I should have practiced that more...

Oh man, oh man...oh, man. I had a bunch of firsts today. First time racing the Loveland Lake to Lake Olympic distance triathlon, first broken bone, first ambulance ride, first prescription of Vicodin, soon to be first surgery, and a first class dissappointment. Remember that time I said I had perfected the flying bike mount? It may be hard to remember unless you're a loyal reader of this blog, because I claimed to have perfected this graceful act all of 19 HOURS AGO! Well, it turns out I did not, in fact, perfect the flying bike mount.

The short and long of it was that I messed up the mount, landed on my foot sideways really hard, said 'ouch', and then convinced myself to continue riding to see if the pain would go away. During the 15 miles it took me to realize something was seriously wrong, my thought progression went something like this;

"Shit, that hurts. Calm down and you can gain back lost time."

"Shit, that still hurts. Just get through the bike and see what you can do on the run."

"Shit, I guess I'll just finish the ride."

"Shit, my foot is swollen and green."

There goes the past 8 weeks of training...and the next 8...

( -100 cool points)

3 Seconds Faster, +10 Cool Points

I'm racing tomorrow morning. More precisely, I will be starting my race in 7 hours, 40 minutes. To prep for the race I had a relaxing ride on the outskirts of town to loosen the legs. Afterwards I did something I should have done 3 years ago...perfect the flying bike mount. My bike mounts have always been pretty good, but far from impressive. I spent about 5 minutes practicing in slo-mo to get the action down and slowly gained confidence and speed, until I was able to hop on the saddle at a brisk jog.

Tomorrow I hope to impress.

5430 Sprint, 2008

Coming back from Vancouver left me itching for a real race. This past weekend was the 5430 Sprint and I was psyched for a fast, fun course. Sprints are my favorite distance; not only do they suite my strengths as an athlete, but they generally are low key and require less preparation in the days prior to the race. Sprint races are a chance to go all out and grit your teeth through the finish.

My race went surprisingly well. Minutes before the starting gun I was joking about how I should be starting the race from the back of the pack. Regardless, I started the swim front and center with my buddies who were in my wave. After the gun, I settled into a strong pace and felt very comfortable. I kept the same effort level and was enjoying the untouched glassy water in front. One by one the swimmers by my side dropped back and I was tempted to slow down to get on a pair of feet to draft, but decided that leading a swim was a rare and fun occurrence, so I kept chugging along quite comfortably in the lead. I kicked it up a notch with 300m to go, and when I ran out of the water I was leading by ~30sec. After hustling in and out of T1, I had a good mount and started the ride. Pacing was great, I never went over the red line and kept my effort under control for the bike. I lead my wave for most of the bike, until the last 2 miles when the two friends I had started the swim with passed me and stayed ahead. I came into T2 about 20 seconds back but exited in 2nd place. I played it conservative for most of the run and kept a pace I thought I could maintain. Surprisingly, the gap between myself and my buddy in the lead held steady at 15 sec through the halfway mark. I fell off pace shortly after and was caught by the other friend trailing close behind. With 2k to go all I could do was hang on as best as I could. He dropped me shortly thereafter and I was left with nothing but momentum carrying me forward.

I finished the race 1min 16sec slower than last year, but only one place down from last year; 11th overall, 2nd place age group. Not bad considering I've only put in about 50 hours of training since getting back into the swing of things after school let out. If I come back into form on all fronts I should have a very good summer of races.

It was a fashionable finish... ;-)

Vancouver 2008

I recently returned from Vancouver, BC, host of the ITU World Triathlon Championships. I traveled there with my coach Matt and teammate Cedric. The entire weekend was cloudy, cold and rainy. I was not entirely prepared for this race; I had been back in training for about a month and my fitness was relatively lacking. The water temp was a frigid 55F and rain persisted for the entire first two days we were there.

Race morning was cold and cloudy but dry. A stiff wind had whipped up 3-5ft swells in the English Bay, and after over 600 women had started their race, directors decided to cancel the swim for the remaining competitors due to high seas. Apparently the kayaks on the swim course were overwhelmed; both by the number of people needing help and because they were taking on water and capsizing from the waves. SURPRISE! It's a duathlon! The swim was replaced with a "3k" run, which was more like a 2k run. The bike course was a tad under 37k, which for a World Championships, is embarrassingly short.

I started the 1st run in the back of the field, knowing my run is my weakest link, and made sure not to go out too hard and blow up. I came into T1 about a minute back from the leaders and had a smooth transition to the bike. Despite having to surge my way past HUGE packs of drafting racers my pacing was pretty good on the bike. The drafting was pretty blatant. We're talking 30+ racers packed within a 50m stretch of road. Oh well.

I had a great T2 after the bike and was feeling good on the run for the first 3k. I then promptly blew up and struggled through the rest of the run. I brought it home for a 32nd place finish in my age group, which is surprisingly 10 places better than I did at last year's Worlds. For some reason there was not as strong of competition this year. All in all I'm not dissapointed in my performance; I expected as much given the lack of preparation.

My "A" race for the season will be Age Group Nationals in Portland OR. I should have plenty of time to get back into peak shape by then!