Ben Collins

I’m having internet issues, and can’t seem to upload anything. I even had to get Brian to post this, so if there are any grammatical errors it’s his fault.

[This is patently untrue. Anybody who believes such unsubstantiated rubbish should know better than to trust a curly-haired manchild with four names. -- Brian]

I’ll add in some maps and photos when I get back to the states tomorrow night.
added. — Ben

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This is the 600km of driving we did on Monday after my race in Poland. We decided that we may never be back on Poland, so it was worth the extra driving time to check out Krakow.

I was thinking over the last 18 days of roaming Europe. My thoughts have been everything from absent, to anger, to joy (in its purest form), to calm, to nervous, to jittery, to exhaustion.. [sic] Right now I’m feeling a bit home sick. Mom, Dad, I know you’re going to be reading this soon, so please don’t take offense when I say that my main complaint about this trip is that, without speaking a lick of Deutsch or Polsky, my main social outlet has been my parents. Not to say that I have a lot of complaints, I don’t, I’m just ready for some familiar food, my own bed, and a little time with my friends. [You've got what, now? -- Brian]

Continue Reading »

It’s nearly 2am in Poland. I’m not even a little bit tired, which is partly because I just finished an eventful day of racing and partly due to the fact that I just finished a real pleasure of a book (Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman), and both these things require due contemplation. It requires the type of thoughts that trump tired muscles and the knowledge of having to get up in a few hours to continue this atypical three-quarter-family vacation (Really Susan, save your vacation days for someplace warm and with good food).

This is my dad having lunch with a family my mother and he met at the lake. Apparently they were laughing and having a grand old time, even though they didn’t speak a lick of each others language.

I think I should tell you about my first elite, draft legal race. (And through the story I’m going to litter some pictures from yesterday’s race.)

It was the US elite and U23 national championships in 2005 in Bellingham, Washington. I had recently graduated from Columbia University with several fancy sounding awards, a degree in mechanical engineering, and high hopes (from myself, my parents and my former classmates) of taking a short time off and then finding a (very well paid) high tech job that would use my mental skills and allow my true industrial potential to shine. My athletic career was no longer part of my academic journey, and the workforce, while valuing my demonstration of devotion, time management, hard work, and goal orientation, would not allow me the time needed to pursue an extracurricular hobby with the devotion I had always given to swimming. My time off was intended to address this issue, as well as allow me to do some of the things I hadn’t had time to do as a scholar-athlete.

(I’m the one with my cap off already) Continue Reading »

I was going to start off the post with another map of where we are, but the internet here is too slow for me to get Motionbased.com to load. Maybe I’ll add it later if it stops raining. The town is kedzierzyn-kozle.

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There’s not much here, but it is nice to be in a quiet town with a huge hotel room (to myself).

Today I rear ended an Audi A6 that pulled in front of me then stopped. I would have been able to stop in time, but it’s rained a solid meter already today. The hotel says the internet doesn’t work well when it’s raining, and though in the US I would call that a lame excuse, I actually believe them here.

The breakfast here is a lot like the breakfast at the Hotel Helgoland where we stayed last week, only there’s no granola or yogurt bar, the meat bar is not quite “straight from the butcher” (if you catch my drift), and the egg tray has only sausages. There is cereal, but it’s a generic type that looks like a mix of cheerios and lucky charms. There’s some fresh fruit, but between my mother and myself we we cleared the entire serving tray. The juice bar has been replaced by (no joke) beer on tap. There are pint glasses and a tap handle where there would normally be some kind of juice or water. I wish somebody had introduced this idea to the Columbia U Dining Hall when I was there.

I was able to swim in a 25m indoor pool today (I really didn’t want to go to the course and swim in the rain, which, now that I type it, doesn’t sound like a very good excuse). I was the only; person at the pool. I actually think they may have opened the pool and asked a guard to stick around just for me. The entire building was empty except for the two of us, and some angry polish women (not sure if they were actually angry, but they were yelling stuff when I walked it). I’m actually feeling recovered, which is good because I’m running out of time to prepare for this weekend. Up to this week my conversations with coach mike have been, “Just focus on Germany, we’ll talk about Poland after that.” So, of course, now that I’m ready to talk about it I’ve had a rough time finding internet, and not much time to practice.

I think the key points are:
1) swim super fast
2) transition REALLY SUPER FAST
3) stay with everyone on the bike
4) run like hell.

Here are some pics from Hamburg:

That’s Javier. He pulled a “Ben Collins’ Special” and passed out at the finish. Continue Reading »

Check out a podcast I did with Endurance Planet. It’s the September 5th Podcast.

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I’m at an internet cafe in Spreewald, Germany. It’s about 100km south of Berlin. I’m on my way to Poland, which is probably another 500km, and I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve had very little luck with finding internet the past few days, so it may be more from Brian Davis than from me. (I say this as if it’s a bad thing, but I’ve had a TON of requests for more guest writing from Brian.)

Here’s some pictures from the past few days.

Lauren, Jesse, Ben and Shea, waiting for the bus to take us to the train to take us to a boat taxi to get to the awards ceremony. Continue Reading »

Sunday was surreal. I’m hoping I can portray how the emotions felt, but I’m not sure I’m enough of a poet. I’m also a little tired today after a bit of a celebration last night that included lots of dancing to an American cover band in an Irish pub in the red light district of Hamburg with some of the greatest USA teammates I could have asked for. (It also involved being locked inside the stairwell of a hotel for over an hour, but that part of the story doesn’t add to the positive theme I’m trying to create.)

6:35am I arrive in transition. The Colorado boys (Mike, Dave, Matt and Evan) are already there joking around, which helped to keep me relaxed.

7:40am The announcer sends off the 16-19 year old wave and lets my wave into the water for warm up. I swim out and back a couple of times, and I feel fine. Relaxed, ready. How I feel isn’t really even a factor at this point, however, because I had decided weeks ago that I was going to have the race of my life no matter how I felt on race morning.

7:49 - We’re hanging onto the start rope. 107 men ready to pound each other competing for an open bit of water. I was on the far right of the field hoping ot escape from the starting turmoil.

The timer goes off. For once I have an early lead over the people around me. Somebody grabs my heal (accident I”m sure) and I kick somebody’s face (also an accident). Soon the feild has spread out even wider than the start. I”m leading a small group on the right, and to my left is a larger group of about eight or nine.

The swim course started on a 70m wide pontoon, then went out into the lake without any markers to guide us. We were then funneled through small 15m wide archways under two bridges. By the time we came together for the bridge I had left my pack and joined the now five other swimmers in the next group up. Soon five had shrunk to two, and the second guy was starting to fade. I knew I could hold the pace on my own, but I wasn’t sure if I would be going any faster in the lead so I hopped on the leader’s feet and the two of us left everyone else behind.

After the bridges there were two buoys to swim around, then we went back under the bridges, then the course would spread out again before funneling into a final bridge.

I have to admit, I have a bit of an ego with the swim. I had the swim prime in Lausanne last year, and I wanted to repeat that. The only difference is that last year I was a minute ahead of the pack, so when I was in a six man pack at half way I had to make the choice to give up on the swim prime in favor of racing smart.

I stayed on the the leaders feet until we were in the middle of the open stretch, at which point I realized he was fading quickly. The third guy had fallen off but it looked like he was gaining again. I took the lead, and held it. I suppose racing smart was the right choice because I ended up with the swim prime for the day anyway.

I ran through transition. Exiting the water there were stairs, so as I ran toward my bike I was sure my heart rate was at it’s max, and holding. I told myself that there was very little chance of my hear actually exploding out of my chest, and it seemed to help. Not that my heart rate went down, but once I stopped worrying about blood coming out of my ears I felt better.

I hopped on my bike and went to slide my feet into the shoes.

That’s when I realized the velcro was closed on my shoes.. I’m an idiot. Luckily the beginning of the 40k bike course was downhill, so I was able to open my shoes and get them on while coasting.

I felt like I was going fast without burning myself up. It’s hard to explain. I knew I didn’t need to push harder, because my effort was there, but my legs didn’t have the burn that I’m used to. The ride just felt smooth.

At the end of the first lap a 30 year old heading onto the course came by me really fast. It was just the white rabbit I needed. I did my best to follow him. Pass him within 15 seconds, drop back within 15, all the non-drafting rules we have drilled into our heads, but in the final 10k after seeing a pack behind us of about 20 riders (fully drafting), I looked behind me to see that I had an additional 6 pulling a draft off my wheel. WTF?

I finished the bike in 58 minutes, which was the second fastest split of the day. Needless to say, I was still in the lead.

I had about a minute on the next man in my wave. I didn’t know that of course until the 5k turnaround. I had been passing Juniors and AWAD (Athletes With A Disability) athletes all morning, but pretty close behind me was a Kiwi who looked like he was charging.

So was I. My plan for the run was to go fast the first half and race the second. Somehow, just like the bike, I was able to push like I normally do without the pain and fatigue. I just felt good, so at the turnaround I turned it up a notch. I starting imagining people in front of me, and picturing the finish shoot.

With 1k left I kicked in the afterburners. Sprinting by USAT’s Tim Yount and Jeff Dyrek I heard them telling me not to back off. “This is for Overall! Every second counts!”

Fumbling to get my partially ripped number right side up in my final strides I cruised across in a final time of 1:57:16. It was an age group win, but it would be two hours before the rest of the age groups would finish, so I had to wait to know my overall place. The kiwi’s was 69 seconds back, and as it turned out, we were the top two athletes of the day.

OK, so it was an ideal race. The coolest things about it were the team spirit from the other USA athletes, and the fact taht for once I felt completely prepared for a race. I knew that I had put in the work, so all I had to do was race. It’s nice when that works out, right?

6pm - USAT put on a ceremony for the USA athletes. They recognized each of the athletes, and it was pretty amazing to hear how many athletes made a podium. Jesse Thomas, who was 2nd at USA Nationals, had a less than perfect race, but still manged 6th overall. Chuck Sloan, 3rd at Nationals, also felt a bit off, and was 14th overall (4th in 30-34). We also had about 20 podium finished in the AWAD divisions (You have to be impressed when you ride by somebody pedaling with their arms and keeping up with athletes on bikes.)

8pm - I forgot my ticket to the awards ceremony. They weren’t going to let me in, so I just stood there and staired at the guards (I was really just confused what to do) until a mob of angry American athletes persuaded them to let me in. Of course, once they did let me in, I got about 6 people to come with. Classic.

I guess my overwhelming emotion in relief. I knew I was capable of winning the race. I knew I had done everything I needed to do to be prepared. Putting it together doesn’t always happen though, so when it did… wow. There’s no real word for it. You work hard for something, you get it.

Then I watched the pros race, and realized that in twelve hours that would be me. Not that I was going to be a pro racing in the World Championships, but as of September 3rd my elite license is now effective. No more age group races, no more amateur world titles. (I’m not even ranked in USAT’s annual rankings for this year). It’s like\ graduating from high school and realizing you’re about to be a freshman again.

It has a ring to it, doesn’t it?

I don’t have time to do a full race report, but I want to let everyone know that I did it. I’m stoked. Hella stoked. I’ll write more when I can, but I have a ton of ceremonies to get to, so it will have to wait until I have time to do it justice.

A quick thanks to my Mom and Dad, Mike McMahon (coach), Loren Pokorny, All my sponsors, but especially Beyond Fabrications for such a sweet bike, and all the folks in Hawaii and Seattle that encouraged me along the way (Brian, Kurt, Rory, Matt, Braden, Jesus, Chris, Mike, etc.) and if I left your name off I haven’t fogotten, but I have 20 minutes to get to a ceremony 20 minutes away and I haven’t even shaved my face yet, so I’ll get to you later when I can think. Thank you everyone!!

Not much to say. I’ve been relaxing most of the day. Went for a run around the transition area to check it out and hopped on a trainer in the USAT elite room at my hotel. Being around the elites sheds some light on how small my race really is. These guys are here and next week they’ll be in South Korea getting ready for a World Cup race in Beijing. Just another day in the life, right? If their race isn’t that big a deal, then what’s my race?

Whatever it is, I’m ready. My bikes ready to go into the transition area tonight. (I just need to find trash bags to keep some of the rain off). I was able to practice my bike mounting and dismounting in the hotel hallway (though the halls were filled with maid carts, not one of them saw me, which halfway ruined the whole point of doing it.). My shoes are powdered, I’m set.

If this were a dance off I’d say, “bring it on”, and the other 107 people in my wave would say, “we’re brinin’ it” and then I’d spin on my head about twelve times to the beat of some german techno, and follow it up with a couple back and front flips. Seriously, it would be sweet.

Maybe I should be a break dancer instead of a triathlete, ’cause at least then I’d have a cool trick for parties. (not that taking on and off my shoes really fast isn’t a cool trick, just, well…you know what I mean.).

Ok, so I’m guilty of sidelining the point of my travel.

I have written pretty much nothing about how I’m actually feeling as I get ready for this race. Sorry.

I’ve actually been pretty nervous. Not about the race, but nervouse about getting nervous. For instance, before I raced at Hy-Vee in June I was stressed from finals and hadn’t done many races of that caliber and then staying with someone that actually knew all the competitors (JJ Bailey not only knew who was going to be there, but also seems to actually know something about them) really took me off my guard. I’m used to being completely ignorant and apathetic to my competition. I don’t really like to think about them. Some guys, like maybe Macca, can get up and race on rage and anger alone, but I don’t. Not that I can’t, there was this time I was caught making out in the team van at Regionals an hour before I swam the mile. My coach was so pissed he didn’t talk to me before the race, which in turn made me so mad that I knocked out the only best time of the meet (I was 14, and it’s still my best mile time). So I can race mad, but I find it pretty inconsistent, and prone to mistakes. I was once mad at a ref for a DQ at a high school meet, and it preoccupied my mind so much that I started the anchor leg of a 400 free relay at the 50. (After explaining to my teammate why I landed on him, I apologized for causing us to DQ and lose the meet.) So anger’s not my thing, and neither is trying to predict other people.

Now though? I’m not nervous. I was nervous that I would get nervous. I thought that the grandeur of the event and the number of athletes I’ve seen would make me feel somehow different than I have in the past. Like, maybe some emotion would come out that I don’t know how to deal with. But it didn’t. And it won’t. The thing is, there’s nobody here that I’m afraid of. There’s nobody here that I don’t think I could sit down after the race and have a beer with. And the race is nothing new either. I’m completely prepared. I’ve done absolutely everything I needed to as preparation. I’ve put the gas in the tank, all I need to do is turn on the engine.

My college coach, Jim Bolster, used to tell me stupid jokes to calm my nerves at championships meets (I would get REAL nervous there). My favorite was this one that goes like this:

Q: What do you call a fish with no eye’s?

A: FSH.

Ok, so it should be written “no I’s” but then it wouldn’t be funny to read, would it?

So if anything, I’m just ready. I might win. I might be middle of the pack. Somebody might kick my a** out of the water. I may never even have the lead. I may win my wave and be taken down by somebody in a wave that starts after I’m already back in the hotel napping (seriously, the older age groups like 35-39 don’t even start until around 11am and I should be done before 10.). But whatever happens, I’m going to go as fast as I can and leave everything I have on the course. If I do that, there’s nothing I can regret, so why be nervous? I’ve shown a dozen times already this year that I’m capable of leaving it all on the course. It’s just another race.

Alright, fine, so Jim never told me the FSH joke, but the one he did tell me was pretty crude. Maybe I’ll post it after I win. Oh, but if you have a good one for me, it never hurts to have a couple extra. Just in case the nerves kick in tomorrow.