Early-Season Racing
As I mentioned in my last post, I did a write-up about recent racing action last week that got lost in the Series of Tubes that is the internet. Up here in Seattle, the weather has been hit-or-miss to the point that our March 29th bike race in Bellingham got cancelled due too snow. My friend Ben did a nice write-up about that one, complete with plenty of pictures and a video of me throwing snowballs in the parking lot.
So instead, let's take a look at what our friends are doing elsewhere in the world. The last weekend in March featured two pro races: Ralph's and Mooloolaba.
IM 70.3 California (formerly known as the Ralph's supermarket half-IM or Oceanside) is the unofficial beginning of the US racing season. Many of the American and international pros who train in the US use this race to benchmark where they're at. Amongst my friends, Loren Pokorny had a reasonable start to his season in the age-group race. Austinites Brandon and Amy Marsh both finished in the top ten in the pro race, which was won by Andy Potts in a sprint finish over Craig "Crowie" Alexander.
The Mooloolaba World Cup kicks of the ITU World Cup series every year. A few of my friends made it onto the start list but none had very good races. It looks like the whole group pretty much stayed together on the bike but then there was a very wide spread on the run. Colorado Springs resident Dave Messenheimer, who I've raced many times in Seattle and elsewhere, is capable of a 32:xx 10k off the bike but was up in the 36s at Mooloolaba, as was Javier Cuevas who I met at Nevis. Their times make Javier Gomez's winning split of 30:29 that much more impressive/frightening.
Then today at New Plymouth Gomez won again with a 29:37 run split on a course that they say measured 10.2km!!! The top American was Joe Umphenour (former resident of Bellevue, WA, and former member of our track group) in 42nd. Dave Messenheimer, Kevin Collington & Bucky Schafer also raced there but they all missed the main bike group. It looks like Kevin was in a position that I've been in too many times myself -- in the right swim group but near the back and not quick enough through transition to latch onto the bike pack. Javier Cuevas had a better race than in Mooloolaba and took 36th.
Also today, Francisco Serrano of took second at the Lima Continental Cup. Brad Zoller took 11th and finished inside the 5% time cut-off to get ITU points.
They posted the Start List for the ITU Mazatlan Pan American Championships and there are already 49 guys listed, including 19 Americans. Simon Whitfield, Jarrod Shoemaker and Paul Tichelaar look like the highest ranking guys.