Today Victor leaves Colorado.

What’s that? You didn’t even know my coach, Victor Plata, was in Colorado? You say I haven’t written a blog in two weeks? Well, my coach being here and my lack of blogging are highly related, though certainly there were other factors. Like how I am applying to University of Colorado at Colorado Springs for an MBA program, so the majority of my writing energy had to go toward the completion of a statement of purpose. Now, I write about myself a lot – and I’ve received a number of compliments on my ability to do so – yet somehow I find it more challenging to write a statement of purpose than any other form of writing. I’ll bang out a five paragraph essay or a fictional story any day, but ask me why I want to do something and my brain turns to mush. It’s as though writing why I am so passionate about something inevitably distills out some of the emotion behind a dream. Why do I want so badly to be an Olympian? What drives me to wake up early, and put myself through the maximal amount of physical exertion that I can handle? Why do I race for triathlon’s ephemeral podium instead of putting an equal amount of effort toward the greater good of society? Am I any different than the obsessed video game player who uses time practiced talents to escape the realities of life into a virtual reality where the rewards are both intangible and without greater meaning?

These questions bounce through my head so frequently that they’ve developed an emotional backing that makes the answers oblique and difficult for me to qualify. I simply know that I’m doing what’s right for me at this time in my life, and that being a professional triathlete makes me happy. I’m grabbing hold of a dream.

Here’s the poem I wrote for my statement of purpose. It may not be exactly what the admissions committee is looking for, but it will certainly stand out.

Before I raced a bike or ran a mile,
my Ears were wet with chemical vile.
I swam and Swam through my youth and beyond,
but I was meant for far more than the pond.

Courtenay visited this week. She’s leaving her car with me in Colorado Springs while she goes to Maryland to stay with her mom. She’s quite the nomad lately, and it makes me that much more glad that I’ve been able to stay in one place for the past few months. When she comes back here in four weeks she’ll be able to spend the rest of the summer in Colorado Springs before she starts school in Boulder. At that point, the annoyance of her being forced to stay off campus (we’re not allowed overnight guests in the OTC dorms) will seem like nothing. . . I may even be forced to go train with the Boulder crowd every few weeks just to see my girlfriend.

I talked to Aaron Scheidies last week and we made a deal. If the world triathlon Corporation and USAT will allow it, I’ll guide him at Clearwater this year. The problem is, Aaron has been told that with ITU’s new campaign to get triathlon into the paralympics, they are imposing some new rules that will make this impossible.

First, Aaron and the other visually impaired athletes will have to run in black-out goggles. My first thought was, “that is going to make guiding much harder.” Thinking that the major difference would be that when I tell Aaron there’s a step or a root to watch out for, he’s going to have no perception of where that obstacle is, whereas with his natural vision he can at least perceive how quickly objects are coming at him, and even, perhaps, the location of larger objects – like trees. Aaron had further insight however. He suggests that taking away all vision from someone that is normally able to see something induces vertigo and some nasty other problems. The feedback from C Different regarding this rule has been extremely negative, and not because the athletes are afraid of being slowed down. They’re afraid of being made sick and of having to deal with a challenge that’s beyond reasonable. Since I’m not willing to risk injury from trying to run in blackout goggles, you’ll have to judge for yourself if it’s possible for someone without complete loss of vision to run with that temporarily taken away.

Second, and this one affects Aaron and myself, visually impaired athletes are no longer going to be able to accept pros for guides. This rule, evidently, is mirroring paracycling’s rule. The problem is that, unlike in cycling, completing a triathlon requires two sports where a guide’s weakness cannot be overcome by the visually impaired (VI) athlete. Let me explain. In cycling, VI athletes are on a tandem bicycle. The guide is on the front, and that guide pedals with the VI athlete, so the times are a result of both athletes working together. To allow a professional would simply mean allowing the wealthiest VI athlete to buy the best time trialist from the pro ranks, and just relax on the back end while that cyclist earns the VI athlete a medal (admittedly an oversimplification). One would expect the same precaution to be needed in triathlon, but the problem comes in the swim and run. Now, I know from my amateur career that swimmers like myself are pretty hard to find outside the professional ranks. Same with sub-35 10K runners, and finding the two together is pretty much impossible. So you take Aaron, force him to pick either a stellar swimmer who can keep up with him in the swim (and from my experience, that person will also need to fend off the struggling age-groupers who veer off course and are threaten to be tangled in the elastic tether connecting athlete and guide), or a stellar runner who can allow Aaron to find his own limit while being sufficiently within his own abilities to be able to guide an runner who’s suffering from black-out goggle induced vertigo. Personally, if I’m running at my limit, I am not capable of forming words to describe approaching obstacles.

So does Aaron pay a top age-grouper to guide him? Will he have to train a new guide every season, or can he find a sponsor with enough money to pay a pro to remain amateur? The extra firepower on the bike may seem like an unfair advantage if Aaron is guided by, say, Chris Lieto, but how can someone with the talent of Aaron Scheidies even attempt to reach his own potential if he’s restricted to guides who are not capable of leading him in the swim and run? Doesn’t that added handicap outweigh the potential problems that paracycling foresaw with professional guides?

This is a video we made at the Olympic Training Center to wish our Mom’s a happy mother’s day.

Robby Teaching A Spin Fundraiser

Life is back to normal here at the Olympic Training Center. I have no medical emergencies, nobody secretly visiting me, I’m training so hard that I have no energy left for extracurricular activities, and – since most of the other triathletes are in Seoul for this weekend’s World Championship Series race – there’s no good gossip to report on.

A few weeks ago, however, something happened that really upset the lives of many of the OTC residents. Robby, our best massage therapist (I’m comfortable saying “best” because he had by far the most requests of any of the OTC massage therapists) was “let go” for reasons that are not exactly clear. Without going into the “he says, she says” of it, it appears as though Robby was “too good” for his job. He took as many requests as his hands could handle, and the other therapists only got the overflow. Whatever the actual bureaucratic reasoning was, the athletes no longer have Robby to help us with recovery. Unfortunately, Robby was truly one-of-a-kind – a former bike racer, speed skater, and an endurance sport enthusiast – he knows athletes. It’s hard to find a good massage therapist, and when you do, you should make sure they know how much you appreciate them. Here in Colorado Springs*, it’s Robby Bessbatti. If getting a massage were the equivalent of getting a tune-up for your car, then Robby’s shop would be a NASCAR garage.

Robby Helped Put 4 Americans in the Top 10 at the Huatulco World Cup

Today I saw Robby for the first time since he left for Sydney to work with USAT at the WCS race there a month ago. Now that he’s not working in the recovery center I pay him for his time, but he makes it worthwhile. Today he went overtime to try to reverse some of the aches I still have from travelling to and crashing in Asia. He stayed to work on me until he was satisfied that my muscles were capable of my training schedule. He goes deep, but he does it with purpose. And if I ever tell him that I was sore or “flat” the day after a massage, he takes it personally and changes his technique. He takes his job as seriously as I take World Cups.

*use the contact form on this site and I’ll send you Robby’s contact info.

*In Seattle there’s also an exceptional therapist, Liam Buell. The easiest way to get an appointment is to schedule through inewmed.