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.

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.

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:

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…

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…”

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.

“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!

- 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!

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)!