A week after my season opener in Monterrey, Mexico, and armed with a far better strategic plan, I finished 10^th at the Ishigaki World Cup, held on the southernmost island of Japan. Ishigaki is an idyllic setting for triathlon, and it’s no wonder that this particular race is the oldest World Cup on the ITU circuit. And with 15 years of experience, the race organizers have gotten the details finely tuned.

The swim, a two-lapper in the fishing harbor (protected from the hammerheads by shark nets) set off at a surprisingly fast pace led by an Australian swimmer. For the second week in a row I was 4^th from the water and found myself in a small breakaway on the bike. Unlike in Monterrey, however, this group showed animosity towards each other from the start. Every time someone pulled, another person would attack. This led to a situation I can only think to call “dead fish”. When the first chase pack caught us the situation didn’t change at all. When the second chase pack caught us it became clear that one of the other athletes was planning to attack. When he did, I followed his lead and took off after him – dragging a Japanese athlete with me. When that Japanese athlete came by me and took a pull it became clear that he was not breakaway material. But when I started to come around him he showed that he was also not qualified to ride in a group – he turned to look back, and in doing so he turned his bars and took his bike clear across the road and into me. Because he was ahead of me at that point, when our bikes met it was a losing position for me. I leaned against him in hopes of saving myself, but my bike flipped forward and I rolled to the ground.

Standing in the road bleeding as I looked at my crooked handle bars, all that went through my head was anger that I had traveled way too far for my race to end like this. I began to walk my seemingly broken bicycle to the side of the road, when a spectator handed me the bottle that had been launched onto the sidewalk. I took it, but must have given her a strange look – I was confused as to why I would need my bottle back when clearly my race was over. The streets were lined with thousands of fans, and there seemed to be a consensus that I should suck it up and start pedaling again. I took the bottle, grabbed my chain to put it back on the chain rings, and mounted my bike to the thundering cheers of the crowd.

Within a lap I caught back on to the group, but I had missed my breakaway opportunity. I did my best to recover from the effort, and to ignore my swelling hip as we started what would prove to be among the most difficult run courses on the World Cup Circuit. I suffered a bad transition – a trend, which I have struggled to improve – and began the run with a small deficit. I sprinted up the bridge and nearly caught the leaders, but then proceeded to suffer through the next lap and half – being dropped from the first, then the second, and then the third running packs. Beginning the final lap I was in roughly 20^th position. I looked ahead and forced myself to focus on every individual step – to ignore the distance remaining and inch my way back to the group in front of me. Slowly I came back to the runners ahead, passed a few, and then a few more. In the final kilometer I passed a pack of 4 runners and never looked back. I emptied the proverbial tank and found myself crossing the line in 10^th. To give you an idea of how competitive these races are, I was 6 seconds behind 7^th, and 10 seconds ahead of 13^th. 40 seconds faster and I would have been on the podium, which is what I had hoped for. Still, tenth at a world cup is a very strong result, and one that has moved me from 100^th in the ITU rankings up to 57^th (my highest ranking to date), and much better than letting a bad cyclist hand me a DNF.

On Sunday, I raced my first triathlon of the season: the Monterrey World Cup in Mexico. I went into the race feeling strong, and I was determined to make something happen. I came away from the race having indeed made something happen, and having learned that sticking to my race plan with die-hard loyalty isn’t always the best choice.

Here’s how it went. I absolutely loved the swim, it was in a canal that was seemingly made for an ITU swim. I exited the water in 4th place, advanced to 3rd with a quick T1, and then hit the bike course with Andrew McCartney and Brian Fleishman. This was exactly what I wanted to happen: a breakaway! Brian and I dropped Andrew, then I went for (and won) the bike prime, then things sort of went south. Brian, Cameron Dye, and three other athletes caught me, but in our break of 6, only Brian, Cam and I were committed to the breakaway. Thus the effort was disorganized and uneven. I tried multiple times to drop the riders who weren’t taking pulls, but I was also trying not to kill my legs with too much sprinting, so all I managed was a very ineffective happy medium. We were nearly caught heading into the last lap of the bike, with only a 5 second gap, but I’d planned to be in the breakaway and I’d put so much work into it that I was determined to make it stick. I put everything I had into that last lap, and our gap went back up to 35 seconds as we came into T2.

My run was not what I’d hoped it would be, and the 35 second lead was not enough to make up for the damage I’d done to my legs over 40km of surges and stubbornness. On the plus side, “not what I’d hoped it would be” was still a 32:24 10k split, faster than I could have expected a year ago, after an average power on the bike that was over 20 watts higher than my previous best average. Not bad, and proof that I’m not just “feeling” strong. But those statistics are like winning workouts, they don’t mean anything unless you back them up with results. So, the corresponding minus side: I dropped from the front of the race back to 19th at the finish, one place behind Brian and a few ahead of Cam. The winner of the race? Joao Silva from Portugal, one of the athletes we had towed around the entire bike course.

I’m still pretty frustrated with my race, a little bit because of the breakaway dynamics, but mostly because I didn’t race a smart race. The only person that seemed to benefit from my strategy was Silva, who managed to win the race because of the time gap I created in those final laps – if only he were my teammate! So I did learn some good tactical lessons, and because they came on a very public World Cup stage, I’m pretty sure they are lessons that will stick with me. I hope they at least stick with me for a few more days, I’m racing the Ishigaki World Cup in Japan on Sunday!

Would this face make you volunteer a homestay again?

I arrived in Mexico today. I’m staying with a family that is friends with Francisco Serrano (the best triathlete in Mexico). Francisco (Paco) set everything up for me, and did it so smoothly that I had no idea where I was going until I was here.

I left Colorado Springs before breakfast this morning – something I will try to do differently in the future – so after two puddle jumpers and five hours of travel, I was starving to death when I arrived at my homestay. Luckily, true to the culture, I was immediately offered food, a bed, and a password to the internet. . . everything I could hope for!

The family consists of three sisters and a brother, plus the brother’s friend who is staying here for six months. (Let’s see if I can remember all the names, it’s harder when it’s not names you’re used to hearing: The olderst daughter and the son share the names of their parents – which makes it easier – Naomi and Fabrizio, then there’s Hector, Fabrizio’s friend Hector, Paulet and Nicola. A full house!

——–

I was just sidetracked for two days. Seth Wealing is here now as well. An even fuller house!

I checked out the course – it’s awesome. Smooth roads, no traffic, very technical, windy, weird narrow river swim, twisty run… very fun!

I’ll know more about the race after the meeting that we’re heading off to in a few minutes.

[Ben: I couldn't decide what to do here, so I brought in an old friend to make the decision for me - and turn this contest into a bit of a poetic comedy at the same time.]

So Ben IMs me at work and asks me to judge a shoe contest. This is the first time he’s contacted me directly in months. I really know that what he means to say is “I have to leave for someplace important. I picked a boring idea for a post. I know you’re good for at least one insulting rant per day. Would you like to piss off my readership while I spend 20 precious minutes offline, packing and planning?” I say “sure” (it’s not like I was earning a salary working for a legitimate employer and contributing meaningfully to the economic ecosystem, right?) and he sends me the password to his website, asking me to — and I’m gonna quote him, here — “keep it clean”.

Heh.

So here I sit, with the keys to the kingdom in my sweaty fist and a captive audience of all 12 of Ben’s regular readers (hey Collins family!), my shaky sense of morality the only thing keeping my tongue in check. Judge a shoe contest? He’s gotta be kidding.

I mean, let’s be honest. Do any of you actually need new shoes? You’re triathletes, right? In my universe, there are three groups that people tend to fall under:

1. People who have money.
2. People who have time.
3. People who have nothing.

The majority of the world’s population falls firmly into group #3. For the rest of us, we find ourselves trying to strike a healthy balance between #1 and #2, although, if we live in the West, it’s fairly typical that we spend all the cash we earn as members of group #1 on crap we don’t need, putting us deep into debt (see group #3) and requiring us to slave away for the man until the useful years of our lives are little more than the wispy tendrils of our long-dead dreams (cheating us out of membership in group #2).

But you’re special. You’re triathletes.

Triathletes have both money and time, by definition. I mean, you all participate in a sport that demands that you buy the specialized gear of three different sports, and you spend an inordinate amount of time and energy pursuing this silly enterprise (you’re reading a blog about another lifeless triathlete just like you, for Pete’s sake… only on the internet could such navel gazing be considered anything other than perversely narcissistic). You are, economically speaking, the lucky ones, and this is reflected in your hobby.

So, you’re winning the game of life and you’re still asking for a handout?

If you need a new pair of shoes so badly, why don’t you just fish around in the back of your Escalade or Honda Element for some spare change (you know, those silly little $20 bills your kids use to pad their bras before heading out to the upscale mall to catch a $50 movie and shop for diamond-encrusted cell phone cases with Japanese anime prints) and buy a pair?

Surely there are people more deserving of a new pair of shoes than a pile of overpaid, underworked, chest-thumping alpha dogs. Aren’t there poor kids out there who could do better with these shoes than treat them like crap for 6 straight weekends, then leave them in the foyer for the help to dispose of once they’ve seen a speckle of mud? Does nobody here know an inner city kid with an overabundance of talent and a painful lack of resources?

No?

Neither do I.

In that case, let’s give some rich white folks some free shit!

Does BASE water help the Jim Beam absorb faster?

Entry #1: Nice try Loren, but the Barbies do nothing for me. I like my ladies full-figured and immodest. It’s also hard to avoid the obvious fact that these shoes are brand new. If I had to don my Sherlock Holmes hat and cloak, I would be forced to conclude that the owner of these shoes is an obese shut-in pretending to be a triathlete. He blogs a lot, and I bet he whines. He most likely burned more calories installing those hideous race laces (time saver my ass) than he ever did actually using the shoes.

Nevertheless, had the booze been hand-delivered, you would all be looking at the winning entry.

And here we have the rare Irish Brazilian in the wild.

Entry #2: Shocking. Loud. Appallingly bright.

And I’m not talking about stockings and shoes.

The shoes and accessories are clearly a desperate attempt to stand out from the crowd, but I maintain that they are totally unnecessary. In fact, the stockings are actively hiding what is, perhaps, this person’s most defining characteristic: Sickeningly pale skin.

I mean, I’ve seen cave salamanders with a deeper tan.

If you think about it for just a second, how often would you be able to conclude the heritage of a person, given only a photo of the lower half of their knee? I’m not an anthropologist, but the owner of these shoes is clearly (get it?!) descended from the same pack of sun-fearing northern Europeans that gave us red hair, hemophilia, and curiously upturned noses.

Oh yeah, and the shoes look practically new. Next.

Something tells me these have not been run in since the neighbor's pit-bull found them.

Entry #3: Finally, a viable entry! And, in a vain attempt to score brownie points, this entrant opted to pose the shoes on that symbol of rich hippie oneupmanship: the homemade compost bin.

What I like the most about this pair is how over-the-top abused they are. These are the unwashed-orphan-with-a-black-eye of shoes. Let this be a lesson to the rest of you. If you’re gonna go panhandling outside a Starbucks, you don’t wanna show up with nicely combed hair, a perfumed neck, and bedecked in khakis and a stylish polo. You’d have to play up your poverty if you ever want to wrangle those quarters from a tight-fisted suburbanite (who, incidentally, spends more money on overpriced coffee in a given year than they do on taxes, but do they bitch about the high price of coffee??).

In the world of charity and begging, pity is your leverage. These shoes are pitiful. I like that.

"Ok, I'm putting you down, it's my turn to feel pretty"

Entry #4: These are dirtier, which is a welcome change from the opulence of the first two and the relative cleanliness of the last one. But, aside from the fact that they look as though they were gingerly dipped toe first into pig manure, they don’t look particularly well-worn. A trip through the washing machine (or 10 minutes with a decent hose) and these shoes would look new. You people can do better than this.

"Remember when he cared enough to stuff us with newspaper and put us inside?"

Entry #5: Ok, we have another person who understands the value of the sales pitch, here. These shoes are the equivalent of the whimpering street kid standing in the rain, begging you for a bite to eat or maybe a dollar or two, if you please. His face is a little smudged with dirt, and his hair looks a tad ratty. He’s cute and ragged and vulnerable.

But he hasn’t quite got it down, yet. Something’s not right with this picture. The glint of gold on the kid’s wrist hints at a watch priced above his apparent pay grade. That’s when you realize that the little shit is a scam artist, and your once-softened heart slams shut almost as hard as the front door in his dirty little face.

Nice try, but come back when you actually need some new shoes.

I have nothing remotely witty to say about these shoes. They look nice. Really... I kinda envy them.

Entry #6: Dammit, people. This is not a contest to award new shoes to the person with the nicest shoes. Ben is trying to feel charitable by giving something of modest value (that he received for free) to someone he deems deserving. That means that you have to at least pretend like your shoes are crap, and that he would be doing you a favor by giving you new ones.

I get the sinking sensation that some of you people would stand in line at the food bank, eating foie gras and caviar from a hand-carved artisan lunch pail while bitching about how hard it is to survive in this down economy on only $20,000 per week.

Check it out, folks. Shoes that make your pavement look clean.

Entry #7: Paydirt. Literally. Entry #5 can learn a thing or two from this pair of shoes. Anybody can look miserable and soggy in the rain, but by taking these shoes out of their natural, filthy element and transporting them to a reasonably clean backdrop, this entry achieves a little something called contrast.

And these shoes aren’t just superficially dirty, either. The toe box and laces show off that well-worn grey, like the collar of an indigent regular at the Union Gospel Mission. These shoes cry, in an modest voice, “I’ve had better times.”

But, if I was ladling out the soup and assigning beds, I’d still tell this guy he can only stay for one night. His posture is too straight. His hands are strong and agile. He may be dirty, but he can still do an honest day’s work. These shoes have more life in them, so I’ll check my charity with counsel and move on to a more deserving candidate.

I don't know if K-Swiss makes shoes that go so well with ugly carpet.

Entry #8: Bingo. I think we have a winner. While not as obviously abused as entry #3, these shoes embody the ideal of a tool that’s served its master well. Their lack of style speaks to their advancing years, and, while they haven’t aged with the grace of, say, Courteney Cox, they seem to have retained their workhorse image. Grey, lightly tattered, and crushed at the heel, these guys are broken, but fight on. They prompt the proper mix of pity and respect.

These shoes deserve to retire with dignity.

In Iowa they buy shoes that match the corn fields.

Entry #9: Oh please. We’re not here to subsidize your bad taste. So you bought not one, but two pairs of crappy shoes and, despite the fact that they show only light wear (and, let’s be honest, terrible craftsmanship), you want us to reward your idiocy with… more shoes?

dirty, yes, but old? I'm not convinced.

Entry #10: C’mon! Those laces are WHITE. One wet run doesn’t warrant new shoes. Wipe that dirt off and go run.

I think I’ve seen enough. It was a tight race between #3, #7, and #8, but the wizened old gaffers of #8 take first place. Ben will handle the distribution of prizes. I’ll go back to pretending to work.

Congratulations to #8. The rest of you should be ashamed of yourselves.

[Ben: The winner was Lee Drury - nice job. Figure out what flag or color you'd like - I'll be in touch. . . ]

These are the submissions I’ve gotten so far in the contest I’m holding for a new pair of K-Swiss K-Ona shoes. I’m extending the deadline for submissions through the weekend because, as you can see, the odds of winning are currently VERY high.

Brendan's shoes have not seen a treadmill.

Does Kelly get points for putting muddy shoes on her boyfriend's sister's bed?

Paul's shoes have been through the ringer!

I like David's Irish Spirit for St Patrick's Day, but are there many Irish Brazilians?

You have until Sunday to send me a picture of your shoes (They do NOT have to be K-Swiss shoes that you photograph – mainly because it’s hard to make K-Swiss shoes look bad!! ) in order to win a pair of K-Swiss K-Ona’s. Submit by sending your pics to trainerpics@bencollins.org

Alright, my last post can be disregarded. I can’t seem to get my mac to publish blogs quite like I could with my five year old Dell, and I can’t see myself paying $30 for a blog program that can’t do as much as Microsoft’s free program.

Above is a picture from Courtenay’s super secret visit to Colorado. At the OTC we aren’t allowed to have booze or overnight guests. Thankfully Joe has a spare bedroom off campus.