San Fran

I just got home from the last race of the season - the San Francisco Continental Cup - and I have to say it was probably the most solid performance of my entire race season! Speaking of the 2008 season, it’s been a long one. I started on January 6th in Chile and have done 16 races since, spanning 10 full months. I’ve flown over 97,000 miles and raced in eight different countries on five different continents. But I guess that’s the norm for this sport which is pretty great.

So right now it’s time for some much needed relaxation. In fact, I’m headed out on vacation right now! Thanks to all of the loyal readers of KevinCollington.com (my parents and…well, that might be it) for sticking with me this season. I promise to continue to give the inside look at what it’s like to be a developing young athlete racing on the international triathlon circuit, all while upholding all of the often overlooked rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling!

Survivor Mexico

To get right down to business, and to fill in those of you who watched the live coverage from this past weekend’s Huatulco World Cup on what exactly happened to me, I got dropped from the front pack 15K into the bike. To be more specific, I got dropped on the 20% grade climb we had to do each lap of the eight lap bike course. I didn’t finish the race. But on to more interesting things…

I flew into the small resort town of Huatulco last Thursday on the plane I mentioned in my last posting - the fokker 100. The fokker was everything I dreamed of and more! A small regional jet, it barely fit 25% of the luggage of the people heading down to Huatualco. Only Ethan received his bike and luggage on-time. The lost baggage line stretched out of the airport’s main “area” and out into the loading/unloading zone at its peak length (I would say main “building” except that the Huatulco airport is made of tiki huts).

The fokker. I might be the only person who is amused by this.

In addition to all of the triathletes traveling with bike boxes, several reality TV stars were on our flight to start filming VH1’s newest reality TV show I Love Money 2, which is being filmed in Huatulco. I Love Money 2 is a show that takes reality TV stars from other reality TV shows and makes a new reality TV show! I never would have recognized them but Jarrod Shoemaker did. They also did not receive their baggage and they were not pleased. They threw a fit, but considering the depth of character required to star in a show called I Love Money 2, I wasn’t surprised.

Jarrod later found out that the show Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern also filmed a show in the exact spot we were staying (Santa Cruz Bay in Huatulco). This happens to be one of my favorite shows, right behind Good Eats with Alton Brown. Apparently Huatulco is known for its pulpo (octopus) and mariscos (shellfish).

A view of Santa Cruz Bay from my hotel.

Onto the race: The swim was two laps - one 1000 meter lap followed by one 500 meter lap. I found myself about 10 meters off the back of the main swim pack after exiting the first lap of the swim but somehow managed to time trial myself back up to the front of the main pack by the end of the second lap. This would be my only pleasing performance of the whole race! Out onto the bike I settled into the front pack without much effort. Then came the hill - I got dropped a little bit on the first lap but managed to descend back into the group. I got dropped even more on the second lap but again I descended back in. On the third lap I got dropped for good.

A cool shot from triathlon.org. From the bottom left, Matt Reed, Matt Chrabot, me, and Ethan Brown in T1.

I dropped out of the race after riding another lap by myself and realizing I would eventually be lapped out. The race became very much a race of survival. The group went over the climb five more times with various people being dropped, some getting back on and some not. By the time the run started for the men’s race it was around 100 degrees (F) and 98% humidity in blazing sun. Everyone appeared to be suffering except eventual race winner Kris Gemmell and Jarrod who got second. The Americans did quite well, placing 2nd, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, and 17th.

After the race I got to sample some of the local cuisine at the post-race awards dinner. I’m not exactly sure what it was that I ate, but I narrowed it down to three possibilities: Calamari, octopus, or shellfish. It was all wrapped up in a burrito-type thing. Whatever it was, it was delicious! And after the dinner the Mexican team decided to throw everyone into the ocean and we had lots of fun.

A jellyfish sting I got the day before the race.

World Cups and Local Racing

My second-to-last race of the season is coming up this weekend, and I’m pretty excited! I’m flying down to the middle-of-nowhere Mexico for the last World Cup of 2008. “Middle-of-nowhere” isn’t even an exaggeration - the city of Huatulco, Mexico is definitely hard to get to for a major international race. I, for one, will be flying into Huatulco on an airplane called a “Fokker 100″ which sounds just great. Here’s a map:

Huatulco is a Mexican tourist development in the southern state of Oaxaca. The Mexican government agency FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Turismo) acquired the area that is now Huatulco back in 1984 to develop it into a tourist area similar to Cancun or Ixtapa. A major difference is that, unlike Cancun and Ixtapa, FONATUR decided to put in adequate waste water management before development started. This is good because development in Huatulco isn’t scheduled to finish until 2020 and I do plan on using the restroom this weekend.

I was pretty worried about my fitness after Scott Tinley’s as I got a bit sick and couldn’t finish workouts. But I’m better now and I ran in a local 5 mile road race this past weekend and had a decent showing. I ran strong with the leaders for 4 miles before getting my doors blown off in the last mile, but I had a PR by 2.5 minutes at 26:01 (I last ran a 5 miler in 2005 and yes, I run a lot faster now!). Anyways, it seems I’m ready to tackle this last race.

Mile 4.9999 of the 5 miler.

I guess I forgot to post this

Elite Development Camp jersey winners!

Some 22 athletes attended the five week USA Triathlon Elite Development Program Camp in Colorado Springs in July and August, but only three were lucky enough to win one of the EDP Camp leader’s jerseys. Matt Long from Vanderbilt bought some sweet t-shirts from a gift shop or something, and after some discussion the catagories were established:

The Yellow Jersey - The “Sally Save Up, Last One Fast One” leader’s jersey - awarded to the athlete who demonstrates on a regular basis the ability to make the last interval or repeat his or her fastest of the session. This one went to the great John Dahlz. Although “sally save up” generally indicates that only the last repeat is the fast one, I think it should be pointed out that John would actually beat everyone in most swim and run sessions and still make his last repeat the fastest of all of them all. What a beast!

The Brown Jersey - The “Matt Chrabot Haul Ass Every Daggum Day” leader’s jersey - this one goes to the athlete that goes hard in every workout, including recovery sessions. It’s named after the great Matt Chrabot who won this award retroactively for the 2007 EDP camp. Not that it doesn’t work for him - he hauls ass every day and now he’s the 5th ranked American on the World Cup circuit (outranked only by Olympians and Olympic alternates - yeah, he’s kind of a big deal!). This year Jen Spieldenner won it. She regularly beat up on the guys at swim practices, and was especially known for turning recovery workouts into 6K aerobic days.

Last but surely not least is the Green Jersey - The “Matt Long Bleed All Over the Road” Jersey. Matt seemed to have this jersey locked up after an epic crash in the Garden of the Gods that rendered his bike unrideable and kept him off the bike and out of the pool for the majority of camp (we even named the jersey after him after that crash!). However, that was before Amanda Hahn showed up at camp. Amanda ran into a tree during a group run session and ended up with several stitches in her head and perhaps a mild concussion. Trees are everywhere in Colorado. Watch out.

We had an award ceremony and everything. I downloaded the Olympic fanfare. It was pretty legit.

From left to right: Matt Long presided over the ceremonies; Jen Spieldenner, John Dahlz, Amanda Hahn.

I think my brakes are rubbing. Oh wait, no they’re not.

That is what was going through my mind yesterday at Scott Tinley’s Adventures. As it turns out my brakes weren’t rubbing, I was just having an off day. A really bad horribly awful off day. Even the weather was bad - it varied from a misty rain to a moderate downpour all morning.

It was an uncharacteristically wet day in San Luis Obispo.

It wasn’t all bad - my swim felt great. Things went downhill from there as I got out onto the bike in the rain and immediately got passed by almost every single person in the race. I checked my brakes a lot but every time I looked I could see daylight between my wheel and brakes.

Jill Petersen won the women’s race.

It turns out bad races can be pretty funny. There’s really no shortage of jokes that can be made about getting out-rode by the first place girl (and to make it worse Jill was riding a road bike with clip on bars and clincher deep dish wheels. I won’t tell you what bike I was riding but you can find a picture of it if you scroll down far enough).

The men’s podium. From left to right: Chris Tremonte (10th), some guy named Reto (8th place), Kevin Everett (6th), Chris Stehula (4th), Ethan (2nd), Brian Fleischmann (1st), Victor Plata (3rd), Matt Balzer (5th). Not pictured - Ryan Bickerstaff (7th) and John Dahlz (9th).

Brian gave a nice victory speech.

JD Money!

Portland Recap

Here’s a little recap of what happened at the US Elite National Championship last week in Portland, OR.

After the Pacific Grove Triathlon (the weekend prior to the race in Portland) I stayed out on the west coast and hung out with Steve and Ethan in Davis, California. After arriving in Portland I drove up to Vancouver, Washington (right across the Columbia River) to stay with my Aunt and Uncle. It was a mere 90 minutes from the race site at Henry Hagg Lake, Oregon. I passed the time on the long drives to and from the race site by listening to Ethan’s patented “booty mix” which generally consists of a bunch of rap and R&B music where they talk about “popping bottles in the club” and other such nonsense…the best music to listen to pre-race! It’s what Michael Phelps listens to, after all.

My Uncle Francois, cousins Emilie and Madeleine, and Aunt Bracy let me stay at their house. They came out to watch me race, too.

The course for elites was one of the hardest I have ever raced on. It consisted of a one lap swim, an eight lap bike on a hard, hilly course, and a four lap run that headed out the same way as the bike course. It made for an interesting day of racing.

The swim started and immediately two groups formed heading to the first buoy. I was in the right-most group, led by Ben Collins. Another group formed to the left led by Cameron Dye and Matt Reed. When I saw our group was losing I ditched Ben’s group and swam across the gap to the left group. I ended up at the back of the front swim pack and stayed there the rest of the time, exiting the water 21 seconds behind the leader. I passed a few guys in transition - this should have been a good thing, but instead I just found myself with a sizable gap of 10 to 15 seconds that I had to close down by myself. It became clear pretty quick that I wasn’t going to be able to close the gap down myself. My only hope at this point was Ben Collins, who was right ahead of me as I got on my bike. I thought, “He’s a strong biker! If only he would help me get up there!” Right as I thought that he pulled over to the side of the road and dropped out of the race. So, like so many races, I found myself all alone losing massive amounts of time to a big group ahead and fell back over 90 seconds to the next pack.

On the swim pontoon before the start.

Diving in.

In the meantime Matt Reed and Matt Chrabot were killing it at the front of the race. The second pack lost almost two minutes to these two. My group ended about 90 seconds down on the second pack and 3.5 minutes down on the two Matts. Per usual, my run was the only thing that saved me. I had the fifth fastest run of the day! I finished up in eighth place.

Matt Reed and Matt Chrabot destroying everyone on the bike.

Finally about to put on my running shoes.

Matt Reed won. He’s pretty much a badass.

Bracy, Emilie, my Mom, Madeleine. The sweet pics are courtesy of my Mom who flew out to watch me race! Thanks Mom!

Madeleine being silly.

Pro Nats

The US Elite National Championship was this past weekend in Portland, Oregon. The age-group National Championship was held on the same day (random fact - the age group and elite national championships have not been held in conjunction with each other since 1992 in Cleveland, Ohio!).

Congrats to Ethan Brown on his 2nd straight U23 national title and an awesome third place finish overall!

The men’s podium - Ethan Brown (third, first U23), 2008 Olympian Matt Reed (first), Joe Umphenour (2nd)

Talk about old and new - the age difference between Ethan and Joe is 16 years! Joe is 39 - the old man’s still got it!

I’ll have a somewhat amusing race report up pretty soon - stay tuned! Until then, check out the results here:

Results - US Pro Nationals

A Few Pics

Here are a few pics from Pac Grove:

The swim course - lots of kelp to get caught in!

Victor Plata giving his victory speech. From left to right: Kevin Everett (9th), John Dahlz (7th), me (5th), a Kiwi dude (3rd), Victor, Joe Umphenour (2nd), Brian Fleischmann (4th), Brian Lavelle (6th)

Next Up - Pac Grove

The Pacific Grove Triathlon is this weekend. This race is definitely one of the more unique races I have done. The swim is known as the “kelp crawl” because there actually isn’t much swimming involved. It’s more of a struggle to not get tangled in the kelp as you slog your way through 1500 meters in the water. If you make it out of the water without becoming kelp food you end up along the scenic Monterey coastline for the bike and run. The Pacific Grove/Monterey/Pebble Beach area is one of my favorite places so I’m looking forward to going back!

In other news, it seems like there is a new hurricane every week here in Florida. I’m actually lucky to be able to fly out at all considering the current situation with the massive Hurricane Ike out in the Gulf.

Dopers Suck

This was recently released by the ITU:

ITU has imposed a two-year ban on Dmitriy Gaag (KAZ) after committing an anti-doping rule violation in an out-of-competition doping control test in Des Moines, United States on June 20, 2008…Gaag’s anti-doping rule violation was a result of an adverse analytical finding of recombinant erythropoietin (EPO), a substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List.

So, on the one hand it sucks to think that people I race against are doping (although Gaag is not a huge surprise). It’s hard to say how common or uncommon this is in triathlon and I think it is best to just not think about it.

However, since Gaag was suspended on June 20th, all of his results from June 20th on have been revoked. This means I stand to move up to 15th place at the Tiszaujvaros World Cup from July, which should make me a quick $250 as 15th is the last person to get a paycheck!