Guatape
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:
Back to Huatulco
“The Hill” took a year off last year, as did I, but we were both back in Huatulco last weekend for the fourth annual Huatulco ITU World Cup. The repaving crews probably fixed up the hill in the few days before the athletes arrived and I must say the addition of the cobbles at the top is an excellent touch! As for me, I somehow sneaked into the race despite my massive fall off in the rankings after an April/May/June filled with injury and no racing. It was great to graduate once again from continental cup to world cup!
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…
National Champs
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…”
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!
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!
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.
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:
Wearing my timing chip on my left leg just to be different. Photo credit: Wayne Nevrilk
Happy Holidays!
I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season!
The offices of KevinCollington.com will be closed for the holiday season…and by ‘offices’ I mean I’m going to stop going to Panera to get internet on my computer to update my blog.
So thanks again for reading and I’ll see you in 2009!
I’ll leave you with some pics from the early season that I never got to put up since I started writing in April. Enjoy!
In Viña del Mar, Chile in January. I guess it’s normal to take up a lane of traffic on a major road with a luggage cart.
Goats at the airport in Nevis.
Coming out of the water in Nevis with Chrabot.
New Plymouth, New Zealand. What an amazing place.
The wind wand in New Plymouth – it blows in whatever direction the wind blows.
The TriGators and Hunter Kemper at Collegiate Nationals (Olympic Trials was the same day as Coll Nats).
Richie Cunningham destroying me in a sprint for 5th at St. Anthony’s.
World Cups and Local Racing
My second-to-last race of the season is coming up this weekend, and I’m pretty excited! I’m flying down to the middle-of-nowhere Mexico for the last World Cup of 2008. “Middle-of-nowhere” isn’t even an exaggeration – the city of Huatulco, Mexico is definitely hard to get to for a major international race. I, for one, will be flying into Huatulco on an airplane called a “Fokker 100″ which sounds just great. Here’s a map:
Huatulco is a Mexican tourist development in the southern state of Oaxaca. The Mexican government agency FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Turismo) acquired the area that is now Huatulco back in 1984 to develop it into a tourist area similar to Cancun or Ixtapa. A major difference is that, unlike Cancun and Ixtapa, FONATUR decided to put in adequate waste water management before development started. This is good because development in Huatulco isn’t scheduled to finish until 2020 and I do plan on using the restroom this weekend.
I was pretty worried about my fitness after Scott Tinley’s as I got a bit sick and couldn’t finish workouts. But I’m better now and I ran in a local 5 mile road race this past weekend and had a decent showing. I ran strong with the leaders for 4 miles before getting my doors blown off in the last mile, but I had a PR by 2.5 minutes at 26:01 (I last ran a 5 miler in 2005 and yes, I run a lot faster now!). Anyways, it seems I’m ready to tackle this last race.
Mile 4.9999 of the 5 miler.
Tisza in Pictures
Manny, me, and Steve before the swim start.
The top 20 athletes got called to the stage at the party on Sunday night. This is the women’s top 20.
The crowd.
Matt Chrabot and me on stage.
The men’s podium.
Hamburg Race Report
The Hamburg World Cup is an awesome race. Run with German precision, the race is usually quite a spectacle for the people of Hamburg (Hamburgers!). Last year an estimated 300,000 people came out to watch the World Champs and it wasn’t much different at this year’s race where I managed to finish 18th. With that I am now world ranked! 77th! However, I won’t say I had the best race of my life. In fact, a little bit more attention to detail could have gone a long way.
As for the course, the swim is usually a wetsuit-legal 2 lap swim, the bike follows a very technical eight lap course through the city, and the run is a flat and fast four lap course. This year, however, the Binnenalster (where we swam) was a balmy 20.6 degrees so no wetsuits!
The race went off at 3:07 PM (as I said, German precision!) and I got out to a quick start. There were only 39 guys on the starting line mainly due to the Olympics being next month, but also because a lot of guys were racing the French Grand Prix taking place the next day. I had decent starting position and got out to a surprisingly quick start. I hit the first buoy in good position and this was when I made my first mistake: Somebody a few meters ahead of me let a gap open up and I didn’t notice. The gap widened and I didn’t see it until they were 30 seconds up! I went to the front of what was now the second swim pack and tried to close the gap with little success. After the first 1000 meter lap I exited the water and struggled up the pontoon before diving in for the second 500 meter lap. I thought I was done for until I finished the second lap and noticed I was out of the water with some very good guys! Brad Kahlefeldt bounded up the stairs next to me and I knew he might be my ticket to the front pack.
Then came mistake #2: I completely botched my first transition. I struggled to get my helmet on. Finally I got out onto the bike and the four athletes I exited the water with were about 10 seconds up. I knew I had to get on and I chased hard for about 5 minutes. I held even with them until I completely blew up. I fell back and eventually found some company (including Steve Sexton and Ethan Brown, my travel buddies for this Euro racing tour). As it turns out we eventually brought back Kahlefeldt’s group of four and our second pack became 18 strong. Then here is mistake #3: I lost track of what lap of the bike we were on. I think everyone in my pack did except Ethan, who attacked on what everyone thought was lap seven (but was actually lap eight, the final lap). He got a decent gap into T2 while I was one of the last into T2.
I salvaged my 18th position on the run by posting somewhere around 33 minutes for the 10k, which combined with a small field helped put me in the top 20 and thus score 3 points in the World Cup rankings! I don’t know my exact splits because I had no chip (although the ITU did fabricate some splits for me on the results).
After the race we had the pleasure of meeting ITU president Les McDonald – he had one question for us: What is the capital of Canada? The answer is Ottawa. But ask yourself seriously – did you know that? Fortunately Steve answered correctly on only his second guess. Apparently Les asks this to a lot of American athletes and our track record for correct answers isn’t very good…
Me, Ethan, and Steve after the race. Les stupides Américains!
Hamburg World Cup
The Hamburg World Cup starts in just a few hours…you can watch this one live if you want!
European Adventure
It’s time to race again! I’m off to Europe today for three races in as many weeks.
It all starts this weekend at the FISU World University Championship in Erdek, Turkey. Both our men’s and women’s teams are very strong and were recently described as the ”strongest team we have ever taken to the FISU race” by FISU coach Andy Schmitz. Here is the roster:
Men
Greg Billington (Spokane, Wash.) – 2007 USAT Junior Elite Athlete of the Year, 2007 USAT Junior National Champion, 2006, 2007 and 2008 USAT Junior Worlds Team Member, 2006 Junior Aquathlon World Champion
Barrett Brandon (Fort Worth, Texas) – 2004 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member, 2004 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2004 FISU Worlds Team Member
Ethan Brown (Lowell, Mass.) – 2007 USAT U23 National Champion, 2008 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Kevin Collington (Orlando, Fla.) – Kind of a big deal
Steve Sexton (Davis, Calif.) – 2008 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Women
Amanda Felder (Houston, Texas) – 2005 and 2008 USAT Collegiate National Champion, 2006 FISU Worlds Team Member
Lauren Goldstein-Kral (Shaker Heights, Ohio) – 2007 USAT Junior Elite Athlete of the Year, 2007-2008 USAT Junior Worlds Team Member
Jennifer Spieldenner (Findlay, Ohio) – 2005 USAT Junior National Champion, 2006 and 2007 USAT U23 Worlds Team Member
Justine Whipple (Duxbury, Mass.) – 2007 USAT U23 National Champion, 2006 and 2007 Collegiate National Champion, 2007 and 2008 U23 Worlds Team Member, 2007 and 2008 U.S. Armed Forces National Champion
Most of us get into Istanbul on Wednesday at which point we get on a ferry to take us across this Sea of Marmara to the city of Erdek, Turkey. Erdek is a popular tourist destination for Turkish citizens and is located on a peninsula in the southern part of the Sea of Marmara.
After the race in Erdek, Steve, Ethan and I are continuing on to Hamburg to race in the Hamburg World Cup the following weekend. The Hamburg World Cup is a pretty big event in Germany as more than 300,000 people usually line the streets on race day. Last year I raced here when it was the U23 World Championship.
Javier Gomez leading the run in last year’s Triathlon World Championship in Hamburg
The following weekend Steve and I are continuing on yet again to race in the Tiszaujvaros World Cup in Hungary. I’m not quite sure what to expect here but I do know that the event is a very big deal in the small town of Tiszaujvaros. Looks like a fun race to me.
Update
I haven’t posted in awhile and that’s mainly because I’ve been hitting some high volume training in the past 3 weeks – this week ended up at 26.75 hours. This seems like a lot to me now but I have a feeling this will probably be normal for me in the near future. My highest previous weekly total was 23.75 hours.
In other news, the United States passed Russia in the men’s Olympic rankings to move into eighth place after Matt Reed’s tenth place finish today at the Madrid World Cup. The top eight nations get to send three athletes to the Olympics so good job Matt! There is only one more race to score Olympic points and that is the World Championships in Vancouver in two weeks. Matt has been racing like a champ all year so I’m pretty confident the United States can hold onto this position.
Not-last-place
Overall my first world cup was very much a learning experience. There were ups and downs but overall it was an O.K. day.
I had a small mechanical issue upon getting on my bike – my shoe came unclipped and was dangling from my foot. It took awhile to fix it (a good 20 seconds) and being that I was the lanterne rouge of the front swim pack that 20 seconds put me in no-man’s land.
And thanks to Juraci Moreira for not dropping out – putting me in not-last place!
In New Zealand
Hi there,
I’ve finally had the time to set up this webpage for myself – all it took was a taper from training and getting as far away from school as I could possibly get! Anyways, I’m currently in New Zealand for the New Plymouth World Cup. It’s going to be the first world cup race I have ever done. The race will be broadcast live on the internet on April 5th at 8:00 PM EST for the women and 10:30 PM EST for the men. Just log onto triathlon.org and click “launch live events coverage.”
That’s all for now!
