Sunday I raced in a local “biathlon” put on by the Waikiki Swim Club which consisted of a 5k run followed by a 1k swim. This “Christmas Biathlon” was supposed to be held last month, but lucky for me they had to postpone it until I was here on the island and ready to race. These local community events are really fun, and a great way to reconnect with other athletes in the area. Equal in enjoyment for me, however, is the ability to bring humor to a race where the primary goal is to have fun.

[Above: Can you guess which one’s me?]

So, I wore a pink Splish suit with big bubbly eyes on the front and my K-Swiss K’Ruuz. I figured nobody wanted to lose to a guy in a little pink suit, and with my K’Ruuz it would be pretty hard to beat me. One guy, Brandon Laan (6th at the Honolulu Marathon this year!), did outrun me, however, and the swimmer of his relay was Bill Goding (we used to duke it out at swim practice a few nights a week). They beat me, but nobody else did!

[From left: Todd Iacovelli, Stefan Reinke, Ben Collins, Bill Goding Brandon Laan]

From the gun I followed the lead of Todd Iacovelli and Brandon, both very good local runners. I did my best to stay on their heels, and when Brandon put in a surge at mile 1 my legs shouted at me for not having done any speed training since early November. Brandon gained a few meters on us and I pulled ahead of Todd to try to close the gap. I didn’t see Todd again, and about the time I got back in Brandon’s draft he surged again, creating a 20 second gap over the next few minutes, which remained for the rest of the run race.

I crossed the timing mat at the start of the swim in 15 minutes 50 seconds – 23 seconds after Brandon tagged Bill to start the swim. Jumping into the water, I felt like an old rubber tire trying to swim. Running and swimming are different muscle groups, so I didn’t realize how much of an affect one would have on the other. Somehow in triathlon there’s not so obvious a connection between swimming fast and running fast. It took me a long time to start swimming smoothly, my tummy felt like it was dragging on the bottom, my arms couldn’t seem pull any water, and every wave knocked me around like a turd in a toilet bowl (sorry, for some reason that was the first image that came to mind).

Coming back into the finish I finally started feeling a bit stronger. Bill was LONG gone, but my legs were able to kick again, and my arms were able to pull again, so I kicked and pulled as hard as I could and when the bottom came up to meet me I stood up to hear my fans shouting and telling  me to go away. Apparently, in the pre-race briefing when they said, “keep all the buoys on your  right” they meant “keep the two turn buoys on your right, and the final buoy on your left”. So I went back out and swam around the buoy, I lost very little time and it didn’t make a difference at all in the outcome of the race. After a few more people went to the wrong side, however, they sent some volunteers out to direct the swimmers to the other side. All was well.

[Left: Bob Havrilak drove me to the race and took pictures. As you can see, I’m more worried about what’s going on in the pre-race briefing than looking at the shutter. Pictured is Me, Courtenay, Sarah, and Than (Courtenay’s sister and brother)]

Courtenay raced as well, and we were both the first individuals of our respective genders. Go us, right?

On January 17th is a the second race in this 3-race series. Same course, so it would be an excellent way to judge improvement, or get in on the fun if you missed it the first time around. Check out the WSC website (linked above) for entry info.

Yesterday I called my Huatulco race report the “short version”, which is a bit of a lie. I did not leave out many details about the race itself. After the race I tried my best to rehydrate, so that I could enjoy myself at the athlete reception (read: “after-party”). It seemed to work. After a week of forcing copious amounts of salt into my system, it was pretty hard to drink anything but straight water.

Speaking of electrolytes, I brushed over the heat issue at this race, but it’s worth mentioning, because my performance in Mexico shows an evolution in my ability to race well in the heat (my last trip to Mexico resulted in me DNFing and waking up after a serious bought of heat stroke in a Mazatlan hospital). This newfound heat tolerance has not come through passive acclimation, but through active pursuit of research and methods to improve my body’s temperature regulation, pre-race hydration levels, and to help keep myself cool when it’s simply too hot for sweat alone to do the job. Electrolyte and Carbohydrate Drink, Nuun, sea salt, and carbohydrate loading were the key to hyper-hydration in the week prior to the race, but while training in Seattle I also had to create an artificially warm environment to allow myself to acclimate to uncomfortably hot exercise.

About two months ago I stopped using a fan while riding the indoor trainer (with Seattle’s fall rain and a broken wrist, I had only ridden outside three times since August), and I gradually added more and more layers to my running uniform (for my last track workout I was wearing four layers of K-Swiss long sleeves, tights, run pants, and a hoodie). Along with this heat simulation I had to force myself to drink way more fluid than my natural thirst demanded. When it’s cold out I am simply not as thirsty as I should be. For instance, one day I did a long run in full layering, but because it was cold out I forgot to drink and stop to refill my bottle. I ended up losing 4% of my bodyweight in sweat, which means I was very dehydrated. Luckily I only made that mistake once, and by the time my training block was finished I was used to drinking plenty during workouts.

In order to promote water retention and to keep my body’s electrolyte levels high I used grey sea salt, which is my favorite type of salt (I get it in bulk at Whole Foods). I passed up water during meals in favor of fruit juice, and made sure to have complex carbohydrates with every meal. When I was sitting around and didn’t want a sugary drink I used Nuun tablets to make sure I was still pushing fluids and electrolytes. I had enough salt to increase my thirst, and grams (seriously, grams – it caused more than a few shocked looks at the dinner table these past two months) more than I normally would consume during the day. So by the time I got to Mexico last week I was already used to high fluid consumption and high salt content in my diet.

Once in Mexico, I averaged over six liters of water each day of the trip, and almost all of that was mixed with either carbohydrate/electrolyte mix or Nuun, and it was in addition to the juices I had with breakfast. I drank a lot more than I imagined possible.

For the race I also prepared my body externally. I shaved my head (I hate not having my afro), and purchased disposable instant-ice packs from the first aid section of the drug store. I put one of them into my bike helmet, which kept my head cool for the first 20 kilometers.

Before the race I used an ice vest (basically a neoprene vest that you can put water into and freeze) to keep cool while I waited for the start. This actually made me nervous because I didn’t have a chance to try it in training, and I wasn’t sure how it would effect me in the swim. It was remarkable! I warmed up like normal, then sat in the athlete lounge with the vest on. My legs and arms stayed warmed up, but my core had a nice cool layer to keep me from sweating profusely like my competitors. I took it off about five minutes before we were called out, and by the time we started I had no trouble surging to the front of the swim.

Lastly, on the run I didn’t waste an once of the water given at the aid stations (4 bottles per lap for a total of 16 bottles during the 10km run). I either drank or poured every bit over my head. Amazingly, my K-Swiss K-Ruuz racing flats drained quickly and at no point did my feet feel heavy from all the water I had poured over them. It was high noon while we were running, but we did our best to stay in the shadows. The heat was seriously intense.

Sunblock is another thing to consider because the wrong stuff can trap your sweat and increase body temperature. I used my Hawaiian Island Creations 2x Sunblock (excellent product) in the morning before the race, but parts of my back are still tender today (more a testament to my pasty complexion and the strength of the Huatulco sun – and possibly to my self application technique – than to the quality of the sunscreen).

Still, I do not consider myself an expert in preparations, and I may change a few things for next time (different types of salt, different race uniform material…). Hopefully this account of my hydration and cooling methods helps you reach your potential the next time the mercury rises on race day. I would also encourage you to do your own research, and realize that dietary preparation is very individual. I was consuming >5g of salt a day, but someone else may need much more or much less to avoid cramps. Just remember not to try anything new on race day!

The 2009 Huatulco World Cup was seriously hot. The water was 84, and according to Jarrod Shoemaker’s SRM the average temp was 102 degrees during the bike. During the run it only got hotter. I poured so much water over my head on the run that at times I felt like I was running through a shower. And that’s all I’ll say about the weather.

The swim was by far the slowest and easiest swim of my triathlon career. Two guys took off and I stayed at the front of the main group, then pulled ahead at the end. Transition relaxed because I was in front of everyone, and the bike started off really slow with nobody motivated to work hard at all.

The hill on the bike was a wall. It was 75 seconds straight up, we hit it eight times, which destroyed the pack and caused the majority of people to drop out. On lap three I started at the front into the hill then went easy (relatively) planned to be near the end of the group by the crest. Unfortunately, when I crested some guys in front of me had allowed a gap to open – which I figured was no big deal – but on the decent the gap grew, rather than shrinking. I had to TT my way back to the front group and by the time I made it they were already starting up the hill again, with Matt Chrabot pulling off the front. He stayed away for more than four laps, starting the run with a FOUR MINUTE lead! Back in my pack we had decided he was committing suicide, and nobody was willing to chase.

Matt went on to win handily (after a “suicide attempt” he ran just 20 seconds slower than Jarrod), with Jarrod running to third (second was Rudie Wild, who did a mini-version of Chrabot’s breakaway). I ran in a pack with Collington, Serrano, Chacon, and Tutukin. It was the first real running pack I’ve been in, and I finally understand how tactics play into the running race. I stared surging on the downhills after 5k, and we dropped Chacon and Collington. For the last two laps Serrano Tutukin and I flogged each other with everything we had, and every time one of us surged the other two would claw our way back into the draft. With about a 1/4 mile to go I was leading, and thinking my final surge had dropped the other two – then Tutukin came by with a final surge I couldn’t match, and Serrano followed on his heels. It was a really close finish, which put me at 7th place.

The graph above, for those of you wondering, is a measurement of the time gap between Matt Chrabot and each of the other competitors, with each measurement taken at the transition area (8 for the bike, 4 for the run). Take a minute to soak this in – when 50 guys started a race that only 22 were capable of finishing, Matt Chrabot took it to another level, put four minutes on the nearest competitor during the bike, then lost mere seconds on one of the hottest runs in triathlon. That’s not just gutsy, it’s superhuman.

Tomorrow is the Huatulco World Cup. It’s my second World Cup, but definitely my biggest ITU race as far as size and quality of field. Plus, this course is going to kill people. It’s hot, for one, but more importantly, there’s a gigantic wall that we ride up eight times followed by a not-so-flat run…

…it’s going to be really fun! And afterwards, 2009 is over for me, which means today’s training was the last of this season.

I haven’t taken any pictures yet of Huatulco, but I did photograph my bike. I should add that this is the first time I’ve   ever  raced on a bike clean enough to put on my bed. The US Team brought a mechanic for us to use, and he’s doing full-on overhauls of our bikes. It’s remarkable. I actually just had a tune-up from Speedy Reedy in Seattle (who does a very good job), so I went to Joe the Mechanic asking only for some Quick-Stop break pads (I forgot my carbon-surface pads at home). Two hours later I walked back in to find my bike had been polished, the headset taken apart and cleaned, the cables changed, the shifting fixed – he actually took off my cassette  and washed it in the sink! Seriously, this is the best tune-up anyone has ever given me. Kevin Collington claims he no longer goes to bike shops, he just waits until he’s at a race with Joe, and lets him do an overhaul. One thing is for certain, there will not be any non-essential drag tomorrow from my bike. It’s all on me.

As for my trip – I haven’t had nearly as much practice with speaking Spanish since the all the other English speaking athletes showed up. There are enough fluent-speaking people that when we go to dinner somebody is always taking over the ordering process before I can mutter “quiero”.

On Sunday I completed the coveted, little-known triathlon trifecta. I have already been the star amateur, and the fearless guide to Aaron “Megawatt” Scheidies. This weekend I came back from a season-wrecking injury to prove that my transition to professional status was no mistake.

Forty kilometers south of Dallas, miles from the nearest street lamp, the beat of 80’s pop music sent out a homing signal to the best multisport athletes from around the world. Tour busses probed the black roads bringing hoards of athletes from the nearby metropolis. By 5am the transition area was already brimming with energy. A light drizzle fell upon the thousands of bicycles sitting next to an eerily silent Joe Pool Lake.

I arrived on a bus with 40 other professional triathletes from around the world. My rear wheel had a flat tire, which was creating an unwanted stress in my morning plans. After having my tire fixed I set up transition next to Matt Chrabot. I made sure my equipment was perfectly set up, then started walking toward the swim start. I made it just 10 meters before I realized I had left my chain on the wrong gears. I went back and switched gears, but when I started pedaling the rear tire exploded. Crap – was it luck that I figured this out before the start, or was something irreparably wrong with my rear wheel? Fighting panic, I carried my bike back to the mechanic. He popped off the tire and started inspecting the tube – meanwhile I inspected the tire. There was a gash in the sidewall which was the obvious culprit, and the mechanic happened to have a less-ruined used tire he was willing to give me - Continental 4000, which is by far the best tire for wet and slippery conditions like we were facing – it was a blessing in disguise.

By the time I made my way to the pro tent the rest of my field was already in wetsuits waiting for the sky to provide enough light for them to start a swim warmup. It would be a non-wetsuit swim – 70 degree water temperatures – but with the air temperature it was best to warm up in my Blue Seventy Helix. The flat and green horizon provided very few landmarks to sight off of, so I figured the swim pack may not follow a straight line between buoys.

After the National Anthem and introductions we lined up at the water’s edge. I tried to be on the left side of the start line, but ended up dead center – not a great place if you lack get-out speed. TYR was offering a $1,000 swim prime, and I wanted it (if not for the money, to prove that last week’s terrible swim in LA was just a fluke), so when the gun went off I kicked hard to get ahead of the pack. Within 100 meters there were three Vs, the group to my right was falling back, the group to my left staying even and being led by Paulo Miyashiro – a professional open water swimmer and triathlete from Brazil. I started moving left hoping to grab Paulo’s feet, but moments later he surged, dropped his entire swim group and was soon a splash in the distance. After a long struggle trying to catch my South American friend I finally gave in and found Matt Reed’s feet – widely recognized as the best feet in the business – where I stayed until the end of the 1500m swim.

Following Matt Reed out of the first transition we set off on the 40km point-to-point bike leg. Bouncing across cracks, potholes, and wet roads that seemed to be revolted by our presence, we rolled over the hills of South Dallas. (If only my Garmin Edge 705 would warn me of upcoming potholes!) Matt Reed pulled away and I found myself in a pack of Olympians, World Cup Champions, and general badasses. With so many strong men surrounding me I had no choice but to work hard. The 50 degree rain would have to be ignored. Every hill we encountered made my muscles ache, and the cold made it impossible to eat and drink, and my 705 showed that my heart rate was struggling to keep me warm. I wanted to hold back a little for the run, but I had to maintain position. By the time we charged into Downtown Dallas the rain had finally begun to subside. I pulled on my K-Ruus racing flats from K-Swiss and found myself on the heels of Bevan Docherty – one of the great runners in the sport.

“Stay with him no matter what” I told myself. Frankly, I’m sick of being dropped in the first mile of the run. Exploding at the end seemed likely, but I was willing to find out. I felt lighter on my feet than ever before, and by the end of the first mile I was still in the mix. I ran ahead of Matt Chrabot for another three kilometers before he took over fighting the wind. We rounded the turnaround together and I stayed on his heels until the last 2 kilometers. He started pulling away, and I fought to bring him back. I was already having the run of my life, but with 300 meters left I tried to surge and bring Matt back. It was too late – Matt expected it and accelerated down the final meters to the finish line. Matt crossed in sixth, with me following six seconds back for 7th place.

This finish is my best at this level of competition. I had three strong legs, and fought hard until the end. Next up is the Huatulco World Cup, and I’m definitely excited for a great race there.

Please excuse all my typos. I’ll fix them when I’m not posting via iphone. My predictions for this race were right on. I had decisively the worst swim of my career, despite outsmarting the surf and getting to the first buoy third. I followed Andrew Starykowicz and Chris Foster (wish i has his swim coach, a year ago there’s no way he could have made the first pack, let alone lead it) and when they turned a buoy too soon I followed. After all, the kayakers and life guard boat were directly in front of us. We swam 50m off course, and I was the only one to catch back up to what became the lead pack. I stayed in the back of the front pack, which set me up perfectly to miss all three waves in a set that took everyone in front of me right to shore.  I really should know better than to miscount buoys.

(photo: hanging our with Triathlon Lab and USAT after the race)

Perhaps the fastest bike split would make up for a bad swim? I grabbed my bike and set my sights on the lead police escort, about a quarter mile up the road. I started passing people pretty quickly, and by 10km in I was leading the race. At the turnaround I misread the directions while trying to look into the sun and read signs inside a tunnel. I turned 5m too early and did a full 360 back to the correct cone. I can be so stupid! Back in 5th I passed back up to the front and settled back in. At 30k Greg Bennett surged past. I kept him in site but couldn’t keep pace. When we got to the tunnel again it was even harder to see than before. We were supposed to go through the tunnel and then turn right to go to transition, but I passed the turn before I saw it, and again the pack behind me went right by while I did a 540 degree turn to the left. What made my stupidity feel worse were the volunteers shouting, “you need to pay attention!” Thanks bra. I still managed to have the fastest bike split.

Coming out of T2 I started the run having already lost the gap I’d put on Javier Gomez I hung on for 30 seconds, which felt like 3 minutes, then found myself running in 7th with a large gap behind. I lost a lot of ground on the hills, which I just don’t train for, and with a mile to go I was passed, then Chris Foster caught me (with the fastest run split) at 1/4 mile to go, putting me in 9th.

I’m really happy to have raced, despite a few small mistakes. My cycling ability was a big question mark coming in, but it looks like I must be doing something right. I know I can swim well when I don’t have a broken wrist, and I definitely will run faster when in not at the end of a tough training block. Next week I’ll be racing the Toyota US Open Triathlon in Dallas.

Tomorrow I’m racing in my first premier triathlon since May. I’m surprisingly not nervous, despite a world class field of athletes, like Javier Gomez, Greg Bennett, and a dozen other elites from overseas. Perhaps my lack of nerves is because I’ve been training hard leading into this race, and I’m not rested at all. My sights are set on the last World Cup of the year in Mexico next month, so how well I race tomorrow is only an indication of where my weaknesses may be. (spoiler alert) My guess is that 10 weeks in a wrist brace will mean my swim is definitely not where it needs to be.

The 10th Annual Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon Presented by Toyota is the penultimate event in the Life Time Fitness Toyota Cup, which wraps up in Dallas next week. This series has more prize money being handed out than any other series, aside from the World Championship Series and Hy-Vee World Cup (which isn’t a series). It’s also the premier non-drafting Olympic Distance race series in the world. So a big time thanks to Life Time Fitness, Toyota and Kaiser Permanente for presenting us with world class triathlons like the Los Angeles Triathlon.

I arrived in Los Angeles late Wednesday and stayed with a friend in Hollywood. As I discussed in my last post, LA is much bigger than I previously thought. To save myself some time and allow for a little more down time, I decided to come stay by the airport with Rory. I’m now just 20 minutes from the race site, instead of 80. I’m deathly afraid of riding my bike in LA, so I rode a trainer at the USAT Endurance Mobile Tour booth in the race expo. It actually drew quite a bit of attention from passers by, and my Clif Bar Jersey inspired quite a few training and racing nutrition questions. It also got Timothy Carlson, the sport’s premier journalist and photographer, to come ask me a few questions, like why is my hair so big.

Last Saturday was the OKC Pan-Am Championships. The US has not hosted this race in several years, so it was no surprise to see all the USA Triathlon representatives bubbling with excitement before the race. It’s quite an advantage to the country which hosts, because the continental championships is worth 400 points – twice that of a regular continental cup – and can significantly help athletes to bump their world rankings.

I was excited for the race too. It was my first ‘A’ race of the year, and I tend to do well when I take the time to fully rest and prepare for a race. I’m not sure I’ve done a full-on taper since the Hamburg AG Championships in 2007.

The weather was cooperating as well, when I arrived in Oklahoma City it was nearly 90 degrees and humid, but a series of violent thunderstorms (the tornado warning sirens were even going off) cooled it down so that on race day it was a comfortable 68 degrees.

Really, the only thing that made me nervous was the late 4pm start time. I’ve never raced so late in the day and I wasn’t sure how to eat beforehand, or what to do. It turned out to be easy – I ate a normal breakfast, a small lunch with a few Clif Bar snacks during the day, and plenty of Nuun treated water. That, combined with plenty of laying around, and by the time I started warming up I was feeling better than I would for an early race.

But enough of the prerace chatter, here’s the meat:

The swim start was off a rowing dock, which is meant to be very close to the water in order to support up to 8 men getting into a low-lying rowing shell.  There were 65 men starting, and the edge of the dock was completely submerged.  The closest swimmers to me were Hunter Kemper and Brian Fleischmann to my left. Matt Reed was way over in the leftmost position. I had some idea that I could get away in the initial sprint and try to avoid the melee that would ensue with such a large field. This, however, proved to be a pipe dream. I made it about two feet in front of my nearest competitors at the start before the men to my right started moving left (trying to get on the feet of Brian and Hunter I’m sure). When they swam over me it sucked me right back into the kicking, slapping and general battery of the main pack. I struggled for about 100 meters before finding myself in somewhat clear water to the far left.

We were to swim under a train bridge, with about six support columns and about three options for which passage to swim under. Nearly everyone took the middle, so I went left to avoid the collisions. This proved to work well, except the man to my left was not keen on staying there and he started punching to herd me over. At the first buoy I was somewhere around 10th to arrive. I was still to the far left, so I had to dive under and grab the anchor line to get around. The second buoy was a little less chaotic, and after we rounded it a gap formed behind me. To my right was Matt Reed, and Hunter had somehow made it through the craziness to the front of the pack. I couldn’t identify anyone else, but the pack was about 10 men. For the second half of the swim the pace slowed to a casual splash around the river, up until the final sprint.

Transition was unnecessarily long. We had to run to the far end, run through transition to grab bikes, then turn around and run the length of transition again with our bikes. This all took about 40 seconds (39 was the fastest transition) and was enough time to create a separation from the people behind me. Kemper, Reed, and Tim O’Donnell made it out with the swim leader, Andrew McCarthy (from Canada), then Fleischmann, Steve Sexton, Matt Chrabot and I mounted our bikes close behind. Fleishmann lost his chain on the mount somehow, fell off his saddle and high centered on the top tube (ouch!), then he swerved causing Sexton to lose a shoe. Chrabot and I narrowly escaped the situation and quickly caught on to Kemper, Reed and McCarthy, passing O’Donnell, who was struggling with getting his shoe on. Matt C went back for Tim, knowing that his firepower on the bike would help us stay away, and brought Leo Chacon up with him as well.

The first lap of the bike Matty Reed, McCarthy, and Chacon all refused to pull. It was a bit unusual because Reed is normally dominant on the bike. Kemper was rallying us to pull through, though he did skip a few pulls (he and Reed were mainly racing each other from the start, so Kemper had no reason to pull if Reed wasn’t). The pace line was almost entirely run by Chrabot, O’Donnell, Kemper and myself. At the first of 8 turnarounds (four laps, out and back) we only had about 15 seconds on the first of three chase groups, and by the second turnaround it was 20 seconds at most. The second lap Reed pulled a couple times, and even Chacon started to work. McCarthy tried his best, but he was hanging on for dear life. By the 20km point we had about 40 seconds, which is when Matty Reed decided to fully join in, which meant Hunter would also stop skipping turns and everything started flowing smoothly. From then on there was a continuous pace line of six (Chacon got a flat), and our lead grew exponentially to nearly 3 minutes by the end of the 40km cycling leg. The three chase packs eventually became one pack of 50, which meant the first riders of that pack hit transition nearly 30 seconds ahead of the back of their pack.

My goal on the run was to stay with Hunter as long as possible. I have never had any speed out of T2, and in the past I’ve had to hunt people down in the second 5k. I managed to stay on the heels of Hunter and Tim for about a kilometer before the pace became too much to sustain. Matt Chrabot went out with Matt Reed at a blistering pace, but started falling back around the same time as me. On the way back I saw that the chase pack was about a half mile behind me, lead by Ethan Brown. Victor Plata (my coach) was running around 10th position with Kevin Collington (which is still in the money), but as I ran by, Victor stopped, cheered for me, then continued to run, now in 15th place. Chrabot’s initial surge got him nearly 40 seconds on me by the 3km mark, which stayed about the same until the last lap, by which time he was solidly in 4th position, and I was solidly in 5th. Victor continued to  stop and cheer me on at every passing, and on the final lap he actually stopped at the turnaround to wait, gave me a time gap, then told me to cruise it in easy because I had a large gap over Ethan, and was out of range for 4th. I tried my best to slow it down, but it’s hard to have faith that those guys won’t catch you (I found out later that Victor was running 10m behind me so he could give me fair warning if Ethan did bridge the gap), and during a race there seems only to be race speed and walking. So I could have gone slower, as shown in the 80 second lead I still had over Ethan by the end, where I finished in fifth place.

This is my best ITU finish to date, which is really exciting. It also moved me up to 78th in the ITU World Rankings. Unfortunately, Tim O’Donnell also moved up significantly, and he passed me to earn the coveted spot of 8th American. This likely means I will not be able to race the Washington DC World Championship Series event next month.

I raced a local Cat4 bike race today. While it was plenty of fun, the title of this post pretty much describes how my race went. I heard from the UW cycling team that they wanted to try to make something happen right out of neutral. It seemed like a good idea, since nobody in a Cat4 race really wants to hurt for a 40 mile race, so if a few people are up for it the pack will likely let them go away. Apparently UW was all talk, because only one of them went with me on the first hill, and we dropped right back in. The second lap I did the same thing on the first hill and managed to stay away for about 7 miles all by myself. I kept thinking someone would bridge up, but Phil Spencer (this is the second time I’ve linked to that website, but since my laptop speakers are broken, I can’t actually hear the video that plays. From the looks of it Phil and some woman are trying to convince me that decapitation would really improve the spacing between the vertebrae in my neck.) and a few other guys decided to simply tow the entire pack up to me. If the group was thinned out by my efforts, I couldn’t tell.

At this point (half way through the race) I figured that my chances for glory through breakaway were shot. I also refuse to contest a sprint, because it’s just not worth the risk of crashing before a race that matters, so I started going to the front and playing around with some tempo pace riding. It was all fun and games from there until about 2 miles to go in the race. The pace had picked up significantly, and there was a long line of guys out in front. A guy riding for Starbucks started accelerating to the left, and I saw a gap and went right. As we came up the pack was yelling something to the effect of, “jumping on the left, and another on the right”. All was well until I was passing the leader, a rider from Cucina Fresca (a team I managed to enrage last year after calling them “Cucina ‘no pull’ Fresca” for their irritating, though successful, tactics on this same course).

Now here’s the tricky part. Did he look at the Starbucks rider and come right into me, or did I bump into him?  All I know is that if I had not been passing him at that moment, The Cucina guy would not have clipped my bars and about 15 guys would not have hit the pavement. I would like to believe I was holding my line and that my fault was simply in not communicating my presence as I was passing, but either way I feel really bad about the whole thing.

So after looking back and seeing melee behind me (and that awful sound of beautiful bikes being broken) I followed the lead of the other men around me and started accelerating. We rounded the last corner and started up the first of two short climbs to the finish line (about 1500m away), I thought maybe I should just hammer from bottom, but by the time I saw the 200m sign I was fried and I fell back to about 10th-ish.

Heading back into the parking lot I heard some guys talking about this guy, “Ben Collins, he’s a triathlete, and he took down that Cucina guy, they’re talking about disqualifying him for aggressive riding.” I interjected, and asked if any of them had seen what happened – they hadn’t, but the guy that went down was apparently sure of himself that I had made the mistake. Oh yeah, blame the triathlete. To cyclists, being a triathlete is like being below Cat5 (not Cat6, but something like Cat100 or Catgoogleplex, which would indicate no chance of improvement - ever). It means you have no handling skills, will crash yourself out of a race with nobody else around, and are likely to show up to group rides with aerobars and a disc wheel. Nobody seems to care that I race mainly in Olympic style, draft legal triathlon, against cyclists that are each strong enough to race Cat 1/2. Even the local official in charge of upgrades, when I asked to be moved to the 4’s, went to her friends that race Ironman for their opinion on pack experience through triathlon (they said that in a race people are all strung out a few bike lengths apart, and aren’t really “drafting” – check out the videos on the ITU website and tell me if that’s what you see.) I digress – I already felt bad, but this news that I was being called “reckless” really made me feel bad. (To be fair, the guys with road rash and broken bikes probably felt worse – so poor Ben, right?).  It’s easy to justify in your head how you were not at fault, so in this type of situation I try to figure out what I could have done differently, ask other people if they saw what happened, and accept some responsibility regardless of what happened. I found a few other guys carrying their bikes, one guy said he was right behind the crash and didn’t think I had done anything wrong, “looked like you were holding your line to me”. Eventually, after plenty of apologies to bloody legged cyclists, I found the Cucina guy that crashed. His bike was in bad shape, he was a little bloody, but not broken. So I apologized, which I guess is all I really can do. The RD told me not to worry about a DQ. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, sometimes crashes just happen.” I still feel badly.

Last week I raced in Miami for the second time. Last year I was up against some heavy hitters, Chris Lieto and Macca, and I ended up earning a second place. This year I brought my own big guns and won. I wish the two Chris’s were back this year, ‘cause I would have certainly given them a better run than a year ago.

The race was pretty straight forward. I swam hard and got a nice lead, which I extended enough over the 18 mile bike course that I was able to cruise the out and back run course and enjoy myself while cheering on the celebrities and athletes with disabilities, who’s waves were starting the run as I headed for the finish line. It was a really fun race, and a nice contrast from the World Cup the week before.

K-Swiss was at the race too, which meant I got to hang out with the most awesome sports marketing group in the sport. They sold 80 pair of shoes in four hours at the race expo! (It’s because everyone that tries on a pair of Keahous falls in love with them. Plus they look cool.)