Thursday, May 30, 2013

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.

Monday, May 6, 2013

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.  

Thursday, May 2, 2013

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!