Brad Williams- Professional Triathlete ARCHIVES: Catching Up: Update Part 1

8 October-

So for anyone out there that actually still follows my blog, you probably noticed I got way behind this year. This is the first time that I am actually going to skip over race reports and just fill you in on "life" and what has been going on. If you want to catch up on what races I have done since Galveston and the exact results and splits, those can be found here: http://www.aftriathlonguy.blogspot.com/p/race-results.html .

Where to start....Well after Galveston I went back to what was "home" at the time of Fort Worth and got a few weeks of training in before heading to California for my brothers wedding and Wildflower Triathlon. It is always good to be home and I was able to get in some good training before Wildflower, as well as spend some time with Hila (the wifey) as she flew in for my brothers wedding. We also took care of some "wedding" planning (We are already married but were planning a small ceremony for our family and friends in September.)

After my brothers wedding and our own little wedding planning adventures it was off to Wildflower. The legendary race in my opinion which should be on every triathletes to do list. I was feeling pretty good for the race and had some great training going into it. I am not quite sure what happened on race day, but I had what I would call an off day. Power was super low on the bike and I came off the bike and hit a wall around mile 3. After a few miles I got going again, but ended up being passed by a guy in my age group with 2 miles to go. Unfortunately he got a drafting penalty and I still ended up winning the age group, although still not a great race for me in my opinion. Hard to say that, but this year I wasn't focusing on age group wins, I wanted overall wins at the local / regional races, and top 5's in my age group at 70.3 worlds and Kona. So I was a little disappointed with my overall placing at Wildflower. After Wildflower I headed back to Texas for a few weeks before returning to California for Military National Champs and a big training block before Challenge Atlantic City.

While back in Texas I moved out of my apartment and started the process of departing from the military. I also headed down to Austin to the CapTex Triathlon to guide Aaron Scheidies. It is always a great time to have Aaron around and be able to race with him. Such an inspirational guy and has a great outlook on life. I then departed for California after CapTex and headed to Southern California. With this being the last race I would participate in for the Air Force, it was a bit of a bitter sweet. I was really excited for the race and felt like I was in the best shape I had been in when showing up to Pt Mugu. The race played out just how I expected, except I wasn't quite expecting to come off the bike in 3rd and hold onto for 5th place. With it being draft legal this was a great result for me. Unfortunately it was not a Military Worlds year, which meant the top 6 did not get to go on and represent the USA at Military Worlds.

It was great time down in Pt Mugu with all of the military tri peeps and after a good night of celebrating I was headed north to spend a few weeks at home. I got in a great training block while home, and even had Brett King a fellow AF guy join in for a few days. In the process started to get a little sick just before leaving for Challenge Atlantic City. Since I was home on leave I didn't go to the doctor just thinking I would get over it. After about 7 days of feeling like crap and just arriving to New Jersey I headed into an Urgent Care. They diagnosed me with Bronchitis just 3 days before the race and I started an anti biotic.

I was stubborn and still decided to race. I just planned to take it easy on the bike and see how things went on the run. The bike ended up going fairly well, and the first 15K of the run was good as well. Unfortunately at mile 13 I made a stop in the bathroom and that was a first, never had that happen during and IM. Then shortly after that I felt zapped of energy and decided to call it a day to forgo putting myself in a bigger whole.

I packed up from New Jersey and headed back to Texas for the final out processing of the military and to head up to Boulder for the summer.

That is enough updating for now, check back in a few days for a new update.............Here are a few pictures from this update