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.

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)!

Then things really got interesting. My original plan sent me north to St. Louis but considering the destruction in Joplin and the weather forecast for continued storms I went west towards Tulsa instead. Everything was great until I hit the Oklahoma/Kansas border and BAM! Massive hail. All of a sudden the $25K worth of bikes on the trunk rack of a car worth only $4K went from a funny joke to a serious problem. I pulled under an overpass, waited the storm out, and took off again only to find myself in more hail. So I pulled into a service station, cut a trucker off into a diesel fueling line and waited the storm out again. Lots of trucker horns and some choice words followed. Fortunately that was when the storm subsided for good.

With only one more short day of travel to Boulder the next day I thought I was in the clear, but Colorado was no better than Kansas. I learned my lesson the day before, though, and pulled into a gas station at the first sign of storms (and I parked by the unleaded pumps this time). I spent the next five hours in the diner at the Loaf n’ Jug in Flagler, CO watching as varying degrees of lightning, hail and rain passed over. I also made a few new friends that taught more than I ever wanted to know about Colorado state lottery scratch-off games.

The road to Boulder was rife with more storms so I diverted south to Colorado Springs where I arrived with the same loaded down Hyundai Elantra I departed with a little over four months prior. After one night on a couch and some good S/B/R training I finally made it to Boulder. And the weather is nice!

My winter training camp in Orlando ended with a long workout out at FL70.3. I raced the swim/bike and jogged the run. It turns out it’s against the rules to take your racing kit off like this.

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!

It won’t be the first adventurous Collington Christmas – we spent Christmas ’05 in the beautiful mountain town of Cuenca, Ecuador. At the time my brother was teaching English there (yes, these third world Christmas adventures are entirely spurred on by my brother’s worldly travels). We flew into Guayaquil, which my brother made sure to point out as the second most dangerous city in South America (behind Lima, Peru apparently). I think he likes to throw these facts out there so that we know what we’re getting ourselves into. I have lots of good memories from Christmas in Ecuador – harrowing 12 hour bus rides through the Andes Mountains, train derailments, using medium size rocks to “launch” our train back onto the tracks…and somehow convincing myself to be OK with all of this by repeating my mantra of “I’m SURE they know what they’re doing” in reference to our savvy Ecuadorian tour guides. Hopefully this Christmas will be equally memorable!

Obviously I’m not bringing a bike and I don’t envision myself doing any swimming, but my brother says we will be able to “walk very briskly” to a nicer neighborhood where I should be able to do a run or two. And once we are out of the city I might be able to run up a volcano or something. If I’m still around next week I’ll post some pictures. I’m SURE I’ll be fine…

In other news I got to do a video for TeamUSA.org about my favorite Holiday traditions. “Triathlete” must be a hard word to spell correctly. Sound it out USOC! Oh well, enjoy!

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.

As always here are some pics!

I watched most of the women’s race from my 20th floor hotel room

iPhone pic of Barbara about to win.

The opera house at night.

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.