Hy-vee Highlights
Well the Hy-vee triathlon weekend is officially over and things went pretty well for me! The race was epic so I’m going to write a full race report later. In the mean time here are a few highlights from the weekend:
1) 1:08
That was the time gap from me to the race winner Simon Whitfield – 1 minute 8 seconds. The podium at yesterday’s race contained two Olympic gold medals and one silver so I am without a doubt excited about my finish. That indicates some serious improvements not only in my overall running speed but also my tactical awareness on the run and my ability to match accelerations. Underlying that was a solid swim and bike that put me in the front pack from the start. Sweet.
2) Simon Whitfield actually talked to me
That’s right, not only did I get to race against the Canadian Olympic Gold (Sydney) and Silver (Beijing) medalist, but he actually acknowledged my existence before the race! He told me to “stop running into people with my bike.” At the time I wasn’t aware that I was running into people with my bike, but it was sound advice nonetheless and I made sure to not run into anybody else with my bike from that point on. It’s pretty awesome to be able to race against guys like Simon. It would be even sweeter if I could just run 3 or 4 seconds per kilometer faster…
3) Our relay team didn’t get last
I’m happy to report that our relay team did not get last place – we beat Mexico Team II and USA Team IV. We’re awesome.
4) ITU racing is where it’s at
As Paulo Sousa recently reported in his June 23 post, ITU racing is definitely where it’s at. The new ITU World Championship Series is bringing the sport to new levels in terms of athletic ability, epic venues for racing, and live coverage around the world. Thus far in the first year of the series three races were decided by a sprint finish and a review of the finish line photo-finish camera. A few other races featured daring bike breakaways that decided the race winners. Paulo is right, Ironman can’t come close to providing the same amount of excitement or professionalism that ITU racing has. The rest of the world has known this for awhile. Hopefully these past two weekends of epic ITU style racing in Washington D.C. and West Des Moines changed the minds of a few iron-centric folks in the United States. Here are some great pics from this past weekend’s race from the ITU website:
Mark Fretta making a flying leap into the water for the second lap of the swim.
T2 chaos.
Simon Whitfield is pumped! I would be excited too if I just won $140,000 after taxes.
One Weekend, Two Races
I’m currently sitting in West Des Moines, Iowa, awaiting a weekend full of big races. The first is the Hy-vee Elite Cup on Saturday. It is actually a World Cup in terms of ranking points but it gets the special designation of “Elite Cup” because it has such a huge prize purse ($1,000,000). With $200,000 to the winner and a 75 deep payout the field is pretty stacked. Then, on Sunday, the ITU is putting on the ITU Triathlon Team World Championship – a mixed triathlon relay that the ITU hopes will make it into the 2012 Olympics in London. As for me, I’m coming off a big four week altitude training block and fully five weeks of not racing. I’m definitely in racing withdrawal so I can’t wait to toe the line twice in one weekend!
The Hy-vee Triathlon race committee really went all out for this weekend’s races. It’s so easy to focus on my race when things are taken care of as professionally as they are at this race! Every athlete racing in the World Cup has free accommodation for the weekend at hotels near the race site in West Des Moines. I arrived at my hotel and was immediately given some ‘arrival gifts’ from the Hy-Vee Triathlon – a race bag full of everything I could possibly need for the weekend from cereal to sun screen, as well as a few other items (see picture below). A few minutes later a knock at the door signaled the arrival of two full crates of bottled water (48 16oz bottles) and an equal amount of grape Gatorade Propel. That’s enough water/Propel to hydrate a small army. Although it was almost 100 degrees F today, maybe I will drink it.
Free stuff!
As for the race, I think I can do quite well. Training at altitude in Colorado Springs over the past month went fairly well. OK, it went really well. But good training doesn’t always carry over to great race results so I’m just going to head out there on race day and line up in the most competitive field since the Olympics and see where I end up. Hopefully it goes well!
The second race of the weekend, the ITU Triathlon Team World Championship, consists of teams of two men and two women racing in a relay format. Each person on the team has to complete a 250 meter swim, 7K bike, and a 1.8K run before handing off to the next relay team member. Obviously the team who gets their last athlete across the line first is World Champion! There is currently a lot of speculation as to who is going to be fielded from each country. Well, as the self-elected team captain (running unopposed since nobody else is aware of the position) of USA Team III I’m going to release our roster. I know, everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting for this! Here it is:
Mary Beth Ellis (2009 Pan American Champion, 2009 Escape from Alcatraz Champion)
Kevin Collington (kind of a big deal/ridiculously fit/Olympic Training Center napping champion)
Kate Ross (2008 USA Junior National Champion)
Greg Billington (12th 2007 Junior Worlds)
So there it is. We should do pretty well. We definitely won’t get last (I hope).
Altitude
Well I finally made it – I am now a resident athlete at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center! “Made it” not only in the sense that my days of epic solo road trips are over (Orlando to San Diego in December and San Diego – OK City – Austin – Colorado Springs more recently), but also in the sense that I finally get to live and train in the place that I believe is the best for me to excel in triathlon. I was lucky enough to be able to train here during summer break in 2007 and 2008 and I always left in the best shape of my life. I am about to start my third week up here and I can already tell that I’m going to do well.
Pike’s Peak here in Colorado Springs.
The main reason I do so well up here is the altitude. “Altitude training” is generally considered anything over 3,000 feet above sea level. That is the point that the lack of oxygen begins to affect athletic performance. Colorado Springs is about 6,000 feet above sea level. What’s more, I live on the third floor so that puts me at about 6,090 feet above sea level! Ha. But seriously, there just isn’t a lot of air up here. Some people do better than others at altitude, but I can report that I do very well up here. I am not really affected much by the altitude in terms of my ability to output the same swim speed/cycling wattage/run speed. I know what you’re saying: You’re saying, “Kevin, that just doesn’t make any sense. You should be going four percent slower in the pool, or be putting out 25 watts fewer, or be running 11 seconds per mile slower!” Those are all very good points and in fact I’m sure that they are all completely correct. Physiologically if someone tested me while swimming, biking, or running I’m sure my heart rate and lactate levels would be higher at altitude when compared to the same effort level at sea level. All I’m saying is that my perception of the paces is unchanged – it doesn’t seem to hurt any more up here than at sea level and I think that’s pretty cool. There is one catch though…recovery. I don’t recover nearly as fast as I do at sea level. Maybe this will change after I adapt to altitude a bit better but currently I would guess that I recover ten percent slower.
Speaking of adapting: How long does it take to “adapt” to altitude? The general rule is three weeks. The body takes about that much time to react to the lack of oxygen and create more red blood cells. I can attest to having as much as a ten percent rise in hematocrit (the portion of blood volume occupied by red blood cells) and hemoglobin (oxygen transport mechanism in red blood cells) after three weeks. I never made it much past three or four weeks at altitude in the past so I can’t say what happens after that.
That’s all for now. My next race is the HyVee World Cup in Des Moines, Iowa on June 27. I’m hoping for another good performance but even 75th place doesn’t seem that bad:
