Lowell

Two weeks after LP Jesse and I had decided to have me jump into a local sprint race, the Lowell Wild Cat Triathlon. I did it last year and Jesse beat me as he has stated a few times (I think he says it 5-6 times, but who counting) in the blog post (http://kropelnicki.com/?p=70). A big thank you goes out to Jesse for helping me set up the post IM training.

Courtney and I rolled out around 7 am for a 9am start, because the Olympic race started at 8. One of my guys, George, was racing the Olympic and I wanted to be there early so that we could chat a bit before the start of his race. George had a great day and got his first podium, he is looking good for IM KY!

Around 8:40 I was in the water for a little warm-up in the lovely Merrimack River!

Once the race was on I was swimming as hard as I possibly could, I mean a 25 yard all out effort! I hit the first turn buoy with one other guy; once we got around the buoy I was solo, a pretty weird spot for me, leading the swim. It was a very quick and short ¼ mile swim I was out in 3:42

My plan was to continue with the all out effort so I rode the first 18 mins with an average wattage of 309. Two weeks after IM, this is not such a good plan, but I wanted numbers for my prep into Kona. And so I just kept pushing and waiting for the other guys in the race to catch me. Luckily no one showed up. I hauled into Transition, again still looking back for the other guys, most notably Paul Miller as he can ride very strong.

Once onto the run I went with the same plan, all out. It was supposed to be 2.5 miles... well, when I got to where the turn around was last year there was NOTHING, but I could see an aid station about 2 minutes down the road, no big deal. Made it to the turn around and was able to get the first time check on the guys behind me. I had three guys back, starting around 25 seconds. Nothing left to do but try and run harder. Finally made it to the finish and found out I had won! The run was just shy of a 5k!

All QT2ers at the race placed in their AG’s, and as a coach it was very cool to see everyone do so well. The hard work is paying off, just like I said it would…

Next up Timberman Sprint and the Pemi Loop.