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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.


My cycling workouts at camp consisted of “hold Trevor’s wheel” intervals. Fellow squad member Trevor Wurtele did his workouts and all I did was hold on! Thanks to Trevor I made big gains in fitness on the bike while at camp.


This picture was in my room at the St. George camp. Paulo claims he had nothing to do with it.

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.


The squad

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.

July 16, 2011 | Categories: Racing, Training, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

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)!

June 19, 2011 | Categories: Training, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off

Road Trip

I definitely didn’t know what I was in for on my trip out to Boulder for summer training. It all started with a short trip to Gainesville, a group ride, and a new 30″ CP followed by a surprisingly delicious Yuengling. Then I was off to Huntsville, Alabama to stay with the rocket scientist (literally) Andrew Hodges. Some good Italian, an early morning swim and pecan pancakes set me up nicely for a short trip to Memphis for the Memphis in May Triathlon. I originally planned on racing but with my lack of run training I just did the swim/bike as a workout on my road bike…in a lightning storm! Gemmell laughed as he went by…”What were you doing out there, Collington?”


Sitting on some guy’s feet at MIM5150.

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.

May 28, 2011 | Categories: Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

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!

May 6, 2011 | Categories: Training | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off

Sydney

Here is my race report from Sydney (well, it’s actually just a gloss-over as I don’t feel like reliving that race by typing out a long, drawn out report):

I came out of the water near the back of a long line of men and immediately made what turned out to be a bad assumption out of T1. I was just acting on my opinion of the cycling skills of the men right in front of me. But as Manny Huerta pointed out later: “Kevin, assumptions are the beginning of all #$%@-ups.” Or at least that’s what Brett Sutton used to tell him. My assumption was no different. This isn’t to say that I’m blaming everyone else in my small five man pack for not bridging to the front pack – of course we all share in that blame. A few minutes later the skies opened up and I spent the next hour riding around in the rain on the oil covered streets of Sydney’s central business district getting yelled at in Swiss-German to pull through. I pulled out on the run to save my foot from further injury.

I’m back in Florida now and back to training. Well, mostly: I’m on day 10 of a doctor-ordered 14 day period off running. My foot is definitely improving so that’s a good sign. Hopefully I’m back to running soon, but due to this hiatus from running I pulled out of the Monterrey World Cup next month. That kind of sucks but I would rather be healthy later in the season than race now and risk worsening my condition.

That’s all for now!

April 13, 2011 | Categories: Racing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Brissie

I spent the interim period between Mooloolaba WC and Sydney WCS in the suburbs of Brisbane. I was specifically in the Carindale/Carina region training with a little triathlon squad coached by Warwick Dalziel, a friend of my coach. Things were pretty nice, especially since my training really just consisted of resting a lot to recover from the beastly Mooloolaba course. Although not everything was going to plan as I sort of might be kind of a little bit…injured. Plantar fasciitis is not fun. The good news is that the problem is currently manageable so I will race Sydney WCS. Hopefully I’m not on crutches after the race. Here are some pictures from the past two weeks in Brisbane:


I had to send this into USAT’s physio team for Sydney to explain my condition. Pretty standard plantar fasciitis symptoms. Warwick has a physio background and the blue marking on the picture is where he generally worked to help alleviate the problem. When he worked on that area it brought pain on the order of 11 or 12 on a scale of 10. So the treatment wasn’t my favorite part of the day but it helped as my foot problems improved markedly during my stay.


Warwick working my foot. Point the camera in the other direction and you would see a Kevin in great discomfort. I’m certain I provided amusement for onlookers.


The squad in Brisbane had a pretty sweet ice bath set up with an iCool bath set to 12 degrees celsius.

During my stay the National High School Triathlon Championship took place in Redcliffe, QLD (another suburb of Brisbane) and our squad biked up to watch. The development of triathlon in the high school ranks in Australia is amazing. No wonder Australia kicks ass at triathlon, they develop their athletes early!


Bananas are currently $13 per kg down here. This is why.

April 9, 2011 | Categories: Photo Blog, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Where’s the Penalty Tent?

After 1.5K of ocean swimming, 40K of cycling and 9.7K of running with 74 of my best amigos, the title of this post is what I yelled at the six ITU delegates standing on the side of the road in Mooloolaba. You see, I take things very literally, and if you call something the “penalty tent” I will generally look for a tent-like structure. No such thing existed and after I ran a few meters past what I am now calling the “general vicinity of penalty enforcement” one ITU official ran up to me and began to count down my 15 seconds. It sucks to sit there and watch so many guys run by, but I got a good rest and sprinted past a few of them again, only to realize that 300 meters is a long way to hold a full-on sprint, so a few passed me back again and I ended in 45th place. NOT what I was looking for in Mooloolaba. I got bumped up to 44th because Gavin Noble didn’t serve his penalty and got a DQ. So it could be worse.

So what was my penalty? “You didn’t put your cap and goggles in the box and we have a picture to prove it!” she said. I took a picture, too:


My final conclusion on my penalty is that “in the box” is a dumb rule.

Gwen Jorgensen, Barrett Brandon and me with Mooloolaba beach in the background. Steve Sexton on camera duties.


Wearing my timing chip on my left leg just to be different. Photo credit: Wayne Nevrilk

March 29, 2011 | Categories: Racing | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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!


Heading out onto the bike with three other Clermont locals Jarrod Shoemaker, Nic Tautiva and Maxim Kriat.


Halfway through the run and fading hard.

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.


Coach Heitz explaining the rules of trashball to Gwen and Ben. The goal can be seen in the background – a recycling bin on top of a trash can.

March 9, 2011 | Categories: Racing, Training | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

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