Break!!!

I just finished my end of the year break and it was by far the best break I have ever had.  After almost a month off I feel very refreshed and excited to get back to work.  First, my last race was the Xterra World Championships.  All I can say about this race was that I was in WAY over my head.  I don’t have much off road experience and it really showed in this race.  But I was in Maui so not all was lost.  I was able to spend a few days in Maui and got started on my Hawaiian surf vacation by getting in some surf with my coaches which ended up being a great warm up for what lay ahead on Oahu.

My Dad’s college roommate lives on Oahu and he is an avid surfer/wind surfer/paddle boarder and I went to go visit him.  My time on Oahu turned into a blur of surfing fun waves and in great surf; it went by way too fast.  I tried paddle surfing for the first time (not such a good idea in 8-10ft surf), checked out a few mountain biking spots, and surfed almost twice every day I was there.  I had a GoPro with me for the trip so I will post a video shortly from my time on Oahu.

Since two islands apparently weren’t enough, I went over to Kauai with my parents.  I was really excited to visit Kauai because I had never been there and everything I had heard about it sounded incredible.  My experience there definitely lived up to expectations.  I went on a different hike every day and saw as much as the island as I could in a week.  I will definitely be back again to do some more exploring. 

With my time in Hawaii (almost 4 weeks) coming to and end I still had one more part of my break left.  Since I am spending some of the winter months in California, I needed to drive my car from Colorado back home.  My brother and I decided that we could pull of a road trip and visit some national parks that we had never been to.  Even with all the surfing in Hawaii, this was probably the best part of my break.  We went to Arches, Bryce, Zion, Joshua Tree, and of course had to do a stop in Vegas.  We had an amazing trip and I can’t even begin to describe all the places that we went to so I’ll  put a few more pictures than normal.  I realized after this trip that I could do one for a much longer period of time and I think I have a lot more exploring in my future!

Xterra?!

Before getting to the what the title of this blog is about; I did race a more traditional triathlon in NYC a few weeks ago.  New York was my first professional podium finish in 2010 (3rd).  Therefore, I went into this race with high hopes to improve on that finish from 3 years ago.  While I wasn't able to come away with the win, I did finish 2nd, and it was great to be back on the podium in New York spraying champagne!

I had an amazing homestay with my friend Ken Rideout.  I won't hold it against him that he is a proud NYAC member.  Ken also had a great race and won the Janus Peak Performance Challenge.

As the title of this blog indicates, I did my first Xterra Triathlon last weekend in Beaver Creek.  While I did start mountain biking a few weeks ago, I didn't really have any intention of racing on a mountain bike anytime soon.  But with the close proximity of the race it sounded like a fun way to get in a hard effort.  After pre-riding the course with Will Kelsay a few days before the race, I was having second thoughts on how much "fun" this race was going to be.  For one the race starts at about 7500 and just goes up from there.  There was over 3300 ft of climbing on the bike portion and 1300 ft of climbing on the run.

Although I was having second thoughts, I did end up doing the race and had an amazing time! I had a minor panic attack in the swim because I started a bit too hard and couldn't catch my breath because of the altitude.  But with a little backstroke, I was able to get myself together, and was first out of the water.

The start of the bike course is one giant hill.  It is almost a 40min climb before you get to any of the faster/fun parts of the course.  I just tried to use my Stages power meter to pace myself up the climb.  I figured that I would loose most of my time in the overall race on the bike; but I thought it would come on the downhill parts, and I was surprised when I was passed by a few guys on the climb.  I was still enjoying the suffering and was having fun racing on a mountain bike; which was something I had never done before.

Once I got to the run, my legs actually felt a lot better than they normally do coming off of a time trial.  I think the descent into T2 actually allowed my legs to recover a bit.  Whereas normally I would be constantly pedaling.  So naturally I took the run out really fast and way too hard because I felt so good.  That lasted for about 800 meters until I got to the really steep climbs.  I still managed to have the 2nd fastest run on the day and finished in 6th place! This race was extremely difficult and I have so much more respect for Xterra athletes now.  I did have a ton of fun racing because every time I was hurting I just reminded myself that I was riding my mountain bike or that I was trail running.  It was a totally different perspective than racing on the road.

Now I am by no means switching my focus to Xterra; but, I do want to race more of them.  So I am going to make a slight change to my racing schedule and I am going to head to Maui for the Xterra World Championships at the end of October.  As was the case with this race, I have no idea what I am getting myself into; but it seems like it could be a lot of fun. (And there are a lot worse places to race than Maui!)

I'll be back to the road triathlons as I am getting ready for Rev3 Wisconsin in two weeks!

Back to Racing

Last weekend was my first race back from a bone bruise that I had in my knee.  I suffered this injury on May 5th, had to miss out on Rev3 Quassy, and do as much training as I could while still managaing to get healthy.  This injury was really frustrating because a bone bruise is very hard to diagnos and also hard to come up with a plan for recovery since so much of it is based on pain tolerance.  It was really hard to determine when was a good time to train through pain and when it wasn't.  Fortunately, I had an incredible resource in Dr. Glowney at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.  He used a treatment therapy called prolotherapy.  This therapy involved injecting a glucose solution into my knee to initiate the body's inflammatory process.  After spending the first few weeks of the injury trying to control the swelling, it seemed odd to me that we now wanted to cause it.  However, after a few treatments over several weeks, I was able to get in a normal week of training before the race and was able to switch my focus from the injury into something much more exciting; racing!

I didn't know what to expect with having my first race back from injury.  Rev3 Williamsburg was a half and I had some pretty inconsistent training over the last month or so.  Although, I ended up having a solid pain free week of training leading up to the race so I was really optimistic about what might happen on race day.

Race Day:
We were welcomed to some humid conditions on race day; but, overall not as hot as I thought it could have been.  I had scoped out the swim in the days before the race and I knew there was an opportunity for some dolphin diving at the swim start and finish.  However, a rain storm moved in on race morning and somehow managed to change the water conditions.  Instead of what was a reasonable amount of shallow water; the swim start now had A LOT of shallow water.  This allowed us to dolphin dive for a few hundred meters before we had to swim.  (A fantastic way to spike your HR at the beginning of a 4 hour race) I was still able to get off to a good start and quickly found myself at the front of the race.  With this being my first race back I didn't have many expectations and I also knew where my strengths were with the training I was able to do with the injury.  I knew I could swim fast and ride well and was very unsure of my run.  With this in mind, I pushed the pace the entire swim and came out first.  The bike started out great with just Eric Limikeman (eventual winner) and I at the front of the race with a rather large lead over the field.  I thought this put me in a great position to bike hard and get into T2 with a lead.  Unfortunately, I received a penalty (which I protested after the race with no avail) about 10min into the bike.  Now I understand that penalties happen and as a professional athlete I have to understand the rules.  However, in this scenario I was the one who understood the rules and unfortunately for me (and also Kevin Collington who received a penalty for the same thing), this official did not understand the rules.  The penalty took me away from my riding partner and I was now in between Eric and the large group of athletes behind me.  I still knew that I was riding well and felt good on the bike so I decided to ride hard and try to maintain or increase my advantage over the group into T2.  I was really happy that I was able to stay ahead of the group; but, I was unable to recover any time to Eric and he actually put more time into me.  Arriving in T2 about 3min behind Eric and 2min ahead of the field I knew that I would have to run fast to catch him.  So unsure with what would happen to my legs with the limited run training since early May; I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time, continue to race aggressively and make an attempt to run as fast as I could after Eric.  This lasted for about 3-4miles until I went from running a pretty solid race pace to just trying to finish the run.  I ended up dropping from 3rd at mile 5 to 11th at the finish line.

While I am by no means happy with my overall result, I was happy with pieces of the race.  First out of the water is always a good way to start the race, I was aggressive on the bike, even with a penalty, and saw a huge improvement in my power compared to my last half distance race, I think I managed my nutrition much better than I have before (especially for a humid race), and most importantly, I was able to finish the race without any pain and my knee has been healthy post race!

I am really excited to be healthy again and look forward to finally getting in some consistent training.  Rev3 put on a fantastic race in Williamsburg.  This was a first year race and as I mentioned before this course was stunning.  Rolling country roads that were tree covered and a run through the beautiful William and Mary campus.  I wish I could have enjoyed my run a little more through campus; but, I will definitely be back again next year looking for a much better result!

I want to thank Boardman Bikes and Davis Wheelworks for helping me post what was probably my best half distance bike leg, Blue 70 for a fast swim skin that helped me lead out the swim, and of course Rudy Project, Clif Bar, Champion System, and Reno Running Company.

My next race will be where I achieved my first ever professional podium finish; NYC Tri!!!

 (I'm taking the fight to the home turf of NYAC!!! GO OC!!!!)

Decisions...

Today I had to make one of the hardest decision so far in my triathlon career.  I had to make the decision to not race Rev3 Quassy.  I have been dealing with a bone bruise from Knoxville and at this point I am not 100% healthy.  While a bone bruise doesn't sound like much of an injury, at least it didn't to me when I was first diagnosed with it, the recovery time is typically between 6-8 weeks.  I have been able to do some training but the injury occurred only 3 weeks ago.  While I think I would be able to get through the race my team and I are concerned about what would happen to my recovery after the race.  (I wonder if this is how Derrick Rose feels, except without making $25,000,000 a year) The season is still relatively early for me and I have a lot of races left to do to accomplish my goals for this year.  Rev3 Quassy was definitely a race that I was looking forward to competing at and I think this is why this decision has been so difficult.

I will continue to do whatever I can to get healthy and prepare myself for Rev3 Williamsburg and for the rest of the Rev3 series.  Good luck to everyone racing Quassy this weekend.

Rev3 Knoxville

This past weekend I had the opportunity to start of the 2013 Rev3 series in Knoxville.  Last year, this was my first ever Rev3 race and since then I have loved being able to participate at their races.  The Rev3 series is the main focus for my season so I was very excited to get it started.

We were greeted with some solid rain in Knoxville and Rev3 did a great job of putting the race on as planned in some pretty inclement weather.  I had some experience racing in the rain and cold after Rev3 Maryland last year (where I finished 2nd), so I was actually excited to race in the rain.  However, another side of me was pretty sick of bad weather.  After what seemed like snow every day for the whole month of April and the rain storm in Kemah the week before, I was looking forward to racing in the sun.  But the rain didn't let up in Knoxville for about 3 days so it was going to be a wet race...

The water temperature was in the high 50s so it was a very cold swim.  Not Alcatraz cold, but still very cold nonetheless.  I didn't have a great swim by my standards and came out of the water about 30 seconds down from one of my training partners and eventual race winner Cameron Dye.  Once on the bike, I rode hard to try to make up the time I lost in the swim and rode solo for about 30min or so.  I didn't see anyone in front of me or behind so I thought worst case scenario was that I was maintaining time to the group behind me and Cameron in front.  However, at the turn around point I was disappointed to see that I had been caught by a group of about 5.  I spent the remainder of the ride with them before getting to T2.  Once out on to the run I felt like I was running on stumps because my feet were so numb.  I knew that everyone else was dealing with the same problems so I just tried to focus on my form and see if I could pick up any of the athletes ahead of me.  I just felt like I was running in slow motion the whole time and flat like I did on the bike.  David Thompson was about 50meters ahead of me for 4 miles and I just couldn't close the gap.  With about a mile to go I finally caught up to him and then had to start planning on how I was going to beat him to the finish.  He wouldn't let me just run right by him when I caught him so it took a couple of surges towards the end and fortunately for me one finally stuck and I got a gap.  I didn't have much more in my so I was running out of options.  I ended up finishing 7th on the day.

My overall placing wasn't what I thought I could produce on the day; but, I was just off the whole day.  Since the race I have had a good meeting with my coach and I am ready and excited to start preparing for my next race at Rev3 Quassy.

I want to point out something that most people might not know about from this race.  On Friday night Rev3 put on fun 5k Glow Run for a local charity.  There had to be over a thousand people there running at night, with glow sticks, and anything else that would light up.  The event was amazing to watch and just shows how great of an organization Rev3 is for endurance sport.  They put on events like this and the adventure race the following day, that no other triathlon company is producing.  I feel very honored to hopefully be a small part of what they are doing for triathlon.

I also want to thank the companies and people who have helped get me to this part of the season.  I feel like now that the first Rev3 race is underway my season is just getting started.  But I've had a lot of help the last few months to get to this beginning.  My coach Grant Holicky of Apex Coaching, Davis Wheelworks, Clif Bar, Rudy Project, Reno Running Company, Champion System, Boardman Bikes, and Blue 70.  

Kemah triathlon-aquathlon world champs

Last weekend I headed to Kemah, TX for an Olympic distance triathlon. This was my first time not competing at the St Anthony's triathlon since I turned pro. While it was a tough choice to not go to St Pete, mainly because of staying with my awesome homestay and friend Todd, Kemah fit a little better with my preparation for the beginning of the Rev3 series.

I've spent the last month since Oceanside 70.3 doing some solid training and some single event races. I did a TT in Boulder on my new Boardman AiR TT/9.8 which was awesome. And a 5k running race in absurdly windy conditions.

With the solid training I was very excited to get in a race at Kemah and see where I was going into the longer part of my racing season. Unfortunately, a big storm came in the night before the race. There was torrential rain throughout the night and the race organization had to cut out the bike portion of the race; thus making this my first aquathon and what we deemed the aquathon world championships! We did a swim/run only. I was 2nd out of the water and had a solid run but wasn't enough to compete for the win and ended up 4th.

I am now getting ready for my first Rev3 race of the 2013 season in Knoxville!

Oceanside 70.3

In 2010 I raced my first 70.3 in Oceanside.  I didn't even have a year of professional racing and had only about 18 months of any triathlon training under my belt.  I made a joke/deal with my friend John Dahlz that if I finished in the top 10, I would quit work.  I somehow managed to finish 8th that year in what I thought was a really stacked field.  At the time I had no intention of quitting work regardless of my finish.  Little did I know that the next time I raced at Oceanside I would be training full time.

That brings me to the 2013 Oceanside 70.3.  Oceanside is typically the first big hit out race for the North American racing season and this year was no exception.  In fact one could argue that this was the deepest field ever at Oceanside.  Since getting back from South Africa, my training has been going very well and I was really excited to test myself at this race and hopefully pick up some points for Hy-Vee.  And I was extremely excited to be back racing in California with the chance to see my family and spend a few days post race with my brother. I was able to spend a few days eating great Mexican food, surfing, going to the beach, and visiting Stone Brewing with Chad which was awesome.

The race started well with a fast and solid swim.  I swam in the front group and we were able to keep Andy from getting away.  I think I was about 4th out of the water and was anxious to get on the bike and start riding hard.  This field was not only stacked but also really large in numbers.  I wasn't sure what would happen on the bike with so many athletes and my main goal was to ride hard to stay out of trouble.  I had a couple of penalties last year and really wanted to have a clean race.  I was amazed at how tactical the bike leg was for this race.  I made some mistakes with my positioning in what was a huge group of athletes and that cost me later in the bike when I ended up getting dropped from the group.  I ended up getting into T2 about 4min down from the lead group.  I ran as hard as I could and had a decent run.  Made some nutritional mistakes towards the end of the run but put together what I thought was a solid effort.

This race was my first experience in what was a World Championship level field.  The race was very different from other half distance races that I have done and although I am not really happy with my 14th overall place, I did learn a lot of valuable things from this race.  I am fortunate enough to have power data from my SRM; which, is really important for me at this point.  With that information my coach, Grant Holicky, and I are able to get a more objective view of what happened on the bike leg of the race and what we need to work on.  I am really looking forward to some more quality training as the season is still very early.  I definitely think I am making progress but have a lot of work to do to start getting closer to the guys like Jesse Thomas and Andy Potts who are dominating these races.

Alcatraz 2013

My first race in the Northern hemisphere in 2013 was last weekend in my favorite place to race; San Francisco.  Because of the America's Cup sailing race, The Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon was moved from its normal date in June, to the first weekend in March.  This change of date, meant that the conditions for this notoriously tough race could be much worse than normal.  Fortunately, there weren't any storms this weekend; but, the water temperature in the San Francisco Bay was a frigid 51 degrees!!! Even with the cold water I was very excited to be able to return to the Bay Area to race.  I have such a great support network in the bay between my family, friends, and Olympic Club teammates.

I think Alcatraz is a race that every triathlete should try at some point in their career. I know it can be difficult to get into, but it is such a unique and exciting experience.  This was my 4th time doing this race and I was just as excited as I was the first time that I competed.  There is just nothing like jumping off a boat into the bay and swimming towards shore.  Between the swim, beautiful views, and other challenges on the bike and run course; this race has it all.

Since returning from South Africa I have been hitting the training pretty hard and the week of this race was no exception.  With that being said, I was really happy with my 9th place finish.  I had one of my best swims for this race (for swimming being my strength I have never had a good swim here), was solid on the bike, and ran 90 seconds faster than I ever have on this course.  This was the first time that I used a road bike for this race. I thought that I would give it a try because of the steep climbs and relatively few flat sections.  However, it was a bit windy on the course this year and I ended up loosing a lot of time through Golden Gate park to the group that I was biking with. This left me going into T2 in 10th place.  I quickly caught up to 9th and ran with Matt Lieto for about half the run.  Having him with me was great.  Matt is an awesome guy and we were both helping each other out a bit on the run. Running on the sand is my least favorite part of this race but I think I managed to keep it together during this section for once. As usual for this race it wasn't mistake free.  I have these great flats from Reno Running company and I didn't use them until race day.  That mistake wasn't very pleasant for my calves!  I also won't be riding a road bike on this course again.  But hopefully I'll be doing this race for years to come and I can learn from my mistakes.

Overall I had a great experience racing and being back in California.  I got to see so many friends at the race and had a great time with my brother and friends post race in my favorite city in the world.  And I even got to go surfing in Santa Cruz the day after before flying back to the snow in Colorado.  My preparation for Oceanside 70.3 is going great and this race was a good indication for where my fitness is right now.  Looking forward to the next few weeks before getting to return to California! (and surf with my brother again)

(Photos curtesy of Chad Leto.  @chadleto)

Races

Recently I was able to come up with my 2013 race schedule. In years past, I have always come up with a tentative schedule; and somehow manage to change everything around as the season progresses. This year I am very excited to have an actual schedule in place. My main focus for 2013 will be the Rev3 series. This series puts on fantastic races and I look forward to having the opportunity to take part in many of their races. Specifically, I will be racing at Knoxville, Quassy, Wisconsin, Maine, and Branson. Last year I did a race that was probably the most fun race I have ever done; a F1 race in Coronado, and I can't wait to do a couple more of these this year! While I don't necessarily train for a sprint race, I had way too much fun with this style of racing to miss out! The season gets underway in a hurry because I am racing in just under a week at the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon!

South Africa

It seems that when I go through long periods of time without writing a post it is either because I am really busy, or I feel like not much has been happening.  Fortunately for me, this long absence has been due to an amazing trip to South Africa! I had the great opportunity to spend the month of January in South Africa visiting my friend and training partner from last summer, Travis Johnston.  It was exactly what I needed at just the right time.  I was starting to get a bit jaded with training and triathlon and this trip gave me the opportunity to have FUN and put my mind in the right spot. I am now back in Boulder and once again very excited to be getting ready for the 2013 season!

 So much happened during this trip that I don't even know where to start.  So I am just going to go over some highlights and share some pictures.

-I flew business class.  This was pretty amazing for international travel.  A bed, legit food, and booze.  Wish I could fly that way all the time.
- Cycling in the Cradle of Humankind.  Johannesburg is a HUGE city with crazy drivers and what I would consider pretty dangerous roads.  Not ideal for cycling; but, Travis lived about a 30min bike ride away from this huge open space area of game preserves and private land.  It is where everyone goes to cycle and it was incredible.  On a Saturday morning there has to be over 1000 people out riding the roads. During our rides out there I saw a Lion, white Tiger, Rhino, Giraffe, Baboons, various game animals, and probably other things I'm forgetting.  They call this area by that name because they have found some of the oldest homo sapien fossils in these caves.  Travis and I actually went and toured the caves and they are massive.  There is an underwater lake and they have no idea how big it is.  In the 80's they sent scuba divers down to explore it and one died so they won't let anyone dive there anymore.  To get an idea of the size they put die into the water and found the same dye over 100kms away!
-I did do a race during this trip; the South Africa 70.3.  It is the largest 70.3 in the world and a huge deal there.  They shut down an entire freeway for the bike.  There were 3500 athletes.  It was pretty tough racing in January but it was a good way to stay motivated to train while there.  I finished 10th overall.  The afterparty was definitely the best after party of any race I've been too.
-After the race I got to do some exploring.  I went to Cape Town which was probably the highlight of my trip.  There I saw the sunset from Table Mountain, went cage diving with Great White Sharks, and toured the city.  I also went and spent a night in Stellenbosch (thanks to Will Clarke) and after just one afternoon/evening there I am seriously considering spending next winter there.  Reminded me of Napa Valley in California but a lot less expensive.
-Kruger National Park is a giant protected land area and where some of the best safari is in the country.  We were fortuante enough to be able to stay on this amazing golf course outside of the park. This area of the country was pretty intesne as far as animals. Right outside our place was a river that Hippo and Crocodile in it.  During a run around the golf course I ran within about 10meters of a croc and fortunately scared it because I didn't see it at all.  And I saw a green mamba snake.  It was a good feeling when I got back to the states and I wasn't as concerned about dying while I was training.  During this part of the trip we went on a morning game drive and saw a ton of animals.  We also went on a night safari, white water rafting, and went to an African Cup of Nations soccer game.

That probably is just about half of the things I did while in South Africa.  I was so lucky to have amazing hosts in Travis and his girlfriend Stacey who graciously allowed me stay with them and let me be a tourist.