Racine 70.3-Second Time in 8 Days

Racine 70.3

Swim: 26:59  15th fastest
Bike: 2:09:15  5th fastest  26.2mph  279 average watts
File:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/346818644
Run: 1:17:24  5th fastest
Overall: 3:57:21  8th place

First 70.3 double ever.  After racing overly aggressive last week and with this being the second race in the double I knew I wanted to race much more steady and conservative.  But with a deeper field and flat bike course I knew the swim would be critical.  The lake was pretty rough and it really separated the swimmers from the pretenders and unfortunately for me I was further behind than normal out of the swim and with nobody to ride with.  Stayed positive and knew that people would come back to me.  Promised myself after last week that I wasn't going to pull people around the bike course all day, they were going to have to work if they wanted to ride with me.  But as I caught riders one at a time nobody was actually strong enough to stay with so I ended up in a solo effort the first 35 miles.  At 35 miles I caught the same guy who I caught last week at mile 40.  This time though I wasn't giving him a free ride back.  We took turns pulling but I was the stronger rider and I really had to back off to let him come by.  I'm sure we were slower overall than if I had just lead the whole way but I thought it'd be worth it to see how I could run after this way.  287w the first 30 miles which dropped to 271 the second half working with someone else.  Finished the ride feeling so much better than last week, 13w less for the ride felt like a world of difference.
However, for how fresh I felt finishing the ride I wasn't seeing run splits as fast as I expected, perhaps from last week?  Felt great though, started out much more conservative than last week and it showed as I felt my strongest the entire race miles 7-10 of the run.  Ran hard the entire way just waiting for the usual blowups to occur but with cool weather nobody fell apart.  Felt like I raced pretty well so am disappointed with the finish place, my swim really hurt me today.  Can't say I ever felt any lingering effects from last week which surprised me, pretty pleased to run what I did the second race of the double.
Only good news about my disappointing finishes the last two weeks is that it made my decision whether to race 70.3 World Champs or IM Wisconsin an easy one.  IM Wisc it is, 7 weeks to prepare.