Saturday, May 21st, 2005 - Auburn, CA

Race Report from Clas Bjorling

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Auburn International ½ Ironman 2005
(USA Pro long course national championship)

After my 8th place at Wildflower ½ Ironman 3 weeks ago and my 2nd place in UVAS South Bay sprint race last weekend I was coming into this race with good self-confidence. My training has been going well and it has been nice to get some good races in. My goal for this race was to get another good race/training session in before Quelle Challenge Ironman distance race in Roth, Germany, 6 weeks from now and to get some prize money.

I raced this ½ Ironman in Auburn last year too, then named “The Worlds Toughest ½ Ironman” and I got 3: rd. The bikes course was different this year, had less climbing than last year but still over 5000 feet and a lot of rolling hills. The run was pretty much the same as last year, just a few 100 yards longer, still about 1300 feet of climbing.

Because the rainfall and snow melt the last days, the lake swim had to be cancelled. With dam breaches and a temperature of 49 F the swim should just be too dangerous. So the race turned into a duathlon. Instead of the 1.2 mile swim, we started out with a 3 K run, about 1.9 miles. As a weak swimmer and strong runner I wasn’t too sad about that?. We pros started 7.45, about 5 min before the 400 age groupers.

The first 3 K run was turned out to be in pretty friendly pace, and it didn’t separate the field to much, we all started the bike ride within 30 sec.
The rollers on this course start right away on the first crank. I tried to stay with the first guys on the bike but had to let them go. I saw that both my heart rate monitor and SRM power meter was reading red zone and I knew what was coming up later in the race, a very hard run, and I knew that I once again had to trust my run.
My Time Trail setup cervelo bike with a HED disc wheel didn’t really make me faster up the major climbs out to the turn around either, but on the downhills back into town I was closing in big time on the guys in the front. I had almost made it back to them when I at mile marker 45 cut a corner and hit a small rock and got a flat tire. DAMN! Not now, why me?? Took me a few seconds to get my head back together and start to fix it, it’s a long day and I knew its prize money to top 5 so even with a 5 min flat I had a good chance to get some cash.

I came in to T2 in 6:th place with 8 min to the leader and 5 min to 3: rd. I got my Asics running shoes on and I took of for the final 21.1 K run. This was one of the first warm days we have been having here, 85 F, so it got pretty warm out there. I felt that this will be more a survival run then a sprint run, so I decide to take it easy at the first aid stations to make sure that I could finish the run strong and catch the guys that were rushing the bike.

I ran strong and past a few guys while we were getting the miles behind us. I ran up to 2: nd with 3 miles to go and saw on an out and back that I had about 4-5 min to the lead. The guy in front was looking strong so I decide to try to relax a little bit and have a good time out on the trails. I had already archived both my goals so why drill it to the finish?? Maybe after all I was a little bit tired to?!

I finished happy in a time of 4.15.50 in 2: nd place. 4.45 Behind the winner. Of course it’s hard to don’t think what should have happened if I hadn’t had that flat tire, but I guess that my flat tire was my penalty from the guy that lives up in the clouds because the swim was cancelled ?.
The guy who won is a good swimmer and should probably have put a few minutes into me on the swim leg and this was suppose to be a triathlon so he got a fair win even with my flat.

Now I just have a few more days here at my girlfriend, Kristy’s place in San Francisco before we travel to Sweden for the last training/racing to get ready for Roth July: rd. Until then, happy living!!

Best regards Clas Bjorling
www.clasbjorling.com

Clas pictured here at the finish line with Auburn Mayor Alice Dowdin