La Paz
If I had an Argentine Peso for every time someone said to me, “You have to race in La Paz sometime in your life. It’s an awesome experience,” I would be able to afford my weight in empanadas de carne from the rotiseria on the corner of Chacabuco and San Martin, right next to my homestay’s house in La Paz. However, I don’t think I could stomach another empanada considering the way I reacted to the last one I ate before boarding my flight from Buenos Aires to Washington-Dulles. Many thanks to the crew aboard United flight 846 for being lightening fast with the airsick bags and for the spare pair of socks. I’m sorry about the carpet in the aft galley. I’m sure that will come right out.
Anyway, I finally got to race in La Paz this past weekend being that it served as the 2012 Pan American Championship and thus was very important for the Olympic qualifying process. The race lived up to the hype. Triathlon is HUGE in La Paz. During my training in the days leading up to the race I got tons of cheers from bystanders or cars driving by. “¡Dale dale!” they yelled. I got into countless conversations with various La Paz citizens about my Cervelo S3. “¿Es de ruta or contrareloj?” (road or time trial?). “Tu Castellano es muy bárbaro,” one man said. I’m still not sure exactly what this means but he looked like Jack Sparrow so it was an amusing conversation nonetheless.
The race itself was just like any other ITU race but with a few eccentricities. Like the violent, ear-shattering fireworks that the locals kept shooting off. Or the swim start where we all dove in and immediately turned left (because that’s fair, right?). I was number 17 on the pontoon and as logic would have it I ended up 17th in a long line of swimmers down the Río Paraná. I survived the downsteam-upstream-downstream swim and ended up in the first chase pack. We caught the front pack within five kilometers and I rode the rest of the time at or near the front – so much easier up there! My incredible good luck in avoiding crashes that happen right in front of me continued in La Paz when a Guatemalan went down and sent one of the orange gas cans (used to divide the out-and-back portion of the bike course) into my front wheel. It bounced off harmlessly. “Nice save, Kev!” I heard Barrett Brandon yell behind me. As I ran down the final straightaway it was like a Tour de France mountain stage as the burgeoning crowd left only enough room for one runner. I politely pushed a Brazilian athlete to the side so I could pass him in the last few meters. I closed the last three kilometers of the run strong but it didn’t matter as my first seven took nearly 30 minutes. I suffered from the same side stitch/breathing cramps that plagued me in Kelowna, Buffalo and Huatulco. This is incredibly frustrating to say the least and I need to find a solution if I am to race effectively.
Due to similar lackluster performances from other American men in La Paz I remain eighth American in terms of the selection process for Olympic Trials in San Diego in May. The door is not closed completely. Ice cream and hip hop dancers in la plaza concluded the La Paz Triathlon weekend – definitely an experience!
About to enjoy a desayuno completo with LJ.
Discussing tactics with Barrett. “Let’s make the front pack.” “Yeah, OK.”
Boats took us to the swim start.
Suffering on the run.
Guatape
Who knew that doing climbing repeats of El Peñón before the race would ruin my taper?! Kidding…I just had a horrific race. Let’s not talk about it. Time to look forward to 2012. El Peñón did provide for a nice post-race cool down workout, though:
Back to Huatulco
“The Hill” took a year off last year, as did I, but we were both back in Huatulco last weekend for the fourth annual Huatulco ITU World Cup. The repaving crews probably fixed up the hill in the few days before the athletes arrived and I must say the addition of the cobbles at the top is an excellent touch! As for me, I somehow sneaked into the race despite my massive fall off in the rankings after an April/May/June filled with injury and no racing. It was great to graduate once again from continental cup to world cup!
Everything about the race in Huatulco is ridiculous. It’s incredibly hot (37C/99F during the men’s race), and the ocean offers no respite at well over 80F. The hill averages about 18% and we get to climb it eight times. Coming down the other side at 50 mph on poorly paved roads is fun, too (ambulancias waiting at the bottom). I laughed to myself as I started the run – this race is so hard! I made a few mistakes in the race, the most glaring of which was being caught behind a split in the front group with 7K to go on the bike, but in the end I actually secured an OK result (17th) and scored enough points to move into eighth overall for American men in the Olympic rankings. If I stay there I get a start at Olympic Trials next May in San Diego!
It looks like I may get a few more chances to “put it all together” at the World Cups in November (Colombia, New Zealand), so for now it’s back to training. Below are some pics. I’m in there somewhere…
National Champs
On to the next one: I’m gearing up for the Huatulco ITU World Cup this weekend, my first WC since March. A wise man once said: “If one is to race in Mexico one must embrace Mexico…”
Vegas
All I can say is that I was doing very well until about 65K into the bike. I swam well and found myself at the front of the race after only about 15K of riding. But being at the front of the race at 70.3 World Champs means lots of race referees watching you and I was one of many athletes hit with a red card (four minute penalty). Admittedly, though, I did make a mistake. The Vegas course is quite hilly and on a long downhill into a long uphill I got too close to Crowie’s wheel (something about physics – potential energy, F=ma, I’m not sure really). And once you enter the 10 meter draft zone the only solution is to make the pass. I didn’t make the pass.
Anyways, the red card completely ruined the adrenaline high I was running on, leaving me in a combined state of bonk and disappointment. For anyone watching my wattage on SRMlive – not bad, huh? Yeah, I was riding a bit too hard. I got dropped by the pack, rode in the last bit by myself, hung out in the penalty tent for awhile, and rallied for a 13.1 mile run.
Vegas was an awesome course, I just need to keep my focus for the full 90K! Maybe next time.
Post-70.3 feeling-awfulness.
Kelowna
When a double Olympic medalist tells you “the plan” it’s best to pay attention.
“Hey Kev, we’re going to cut right immediately – don’t swim on anyone’s hips, just get on feet. We’re going to string this swim out.” So that’s what we did – we cut right and I found myself on Simon’s feet. Some fast swimmers came from the left, we met at the first buoy, and we were away. I was part of a small group of about ten athletes that came out of the water 90 seconds up on a big group. I was dangling at the back of the swim pack so I scurried into the group on the bike and by the time we got to the top of the “climb” on the first of six laps we were a select group of seven. Awesome, I made the swim breakaway!
Our group worked fairly well together and held a 75 to 80 second lead on the chasers for nearly the entire ride. Simon and Kyle were marking each other and everyone else in the pack seemed content to stay in the group. I considered attacking but decided against it. Bad decision! On the final lap of the bike our group was given a time gap of 80 seconds to the chase pack. I decided to stay in the group and run on fresh legs. We cruised into T2, racked our bikes and put on our running shoes. I was dismayed by what I saw next: the chase pack coming into T2 no more than 15 seconds back! Apparently the combination of an attack out of the chase pack combined with our lazy Sunday stroll in T2 caused the gap to close down rapidly.
“No worries, I can run,” I thought. Not today! I ran with Simon and Kyle Jones for about 2K before starting to suffer from a diaphragm cramp. It got worse and worse and I rocketed back to eighth place – a disappointing result for sure, made worse by the fact that I set myself up so well with a good swim/bike.
Next up: Vegas 70.3!
NYC
I tried all week to put up a meaningful blog post about my race last weekend in NYC but it just isn’t going to happen. I’m currently in Colorado Springs training with the Squad and training is so hard that putting together words into sentences into paragraphs is a bit beyond my mental capacity right now. So I’m resorting to bullet points:
- It was raining during the race. That sucked.
- I got beat up a bit on the swim and lost some time.
- I chased hard on the bike but blew up around 20K. I got caught by a big pack for the second 20K. That was nice.
- My run was decent – almost three minutes faster than my run in San Fran!
- I stayed at the NYAC on Central Park South. It was awesome. It was great to meet the whole NYAC triathlon club (team picture below, we are really photogenic since we all just finished racing).
- I’m racing Kelowna Continental Cup next weekend. Yeah drafting!
The Triathlon Squad
I take it I’ve told you about my condition? Plantar fasciitis…in both of my feet. But I’m happy to report that the injury subsided and I made a happy return to racing this past weekend, placing eighth in the San Francisco Pan American Cup!
I was nowhere near race-ready, but I was newly race-able, so I went out and “knocked the rust off,” missing the front pack in the swim and riding a more-or-less solo 40K in between a large front pack and a similarly large third pack (I caught my friend John Dahlz and a Canadian kid named Aaron Thomas in the final 10K on the bike, giving me a bit of rest). I topped it all off with a 35:22 10K. It was a tough day for sure as I was going flat-out pretty much the whole race and didn’t have much to show for it at the end of the day.
Three weeks in St. George, Utah with Paulo Sousa’s Triathlon Squad brought me to the start line in San Francisco. After arriving at the camp Paulo nonchalantly made the claim that “the problem is in your calves and achilles, not your foot,” and then something like “I hope you like water-running (sinister laugh),” and then made me bring my “Stick” to every run session for post-run self-treatment. Two weeks later I logged a 76k run week.
Getting into the car three weeks prior to make the drive to St. George I remember thinking, “Am I really doing this?” Gut check time, Dupree! I was hesitant to leave the comfort of my new home in Boulder, a place I called home for only three weeks before taking off to camp, but also the best place for training I ever encountered – especially for cycling. However, for those three weeks I was just doing my own thing and I know that self-coaching is a recipe for major athlete disaster. And despite being back to a little run training I couldn’t seem to shake the plantar fasciitis completely. So I took off to see what the Triathlon Squad is all about.
Rewind three more weeks – I just arrived in Boulder and fired my coach that I moved to Boulder to work with. Yeah, that makes sense! During my road trip from Orlando to Boulder I saw quite a few Paulo Sousa coached athletes – namely Andrew Hodges and Amanda Felder – and the suspicions I already held about the efficacy of a run-specific coach as a triathlon coach grew until I finally cracked and started the process of change. It was only 18 months ago that a friend of mine made the same decision, changing to a squad-based coach known for hard work and results, and halfway through camp we all sat around the computer and watched Sarah Groff get on the podium in Kitzbuhel! So I’m confident in my decision for sure.
Sydney
Here is my race report from Sydney (well, it’s actually just a gloss-over as I don’t feel like reliving that race by typing out a long, drawn out report):
I came out of the water near the back of a long line of men and immediately made what turned out to be a bad assumption out of T1. I was just acting on my opinion of the cycling skills of the men right in front of me. But as Manny Huerta pointed out later: “Kevin, assumptions are the beginning of all #$%@-ups.” Or at least that’s what Brett Sutton used to tell him. My assumption was no different. This isn’t to say that I’m blaming everyone else in my small five man pack for not bridging to the front pack – of course we all share in that blame. A few minutes later the skies opened up and I spent the next hour riding around in the rain on the oil covered streets of Sydney’s central business district getting yelled at in Swiss-German to pull through. I pulled out on the run to save my foot from further injury.
I’m back in Florida now and back to training. Well, mostly: I’m on day 10 of a doctor-ordered 14 day period off running. My foot is definitely improving so that’s a good sign. Hopefully I’m back to running soon, but due to this hiatus from running I pulled out of the Monterrey World Cup next month. That kind of sucks but I would rather be healthy later in the season than race now and risk worsening my condition.
That’s all for now!
Where’s the Penalty Tent?
After 1.5K of ocean swimming, 40K of cycling and 9.7K of running with 74 of my best amigos, the title of this post is what I yelled at the six ITU delegates standing on the side of the road in Mooloolaba. You see, I take things very literally, and if you call something the “penalty tent” I will generally look for a tent-like structure. No such thing existed and after I ran a few meters past what I am now calling the “general vicinity of penalty enforcement” one ITU official ran up to me and began to count down my 15 seconds. It sucks to sit there and watch so many guys run by, but I got a good rest and sprinted past a few of them again, only to realize that 300 meters is a long way to hold a full-on sprint, so a few passed me back again and I ended in 45th place. NOT what I was looking for in Mooloolaba. I got bumped up to 44th because Gavin Noble didn’t serve his penalty and got a DQ. So it could be worse.
So what was my penalty? “You didn’t put your cap and goggles in the box and we have a picture to prove it!” she said. I took a picture, too:
Wearing my timing chip on my left leg just to be different. Photo credit: Wayne Nevrilk
Oh Yeah I Raced This Past Weekend
The race this past weekend blended so well into my normal routine that I almost forgot to post about it! Other than acting as a homestay for Barrett Brandon and his wife Lauren, as well as Greg “the Future of Triathlon” Billington, I didn’t stray too far from the norm.
Anyways, the race took place in Lake Louisa State Park. It was a sprint distance Pan American Cup with ITU ranking points on the line so it attracted quite a talented field from all over the world. I do almost all of my cycling workouts inside the park so I definitely knew the course quite well. Lake Louisa itself is so shallow that the swim was a non-factor – I probably only swam 300 meters total, spending the rest of the time either running or dolphin diving. A huge front pack formed up halfway through the first of four laps on the bike and this was how we entered T2. I came out of T2 right in the middle of the field and immediately ran straight to the front of the race. My run fitness seemed to be quite good entering the race so my confidence was high but after about four minutes of running right behind the leaders I blew up fantastically. I faded hard to 16th. This was not at all the result I thought myself capable of. Hopefully I can make up for it in Mooloolaba!
Here is a video of the finish starting with the third place finisher Kaleb Van Ort:
After the race USAT hosted a cycling skills camp. This is exactly what I needed. We Americans are not known for our bike handling skills (with the exception of a few skilled athletes). Let’s just say that it would take more than my fingers and toes to count the number of times American World Championship Series ‘regulars’ hit the pavement last year in races, and I contributed one to that number! Michael Heitz was our instructor and he was awesome!
The highlight of the weekend was a spirited game of three-on-three ‘trashball,’ a game played on a grass field where the objective is to pick up a small foam ball and score it into a trash can, all while riding bikes. Additional rules state that all three members of the team must possess the ball before scoring, and no single rider can possess the ball for more than three seconds. It turns out that Greg Billington is pretty much the Lebron James of trashball (Sidney Crosby for my Canadian readers). I specialized in defense and definitely stacked pretty hard a couple of times to prevent others from scoring. Thankfully I didn’t break my bike (or myself) so it’s all good.
No, That’s Not a Squirrel On My Face
I ran a 10K PR at this past weekend’s Suncoast 10K in St. Petersburg! QOTD from Kaitlin Shiver: “I didn’t see Kevin during the race, but then I realized he was the guy with the squirrel on his face.”
Clearwater
My race in Clearwater this past weekend ran a striking parallel to my 2010 season as a whole: It wasn’t an exceptional result, but it also had some bright spots. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted and I’m sure I am capable of much more. There were some bad patches (in fact the first two thirds of it was a pretty bad patch) but I found my footing at the end and finished up with a decent result.
More specifically my race in Clearwater went like this: After an extremely poor beach run-in start I found myself right at the front end of the second swim group – NOT where I wanted to be! Our group lost a minute to the leaders in the water and onto the bike I found myself in an ITU-style ‘must make the front pack’ scenario. Another split formed ahead of me and my ‘front pack’ hopes were dashed. I couldn’t close down the gap to the group of athletes that eventually bridged to the front group. I know it sounds like I’m talking about an ITU race but the bike was almost completely legal in the non-drafting sense of the word (mainly due to the pro field having less than half the numbers of last year’s race). I rode by myself for awhile, slowly coming to terms with 56 miles of losing massive time to the leaders. But then Chris Legh, Maxim Kriat and Leon Griffin went by me – I got on the group and it was literally all I could do to stay with them. I was on the rivet for the majority of the ride, so much so that I didn’t even think I would be able to finish the run after such a death-flog bike leg. In the end, though, I was fine on the run. I ran a race fourth-best 1:12:32 half marathon to run from 23rd to eighth. So I was very happy with my run. I’m even more excited that it’s off season time!
Here are some pics from this past weekend:
PATCO Champs
All I can say after racing in this past weekend’s PATCO Championship is thank goodness for ‘test’ events!! The race effectively served as a test for next year’s Pan Am Games (Guadalajara 2011). As major games go Pan Am Games is second only to the Olympics in terms of importance and prestige. As such, I expected a finely tuned, safe and fair course awaiting me in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This was not the case.
What did await us was a bike course featuring unpaved gravel sections, dangerous cobbles (so big and non-uniform that you couldn’t stay sitting or pedal while riding over them), small out and back sections with small, round metal speed bumps, all in addition to the normal poorly paved roads typical of Mexican races. Needless to say I was worried about the course but took solace in knowing that everyone had to deal with the same conditions. I was happy to learn later on that the ITU technical director Greg Peters was not going to allow this course to stand as-is. Thank goodness!
I stayed at an all inclusive resort called the Crown Paradise that will serve as the athlete’s village next year for triathlon, open water swimming, beach volleyball and a few other sports that can’t take place in Guadalajara. I’m not sure the staff at the hotel fully understood why all of us triathletes were there, or why we kept refusing their offers for tequila and margaritas in the days leading up to the race. We were certainly not the typical middle aged Americans they are used to waiting on. Confusing them even more was our sudden change of heart Sunday evening regarding their offers of tequila based beverages…
Anyways, race day finally arrived and the race organizers decided on which course we would be racing on. Option “A” was the final decision – this was the course that included a technical route through the transition area each lap. The ITU technical directors had been up literally all night filling in the dangerous cobbles with sand, helping the Mexican construction crews pave over the gravel sections and generally making the course ‘race ready.’ In the end the course was good, maybe even excellent compared to other Mexican races.
The race was hot. The water was approaching 87F, and the air was ~95F and humid when the race started at 2:15pm. A break happened on the swim that I missed and four of the original nine escapees stayed away on the bike – Matt Chrabot, Cam Dye, Luciano Farias (ARG), and Michel Gonzalez (CUB). I ended up in a large second pack that was completely disorganized and the 20 seconds we lost on the swim turned into 2:15 by the end of the bike. Matt Chrabot won from the breakaway. I ran third fastest on the day, catching everyone in the break except Matt to cross the line in fifth. It definitely stings a little to miss a swim breakaway but I’m very happy with my run effort and that nearly made up for missing the break. I scored a massive amount of both ITU and Olympic points so I ended the 2010 ITU season on a high note and set myself up well for next year. That’s what I set out to do in Puerto Vallarta so I’m happy!
So the ‘test’ event went off with only a few small shortcomings that the race organizers now have 365 days to fix! Of course this means the problems will remain problems for 362 more days and will be fixed in the three days leading up to Pan Am Games, but at least they will be fixed!
Next up Clearwater!!
Elite Nationals
I raced the Elite National Championship this past weekend in Tuscaloosa and placed eighth. I’m going to be honest: eighth place is not what I was looking for, but I definitely didn’t taper for the race so I got what I deserved in terms of performance. The good news is that ever since arriving home at the Olympic Training Center everyone is congratulating me like it was the best result of my career. The first few times this happened I responded with the token “Thanks…it was OK.” But then I figured why argue? Now I just go with “I know! I did AWESOME, right?!?”
Anyways, the race had it’s high points: I exited the waters of the Black Warrior River only ten seconds down from a slew of excellent swimmers including Kalen Darling, Cam Dye, Dustin McLarty, and Ben Collins. On the bike I was able to hide so well in the front pack that my wattage average would probably fit better in a junior girl’s race. Everything was set up for me to have the run of my life and the first 2.5K was exactly that. I felt strong and smooth and was making up time on the few leaders who managed a small breakaway at the end of the bike (netting them about ten seconds advantage into T2). After this things went downhill. I realized at about 5K that I was feeling a bit loopy and should probably slow down if I wanted to cross the finish line. I faded to eighth, crossing the line in a slow, meandering jog and quickly collapsed. I was escorted to the medical tent where they assessed my cognitive function by asking me what my date of birth is. Apparently I was quite adamant that it was “Wednesday.” I guess that was good enough for them because they gave me some Gatorade G2 (the low calorie kind), propped my legs up on an empty soda box and left me to ponder my existence. Thanks Alabama medical personnel!
I look like I could use a low calorie sports drink right now.
Photo credit: Timothy Carlson
So now it’s just back to training as usual, although my rough experience in Alabama has made recovery take a lot longer than normal. I should be able to get in at least a week of good sessions before heading down to Puerto Vallarta for the PATCO Pan Am Championship. That will be my last ITU race of 2010 so I will be resting for it just to have one last shot at scoring some Olympic ranking points.
The Rest of the Season
With the 2010 WCS season now in the rear view mirror most athletes are heading out on a vacation of some sort (or a holiday if you’re from Britain). But not me! With the Pan American Continental Championship still ahead on October 17th most athletes in the western hemisphere are probably continuing their seasons. Here is what lies ahead for me:
First on the schedule is a trip to the dirty south for the U.S. National Championship in Tuscaloosa, Alabama next weekend. It will be my fourth year in a row racing in Tuscaloosa. It’s a hot, challenging course so I’m looking forward to it. However, I won’t be wearing my UF gear quite as conspicuously this year.
Second is a trip even farther south for the Pan Am Champs in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One of my goals as an athlete is to avoid racing in Mexico if at all possible. So…fail.
Lastly I will be contesting the 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater again this year.
Did I say lastly? Because Clearwater actually won’t be my last race – I will also be toeing the line at the Turkey Trot World Championship in Orlando on Thanksgiving day. Unlike years past I will definitely be showing up with my A game (or whatever game I have left after Clearwater since training in Orlando always leads to an excess of Chipotle burritos and Krispy Kreme donuts). Either way a 5K on Thanksgiving morning is a great excuse to eat way too much the rest of the day!
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.
Chicago – Second Place!
So this is what it feels like to have a good result! I haven’t felt this good about a race in a long time (since November 14th, 2009 to be exact). Of course I prefer the top step of the podium but Mark Fretta stole the race with a blazing fast bike split (on a borrowed bike no less). The Chicago Triathlon isn’t a race to go to for fast splits but I managed a solid swim, a breakthrough bike, and the fastest run of the day, so I consider it a breakthrough performance all around.
The race started with an in-water start (not my favorite) and I got beat up a little bit more than I envisioned. I lost some ground but was able to swim my way back up to the front of the main pack by 400 meters in. Cam Dye was off the front (as expected) and I just sat in for the rest of the swim. I exited the water in seventh and during the half mile run to T1 I moved up to third.
After fumbling around with my TT helmet for far too long I made it out onto the bike. Cam Dye was way up the road and Mark Fretta and Matt Reed were about 50 meters up. Mark got away from Matt and I eventually caught and passed Mr. Reed myself. At the 20K turnaround I was third on the road about 1.5 minutes down on Cam Dye and 45 seconds down from Fretta. For the last 20K I made sure to stay focused and tried to minimize the time gaps. Starykowicz passed me in the last 10K but he was the only person to get me – definitely a good sign to only get passed by Starky over 40K! I entered T2 almost two minutes down on Dye, 1:20 down on Fretta, and 25 seconds back from Starky. Filip Ospaly was right with me and we headed out onto the run together.
At this point I should probably mention that it was 95+ degrees with no cloud cover – it was hot!! I tried to run with Ospaly but he dropped me quickly as I was incredibly tight from holding my TT position for so long. I caught Starky and Dye by mile two so again I was third on the road. I could see Fretta on some of the longer straightaways but I was just trying to keep Ospaly within reach and not succumb to the blistering heat. Finally I started to loosen up around mile three and noticed that I was starting to reel Ospaly back in. I really started flying around mile four. I re-caught Ospaly and cut Mark’s lead in half during the last two miles but it became obvious that I was going to run out of room. I finished comfortably in second (comfortably meaning that Ospaly was almost a minute back in third. My physical state was nowhere near comfortable – ‘impending heat stroke’ seems like a better description).
I would normally post a glorious picture of me on the podium but the awards ceremony was canceled. Mark and I have a theory that we ruined the Chicago Triathlon by beating all of the ‘standard’ podium finishers and thus the awards ceremony was not necessary…but in reality the USADA anti-doping control just took too long after the race! Either way, Mark and I pretty much own the city of Chicago Michael Jordan style at this point. I’m sure next time I show up at O’Hare I’ll be greeted with a limo and swept away to the Imperial Suite of the Hilton Chicago. Or not…
Overall it was an excellent weekend in Chicago with lots of deep dish pizza and OTC athletes occupying two out of three podium spots in both the men’s and women’s races (virtual podium spots of course. Did I mention that there was no real podium? Well there wasn’t). Now I just need to rest up and stay sharp for Budapest!
Fretta was probably more surprised than anyone else about his win. Yep this is the same guy who told me he expected to be fifth at best!
London
I’m not going to get into too many specifics about my race in London as it was another not-so-good result, but I can say that at least I made it to the run this year! The field in London this past weekend was loaded with talent and I simply wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the bike, specifically the accelerations out of the turns. I did, however, swim faster than ever before as I exited the water 19 seconds down with some serious big names. I think I lost 15 of those 19 seconds in the first 300 meters…yep, I need to work on my top end speed in all three sports!
The trip to Europe was by no means a waste as I gained invaluable experience and even a few Olympic points (you can never have too many Olympic points, right?!). I roomed with Ben “I went to H&M and bought a bunch of shirts so now I look super-Euro” Collins – our names are similar so the hotel staff thought we were one person that went to the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet two times every morning. This resulted in a 40 quid bill on our room at checkout. After presenting conclusive evidence that we are in fact two separate people, they didn’t charge us. Oh and one quid = 1 pound. I really just wanted to somehow use the word “quid” in my blog.
Thanks to our team doc Andy Gerken for taking some of these pics:
We had a team photo shoot near Westminster Abbey. This is Jarrod and his wife Alicia with Big Ben in the background.
Laura Bennett by a typical red London phonebooth.
We were all a little embarrassed to be standing around in our race suits on the busy sidewalks of London, but some cool pics came of it.
I was right next to the younger Brownlee in transition.
On the bike in the race. It might not look like it but I’m suffering pretty badly!
Hamburg 2010
Things went decently well in Hamburg this past weekend. My only complaint is that my efforts only netted a 37th place. I swam well – I was pleasantly surprised to see names like Docherty, Ben “I only packed one shirt for this trip” Collins and Mark “I own a hamster named Hunter Kemper” Fretta in front of me as I exited the water. I felt great on the bike and easily chased onto the second chase group out of the water. We then caught the front pack and I was feeling great about things – if our pack of 25 or so athletes stays away then I’m looking at my best WCS finish ever! I stayed near the back of the pack trying to rest from my chase effort – BIG mistake!!! My TT ability on a bike is pretty good but my sprinting ability is pitiful at best and I was unhinged from the group as we accelerated out of a few tight turns. I commit the error of riding on the back on a regular basis but never has it resulted in such a huge penalty. I think I can truthfully say that never again will you find me at the back of a pack! The good news is that the group I was dropped to eventually made contact with the front group again, but not without a significant amount of effort on my part along with a few other guys in the pack. Despite my tough bike I still ran decently. If you take into account the fact that the course was lengthened from years past by 30 to 40 seconds then I ran just as fast as last year. The only problem is that last year I got 23rd place and this year I only got 37th. I think I have more in me, though. Going into London I’m going to try to ride smarter and get to the front and see how I run then!
I got the strong arm from Bevan Docherty on the first lap of the swim. Bevan is known for being one of the nicest guys on the ITU circuit but also as one of the most cut-throat racers out there. According to Manny Huerta I’m lucky he didn’t just shove me back in the water while using me as leverage! Photo courtesy of Andy Gerken.
The women on the run. We used to turn around at the big beer but the course was lengthened using these cones after being criticized for not being a true 10K in years past.
I rarely appear in the ITU’s race photo galleries but I finally made it in one. I was the first to rack my bike in transition before the race – for this I received a round of applause from the grandstands and a couple of photographers documenting my every move!
HyVee
A brief race report from HyVee:
My swim was excellent! I exited the water in the front pack only 30 seconds down from the leaders. This was great since my swim was off for the first few races of the season. Onto the bike I was in the front pack within half of a lap (2.5K of riding) – the only problem was that it was just so much harder than normal to get there. When I was safely in the pack I tried to rest and recover at the back knowing the field would soon string out again as we exited transition onto lap two, but it was like I couldn’t get in enough oxygen. When the field finally did string out I got DROPPED!!! At this point I knew something must be wrong, so I pulled over to check out my bike. A quick visual inspection revealed nothing out of the ordinary – no brakes rubbing, no flat tires, no gremlins slowly dismantling my bike. I looked back to see the Chris Foster train rounding the corner, so I quickly remounted my bike and got up to speed. I joined Chris’ chase group, regrouped mentally, helped out a bit in the pace line and eventually re-made the front pack. Huh? I just got dropped by these guys, how am I helping to bridge back up? The rest of the bike was hard for me as the accelerations out of each turn were almost too much for me to handle. Onto the run my struggle continued and I fought hard for 48th place. Ouch!
Needless to say it is my opinion that this race doesn’t reflect my current fitness in any way. The only other time I felt that bad in a race was the 2008 Scott Tinley’s Adventure’s Triathlon where I got beat by almost everyone including the girls! Ha, I’m pretty pathetic sometimes. Anyways, it’s back to the training for now and I should be back to racing in Hamburg next month.
Seoul
The race in Seoul didn’t go as planned but just like I found out in Mooloolaba, Sydney and St. Anthony’s I need to re-evaluate my swim program. Fortunately I have five weeks until my next race (HyVee) – Good thing I have these big training blocks to work with! Although my race was a disaster it didn’t stop me from having some fun post race. It’s not often I do sightseeing at races but I went out to see some of the more interesting parts of Seoul and also got some Korean BBQ for dinner.
Me with my rental car.
This was the final racing voyage of the Orbea Orca that used to have a big hole in the top tube.
Korean BBQ!
First Coast Kids Triathlon…and on to Seoul!
I grabbed my first win of the season yesterday – at the First Coast Kids Triathlon in Jacksonville! Actually, since I was around in Florida for some sea level training and St. Anthony’s (kind of) before Seoul I made my way up to Jacksonville to help out and be a ‘celebrity big kid’ for the second year in a row. With more than 1000 kids racing the First Coast Kids Triathlon is the largest kids triathlon in the United States, and each age group gets assigned a few ‘big kids’ to help them out. The celebrities, as they call them, range from firefighters, police sergeants, or navel officers to Ironman finishers and myself, the professional triathlete. The kids look like they have a ton of fun and hopefully we make it a little better! Later on after all of the kids age groups finish all of the big kids race each other. As the only triathlete in the field who calls it his profession I was picked by most to take home the title.
I helped out the 11-12 age group this year.
In other news I am on my way to Seoul for the second round of the World Championship Series. Training is going well so I can’t wait to see what I can do!
Jarrod, Alicia and me on the early A.M. Orlando to San Fran flight.
St. Anthony’s 2010
For those who asked: I did race in St. Anthony’s this past weekend…but I didn’t finish. My coach and I decided for numerous reasons to not do the race in its entirety. I did leave myself the option of doing the whole thing in case I felt absolutely spectacular…but that didn’t happen. My next race is the Seoul WCS and I will definitely be ready to go for that!
But that doesn’t mean that the St. Anthony’s course was completely deprived of the Collington clan this year – my Mom raced! She tried to do it last year when the swim was canceled and was unfortunately behind the cutoff this year of when the St. A’s race directors decided to shorten swim due to poor swim conditions (there was a vicious wind out of the southeast causing some major chop that got worse as the morning went on – waves 25 and beyond swam a shorter course). Either way she nearly finished an entire Olympic distance race and might be back for the whole thing next year…
My mom heading out onto the run…too fast for my iPhone camera!
