Happy New Year!
I am SO TIRED of looking at my post from Guatape. And after battling not one but TWO viruses on my website in the past month I found myself looking at that post a lot. I must post something new! If you visited my website you may have been notified that it was an “attack” site. I’m sorry if my website attacked you. Very aggressive, my website. Just like real-life Kevin. The Google Reader users out there can pay no mind to this apology.
I’m starting to race early this year at the Pan American Championship in La Paz, Argentina on January 15th. This is a race I always wanted to do but could never justify – with the most ridiculous travel for any triathlon EVER and also the race date in mid January it just never made sense. Now that I am being forced to go in order to solidify my start at Olympic Trials in May I’m happy to make the trip. Speaking of the Olympics, the men’s team is wide open. It’s ON!! With eight weeks of solid training in the Florida heat under my belt I AM ready to go for La Paz! No negative affirmations here.
May 2012 be full of happiness and free of attack websites!
2012 – another year with PAULO at the helm. Thanks to Lauren Harrison for the pic.
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.
Live From Saint George
My life on the road continues. I stayed in Boulder long enough to adapt to altitude and learn that it’s best to pay with cash at Amante and then it was back in the car and off to Paulo Sousa‘s training camp in St. George, UT. This was certainly not in my plans when I left Florida in May but a cross-country drive does provide lots of time to think things over…
There are no races on my schedule – just getting the work done, carrying water, chopping wood and all that!
The Triathlon Squad at Sand Hollow State Park. The water is 22C so I don’t get a wetsuit (ITU rules)!
Back to Training
Long ago I theorized on Twitter that when an athlete is injured he or she will generally not blog for the duration of the problem. Being a regular reader of many athlete’s blogs I noticed that sometimes a normally routine blogger would go months without an update. What am I supposed to read with my morning coffee if nobody is blogging?! Later I would find out that the athlete was injured. Having never been injured myself (before these past few weeks) I never really knew what caused this blog neglect. Most athletes report that injuries are simply an incredibly depressing state of affairs and obviously this doesn’t lead to any writing inspiration. However, I now know the real reason behind the whole issue is this: NOTHING HAPPENS WHILE YOU’RE INJURED!!! No racing, no traveling, nothing! And my daily routine of swim/bike/rehab is definitely not blogworthy. The good news is that as of last week I’m back to running – pain free!
I would be in Mexico for the Monterrey World Cup right now but instead I’m sitting here eating breakfast at Panera. I’m definitely bummed about missing this opportunity to race another World Cup but Mexico is currently number one on “Kevin’s list of least favorite places to race” so I’m not that bummed. Good luck to everyone racing (especially Mark Fretta who took my start spot). May the host hotel not get raided by masked gunmen this year!
The swim start in Monterrey last year. Not scoring Olympic points this weekend sucks, but not having to go to Mexico is awesome!
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.
200s
Did some 200m repeats last Thursday.
A text from coach reads: “Arms are too long and feet too inactive.”
Felt pretty active at the time!
More of them tomorrow!
The beard is gone.
The Fitness Beard
So I have a beard. This isn’t to say it’s a great beard. In fact it’s probably only a step away from “patchy facial hair,” but I think it just barely squeezes by the threshold of beard status.
I started growing the beard on the first day of training for 2011, so I started calling it “the fitness beard.” Training is going really well down here in Florida – the beard has almost 11 weeks of fitness in it! Unfortunately for the beard one weekend spent in Gainesville with old college friends earned it less desirable nicknames.
The beard week 11: in terms of masculinity does the fact that I have a beard make up for taking a small white dog for a walk?
The beard made sense in Colorado – it kept me warm on the bike. Now that I’m in Florida it just hinders the application of sunscreen. A more important development is that no fewer than three girls say that with the beard I look like Ryan Gossling from the movie “The Notebook.” I’ve never seen the movie but apparently this is a good thing! Their boyfriends/husbands said I look like Abe Lincoln. I guess I would be OK with either.
The beard week five: Sarah Haskins had to get a picture with Ryan Gossling at Brian Fleischmann’s wedding reception.
The beard is apparently a topic of dinner conversation at the OTC even after my departure. A text from Sarah Groff the other day read “has Kevin shaved?” Nope, not yet! Also, Ethan Brown is destroying me in the pool right now, but I have this beard so that’s OK, right?
My beard is not nearly as cool as Sam Beam’s beard (AKA Iron and Wine). The new album accompanies me back and forth from Clermont several times a week.
To be completely honest the beard is really annoying – it has to go sometime soon!
Are We There Yet??
Last week I set off from the cold, snowy north in search of a warmer climate to spend the winter months, the destination being central Florida and Jarrod Shoemaker’s training group. My plan was to stop to visit a few friends in Texas on the way and get in some training while also breaking up the long drives. All went to plan except for the training part. Whether it was a bad salad from a Subway in Amarillo (not sure there is such a thing as a good Subway salad actually) or a final parting blow from the Olympic Training Center in the form of a nasty stomach virus (as usual I blame the wrestlers) I don’t know, but I can say I got sicker than I have in a long time. Ugh!
The first leg of the trip was a long drive from Colorado Springs to Fort Worth, TX to visit Barrett Brandon. I left the training center feeling good and in high spirits, but arrived feeling quite the opposite of that. The rest of the week was downhill from there with most training sessions being replaced by naps and my normally scheduled naps being replaced by longer naps. Friday I finally started to feel better, made my way down to Austin, TX, and got in some easy swim/bike/run days to get back into things. On a side note: Austin, TX is awesome. After that a short drive to Houston followed by a long drive the next day to Florida finished things up. Another side note: Houston, TX is not awesome.
I can already tell that coming to Florida for the winter was a good decision. Today is about as cold as it gets here (in the 30s F) and the Coloradoan in me said it was warm out! Training will feature quite a bit of volume and intensity over the next few months and I’m looking forward to all of it!
600 Days!
That’s right – 600 days until London! That’s still a long way off, though…maybe it seems closer because the first US Olympic selection race is less than eight months away. I certainly have a lot of work to do if I plan to get a top nine finish in London next August, but all I can do is work hard and hopefully I’ll get there. I’m also hoping this wonderful Fall weather holds up in Colorado Springs until I leave for warmer climes in January!
Clearwater in Four Days!
It’s been awhile since my last post, but to be honest absolutely NOTHING of note happened to me since I arrived home from Mexico three weeks ago. However, with only four days to go until my last race of the season – Ironman 70.3 World Champs – I figured I should at least get a short update on here no matter the boredom I inflict upon you, my poor readers. So read on if you dare, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!
So how goes the training in the lead up to Clearwater? I would describe it as ‘excellent!’ Over the past three weeks I logged normal swim volume, a few more hours on the bike than normal, and a lot more hours running than normal. This is the main reason for my lack of blogging – really good training blocks are often the most boring and uneventful time in the life of an athlete. I just ticked training session after training session off the schedule with relative ease, counting down the days to the end of the season.
This year’s lead up to Clearwater is in definite contrast with last year’s. Last year I raced the two weekends prior to Clearwater at the Amica Sprint Triathlon two weeks before and the Huatulco World Cup six days prior. It was a good plan at the time since Huatulco was the “A” race of the block so Clearwater took the back seat. This year, however, Clearwater is the goal so I made sure to have a full four weeks of uninterrupted training. Also, those Mexican race directors might not put on the best races but they certainly do have their post race parties down to a science. That certainly didn’t help my training for Clearwater 2009… but that’s a whole different story. Anyways, the point is I think I am a lot more prepared for the race in Clearwater this year than I was last year!
Pre-PATCO Champs
My last ITU race of the 2010 season is coming up this weekend with the PATCO Pan American Championship in Puerto Vallarta. I’m especially excited to race since it is a preview of next year’s Pan Am Games course, but not so excited to go to the country of Mexico. It could have been worse: had I also raced in this past weekend’s Huatulco World Cup it would have meant a massive 11 days in Mexico instead of my currently scheduled three day stay. It was sort of a gamble to skip Huatulco in terms of ranking points, but hopefully training/resting for PATCO champs will pay off.
Things are pretty quiet around the OTC lately as nearly everyone is racing in either Huatulco or Kona, or leaving to race in South Korea next weekend. I’m the only resident athlete left! The lack of distractions actually makes for some great training – I miss the swim squad in the mornings but other than that I can’t complain. It’s a good thing I have a Netflix account, though.
To pass the time I went up to Boulder for a workout with my coach Bobby. It consisted of hard bike intervals on the Computrainer followed by hard run intervals through the neighborhood, all while overdressing to simulate the heat of Mexico. It was a great workout but very unpleasant.
Training since Budapest has been evenly split between ITU focus and 70.3 focus. I went up to Denver after returning from Tuscaloosa and Todd Carver of Retul checked up on my TT position. Since then at least half of my rides are on the Ordu getting ready for the 56 mile ride in Clearwater.
At this time next week I will be hanging up my road bike until 2011!
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.
Lots of Swimming
Since it is currently the time of year when I realize that my swim is awful and needs lots of work, I am throwing myself into every session I can reasonably attend with the swim squad here at the OTC. This does seem to be a yearly occurance – last year I found myself almost 1.5 minutes down from the lead swimmers at the Austin Pan Am Cup. Upon returning to training after the race I put in a massive swim block and exited the water in the front pack at HyVee. I’m hoping for similar results this year as HyVee is a little over three weeks away.
In other news it appears that my random twitter ruminations and Simon Whitfield’s re-tweets pulled Annabel Luxford from an injury induced writer’s block. It’s a great post by Annabel and definitely a recommended read – especially those who are currently injured (like Ms. Speildenner)!
Third, my new bikes are almost ready to go. Soon I’ll have a 2010 Orbea Orca and Ordu in matching blue with Di2. Thanks to Joe from Davis Wheel Works in Davis, CA for flying out here to put them together. He is the best mechanic I know! Below is a picture of how the Orca looked last night. I’m sure this nullifies my Orbea warranty…but running the Di2 cables internally (rather than externally and taped to the frame) will save me from the worry that the TSA will rip the cables off during baggage inspections. Also, it just looks better.
As for the Di2 (electronic Dura Ace), here is a great video on Simon Whitfield’s blog that explains how it works and why it’s awesome!
Noosa
Myself and most of the American team from Mooloolaba spent the past ten days in Noosa, Queensland. It didn’t make sense to come back to the United States before the first race in the 2010 World Championship Series in Sydney so we just stayed over! For those who don’t know, Noosa is a very popular destination for professional triathletes (especially during the northern hemisphere’s winter). It was easy to see why. Noosa is a muggy and tropical area – a lot like Florida in the summer. There are tons of bike lanes and unpaved trails to run on, and the Noosa Aquatic Center featured a 50m pool and a 25m pool which we frequented. Overall it is a great place to train and it might be a great way to escape the Colorado winter next year!
One of the best sessions up there was the open water swim session at main beach in Noosa Heads. All of the triathletes in town and a bunch of local surf life saving athletes get together on Wednesdays to do an open water practice. This must be how these Aussies get so good at surf run-ins and run-outs! There was one kid who couldn’t have been more than 15 years old that could seemingly find secret paths through the tide pools and sand bars. He easily put 25 meters on every run-in and caught waves into the shore on the run-outs to lengthen his lead. I’ll stick to pontoon starts for now but definitely want to work on those ocean skills for races like Mooloolaba.
Here are some pics:
The only track in Noosa is a grass surface track. I loved it but I’m a sucker for soft surfaces. You just have to keep in mind that if you’re running slow then you’re running normal, and if you’re running normal times then you’re running really fast!
Chris Foster doing a transition workout on the grass track.
Australian cities can have some odd names! Also, apparently Nambour = poo.
Day in the Life
I recently wrote an article for Team Evotri about what a day in the life of an Olympic training center resident athlete is like. Check it out:
Orbea
I’m really excited to announce that I will be riding Orbea bikes in 2010!
The 2010 Orca.
I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking, “Hey, didn’t you ride Orbea bikes last year and also the year before?” Yes I did, but this year I will be on brand new Orbeas since I am now officially a sponsored Orbea athlete! So instead of riding my 2008 Orca with its storied past (sold as a used bike on eBay by my local bike shop, shipped to the buyer, carbon frame pierced by a sharp piece of metal during shipment, shipped back to local bike shop, frame repaired by Calfee and given to local professional triathlete – me!), I will be on a brand new 2010 Orca and also a new 2010 Ordu for St. Anthony’s and Ironman 70.3 Worlds.
My 2008 Orca…it has quite the history.
Coaching
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that my coach and I scrambled to make alternate race schedules as it appeared my start spots at the first World Championship Series races of 2010 were in jeopardy. Since that post I received a few questions about my coaching situation and I realized I have failed to mention that I made a coaching change after last season. My coach is now Bobby McGee out of Boulder, CO. For those who don’t know Bobby he is almost entirely a running coach and usually only works with triathletes to improve their running skills. Most notably he works with the USAT National Teams, USAT coaching clinics, as well as the ITU Sport Development program. I first met him at a USAT development camp in Chula Vista, California in 2007 and worked with him sporadically at various USAT camps since then. Although he is primarily a running coach he does have extensive knowledge of triathlon through his experiences with USAT and the ITU. He is definitely the most brilliant coach I know and I’m excited to work with him full time. The system we have set up for coaching is a bit more complicated than I make it sound here but I will save those details for another post.
Bobby (left) working with USAT athletes Matt Chrabot, Sarah Haskins, Mark Fretta and Sarah Groff in Colorado Springs.
That being said I definitely have to thank the person who got me this far. Jennifer Hutchison ‘discovered’ me back in 2006 at a Junior Elite Development race in St. Leo, Florida, and even though she thought I was a girl while I was racing (she had no idea who I was and apparently my Speedo Fast Skin wasn’t very manly looking), she took a chance on coaching me. She basically took me from nothing (and I mean nothing) and turned me into a Collegiate National Champion and a world class triathlete. She was my coach, my nutritionist, my agent, and my number three supporter (behind my parents and her cat Pea the Devon Rex). What’s more, she was and is a great friend and I can’t thank her enough for all she did for me in my athletic career and my life. So if you’re reading this Jennifer, thanks and I’ll see you at St. Anthony’s!
Jennifer and me after St. Anthony’s last year.
South America Is Nice (But I’m Glad I’m Not Going Back)
This weekend a lot of my friends are heading down to Salinas, Ecuador to race in the ITU Pan American Cup there. The race in Salinas combined with the races last month in La Paz, Argentina, and Viña Del Mar, Chile, constitute the super-early season ITU race schedule in the Americas. I realized last night that this is the first year since 2007 that I am not racing in the early season. As a result, this is the first year since 2007 that I completed a full, uninterrupted base training block! I’m probably the only person who is excited about that. Anyways, there are a lot of things I will miss about South American racing. On the other hand there are even more things that I definitely WON’T miss:
Things I will miss about racing in South America:
1.) The adventure. There is nothing quite so adventurous as going to a third world/developing country to race a triathlon. In stark contrast to the organization of World Championship Series and World Cup races, racing in South America is not only a battle of who can swim, bike, and run the fastest, but also a contest to see who can show up on the start line in the best condition. At the time this can be stressful, but looking back on my South American races it seems like a lot of fun.
2.) Crazy South American race directors. Starting from the first time you email an RD in South America about their race it becomes obvious that things don’t happen in a logical manner south of the border. Pre-race meetings usually turn into a debate on how the ITU rules will be enforced. If you don’t like how the course is set up you can usually argue and get it changed. This is kind of fun and would never happen at a World Cup or World Champs race.
3.) The tropical locales. I’ll admit it – Colorado Springs in the winter is not the most temperate place in the world (it could be worse, though). I would love to get out of here and go somewhere warmer if only for a few days. When I went to Nevis in 2008 it was basically the spring break I never had. That is something I will miss.
Things I definitely won’t miss about racing in South America:
1.) The adventure. Sure, I like a good adventure every now and again, but on the other hand it sure will be nice to NOT have to deal with everything that can go wrong in South America for once. I am fortunate that all of my bad luck occurred after my races in South America – in 2008 I crashed and broke my bike on a training ride after the race in Viña Del Mar, Chile, and last year in Ecuador I ended up in the emergency room after returning to the states due to some sort of viral infection. My good luck (in the sense that I have been able to complete my races in South America before disaster strikes) may well be running out and I don’t want to test that.
2.) Crazy South American race directors. Again, the same things I will miss are the same things I won’t miss. If a South American RD tells you he is arranging an airport transfer for you then you can count on the transfer happening maybe 20% of the time. Everything else is similarly disorganized. It’s nice to be able to race in modern countries and just focus on racing rather than trying to figure out how to survive while also preparing for the race.
3.) Interrupting base training. I love a good early season base phase – it seems to serve me well. This is my tenth and final week of my base training phase. I also have on my schedule the most miles of running in one week EVER for me and I definitely don’t want to sacrifice that. Also, I would have missed the Super Bowl and that wouldn’t be cool.
4.) In no particular order: Dogs chasing me around the race course, pedestrians crossing the course during the race, poorly designed race courses, and preparing for the possibility of getting mugged at any time. Not fun!
Here are some pictures from my South American racing days:
In Chile in 2008. No taxi needed – we’ll just take the luggage cart down this main boulevard to get to the hotel!
Goats wandering the grounds of the airport in Nevis in 2008.
A dog that somebody spray painted purple in Ecuador last year.
Why Gainesville is Great for Winter Training
If you could go anywhere in the world for a winter training camp where would you go? I think most would answer one of the usual suspects: Hawaii, Southern California, Tucson, South Africa, Australia, etc. What about Gainesville, FL? Don’t laugh! It’s true: Gainesville is a spectacular winter training destination. In fact I just got back from a four week training camp there. Here’s why it’s great:
When most people think of training for triathlon in Florida they automatically think Clermont. With hills that seem almost out of place on the Florida landscape, a community that is known for supporting triathlon and cycling, and the National Training Center, Clermont really shines as a triathlon training destination. However, Clermont lacks sufficient unpaved running trails, and what if you want some flat riding? That’s where Gainesville comes in – with the world class training facilities at the University of Florida, countless miles of flat, safe cycling roads, and tons of unpaved trails to run on, Gainesville really is a great place to train for triathlon.
The foundation for athletic training in Gainesville is obviously the University of Florida. The biggest university in the state of Florida (and one of the biggest in the entire U.S.), it’s athletic facilities are world class. UF’s campus features two 50 meter pools (one indoor and one outdoor), a 25 yard pool, and a 50 yard pool (huh?), a competition quality outdoor track (and an indoor track if you want that), and quite a few on-campus running trails. For the few days of the year that UF’s facilities are closed (holidays) you can find a few off-campus pools to swim in (I know of two 25 yard pools and one 50 meter), so you will never be at a loss to find swimming access. Also, the track and field on campus never closes.
UF’s O’Connell Center outdoor 50 meter pool. This is where the Gator Swim Club masters team practices. The masters team is a great option and not too expensive. Plus you don’t have to do their workouts and you get access to a sweet pool. Not bad.
What about biking? Despite UF’s presence Gainesville remains a medium-sized city at best. 15 minutes of riding will get you out of the city and onto some of the best (albeit flat) back country roads around. In terms of safety it is uncommon to find a road without a large bike-only lane. In fact, the city has over 60 miles of road with bike lanes. Alachua county matches Gainesville’s obsession with bike lanes, as does Alachua’s southern neighbor Marion county. All this adds up to some serious cycling options. In fact, Gainesville was recently ranked in the top ten cycling communities in the U.S by Bicycling Magazine. If you want something more than just flat roads Clermont is only an hour’s drive south. It’s worth the drive and as a professional triathlete I certainly don’t have anything better to do with my time!
A double wide bike lane with rumble strips…awesome!
Running is where Gainesville really shines. With UF’s track and field program and facilities Gainesville is the winter destination of many professional distance runners and track athletes. Triathletes, though, will love the unpaved trails for all of those long winter miles. This includes but is not limited to Tobacco Road, the Jungle, Ring Park, and the biggest of them all: San Felasco State Park. San Felasco is literally big enough to run 20 miles or more without crossing your path. Any of these places can be readily pointed out by any savvy Gainesville runner, and be sure to run with a local for your first few times in San Felasco or you will surely get lost. I learned that the hard way.
If you’re looking to run some hills Gainesville will not disappoint. A few blocks north of campus between NW 8th street and NW 16th street you will find a neighborhood known by runners as the Frank Shorter loop (named after 1972 Olympic gold medalist and 1976 Olympic silver medalist Frank Shorter. He was also a member of the Gainesville-based Florida Track Club in the early ’70s). Here you will find all sorts of hills to run: short, steep climbs to longer more gradual grades. And if you’re doing speed work in the winter you can always get onto UF’s outdoor track, but why would you want to do track workouts in the winter? That is, unless you’re peaking for the F.A.S.T triathlon.
San Felasco trails.
If Gainesville has any drawbacks it is this: parking. UF campus is a nightmare for parking a car, and the neighborhoods surrounding the University are similar. If you plan on using any on campus facility you’re much better off having a bike. Or, better yet, a scooter. Also a problem is the ubiquitous college atmosphere. If you don’t like this sort of thing, or if you have trouble staying away from typical college town distractions, then perhaps Gainesville isn’t the place for you.
You might want one of these if you plan to swim on campus. Or you can just ride your bike.
In short, Gainesville is a great place to train in the winter. So if the usual suspects ever grow tiresome you know where to go!
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!
Altitude
Well I finally made it – I am now a resident athlete at the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center! “Made it” not only in the sense that my days of epic solo road trips are over (Orlando to San Diego in December and San Diego – OK City – Austin – Colorado Springs more recently), but also in the sense that I finally get to live and train in the place that I believe is the best for me to excel in triathlon. I was lucky enough to be able to train here during summer break in 2007 and 2008 and I always left in the best shape of my life. I am about to start my third week up here and I can already tell that I’m going to do well.
Pike’s Peak here in Colorado Springs.
The main reason I do so well up here is the altitude. “Altitude training” is generally considered anything over 3,000 feet above sea level. That is the point that the lack of oxygen begins to affect athletic performance. Colorado Springs is about 6,000 feet above sea level. What’s more, I live on the third floor so that puts me at about 6,090 feet above sea level! Ha. But seriously, there just isn’t a lot of air up here. Some people do better than others at altitude, but I can report that I do very well up here. I am not really affected much by the altitude in terms of my ability to output the same swim speed/cycling wattage/run speed. I know what you’re saying: You’re saying, “Kevin, that just doesn’t make any sense. You should be going four percent slower in the pool, or be putting out 25 watts fewer, or be running 11 seconds per mile slower!” Those are all very good points and in fact I’m sure that they are all completely correct. Physiologically if someone tested me while swimming, biking, or running I’m sure my heart rate and lactate levels would be higher at altitude when compared to the same effort level at sea level. All I’m saying is that my perception of the paces is unchanged – it doesn’t seem to hurt any more up here than at sea level and I think that’s pretty cool. There is one catch though…recovery. I don’t recover nearly as fast as I do at sea level. Maybe this will change after I adapt to altitude a bit better but currently I would guess that I recover ten percent slower.
Speaking of adapting: How long does it take to “adapt” to altitude? The general rule is three weeks. The body takes about that much time to react to the lack of oxygen and create more red blood cells. I can attest to having as much as a ten percent rise in hematocrit (the portion of blood volume occupied by red blood cells) and hemoglobin (oxygen transport mechanism in red blood cells) after three weeks. I never made it much past three or four weeks at altitude in the past so I can’t say what happens after that.
That’s all for now. My next race is the HyVee World Cup in Des Moines, Iowa on June 27. I’m hoping for another good performance but even 75th place doesn’t seem that bad:
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!
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!
