Santa Cruz International

This was a tough week. I had to work more than usual and was tired from the previous weeks training so I felt pretty run down all week. I forced myself to stick to the plan though and I am glad I did because my body finally came around by race day on sunday. If I am not feeling well the week prior to a race I always try to tell myself that another nights sleep might be all I need and not to worry and if I am not feeling good during a race I always remind myself that things might come around later on and to not let up. This race was a good example of why that is a good piece of positive self talk to have in my repertoire.

I felt good race morning and with warm coffee in my belly I headed off in the fog to ride down to transition. I was the first one there which was nice because I know so man people at this event that it is nice to have time to chat with everyone and catch up. There were a lot of people coming into town for the race and a strong field had been assembled including two strong veterans of the sport, both with Ironman victories under their belts and I knew it would be a battle. Spirits were high in transition and I was glad to be enjoying the day after a couple of weeks of uncertainty.

I lined up for the start next to John Dahlz who is a long time figure on the NorCal triathlon circuit and a beast of a swimmer...if one thing was certain we would all be chasing him once the swim was over. My goal for the swim was to be aggressive and minimize the damage John could do and gain time on some of the other guys in the field that I knew were Monsters on the bike. I got a good start and great angle into the water, after a strong entry and aggressive first couple of minutes I actually reached the first turn buoy with John which was a huge boost in confidence. I knew it would not last and slowly but surely he started building a gap on me as we went through the first lap. I saw him exit to run up for the second lap and I figured the gap to be inside thirty seconds which I was really happy with. I was not feeling great but sometimes you can perform well anyway so I just told myself to keep it up. The second lap was tough but I didn't loose much more time and exiting the water it looked like the gap was inside of a minute. I ran up the beach and slowly accelerated as I caught my breath.

I transitioned smoothly and headed out with my bike. The mount line is on a slight slope and I didn't get a good foot hold on the first go so I jumped off and ran up the hill remounting at the top. I gave myself a couple of miles to get into my shoes, catch my breath and get up to speed. There is a 180 degree turn on each lap so after a couple of minutes I got a good look at the gaps. John was about a minute up and the guy chasing me was about a minute behind. I put my head down and kept on top of my gears pushing as much pain into my pedals as my lungs could manage. On the second lap I saw that I had made up time on John and put time into the guy chasing me which is always a big boost and kept me very motivated. On lap three I saw that Matt Russell had made up a lot of time and was within two minutes which I expected but I couldn't believe now that I was watching it happen. I kept the pace up and by the fourth lap I could see John disappearing around turns up the road which helped me stay focused and helped me push myself.

I came into the second transition just as John was leaving and I knew that if I had a good run that was a gap I could get back. I fumbled with my shoes some because my hands were cold and I knew those seconds counted so when I got my feet into them and they were not quite straight I just let it be and took off.

There is a short hill right at the start of the run and John was at the top as I hit the bottom. Up the hill and onto the flats I eased my way up to the lung searing maximum effort I knew it was going to take to reel him in and just held on for dear life. I could see the gap and for the first two miles I thought it might be shrinking but very slowly and at the turn around we exchanged encouragement to each other with a gap of close to 45 seconds. I made the turn and on the way back saw that I had a good gap on the two closest chasers, I thought that would hold so I pushed on in the hopes that John might fade in the closing miles. With around two miles to go I saw that the gap had come down significantly and was shrinking noticeably. With each stride I pushed harder and got back a little time and just held on to the hope that I would not run out of road. With a mile to go the gap was fifteen seconds and I could see John looking over his shoulder. I was so close but already running at my absolute maximum there was nothing I could do about closing the gap. It kept coming down slowly and with a half mile to go it was within ten seconds. In the home stretch it was so close and we both kicked hard, absolutely exhausted, and my best effort fell just a bit short as I came in just behind him.

I was so worked and John turned around at the finish line to welcome me in. It was a great battle and I am so thankful to have had him out there pushing me to do well. It was a good race and I am glad to have done well. The home town races are the best and every year this event reminds me why I love triathlon and all the things that are great about our sport's community.

Swim 14000 yds
Bike   6.75 hrs
Run    20 mi

7/29 - 8/4/2012

After some time off I got back into some training this week but kept it under control. I was just trying to get back into the swing of things. Some sessions came easy and some sessions were a struggle but the week was pretty good overall. I am trying to decide what to do with the rest of the season at this point. There are a couple of fun local events in the next two months, I don't have another big event planned but some friends are talking about Austin 70.3 or Rev3 SC so I may get on board with one of those to take the season out a little longer. I am feeling good and I would like to get one or two more good results in this year.

Swim 16,500 yds
Bike   8 hrs
Run    27 mi

7/14/2013

I probably will not do a race report for Vineman 70.3 and there was not much training to speak of this week as I was resting, and I had planned on taking a break at this point in the year anyway so I will probably be away from the blog for a while.

It is hard to express what I am feeling right now but I should say that I will be re-evaluating some things in the coming weeks as the way things have panned out are not how I had hoped.

Thank you for all you support and encouragement...it has meant more than you will ever know.

7/1 - 7/7/2013

This was a very melo week having just raced last Sunday and with Vineman 70.3 only another week away my only focus this week was to be rested and recovered. These weeks are always hard for me because I have to constantly remind myself that it is ok to take it easy. My brain always wants to train harder and when I am tired I always forget that I fell sluggish because I am recovering and not because I am out of shape. I felt really run down for most of the week but by the weekend I started feeling better and more rested.

I got to do another fun photo-shoot with Maximum Impact Design for ETON at some beautiful locations, with delicious food from The Picnic Basket! It was a beautiful day and even though I am still  kind of embarrassed doing it they always make sure it is a fun time :)

I also got to spend some time with good friends, have some barbecue, sip some wine and play with some really cute pets!

It was a good week :)

Swim 10,000 yds
Bike   4 hrs
Run    12 mi

California International Triathlon 2013

This was another race that I was doing for the first time this year, I was excited because it is on my old home turf and I would be able to spend the weekend with my family close to the event. Being able to stay in a comfortable place, have home cooked meals and sleep comfortably makes all the difference when being rested and fresh is key for racing well. This was especially important for me because I have had a really rough couple of weeks and I have not been feeling all that well. I got a good nights sleep the night before the race and was feeling refreshed and charged up in the morning.

I made it to the event fairly early and got a good spot to set up. The weather had let up some from the day before which was a relief because the heat had been unbearable for a couple of days. I had consumed close to 10 quarts of water the day before to combat the heat and be fully hydrated race morning. There were lots of people from my team and old friends around so I spent a lot of time chatting and catching up before heading out for a little warm up jog. I got in some stretching, accelerations and recon on the back section of the course which I was excited to find was all on soft surfaces. The water was warm from the past weeks weather and I opted for a very thin speedsuit instead of a wetsuit because I have had problems in the past overheating durring the swim. I jumped in the water with enough time to check out the finish approach and the course's sighting lines before the start. The water was the perfect temperature for a speedsuit swim and I was glad I chose it.

We lined up for the swim wit a big group and I was expecting there to be some really strong swimmers in the group as the east bay is an aquatics hotbed. I started to the far left of the chute so I could see the whole spread of the group at the start and after 100 meters there was no one that was pulling away from the rest of the group so I turned away and set my own pace. I felt good in the water and with my arms free of the wetsuit I felt like I was swimming well so I actually picked it up to a stronger pace than usual in hopes that I might put some time into the faster guys that I knew were in the field. I spent the whole swim out front on my own but there was at least one swimmer just touching my toes from time to time. The finish gets shallow a little early so I put in a couple of good dolphin dives and gapped the few people I knew were close behind.


I didn't have that great of position in the transition area so two or three guys came into transition with me but I got out just ahead of them. The moment I got on my bike and made my first pedal stroke my chain came off, I tried to pedal it back on but it jammed and I came to a stop. I jumped off with one cycling shoe half on and tried to spin it on manually but it jammed again. I set the bike down and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. The chain had gotten sucked up between the frame and the rings but the space between was so small that it would not slide back out easily. I tried setting it on the rail and using the cranks to pull it free but it would not budge. I was starting to panic because minutes were passing and more people were leaving transition to start the bike. Eventually I just grabbed the chain and rings and started yanking on it until I forced it out of the space it was caught in. I got it back on the gears and spun it around to set it and finally got on my bike. In my head I knew that at least two minutes had passed and looking at the times it turned out to be more than THREE! I was livid and as soon as I got onto flat roads I put the bike into my biggest gear and just started pounding on the pedals as hard as I could. My approach this year has been to stay within myself and control my efforts but at this point I was so far back that I knew that I had to go as deep as I was capable and hold nothing back if I was going to claw my way back to the front of the race.

The first six miles of the course has several out and back sections which worked really well for me because I got a good look at how many people had passed me and how far ahead the leaders were. I had lost about 15 places and the leaders were three minutes up but at this point that all became irrelevant because I was so angry I had the throttle all the way open and that was all I could do. I was so far back that even my best might not have gotten them back so it didn't matter if I over did it. By mile eight I had caught all but three of the guys up the road and I had one guy in sight. I caught him a few miles later and then it was just two up the road. There was one more out and back about two thirds of the way through and I was disappointed to see that I had barely taken any time out of them. My hope was that they were putting out so much effort that they might crack on the run and I could real them in there. I hit every turn as hot as I could and kept my effort at my max the whole way back to transition so as not to give up any time.

I got through T2 quickly and left shaking my head knowing that it was still around two minutes to the leaders and it was going to take a great run by me in addition to poor runs by them for that gap to close down. I went hard from the beginning and brought myself up to my absolute limit. The run course is absolutely perfect for me, two loops with lots of twisty up and down sections and all on soft pack trails, a fair amount of which are shaded! I like a course that changes regularly because it keeps my mind occupied and the time passes faster. At the first out and back I figured it was just shy of three minutes to the leader and the guy in second place was less than a minute back from him. They both looked tired and a lot can happen in ten kilometers so I was motivated to chase. I took the short lines through all the turns and pushed all the hills imagining the seconds I was gaining with each passing mile. When I got close to the end of the first lap I could see the guy in second and that gave me an extra boost but when I passed him at the beginning of the second lap I could see that he was fading pretty badly and that meant that there was probably still a long way to go to the leader. At the second out and back section I realized that I had put time into the leader but that he was not fading badly and was still over a minute and a half ahead of me. With less than two miles to go I knew that this was an insurmountable gap so I backed off a bit and ran steady to the finish to consolidate the work I had already done.

I finished second on the day and although it is disappointing to lose so much time because of a mechanical, the time that I spent moving was very strong and the numbers I put up were great for me. I loved the course and I am already looking forward to taking an honest crack at it next year to see what I can do there. It was great to hang with my family and see all my teammates racing well! 

This was my last hard effort before Vineman 70.3, which is my big focus this year. I am very happy with where my fitness is at and I am looking forward to putting it to the test against the best in the world!