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!
A Few Pics From Pac Grove
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), Callum Millward (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
Dmitriy Gaag of Kazakhstan – 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!
