Injured

I successfully completed two months of fantastic training, especially on the bike. My cycling was faster in January than it had ever been when I was in tip-top shape. Then on January 4th I had a sudden sharp pain throughout my left leg while on my long run. I have been pretty much on the shelf since then. Running has been a no go and cycling has been limited and painful. The one thing I can do is swim, and I am unable to do that all the way as I am still building up from my layoff there. It has been a long 49 days since then. During that time I have visited a doctor, two massage therapists, and a chiropractor (and consulted a second). What I have learned is that I most likely have piriformis syndrome. That means that a tiny muscle in my butt is pressing on my sciatic nerve and causing extreme pain when I run or do similar motions. I am going to a physical therapist on Monday morning. Hopefully he will be able to get me on the road to recovery. If not, then I am not sure what I will do with myself. The doctor told me that this usually clears up in 2-6 weeks with physical therapy, meaning that I won't really be recovered until the day of the first race of the year. My racing season is really up in the air right now as the time off has put me in a difficult position in terms of being ready for my pro qualifying races in May. There has been one positive note in recent weeks. My swimming is coming back very well. I managed to PR in the 800 last week. It was only by two seconds, but after a month off due to injury and my slow buildup, that was a great surprise. Hopefully there will be good news soon!

2012 In the Books

The 2012 season came to end on October 27th, more than 8 months after the first race of the season and almost exactly a year following the first day of base training. Despite a couple major letdowns and a big setback in the swim, I can say that this was the most successful season so far, as I totaled a record 5 overall wins, bringing my lifetime multisport total to 13. PRs in the Olympic distance, half-iron distance, 5K, 10K, 40K bike and 1500m swim helped too. The season kicked off in the usual lackluster fashion at the Texas Motor Speedway duathlon. I led into T1, got smothered on the bike and managed to barely run back into the top ten with a decent second run. Things picked up at the Mean Green triathlon where I captured my first win of 2012 with a strong 24+ mph bike split followed by a cruising 16:12 5K split. Tough winds dashed my hopes at a course record. Maybe in '13... The OSU team traveled to Joe Pool Lake in Grand Prairie for the SMW Collegiate Regional Championship. After a mid 14 minute swim for 1K, I found myself in 6th on the bike and moved into 5th by the end. With only one catchable athlete ahead, I cruised into 4th and stayed there, still posting the 2nd fastest run just a few seconds off 2nd place finisher Mark Primeaux from LSU. 4th doesn't sound great, but after a poor bike I was pleased enough, especially since I finished behind three guys (Mark Saroni, Mark Primeaux and Ben Hall) that I have a ton of respect for. The highlight of the day was the OSU Men's team finishing 3rd, behind only perennial national championship contender Texas A&M and Texas. We punched our tickets to Collegiate Nationals in the first year of qualifying. Three weeks later we made the trek back out to Tuscaloosa, AL for Nationals. This was the week where my swimming setback began. I felt extreme pain and fatigue in my arms and couldn't push as hard as I wanted to. From that point on training was only intermittent and enough to try to maintain the fitness I had gained over the winter. A 23 minute swim (still a PR) put me in the 80s in the first wave. I mediocre bike split basically held my spot before I moved up using the 6th fastest run of the day at 34:32, to finish 52nd. The team improved seven spots over 2011 as we came in 42nd, despite our number three man dropping out due to a flat tire. (We estimate that we would've been 36th with him across the line). We're gunning for a top 25 finish as we are bringing back everyone but him, and even made a great addition in current sophomore Greg Seymour who has already done great things with the team. Introduced for the first time at this year's National Championship was the draft-legal relay that has been run by the pros for the past couple of years. A girl-guy-girl-guy relay where each athlete completes a 250m swim, 6K bike and 1mi run. Put on a team with two subs for people who dropped out, we didn't do well, but it was fun to be out there if for no other reason than to say I was in it the first time ever. With Nationals behind, the focus turned to CapTex where I would compete for the fourth straight year with the hopes of getting my pro card. Two weeks out from the Memorial Day event I raced the Rockwall sprint tri to tune up. Still battling pain in my arms I cruised through the 300m swim, then gained a big lead on the bike that I extended on the 5K run, splitting 16:10 and ticking off win number two. At CapTex, I couldn't have asked for much better, except for a pro card. Out of the swim in a non-wetsuit PR of 23:54, and a bike split on the pace that based on 2011 would put me in contention for the top 3, I found myself in only 17th place heading into the run. One of the day's top runs at 34:39, I ran my way into 10th, the same place as last year despite covering the course nearly 4 minutes faster. My new PR of 2:05:28 was just 20 seconds off the time for the last pro card a year earlier, but last year there were wetsuits. With the competition present I couldn't be disappointed, especially since I would have another shot in just five days. After a quick turnaround I was in Irving, TX for the Elite Development Race held in conjunction with the ITU Continental Cup. I had a poor swim and found myself in the 5th group on the road, the fastest group to not converge into the main pack. Feeling Monday's race I ran well, but not to my usual standards. I managed to stay in the top half of the 75-man field in 29th. A much welcomed week off was next, capped by a course record at the Metroplex Sprint tri. Taking the next few weeks to train, I rode every Friday morning with Todd Hamilton to help my cycling. To test myself I made the trip to Waco for the Olympic Distance race. Unfortunately the weather reduced the bike leg to 20K. After a terrible swim and reasonable bike, I experienced something unusual. I was run away from. Battling for the lead through four and a half miles, my abs cramped badly and I couldn't sustain the quick pace. Fading to the finish, I could only claim 4th. Redemption came quickly at the Wool Capitol Triathlon, my favorite course in the world. Following a mediocre swim I held onto 3rd on the bike. On the run I started out quickly until I could see the leader, last year's winner in the distance. I cruised until I caught him, and made the pass just after the 5K turnaround. Taking my time to the finish, i enjoyed the rest of the run and finally got a win at Wool Cap after four tries! The next race on the schedule was the first year Trifecta Triathlon at Possum Kingdom Lake. I led the way out of the swim with a massive wetsuit PR (maybe a little short...) and was rolling on the bike. At the bike turnaround, the only athlete ahead of me was one guy from the first wave. My time estimate told me we were pretty even. With two miles to go I started feeling some bumps, then slowed dramatically. I was flat. I gently rolled the rest of the way, stopping twice to check the well-being of my 404, all the while watching other riders fly past me. I sprinted out of T2, knowing a poor run by the leader could still give me a win. Pushing all the way to the line I smashed my 10K PR with a 32:44 split, bringing me withing 40 seconds of the win and earning 2nd overall. Two weeks later I claimed my 4th straight win at the Outdoor Adventure triathlon as the final tune-up for the US Open. Lucas and Alex finished 2nd and 3rd, even though Alex flatted. The U.S. Open finally came on October 7th, the last shot at a pro card in 2012. I wasn't expecting much as the competition is always deep. Following the roller coaster swim year that came with my injury I swam only 24:30 with the wetsuit. That was followed with my worst bike split since I can't even remember when. Even my run struggled in the wind and cold at only 36 and some seconds. I finished 36th overall, my lowest overall finish outside of Collegiate Nationals since this race in 2010. The only silver lining was that I finished 4th in the Collegiate division and earned enough points to keep my lead in the SMW Collegiate Rankings. Five of us from the OSU team closed out the season at the Longhorn 70.3 in Austin, TX which also served as the Collegiate Half-Ironman National Championship. In my first half since 2008, I knew a PR was coming. During the season I did one long brick a week to prepare. I wasn't quite ready for the tough bike course, but I was able to run my way back into the race with an 83 minute run split. My total time of 4:42:43 gave me 6th in the Collegiate Division, one spot ahead of Greg who came in at 4:47. Alex rounded out our scoring in 11th and gave us 2nd as a team! After a few weeks worth of disappointing race results that was definitely a great way to cap off the season. This week has been the prep week with Base 1 kicking off on Monday. I will not be swimming until November 26th to give my arms ample recovery time before they get going again. After that I will be taking a very conservative build up to normal volume. Here it goes!

2012: A New Era

The 2012 racing season began yesterday at Texas Motor Speedway. It was the first opportunity to see the state of my fitness after a career changing decision to leave Marcin's guidance last October. Since Halloween, I have trained diligently, killing myself in the water and on the bike to improve my major weaknesses. In the past three and a half months I have gained seven pounds of muscle, despite logging training hours in the upper 20s per week.

I finally had a respectable performance at the Speedway, posting an opening run of 10:01 that brought me first in to transition. All winter I had feared that 2+ hour long runs and the the swim and bike focus would diminish my speed. That wasn't an issue as I cruised through the first mile in 4:49. My bike lost the race as usual, but it was 90 seconds faster than last year. Lucas had the ride of his life though, besting me by a minute. He put together great runs and finished less than two minutes behind me.

My second run of 10:25 brought me in in 1:03:58, nearly three minutes faster than the 2011 edition of the race. Finally some results. Despite the increase in speed, I finished 9th compared to last year's 10th due to the fact that it was the SMw Regional Championship and drew some heavy competition. Will Huffman won for the second year in a row.

This race is a big step forward. I wasn't tapered in the slightest. It's only going to get better at Regionals and Nationals, especially since Lucas and I hung with the top A&M guys. Maybe there's hope for a Regionals upset. Maybe...

14 Days, 6 PRs

2011 is well underway with 4 multisport events already completed. After a less-than-stellar showing at the Texas Motor Speedway Duathlon, I hit my stride in March, scoring 3 top 5's at St. Patrick's, Mean Green, and Champions triathlon.

On the 13th, I jumped into the Keller pool at the start of the St. Patrick's tri and cruised through an uncomfortable 300m swim. Getting out onto the bike, I worked to maintain a decent place before the run. My 33:50 split was good for 11th on the day and set me up well going into the run. Not knowing my placing after the time trial start, I went out hard on the run looking to run in the 16:15 range. Still feeling good after a 5:11 opening mile, I tried to press to catch the runner up ahead. Nearing the turn around only two more guys were ahead on the road. At 4K I continued to push, passing former teammate Brian Miller. Kicking hard with 200 to go, I kept a solid effort through the line to split 16:18, the fastest run ever at the St. Patrick's Triathlon and an outright PR. My total time of 56:32 claimed 4th, just 56 seconds behind the race winner.

A week later we were in Denton for the UNT hosted Mean Green Triathlon, OSU teammate Lucas Shannon making the trip from Amarillo. With the wind howling, I knew I was in for a tough bike. What I should have been worried about was the swim. A seeding snafu caused some ordering issues, placing me 45th into the water with the small field of 200. This wasn't right. After six minutes of struggling, taking kicks in the face and head on collisions, I exited the pool, frustrated and checking my mouth for blood. I headed out on the bike (on a sweet Orbea Ordu I have on lend) and flew through the opening section, riding the 20+ mph tailwind. Five miles later, the struggling began as side and head winds hindered my ride, losing 3:17 to eventual race winner Dustin Joubert of A&M. I took off fast on the run once again, pushing hard all the way to the line in another PR: 16:09, which moved me into 5th position overall, but only 3rd in my age group. Lucas, meanwhile, had a fantastic day himself, posting an 18:37 5K and taking 19th overall and 1st in the 16-19 age group.

The next Friday, Lucas and I drove down to Pflugerville with our teammate Michael Mansfield for the first Olympic distance race of the year (and ever for Lucas). This race brought a great opportunity to get in the open water and go head to head with some of the A&M athletes once again. After leading for the first of two 750m loops in the swim, I was passed by a couple of athletes and left behind as they cut off some buoys on the way in to shore. Not letting the gap get to me, I hit it hard on the bike and split 1:07:30 for the 41.7K course. Despite being one of my best rides ever (and on a windy and rolling course), I had a big deficit to make up on the two athletes up the road, Scott Wilkinson and Dustin Joubert. Splitting 16:27 at 5K I cut significantly into the gap. Seeing Dustin not far up the road motivated me to keep the pace high even though fatigue was setting in. Passing him around four miles I continued to press. I wilted over the final mile but still finished with a 10K time of 33:47, a new PR. A total time of 2:08:30 was a PR as well after scaling the time down to account for the long bike leg, and good enough for second overall. Lucas had a great finish coming in around 2:19, and Michael had a good day as well at 2:46.

The very next day marked the final two PRs of the two week span. Doing a sprint tri relay with Steve Wood and Bart Robbins, I raced to a 5K time of 15:50.5, with a negative elevation first mile split of 4:48.8. We won easily over the other relay divisions.

Now it's time to look toward Nationals on April 9th, the first big race of the year!

Opening 2011

It's been too long since I last posted, between school and the holidays it's been difficult to keep up. Winter training has gone pretty well, forced to stay indoors a few times more than I'd like by the snow and ice, but it's been relatively solid. Some strong running performances in road races and a fun cyclocross season kept me motivated during the cold months and it looks like 2011 might be the breakout year I've been waiting for.
The first race of the season is coming up on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. This will be my 5th straight time to race the February edition of the event. OSU is going to have four guys in the race. Don't know yet if we're going to count as a team or not, we'll find out this weekend. It should prove to be a pretty exciting race as Tech and A&M will have teams there as always; there definitely won't be a lack of quality competition, not to mention with the usual Team Ironhead contingent battling at the front as well.
See you at the races!

The U.S. Open

The U.S. is now behind and the 2010 season has come to a close after 8 months of solid training and racing. Compared to my expectations for the event, I have to say I'm disappointed, but there were definitely reasons to be happy after it was all said and done.

The day started off pretty exciting as I got to the race site and discovered the Amateur Elites (me) would be sharing a special transition with the pros. Yes, the pros. Hunter Kemper, Greg Bennett, Bevan Docherty, Filip Ospaly, Stuart Hayes, Lisa Norden, Daniela Ryf, and the list of Olympians and World Cup champions goes on.
As I set up my transition, going through the usual motions of attaching my shoes to my bike etc, one of the pros came up to me and asked if he could borrow some elastic bands. It was Stuart Hayes. This was going to be an awesome day.

I got in a good warm up and got ready to get into the water for my seven o'clock start. The water temp was borderline wetsuit legal, luckily on the lower end. We dove into Lake Ray Hubbard my goggles smashed straight onto my face. Unable to see clearly I just stroked madly for the first set of feet I could find and held on. I worked my way up through the middle of my wave and came out of the water with a respectable 25 and some seconds after swimming in a rectangle into the current. I made the long run to transition and hopped on my bike, hitting the climb out of transition at top speed.

Once my shoes were on I tried to settle into my time trialing rhythm...but it never came. The course was covered with short, steep hills and narrow, curvy roads that really slowed my time. I got off the bike very dispirited with an average speed of just 21 miles an hour for the slightly shorter than 40K course. I slipped on my running shoes fairly casually as I looked around at all the bikes on the rack, seeing that I was one of the last elites into transition.

I set off on the run, legs on fire from the tough bike. The first three quarters of a mile was uphill so I just tried to relax and let it flow, not pushing too hard knowing how much racing was left. As I finally crested the hill I started to come up on the mile marker and saw 6:12 on my watch. This wasn't going to be a fast race. I kept pushing forward, lifting the pace just a little now that it was a little flatter and just tried to find a good tempo. I passed the two mile and looked down at my watch. 5:45. Things were heating up fast! I kept rolling and just felt the pace get easier as I neared the turnaround and my splits continued to get faster. With two miles to go I started to push really hard and just hoped I could hang on. Up and over a few more climbs then the long downhill run to finish was all that remained. With two tenths to go I caught a runner from the sprint tri and tried to beat him to the line, falling just a meter short. Run split: 35:49. A two minute triathlon 10K PR! Finally some silver lining to an otherwise unspectacular performance.

Looking at the results that afternoon I saw that I had the 22nd fastest run INCLUDING the pros, and was the 22nd non pro, 45th overall. Not what I was hoping for, but definitely something promising to build on for the future. Now it's time to take some time to relax and do some base work. There's another long season ahead.

Outdoor Adventure Triathlon: Two In A Row

The OSU Outdoor Adventure Triathlon took place on September 25th and I was easily able to defend my title and take my second victory in a row after my win at PrairieMan. I stayed with the leader (who ended up being a relay) in the water after doing a lot of extra work to fight my way to front, dodging around the overzealous. I ran fairly comfortably, meeting up with Dad who was on his cross bike around the halfway point. I kept the pace pretty high, but still conversational; it felt like it was about in the 5:45 to 5:50 range. Cruising into T2 with no one else in sight behind, I set off on a pretty casual ride out and back on the hills of Bronco Road. I saluted the crowd with two fingers as I glided easily across the finish line, well over five minutes ahead of the next finisher.

This weekend is what counts. The U.S. Open triathlon. The race Marcin and I have been aiming at for more than fourteen months. It's finally here. The last two weeks have been the biggest taper of my life and I have to say that I've never been fitter and never more optimistic. I know a top three (for a pro card) is in my capabilities if I have a good day, I just have to perform when the time comes. I'll be in the Elite Amateur wave, starting right behind pros like Matt Reed and Greg Bennett. I'm ready to go.