This was my second year racing in the Saint Anthony’s Triathlon, which is held in St. Petersburg, Florida. Last year I entered at the eleventh hour because I happened to be in the mood to race that week. I was so impressed by the organization and presentation of the event that I committed to racing again this year immediately.

I love taking part in well run events. That’s why I keep going back to races like Nautica South Beach, New York City, Hy-Vee and any race that Bill Burke directs. St. Anthony’s Triathlon is that caliber of event, and as such it will be a part of my race schedule for years to come.

This year there were 49 pro men racing, including legends like Greg Bennett, Courtney Atkinson, Bevan Docherty, and Matt Reed, plus rising starts like Josh Amberger, Cameron Dye, and Kaleb VanOrt. The race was legitimately a world class field – far beyond the draw of talent that we normally see in a race that doesn’t help qualify for the Olympics.

Despite the intimidating start list, I came to Florida with this crazy idea that maybe I could put my name on select group of previous winners. That list, which goes back to 1984, includes names like Mike Pigg, Andy Potts, Hunter Kemper, Greg Welsh, and Matt Reed. Judging by the people have won this race, there has never been a cherry pick year. I wasn’t putting any expectations on myself, but I figured that a good race would force anyone that wanted the title from me to really work for it.

I came up 9 seconds short. That makes it seem like I could have changed a few little things and made the difference, but that would be false. I left everything I had out on the course. I had an exceptional race and there weren’t mistakes that would have made any difference in the outcome. I raced well. I raced with everything that I brought to Florida and that in itself is a victory of sorts, regardless of finish place.

The swim course was changed from previous years after a 3 year stint of weather cancellations and deaths among participants. I never had a chance to swim the old course, but the new one is not bad. We start down the beach in a deep water start, which is less desirable to a pontoon start, but better than a shallow beach start. The shallow start gives a huge advantage to the runners and people with long legs (not me). The deep water start gives the advantage to the swimmers, but tends to be difficult for the race directors to officiate. We line up between two buoys, but since we don’t really know when the gun is going off everyone is trying to tread water and keep their body’s horizontal. This inevitably has the entire field moving forward slowly and after a short time the line of men has moved well beyond the buoys. The race is still fair – everyone moves forward and nobody is silly enough to sit back while everyone around him is inching forward – but with a two or three minute delay we’ve unintentionally taken 50 meters off the swim course.

Once the gun finally did go off I found myself quickly in third position on the feet of Cameron Dye. Cam had intelligently started near Josh Amberger and was on his feet from the gun. I had somehow spaced on Amberger’s presence or I would have done the same. Josh is the guy that won all the swim primes at Hy-Vee last year and beat Cam, Potts, and myself out of the water by 50 seconds. I started to fade about 600 meters in and was glad when 2 guys came around, allowing me to enjoy a bit more draft. That straight 600-meter portion was parallel to the shore in a protected channel, it was followed by a 90 degree left turn away from shore that took us into the wind and chop of the open waters. The waves were rolling in at a cadence that really didn’t mesh with my natural stroke rate. I was being thrown onto the other swimmers around me, one second I was on a guys feet, the next he was 5 feet to one side, or in front of me, or behind me. It was brilliantly fun! I love a challenging swim and this was just enough chaos to make things interesting.

The pace didn’t slow, but I could tell that people were tiring in the chop. Josh and Cam were only holding a few meters gap ahead, but we weren’t closing it. We made two right turns and headed back to shore as one big group with only a small time gap from first person to last, and all the contenders were there.

Mounting our bikes it was Cam leading the group. I was fourth of fifth, but right in position. Now, Cam was in form today and his bike ride took off from the line. I had hoped to take the lead, but it was not mine to be had. Everything I had to put into my pedals could only get me up to Cam’s side – he never relinquished control of the race. It was obvious to me who was in charge and there was nothing I could do to change it. I was forced to contend with staggering to the opposite side of the road, giving Cam first choice of the best line, and pedaling for all I was worth to stay with him.

Right behind us, Josh Amberger was tenaciously hanging with us. He was in great position and – unlike me – he never once tried to pull to the front. He sat in 3rd and took full advantage of the flaws inherent to the drafting rules. He wasn’t breaking any rules – I know this because we had an official on a motorcycle riding right behind us the entire 40 kilometers. But there is a still a big advantage to being in the back of a group of three or more when the race follows USAT’s stagger rules. The jockeying for position in front of that person forces them to shift lines left to right and back. Every time that happens, the person in back goes through the draft zone. And if that person is staggered, but not very far back, they can be frequently passing through the draft zone of someone only a few meters (or less) in front of them.

Behind us was a group much larger than our own, and the larger the group the more this flow in the rules allows for drafting. With more people, there’s more changing of positions, more moving in and out of draft zones. I’ve been in groups like that, it’s much much easier in the back. So much so that the people who like to ride in the back will more likely coast to maintain their position in the back than risk facing the wind in the front.

So I’m definitely not suggesting that anyone was cheating, just that the way the rules are enforced, a start list of 49 guys allows a lot of people to take advantage of drafting without risk of penalty.

The three of us, Cam, Josh and myself, had over a minute on the next pack heading into T2. I took the bike prime, but only because both the other guys beat me out of T1. There’s no way I would have ridden that hard without Cam pushing me the entire way.

Now, I’ve been hearing rumors about how Josh has been training really well over the winter, and I knew he would be a bigger factor than in our previous match-ups. I also knew that Cam has been working hard on his run and that it’s been coming around. But I was sincerely floored when my surge on the run was not just matched, but countered by both Josh and Cam, in series, and that their counters left me 10 seconds behind at the first mile marker. Those guys were running really well! By two miles I was 15 seconds behind Cam and 25 or 30 behind Josh. Then I started inching back. By 5k I had caught up to Cam, and set my sights on Josh. With the turnaround at half way I also got to see that Filip Ospaly was closing the gap quickly with Tim O’Donnell right behind him. I did everything I could to pick it up, but my fourth mile was my slowest. I needed a second wind. At mile 4 I started pulling Josh back to me again and at just before the fifth mile I finally caught him. Just then, I heard footsteps and knew I’d been caught. Ospaly passed me right as I passed Josh. I went from second to second, but with Tim only a short ways back I knew I had to try to hang on. My last mile was my fastest, and I needed every second of speed. I crossed the line less than 10 seconds behind Ospaly, but TO was just 4 seconds behind me. It was a really close race!

Josh in fourth, with Cameron hanging on for fifth. Nobody had an easy time at this race. It was fun, but it was also one of the hardest races I’ve done. Start to finish I was going full tilt. So, second place is good! I have no regrets. I raced my heart out.

Next up is Olympic Trials in San Diego. I’m still on the wait list to get in, but hopefully that will change in the next day or two as we pass the deadline to drop out without penalty.

I went back to South Beach for the 4th time this year. I really like the Nautica South Beach Triathlon, which is why I’ve raced there all but one of the five years it’s been held. This year was a bit of last minute planning. I raced in the Mooloolaba World Cup the last weekend in March, giving me only a week between races that are completely around the world from each other. In 2009 I did the same double, so I knew going into it how much it would suck. Still, with about a week to go before South Beach I just couldn’t justify to myself not going to such a great race and I bought tickets. This time, instead of flying straight from Australia to Florida, I went back to the OTC in Colorado for four days, then flew to Miami two days before the race. That was a better plan than spending a full week trying to train in metropolitan Miami.

The race conditions were perfect. The off-shore breeze provided for flat, clear water like I’ve never seen in Miami. And since we started before the sun came over the horizon it was still rather cool during the race (though seriously humid). I felt flat on the swim and was suffering just to stay on Cameron Dye’s feet. Meanwhile, Javier Gomez (this guy has been ITU World Champion how many times!?) and Dustin McClarty (taker of swim primes) were out of the water 40 seconds ahead of us. On the bike I didn’t know what to expect. I just rode hard. In five minutes I caught Gomez and McClarty, though Bevan Docherty (who just ran down Lance Armstrong at the Panama 70.3) and Cameron Dye (who won this race last year) were right with me. I went to the lead and just kept hammering without ever looking back. At 20k I had 20second advantage over Gomez and Dye, and by the end of the bike I was a little over a minute ahead.  I split a personal best 51:14, though the course may have been half a Kilo short according to my Garmin. I had a good lead starting the run, but – like in the swim – I felt flat. I was hoping to run somewhere in the 32-minute range, but I ended up just over 34. Javier passed me at the 3-mile mark and there was nothing I could do to hang with him. Docherty and Dye were still a ways back, but it didn’t ease my fears. I kept the run hard and finished 2nd. Docherty passed Dye in the final Kilo for 3rd and 4th finishes, respectively.

It was pretty cool to be on the podium with Javier Gomez. He’s a legend. Or he will be. Probably the first true sub-30-minute triathlete, plus he’s one of the best swimmers in the sport and can certainly hold his own on the bike. And even more rare, he’s a humble guy that respects other athletes and carries a truly professional image.

Oh yeah, and Mr. Tanner was handing out awards. I had a million questions for him, but none were appropriate or short enough for that setting.

The Pan-American Games triathlon was a really important race for the US men, as well as the Canadians. That race may have been both our Countries’ last best chance to earn a third quota spot for the London Olympics. The Olympic quota process is a little confusing for most of us, so I’ll try to break it down.

Eight countries get to bring three people to the Olympics, and those 3rd person quotas are given to the first eight countries to have three athletes eligible for the Olympics. All other countries can have a maximum of two quota spots. If you take a look at the Olympic Simulation it makes more sense.

The first five quota spots go to the countries that win their continental championships. So the countries of the athletes that win in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceana, and America all get one quota spot. The next three quota spots go to the 2011 World Championships podium.

After that there are 39 more spots given out by the Olympic Points Ranking, and then a handful of spots are given to emerging countries that wouldn’t otherwise have a representative at the Olympics.

Further, no athlete can earn more than one quota spot for their country, meaning that because Alistair Brownlee won both the European and the World Championships, his World Champs quota spot rolled down to 4th place, which was Javier Gomez. And since Gomez already earned a quota spot at Worlds, it doesn’t matter that he is first on the Olympic Points Rankings, he can’t earn a second spot for Spain.

Now remember that only eight countries can have three quota spots, and those quota spots are dealt out in the order described above. That means the third place person from each country is really only racing against other third place athletes. In order to earn that third quota spot a country must have a third ranked person in the top eight of third ranked people.

Right now, the third ranked American is Hunter Kemper, but he is the ninth or tenth third ranked guy in the world, meaning the US does not currently have a third Olympic quota for London. The eighth place third ranked person is Bevan Docherty from New Zealand, with a little over 2000 Olympic Points to Hunters 14 hundred and change. Manuel Huerta is another 100 points behind that, but beyond that are Kevin Collington and myself with just over 500 points. Meanwhile, Matt Chrabot and Jarrod Shoemaker are sitting in first and second for the USA with plenty of points.

The beauty of the system is that an athlete can earn a quota spot for their country without any previous Olympic Points Ranking at all by winning one of the automatic quotas at continental or world champs. So if a US athlete other than Matt or Jarrod had won the Pan-American Games then they would have earned the first quota spot for the US and Matt and Jarrod are ranked high enough that they would easily secure the second and third quota spots.

Now, the original plan was for Chrabot and Mark Fretta to domestique for Kemper at Pan-Ams, but then Kemper crashed in South Carolina a couple weeks ago and broke his elbow. Manny was the alternate and he did an excellent job. With Fretta and Chrabot’s help he stayed comfortable in the breakaway of 15 men, then ran with Renaldo Colucci from Brazil and McMahon from Canada. Since Canada is in a similar situation to the United States, they were equally motivated for a win, while Brazil is lower in the ranking and Colucci is their top ranked male (meaning his motivation was purely to win the Pan-American Games, with no ulterior motivative). Huerta and Colucci ran together the entire 10k, but in the final sprint the Brazilian took the tape. (I was at home watching the twitter feed and cheering loud enough that even though Manny couldn’t hear me, my neighbors definitely could.) Manny stepped up and did a great job. It was the best we could have done as a country, even if it wasn’t Gold.

Unfortunately what that means is that the US men are in a bad spot if we want to take three men to the Olympics next year. Kevin and myself are realistically too far back with too few races left to get back into the mix. Hunter is still injured, and there’s no telling how soon he will be back to winning world cups. Manny is 700 points behind Docherty, but that’s quite a bit considering that both of them well be racing and earning more points. Manny would basically need to place top 5 in two World Cups that Docherty doesn’t go to, and stay even with him in all the races he does.

And why should Manny go to every race from now until the end of the Olympic Points Qualifying Period? Even if he earns the third quota spot for the US it wouldn’t actually put him on the team. He still needs to be one of the top two Americans in San Diego for that to happen. In 2008 Matt Reed was in the same position, he raced every World Cup he needed to and just barely squeezed high enough in the rankings to earn a spot for the US. He qualified for the US team, but he was toast once he got to the Olympics, and the whole process burned him out on ITU racing. As much as the US wants the third quota spot, I don’t think the US wants to repeat what they put Reed through.

So realistically, what this means is that we’re all vying to be one of the top-2 Americans in San Deigo. If we’re top 2 and in the top 9 we get a spot, if we’re top two outside the top 9 then USAT has some discretion, but how that will play in is pretty uncertain.

The Hy-Vee Triathlon on Sunday was the most fun I have ever had racing triathlon, and one of the hardest two hours of my life both physically and mentally. I walked away with $31,750 of the famed million-dollar prize purse, but managed only an 18th pace finish after forcing myself to walk/jog the run.

I headed to Des Moines for the Hy-Vee Triathlon last week having no idea what to expect. After New York City last month I couldn’t walk for three days and was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my foot. I was determined to race Hy-Vee, however, so I followed every piece of advice I could find for how to make my bone heal faster (this included things like wishing, hoping, praying, imagining, and pretending). Still, I didn’t have the guts to test it out before the race and I figured I would find out during the race if it was ready to go.

Other than the foot, I felt great heading into Sunday’s race. I decided I would swim and ride like a man possessed and just see what happened when I got to the run. It was a Kamikaze plan, but the race had 11 laps (3 swim, 4 bike, 4 run), and the leader at the end of each lap would earn a $5,150 prime. (Originally there were only two swim laps, but a last minute change to the course – due to strong river currents – added a lap and a prime.) So if ever there was a race to take a big risk it was this one.

The swim was really technical. It was a small circuit, but a 2-knot current added a skill component that just isn’t there in most swims. In the women’s swim one girl was lapped out because she was barely able to swim faster than the current going upstream. To make things more interesting, the first buoy was about 25 meters from the start pontoon (with the current it was more like swimming 50m to get there), and the angle of the pontoon highly favored the guys with low numbers (I was 8 of 30 based on my 5150 series ranking). We swam under a bridge with several openings, which affected the strength of the current depending on the line you took. It was a really tough course!

I started next to Josh Amberger and we were stroke for stroke to the first buoy. I tried cut the buoy tight, which would have cut him off, but he outsmarted me, rolled over my back and stuck me on the rope. In the two seconds it took to get off the anchor line he was gone. Not that I could have held his feet for long if I hadn’t gotten stuck, but it was still a critical mistake that eliminated the advantage my take-out speed had gotten me. I was second for the remainder of the first lap, hitting the first run-out right with Cameron Dye and a full 25 seconds behind Josh. The second lap I settled onto Cam’s feet. With Josh locking down the swim primes I figured I would try to conserve energy. Cam, however, was swimming really strong and at the end of the second lap I started to struggle to hold his feet. Right then, Andy Potts came up on us like a bulldozer (he started in29th position and was nowhere near the front at the first buoy). I’m sure he had no idea that Josh was ahead of us and thought that he was vying for a swim prime. He took over the lead and starting the second lap I lost Cam’s feet. Luckily, I made a couple good choices coming around the final two buoys and managed to close the gap through tactics. In a normal lake swim there’s no way I would have caught back on to them.

Out of the water I was a full minute behind Amberger and just a few seconds behind both Dye and Potts. I got my feet strapped in quickly and hit the gas, taking over 2nd about a mile into the race. I put my head down and imagined I was doing a 40km time trial. With a minute deficit on Amberger I figured the first lap prime was out of reach, but with 2km to go in the first lap I saw the lead motorcycle ahead and I buried myself. With three blocks to go before the prime line I caught Josh and passed him. But with the prime line behind me I figured I should just keep riding like that, and 10km later I had a second prime. At this point the grand stands were going crazy every time I came through and it energized me to push even harder. I rode as hard as I possibly could for the remaining 20km and posted the day’s fastest split of 54:51, taking home all four lap primes and gaining a full minute lead over 2nd place, Greg Bennett, and another 30 seconds over the next athletes after him.

As soon as I hit the carpet I knew my wishes were not coming true. It was hard to believe that something could hurt more than that pain cave I had just put myself into, but over the aching muscles my foot was shooting pain up my leg on every step. The stadium in front of the capitol building was booming with people cheering and as I limped out of transition I knew I couldn’t walk in front of the people that had taken me this far. I told myself to run until there weren’t fans around, but there wasn’t any such spot. The only other race I’ve seen with so many spectators is the Hamburg ITU race. Des Moines made it impossible to quit and for the first lap I was too proud to walk.

I got half way through the first lap by doing a job/limp mix that felt a bit like galloping. At the first turnaround I saw my gap over Greg Bennett was still about 30 seconds. Suddenly I was possessed by the thought of winning the first run prime. I ran the rest of the first lap as if I were in a 1200m running race. My leg muscles still hadn’t forgiven me for what I did to them on the bike, and every step felt like I was fracturing my foot. I crossed the prime line and finally gave in. I stopped. I walked. Greg passed. The announcer assumed I was cramping, and the crowd erupted – louder than ever – cheering me onward. One step at a time I limped my way back into a lopsided jog. I wanted to quit, but Des Moines wouldn’t let me. I walk/jogged another lap and was surprised at how long it took for more people to pass me. The field was shattered, people were completely blown after the ride and nobody was running as fast as I had imagined they would. Hunter had moved up to second with Stewart Hayes on his heels. I managed to jog most of the next 7.5km and the crowd kept going crazy when I came through. I felt like a hero entering the stadium the final time, and I even tried to contend a sprint for 17th place with Jarrod Shoemaker. I lost and settled for 18th – which is not a bad finish for such a talented field.

Bunches of people have asked me how I would have done without the foot injury, and I don’t know what to say. I was completely blown after the bike, and was in no condition to run a fast 10km run. Also, I’m not sure without the foot injury I would have had the guts to ride like that, and I probably wouldn’t have had the cycling fitness that 4 weeks off my feet gave me. I made the most out of the condition I was in on the day, and I don’t regret anything. I was smart enough to walk when I needed to, and now, two days later, my foot doesn’t hurt any worse than it did before the race. Even if my legs had been fresh enough off the bike to run a fast 10k, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk ending my season. I have a lot more to do this year, and no amount of money is worth losing that opportunity.

I haven’t posted a graph since I won the 5150 New Orleans Triathlon (which was actually a duathlon). I figured if I was going to post any it would be cool to see the differences between some of the races. With the non-drafting races I feel it’s okay to crop the back part of the field because the leaders are the part that’s interesting, but for ITU the graph is intended more to see how the race played out. It would obviously be better if I really had splits from each lap of the bike and run, but since I only have total bike and run splits I have instead interpolated the data to estimate where people were in the middle of the bike and run. The first race is the Toyota Cup’s CapTex Triathlon. If you read triathlon news at all you’ll recall that this is the race where the entire men’s field was turned around by a Police boat. Andy Potts ignored the order and ended up with 3 minutes over the rest of the field out of the water. The race eventually paid extra money and points to second and third place because they realized that the race did not play out fairly. Take a look at the graph and see if you can tell why I think choosing third place to stop paying extra has nothing to do with objective fairness.*

For those of you who haven’t read my graphs before, the winner is always the zero axis so anyone below that line is behind the leader at that point and all the lines above the axis are ahead of the winner at that point. There will never be a line above the X-Axis at the finish. Below, for example, you see Potts was leading the entire race, so no line ever intersects his axis after the start (though Dye came pretty close).

*(okay, since some of you aren’t used to reading these graphs I’ll help out: take a look at the time gap at the bike start – Andy wasn’t leading the swim at the point of incident (about 500 meters in) so it’s safe to assume he would have finished the swim with the rest of us – now look at how many people (lines) have a smaller gap at the finish. Is it two? No. There are four people who finished closer to Andy than they were after the swim.)

Next up is the New York City Triathlon from last weekend. It’s probably less interesting because it’s almost exactly the same as the 5150 New Orleans graph I posted. I took the lead after the swim, extended it on the bike and then held my lead for the run. Of note is that my bike split of 58:01 was the 3rd fastest in course history, 3 seconds slower than David Thompson’s best and 30 seconds slower than Bennett’s Course record from 2008. Both of those times were on dry pavement, whereas this year was pissing rain.

New York City 2011

Now for the three ITU races I did in June and July. The first was Cartagena, where the whole race was slow due to extreme heat. There were about 70 starters and 35 finishers. The idea behind the ITU graphs is to give a sense of how the race played out. If there is separation at the start of the swim and the lines converge before the run, then the swim break was a failure, if a small separation at the start of the bike separates further then there was a break and a chase pack behind them. In Cartagena you can see there was a very large front pack, then a bunch of smaller chase packs. On the run some of the smaller chase packs managed to pass quite a few people from the lead pack.

Now here’s Guatape a week later where the bike was quite difficult. Again there was a large lead group, but the size of the chase packs seen on the graphs doesn’t account for all the people who dropped out after the bike. The first chase pack was quite a bit larger than it appears in the graph.

Finally, we have the Edmonton World Cup. Here we had two main packs, both very large. Notice the field size at a World Cup is about double that of a continental cup, and the time gaps are much much smaller, indicating much more depth.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I do. Please don’t hesitate to ask for clarification if you don’t understand something.

This is going to sound cliché, but I love New York City. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to go to New York to see the new Broadway musical, Book of Mormon, which won nine Tony Awards. It just so happened that one of the biggest races in the US, the New York City Triathlon, was happening so I coordinated and convinced my friend, Abby, to come with me so we could stay with her parents (who live on the Upper East Side) and have some fun in New York after the race. Foiling my plan was the fact that both performances of BOM during my trip were sold out, but I won the NYC Triathlon and saw Catch Me If You Can, so the weekend turned out pretty well anyway.

I arrived late on Friday and got to sleep as early as I could. Saturday I made my way up to Columbia University where I swam with Coach Jim Bolster. I wanted to get a nice picture of me with the CU Swimming record board before the team breaks the last three of my records, but somehow in the rush to get out the door I left my camera. So this pic is the best I could do.

The rest of Saturday was relaxing. I went for a bike ride in Central Park and attended the race expo. A few weeks ago I got some compression product to test out from 110% sports, and they were renting a booth at the expo. I went up and got a pair of calf sleeves to overcome some airplane fatigue I was feeling, then decided to keep them on until the race start the next morning.

The start came early, even with a delay for weather and an overturned car on the Westside Highway. As we dove into the Hudson all I could think was, “man this is going to hurt”. Yet somehow it didn’t. We swam pretty slowly, and I held back a lot due to the lack of warmup and the length of the run from swim exit to T1. I knew that the transition run would be as big a factor as the swim and I didn’t want to start the bike overly winded from it. I exited 3rd from the water but passed both of the men in front of me heading to my bike. I started with a small lead and when I hit the Westside Highway the traffic of bikes trying to get out of the park had already given me a gap. I hammered, but my legs never felt like they were pushing all that hard. I was breathing easily and the most tension I felt in my body was in my knuckles as I gripped the bars and hoped that there weren’t any big holes under the depths of water covering the roadway. At the turn around I saw I had less than a minute lead over Greg Bennett. I was worried. I didn’t know if he was gaining on me or losing ground, but I was pretty intent on extending that lead. I pushed, but my legs still didn’t feel the pain, I just couldn’t push hard enough to make myself hurt like normal. Perhaps it was the rain, perhaps I was just in the zone, but I really thought I was having a horrible ride. Before the race I had changed the display on my Garmin Edge 800 so that I couldn’t see power numbers. I feel like those numbers in a race can do more to psyche me out than help, but around 45 minutes in I flipped the display to see if I was riding as slowly as I thought. No. It was the highest average power I’ve ever seen in a race. Somehow that gave me more confidence than the nearly two minute lead I had built over Bennett and Yoder, and I started the run thinking, “this is my race to lose”. The run always hurts, but the last three miles running through central park were awful. I hit a wall and all that easy speed and easy breathing ran out. My lungs tightened up and I started begging the finish line to appear in front of me. The rain had stopped and the humidity and heat were rising and before I knew it I was way overheated. As I hit the finish shoot I was starting to see darkness and it was all I could do to high five Abby and her sister Sandy then cross the line, raise the banner, fall to my knees raise my arms and yell (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal claim it was a mutter, but this is my memory), “Go Lions!” in support of my alma mater, Columbia University which is just blocks from the course.

I love going back to New York. I feel a great deal of pride for my school and the time I spent competing for Columbia in swimming. I love wandering the city and all the exciting things to do (after the race of course). I love the way the city smells (awful, but it brings back good memories), and I love the people. Winning the Nautica New York City Triathlon is going to be a highlight of my career, and I can’t wait to try it again next year.

One more comment I’d like to add. I went into this race thinking about the loss of my friend Bob Havrilak. I would love to believe that he’s up there watching over me, Adam at his side, cheering me on from beyond. But if they are, I hope they see that they had a part of all of this success. It’s nice to think about our loved ones watching over us, but I wish I had told Bob more often how much his friendship meant to me. He knew I would be winning races like New York long before I did, and I wish I had thanked him just one more time for helping me believe in myself. I don’t believe I won the race for Bob, and I really can’t wrap my head around him sitting on a cloud watching me. I believe that Bob is part of who I am today, and in some way, it was Bob winning the race. So good job Bob, and everyone else who has been part of my life through this journey. Guys like Loren and Bob Placack, my parents and sister, Coaches Bolster, Victor, Mike Doane and others, all my homestays and my sponsors… Good job guys, we won!

Well, my latest World Cup was a bust. I felt great going to Edmonton, and was pretty confident. I swam really well, leading the first half, and starting the bike with the leaders. I conserved energy and stayed out of trouble near the front of the bike pack, and I felt great starting the run. Unfortunately, I messed up my nutrition and after about 500 meters of running all I could think about was finding a toilet. Lesson learned: make sure you have enough fluid for the amount of sugar you take in on the bike, and error on the side of too little sugar because you probably don’t need much for a 2 hour race. Also, a 4pm start time means you need a more substantial breakfast than two packets of oatmeal and a Powerbar. At least I figured this all out in Canada so I have time to practice proper nutrition before Hy-Vee (also a 4pm start time), which is coming up quick – September 4th.

After Guatape I flew straight to Seattle. It’s always hard going home during the season, or anytime really. Whenever I travel someplace for an extended period of time I try to get into a training routine as quickly as possible. (The routine makes training take less time, you have a time for each workout set, you know where to run and where to swim and you have a typical bike course, so the day goes more smoothly and you miss fewer workouts than if you’re constantly looking for lap swim, looking for a new run route and trying to find a group to ride with.) But in Seattle there are so many variables that get in the way of being able to jump into a routine that I end up having to adjust my schedule for each individual day. First, I’m only home a couple times this year, so I need to see the dentist, see my friends, spend time with my 18 month old nephew, spend time with my mom, my dad, my friends, visit my favorite bike shops… And then there’s the issue of transportation. My parents have two cars, mine is in Colorado, so if they’re gone all day I’m stuck at home, which isn’t exactly close to anything. (My parents moved out of the city right before I went to college. I hate the suburbs.) The bike trail is closed for reconstruction by my house as well, which means there are no soft surfaces to run on from my parent’s house – I need a car to get to the state park. What I’m getting at is that visiting home is a cluster*&^% of compounding logistical problems that make it really hard to settle into any kind of routine. So I don’t, and it always ends up being a great time.

My first day in Seattle was the quietest. Just my parents and myself. My sister and brother-in-law (BIL) were working and the nephew was in daycare (they all live in the same house), so I was able to sleep in, do some light training and then head to swim practice with Cascade Swim Club. It was great. Then next day was also quiet, except the nephew was at home with my mom, and I had to finish training super early because my massage therapist refuses to make an appointment after 3pm (he’s good enough that I don’t really care, but he’s also busy enough that I won’t tell you his name unless you promise not to schedule while I’m in town). It was the Thursday before the Monroe Pan American Cup that all hell broke loose. My aunt and uncle came into town with my two cousins, and Tommy Zaferes arrived and was staying with my family for the Monroe race. Rory and Mojdeh also came over to see me, as they just moved to Seattle from Boulder and it had been over a month since I’d been able to visit them. So just to clarify, I was trying to rest and prepare for an ITU continental cup with seven adults, two teenagers, and an 18 month old child living under the same roof and two very close friends making frequent visits, and everyone seeming bummed when I skipped out on the party for a swim/bike/run. It was awesome.

The first day with everyone in the house my cousin, Boomer, came with Tommy and me to the state park for a run. I thought it would be a learning experience for a 17-year-old surfer from Hawaii to try to hang with us, even for an easy run, and it was. Boomer was shocked when we told him that in the entire triathlon we don’t ever stop, walk, or otherwise take a breather. My other cousin, Caitie, was smarter and stayed home.

The day before Monroe the beautiful clear weather Seattle had experienced my first few days back changed and became grey rainy crud. It finally felt like home. Tommy and I did a course preview and attended the prerace meeting where, I have to admit, I was a little surprised to see that Hunter Kemper was actually present. Hunter’s been having such a great season, I thought he’d stick to world cups and the Lifetime series. It was good to see him though, as I feel like I learn a little from every race I do with him. He just exudes experience. Everyone in the field watches Hunter when he races, and Hunter – even as a marked man – is always in the right place at the right time.

Everyone competing in Monroe seemed to agree that for a first year race it was done incredibly well. The course, while boring, was safe and quite spectator friendly. The swim was in a small lake that could have been confused for a flooded drainage ditch (only with clean water), the bike ride took us out and back on the main road along side the lake and featured three 180s and two 90 degree turns on every pancake flat lap, the run – also flat – was four laps on a paved path around the lake that totaled 10.4 kilometers. It was not a course for breakaways. The one unknown going into the race was the quality of the swim field. There were more people I would classify as “super swimmers” in Monroe than any other race I’ve done. Zaferes, McClarty, McCartney, Darling, and Bird are all people who routinely win swim primes over the slightly slower – though often better on land – swimmers like Potts, Dye, and Kemper. Even with a wetsuit we all knew it would be tough to keep up with those guys.

The swim started off fast. Tommy helped me improve my beach starts by having me practice over and over the day before the race, so I was able to get a pretty good leap off the line. I broke out and was almost instantly in third behind Zaferes and McClarty. I stayed right there with only Bird passing me in the first lap. McCartney got ahead at some point and Tommy and I lost those guys feet and led in a large pack about 20 seconds down from the three leaders. Tommy had a terrible transition and lost the lead group, Hunter was right next to me out of the water and with his help we instantly caught the super swimmers within a kilometer from T1. The lead pack became 12 guys with a small lead over the next pack of five that was mainly guys who struggled getting off their wetsuits. 12 to 5 is not really an even race and our lead grew significantly without any of us really pushing that hard. There were a few feeble attempts to get away, but on that course it would have taken a superhero, or someone that nobody cared about (perhaps a wooden leg?) to get away. I followed Hunter’s lead. He and I have talked a little about working together, so I asked if he wanted to try anything, but he confirmed that it was smartest just to wait. I still spent my share of energy at the front. I hate leaches. So I felt good about taking the lead into T2 next to Hunter. We racked and I popped on my KRuuz way faster than Kemper (take that old man!) so I had the edge on the field starting the run. Rory was there wearing his “I [heart] BC” t-shirt that my buddy Tai made for us, and as I started the run with Hunter he was yelling “GO BEN, STAY WITH HIM, STAY WITH HIM, STAY WITH HIM!!!!” I tried to stay with Hunter as he came by me, I tried as hard as I could to run as fast as he was. I’m sure I was going well beyond any speed I’ve maintained in a workout, and I could only hang for 400 meters. After that I just tried to keep the gap from growing too rapidly, and in doing so I put about 10 seconds onto a group of four runners by the second kilometer. I was now being hunted by a pack and I was out in the wind by myself. I kept running, for once I was actually in the race, I had put down the start speed I didn’t think I had and it put me in position to do what I love: RACE!!! At the end of the first lap that group of six lost three people to the penalty board (Personally I think the ITU should stop changing the sport through the advent of new penalty-worthy rules and let the sport change through allowance of tactics like what the Brits did at the Euro Championships this year.) but I was gaining ground on them ever so slowly. On the second lap I had 20 seconds, on the third it was 25, but the group was only two. On the fourth lap Andrew Russell dropped the rest of them and closed the gap on me to just under 20 seconds. All the while, we all lost over two minutes to Kemper. I finished second with Andrew behind me for third.

At the finish I was greeted by a massive group of friends and family and an asthma attack that almost caused me to pass out. I’m not sure how I made it through the final lap without being able to breath, but I was certainly glad the EMTs were at the finish line to hold me up and give me oxygen until I could breath normally. I’ve never had an asthma attack like that before, but now that I have I feel like I’m officially past the point of no return on the nerd spectrum. Seriously, I wear glasses, I’m good at math and science and now I need an inhaler? Where’s my calculator watch? Oh wait; I have one with GPS instead.

The award ceremony was also a highlight thanks to all the supporters present. When I stood up on the podium a large segment of the crowd started chanting, “COLLINS, COLLINS, COLLINS…” When Hunter stood up there was polite clapping, and after it quieted down he turned to my fan section and asked, “where’s my cheer for first?” To which they responded, “COLLINS, COLLINS, COLLINS!” He can run two minutes faster, but he can’t win the hometown crowd.

Tomorrow I race the Edmonton World Cup. I’m here with my parents, and I’m hoping I can convince all of Paula Findlay’s hometown friends to come cheer for me. I wonder if they have t-shirts to show their support? Maybe they could call themselves the “PF-gang”.

Click the thumbnails below for more pics from Monroe. A HUGE thanks to my BIL, Matthew Lamb, for being my star photographer at the event. All the photos are from him.

I’m here in Edmonton, the capitol of Alberta, looking over the past few weeks down south. I’m really enjoying myself this year, and the past three weeks have been no exception. After Cartagena I flew to Guatape, a small mountain town near Medellin in Colombia. The week between races felt like an eternity because there was very little to do. The town of Guatape is beautiful. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and I loved riding my bike through the mountains. Guatape is in the middle of a man made lake where every piece of land shoots skyward or drops straight down. Nothing is flat, and there is very little land suitable for building on. Most of the buildings were precariously hanging off the side of a cliff waiting for a mudslide to whisk them into the lake.

Each day in Guatape I would eat breakfast with Arturo Garza and the twins from Puerto Rico, Melissa and Militza Rios (yes they look the same and have names that are very similar, it took me a few days to figure it out). Sometime before lunch I would go for a bike ride and a run, and finish with an afternoon swim in the lake. Between workouts I read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (if you haven’t read it, you need to.), wrote emails, called friends through Google Voice, and slept more than a lazy house cat. By the time race day crept up to us I was more than ready to race and head home to my family. Still there were things I wanted to do in Guatape that aren’t wise before a race, and I was glad for a 10am start time so I could spend the afternoon being a tourist.

The race itself was not as I had hoped. I lead the swim at a pace I thought was quite strong, but there were still about 15 men in the lead group for the bike. I first tried an immediate breakaway, but on the first of six 1km climbs I was caught. Every time we reached a hill the group would string out, but as soon as we crested and descended the string would ball back up. I put in far more than my fare share of the work because I didn’t want the chase pack to catch us, as did fellow American Nick Vandam. We worked hard. Then, with about 200 meters to go on the bike two Spanish men came to the front. Now, race etiquette says that if you’ve been sitting in the back the entire ride, you stay in the back into T2. At the very least leaches should NEVER take their first pull at the very end and block the people who did all the work. I was irritated, but these two Spanish riders were not done being rude. One of them was racked next to me in transition, he cut me off going to my space and carelessly racked his bike by one brake lever. The rest of his bike fell sideways and hung in such a way as to block my transition box and the space for my bike. I had to stop, hold my bike, move his bike, rack my bike, and only then I was able to reach my shoes and get my helmet in to the box. By the time I had my shoes on I was already 10 seconds back from the lead runners. Start speed on the run is already my weak point, and starting from that far back took me out of the run race. I was running by myself, and not feeling particularly good. I probably couldn’t have hung with the two Spaniards (they ended up 1st and 2nd) on that particular day, but I certainly would have like to start with them and try.

I ended up 7th, which was better than the previous week’s 10th place, but still not the result I was looking for, considering I felt good and I like to think tough courses suit me well. I’ve made the mistake of working more than my share before, but at this race I really though the hills would be an equalizer, making everyone in the pack work. Still, I swam quite well and rode strong. My run was sub-par, but overall it was a good experience. I learned and raced hard, which is what it’s all about.

After the race I tried to rent a jet ski, but the price tag was more than I was willing to pay after finishing short of the prize money. I did make it to climb the stairs to the top of Guatape’s scenic rock. It reminded me of Diamond Head monument in Honolulu, though the view was nothing like Hawaii. I also got to try a local dish called Bandeja Piasa, which includes red beans, rice, pork, ground meat, pork rind, fried egg, fried plantain, chorizo, arepa (corn bread type of thing), hogao sauce, black pudding (glad I didn’t know that at the time), and avacado. I bought a t-shirt, walked through a cathedral, and took the colorful, three-wheeled taxicabs around town. I don’t often get to be a tourist, and I felt that I needed it. Sitting around for a week doing nothing didn’t seem to help me run faster either, so I was hoping that relaxing and having fun would lead to a better race just six days later back home in Washington State.

It did, but that will be my next blog post, which I’ll publish before I race the Edmonton World Cup this weekend. Below is an image gallery from Guatape, click on the images to see the full size.