St. Croix had been a great event for me. If you forget about the minutes I lost with the cycling shoe incident, my riding was excellent and I had out biked many of the athletes who would be racing in Florida. And I had finally had a great fast run after 2 years of injury. Needless to say, with a bit of fairy dust sprinkled in my direction, I just might have the magical race I had been visualizing.

All of my pre-race preparation went off without a hitch. There was a bit of creaking from my bottom bracket but I wasn’t concerned. Dave had taken care of it and when I checked in my bike the day before the race, it seemed like it was 100%. My bike shoes looked intact, my body was intact and my mind was 100% focused on racing at my best.

At 6:23 a.m., the canon sounded the beginning of our race. The first 5 minutes was so tough. It is almost dark when the race starts, so there is no swim warm up allowed. Instead of actual in water preparation, I spent time practising my stroke and swimming with my bands on the beach and visualizing my Phelps-like freestyle! That said, without doing a few sprints to get your heart rate ready to hit 160 beats, those first few hundred meters are a gasp fest! I settled in on some feet ahead of me, but the feet I really wanted – Jo Lawn in the green cap – were ahead by a few body lengths. I tried everything to catch that cap but I could not. I exited the water with Magali and we were both about 30 – 45 seconds behind Jo Lawn and Amy Marsh. About 3 minutes up the road were the leaders, Leanda Cave and Nina Kraft.

I got onto my bike pretty quick and hit over 350 watts trying to keep Magali in sight but the gap grew on the many turns out of Fort Wilderness. On the open road on World Drive, I could still see the women up the road and I was catching them, but once Magali caught them, they were able to work together and they were out of sight. This was certainly tough for me to watch. I keep thinking that I am not suited to flat courses, but that isn’t the case. The trouble is that athletes can get together and gain an advantage by working together on flat courses, where as hilly rides make that impossible. When I rode up the Beast in St. Croix (16-21% grade – about 6 minutes of climbing), I dropped all the women who were riding with me. But on a flat course, there is no Beast and so athletes can stick together and make it tough for someone riding alone to catch them!! Rats! Regardless, 20 years of racing has taught me never to give into discouragement and to never, ever give up. I continued to ride hard and my wattage was over 200 watts and my average speed was hitting the 38-39 kph mark for much of the ride.

I loved the ride and I rode as aggressively as I could. I could see no one – not another women – not a man – not a draft marshal – no one – but I continued to pound the pedals, hydrate and take care of my nutrition as I prepared to run the women down.

Meanwhile, I was losing quite a bit of time to the women in the pack ahead of me. The pack, which now included 4 women, got off their bikes about 8 minutes ahead of me. Those were a long 8 minutes for poor Dave to watch. You see, my creaking frame was actually cracked along the bottom bracket! Unknown to me, Dave had returned to the transition area the night before the race and had applied epoxy to my frame to mend the break. So when Dave saw these women, some of whom I had out biked 2 weeks prior in St. Croix, get off their bikes so far ahead of me, he thought that my bike had busted and I was lying in a heap of carbon on the road! Not only was Dave just happy to see me when I rolled in, he was relieved to see me! I didn’t even listen to the time deficit – I just ran as hard as I could.

I stayed positive, happy and totally engaged in running fast. Regardless of the outcome, this is a workout and a step towards being a fast racing machine in the next few months. I ran down a few women but I couldn’t put any time into Jo or Magali or Leanda, the race leader, who was way up the road and having the race of her life. I made up quite a bit of ground on Nina and Amy but I ran out of road and finished in 6th place. One of the best things about this run was that I felt fast, my energy was great, my attitude was positive and my heel was absolutely 100%.

I finished the race feeling great and feeling pretty fresh despite racing every single minute of it at my very best pace. That is success. In the meantime, I will build on my swim, bike and run speed in preparation for the REV3TRI event in Connecticut on June 7th and then the Subaru Muskoka Chase on June 14th.

In the meantime, I have savored yet another day in sport – a day well spent celebrating fitness, health and friends! Thanks for your support.

Lisa Bentley

By Brom Hoban
AMERICAN-STATESMAN CORRESPONDENT
Monday, October 06, 2008

Australians figured prominently in the international field headlining the second annual Longhorn Ironman 70.3 Sunday, as Richie Cunningham outlasted Joe Gambles to win the half-ironman length race at Decker Lake.

Cunningham set a course record of 3 hours, 49 minutes, 44 seconds.

In the women’s division, Canada’s Lisa Bentley came from behind in the run to catch Aussie Pip Taylor and win in a course-record time of 4:20:15.

Cunningham, ninth out of the water and ninth in the bike leg, turned in the fastest run split of the day. Mark Van Akkeren, a Boulder, Colo.-based triathete, led out of the water (18 minutes, 28 seconds) with Aussie Joseph Lampe and New Zealander Kieran Doe on his heels (both clocked in 18:50).

Doe scorched the hilly bike course surrounding the Travis Expo Center, turning in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 41 seconds, the third-fastest split of the day, which put him in front entering the run. But six miles into the run, Doe, who was beginning to fade, had company.

Cunningham, Gambles, Italy’s Alberto Casadei and Britain’s Simon Lessing had worked their way into contention. Halfway through the run, Cunningham and Gambles caught the struggling Doe and ran together for the next several miles.

“I worked pretty hard for the first six miles of the run,” said Cunningham.. “And I suffered the last six.”

Gambles, who has gone head-to-head with Cunningham before, hung with him.

Part of the Longhorn course was on trails, and coming off the trails onto the pavement at around eight miles, Cunningham finally shook Gambles, who finished second.

“I managed to get a little gap on him when we hit the road,” said Cunningham. But I’ll tell you, the heat, the hills on the course, and the headwind all start to add up, and made for a somewhat tough run.

Casadei ran a strong half-marathon (1:17:29) to take third.

Four-time world champion Lessing, running his final race before retiring, held on for fourth place, while two-time Ironman world champion Tim DeBoom, of Boulder, rounded out the top five. Brandon Marsh was the first Austin finisher, seventh overall in 3:54:37.

Like Cunningham, Bentley scrambled up the shore of Decker Lake in ninth place (22:15), well behind Taylor, who was first out in 19:39.

But it was the Czech Republic’s Tereza Macel, with a blazing a 2:26:52 bike split, who was in first heading into the run.

Bentley caught Taylor at mile 10, making a point of motoring past her at a pace she couldn’t match.

Taylor, who held on for second in 4:32:49, collapsed at the finish and was escorted to the medical tent.

Canada’s Annie Gervais came home in third, a step behind Taylor in 4:23:50, with Kelly Handle, the first Austin woman, in fourth with 4:28:12.

Some 2,000 triathletes competed in Sunday’s event, which served as a qualifier for the 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater Florida on Nov. 8.

View Original Article

Lisa Bentley

www.lisabentley.com

This past winter, I took 3 months off of running in another attempt to get on top of this injury. I swam and biked to my heart’s content and patiently waited to be pain free. I started running in March and progressed very slowly knowing that I didn’t have to run far because my first Ironman would be in August! Naturally there were a few setbacks and frustrations but in April, my heel really started to improve dramatically. I wanted to race in St. Croix, but I put my heel health first since there was more to lose than to gain. In fact, those few weeks in between St. Croix and Florida marked my first accelerations and a few short tempo runs off of the bike. It was the right decision to miss St. Croix.

Florida 70.3 was actually a test to make sure that I still had the fire inside of me to go hard and love it. After 6 months of training and allowing myself to heel, I wasn’t sure if I could elevate my game and let it go and have the eye of the tiger. As soon as the gun went off, I was ‘on’. I was so completely enthralled by my race – the passion was there.

I had a great swim. I have been working so hard on my swim meaning, the alarm goes at 4:30 a.m. to train with Dorado. But, it paid off since I exited the water in sight of Heather Gollnick (multiple IM winner) and ahead of Katja Schumacher, the 2007 Florida 70.3 champion. Granted I was 3 minutes behind the swimming trio of Leanda Cave (ITU World Champion), Nina Kraft and Dede G., but Heather and Katja are amazing athletes.

I rode so hard but I rode alone and continued to lose time to the swimmers up ahead who seemed to be able to stay together for all of the 90 km ride. My riding partner was my SRM and the feedback was good. I had a solid ride but lost about 5 minutes to the front running threesome.

Off onto the run, I was pain free. That is really all I need to say! I was a happy camper and I just ran as hard as I could to try to bridge the gap to the leader. I passed Heather and Katja and I began to make up time to Dede, but I ran out of road. I would love to say that I had the fairy tale return to triathlon and won the race. I still had a fairy tale race but I finished in 4th, less than a minute behind Dede. It was my longest run to date and I was able to manage the 2nd fastest run.

The true fairy tale is that while my heel was a bit more sore after the race than before, I recovered quickly and was back running a few days later. More importantly, this race was a great starting point for my return to running speed work and I am only going to continue to improve. It is good to be back! Next up is the Subaru Muskoka Chase on June 15th, a speech and run clinic in Regina, Saskatchewan and a bit of work with CBC for the ITU World Cup races in Ishigaki, South Africa and the World Champs in Vancouver.

I returned home at the end of March and bid farewell to the beautiful 50 meter outdoor pool and unlimited swim hours and said hello to 5:30 a.m. swim practices with the Dorado Swim Stars. I put in so many meters of base swimming from January to March and now it was time to ‘speed’ up during these awesome swim workouts. When the alarm goes off at 4:45 a.m., I make deals with myself that I’ll nap when I get home or I’ll take the next morning off of swimming. But neither ends up happening – life is too busy and I enjoy swimming with the kids way too much. Either I water run after the swim or I come home and enjoy a beautiful morning walk with Dave and Madison and Brunswick. Then, depending on the weather, I am either riding on my computrainer or riding the hills of Caledon. Sometimes that is followed by a run or by a physiotherapy appointment or an A.R.T. appointment. Now that I am home, I have dedicated more time to my continued rehab since my brilliant sports doctors and therapists are all here. And because of this support, I can say that I am actually running pain free for the first time in as long as I can remember. Now we need to keep it that way!!!

The next few weeks are going to be busy. Next week is the trip to Florida for the 70.3 and then, two days later, I am off to Regina, Saskatchewan to do a run clinic, race in the “I Love Regina” run and do a motivational speech. Regina is certainly a triathlon hot spot. In fact, the Mayor is racing at Subaru Ironman Canada 2008!!!

Onward to June, Dave and 2XU will be in Vancouver from June 3rd to 9th as the swim course sponsor for the ITU World Triathlon Championships. That will be an exciting trip since it is Canada’s final Olympic selection race for Beijing. The next week, I will race in the Subaru Muskoka Chase. And then, two weeks later, we will host our first of two Subaru Success Camps in Muskoka.

Thank you so much for your support and your cheers!
Lisa Bentley

I had a good swim and started the bike with Karen Smyers and Kate Major. I smashed the bike and rode my best 90 km ever – cycling 2:21 – and I wasn’t even in a pack!! But my legs were just dead after that effort. And I suppose my shortened running season didn’t allow me to pull out my normal 1:20 run split on such tired legs. I worked as hard as I could on the half marathon but I was all grit and no finesse and my Achilles was not very happy. I used every possible positive thought that I could, but it came down to finishing what I started. I race for more than just victory. It would have been very easy for me to not finish the race – I was not in the top ten and I was in some pain – but I don’t know if I would have been stopping because of the pain in my foot or the pain in my ego? I will never be afraid to not place top ten but I will be afraid to give in to expectation or pride. I could run – I didn’t need to walk – I just couldn’t run as fast as I could if I was 100%. I ended up running 1:28 and finishing in 4 hours and 23 minutes. Next year, I will be 100%. The healing starts now. It is a long time to the 2008 race season and I will start it and finish it at full speed.

And so, I could have written the whole year off and rehabilitated my Achilles for the 2008 season. But I chose to get it almost better, put on a band-aid and go win the 25th anniversary Subaru Ironman Canada and Pucon 70.3 in Chile, South America. And while victories are good, I will always be grateful for the opportunity to race and to share our gift of sport. Happy off season and I look forward to a healthy, fast and happy 2008!!!

Lisa

I confirmed my entry about 10 days out from race day – I had qualified earlier in the year, but I could not look beyond the Hawaii Ironman and would not make a decision until 1 week after the Ironman. So I recovered for one week just doing water runs, short easy bike rides and swimming drills. I continued this into week two adding a few short swim fartleks and some easy runs. One week out, I did a bit of intensity running, biking and swimming and then I repeated my Hawaii Ironman taper for the last 5 days. Of course, I went to physio, had massage and got a few ART treatments to get the niggly aches and pains under control. Then it was off to Clearwater!

Once in Clearwater, Florida, we were adopted by the Mad Dogs’ president Tim Hudson and we in turn, adopted his dog, Maggie as our Madison and Brunswick substitutions. The race was so well organized – the press conference, the pro meeting, the Clearwater road closures, the transition area – it was a World Championship event in every way. I felt quite relaxed – after all – I had no idea how this experiment would turn out and there was no sense worrying about it. One of the best parts of the trip was getting to visit with my Tri Dubai teammate and Kona training partner, Craig Alexander, who had been focusing his season on the 70.3 World Championships. I got to thank him in person for his huge part in my podium finish at the Hawaii Ironman World Championships. It was also amazing to spend time with my teammates Simon Lessing and Chris Legh – I think it was the first time I saw Simon all year and another great time to visit with Chris. I love racing as part of this team.

Race day was perfect – light winds, sunny skies and a flat ocean – beautiful. I knew I had to be aggressive off the start of the swim and get as close to pre-race favorites Sam McGlone and Mirinda Carfrae as possible. After a running beach start into the ocean, I just swam as hard as I could. It was the roughest swim I had ever been in! I got hit in the mouth and the goggles and I was literally moved out of the way on three separate occasions by an arm wrapped around my waist and literally moving me! It was unreal. I was sure I would exit the swim bleeding! But instead, I had the swim of my life getting out about 20 seconds behind Mirinda and Sam and with Karen Smyers and Katja Schumacher. The difference in this race is that transition is key. Even though I was within spitting distance of those women, they were off like a shot out of the water and onto their bikes. It was all pretty intense!

Onto the bike, the first 10 miles were so hard – I was completely red-lining. There was a little group of 4 about 40 meters ahead of me and I just so badly wanted to catch them, but they kept getting further ahead of me. That was a bit discouraging but I told myself that I was riding as hard as I could and at least I had them to key off of which would likely minimize my deficit to the front runners. At about 20 miles, I was still alone, but then I started to catch up to a few girls. But I was only catching them because they were pulling off into the penalty tent for a drafting call. So now I figured that that pack of 4 had been broken and that maybe I would be able to catch the other two.

I kept cycling hard to the first turn around at about 25 miles and I saw the leaders on the return journey about 30-45 seconds ahead of me. I could not believe that I was that close. Now I was inspired and more motivated than ever. I rode as hard as I could and after about another 10-15 miles, I finally caught the lead women consisting of Leanda Cave, Nina Eggert, Katja Schumacher, Mirinda and Sam. I rode right past them because I knew I was I was having the ride of my life and I would be quite happy to start the run with a little time cushion. But I could not escape this group. Sam reacted to my move – she wasn’t about to let me go – which was great. A Belgium athlete was now off the front and Sam and I were working hard trying to catch her. As we approached transition, Yvonne was up about 20 seconds and then I was second and Sam was behind me. That was when I saw Dave for the first time since the swim. He had no idea that I had bridged up to the leaders. He was so happy. As we approached T2, I thought that we had broken away from the pack, but when we dismounted the bikes, I realized that all the women I had caught at 45 miles were still there. Once again, transition was key. I stopped my bike in 2nd place but got off my bike in about 5th!! It was unbelievable.

I have never raced in such a head to head battle before! We were all in the transition tent together. Sam was out first, then Mirinda, then Yvonne. I think I was next. This was going to be tough. I passed Yvonne within the first mile, but I felt pretty sore for the first 4 miles and my muscles were cramping like crazy. After that, I started to settle in and feel quite good. Sam was off the front and extending her lead – it wasn’t a matter of letting her go – it was that I could not run any faster to keep her close. At about 5 miles, I passed Mirinda and moved into 2nd place. Mirinda beat me by 8 minutes at the St. Croix 70.3 so I was quite pleased to have run past her. That said, I knew that she could easily re-pass me, so I just focused on running hard and trying to catch Sam.

On the second lap of the run, I started to make some in roads into Sam’s 70 second lead. I actually managed to get it down to about 35 seconds with 4 miles to go. I felt fantastic and I was running with all positive thoughts of me taking the lead. But then Sam’s coach told her the time gap and she just exploded and gapped me again. I ran as hard as I could over the last 4 miles, but I couldn’t make a dent. Actually, I thought that Mirinda might be close so I was trying to catch Sam and hold off Mirinda at the same time (I am, after all, a great multi-tasker!). Needless to say, I did not catch the fast running Sam McGlone but I did hold onto 2nd place – a very happy 2nd place. I was so pleased! I raced as hard as I could – I had the swim and bike ride of my life and I ran as hard as my little Ironman legs would let me. The experiment worked – train hard for the Hawaii Ironman, rest, race the Hawaii Ironman, rest, sharpen up, rest and race again! The best part was that I truly loved the day – yes it hurt, but it was wonderful to use my talents and to celebrate my fitness.

The highlight of my race though was what happened during the run. I was running up the big hill on the course at around 5.5 miles. Craig Alexander was on his 2nd lap and running toward victory. As I was running up this hill, he ran past me. I was so proud of him! You see, it was quite fitting that he passed me on this hill en route to his victory because when we were training in Kona for the Hawaii IM, we did two sessions of hill intervals on a similar hill. I would start about 10 meters ahead of Craig and he would chase me up the hill for our 3 minute hill interval. I would try to hold him off as long as I could and then, when he would pass me, I would tuck in and try to go with him for as long as I could. He would always pass me at a little sign posted for the drivers that said “Pass with Care”. This became my little cue every time we did a hill repeat. We left a lot of sweat and shared a lot of pain on those hill intervals and it just seemed really special for me to have him pass me (pass me ‘with care’) during the race on a similar hill while we were both have great races – him winning his first World Championships and me having a great day holding down 2nd place. It was one of those “heart” moments that made this a wonderful day to swimming, biking and running.

And now, it is the off season! It is time for me to become an expert dog walker and socializer. Dave and I have tickets to see the Raptors and the Maple Leafs and our great friends Joe and Sarah are coming from BC to visit us.

Thank you for your support. Please visit www.tridubai.com for photos. I wish huge congratulations to Simon for finishing 2nd and Chris Legh for finishing a hard fought 4th place. We have quite a team! Thanks to Tony and Mike for coming to Clearwater to support us and Franko who was back in Boulder cheering loud.

Lisa Bentley

(sent from my new Dell XPS M1210 with Broadband so I can be connected anywhere, anytime!)

When I arrived home from Florida, I received a phone call from CBC Sports – Canada’s National Television Network. I was offered the opportunity to be one of the commentators for the World Cup Triathlons televised on CBC. This is a fantastic opportunity and I basically started last Friday with a live one minute opening for the series and officially began today, Friday, with a voice over in the CBC studio for the Madrid ITU World Cup. It will be televised across Canada on Saturday June 10th as part of the Sports Saturday on CBC.

And the return from the Disney 70.3 race also marked the beginning of my Ironman training for Subaru Ironman Canada. And so, my legs have lost a little bit of that pep that they felt in the St. Croix 70.3 and the Disney 70.3, but this training will get me to the finish line at both Subaru Ironman Canada and the Hawaii Ironman.

But most importantly, after returning from Florida, I was able to race alongside my 5-year old nephew Braedan in the Caledon Kids of Steel triathlon. This was our third consecutive year and Braedan was amazing! He didn’t stop once! But the best part was that some of his school friends raced it as well and he made some new friends at the race. Isn’t that what the triathlon journey is all about – encouraging others and meeting people along the way.

Take care and thank you for your support.

Lisa