Tim Reed and Anna Cleaver grab 3rds at New Orleans 5150

Tim Reed is back in the USA racing the 5150 series and has had a solid start with a 3rd at the New Orleans race. Now with a young family Reed has extra incentive to excel in this years 5150 series and the Hy-Vee grand final. Last year he was struck down with a severe flu the week leading up to the race and his dreams of a top ten finish and the pay cheque that goes with it vanished.

The water temp was around 28, air temp in the 31-32 range with lots of wind and humidity.

Reed is racing well at the moment and is not suffering from the asthma that plagued his early US season last year. Reed won the Australian Long Course title earlier this year at Falls Creek and finished second at the New Zealand 70.3 (hastily arrange after IM NZ had to be cancelled due to adverse weather conditions) to Marino Vanhoenacker.

After an extensive layoff from injury and a very gradual build back to racing Kiwi Anna Cleaver finally got to race again at the New Orleans 5150. This was a race for finding her feet again (and finding swim buoys as well) and working out how she is looking from a race pace point of view. Cleaver did not push the pace to aggressively and came through the race easily. A mistake in the swim saw Cleaver swim way off course (following

Flat, fast non-drafting is what Anna is suited to most. As one of the fastest female swimmers around she has been testing different race suits from a swim point of view and has signed a deal with Hincapie Sportswear to race in their one piece Tri suits so was keen to test the ‘new toys’.

Australian Michael Fox raced also. Fox is a great swimmer and along with James Hadley exited the water just behind Canada’s Jon Bird but well ahead of the majority of the field. Fox lost ground on the bike but held his own on the run and it looks like his decision to head to the US to focus on racing full time was a good one. Fox finished 6th overall with a 34:58 run which was right up there. “Unfortunately I was just outside the money but the points are keeping me in the running for Hy-Vee.”

Fox had a good swim exiting the water and stayed at the front before the first turn around. This didn’t last long with all the big hitters coming through. Dave Thompson and Conrad Stoltz dominated on the bike. “I struggled a bit to find my legs on the bike again. Something I need to keep working on.”

Fox hopped off the bike in 9th. “I overtook 2 guys on the way out of transition and then went after 6th place. I caught 6th with about 2km to go but didn’t have the legs to get to 5th.”

Lisa Marangon is back racing over in the US and she had a solid hit out this weekend finishing 5th overall. Lisa found the day tough and ended up on a drip at the end of the race. Marangon won the Boulder triathlon the week before and has been increasing her performances steadily.