After my last crash in Huatulco a few weeks ago I’ve had some serious motivational issues. I barely trained in the week after the World Cup (which showed in Puerto Vallarta), and after the Pan-Am Champs I took a few days off entirely to enjoy my Mexican vacation. Back in the states I put in a bit of time for training, but my motivation has been rock bottom. In the middle of the season I would show up to swim practice in the morning and dive in the moment Mike gave us the warmup set. The past two weeks, I’ve been dragging my feet out of the locker room five minutes late and standing dazed, staring at the pool for another five minutes before I finally tell myself, “just pretend for an hour” and dive in. I asked Mike Doane about it and he told me that the term for my mental condition was being “checked out” and that “everyone needs a break at some point.” Well, I signed up for two more races, and I had no intention of backing out now – even if I couldn’t get through a 60-minute Computrainer session to save my life (that’s an exaggeration, it just took some True Blood DVDs and embarrassingly low watts.)

I started to feel a little better late last week, a couple of days before I left for San Diego to race the Super Sprint Grand Prix, and managed to get in a couple decent training sessions to sharpen me up for the weekend. Actually, my head started to come around at 2am Thursday morning when I woke up from a dream about out-kicking Chris McCormack, Matt Reed, and Jarrod Shoemaker to win a four-man sprint in San Diego on Halloween. Macca is probably the most winning athlete in the history of triathlon, Matt Reed is among the best American triathletes we’ve had (I’ll give him the American label, even if he didn’t start off that way) and if I ever beat Jarrod (2008 US Olympian and National Cross Country Champion while at Dartmouth) in a finishing sprint I’ll probably decide there must be a G-d who cares about endurance sports after-all. It was good dream, and got me fired up enough to think about “checking back in” for the weekend. Racing is fun and hard, but sprint races are over so quickly that the pain is much less memorable.

Puerto Vallarta is really hot in October. It’s strange that I was able to go the entire summer without suffering through any hot races, and as soon as Labor Day rolled around every race required a buzz cut and an ice pack in my helmet. I came prepared with my ice vest and frozen drink bottles as well, but no matter how well you prepare for a hot race, it always sucks – for everyone involved (spectators don’t like to stand on hot pavement any more than we like to run on it). That last fact is why hot races may actually suit me. It seems that conditions that require everyone to slow down a bit tend to bring some people back to me. It’s no question that I’ve failed to make a breakthrough in my run this season like I did at the end of 2009, but in hot weather my 5:15-5:20 min/mile pace is much closer to the fastest guys on the day. So as much as I hate hot races, there may be good reason not to avoid them.

After my crash in Huatulco I didn’t swim for the six days between races. I knew this was a bad idea, but I was hoping that I could depend entirely on talent to stay with Cameron Dye and Eder Mejia in the front pack. That was overly cocky. I was fine up until the first buoy, but managed to blow up like the Hindenburg on the second straightaway. People were moving past me like I was driftwood in a hydroplane race. There was a separation on the second lap of the swim, which I’m confident was my fault. As I moved backward, trying desperately to pull myself into someone’s draft I blocked the men behind me from keeping contact. I felt like a paper bag trying to swim – absolutely no connectivity through my core. (The lesson for next time, keep the abs in shape, even if you can’t get in the water, and eating quesadillas for three meals a day does not help with this). I ended up in the front of a large chase group about 20 seconds down on the top 6 men out of T1.

On the bike my legs were jell-o. The water had been in the upper 80s and the effort had my muscles fried. Conditions like this require top fitness, which I left on a section of blacktop in southern Mexico a week earlier. I hopped on Andrew Russell’s wheel and prayed that he could close the gap. (I’m certain I would have bridged up in any other race, though I wouldn’t have missed the front pack in any other race either.) I had nothing. I was overheated already and it was only 30 minutes into the race. I cracked my instant-cold ice pack in my helmet, and the rush of cold helped a little, but not enough for me to really help the group I was with. I went to the back of the pack (new territory for me) and tried to stay out of the way so the stronger cyclists could work together. We kept losing time each lap, and our group was one of the least organized I’ve seen in the men’s field. Guys were surging to the front and immediately pulling off, leaving the second wheel in the wind. Nobody wanted to work and each lap we were 15 seconds farther back than the lap before. The course was pretty sketchy in places (e.g they covered the gnarly cobbles with hard packed dirt that dried up and became loosely packed dirt before the end of the day). There were more 180s than needed, the section near transition was floored with red tiling which boasted a friction coefficient similar to Zipp’s ceramic bearings and required two hard right turns, a hard left and a 180 before returning to the blacktop highway where the center of the road had cracks large enough to harbor monsters (I’m pretty sure I heard something yell, “feed me your tire!”). Luckily, nobody went down, and I was able to finish my season with a 5/12 ratio of crashes to ITU starts (I just ordered a 2011 Scott CX Team from Momentum Multisport in Honolulu – hopefully a little cyclocross will help me keep the rubber-side down through my aggression (“This aggression will not stand, man.”)).

Staring the run I was way too hot. On the bike I had seen everyone else glistening with sweat and someone my skin looked dry. That’s not a good sign in the heat, but I figured if I was conscious enough to realize that then I probably should be running faster. I will say this for Mexico: they know how to provide water and ice. Unlike USATs terrible display of water support in Tuscaloosa (aide stations at the turnarounds so that you can only hit them once per lap? And they were equipped with warm water? Do they want us to die or was all the ice in Alabama being used for game-day cocktails?), the race directors in Puerto Vallarta had at least 6 times per lap where you could grab an ice cold beverage and a cup of ice. And the volunteers were trained well, they unscrewed the bottles so that a quick squeeze would pop the cap off – only once was the cap on my bottle so tight that I had to unscrew it myself. By the end of the first lap I was finally cool enough for my muscles to fire. I started passing some guys and was told I was in 14th place. I passed a couple more and was running with Mejia on my heals (at one aid station he wasn’t able to get a bottle, so I passed him mine after I took half to pour over my head – the next lap the situation was reversed, but he didn’t pass back. That’s bad Karma, dude.). At the end of the second lap I had reeled Sexton and Collington back into my sights and was sure I would catch them. Unfortunately, they must have seen the same thing and their paces increased enough to hold me at a steady distance. Mejia finally blew and I finished in 8th place in front of a group of charging Brazilians. It was a solid finish.

It’s easy to look at a race like this and think “if only A B and C I could have…” Well, that’s true, if I had had my normal swim I would have been in a break with Matt Chrabot and Cam Dye and with my normal bike we probably would have put another minute on the chase group and I likely would have been on the podium. But I didn’t and I wasn’t and 8th place is nothing to be ashamed of. I had a solid run – still not even close to what I believe I’m capable of – and I learned quite a bit about myself. How I respond to a week off at the end of the season is not great. How I swim in hot water after training in a cold indoor pool is not great either. How I prepare for hot races is pretty good, however. For next season I have plenty to work on. For now, however, I still have two races left, the Super Sprint Grand Prix in Oceanside on Halloween, and the Amica 19.7 Sprint in Phoenix on November 7th. Both should be a lot of fun.

Full race results here

After the Huatulco World Cup I planned to stay put for a couple days. Originally this was so I could train and recover from the heat before dehydrating myself on another airplane. Instead, I spent Monday and Tuesday whining about how badly my back hurt, changing bandages, and riding my rollers indoors. It did seem like I was recovering quickly, but I was definitely not getting in the water with such massive open wounds on my back, hip, arm and hands. Also, running hurt like crazy thanks to the contusion on my hip and the raw skin under my armpit.

Tuesday evening I flew to Puerto Vallarta where I would spend the next 8 nights. At that point, I really didn’t think I would be healed enough to race in a dirty harbor in Mexico before Sunday, but change fees and late cancellation for the hotel would have cost me almost as much as staying. Besides, Rory and Mojdeh were flying in from Colorado to spend the week with me, and I wasn’t about to miss out on my end-of-season vacation (post race) just because of a little pain.

Wednesday afternoon my friends arrived. I was studying for an accounting exam, so I told them to go enjoy themselves while I stayed in the air conditioning. Rory brought fishing equipment and was out on the beach catching fish within an hour of landing while Mojdeh found a sunny piece of sand and thawed out in the radiation.

That was pretty much par for the week. Rory fishing, Mojdeh fishing until she got bored then reading a book in the sun, me studying, changing bandages, and keeping out of the sun and water. By Thursday I was running again, though I couldn’t swing my right arm and my hip was painfully causing me to limp. Friday I took my exam and reluctantly agreed to spend Saturday morning at a time-share presentation in order to get a discount on a fishing boat trip the following Monday. Mainly I wanted to get out of the hotel room for long enough to feel like I was getting ready to race.

The presentation turned into a humorous morning. We met the guys who organized the trip for us that morning outside our hotel and were briefed on the protocol we needed to follow. Rory and Mojdeh were asked to wear wedding rings that were purchased for them on the way to the resort. The cab ride was much longer than expected, and by the time we arrived at the resort I was already starting to feel the “I’m racing tomorrow and things need to go my way” primadonna attitude coming out. Luckily, there was free food, which always makes me happy. Our guide spent about an hour asking us questions, though she was mainly interested in Rory and Mojdeh and had very little to say to me. They asked where I like to vacation and I told them “home” because I rarely get to spend any time there anymore and that’s where my friends are. Rory told them straight up that he hates resorts and would never buy into a massive place like that. Mojdeh told them she wouldn’t be interested in anything like that until she was a mother (I think she nearly said “until I’m married” but caught herself). I looked at the offer and figured out that what they were offering could provide a 30% annual return on the investment, and started asking lots of questions. The salesmen ignored me, and told Rory that the reason he doesn’t like resorts is because he doesn’t feel he can afford them and subconsciously he would rather believe he doesn’t like the resort than admit that it’s a financial situation. I don’t think he knew his audience very well.

After the presentation we hurried back so I could do the bike course preview. I’ll summarize by paraphrasing Jarrod Shoemaker’s tweets regarding the course: This is the most dangerous course ever. Cobble 180s, freshly paved sections with loose blacktop, and tire eating cracks in the center of the road. We weren’t able to ride the entire route, however, because they were still paving part of it.

Saturday is when I finally made the decision that I was healed enough to race. I hadn’t swum since the previous Sunday, but I was healthy enough to give the race a shot. It didn’t go so well because of that, but I learned a few things about how to keep myself prepared when I can’t train. Two words: core strength. That’s what I should have been working on during the 6 days of rest.

Next up, a full race report for my 8th place finish at the Pan-American Championships.

This is the story of how I managed to burn the skin off my back on fast-moving hot asphalt, and why you should know more Spanish than I do for the Emergency Rooms of Mexico.

I arrived in Mexico on October 7th with a bunch of other people. Matt Chrabot and I were on the same itinerary from Colorado Springs and we met up with Jillian Petersen and Melisa Mantak in Houston to continue our journey south through Mexico City and on to Huatulco.

At the Mexico City Airport we found even more athletes sitting in the Star Alliance lounge, and even more at the gate. There must have been 25 athletes with us on the 90-minute flight from Mexico City to Huatulco on a small prop plane that only held 45 people. It turns out 25 bikes will not fit on a plane that small. In fact, they had been short on room for bikes for several flights already, and the only bikes that made it onto our plane were the bikes being delivered to athletes from previous flights. None of us had bikes when we arrived to Huatulco, and there were so many delayed bikes that the airline had to send some to another airport and drive them on a truck eight hours to Huatulco.

Meanwhile, I was perfectly content to have no bicycle. I was sitting in a hotel room with Mark Fretta watching some of the best television I’ve experienced outside the US, eating fajitas con pollo, and finishing all my homework for the week. When I did venture out is was to go swim in the bay.

My first time to the beach was frightening. Mark and I went over to get in a swim and found that the beach was littered with jelly fish. They were everywhere, little translucent blobs of nasty sticky jelly. But there were other athletes in the water who weren’t being stung, so maybe they weren’t the stinging kind, right?

It took about 20 minutes for us to brave it into the water, during which time we walked up and down the beach looking for an opening without any jellies. After that proved to be impossible, and after we were assured by at least two people that we would not be stung by the thousands of jellies, we finally ran into the ocean, screaming like little girls, and swam head high until we didn’t see any jelly fish. After that we did a couple of loops of the bay stopping only to shriek and complain about all the jellies that kept getting stuck between our fingers, rubbing our faces and sliming us with their apparently tentacle-less bodies.

The next day we were braver. There were fewer jellyfish, and since we hadn’t been stung before we were ok with the idea of swimming in a bay of gooey gumdrops We got in quickly and swam out to the end of the bay – only this time something hit me in the face and stung. I stopped to shriek (obviously the most effective solution) and found that were in the middle of school of box jellyfish (with tentacles). I shrieked again, then Mark told me which direction to swim in, and I took off with him on my feet. That was it for my pre-race swimming, which was okay since it was the day before the race.

Sunday I felt great. I did my normal pre-race routing and arrived at the starting line feeling confident. I was lined up at the far right of the swim start where only a few brave souls ventured to join me. Unger, Serrano, Fretta – the guys who had as much faith my swimming ability as I did. Unfortunately, beach starts are not my forte, and I found myself behind the right-side-starters and I cut my way across the field and hopped on their feet as soon as I could. I was in pretty poor position around the first buoy, but kept moving up until I was boxed in behind the leaders. The pace felt slow, but I had no escape route. The leaders were swimming four or five wide because all of them were going for the $500 prime at the end of the first lap. It went to Eder Mejia from Mexico, and if you watch the video on the ITU website you can see that at the swim start he waited on the beach, walked in, assessed the situation in front of him, then dove in and swam around everyone. I’m a confident swimmer, but I don’t have the balls to walk into the water in a World Cup.

Running from the water and into T1 I was passed by Matt Chrabot. This has become a trend over the past few races, as Matt sprints by me and makes it into the front pack on the bike while my running-speed-to-transition gets me a few seconds back that I have to close in the first lap of the bike. But I did, and once we caught up to the leaders I went off the front with Matt and two other guys. We were away for a lap, and then I crashed by crossing wheels with the guy in front of me (Supanov from Ukraine). We both went down at 40+mph on a descent. He got back up and finished, I tried to start riding again (after a bit of bike fixing) but was bleeding profusely and in quite a bit of pain. I gave in and let the ambulance take me to the nearby emergency room.

I was missing a lot of skin on my back from the crash. Maybe a quarter of my back was scraped and burnt from the asphalt, and it felt like blistered sunburn worse than any I’ve had (and trust my, pasty white guys like me know sunburns). At the ER the doctor wanted to get X-Rays of me, which I was not happy about. Radiation scares me enough at the high-tech radiology labs in the US, but this was an old machine and the guy wasn’t even standing behind anything while taking pictures of me. I tried to ask for a lead blanket while he aimed the machine at my shoulder for the first X-Ray. He dind’t understand. I pointed at the lead vest hanging on the wall (does a lot of good there, right?) – no comprehension. I pointed at it again and said, “Lead por mi pene?” which is probably not even proper Spanglish, and certainly didn’t help with the tech’s comprehension. He stood a foot away from me and fired off the first image, then moved the x-ray machine over to the center of my hips, as if to take a picture of the “pene” I was trying to protect from radiation. “No!” I screamed, then started flapping my limbs around and moving in any way I could, which must have looked like a lurching seizure, and seemed to confuse the guy even more. “No fractura en mi pene, no fracturas en todos, no fracturas para mi!!” was the best Spanish I could come up with on the spot and must have meant something to the tech because he responded, “no photographia de tu pene?” No senior, no photographs of my penis, but thanks for asking.

I was pretty upset with myself for crashing and not finishing another race. This is the third race this year where I’ve crashed and not finished, and the fifth time I’ve crashed. Clearly I need to change something about the aggression with which I ride, or get better at riding aggressively. Luckily it’s an easy problem so solve, and I have a whole winter to work on it (after a few more races).

As for the Huatulco World Cup, there’s always next year. Besides, the best parts of the race are the monster hill, the after-party (Mexicans know how to make a fiesta!), and the food. The hill was cut from the course because of construction (should be back in next year), and I skipped out early on the party to start my recovery for Puerto Vallarta the next week. At least there was still some great food.

I finished my homework and started writing about my last two weeks in Mexico. In the meantime, here’s a video that Rory put together. This is how you train when you’re missing skin on a quarter of your back and have to race again in a week. More on how I lost all that skin when I post again.

I wrote a review for the Garmin Forerunner 110 over on the Garmin Blog. This watch is really nifty. Very basic, but it does everything that 99% of consumers are going to want (and everything I needed for my last month of workouts with it). If you crave more, the 210 will offer footpod support, and the 405cx does everything a runner could ever want. Or if you want it all in one package, the 310xt is a bit bigger, but it does everything the 405 can do, plus it’ a powerful cycling computer (works with ant+ wireless power meters like the Quarq and SRM) and it can calculate open water swim distances when you’re out training in the lake.

But for runners, the Forerunner 110 definitely pulls it’s weight (and size). I’m impressed.

Check out the Garmin blog, it also has a cool video that shows how the watch works.

Woah! It’s been three weeks since Worlds, and SO much has happened. I’m back in Colorado and finishing up what is probably the last little training block of 2010, getting ready for Huatulco and Puerto Vallarta (World Cup and Continental Championships, respectively), catching up on schoolwork (I guess if I wasn’t behind it’s not really catching up, but that’s how it feels), and trying to keep focus for just a few more weeks (meaning I’m NOT thinking about all the awesome things I’m going to do in the off-season… maybe a trip to Hawaii for a month or two, if I take a trip to Europe I’ll be Platinum Elite on Continental Airlines – that could be fun – somehow I need to get my cross country skis to Colorado, so maybe I’ll go back to Seattle for a little while… okay, I’m NOT thinking about this yet!)

After Worlds I felt pretty terrible until a few days ago. I trained right through the fatigue, knowing that it was mainly just jet lag, and was hoping for a miracle at Nationals in Tuscaloosa last weekend. The miracle happened in the form of a crash and a blown tire within the first minute of the bike. In other word, there was not a miracle. By the time I got to the wheel pit and changed tires I was out of the race, so I caught up with a small group of U23 athletes and turned the day into a fun workout. Once the pressure was off, I managed to have a much better time than most of the guys in the front pack. Steve Sexton, for instance, had a temperature of 107 degrees when he crossed the finish line – WOAH!! Maybe in Tuscaloosa one should wear their ice vest during the race, not just before.

So I came back from Tuscaloosa empty handed. I dropped out after a hard 5k run in order to save my legs for the bigger races coming up.

Back in Colorado… There’s really not much going on here. I spent a few days with Rory and Mojdeh in Boulder, and got a bike fit from Retul on my new Orbea Orca road bike frame. That bike is awesome! I really wanted to get some exposure for Orbea at Nationals (it’s going to be on Verses 10/14), but I’ll have to get my TV time at another race. The bike deserves a blog post of its own, so I’ll stop here and save more for another post.