning shuttle from downtown st George out the sand hollow I had a few quite minutes to think about things and I was really excited to be racing.
I jumped in the water a good twenty y minutes prior to the start to get used to the frigid 57 deg water and before I knew it we were getting the count down and boom we were off .
I can say that for about the second time in my career things went to plan in the swim . I got off to a good start and found myself sitting second in the lead group with only Luke bell swimming solo off the front . I was completely content with this and just sat and bided my time . once we rounded the last turn buoy things were heating up and I decided to just move to the back of the group and relax.
Once we hit dry land I didn’t waste any time in transition and was second onto the bike with 12 or so guys in tow .
From here I looked around at who was in the group and knew I had some of the strongest guys in the race with . We rolled up luke at around 30 or so miles and now we had a lead group of 6 guys with 3 of them doing the lions share of the work.
There is not a lot to say about the remainder of the bike other than It was very windy and when Wiess came by us it was like being passed by a car!
We hit T2 with the group now down to 4 and Michael had built a solid 6 min lead in the second half on the bike . Ben Hoffman and myself had been working hard to limit the damage to him and we hit the run about 7 seconds apart . I pretty much looked at bens back for the remainder of the marathon . the gap went up and down and ended at around 90 sec . I was happy for Ben to have break through race to take second place . Also a big congratulations to Michael for having a great race.
I was happy to walk away from St George with a podium finish after a frustrating end to my 2009 season.
A big ( huge ) thank you to all my family friends and sponsors . it is a good start to a big year.
Cheers Chris
Chris "Big Sexy" McDonald
Professional Triathlete
3 x Ironman Champion
www.chris-mcdonald.net
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