Following a great start to the season, which saw Bevan Docherty win (by a millimetre) the first race in the Dextro Energy World Championship series, uncharacteristically his next race in Washington didn't go quite according to plan. Bevan sent us this report on his race in Washington in which he explains why he decided to call it a day and save his legs for the Hy-Vee ITU elite cup race this weekend.

After a successful start to the series in Korea, I was very excited to race again. My training had been going really well and I was amped to be racing in such an iconic city such as Washington DC.

Unfortunately, in the sport of triathlon, it’s all about controlling the controllable's and reducing the number of uncontrollable's. Upon arriving into Washington there seemed to be far too many uncontrollable's! Strong rain the day before had put some doubt as to whether the swim would be cancelled or not, due to poor water quality. We found out the night before the race that they would go ahead with the swim. However, throughout the swim I wished they had of cancelled it, with a current carrying down large logs and debris (most of which I swam into) and also pushing a few of the athletes to cut.

By the time I exited the water, I was mid-field. Not my best swim, but still in contention. On the bike I found myself in the main group with five athletes up the road. Not a very good scenario, as two of them were my main competition. I was very motivated to work and catch the leaders, however, it seemed like a select few only wanted to pull their weight on the bike, the others were content in sitting in and doing nothing! We also had five American athletes doing their best to ruin the rhythm and not work as they had two guys up the front. For about five laps we managed to keep the deficit to 40-45 seconds, however as time went by, we became increasingly frustrated by the amount of guys just sitting, then the gap began to open.

By the end of the bike the gap had grown to two minutes, we were now racing for fifth. Its incredibly frustrating when this happens in races. However, this is just part of the game. I’m certainly very vocal on the bike towards the lazy athletes, to try to get them motivated, but that’s the nature of the sport now they don’t have to work. Onto the run, and I immediately knew it was going to be a tough day. Strangely the legs felt heavy and I struggled to keep with the pace. I hung on for about 3km then faded badly. As I began dropping through the ranks, I began to consider saving the legs for the World Cup race the week later in Des Moines. I don’t enjoy withdrawing from races, however, with such a big race only six days away, I had to weigh up the options and finally pull the pin after 6km.

A very disappointing and frustrating result, not only with how the race panned out, but for how I felt in relation to how well my training had been going. It had me mystified until the very next morning when I woke up with a head cold and feeling very average. Now it’s a battle against time to get rid of this cold and hopefully start feeling good for the big $$ race in Des Moines. Not an ideal build up, but like I said, it’s all about controlling the controllable's.

Sorry I can’t win them all, but an outcome like this just makes me more motivated.