Brad Williams- Professional Triathlete ARCHIVES: Coming Home :)

15Apr10- Incirlik AB, Turkey

Well the time has finally come where I get to head home for a couple weeks. I am excited to get back and see family and friends and get some good racing in. Wildflower is set as my A race for this year but it is so early in the year once I get out to Korea I could find another late Half IM and get another good race in. I found a local Olympic distance race to go to on Sunday which will be a good prep for Wildflower. After the race on Sunday we are going to have a family BBQ and I am excited to see some old friends from HS and all of the family.

I have got a good amount of training in and am feeling really strong on the run and about the same as I was last year on the bike. I wasn't sure how my run speed was coming along as I hadn't really done any speed intervals or track workouts, I had done a few tempo runs and they felt good. So the true test was taking my PT test last week. The last time I tested was back in October and I ran 8:19 for 1.5 miles. Last week I was just wanting to hit mid 8's, but I went out really hard and felt great. Came across the line at 7:57, which was quite shocking as I was not expecting to be that fast this early in the year. I was going to try and break 8 later this year, but now it looks like my new goal is 7:30.

The other test to see where I was endurance wise was a local duathlon last month. It was a 5k run followed by a 12k bike. Really short but something to get the HR up and going, the one thing I do not like about the short stuff is it seems to hurt a lot more than the long stuff. I stayed up front with my buddy "Flash", one of the other fast guys on base and we took it easy on the run and came in at 19:12 together. The one thing that I have learned from the past 2 years is transitions can make you or break you in the short races. So I really concentrated on getting out of their fast. I ended up putting 30secs on him just in transition. Bike felt good other than a nasty head wind on the backstretch and I rode 18:53. So it was a good morning all in all and I ended up winning by 2 or 3 minutes. Funny thing that I have noticed is people do not like the same person winning all the time. Example, Tiger Woods, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt. It seems when they were at their prime and they were winning all the time they gained a lot more people disliking them and rooting against them. So at the little awards ceremony someone decided to make a comment about me "When are you leaving so someone else can start winning". Thought it was quite humorous and responded with "Don't worry I just extended for another 2 years". The funny thing was I didn't even know the guy. Well it is about time to board the plane here in Turkey and make the voyage home.

One more thing that some of you may have not heard is that I am going to Spangdahlem, Germany after Korea. I am schedule to arrive in October 2011! Pretty stoked about that assignment and the amount of racing over there and traveling that can be had.

Below are some pics from the Duathlon and the Volleyball game I mentioned in the last blog.