This is a “fun” little highlight video to start off the 2011 triathlon season. Get pumped.

I arrived back in Colorado Springs today. Five days behind schedule. Today is the first day of 2011 that I’m not sick with a fever and a throbbing headache. I went home, got myself some 24 hour virus to enjoy, recovered from that and got a cold for Christmas. About the time I got over the cough and sniffles I came down with a fever of 103 and some awful chills. I spent a night in front of the fire place, scorching my skin and drenching my futon, because it was the only way to stop shivering. I went to Group Health twice, where the first doctor didn’t do any physical exam, but took a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia and sent me home on Tylenol. The second doc felt my glands, took blood and sent me home on more Tylenol.

I suppose taking myself away from the “source of all illness” (pictured below on his Radio Flyer Trike) may have helped the situation, but since my nephew is kind of cute and because my sister is adamant that a child without a cold or a fever can’t give me a cold or the flu escaping the little germ-pot was just not possible.

Finally I was able to see William, one of the guys from Inewmed who now runs his own practice in Edmonds (when he’s not off working for some big name athlete in Europe or Maui). He did a physical exam (he agreed that it was viral), then performed a Chinese Medicine procedure where he stabbed my fingers and bled me. Well, that’s what he did first anyway. He would take my hand, hold a finger, tell me “this will hurt” then take a small pin and jab it in near my cuticle. Then he would use a cotton ball and wipe the blood away rhythmically until the hole stopped bleeding before moving onto the next finger. In total, he did four fingers, two toes, and my SI joint, after which I was ready to stop. But no, the digit punctures were just a warm-up for the thrashing William was getting ready to give me. He starting smacking my back with something that felt like a brass brush, rhythmically, going up and down the sides of my spine.  At first it just stung and I wasn’t sure why he was whipping me. It didn’t hurt particularly bad, but it kept stinging more and more until he had been doing it for four or five minutes and I finally asked, “What are you hitting me with?” “It’s a stick with a bundle of ten needles on the end.”  “Why?” “We gotta get the heat out of you.” Which I guess is Chinese Medicine for “you have a fever, dumb-ass.” I also had a stiff neck, which probably had something to do with the spine work.

After the needling, William fastened a pair of glass suction cups to my back and started pulling blood out. It didn’t hurt, but it looked nasty. Really nasty. I had thousands of tiny pin pricks in my back and a suction cup sucking blood through. Ew. (Though since I really couldn’t see my back, I only got a glance of what he was doing, and my memory of the gore may be slightly enhanced by my imagination).

But… I started feeling better almost immediately after the procedure. My fever came down over a degree from the time I walked into his office to when I left. That night, Friday, I sweated a fraction of the amount that I had been drenching my mattress with the previous six nights, and the next morning I felt almost normal again. Much more effective than Tylenol. I wish I’d been bled earlier!

Well it’s back to training. I did a blow-out of winter fun time at the end of November with two days of cross country skiing and a very long day of downhill at Breckenridge. All that skiing ensured that my first full day of swimming biking and running felt like overtraining, and I had no trouble getting into the habit of napping. This time of year is when I realize just how abnormal my “normal” routine is. First of all, I live at the Olympic Training Center. How cool is that? It’s like a dorm, only instead of being surrounded by teenagers I have the nations best athletes living next to me, and instead of mystery meat loaf the Cafeteria will serve us an abundance of quality food and has staff willing to make a run to Whole Foods to fulfill special request (god forbid I have to drive there myself if I’m craving a gluten-free ginger cookie or a bottle of Nancy’s Kefir, right?). I live across a small courtyard from one of the nicest 50 meter pools I’ve ever swam in, and in the basement of my dorm is a Computrainer cycling studio. Somehow with all this we still find reason to complain that the closest dirt running trail is two whole miles away, and sometimes Colorado College doesn’t let us run on the inside lanes of their track. Plus, Sports Med is closed on Sunday, so if we crash our bikes on the weekend we may have to call the 24-hour on-call med staff to help us get cleaned up. Yeah, there’s nothing like the off-season to remind me just how well I’m treated here in Colorado Springs.

My roommate is a shotgun shooter named Collin Wietfeldt who goes hunting in the off-season and treats me to his antelope summer sausage for study breaks. Thanks to Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan, Collin, I, and the rest of the students on campus have our tuition paid for by an Olympic Scholarship program. That scholarship encourages people to continue their education while they train for the Olympics and means there’s never a shortage of people to study with around campus. Hopefully the scholarship remains after Stupak retires this year.

What else is odd about the training center? Is it normal to be offered 90 minutes of massage each week or to have your massage therapist knit you a hat to thank you for coming to her? Is it normal to have an entire organization of people who know you by first name and are being employed with the purpose helping you achieve your goals? Is it normal to have all-stars like Michael Phelps or Lopez Lamong walk into your kitchen? Well, as amazing and unique as it it, it’s normal for us and it leaves us with no excuses for being anything less than our best.

A week before Thanksgiving I went to Seattle. It was for my nephew’s first birthday, and despite the fact that he will not remember a moment of it, I’m glad I went. The trip also served to give me a pass on going home for Thanksgiving. I love my family, and I love spending time with them, but Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that I would rather spend with friends. I invited myself to Rory and Mojdeh‘s place in Boulder, and then brought my friend Ileana – a paralympic swimmer from Cuba who couldn’t make it to Miami to see her family for the holiday. This was my second Thanksgiving with Rory, and, much like the first one, it was really fun.

I drove up early with Ileana on Thursday morning because I wanted to help make food. Rory, however, had some pretty specific ideas of what Thanksgiving dinner would look like, so I was only allowed to make biscuits and cranberry sauce (the key to my cranberry sauce is a healthy amount of Grand Marnier). Mojdeh and Martin (their landlord who lives upstairs) made the 20lb turkey, Ileana kept the dogs in check and Rory ensured that the stuffing and the potatoes were free of non-Irish  contamination (a suggestion to add garlic received a reaction fit for someone pissing in his herb garden). Dinner was great. We prepared well beyond our needs and feasted like royalty with excess food, excess wine, excess beer, excess electricity and internet service and water and everything else that makes the “new world” unsustainable.(Meanwhile Chet “the jet” Blanton was in Hawaii working on an excess of swimming biking and running during his 2nd Double Deca Ironman, which he’s hoping to finish December 12th at the Honolulu Marathon.)

All that was wonderful, and it’s what makes Thanksgiving what it is, but what I get the most joy from is observing the interactions between people. For instance, I was just 10 days into a gluten-free diet. I do it because it makes a difference (for me) with regard to inflammation and it’s my job to push my body to whatever limits it can take, but Boulder is full of new-age hippies who think gluten-free is some kind of religion. They look at people eating a sandwich as though they believe that whole-wheat bread will send the person straight to hell. Rory lives around those people, and so he treated my offer to make gluten free biscuits and to bring gluten free bread for the stuffing as if I were inviting him into a cult and asking him to drink the punch. Martin, however, invited a woman to dinner who makes a living by teaching yoga and lecturing about gluten-free living and writing about…this. She was exactly the type of person who makes Rory cringe at the thought of a gluten-free diet. I must admit, it bugs the hell out of me when people try to push their own choices on other people. It’s one thing if you don’t eat certain foods or choose to keep your lawn manicured like David Duchovny’s beard – just don’t try to force me to do the same. And don’t blur the lines between science and religion in order to “prove” that your choice is better than mine – it’s like an anorexic triathlete calling swimmers fat. Okay, end of rant. I’m gonna go drive my SUV around to hand out healthy eating pamphlets to people leaving the Taco Bell drive through.

….

After Dinner we (the basement dwellers) played Risk while Martin and his guests went to see the new Harry Potter movie (I’m saving that for when I can see it with my mommy in December). I discovered that a) I’m no good at Risk, and b) I am way too competitive to play a board game where you know you’re going to lose hours before the defeat occurs. I still had fun, but I’m pretty sure everyone around me was glad when I left the table (and consequently the yelling stopped).

It wouldn’t be a cliche thanksgiving post without a list of things I’m thankful for, but I just did that so instead I’ll post pictures of all the fun we had over the long weekend. (My friends are awesome.)

To summarize:

the food was good, Mojdeh is a great cook!

Ileana realized that Cuba doesn’t exist in Risk, then she beat Rory.I’m still bitter that I lost.

On Black Friday we all went to see the Nutcracker put on by Boulder Ballet Company. The last time I saw the nutcracker was with my Grandfather who fell asleep and started snoring when Clare and the prince started dancing through the Sugar Plum Fairy’s palace. I enjoyed this much more.

Saturday I went to Winter Park with Ileana where she saw her first ski resort and took a full day sit ski lesson (she was the best they’d ever seen, and the instructors told me we had to come back).

There’s a lot of outdoor stuff to do in Colorado that I don’t have the energy for during the season, like hiking, rock climbing, skiing, and fishing. The problem is, I don’t have much of my gear in Colorado because when I moved there in February I was expecting to leave for Seattle for my winter fun time. Now it’s November, the season is over, and I just want to stay in Colorado to play. Fortunately I was convinced to fly home this weekend.

Today’s my nephew’s first birthday, and my sister was pushing me pretty hard to come home for it. At first I was thinking, “what does the kid care about me being home?” Then it occurred to me that I love my sister and if she cares then it’s worth it for me to be around. So I booked a trip home that turned out to be perfect timing for the start of winter training playing. I’m bringing back my skate skis, snow boots, gloves and a few extra pair of winter socks, and my climbing shoes. If I’m going to be in Colorado for the winter I’m going to make sure I’m enjoying the cold. Sure, I’ll be training 30 hours a week again soon, but at least if I have my skis with me I’ll be able to choose not to go skiing rather than just wishing I were able.

This week I was ordered to take time off from training. It’s weird, but as soon as I finished my last race all I could think about was getting ready for next season. I just had what Mr. ITU calls a breakthrough season, but to me it seems like a lucky season. It was lucky that the chase pack at Treasure Island didn’t catch me. I peaked two weeks early for Worlds and benefitted by winning Alcatraz, and if Cameron Dye hadn’t been worrying about how he would ask Natalie to marry him at the finish line of the Amica Triathlon he may not have let me get away on the run. But I’ve always thought luck was way overrated, and certainly not an accident.

The real breakthrough this year was in my attitude. The past few years I’ve tried diligently to become a loner. To suppress the spontaneous, fun-loving, outgoing and silly parts of my personality because they aren’t the head-down, single focused, “serious” athlete character that fits the paradigm of a successful endurance athlete. It all came to a head this year once I was living at the Olympic Training Center and for the first time had the opportunity to completely shut out everyone from my life – to prioritize my training above everything – including all my extrinsic sources of happiness. I trained my ass off, fought perpetual injury and illness and found myself alone, knee-deep in summer with an awful case of depression and no real hope for improvement. How could things get better when I was already living the “right” way according to everyone I looked up to and trusted?

Luckily, I spent my birthday in Seattle and realized how much energy and happiness I receive from the people who care about me. I’m not the quiet passive selfish athlete that I’ve tried to be in the past, and what makes me tick is not the same battery that drives my competition. Mental health, I’ve come to realize, needs to be the priority. I started the sport because I love competing, I love training, and I love the dedicated and methodical lifestyle. But in order to really enjoy triathlon, I have to balance that lifestyle by including education and friendship in my priorities. No more pretending to be a hermit. No more selfish, unbalanced, lifeless living. This year I learned to believe in myself and what I’m capable of, rather than pretending to be someone I’m not. I have the greatest support network of any triathlete, with great sponsors, a family that will stand by me no matter how crazy they think I am, and friends who have stuck around through some of the most one-sided relationships I can imagine. I’m not your average Joe, and I’m done trying to act like it.

So now my mind is buzzing. I’m taking my time off, but my body is twitching with excitement for what’s to come. After a few changes in my approach to the daily grind I’ve become a lot happier. I’m recovering faster from the hard work, excited for training, excited to be a professional triathlete, excited to be a student, to have people involved in my life, and to be entering the final season before the Olympics. And, yeah, luck seems to have come knocking on my door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had a photographer come to London to do a photo shoot with all the US athletes this week. Unfortunately, several weren’t here yet, but that was good for me. I capitalized some pro photo time and had some cool shots taken. I think anyway, I haven’t seen them yet, and all I have now are these pictures I took with Katie Baker’s Cannon point-n-shoot. It was my first trip to London, so I was thrilled to see Big Ben and parliament and red phone booths. Enjoy…

Me

Katie

Team USA Getting Ready

Jill’s instantaneous happy face. (She’s quick)

Yup, he’s an Olympian…

Hooray!!

Hopefully when I get some of the photos Peter took, they’ll look as pro as him.

Which is slightly less pro than I look.

Jenna Shoemaker and I have cool watches

Ben and Abe. I know President Lincoln is awesome, but I’m not sure why there’s a statue of him here in the UK.

Ben and Kevin. Collins and Collington. We’re awesome too.

Chris Foster. He’s soooo GQ!

Exiting the underground. Photographer in tow.

I let Jill borrow The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. She’s finding it difficult to put down.

Oh NOO!! Parlament is about to be attacked by a homeless robot!!! Somebody! HELP!!!

Look, it’s euro-trash, it’s an American Tourist… NO! It’s Super Ben!!
…
Super Ben and Big Ben. Together at last. The world is safe.