Kansas 70.3-Dueling Crowie

Swim: 6th fastest split
The times on the results are screwed up, I don't know it.  This was a good, not great, swim for me.  I didn't swim awful like I have most races so far this year, and I hung on the back of the lead group until the turnaround which was good.  It wasn't great because I got dropped at the turnaround.  Still I came out just a minute down on the lead 5 guys, I'll take that.  With a challenging bike course ahead I knew I was in good position.

Bike:  2:09:54  25.6mph  Fastest split!
Got on the bike and my HR was over 170 following the swim.  I knew I had to chill and let that come down to something sustainable and was forced to ride easier than planned first 10min.  Finally after 10min or so the HR got down and with that I found my legs and was off.  Solo TT for 40min when I made up the minute from the swim and caught the group.  As I caught them I realized Crowie was already off the front.  It took a pretty good effort the first 40min and I wasn't confident I had the fitness to sustain that so I hung in the back of the group for the next 38 minutes or so and conserved.  Crowie was putting time into all of us but I wasn't even thinking about racing him, just waiting to make a move on the group in a bid for second place.  Finally around 35 miles I made the move up the biggest hill on the course and had no trouble separating, then it was off after Crowie 3 minutes up the road.  All out solo time trial those last 20 miles and in that span I rode over 3 minutes into the chase pack and brought Crowie's lead from 3 minutes down to 45 seconds by the time we hit T2.  I knew I was riding hard enough those last 20 miles I was hurting my run, but I thought it was worth it to get as big a gap as possible on 3rd place starting the run.  If you can beat them mentally you don't have to beat them physically.  Grabbed fastest bike split on the day by 14 seconds over Crowie.

Run: 1:16:38  4th fastest split
Hit the run just 45s down on Crowie and truth be told I didn't think I had any shot, I ran entirely trying to fend off 3rd not even taking splits to Crowie.  First 10k of the run my lead on third only grew and finally midway through the run I knew there was nobody running me down from behind and I turned my sights ahead where surprisingly Crowie's lead was only about a minute.  Tried to dig deep, but just didn't have it.  Still a very good run for me and truth be told I think Crowie probably had plenty more fight in him than he showed.

Overall: 3:52:54  2nd place.
Great result for me, had over 6 minutes on third place and just 1.5 back from the win.  Got WAY more attention from this result than from winning Steelhead last year, guess that's what happens when a 5x world champ is in the race.  Really excited for this season, will not allow myself to be satisfied.  A great race does not make a great season.  Onto the next.