USAT Collegiate Nationals 2012

Going into this race, I had a feeling I was in for an interesting weekend. For the three and a half weeks prior to racing, I had not been able to run or bike without a lot of pain. Thankfully, with lots of stretching, I was able to get to the start line. I got down to Tuscaloosa, Al the Friday before the race to find my ITU road bike (courtesy of USA triathlon) had been cracked irreparably by the shipping company, and my bike box was destroyed! This was the icing on the cake, injury plus broken bike, all I could say was wow. I tried to keep my mind positive despite planning on focusing on the short draft legal relay since I knew my knee was not up to par to do a full OD triathlon. Ironically, it was the bike I needed to use for that relay that got broken.. so I was left to scramble and try to find a replacement. Thankfully, Korey from N. C. State came through in the clutch and let me borrow his.

The OD race: I started the swim with the full knowledge that I would probably not be able to complete or race competitively. This was partially realistic, but also too negative of an attitude to have- and is something I can't let happen again. After having a sub par swim and exiting my wave about 16th, I got on the bike and felt okay at first, riding with a  group keeping the average over 25 mph. However, around 10K into the ride (1/4t of the total) I felt my knee seize up, and all the muscles were making my knee track incorrectly. I had to just ride back into town, and relinquish my goal of winning collegiate nationals in 2012. Very tough decision, but something I had come to copes with before leaving for the race when I could not even bend my knee the Thursday before the race.

The Draft legal relay: This was honestly a perfect way to cap off the weekend. Although my team had some tough times with cramping, I was really happy to have the 6th overall fastest leg with the fastest run split overall.  Using Korey's bike was great, except my cleats did not fit into the pedals, so I basically rode without much efficiency (as shown by my disproportionately slow bike split), I am confident I could have ridden with anybody that day if I had my own bike, and possibly a pack to work with. I was super happy to finish the weekend with plenty of new friends from N. C. State, and get home to try and heal my knee before Dallas Continental Cup in early June, where I will be attempting to earn a birth to Under 23 World championships this coming October!

My relay team for the first ever collegiate draft legal relay

My poor Blue RC4 frame. Put a damper on the race upon arrival.

Plus the bike box. Ouch, they are pretty sturdy usually.

Injury and Moving On

This will be a short post about the events leading up to my preparations for Collegiate Nationals 2012. About 4 weeks before the event, I did a long run on a knee that was hurting right over the patella. After the run, the ensuing days were very painful, and I have still been unable to run/bike on a regular basis. On the bright side, I have had a monstrous swim block with all my weeks over 30K, and have seen times drop precipitously. I leave in two days for collegiate nationals in Alabama, and have honestly never gone into a race feeling like this. I am not sure if I will be able to ride/run at all, let alone at the pace necessary to win this race.

Here is a link from USAT about the race: http://www.usatriathlon.org/news/articles/2012/4/041612-collegiate-nationals.aspx

I hope to not disappoint, but am trying to prepare myself for anything. I will still go into this race with as much focus as possible, and actually am seeing a doctor this afternoon to try and find a way to race with less pain. This has been a tough time, but with the requisite time off training, it makes me realize how lucky I am that i can train, and it makes me appreciate those 5:30 AM alarms because you are getting out of bed to do something you love.

Injuries are part of sport (albeit not the best part), so I will try and handle this in the best way I can. Good luck to all those competing this weekend, I am excited because I have heard such good things about the atmosphere, so I can't wait.

Sweet picture from Taylor Knight of the lead bike pack early in the race.

Lake Lure "Race" and Injury

This last weekend in March, I drove down to Lake Lure, NC to race in the first ever all collegiate draft legal triathlon. I originally was not planning on doing this race, but I really liked the idea behind building draft legal racing for athletes in the US. I drove down the Wednesday before the race, but since the previous Sunday had not been able to ride or run due to (I believe) some pre patellar bursitis from crashing the week before in a bike race. I was just hoping the knee would get better through the trip, and I would be able to race. By race morning, it was slightly better, but still compromised. I figured I would just do as much as I could before pulling out. The swim went pretty well, and I was glad I got some wetsuit open water practice in before collegiate nationals. The beach start is not my favorite, but I can always use practice. There was a mad dash at the start, but for the first time in awhile I found myself at the front of the group by the first bouy. The two lap swim put me in second overall in a nice breakaway with another athlete who had draft legal experience as a junior. Below are videos from the start and the beginning of the bike. After 5 or the 10 laps on the bike (each lap was 1.55 mi long with a 600 meter hill at 12% gradient, and a screaming downhill), I had to pull out as I could feel my knee getting progressively worse. I did not want to compromise collegiate nationals in a few weeks where I hope to earn a birth to World University Games. The organization of the race was great considering they had to change location in January, and swiftly changed the race to the sweet mountain town of Lake Lure, NC. The course was a little dangerous for my liking though with such a severe downhill and speed bumps at the bottom. I was very upset to swallow my pride and stop riding while in the lead group, but knew it was for the better. Long term thinking is what I needed.

Clermont Pan Am Cup

Here is my race report from Clermont Continental Cup from March 3rd. I got down to Florida Thursday night, did a nice course preview with the collegiate recruitment program Friday morning, then started the race saturday around 2:30 pm.

Here is Jason Peterson and me doing some of the swim exit.. Lot of water running there!
Pre race: Got up naturally at 8:30 am and had a light breakfast and did a short run to shake out, and felt great.
Warmed up a little more on the bike once I got to race site and then more even in the swim. Race got underway about 30 minutes late. Should have had a powerbar gel before the start, because I was low on energy/electryolytes by the end. Sat near a few brits before the race, and they were hilarious.
Swim: Washing machine, started out on a sandbar about 100 m into the water. The horn surprised me, and I was quickly punched on both sides by people dolphin diving. I tried a mix of dolphin dives, runs, clammoring, and swimming to stay in the mix. Should have been more aggressive, because I was relegated to the back of the pack, and eventually was on the side of the pack- not getting a draft. After second bouy, I was at the back of the main pack and pretty comfortably swimming there. Soon we started the sand bar shuffle again and heart rate jacked up pretty high. Finished the swim next to pretty much teammate Jason Peterson, and figured we'd be set to ride in the main group.
T1: Get to my bike.. my bike shoe was still rubber banded to my bike but shoe was off pedal! O snap. Really had to think on my toes here and tried to not panic. I lost the main pack solely because of this. Damn, bad luck. Also was frenzied that when I got the rubber band off and shoe on my foot, got a penalty for early mount.

Bike: Caught the stragglers quickly, but was a lot stronger of a rider than them, so ended up pulling harder and longer than our small 4- man group. Caught another guy for 5, but we were still losing time to the main group of 20+. Felt good technically and was recovered quickly after my pulls, so I know I can go a lot faster and hang with that main pack.

These are two videos of the small bike group I was in through transition on laps 2 and 3

T2: no hiccups

Run: Got out of the gates hard, but immediately knew I was going to be in for a survival type run. 2 loop course on an out and back, on the first out, I dropped my whole group, but started to hurt and a Swedish guy gaped me (he was doing 0 work on the bike). I took my penalty after lap 1 and immediately cramped up in my right abdomen. It hurt a lot and really hampered the second loop. Was just trying to focus on the finish. Got in, and laid down for awhile.

OKAY overall result. Good that I finished the race, not lapped out, and I maintained control after my shoe was not on my bike. Would have been very easy to lose focus and quit, but that was a long way to travel to do that. Biked solidly, and am glad the rust has been busted. Am looking forward to Collegiate nationals to contend for the win. Clermont didn't show a great race for me, and it is motivation. "He who has nothing to lose stands to gain everything."

Big Training Block

I haven't posted anything in awhile, so I thought  I would take a chance to talk about my most recent training block during the month of January and early February. This was my biggest base period ever, and encompassed all three sports fairly evenly. I firmly believe a huge base will get you 90% of the way to your potential, and is completely necessary if you want to sustain a triathlon season from March until October!

Some of my personal obstacles during a huge block like this include the affinity I have to over- train. I will admit, I am easily caught up in huge numbers, and have worked toward breaking that problem. During my sophomore season of track (2011), I did not race to my potential because I was too concerned with 100- mile weeks, and not resting up for races. I am trying to accommodate this by taking serious down weeks every 3-4 weeks. Here are some examples of my winter workouts. You can feel free to message me if you have any questions on training for triathlon.

The swim: During January, my goal was to get myself as close as I could to where I was when I quit swimming at age 17. I managed to average 25K/week in the pool. I absolutely am not a fan of swimming alone, but most of this yardage was logged solo. When I did get the chance to swim with a masters group on the occasional Saturday morning, I was able to throw down a 3:09 300 free at the end of a 4k long practice. Competition really makes it so much easier. I believe I am getting close to my high school self, when I could break 5:00 for the 500. I attribute this to a leap I made in terms of making much more of my yardage quality at a 1:10 pace/100 for shorter stuff or up to 1:15 for 1500 repeats (which also help mentally). I put a lot of emphasis on stroke technique during the summer (and also maxed out around 13K for swimming). Both the increase in volume and intensity has helped my swim a lot.

The Bike: I realized last year that biking was my weakness (which made sense since it was the only sport I hadn't done extensively before). By the end of the season, I could time trial pretty well as shown at AG nationals and Nation's Triathlon, but my ITU opener was lackluster in the bike leg (as well as the broken wrist!). To address these, I have tried to log upwards of 200 miles/week on the bike keeping 2 days higher quality and a longer 3-4 hour ride on weekends. I try to ride with groups as often as possible for ITU simulations, but it is tough in Delaware as a lot of people go indoors for the winter. I am much happier with my bike fitness and bike handling at this point then ever before.

The run: This has been going great for me. I averaged 66 miles/week during January, and consistently had 2 hard days/week plus a long run of 15-17 miles. I was able to run a great bike/run brick session with the hard run segments being 2 miles, 1 mile, 1 mile, 1 mile and keep them all below 5:10 pace, and all the miles at least 5 minute pace. This bodes well for me as I haven't done a lot of specificity below 5 minute pace. I have some time to address the speed, which is something I always have had to work on. I am excited to run off the bike in Clermont in 2 weeks and put up a great race.

Also, I came across this video recently from my first (and last) conference cross country race I am in the white Delaware singlet with Blue shorts in the lead group (for the first 3 of 4 laps):

A few cool things

The past week has been a whirlwind for me, but in a great way. It started out when Triathlete.com magazine asked to have an interview with me. They published it online the following week, and can be found at this link. Triathlete.com

I also had a friend, teammate, and fellow runner, Mark Hannagan make a "how to" movie for his photography class. He used me as the 'talent' for a how to train for triathlon video. It is really well done especially considering it's his first video.


How to Train like a Professional Triathlete from ART 280 Video Site on Vimeo.


Lastly, I acquired a number of new sponsors, all listed in the post below. I am extremely grateful to all of these fantastic companies, and am honored to align myself with them.

New Sponsors for 2012

I am very pleased, honored, and excited to announce that I will be working with Power Bar, CycleOps and Kiwami this upcoming season. The final logistics are still being finalized, but I am excited to use CycleOps power tools, including their new heart rate based power meter. Also, I have competed in the Kiwami Amphibian suit, which is an incredibly fast suit. I am very excited to be partnering with these two excellent companies. For anybody that knows me, I eat a lot, and love power bars, so it only made sense to work with Power Bar team elite for the next two years!

Also, a local law firm, Bifferato Gentilotti Law will be a chief financial sponsor for the coming year. I am working hard to be the best at triathlon, and they are the some of the best attourneys in town. I am so ever grateful for their help, as it is impossible to get into triathlon without financial help. In addition to this law firm, I have Delaware Orthopaedic Specialists financially backing me. Dr. Townsend, at Delaware Ortho, was the doctor that performed the surgery to fix my wrist. i am deeply grateful for both these companies.
I am also greatly thankful for personal friends that have provided support to me in any shape. I cannot begin to thank them enough!

Bifferato Gentilotti Law Firm

www.cycleops.com

http://www.kiwamitriathlon.com/