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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!