Mooseman 70.3 Race Report- Danny's Perspective of Miss Amber Ferreira's Race

It is sometimes tough to do a race report for some one else but I think I can pull this off for Amber.

Amber with her dad at the swim start

Pre-Race: The Saturday before racing Pro for the first time at Mooseman, I joined Danny, my sister Deidre and my mom for a big breakfast in Bristol after seeing my dad off on the swim of the Olympic distance triathlon. After filling up on pancakes and poached eggs as prescribed and willingly adhered to as part of my pre-race ritual, we walked across the street to watch the triathletes as the biked by at mile 14 of their 26 mile ride. Almost immediately we saw and cheered for people we knew. First past was J. Massa, one of Danny's Wednesday night running buddies. Soon thereafter came Steve Reed, of Rock on Reed fame speeding by. Then it seemed like S2 after S2 racer would pass with a few others mixed in like Eric Gattie whose bachelor party in Killington Danny will be attending this weekend. Due to the wave start, it was hard to tell who was placed where overall and it seemed a while before my dad came back but that was due to a later seed time as he had actually improved on his swim and was faster than expected. He came by with his long sleeve shirt on flapping in the wind and took both hands off the handlebars and cheered back at us as we cheered him on. He may not have had the fastest bike split of the day but he definitely seemed to enjoy it the most.
After seeing him pass, we drove back to T2 where we were lucky enough to again see a bunch of familiar faces come and as well as once again cheer dad on as he went out on the run. He ended a little slower than I think he had hoped for on the run, his strong discipline, but still an amazingly fast overall time considering this was his first Olympic distance triathlon.

Amber with her sister, Deidre "plugging up"

Danny and I quickly made it back to Concord to do some laundry and have lunch then back up to Bristol for the Pro meeting and dinner with the family. Back to Concord to set aside all morning morning stuff as we would be waking up at 3am to get back up to the race and set up.

Race Day: Boy was it cold! Luckily Danny had a jacket in his car which I wore while setting up all my transition gear. Then back to the car where we blasted the heat. I went over race day strategy in my head while Danny snored loudly beside me. He begrudgingly got out of the car to get ready for the race only half joking, I think, that he would rather stay warm than race this morning.

Danny talking with Mr. Cullen pre-swim

The Swim: Starting with the pro's is entirely different! Instead of having a group of a few hundred at the start, you are lucky if you have 10-20 other pro's at the race. And worse, still you don't have the benefit of the waves in front of you to get the draft off of. So I got out of the water a little slower than I had wanted but considering I pretty much swam the entire race by myself, I did okay.

The Bike: I do a fair amount of training on the Mooseman course so I knew what to expect when it came to the hills. Apparently, I hadn't sufficiently warned Danny about them though as he went on a ten minute whining fest after the race about how terrible they were. "So much worse than Utah, look: I had a slower bike split for half the distance!" -I think that is a direct quote. Either way, I again didn't have the benefit of having to go through and get the draft of all the age-groupers and as a pro, you can't use another rider's slipstream(the 20 feet behind the rider in front) as you pass which does add up on a 56 mile course. But, despite those slight disadvantages, I came into T2 knowing I held back a bit so I'd have enough on the run.

The Run: I knew the top two girls had several minutes lead on me and that I probably couldn't catch them but Melanie McQuaid, the 3 time X-Terra World Champion and Lake Stevens 70.3 Winner, was only a couple ahead and I started to run to chase her down. As a two time out and back course, I would have plenty of chances to see just how close I was to her. As the miles ticked by, I could feel myself reeling her in, seeing the 3rd Place Female bike pacer getting closer and closer to me. Then something must have happened to the pacer because I no longer saw him. Danny who had stopped and gave me a hug made no mention of seeing the third place female ahead. Had she gotten that far ahead? It could have happened because of those descents which I had been taking pretty gingerly. After a minute or two of feeling badly for myself, I picked right back up, now just planning on racing the best that I could. Only as I approached mile 13 on the run, did I realize just how close I really was to Melanie. 100 yards? Oh yeah! I picked up my pace and kicked hard trying to catch her. But to no avail. The finish line came too soon. Had the race been Mooseman 70.4 and I think I would have come in third place. However, fourth place is still a great achievement for me and it was so nice seeing all the familiar faces out there racing. I do wonder just how long that hug that Danny gave me cost and whether he is prepared to reimburse me for the prize money I missed out on by FOUR seconds. Oh well.

Despite Danny's self-reported bad bike split, he managed to finish in 5:11 which was good enough for 17th in his age-group. Not bad since he hadn't bike outside or swam once since Ironman St. George.