Eagleman 70.3 Preview- Hot, Flat and Fast

Eagleman 70.3 in Cambridge, MD. Produced by TriColumbia. A very popular race in the 70.3 series and you can see why as the race organizers have a lot of energy and pride about it.

The swim course is not as wet as I expected. No seriously I think you can stand up and walk almost the whole course and only get half wet! It is a single loop swim that starts farther out in the river and runs down stream, not as sweet as it sounds since the outgoing leg of the swim is longer as measured by land, to account for the assistance you get from the current. Water temps. are typically warm and it is most likely a non-wetsuit swim.

Swim Exit

The bike course is well, flat. My friend Julien that raced here before said his garmin only picked up a total of 6m of climbing throughout...you go over one bridge. As described by my host you go through one 'town' and one marina, thats it, all in a single loop. You do have the potential to see lots of wildlife as my host spattered off a list of animals he saw on a single ride...rabbits, turtles, eagles, falcons, blue heron....Stephen Reed even had a half eaten fish dropped on the road in front of him by a bald eagle, I guess he looked hungry.

The run course is a single loop, out at back that, like the bike, is pancake flat. It could potentially make for a fast course as long as you don't fry like an egg. Every inch of the run is very...

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EXPOSED !!!

Tempuratures are forcasted to get up into the 90's with 0-5mph winds, it may be a day for my CEP cooling sleeves. It is good to know that TriColumbia has over 1,800 lbs of ice distributed on the run course.

FINISH LINE !!!

Men's Pro Start list: 21 men, 6 Countries
Craig Alexander- Caringbah, Australia
Ryan Bates- Copley, Ohio
Julien Biboud- Sherbrooke Canada
Raymond Botelho- Falmouth, Massachusetts
James Bowstead- Auckland, New Zealand
Mark Bowstead- Auckland, New Zealand
Mike Caiazzo- Westbrook, Maine
Richie Cunningham- Boulder, Colorado
Andreas Darricau- La Plata Argentina
James Duff- Carborro, North Carolina
Andrew Imrie- Toronto, Canada
David Kahn- Port Jefferson, New York
Ryan Kelly- Concord, New Hampshire
James Lamastra- Rocky River, Ohio
Justin Park- Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Kyle Pawlaczyk- Orchard Park, New York
Fabian Rahn- Remchingen, Germany
Zach Ruble- Clermont, Florida
Jack Smith- Sewickley, Pennsylvania
TJ Tollakson- Des Moines, Iowa
Tony White- Corbin, Kentucky

Ochsner New Orleans 70.3 Preview

*NEWS FLASH - Due to potentially high winds Saturday night and Sunday morning the courses have been altered, swim moved into more protected water but tighter space), bike (shortened to 52 mi) and run changed to a 2 loop) with an alternate plan to cancel the swim and do a wave start 2 mile run in it's place. This should be interesting.

Here is the current mens Pro start list, total 37, a fairly large field along with their current ranking on the 70.3 points list or the Kona points if I couldn't find them.

70.3 PR Last, First name

49 ALLEN, RICH
191 AMORELLI, IGOR
ARCHER JIMMY
71 BARNETT,DAMON
BECKER BLAKE
251 BOUDREAUX, CHRISTOPHER
249 CAVANHA, MAURO
120 COTTER, JAMES
27 CSOKE, BALAZS
2 CUNNINGHAM, RICHIE
157* DEFILIPPIS SCOTT
150 EVOE PATRICK
GARCIA DEREK
163 GLAUSER GRANT
HODGES ANDREW
107 JESSOP BRANDON
306*JOHNSTON CHAD
95 KELLY, RYAN (ME)
59 KEMP CHRISTIAN
239 LORD, TYLER
21 LOVATO, MICHAEL
41* LOWE, TOM
170 MARSH, BRANDON
127 MCDONALD, CHRIS, 1 race
82 PAWLACZYK, KYLE
ROBINS, MITCHELL
225 ROSTYAGAEV, DMITRY
69 RUBLE, ZACH, 2 races
SCHMID, STEFAN
91 TADDONIO, KEVIN, 3 races
TOLLAKSON, TJ ?? not on his website schedule
213 UMPHENOUR, JOE, 2 races
240 WADE, ROBERT
80 WANINGER, NICK, 2 races
WATSON, JASON
WHITE, TONY
147 WURTELE, TREVOR


Although you can never be sure who is actually going to show up, and many people often don't show, you always have to count on everyone coming and bringing their A game. Of those listed on the 70.3 PR list, I am currently 12, including Tollakson who wasn't on the list, cause I know he is good. One of my goals for this race will be to beat my ranking. But my main goal is just to have a solid race, don't over-do the bike (going to have to go by feel because I do not have a power meter to race one, the draw back of power taps) and then give it all on the run. I know that if I ride within myself that I can put down a top 5 run but I have been trying to pick it up on the bike for two reasons, 1) it sucks riding by yourself. 2) the field rides fast and I need to keep myself within striking distance for the run.

I have been fighting what seems to be allergies turned into a sinus infection/gremlins in my lungs which has been making for some less than pleasurable swim workouts. Thanks to some great advice from my friend Regi and Dolly and some antibiotics, it is getting better and hopefully the gremlins in my chest will be gone by Sunday morning.

TriBike Transport !
http://tribiketransport.com/
This is the first time I have used TriBike and I gotta say it is pretty awesome. I dropped off my bike at Fast Splits in Newton MA on Saturday and set up my road bike as close to my TT position for riding in the mean time. No disassembly required and the extra gear bag allowed me to only have a carry on bag. I can't remember the last time I wasn't lugging at least one bike through the airport.

Ok I was running a little late, thankfully the driver, Colt, is a great guy and didn't say a word. He even showed me the truck they used and I was comforted to know my baby would be well protected and not thrown around by some disgruntled baggage worker.