Brissie
I spent the interim period between Mooloolaba WC and Sydney WCS in the suburbs of Brisbane. I was specifically in the Carindale/Carina region training with a little triathlon squad coached by Warwick Dalziel, a friend of my coach. Things were pretty nice, especially since my training really just consisted of resting a lot to recover from the beastly Mooloolaba course. Although not everything was going to plan as I sort of might be kind of a little bit…injured. Plantar fasciitis is not fun. The good news is that the problem is currently manageable so I will race Sydney WCS. Hopefully I’m not on crutches after the race. Here are some pictures from the past two weeks in Brisbane:
I had to send this into USAT’s physio team for Sydney to explain my condition. Pretty standard plantar fasciitis symptoms. Warwick has a physio background and the blue marking on the picture is where he generally worked to help alleviate the problem. When he worked on that area it brought pain on the order of 11 or 12 on a scale of 10. So the treatment wasn’t my favorite part of the day but it helped as my foot problems improved markedly during my stay.
Christmas in Guatemala
My hour long “run” – averaged 12:33/mile. It was more of a very hard hike.
Budapest Pics
Here’s a race report from Budapest: Everything was going really well until 30k into the bike when I crashed!!! It happened on a tight turn where a wet mat was covering some train tracks. Fortunately I’m OK (I just have some road rash). I got up, fixed my bike, but lost two minutes in the last 10k of the bike and finished 56th. Oof…
The chain bridge at sunset two nights before the race. Budapest is a beautiful city when it isn’t raining!
Despite the rain hundreds of juniors, U23s and elites showed up for the bike course familiarization ride.
Greg and I found shelter from the wind behind this truck while we waited for the ride to start.
Coming out of the water – I’m the guy in the background with the blue sleeve.
It wasn’t raining for the men’s race but there was standing water and ‘mystery puddles’ all over the course.
A misleading picture – several very talented men running five minutes behind the leaders.
The sun came out for the women’s race the next day. Our team docs patched me up and I enjoyed watching Sunday’s races.
New York Athletic Club
It looks like I haven’t posted in 25 days – oops! No, I’m not validating my own theory that a lack of blog posts indicates some sort of season ending injury…I’m doing just fine! In fact I’m headed out to Europe on Tuesday for a couple of weeks of racing in Hamburg and London.
I do have an exciting announcement: I am now part of a new program by the New York Athletic Club designed to support Olympic hopefuls in the sport of triathlon! The New York Athletic Club has a long history of supporting Olympians and Olympic hopefuls in sports like water polo, track and field, and wrestling (to name just a few) and I am very happy to be a part of the NYAC. A few other athletes in the program are Jarrod Shoemaker, Sarah Groff, Bec Wassner, and Laurel Wassner.
The NYAC logo…I love the winged foot but if I’m going to have it on my uniform I better start running fast!
Here are some pics of what’s happened lately:
My parents came to visit after HyVee. We went to the top of Pike’s Peak – 14,110 ft!
We took the cog railroad to the top.
I went up to the Retul studio in Denver for a bike fit with Todd Carver. I think we made some good changes and I’m excited about my new position.
Since HyVee I have been doing a lot of training on the bike with Mr. Mark Fretta. On one of our rides he found a dollar and got pretty excited.
Ten Reasons Why Shimano Di2 is Awesome!
In pictures (but a few words, too):
Reason #1: no more cables for the derailleurs! The derailleur cable routing on both my bikes is gloriously empty. No cables means no more dealing with ‘stretching’ and adjusting the shifting all the time. Which brings me to reason #2…
Dialing in the shifting is a breeze: just press the small button on the indicator console (see picture) and the rear derailleur goes into ‘micro adjust’ mode (indicated by the red light). Use the shifting buttons to make micro adjustments until the shifting is dialed in.
Reason #3: shifting is a incredibly easy. Those may look like shift levers but they are actually just buttons. Press them like you would normal shift levers and small motors in the front and rear derailleurs do the work for you. Also, since there are no levers there is no shifting noise. This means you can be somewhat stealthy when you attack out of a group – no more clicking noises! You won’t announce your attack to the whole peloton when you drop it down three gears. (Reason #4)
Reason #5: You can shift the front derailleur under full power. So if you crest a hill and need a big gear fast just press the button and continue to hammer – no need to let up while the derailleur moves. Speaking of the derailleurs, the whole Di2 system is always aware of what gears you are in for both the front and rear. As you move through the gears with the rear derailleur, the front derailleur automatically auto-trims to prevent chain rub. That’s reason #6.
The Di2 battery. You might wonder, “What if the battery dies?” That brings me to reason #7: When the battery dies the front derailleur stops working first and you have about 50 shifts left for the rear. This should be enough to get you home. In my opinion this is better than the analogous mechanical situation where your derailleur cable snaps and slams you into the hardest gear you have.
Of course you should never be caught with a dead battery since you have this indicator console – it flashes red when your battery is about to die. With 1000 miles of riding per charge (that’s approximate) and 1.5 hours to recharge, you should really never have any power problems.
Reason #8: no more bar end shift levers on your TT bike – just sleek, aerodynamic buttons.
Reason #9 is, in my opinion, the coolest thing of all: Shift buttons on the aero brake levers. Ever get caught on a long climb in your TT bike and have to reach out to the aero bars to shift? Well that’s no longer necessary!
Reason #10: the Di2 rear derailleur. You won’t find more precise shifting on any other component group in the world. It’s just that good!
Sydney
Well I’m back from Australia and after a whirlwind of jet lag, taxes, and trying to organize all of the new gear I got from Shimano, Orbea and Rudy Project I finally have some time to blog! If nothing else the races in Mooloolaba and Sydney gave me a big list of things to work on before my next race in Seoul in three weeks – open water swimming, bike handling, and lots of other stuff. So that’s what I’ll be doing for a few more weeks in sunny Florida.
As always here are some pics!
I watched most of the women’s race from my 20th floor hotel room
iPhone pic of Barbara about to win.
The opera house at night.
Always Cool
It’s always cool to see the ‘zero’ on the Olympic countdown signs here at the OTC. Although I hope I don’t see it in 2012!
Training in Colorado
Training is going well out in Colorado. I love running on the trails around Colorado Springs – Palmer Park, Bear Creek, Rampart Ridge Road, or the old stand by: the Monument Trail. The weather in January was nice so I was even able to ride outside a bit. Here are some pics:
Palmer Park. There are tons of trails in this park in the middle of north-central Colorado Springs. I like the extremely technical Templeton Trail – it runs along the cliff face you see in the distance.
On the Templeton Trail. I averaged a blistering 10:05/mile the first time I ran here. I can safely say my trail running skills are better as I now can average under 9:00/mile!
Goldcamp Mountain is a bit different in the winter. It’s still rideable, though, just be careful on the descent. Icy patches can be hard to see.
The OTC got two Alter-G treadmills. Sorry for the blurriness, iPhones don’t do movement well.
Vacation Time
A couple days after my last race in Clearwater I took off for a little vacation in Japan. It was pretty fun – three days in Tokyo, three in Kyoto, and then back to Tokyo before coming back to the US. Japan is an amazing country, especially this time of year – it’s Fall there and the leaves change color.
This was me for a week: backpack + tour book. Now that I’m home I’m taking a few days rest before getting back into training – I must have walked 60+ miles last week with that backpack!
Nijo Castle in Kyoto. The maple leaves are beginning to change colors.
A kaiten-zushi restaurant (sushi train) in Tokyo. You might think the fish in that aquarium are for decoration. They’re not.
Wrapping up 2009
The 2009 racing season is finally over and I definitely ended it on a high note. Things went better than I ever expected during my October altitude training block – I definitely learned a lot about training and how to get myself ready to race. Here are some pics.
My primary November race was the Huatulco World Cup in Mexico. The course has a 16% grade hill on it so I often went out to Cave of the Winds (pictured here) to do some hill repeats in preparation for some tough climbing.
However, October in Colorado Springs isn’t always great for outdoor training.
I didn’t feel very comfortable on my TT bike at the Augusta 70.3 so I drove up to Denver to get fit by Todd Carver in his Retul bike fit studio.
I was lucky enough to be able to attend the International Altitude Training Symposium at the end of October. It was pretty cool to learn about how to train at altitude – it turns out I could be doing a lot of things better.
Alicia Kaye (Jarrod’s wife) and Jarrod in Phoenix. We did a little sprint triathlon as a tune up for Huatulco (and for me, Clearwater).
The Huatulco World Cup is easily the most difficult ITU course I have ever raced on. With temperatures averaging around 100 degrees F, high humidity, and a ~16% grade hill on the eight lap bike course, there’s really nowhere to hide. This year the front bike pack started with around 35 men in it and by lap eight there were only 12 left.
My Colorado Springs room mate Matt Chrabot won it with a daring bike breakaway. I finished eighth – my highest World Cup finish ever! I DNF’d on this course last year so it was nice to redeem myself.
Next up was the Clearwater 70.3 World Champs. As my third race in as many weeks and being that it was only my second 70.3 distance race ever, I wasn’t really expecting much from myself.
Michael Raelert won it! I met him at the Hy-Vee triathlon in June and he’s a great guy. I was happy to see him take the victory. He also gave the funniest awards speech I have heard in awhile!
I started the run in 21st place but ended up in a fight with Luke Bell for sixth! I’m still in disbelief at this result. What a way to end the season!
70.3s are kind of painful.
I’m not gonna lie – it was pretty sweet to stand up on stage at this awards ceremony. I never expected to even be close to the top ten!
Training Block
After three months of racing approximately every other weekend it’s finally time for a training block! I’m back home in Colorado and putting in a good 30 day altitude training block to get ready for November racing. Being from Florida, however, the concept of ‘seasons’ is new to me so last weekend’s snow was definitely a surprise. I learned a few things last week about living in a cold place:
1) Water fountains get turned off in the winter. This made my long run more interesting last weekend…yeah, I bonked.
2) Ice takes awhile to melt after the temperature goes above freezing. I narrowly avoided falling a few times last week on the way to the aquatics building.
3) If it’s cold then going up mountains is fine, but coming down sucks. Again, I’m from Florida so I just didn’t know these things!
The view outside my window. Icy!
End of the Season Break – Ironman 70.3 Style
A few days after returning from Australia I flew back to Florida to visit home. It was a great way to unwind after all the traveling and racing of late! While I was down there I helped out at the Kids4Kids youth triathlon clinic in Gainesville, FL (in conjunction with the Kids4Kids Triathlon that happened one week later). I got to watch the Gators play Tennessee (with skybox tickets thanks to the kind folks at the First Coast Kid’s Triathlon!). Lastly, I raced my first half-ironman at the Augusta Ironman 70.3. I know, that’s not generally considered a “post-season relaxation” type of activity, but I wanted to try a 70.3 and this seemed like a good time to do it.
Helping out at the Kids4Kids Triathlon Clinic with Jeff from the UF Sports Performance Center.
Watching the Gators play Tennessee in style!
The pontoon start at Augusta 70.3 felt very much like an ITU race, and with so many short course guys on the start line like Eric Limkemann, Brian Fleischmann and Greg Bennett I kept reminding myself that I was about to race for twice as long as I am used to!
13 miles to go. I’m in ninth at this point, I ended up in seventh.
It turns out seventh place is the last person to get paid. Sweet! I also got a spot at the Ironman 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater next month.
In Gold Coast
I arrived here in Gold Coast on Saturday after some pretty exhausting travel – 14 hours from L.A. to Sydney is rough! I can’t complain, though, because I have plenty of time to recover since my race is seven days after my arrival!
Life is pretty nice on the Gold Coast. My first four days here consisted of waking up early (don’t have much of a choice in that since my body is still on Mountain time) and go run on the Coombabah trails, stop by the grocery on the way home for the day’s food, cook breakfast (usually an omelette with avocado and passion fruit yogurt), go bike around town, eat lunch (ham sandwich), go swim at the Southport pool, cook dinner (chicken stir fry on night one, spaghetti on night two, and kangaroo steaks on night three), then attempt to stay up past eight PM (my record for staying up is currently 9:10 PM local time). I’m slowly adjusting to the time zone.
Here are some pics from the first few days:
Coombabah park. Lots of trails to run on.
Kangaroos are everywhere. Or maybe this is a wallaby. I don’t know.
Jarrod taking a pic of a roo.
The view out my window. Gold Coast reminds me of a mix of Daytona Beach and Miami.
Headed to Gold Coast
I’m currently en route to Gold Coast, Australia for the World Championship Series Finale. The last time I was in Australia was for the Mooloolaba World Cup in March. As you can see that was a poor performance – I need to redeem myself in Australia!
Yes, I was #17. Oof…
London Sightseeing
Mark Fretta, Jill Petersen and I went out sightseeing in London the day after the races a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun – It’s not often we get to stay a day later and actually do touristy stuff!
Some Pics from Hamburg
My first World Championship Series race was a success this past weekend in Hamburg. I struggled a bit in the swim but felt strong on the bike and the whole race came together into one big ~40 man pack. My run was solid, too, and I ended up in 23rd place. Also, I came away with a few things I can improve on for my next WCS race which should be in London in a few weeks. Here are a few pics from the weekend:
Jarrod is the man! He won in convincing fashion and that’s the first World Cup/World Champs level victory by an American in a long time. Awesome.
The weather was pretty bad for the women’s race but that didn’t stop the huge Hamburg crowds from coming out.
The women swimming under the bridge.
Struggling to take pictures from the grandstands.
These things are delicious. I know that these are available in the United States but the writing isn’t in German so that’s not as fun.
I am slightly obsessed with Nutella.
I finally went to the Birkenstock store and got some sandals. I have meant to do that for the past three years.
Austin Pan Am Cup…Second Place!
I’m excited to report I placed second in yesterday’s Austin Pan American Cup! Despite a poor swim, I was able to stay in contention on the bike and battled it out for the win with New Zealand’s Callum Millward on the run. It came down to a drag race style sprint in the last 100 meters and he got me. Here are a few pics from the race (courtesy of Ashish Patel):
I got beat up quite a bit at the start of the swim and found myself pretty far back in this long, strung out men’s field.
Cameron Dye and Mark Van Akkeren set a blistering pace in the swim.
Onto the bike I found myself in the fourth pack on the road. We had a lot of good cyclists and we caught the two packs in front of us. A group of three stayed away (Brian Fleischmann, Cameron Dye, and Mark Van Akkeren) and had a gap of a little over one minute heading out onto the run.
The men’s podium: Me (second), Callum Millward of New Zealand (first), and Martin Van Barneveld also of New Zealand (third)
The women’s podium: Hayley Peirsol (USA – second), Kate McIlroy (NZL – first), Jenna Shoemaker (USA – third).
Champagne!
The water was 1000 times cleaner than last weekend in Oklahoma City. This was a turtle swimming around in the swim venue.
Pics From Pan Am Champs
Swim start.
Exiting the swim about 20 seconds off the lead.
Just crossed the finish line for ninth.
Photos courtesy Rocky Chen.
Florida Fun
After St. Anthony’s I decided to spend a little bit of time in my home state visiting friends and family and generally having a ton of fun in Florida! Here is a little bit of what I did:
I stayed with my coach Jen Hutchison in St. Pete for a few days. She made me a pancake breakfast the day after the race – apparently I was on a diet.
I borrowed Jen’s sweet Jeep Grand Cherokee and drove to Orlando to visit my Mom and Dad. This is my Mom’s dog Cosmo – ferocious!
After a short stop in Gainesville to visit friends (and get some of my favorite pizza at Satchel’s) I made my way up to Jacksonville to help out at the YMCA First Coast Kid’s Triathlon. This is me hanging out with some future triathlon stars the day before the race.
Here are some of the “celebrity big kids” as we were known for the weekend. There were about 10 of us big kids and we were celebrities for various reasons. From left to right: Sophia Every from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville area fireman Raleigh Zike, Don Redman (completed 650+ triathlons in his lifetime), me (token professional triathlete!), Ty Dickenson (Jacksonville area policeman), Don Davey (ex-NFL football player), and Dustin Crawford, a Navy ensign.
I got to be the big kid for the 8 and under age group.
Here they are parading on over to the start.
We big kid’s had our own race and guess what, I won! Unofficially I completed the 100 yd swim, 3 mile bike and 1/2 mile run in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Here I am with another of the big kids – Mark Woods, a journalist from the Florida Times-Union. He got third. Don Davey (the ex-NFL football player) got second. Pretty fast for the biggest guy in the field! He’s training for Ironman Austria.
St. Anthony’s v. 4.0
This past weekend I raced St. Anthony’s for the fourth year in a row. St. A’s is definitely my favorite race – it’s one of the biggest triathlons in the world, the field is always stacked, the course is flat and fast, and it’s right in my home state! It’s also a great way to evaluate fitness in the early season. The course never changes so I can make direct comparisons year-over year.
So how did it go? Well, the swim was rough – so rough, in fact, that the entire swim for the age group race was canceled! The professionals still got to swim but I definitely felt sorry for all of the amateurs. Duathlons suck! But I agree with the decision made by race director Philip Lahaye – that water was harsh! I got knocked around quite a bit. Once out of the water, though, I think I put together a pretty good race. My 57:30 on the bike was the best 40K I’ve ever ridden in a non-draft race (yes, I rode a 56:22 in 2008, but so many guys came together into a legal non-draft stagger that I don’t really consider that a solo ride). I ran up into the top 10 with a 32:14 10K that definitely exceeded expectations, fully 58 seconds faster than last year.
Having a trainer in transition is sweet when they make you put bikes in transition the day before.
Into T2.
Second fastest run of the day!
It’s funny because the age groupers got these as awards, too.
I’m Spoiled
Chula Vista is awesome. My time here is almost up and I will soon be moving to my “long term” resident location at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, and even though Colorado Springs is equally awesome I will be the first to admit that I will miss training in Chula. The warm San Diego weather, the friendly people, and most of all the little training group we have had out here since early January will be the things I miss the most (we have had as many as eight triathletes out here although we are currently down to four – Ethan Brown, Steve Sexton, Jen Spieldenner and me).
Training in Chula Vista was my first opportunity to devote myself “full time” to triathlon training and I believe I developed a lot as an athlete. I think I am a bit spoiled now, though. At this time last year I was trying to combine a full early season racing schedule with trying to graduate from college. OK, I wasn’t trying very hard to graduate, but with final exams and final projects school still took up a lot of my time. Training at the OTC is completely different – instead of trying to “fit” my training around other parts of my life, training is my life and everything else comes second. So what is it like to train out here? Check out the pics below. Hopefully I captured a little bit about how things work out here.
Otay Lakes Road – the only place around here to do “quality” riding. But thirty minutes of flat riding out on Otay gives access to some great climbs or rolling hills.
The track is sweet and the scenery isn’t bad, either.
The cafeteria is my favorite place on campus! This breakfast made me very happy.
The sports med building is another place I spend a lot of my time. This is the Normatech MVP unit. It uses air pressure to provide compression. I have it set at 80 mm Hg. 15 or 30 minutes using this and it doesn’t even feel like I did a workout.
The cold tank. 55 degrees.
Joey the therapy dog comes every Friday. He is like the OTC’s collective pet. He knows like 57 tricks or something sweet like that.
He even gets his own ID card!
The Alter-G treadmill – it allows you to run at certain percentages of your body weight – down to 20%. It’s great for injured athletes or people like me who want to get in a few extra miles without the leg pounding. Apparently my legs were going too fast to be captured by the phone’s camera.
So what effect will all of this great training have on my triathlon season in 2009? So far it seems to be going pretty well. With some higher priority races coming up I’ll find out soon!
Kind of a big deal…in Ecuador
This was in the Ecuadorian newspaper “El Universo” on Monday. That’s right – kind of a big deal.
As expected, the Playas Pan Am Cup was an adventure of a race as only South America can offer. I’ll have a rambling race report up ASAP!
The New Ride
2008 Orbea Orca w/ full Dura-Ace 7900. Sweet!
Florida Bicycle Sports hooked me up with my new bike for the 2009 season a few weeks ago. My first impression is that it is freakin’ awesome! I’m packing up right now to go race it in Ecuador – first race on the new ride!
FL Trip
I left sunny San Diego a couple of weeks ago for a short trip to Florida (which also happened to be warm and sunny – I know, my winter training this year has been tough). Anyways, I helped out at Sara McLarty’s “Train with the Pros” camp in Clermont, FL (along with Jarrod Shoemaker and Joanna Zeiger), raced in the Florida’s Great Escape sprint triathlon, visited my parents, picked up a bunch of new gear for the 2009 season (more on that later), and generally took care of business! Here are a few pics:
In the pool at the Train with the Pros Camp.
Sara doing some underwater swim analysis.
The whole TWTP camp raced in Florida’s Great Escape sprint triathlon. This is the elite swim start.
I got a bit of a gap on Jarrod on the bike – 93 seconds.
I held off Jarrod for the win…but barely. 14 seconds!
I gave a winner’s speech. I was not expecting this. I apologize retroactively for my poor oratory skills.
My Mom even came out to watch me race!
