So this past weekend was technically my  6th race of the year but to be honest it was the 1st time I felt “ready ” to race physically.

I had no idea how much getting sick for the month of January would affect my overall fitness . I really should have just changed my season plans right then , however I was to stubborn and thought I would be fine . I finally came to the realization that I needed to change things up after a disaster of a race at Oceanside.

So back to Portland…..

Race start was 8am which I thought was VERY reasonable and almost a normal morning wake up time .  Marilyn ,Richie Cunningham and myself chose to ride the 5 miles to the race start.

the water temp was measured by the officials and a few of us were caught off guard when the call was made for it to be a non wetsuit swim with the water temp sitting  at 72 deg.

With the frantic beach start over with I found myself  with a small group being lead by Michael locate at the first turn buoy . I was quite content to be were I was and followed Michael down the swim course . When we reached the far end of the course I came around Michael to take my turn on the return leg.  As we reached dry land I heard that i had ended up getting a gap on the group and was sitting around 60 sec down on 3rd place and 5th out of the water.

After our 800 M run to T1 I was quickly on the Hog ( my kestrel 4000 ) and in quick pursuit of Graeme and Richie.  I managed to round up 4th place pretty quickly but the podium positions were taking a little longer. as I reached the half way mark of the bike leg I rode up on Richie but was also caught by a quick moving Rapstar ( Jordan Rapp ). sparring anymore boring details I ended up loosing 60 sec to Jordan and rolled into T2 in 3rd place with team mate Richie nipping at my heels.

After my Ironman like transition Richie and I ended up running out of T2 together  . I truly had a goal of running 1:15 so thought rich would be the perfect person to run with.  So again to spare you the crazy thoughts that go through my head while I am racing . I ran in 4th place right up to about mile 12.5 when a flying Jesse Thomas came by to relegate me to 5th.

On another note rich ended up running 1:13, a little quicker than I.  Was hoping to pace off of him, I closed the day out with a mid 1:16 half marathon.

Until next time!

To learn more about Chris McDonald, Visit www.trimacca.com