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.
Carlsbad 5000 – What Makes It So Fast?
The Carlsbad 5000 claims to be the “world’s fastest 5K,” and having raced this 5K road race yesterday I can say that it is very fast. I ran a PR of 15:12, more than a half minute faster than my previous best road time of 15:51. During the race I think I also set a PR in every distance from the 40 yard dash all the way to 5K – the race started in a dead sprint for the first turn, I ran through the mile in the front group in 4:42, hit two miles at 9:40, and three miles around 14:42. In retrospect it was a lot of fun to run the race in that manner (red lining from the gun), but during the race it kind of sucked. The winner of the pro men’s race ran a 13:19, 19 seconds away from the road 5K world record of 13:00 set at Carlsbad in 2000. Jarrod Shoemaker ran a blistering 14:13 to take 14th in the men’s pro race. In the end, though, the Carlsbad 5000 is just another road 5K – so what makes this course so fast?
Ethan made a good point that the course is actually slightly undulating and this makes it faster. As you run the course you work different muscles going up the slight uphill portions than on the slight downhill portions. Consequently certain muscles are “resting” while others are working, making the runners fatigue less quickly. Another reason is the quality of field – there were over 8,000 runners at the race divided over five races. My race alone (men & women 29 and under) had over 1,700 runners. My time of 15:12 would win 99% of local road races in my home town of Orlando but only got me fifth in my race (13th overall in the age group catagories). I had a group of runners to run with all the way up to around 4K, and this pacing definitely helped me go faster. However, I think that the biggest reason everyone runs fast on this course is that everyone just thinks that the course is fast. Carlsbad is just a normal road 5K course (in fact it has two u-turns that definitely are not fast), but almost everyone goes into the race thinking they are going to run fast and in turn almost everyone does just that!
Mark Fretta leading the men’s 29 and under race in 2006.
Steve, Ethan and I went to hand out awards at the Carlsbad kiddie’s races on Saturday.
Australia
The Mooloolaba World Cup was last weekend. I crashed out. I had a decent swim, a so-so first transition, and then crashed out on the first lap of the bike. It’s tough traveling halfway across the world and coming back with nothing, but overall I’m pretty happy about the way things turned out after crashing: I’m not hurt (x-rays on my right wrist came back as negative for fractures which is awesome!), my bike is mostly functional (I need a new derailleur hanger), and other than a little road rash that’s about all the crash did to me. I’m very lucky – considering the speed I was going when I crashed and the amount of people who subsequently ran over me, I would think I wouldn’t be so well-off.
Anyways, rather than focusing on how I traveled 15,000 miles and came back with nothing but a sprained wrist, I’m going to focus on why Australia was actually a lot of fun:
Mooloolaba is on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. It’s a cool place.
Tim Tams. Amazing. I ate half a box of these after I DNF’d.
Meat pies. It’s a pie but it’s a meal! Delicious.
Matt Chrabot, Ben Collins and I rented an apartment for a week. This means we could cook for ourselves if we wanted. Being that I never get to cook anything anymore (I live at the OTC), I jumped at the chance. I put on my sunglasses because this onion was making my eyes water.
The glasses didn’t work so I busted out the goggles.
On the way back Matt and I got into the Air New Zealand lounge in Sydney. I don’t normally drink champagne at noon on Mondays but it was there so how could I refuse?
Ecuador…So Weird!
“Why are you here? That’s so weird!”
This statement pretty much sums up the whole experience in Playas, Ecuador last weekend. I suppose if you are a middle-aged Ecuadorian visiting your favorite vacation destination with your family, driving around the Playas downtown area in your Ford Pinto-esque vehicle (with a passenger to seat belt ratio easily exceeding 1.0), and you see five Gringos (The American delegation) walking around with ice cream cones in their hands on a Sunday evening, you can’t help but to just roll down your window and yell, “Why are you here? That’s so weird!” I couldn’t have said it better if I tried!
The trip down was easy enough – a red eye from LAX to Panama City and then a short hop down to Guayaquil, Ecuador (well, I should say that the trip down was easy for Chris Foster and me – Steve Sexton, on the other hand, had possibly the worst trip in the history of taking trips, what with being stranded in Panama City due to passport issues for a good 12 hours or the fact that he collapsed 30ft from the finish line in the race due to heat stroke). Anyways, after the flights it was just a short two hour van ride to Playas. In the United States the van that we took would best be described as a “ten passenger van,” but Ecuador was not about to be limited to such a small number (see picture below). Oh, and our driver took us to her house in Guayaquil before we left and we got to meet her purple dog:
Adults and/or kids. Ha!
I’m pretty sure this dog doesn’t know that somebody spray painted it purple.
I visited Ecuador back in 2005 to see my brother who was teaching English in Cuenca at the time and I can vouch for the fact that Ecuador is a beautiful country. In fact, Ecuador is unique in that it is sort of a microcosm of everything South America has to offer with the Pacific coastline to the west, the Andes mountains cutting through the middle of the country, and the rain forest in the east. However, having said that, I’ll just say that Playas did not live up to that hype at all. Run down roads and buildings, creepy uninhabited sky rise hotels – Why did you hold a triathlon here? That’s just weird!
The race was the most normal thing I did all week. It was pretty textbook. I stayed near the front on the swim and the bike (no heroics or attacking). Two Japanese athletes and a Puerto Rican attacked on the bike and got a 50 second lead going into the run. Out of T2 I paced behind two Brazilian athletes, accelerated on them at around 4k, and caught the final Japanese athlete around 5k. At this point it was around 12:30 PM, 95 degrees, and ridiculously humid. I had a pretty big gap so I just tried to survive – no collapsing right before the finish line! I held on pretty easily (it helped that the run course was only 5.3 miles) and crossed the line to win my first race as a professional! Sweet! Oh and for those that are wondering why it took me 50 minutes and 40 seconds to run 5.3 miles (that’s what the results say), that split is actually the last three laps of the bike + T2 + the run. I don’t know why that happened other than to maximize the weirdness.
This is about 2k into the run.
Chris and I got giant oysters after the race. Don’t worry, it’s cooked.
In other news I spent the night in the emergency room last Wednesday. This race in Ecuador was possibly my last trip south of the border to score ranking points and I thought I had made it out of this phase of my career completely unscathed. About 24 hours after I returned I was having stomach issues and 12 hours after that I had lost 11 lbs, couldn’t eat or drink anything without it coming back up, and had to go the the ER for testing and three 1000 mL IVs. I’m fine now and back to training so no worries! I’m 99% sure it wasn’t the oyster…
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!
San Fran Race Report
Or,
How I Ended Up in Kenya 45 Hours Later
As I mentioned previously the San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island was a pretty good race for me. Yes, my run wasn’t nearly as it dominant as it has been throughout the year, and I know my ninth place finish might not look like anything special. However, I managed to do something I haven’t done all year and that is why it was such a great result to have heading into the off season – I made the front pack on the bike!
Race Start – 12 PM PST
On the pontoon. Pictures are courtesy of Steve Sexton using my camera.
Before the horn.
The race started and the water was something stupid like 55 degrees. I started on the right with Brian Fleischmann and Ethan. Ethan led to the first buoy with Brian and me in tow. Brian took over the pace making soon thereafter and strung our pack out into a long line for the rest of the swim. At the time I didn’t know that a huge gap separated my group from the main field.
Race Start + 0:18:53
Exiting the swim.
As I exited the water I found myself at the back of a very select front pack of nine athletes – it was a who’s who of American swimmers: Brian Fleischmann, John Dahlz, Dave Kuendig, Ben Collins, Victor Plata, Joe Umphenour, Ethan, me, and some dude from New Zealand or Canada or something. This is dangerous territory for me – I have been in the back of the front swim pack many times this year and my record isn’t very good for making the front bike pack: five for ten. 50% is pretty bad, and what’s more is that the times I did miss the front pack were when it mattered most – World Cups, World University Games, and US Elite Nationals to name a few. So I blazed through T1 and hammered at the start of the bike, eventually solidifying myself into a very select front pack of seven athletes about one minute up on the second pack.
The front pack.
We stayed away the whole time with only Matt Reed and Matt Chrabot bridging up to us. Cries of “The Matts are coming! The Matts are coming!” eminated from our pack for the first two laps – once they caught us the pace picked up as they attacked and counterattacked, effectively making my life miserable for about 40 minutes.
Francisco Serrano and Michael Raelert leading the second pack in.
Race Start + 01:22:10
Once out onto the run course I felt the effects of getting worked by such a small, volatile bike pack. Four athletes passed me from the second pack – hey, that’s normally what I have to do!
Victor Plata is hurrrting, but he won.
Race Start + 01:57:01
I held on for a solid ninth place finish. It was nice to accomplish something I haven’t done all year long, plus I made more money in one day than I ever have in triathlon with an eighth place overall finish in the TriCalifornia series and my ninth place race finish. Sweet! After all, this is my job.
Race Start + 07:55:00
I’m on the runway at SFO about to take off for Orlando. I do not recommend trying to fly out on the same day as a race. Between waiting for awards, getting back to the hotel, and packing everything, I was hard pressed to get to the airport on time.
Race Start + 22:24:00
I’m on the runway in Orlando – taking off again. I arrived in Orlando that morning at six AM and had about a seven hour layover. I took a one hour nap – my only sleep since before the race and the only sleep I would get for a long time. Next stop – Detroit.
Race Start + 33:30:00
Somewhere over the North Atlantic. As you might imagine, I’m quite sore from the race at this point. Two hours to Amsterdam and 12 hours to go.
Race Start + 059:30:00
After arriving in Nairobi the night before, getting six hours of much needed sleep and driving five hours out of Nairobi into the Kenyan highlands I found myself in Southwest Kenya on the Maasai Mara Game Reserve with my roommate from college, Ashish, who met me in Nairobi (he was coming from Thailand). After the safari we stayed with his family who lives in Nairobi.
Safari day one: it’s getting stormy on the Maasai land.
The Great Rift Valley – this is near where the fast runners come from.
Snapping some photos of some hippos.
A big old lion.
Giraffes!
We bribed a park worker at the Nairobi zoo to let us into the Cheetah cage.
Ashish and me at the giraffe park in Nairobi.
San Fran
I just got home from the last race of the season – the San Francisco Continental Cup – and I have to say it was probably the most solid performance of my entire race season! Speaking of the 2008 season, it’s been a long one. I started on January 6th in Chile and have done 16 races since, spanning 10 full months. I’ve flown over 97,000 miles and raced in eight different countries on five different continents. But I guess that’s the norm for this sport which is pretty great.
So right now it’s time for some much needed relaxation. In fact, I’m headed out on vacation right now! Thanks to all of the loyal readers of KevinCollington.com (my parents and…well, that might be it) for sticking with me this season. I promise to continue to give the inside look at what it’s like to be a developing young athlete racing on the international triathlon circuit, all while upholding all of the often overlooked rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling!
Survivor Mexico
To get right down to business, and to fill in those of you who watched the live coverage from this past weekend’s Huatulco World Cup on what exactly happened to me, I got dropped from the front pack 15K into the bike. To be more specific, I got dropped on the 20% grade climb we had to do each lap of the eight lap bike course. I didn’t finish the race. But on to more interesting things…
I flew into the small resort town of Huatulco last Thursday on the plane I mentioned in my last posting – the fokker 100. The fokker was everything I dreamed of and more! A small regional jet, it barely fit 25% of the luggage of the people heading down to Huatualco. Only Ethan received his bike and luggage on-time. The lost baggage line stretched out of the airport’s main “area” and out into the loading/unloading zone at its peak length (I would say main “building” except that the Huatulco airport is made of tiki huts).
The Fokker. I might be the only person who is amused by this.
In addition to all of the triathletes traveling with bike boxes, several reality TV stars were on our flight to start filming VH1′s newest reality TV show I Love Money 2, which is being filmed in Huatulco. I Love Money 2 is a show that takes reality TV stars from other reality TV shows and makes a new reality TV show! I never would have recognized them but Jarrod Shoemaker did. They also did not receive their baggage and they were not pleased. They threw a fit, but considering the depth of character required to star in a show called I Love Money 2, I wasn’t surprised.
Jarrod later found out that the show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern also filmed a show in the exact spot we were staying (Santa Cruz Bay in Huatulco). This happens to be one of my favorite shows, right behind Good Eats with Alton Brown. Apparently Huatulco is known for its pulpo (octopus) and mariscos (shellfish).
A view of Santa Cruz Bay from my hotel.
Onto the race: The swim was two laps – one 1000 meter lap followed by one 500 meter lap. I found myself about 10 meters off the back of the main swim pack after exiting the first lap of the swim but somehow managed to time trial myself back up to the front of the main pack by the end of the second lap. This would be my only pleasing performance of the whole race! Out onto the bike I settled into the front pack without much effort. Then came the hill – I got dropped a little bit on the first lap but managed to descend back into the group. I got dropped even more on the second lap but again I descended back in. On the third lap I got dropped for good.
A cool shot from triathlon.org. From the bottom left, Matt Reed, Matt Chrabot, me, and Ethan Brown in T1.
I dropped out of the race after riding another lap by myself and realizing I would eventually be lapped out. The race became very much a race of survival. The group went over the climb five more times with various people being dropped, some getting back on and some not. By the time the run started for the men’s race it was around 100 degrees (F) and 98% humidity in blazing sun. Everyone appeared to be suffering except eventual race winner Kris Gemmell and Jarrod who got second. The Americans did quite well, placing 2nd, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, and 17th.
After the race I got to sample some of the local cuisine at the post-race awards dinner. I’m not exactly sure what it was that I ate, but I narrowed it down to three possibilities: Calamari, octopus, or shellfish. It was all wrapped up in a burrito-type thing. Whatever it was, it was delicious! And after the dinner the Mexican team decided to throw everyone into the ocean and we had lots of fun.
A jellyfish sting I got the day before the race.
World Cups and Local Racing
My second-to-last race of the season is coming up this weekend, and I’m pretty excited! I’m flying down to the middle-of-nowhere Mexico for the last World Cup of 2008. “Middle-of-nowhere” isn’t even an exaggeration – the city of Huatulco, Mexico is definitely hard to get to for a major international race. I, for one, will be flying into Huatulco on an airplane called a “Fokker 100″ which sounds just great. Here’s a map:
Huatulco is a Mexican tourist development in the southern state of Oaxaca. The Mexican government agency FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Turismo) acquired the area that is now Huatulco back in 1984 to develop it into a tourist area similar to Cancun or Ixtapa. A major difference is that, unlike Cancun and Ixtapa, FONATUR decided to put in adequate waste water management before development started. This is good because development in Huatulco isn’t scheduled to finish until 2020 and I do plan on using the restroom this weekend.
I was pretty worried about my fitness after Scott Tinley’s as I got a bit sick and couldn’t finish workouts. But I’m better now and I ran in a local 5 mile road race this past weekend and had a decent showing. I ran strong with the leaders for 4 miles before getting my doors blown off in the last mile, but I had a PR by 2.5 minutes at 26:01 (I last ran a 5 miler in 2005 and yes, I run a lot faster now!). Anyways, it seems I’m ready to tackle this last race.
Mile 4.9999 of the 5 miler.
I think my brakes are rubbing. Oh wait, no they’re not.
That is what was going through my mind yesterday at Scott Tinley’s Adventures. As it turns out my brakes weren’t rubbing, I was just having an off day. A really bad horribly awful off day. Even the weather was bad – it varied from a misty rain to a moderate downpour all morning.
It was an uncharacteristically wet day in San Luis Obispo.
It wasn’t all bad – my swim felt great. Things went downhill from there as I got out onto the bike in the rain and immediately got passed by almost every single person in the race. I checked my brakes a lot but every time I looked I could see daylight between my wheel and brakes.
Jill Petersen won the women’s race.
It turns out bad races can be pretty funny. There’s really no shortage of jokes that can be made about getting out-rode by the first place girl (and to make it worse Jill was riding a road bike with clip on bars and clincher deep dish wheels. I won’t tell you what bike I was riding but you can find a picture of it if you scroll down far enough).
The men’s podium. From left to right: Chris Tremonte (10th), some guy named Reto (8th place), Kevin Everett (6th), Chris Stehula (4th), Ethan (2nd), Brian Fleischmann (1st), Victor Plata (3rd), Matt Balzer (5th). Not pictured – Ryan Bickerstaff (7th) and John Dahlz (9th).
Brian gave a nice victory speech.
JD Money!
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.
Chicago
The Chicago Triathlon was last weekend. I hadn’t been to Chicago since I was very young so I was excited to go back (normally the Chicago airport is just a layover en route to another destination so it was odd to actually leave the airport in a car). Also exciting was my new TT bike (a brand new Orbea Ordu). Thanks to Matt Moss at Florida Bicycle Sports for helping me get this bike and fitting me to a great aero-position. Until Chicago I had never raced on a real TT bike before – I always just changed my trusty road bike into a TT bike with some clip on bars. So, the question is: Does a TT bike make a difference? I’ll get to that a bit later.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I was supposed to go home to Florida last week to get some sweet racing wheels so my bike would look a little bit like this:
However, because of tropical storm Fay I stayed in Colorado all last week and went straight to Chicago on the Friday before the race. I spent most of Saturday trying to find a set of race wheels and a way to carry more water on my bike. Thanks to my friend Aaron Kamnetz for letting me use his race wheels!
Anyways, on to the race: I had an awesome swim, exiting the water in the front pack about 10 seconds back. I bumbled around a bit in T1 and lost about 15 seconds to a group containing Andy Potts, Brent McMahon, Steven Hackett going into the bike. Generally this means I will never see these athletes ever again as my strategy on the bike is usually to just limit my losses. However, I completely surprised myself when I actually caught back up to those guys. I caught the group about 10K in.
At this point I was very excited about how my race was going. So excited that when I took a drink out of my water bottle I dropped it and found myself with not nearly enough liquids to adequately fuel myself for the rest of the race. I rode the rest of the bike with only what was in my aero-drink bottle that I had purchased at the race expo the day before.
Onto the run: I ran the first 4 miles pretty conservatively. I was safely in the top 10 and guaranteed a decent paycheck – I didn’t want to be the guy who collapsed 100 meters from the finish. However, when I tried to ramp it up in the last 2 miles, nothing happened. I wasn’t hurting but my legs refused to go any faster. I think this was from training at altitude for the previous 6 weeks. I had no concept of leg speed but tons of cardio fitness. I crossed the line in 8th place.
Overall this race changed my perspective on non-draft races. It’s nice to know I can stay in the game on the bike and not just wait for the run. And yes, a TT bike does make a difference – just make sure to get fit to the bike by somebody who knows what they’re doing!
The Chicago skyline.
Tisza in Pictures
Manny, me, and Steve before the swim start.
The top 20 athletes got called to the stage at the party on Sunday night. This is the women’s top 20.
The crowd.
Matt Chrabot and me on stage.
The men’s podium.
Hamburg Race Report
The Hamburg World Cup is an awesome race. Run with German precision, the race is usually quite a spectacle for the people of Hamburg (Hamburgers!). Last year an estimated 300,000 people came out to watch the World Champs and it wasn’t much different at this year’s race where I managed to finish 18th. With that I am now world ranked! 77th! However, I won’t say I had the best race of my life. In fact, a little bit more attention to detail could have gone a long way.
As for the course, the swim is usually a wetsuit-legal 2 lap swim, the bike follows a very technical eight lap course through the city, and the run is a flat and fast four lap course. This year, however, the Binnenalster (where we swam) was a balmy 20.6 degrees so no wetsuits!
The race went off at 3:07 PM (as I said, German precision!) and I got out to a quick start. There were only 39 guys on the starting line mainly due to the Olympics being next month, but also because a lot of guys were racing the French Grand Prix taking place the next day. I had decent starting position and got out to a surprisingly quick start. I hit the first buoy in good position and this was when I made my first mistake: Somebody a few meters ahead of me let a gap open up and I didn’t notice. The gap widened and I didn’t see it until they were 30 seconds up! I went to the front of what was now the second swim pack and tried to close the gap with little success. After the first 1000 meter lap I exited the water and struggled up the pontoon before diving in for the second 500 meter lap. I thought I was done for until I finished the second lap and noticed I was out of the water with some very good guys! Brad Kahlefeldt bounded up the stairs next to me and I knew he might be my ticket to the front pack.
Then came mistake #2: I completely botched my first transition. I struggled to get my helmet on. Finally I got out onto the bike and the four athletes I exited the water with were about 10 seconds up. I knew I had to get on and I chased hard for about 5 minutes. I held even with them until I completely blew up. I fell back and eventually found some company (including Steve Sexton and Ethan Brown, my travel buddies for this Euro racing tour). As it turns out we eventually brought back Kahlefeldt’s group of four and our second pack became 18 strong. Then here is mistake #3: I lost track of what lap of the bike we were on. I think everyone in my pack did except Ethan, who attacked on what everyone thought was lap seven (but was actually lap eight, the final lap). He got a decent gap into T2 while I was one of the last into T2.
I salvaged my 18th position on the run by posting somewhere around 33 minutes for the 10k, which combined with a small field helped put me in the top 20 and thus score 3 points in the World Cup rankings! I don’t know my exact splits because I had no chip (although the ITU did fabricate some splits for me on the results).
After the race we had the pleasure of meeting ITU president Les McDonald – he had one question for us: What is the capital of Canada? The answer is Ottawa. But ask yourself seriously – did you know that? Fortunately Steve answered correctly on only his second guess. Apparently Les asks this to a lot of American athletes and our track record for correct answers isn’t very good…
Me, Ethan, and Steve after the race. Les stupides Américains!
Hamburg World Cup
The Hamburg World Cup starts in just a few hours…you can watch this one live if you want!
WUC Race Report – Long Version
Here is the long version:
We arrived in Turkey after relatively uneventful travel from the States (I did get upgraded to business class for the Chicago – Frankfurt leg, though, which was awesome). We were greeted by some FISU staff and made preparations to leave for Erdek. We just missed the 12:30 ferry to Erdek and the next one wasn’t until 6:30 so the FISU guys got a bus for everyone who had arrived around the time we did (this included the British, Greek and Chinese teams). We soon learned two important facts about how things operate in Turkey that would become the theme for the week – there will never be enough space on the bus and everything will take at least twice as long as the Turkish race delegations tells you. We were told that the bus would be quicker than waiting for the next ferry since it is only a “five hour drive,” so after barely fitting everyone and their luggage on the bus (bike boxes took up several seats) we set off for Erdek. We arrived in the city nearly eight hours later to find that everyone who had taken the 6:30 ferry was already sitting down to eat dinner. We had basically gone half way around the Sea of Marmara via Izmit.
The days leading up to the race were characterized by odd food served at the hotel (not ideal for pre-race), run-ins with the hotel staff (mostly concerning keeping our bikes in the hotel rooms or acquiring water from the restaurant), and of course the shuttles that ran on Turkish time.
Our hotel – the Agrigento
Several changes were made to the race course and time line the day before the race. First, the bike course was changed from four laps (10k per lap) to eight laps (5k per lap). This eliminated the only flat portion of the course and made athletes climb a somewhat large hill (8% to 10% and around 1k in length) 16 times. The swim was changed to an in-water start due to the large number of athletes in the men’s race (81 starters). Also, the men’s and women’s race times were switched so that the women raced first at 1 pm and the men raced later at 4 pm.
Race day finally came and the weather was almost perfect – sunny and clear (but hot!). I rolled up to the race site about 1.5 hours early along with the rest of the American men’s team and heard the announcer going on about Justine Whipple – she was currently leading the women’s race with 2 laps to go on the run! This was certainly a good start to the day. Justine crossed the finish line to take the gold medal as we were setting up our transitions. I did some swim warm up with Ethan and waited for introductions to take place. I was the last American athlete to choose my start position (numbers were assigned randomly and I was 69). We hopped in the water and held onto the start rope. I braced myself for my least favorite type of triathlon swim start – the in-water start.
The horn went off and I got pummeled for about 100 meters before things started to settle down. I lost about 20 meters. I settled into a big pack and started to try to move up. After about 1200 meters I sighted to the lead swimmer going around a buoy and got a time gap of about 25 seconds to me. I exited the water 28 seconds back feeling good about my position especially since I was surrounded by a lot of people.
The start of the bike was where things started to go bad for me. Despite a large lead pack of swimmers, a gap had formed as some talented cyclists at the front were pushing the pace and other less talented cyclists were falling back. I made the first turn and was greeted by a 20 mph headwind and the first hill. I couldn’t close the gap by myself and the second pack formed around me. The good news was that Steve Sexton and Ethan Brown were in the front pack. The gap continued to grow each lap – 30 seconds after lap 1, 50 seconds at lap 2, 70 seconds at lap 3. Finally the bleeding stopped when a contingent of Swiss athletes joined us. The Swiss along with the four Czech athletes in the second pack closed the gap back to 50 seconds at lap 4. I was just along for the ride – I didn’t want to help close a gap to Steve and Ethan. Anyways, the gap was staying steady at around 60 seconds each lap. A few of the Czech athletes got a little heated since they were the only ones steadily doing any work – they yelled something I couldn’t understand but I got the point. They didn’t seem to understand that they were the only team with nobody in the front pack! The bike course was extremely hard anyways so nobody was “sitting in.” We came into T2 down by 70 seconds on the leaders.
The run is pretty easy to explain – I had the best run of my life splitting 32 minutes. I ran down the majority of the front pack and had the 3rd fastest run of the day. It was kind of bittersweet, though, since that run would have put me on the podium had I been in the front pack. However, with my sixth place finish, Steve Sexton in seventh, and Barrett Brandon in 15th, some quick calculations showed that we pulled off a silver medal in the team standings!
After a quick shower and a bit of recovery time we were off to the awards ceremony. We had to wait for a second bus to show up and pick us up (much to the surprise of the race delegation, 200 people still didn’t fit into one bus!). The team awards ceremony started as soon as we arrived and we were very surprised to find out that our men’s team had, in fact, won the gold medal! We got to stand on top of the podium and everything!
However, after checking the math we found that the race delegation had made a mistake and we had actually placed second (as we had originally calculated). The Swiss team had won without a doubt, so we went over to their table and had a slightly impromptu medal ceremony:
Fortunately the Swiss also had a 5 athlete team so everyone got the correct medal – silver for the USA and gold for Switzerland!
Update
Our FISU World University Championship team…if you look 3 people from the left you’ll see Justine Whipple, World University Champion!
European Adventure
It’s time to race again! I’m off to Europe today for three races in as many weeks.
It all starts this weekend at the FISU World University Championship in Erdek, Turkey. Both our men’s and women’s teams are very strong and were recently described as the ”strongest team we have ever taken to the FISU race” by FISU coach Andy Schmitz. Here is the roster:
Men
Greg Billington (Spokane, Wash.) – 2007 USAT Junior Elite Athlete of the Year, 2007 USAT Junior National Champion, 2006, 2007 and 2008 USAT Junior Worlds Team Member, 2006 Junior Aquathlon World Champion
Barrett Brandon (Fort Worth, Texas) – 2004 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member, 2004 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2004 FISU Worlds Team Member
Ethan Brown (Lowell, Mass.) – 2007 USAT U23 National Champion, 2008 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Kevin Collington (Orlando, Fla.) – Kind of a big deal
Steve Sexton (Davis, Calif.) – 2008 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Women
Amanda Felder (Houston, Texas) – 2005 and 2008 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Lauren Goldstein-Kral (Shaker Heights, Ohio) – 2007 USAT Junior Elite Athlete of the Year, 2007-2008 USAT Junior Worlds Team Member
Jennifer Spieldenner (Findlay, Ohio) – 2005 USAT Junior National Champion, 2006 and 2007 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member
Justine Whipple (Duxbury, Mass.) – 2007 USAT U23 National Champion, 2006 and 2007 Collegiate National Champion, 2007 and 2008 U23 Worlds Team Member, 2007 and 2008 U.S. Armed Forces National Champion
Most of us get into Istanbul on Wednesday at which point we get on a ferry to take us across this Sea of Marmara to the city of Erdek, Turkey. Erdek is a popular tourist destination for Turkish citizens and is located on a peninsula in the southern part of the Sea of Marmara.
After the race in Erdek, Steve, Ethan and I are continuing on to Hamburg to race in the Hamburg World Cup the following weekend. The Hamburg World Cup is a pretty big event in Germany as more than 300,000 people usually line the streets on race day. Last year I raced here when it was the U23 World Championship.
Javier Gomez leading the run in last year’s Triathlon World Championship in Hamburg
The following weekend Steve and I are continuing on yet again to race in the Tiszaujvaros World Cup in Hungary. I’m not quite sure what to expect here but I do know that the event is a very big deal in the small town of Tiszaujvaros. Looks like a fun race to me.
