Pete Jacobs: Professional Triathlete

I had a massive week (relatively massive for me) last week, and topped it off with the Woodford to Glenbrook Careflight Classic 25km run on Sunday June 28, 2 weeks out from Quelle Challenge Roth.

I trained well on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and again Friday (a 21km IM race pace run), followed by a 10.5 hr day of landscaping, which was 80% shoveling wheel barrowing, and lifting. It should have been the hardest day I’d ever done, but I couldn’t help but feel strong, and was amazed how well I faired throughout, while a mate I roped in to work with me was in pain for the last few hours.

So all things considered I felt invincible on Saturday afternoon, and was looking forward to the race on Sunday through the beautiful bush land of the Blue Mountains. The winner from last year’s race took the first 5km at break neck speed, but I hung on through some very steep uphills and downhills. He then dropped of pretty quickly and I held a good pace through the next 7km of hills and opened up a lead of about 1minute. At halfway the race levels out and is slight downhill to the finish.

I felt great, and was running 32min 10km pace and was running just to post a good time, thinking I had it won. Suddenly I heard a cough and the defending champ was back on my tail. I really pushed for a couple of km’s to hold him off but with 2 km to go he got away and won by 30 seconds. Being a runner, his top speed was slightly faster, and talking to him after, he figured if I was running 32 pace, he could run 31 and catch me over the last 10km.

I had pushed hard on the steep downhills, and run fast over the last 10kms being slightly downhill, so I pulled up very sore. I did a lot of damage, but hopefully as it repairs I’ll be stronger than before. I’m running miles better than ever before, and if I can transfer that into a good marathon of the bike I should be close to breaking the 2:40 barrier.

I leave for Germany on Monday and race on Sunday. It will be a great race.

Train easy

Pete