I spent a good deal of time reflecting on my race at Oceanside, while flying home today.  A full race report is forthcoming within the next few days, but I thought I would share a few insights here.

I had a good race but not a great one.  I never felt really strong on the bike, and I definitely didn’t feel like I was racing on the run.  It was more a case of running to complete the event as opposed to racing it, and it was also a real grind to do so.

Reflecting while flying home, I concluded there are three main areas that I need to pay more attention to, ahead of my next 70.3 race in July.

• Avoiding ‘tight’ muscles.  My quads in particular felt really ‘tight’ on the bike.  They had felt that way throughout my whole taper period, and I just assumed the feeling would go away during the race.  It didn’t. I need to research this a little, but foam rolling during taper may have helped this a lot.
• I need to strengthen my left gracilis muscle.  This muscle cramped badly during the bike and this reduced my power output for a good portion of that leg of the race.  I had a similar cramp at Ironman Chattanooga last year.  I am wondering if I am having issues with this muscle, because one of the tendons in this part of my leg was harvested for my ACL reconstruction many years ago.  Regardless, I cannot afford to continually have cramping issues and need to figure it out.
• Finally, I am going to completely rethink my race nutrition.  I did a fantastic job of getting in all of my nutrition during the race, but it upset my stomach quite badly.  I am going to investigate moving from liquids to gels.