ill hong your kong

At this moment I am sitting in the Chicago airport, less than 500 miles from my home, and of course my flight is delayed. It is just my luck, though. My fligh from Hong Kong to Tokyo was early and I had a whole row to myself. My flight form Tokyo to Chicago was early also AND I had a row to myself. This means that United needs to make my trip uncomfortable somehow. So hear I am 7 hrs after I arrived in Chicago, still in Chicago.

Anyways, enough about the travel, on to the race. First off, Hong Kong is a great city. Everywhere I have traveled this year seems to offer some unique, new perspective. I really enjoy the travel (forget what I wrote above, ill be over it tomorrow). I met a few new people at the race, which is always a plus. We had a great time after the race.

The race itself was average, similar to the way my season seems to be going. I had a good swim, which put me comfortably in the first pack. This race was really about the bike. The course was crazy hilly. About 1k out of transition was a hill at about 15% for 300m. Then there was one that was 6-7% for 2-3k. Repeat 4 times in hot, humid weather. This recipe makes for a hard race. Through about 10-12 solid ITU guys and you have a race. I was hurting form the first pedalstroke on the bike. I knew it was going to be rough ride. I made it through the first 2 laps fine, but on the start of the 3rd (at the ridiculously steep hill), Greg Bennet decided to test out his new Dura-Ace SRM and see how high he could make it register. So while Greg was doing windsprints up the hill, I was getting gapped with my heartrate well over 200, and smoke coming out of my ears. There were 4 others who dropped off too, so at least I got to share my misery with a few others. I finished up the bike, and headed out to what I thought would be a death march, but was actually ok. I ran conservatively to make sure a repeat run-bonk would not happen. I ran in 9th place for 9.95k of the run till a certain Kiwi named Liam (you sure he isnt Scottish or something?) decided to play swords with me at the end. He won, I lost. So finished in 10th place. Not too shabby, but not too great. Gotta keep riding that bike! Well, had a great trip and even won a butt and tummy toner from the race sponsor. You heard right, OSIM gave us a tummy and butt toner. There are already pics in the works.

One more race (Treasure Island) and then Im out. Guess Ill have to roll out in TI.

Cheers,
B