Sunday was another great day for me in San Francisco. We dove off a boat at 7am into the San Francisco Bay, turned our feet to the Alcatraz Prison and swam for shore. I lead for most of the swim, but as we came into the Marina I found myself behind some guys with much better lines. Out of the water fourth, I took off on the bike with some great company. John Kenny, Kyle Leto, Brian Fleischmann, and myself attacked the first hill like it was the deciding factor of the race, but at the top my legs were screaming at me. I looked around and everyone else was in just as much pain, so I pushed over the top and took a lead on the first quick decent by Big Beach. I never looked back, but at the first turn around I was about a minute ahead of Leto, and at the second it was closer to 90 seconds.

When I started the run nobody else was close to transition. I ran for a while before I saw Kyle and Brian come by me still riding, but I wanted to get in a good hard run, so I refused to back off. I pushed it hard enough that I didn’t even notice the Golden Gate Bridge looming in the foreground. It wasn’t until I ran though the small tunnel under the Golden Gate and hit the single track that I started to relax and really enjoy my surroundings. The Pacific ocean was misty with the morning sunlight just shining over the hill making the cliffs light up with glowing dew… It was quite a pleasant run until I dropped down onto Big Beach and realized that the new Tri-California course removed the 1 mile out-and-back section on the beach. With that extra mile in 2008 I had been able to run down to the hard packed sand and let my legs recover some from the hard decent. With the new course, you pop out onto the beach just a short distance from the bottom of the treacherous sand ladder, and there’s no time to run for hard pack. It’s about a minute of slogging through soft sand, which gets your already beaten-up legs to the point of furry, then up the “ladder” which is really just a big sand dune with some buried logs that help with traction. When I did this race in 2008 I had the fastest time up the sand ladder by 12 seconds. This time, I decided to go the slow methodical way – grabbing the ropes on the sides and alternating between walking and skipping my way up the dune. Through all the sand my K-Swiss Kruuz started to get some sand in them through the holes in the bottom (meant to drain water out of the shoes). I was worried, but when left the sand it drained from my shoes as quickly as it had entered. No harm done! At the top I started running again, and was glad for my conservative effort because the “top” of the sand ladder is really only half way up the final hill. As I turned onto the hard pack and continued up my mom was there telling me I had a three minute lead over Leto. At this point, I started smiling. I kept the pace fairly high, but chose to enjoy the last three miles: the Golden Gate, Crissy Field, the single track section and concrete stairs up and over the old bunkers. This is the most scenic and fun race in the world.

I surprised the announcer, who was not yet expecting me when I appeared in the finish chute. I was raising my arms and high five-ing spectators for 100 meters before the loud speaker announced that I was about to finish. So I took my time, smiled, high five-ed more of the crowd, took a bow, and then waited for four minutes to greet Kyle Leto and Steve Sexto (who had a great run) finishing in second and third respectively.

It was a tough race, a beautiful race, and a good indicator of my current fitness. Thanks coaches!!

This is my sister congratulating me after the race. See any family resemblance? Perhaps the smile, or the nose, or the way we squint into the sun? She says next year she’ll do the race – WATCH OUT!!

Me and my 9 month old nephew, Carter. He flew down from Seattle to watch me.

I’m going back to San Francisco for another Tri-California race on Sunday. I will be racing the San Francisco Triathlon at Alcatraz. My entire family is flying in to see me, even 9 month old Carter and his mom (my sister) Susan. This course is amazing. Probably the most beautiful urban race in existence, so I’m hoping my family can get some great pictures of me. Better than this one from the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in 2008, which I ran with an injured foot and no pink Rudy Project sunglasses – I still had the fastest time up the Sand Ladder!

I would write more, but I’m off to the airport with a book bag full of books! I started an MBA program at the University of Colorado this week, and suddenly I have no problem keeping myself occupied. My first three courses are “Leading and Managing in Changing Times”, “Intro to Accounting”, and “Marketing Strategy”. My Management prof seems really cool. Our first assignment is to write a self assessment, in which we point out our own flaws, our goals, our strengths, and how we plan to become better people through self-management and life balance. Step 1 to life balance: enjoy life. (check!)

I’m ready for a break. A JAIL BREAK!!

Next week is the San Francisco Triathlon at Alcatraz, which will be among the most fun events of the season. I could write all about it, but Victor and Terry did a great interview (complete with Ben Collins shout out!) on Comcast Sportsnet (CSN). Check it out:

The past two weeks I’ve done sessions in the lab with an Oxygen mask. I’m not sure the O2 really allows me to go much harder, but it certainly makes my recovery faster. I did a bike/run workout both times. The numbers were good, but what surprised me was how I felt the next day – eager to hit it again!

That’s the new Blue Seventy endurance race kit. It’s amazing! Doesn’t restrict breathing, swimmable, tight around the mid-section (other suits bag up on me), and quite breathable. Plus it’s white and meshy in the back, which is great for summer races.

I just wish running with a mask and tube on a treadmill were a little more natural…

This season has been anything but easy. Yet, somehow, I feel the need to wear shades – my future is just so bright! Without reiterating the crap storm that I’ve been through this year (if you haven’t been reading my blog, just assume it sucked, and the long breaks between posts are usually a bad sign as well). But who ever got ahead with a negative attitude? If something’s not right, I’ll do my best to fix it.

My biggest weakness this year has been my running speed. I’ve been trying and trying to run more with the idea that more is better. If college 10k runners do 80+ miles per week, then that will make me a better runner too, right? I’ve been in this periodic function of volume, injury, depression, excitement, volume, injury… At no point am I “fast” from this cycle. I swim well enough, I can ride with anyone in the ITU (disregard Madrid where I was dropped on the final lap), but when we start running there’s just no speed there. I don’t fade, I just can’t produce the speed I need to win an ITU race from the pack. Coach Victor and I talk about this frequently, and this week he encouraged me to use my USA Triathlon high performance funding to find a running specialist to add to my coaching staff. The search is on!

I’ve been taking advice from the resident swim coach, Mike Doane (also And Pott’s coach), and I talked him into helping me with adjusting my program. Mike has a very similar approach to Victor’s, but with a swimmer-esque twist to it. Given my background, I like the way that twist looks. I’m also planning to talk to Bobby McGee (running mechanist extraordinaire and Boulder resident), and anyone else recommended to me in the Colorado area. I think the biggest gap in my current advising situation is the lack of face-time I have with my coach, so I’m definitely planning to utilize someone local.

The first thing Mike did with me this week was to encourage me to take an unneeded (but completely necessary) day off. This is definitely a swimmer practice, so I’m not entirely sure how it fits into my plan to become more of a runner – but so far I like it. Today is my first complete day off in 2010. Even when I took a “week off” in June I was running every day. It’s nice to just relax.

Tomorrow I’ll start altering my routine as I get ready for Alcatraz in two weeks, then the ITU World Championship Series Grand Final in Budapest on September 11th (my first pro World Championships! Just qualifying was a multi-year process – I’m so excited to even be on the start line!!). Just five more races in the season, it’s time to follow Matt Chrabot’s lead and get serious (after writing this he was 4th in Kitzbuhel yesterday! That’s the best American finish at a WCS race this year – bravo Matt!).

Just to add one more thing about Matt, he’s becoming a pretty interesting writer. He’s a punchy guy who doesn’t care if you love him or hate him (it’s hard to be in the middle) , and who speaks his mind. Add him to your bookmarks, the updates are few, but worth the read. You can also check out this interview.

After racing in London, this is how the majority of the US Team was feeling…

From the left: Matt Chrabot (51st), Jenna Shoemaker (40th), Chris Foster (53rd), Manny Huerta (DNF), Ben Collins (DNF) – not pictured, Kevin Collington (DNF). Clearly this was not our best effort. We’ll have to make up for it in Budapest next month, but, until then, this picture will be my motivation to stay focused.

I go through phases of drinking coffee. I love the stuff, but don’t like the idea of being addicted to caffeine. Last Spring, while I was in the height of a “I WANT COFFEE” phase, I bought a product called the AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker. It’s a really simple vacuum pressure system with very few parts, quick brew time, and no messy cleanup. It was recommended by a local coffee shop, and I figured for $30 it was worth a try. The one thing that scared me about the system is that I try not to drink hot water from plastic. I researched the Aeropress before I bought it and found that it is made with BPA-free platic that’s FDA approved and has been tested by an independent lab to show that it does not leach chemicals into the coffee. I would still rather have a stainless system, but with such reassuring data I figured I was just being paranoid.

So I bought the Aeropress, and it makes AMAZING coffee. It’s smooth, rich, (can be) SUPER strong, and, unlike french press, it lacks acidity and coffee grounds. In short, I like it better than any coffee maker I’ve used before it. So I recommended it to my mom and to Courtenay (who bought one for her mom as well) and a few other people with a need for the easy traveling, no mess coffee maker. Then Courtenay visited me a couple months ago, and she brought her Aeropress – which is made from a different plastic! She ordered hers off Amazon, and I – in an attempt to support local business – purchased mine from a family owned kitchen shop in Manitou Springs. Apparently, mine is from an old stock, and has the BPA in it. I called Aerobie, who makes the Aeropress and the woman sounded surprised that I ended up with the older plastic (mine’s blueish and the new ones are not). I fully expected her to replace it for the cost of shipping, at-most, but she said it would cost $20 (including shipping) for the replacement parts. I told her that I’ve recommended the product to several people, it didn’t change the price. $20? The original cost me $29.99: retail! I told her I thought they should replace them for free since their advertising of BPA plastic is why I purchased the product, but I ended up giving her my credit card info and agreeing to pay $20. So it goes…

Or does it? I was just finishing that last paragraph and trying to decide how I could recommend the coffee maker without having to recommend a product from a brand with poor customer service when they called me back. “Hello, Ben? This is Michelle from Aerobie, I just talked to our manager and we agreed that we could replace those parts for just the cost of shipping.” Sweet! That’s what I expected in the first place! Way to go Michelle! Moral? Wait at least 10 minutes for the company to call back before you post a nasty blog about a company’s customer service. And buy an Aerobie Aeropress if you want a low-cost, zero-mess, zero maintenance, easy to travel with coffee maker – which produces better coffee than machines ten times its price. (I would say 100 times its price, but the one $3000 espresso machine I’ve had the pleasure of using did make a very good cup of espresso – still, the aeropress can compete.) Just double check before you buy that you’re not buying the older blueish plastic (she told me they haven’t made them in over a year). The new ones are grayish, or just clear.

After London I flew back to Colorado Springs. I’ve been trying really hard to make this my home, but for someone who violently detests sprawling, track-hone infested, overly automotive based suburban sprawl, it’s a tough town to love. So when I returned I decided to spend the rest of the week with friends in Boulder. (Yes, it’s technically a suburb, and it has plenty of oversized malls, separated by wide roads that require u-turns to get around the unnecessary medians – but there are traits that make up for those unfortunate features.)

I haven’t spent any time with Rory in a few months, and I was excited to stay in the fancy new apartment he got with his girlfriend Mojdeh. Unfortunately, Rory works in a restaurant and our schedules don’t mesh up well. Over 5 days we saw about 15 minutes of each other.

The training, however, was better than I expected. I swam at Scott Carpenter – an outdoor 50m pool – where I ran into several other pro triathletes. I ran around the CU Cross Country course, and saw some pro runners. I rode up through North Boulder and saw some pro cyclists… It’s strange to me that there are more athletes to train with, and better tromping grounds than the Olympic Training Center. But then again, there’s no Matt Chrabot.

So after a very pleasant week, I gave in to obligation (to get my MBA class schedule squared away, show my face at the Elite Development Camp USAT is holding, and to get free massage) and drove back down to Colorado Springs this morning. On the way I went to Tri-For-The-Cure, a very large all-women’s sprint triathlon with 3000 women competing and raising money for cancer research. Courtenay was racing (just for fun) and I figured it would be an excellent way to recover from the monster training day I did on Saturday. (Note to anyone who suffers from training plan stubbornness like me – if you’re supposed to run off the bike, and it’s over 90 degrees and you just did a long ride up to 9300 feet for the first time ever and you don’t have a water bottle holster – take a nap and run later in the day, that hour-long slog will make you tough, but certainly not fast.) So I played Super Fan for an hour while Courtenay rocked the socks off the elite wave. She was wearing a Wonder Woman suit that was designed by Taigraphx and printed by Splish. The coolest part of her outfit was that it matched her K-Swiss KRuuz perfectly, and after the race she couldn’t stop complimenting my sponsor, “I LOVE these K-Swiss SHOES!!, they’re AMAZING!!” (is it the shoes or just her?) Tai does my suits as well, and I’m a little bitter that my race uni doesn’t look nearly as supremely awesome. Perhaps if Splish starts making men’s triathlon racing apparel (or if the ITU makes their uniform rules less strict) then I can rock a superhero look. But which Superhero am I?