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NYAC All Sports Banquet

As is my tradition I made my way to the airport less than 48 hours after finishing my last race of the season. No Kenya this time (that would be Sarah Groff), and no Japan either. Nope, no major intercontinental journeys for me this year; just a short trip to New York City for the New York Athletic Club’s annual All-Sports Banquet. Each year the NYAC honors its athletes that won national or world championship titles, or represented the United States as part of their sport’s world championship team (that’s me!).

After the short flight and a couple of hours of me trying to figure out the New York City subway system (I’m admittedly not a skilled big city person) I finally made it to the club on Central Park South. The NYAC supports a bunch of Olympic sports including wrestling, track & field, soccer, rowing, fencing, modern pentathlon, water polo, judo, swimming, table tennis, as well as its newest sport, triathlon!

The dinner was a lot of fun with the guest of honor being Bill Walton of basketball fame. For those who don’t know, Bill was a standout at UCLA during John Wooden’s tenure as head coach. He was later drafted by the Portland Trailblazers where he won an NBA championship, and finished his career as a Celtic where he won another championship. He’s one of the best basketball players of all time and, as it turns out, a great speaker as well! It was a great night and lots of fun – as Sarah Groff recently wrote in her blog, us athletes are truly fortunate to have such great opportunities and great supporters like the NYAC.


Jarrod, Sarah and me.


Leave it to Jarrod and me to being new levels of maturity wherever we go.

November 18, 2010 | Categories: Sponsors | Tags: , , , | Comments Off

Clearwater

My race in Clearwater this past weekend ran a striking parallel to my 2010 season as a whole: It wasn’t an exceptional result, but it also had some bright spots. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted and I’m sure I am capable of much more. There were some bad patches (in fact the first two thirds of it was a pretty bad patch) but I found my footing at the end and finished up with a decent result.

More specifically my race in Clearwater went like this: After an extremely poor beach run-in start I found myself right at the front end of the second swim group – NOT where I wanted to be! Our group lost a minute to the leaders in the water and onto the bike I found myself in an ITU-style ‘must make the front pack’ scenario. Another split formed ahead of me and my ‘front pack’ hopes were dashed. I couldn’t close down the gap to the group of athletes that eventually bridged to the front group. I know it sounds like I’m talking about an ITU race but the bike was almost completely legal in the non-drafting sense of the word (mainly due to the pro field having less than half the numbers of last year’s race). I rode by myself for awhile, slowly coming to terms with 56 miles of losing massive time to the leaders. But then Chris Legh, Maxim Kriat and Leon Griffin went by me – I got on the group and it was literally all I could do to stay with them. I was on the rivet for the majority of the ride, so much so that I didn’t even think I would be able to finish the run after such a death-flog bike leg. In the end, though, I was fine on the run. I ran a race fourth-best 1:12:32 half marathon to run from 23rd to eighth. So I was very happy with my run. I’m even more excited that it’s off season time!

Here are some pics from this past weekend:


A long day at the office.


I still made the podium. It’s definitely worth it to hear a Michael Raelert victory speech – he’s hilarious!

November 15, 2010 | Categories: Racing | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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!

November 9, 2010 | Categories: Training | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off

PATCO Champs

All I can say after racing in this past weekend’s PATCO Championship is thank goodness for ‘test’ events!! The race effectively served as a test for next year’s Pan Am Games (Guadalajara 2011). As major games go Pan Am Games is second only to the Olympics in terms of importance and prestige. As such, I expected a finely tuned, safe and fair course awaiting me in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This was not the case.

What did await us was a bike course featuring unpaved gravel sections, dangerous cobbles (so big and non-uniform that you couldn’t stay sitting or pedal while riding over them), small out and back sections with small, round metal speed bumps, all in addition to the normal poorly paved roads typical of Mexican races. Needless to say I was worried about the course but took solace in knowing that everyone had to deal with the same conditions. I was happy to learn later on that the ITU technical director Greg Peters was not going to allow this course to stand as-is. Thank goodness!


Amanda Felder, Cam Dye and me about to do the bike course familiarization ride even though neither we nor the race organizers knew what the bike course was going to be. Thanks to Steve Sexton for the pic.

I stayed at an all inclusive resort called the Crown Paradise that will serve as the athlete’s village next year for triathlon, open water swimming, beach volleyball and a few other sports that can’t take place in Guadalajara. I’m not sure the staff at the hotel fully understood why all of us triathletes were there, or why we kept refusing their offers for tequila and margaritas in the days leading up to the race. We were certainly not the typical middle aged Americans they are used to waiting on. Confusing them even more was our sudden change of heart Sunday evening regarding their offers of tequila based beverages…


A view from my room. Yes, that is a 25m pool! It was perfect for pre-race training and very good for open water swimming skills – I had to continually pick my head up a sight to make sure I didn’t run into any of the moo-moo clad beauties sharing the pool with me.

Anyways, race day finally arrived and the race organizers decided on which course we would be racing on. Option “A” was the final decision – this was the course that included a technical route through the transition area each lap. The ITU technical directors had been up literally all night filling in the dangerous cobbles with sand, helping the Mexican construction crews pave over the gravel sections and generally making the course ‘race ready.’ In the end the course was good, maybe even excellent compared to other Mexican races.

The race was hot. The water was approaching 87F, and the air was ~95F and humid when the race started at 2:15pm. A break happened on the swim that I missed and four of the original nine escapees stayed away on the bike – Matt Chrabot, Cam Dye, Luciano Farias (ARG), and Michel Gonzalez (CUB). I ended up in a large second pack that was completely disorganized and the 20 seconds we lost on the swim turned into 2:15 by the end of the bike. Matt Chrabot won from the breakaway. I ran third fastest on the day, catching everyone in the break except Matt to cross the line in fifth. It definitely stings a little to miss a swim breakaway but I’m very happy with my run effort and that nearly made up for missing the break. I scored a massive amount of both ITU and Olympic points so I ended the 2010 ITU season on a high note and set myself up well for next year. That’s what I set out to do in Puerto Vallarta so I’m happy!

So the ‘test’ event went off with only a few small shortcomings that the race organizers now have 365 days to fix! Of course this means the problems will remain problems for 362 more days and will be fixed in the three days leading up to Pan Am Games, but at least they will be fixed!

Next up Clearwater!!

October 22, 2010 | Categories: Racing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

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.


Me in my American flag costume riding the Computrainer up in Boulder.

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.


Todd dialing in my position. Craig Alexander in the background.

At this time next week I will be hanging up my road bike until 2011!

October 11, 2010 | Categories: Training | Tags: , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Elite Nationals

I raced the Elite National Championship this past weekend in Tuscaloosa and placed eighth. I’m going to be honest: eighth place is not what I was looking for, but I definitely didn’t taper for the race so I got what I deserved in terms of performance. The good news is that ever since arriving home at the Olympic Training Center everyone is congratulating me like it was the best result of my career. The first few times this happened I responded with the token “Thanks…it was OK.” But then I figured why argue? Now I just go with “I know! I did AWESOME, right?!?”

Anyways, the race had it’s high points: I exited the waters of the Black Warrior River only ten seconds down from a slew of excellent swimmers including Kalen Darling, Cam Dye, Dustin McLarty, and Ben Collins. On the bike I was able to hide so well in the front pack that my wattage average would probably fit better in a junior girl’s race. Everything was set up for me to have the run of my life and the first 2.5K was exactly that. I felt strong and smooth and was making up time on the few leaders who managed a small breakaway at the end of the bike (netting them about ten seconds advantage into T2). After this things went downhill. I realized at about 5K that I was feeling a bit loopy and should probably slow down if I wanted to cross the finish line. I faded to eighth, crossing the line in a slow, meandering jog and quickly collapsed. I was escorted to the medical tent where they assessed my cognitive function by asking me what my date of birth is. Apparently I was quite adamant that it was “Wednesday.” I guess that was good enough for them because they gave me some Gatorade G2 (the low calorie kind), propped my legs up on an empty soda box and left me to ponder my existence. Thanks Alabama medical personnel!


I look like I could use a low calorie sports drink right now.
Photo credit: Timothy Carlson

So now it’s just back to training as usual, although my rough experience in Alabama has made recovery take a lot longer than normal. I should be able to get in at least a week of good sessions before heading down to Puerto Vallarta for the PATCO Pan Am Championship. That will be my last ITU race of 2010 so I will be resting for it just to have one last shot at scoring some Olympic ranking points.

September 30, 2010 | Categories: Racing | 1 Comment »

The Rest of the Season

With the 2010 WCS season now in the rear view mirror most athletes are heading out on a vacation of some sort (or a holiday if you’re from Britain). But not me! With the Pan American Continental Championship still ahead on October 17th most athletes in the western hemisphere are probably continuing their seasons. Here is what lies ahead for me:

First on the schedule is a trip to the dirty south for the U.S. National Championship in Tuscaloosa, Alabama next weekend. It will be my fourth year in a row racing in Tuscaloosa. It’s a hot, challenging course so I’m looking forward to it. However, I won’t be wearing my UF gear quite as conspicuously this year.


2007 Collegiate Nationals in Tuscaloosa.

Second is a trip even farther south for the Pan Am Champs in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One of my goals as an athlete is to avoid racing in Mexico if at all possible. So…fail.

Lastly I will be contesting the 70.3 World Champs in Clearwater again this year.

Did I say lastly? Because Clearwater actually won’t be my last race – I will also be toeing the line at the Turkey Trot World Championship in Orlando on Thanksgiving day. Unlike years past I will definitely be showing up with my A game (or whatever game I have left after Clearwater since training in Orlando always leads to an excess of Chipotle burritos and Krispy Kreme donuts). Either way a 5K on Thanksgiving morning is a great excuse to eat way too much the rest of the day!

September 19, 2010 | Categories: Racing | 1 Comment »

Budapest Pics

Here’s a race report from Budapest: Everything was going really well until 30k into the bike when I crashed!!! It happened on a tight turn where a wet mat was covering some train tracks. Fortunately I’m OK (I just have some road rash). I got up, fixed my bike, but lost two minutes in the last 10k of the bike and finished 56th. Oof…


The chain bridge at sunset two nights before the race. Budapest is a beautiful city when it isn’t raining!


Despite the rain hundreds of juniors, U23s and elites showed up for the bike course familiarization ride.


Greg and I found shelter from the wind behind this truck while we waited for the ride to start.


Coming out of the water – I’m the guy in the background with the blue sleeve.


It wasn’t raining for the men’s race but there was standing water and ‘mystery puddles’ all over the course.


A misleading picture – several very talented men running five minutes behind the leaders.


The sun came out for the women’s race the next day. Our team docs patched me up and I enjoyed watching Sunday’s races.

September 16, 2010 | Categories: Photo Blog, Racing | Comments Off

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