This is another video from the San Francisco Pan-America Cup. It shows the actual racing!

Not much else is going on here in London. We’re training in a 30.3m pool (33.3yards) which has made swim practice rather interesting: “Alright, 4×60.6 on a minute, followed by 4×90.9 on 1:15 right into a 363.6 on 5 minutes…” I’ve nearly died in training rides, and will likely stay on the trainer indoors the rest of the trip (except for the race of course), and the running here is littered with landmarks, statues, and plenty of other things to look at. It’s pretty fun.

Not everything went right today, but the important stuff did.

The race started right on time, and Brian Fleischmann and I were lined up right along the far left side of the deep water start. I was hoping we would start early since they had us lined up in 14 degree water over two minutes before the gun (and since I was number one I had an extra two minutes in the water at least). For all my nervousness about a deep water start I discovered there was nothing to worry about. I pulled away from the line quickly and met up with Tommy Zafaras (also coached by Victor Plata) around 150m into the swim. He’s fast, so I stuck on his feet until the second buoy. At that point I started having trouble following his line, and I decided it was time to push the pace anyway. I took the lead (thought apparently I was swimming a line that looked like a seismometer reading) and never looked back.

I was first out the water, and was surprised that the group behind me was strung out and I didn’t recognize anyone. I started off on the bike slowly, putting on my shoes and hoping somebody would catch up to work with me. I didn’t want to let up too much because I figured if people had to work to get up to me it would weed out anyone without the firepower to do so. One guy finally caught up, though when he did and I tuned on the gas he lasted less than half the lap before falling back.

From there I turned the 25 seconds I had out the water on the main group into 45 seconds by the end of the 3rd lap, then gave up 15 seconds and finished my solo 40k bike ride about 30 seconds up on a group of 11 that had been working to catch me. I ran like I was being hunted, eleven wolves drooling for the taste of victory if they could catch me. After the first lap (of 3) I had 27 seconds left.

On the sidelines Victor was encouraging me, “you look better than all of those guys! You’re not giving up any time! You won’t give up any time!!” Next to him was my college friend Brandon Basso yelling, “Ben! You look like a runner!!!”

Both helped. I put my head down and a lap later I had 35 seconds over the next runner, but I could see that Steve Sexton had made a move and was running away from the rest of his pack. At the final turn around Steve had closed the gap back to 27 seconds, but with only 1500 meters to go I was starting to think about the finish. I had to snap myself back into the race twice in that final stretch, reminding myself to focus on the moment, “C’mon Ben!” I told myself. “It’s not over yet, endure it.”

And I did. I arrived at finish chute with time to spare, strutted up to the line and grabbing the ribbon with the pride of a lion. This is my first win in an ITU race. Heck, it’s my first win at a legitimate pro race! And I did it the hard way! Solo for 51 kilometers!! I don’t know if it was guts or stupidity (maybe both) but it worked. My parents were there to watch, Victor was there to watch, Tracy and Brandon and Christine and Kelly all made it out to watch me race… it was so exciting! I love having friends and family there for me, and it’s even better when I get to give them a show.

As for the little things: my bike showed up from Reno this morning (huh?) but the only way to get it before the race was to ask my parents to pick it up. Then I sliced my finger nearly to the bone on a metal part of the case. (after being charged both ways I’m realizing this case was a mistake. I’ll have to go back to my homemade no-charge bike case v2.0 - which really doesn’t get charged.) Later on I struggled to get out urine so long that Victor and my dad had yo pack the bike (I haven’t looked inside yet…), and by the time awards were given out my dad was waving his watch at me trying to cut my speech short. I had to ask my mom to drive like road warrior to the Oakland airport in order to get me there at 4:57 for a 5:45 flight back to Denver. I checked in within a minute of the cutoff time, then found a CO2 cartridge in my backpack and was given secondary screening because I gave it to TSA rather than chancing it through the bag scanner. I still made it to the gate, though it wasn’t until I took my seat I felt like the race was finally over. Woohoo!

So far my action packed weekend has been going as planned. Meaning, things have gone wrong and I’m dealing with them. The first thing to go wrong was that Southwest charged me $50 for my new homemade bike case that I was hoping to not be charged for. The lady at the counter pulled out a tape measure and showed a trainee how you measure a suitcase. It came out to 69 inches, 7 inches over and she wouldn’t budge. “It’s only 30 pounds, can’t you give me a few inches leeway for being under the weight limit by so much?” No dice. “I haven’t been charged for the case before, it was designed to be small enough to avoid fees.” No dice. “You can’t just give me a break this one time?” I flashed my pearly whites the cutest way I know how, but still: No dice.

From there I was forced to remember that Denver International has extremely long security lines. They twist around past exhibits and information signs like a ride at Disney. I was glad I had arrived with plenty of time to spare.

The extra time I had allowed before my flight also made me a little surprised when my bike didn’t make it to Oakland. Southwest is normally very good about baggage, in fact, this may be the first time in dozens of flights that I’ve had to file a claim with them. Here I found one downside to flying Southwest: other airlines reimburse baggage fees when the bags don’t show up, Southwest doesn’t. I wasn’t too worried It was a direct flight; one of many direct flights from Denver, and not the last one of the day. I figured it would show up later last night, but when I called yesterday evening, there was still no knowledge of where it was.

In the meantime, I drove to Tiburon and borrowed a bike from Ian Charles. It’s a Scott road bike that’s so light weight I almost hope my bike doesn’t make it. I mean, it’s a little small, and the crank length is off, and it’s always strange riding someone else’s bike, but still, it’s a really nice bike. I rode it around for an hour last night, and if I have to use it, it’ll do the trick.

The first non-bike related problem was when I found out the swim start is a deep water start. ITU races are not normally deep water starts, and the last time I did this race they had a pontoon for us to dive off. I’m not a fan of deep water starts because with this many guys they become unnecessarily rough. People will grab and jab at each other (hopefully unintentionally) and it’s starts like this that are the reason one should wear padded goggles in a race. And if that alone won’t make the swim rough, there’s only 250 meters until the first turn buoy, so we have about 70 men who will likely be 15 or 20 men wide at the first buoy all trying to make a 120 degree turn. That’s going to be rough.

Luckily, I’m start number “1″ so I get to pick my position on the start line first. I’m going for one of the sides. I really don’t want to be in the middle when all these guys start beating at the water trying to get a grip.

So with a crazy swim, and a bike that’s not mine, I’m thankful that the run is exactly as expected. I have my K-Swiss K-Ruuz to run in, and that’s really all I need for the last leg of the race.

I’m starting off on a rapid-fire weekend! Last night I stayed with Rory in Boulder, this morning I swam with Tyler Butterfield at the outdoor 50m pool, and now, after a solid breakfast with Rory and Mojdeh, I’m on the shuttle to Denver International for a quick flight to San Francisco. There, I’ll get a ride to my hotel from Christine, put my bike together, head to Treasure Island for a bike/run workout, plus the prerace meeting at 5. Then it’s dinner with Victor and my parents, and sleep.

And if one busy day isn’t enough, tomorrow I race at 1pm, finish by 3. Drug testing, then awards (hopefully!) at 3:30, then record breaking bike packing and a quick trip to Oakland to catch a 5:45pm flight back to Denver.

I love this.

I really like the Midwest in June. Admittedly, I have spent very little time here outside of the month of June, but I still feel confident staying that June is the best month in the Midwest. Here in Des Moines Iowa it’s humid and warm, and there are birds and bugs and chirps and leaves all around. . . And the smell of an approaching thunderstorm!

I spent June in Missouri at my grandparent’s house almost every year growing up. That’s where I learned to drive (I was eleven years old), it’s where I first saw a firefly, it’s where I first learned that fishing doesn’t actually involve fish. . . you get the idea. I like the central Des Moines city a lot. It’s quaint, filled with trees and streams, small brick buildings with cool shops (I got scrambled eggs at a coffee shop where they scramble the eggs with a milk steamer!), and uncrowded streets where the cars that do pass you on your bike are quite patient and polite. It’s very much un-redneck here.

The first part of the week I stayed with JJ Bailey. He’s a local elite amateur triathlete who I competed against in 2006 and 2007 when I was racing age group. He has a nice little house with a spare bedroom where he let me stay until yesterday, when his mom came into town. After emphasizing in my last post that family should always come first, I was not at all offended that he would tell me to find another place to stay. Luckily, there was one last room left at the host hotel in West Des Moines.

Oh yeah, West Des Moines. The Hy-Vee Elite Wold cup is not being held in that beautiful capital town that I just finished describing. After a flood forced the race to relocate in 2008, they’ve kept the race in West Des Moines, a suburb (to the west). West Des Moines is not a beautiful quaint and quiet city like the neighboring capital city. Rather, it’s an example of poor public planning and the type of sprawling development that is ruining the American Landscape. There are sprawling strip malls where, instead of cool shops, there are gigantic box stores like Target, Kohl’s and Best Buy. Walking is completely out of the question because the sidewalks don’t go through, and the distance between buildings is substantial. This is not a place I would ever want to live, but I can see that many Americans do.

The saving grace of this town is that Hy-Vee is headquartered here. The Midwestern Grocery Giant is the best thing ever to happen to Triathlon because they’ve not only created the largest, most prestigious elite triathlon, but they’ve brought big name sponsors into the sport as well (Pepsi, Kellogg, etc.) . I mean, a one million dollar prize purse? That’s incredible! It’s the kind of support that makes it possible for our sport to approach the mainstream. Thank you Hy-Vee!

—update—

there’s another saving grace that I discovered in West Des Moines today, though it may have technically been a different suburb. There’s a YMCA Healthy Living Center that is working with cancer research centers, doctors and weight loss clinics to support healthy living. It’s an example of what a gym really should be.

Hello from Spain! The hotel we’re staying in is short on internet service, so I’m writing this without wifi and it may be outdated by the time I am able to post. My apologies.

It’s Friday night. I just had dinner with a friend of mine, Ben Neuwirth, who I swam with at Columbia. What’s interesting is that Ben has been living in Seattle since 2006, and I saw him fewer than five times in the 3 years that we both lived there. Two weeks ago he quit his job at Microsoft - after being accepted to business school at Northwester University - and moved to Madrid with his girlfriend, Kim, for the summer. They’re doing an intensive summer language course here, and enjoying some down time before moving to Chicago. He emailed me Thursday after seeing a poster for the race to find out if I was racing, and from there we planned dinner. It was pretty cool to see someone I know in Madrid who’s not a triathlete - though I did feel bad making them stay in all evening so I could keep off my feet.

The swim course is two laps in a duck pond within a gigantic park on the west side of downtown. The bike is hilly, also within the park, and the run is rolly, without anything more than 1% grade. Already it’s obvious that the World Championship Series is a much bigger deal than other races. The airport had a man in a suit waiting to drive me to the hotel, the race course has been set up since I got here Thursday morning, and there are billboards around the city advertising the event. World cups do this too, but here it just seems bigger.

My thoughts are really discombobulated right now. There’s so much I wanted to write about, and this lack of internet is killing my ability to document my trip via blog. That, and the schedule they have us on - or that has been offered us rather, since it’s not as though we’re being told what to do at any point.

The USA Triathlon Team has a doctor, a chiropractor and a massage therapist/PT all here to support us. Plus two coaches. It’s pretty cool, and I know it’s going to help us perform better to have this kind of support. I showed up in Madrid with my neck kinked from sleeping on a plane, and my muscles knotted from sitting. But thanks to the USAT support staff, I got all that worked out, and I’m already feeling good on my second day here. Diana, the massage therapist [slash] physical therapist, in from Santa Barbara, though she lived in Seattle for a while. She often works for the ITU in the medical tent at big events, but this time we secured her for ourselves. I’m glad she’s here with us, but I’m hoping she can still be at the finish line to carry me to the med tent for an ice bath like she’s done more than once in the past.

I’m rooming with Matt Chrabot. This is fine with me. We live across the hall from each other in Colorado Springs and since, and I know he’s not going to stay up all night watching TV, sit in the room eating power bars and skipping meals, snore, or wake me up to the smell of smoked herring. The main disagreement we have with hotel room behavior is was announced within seconds of walking into our room, “Alright, first ground rule: flush the toilet - always - even after a pee.” Whereas, I’m more of a, “if it’s yellow let it mellow”, save the water for when it counts type of guy. I can compromise, but I still say it won’t smell if you’re hydrating properly.

I’ll post pictures at some point, but I forgot my camera cable.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Boulder right now with Courtenay Brown, Rory Seiter, and Mojdeh Hamidi. We’ve been spending the last couple of hours interrupting each other and getting stuff sort of done while at The Laughing Goat on Pearl Street. “Getting stuff done” consists of Rory interviewing me for the Checkmate Triathlon Team website (my side project that will be awesome once Rory and I figure out all the logistics of starting a team from scratch without start-up capital), Courtenay writing a blog, figuring out which graduate school she’ll go to and providing input to Rory and me (she started a women’s pro cycling team a few years back and has some great perspective), and Mojdeh generally being pleasant company.

What’s interesting is how we all got here. I met Rory when I was designing underwater robots in Honolulu and he was finishing up his degree in Environmental Management. I met Courtenay online through her ex-boyfriend, and Mojdeh and Rory met when he made an unexpected pit-stop in Boulder during a 2008 world tour. Last year Courtenay gave up her independent lifestyle in Lake Tahoe and moved in with me at my parents’ house in Seattle after dating me long distance for two months. Rory and Mojdeh had only been dating a couple months when they left Boulder to travel around New Zealand together for four months, and the trip went so well that they ended up spending all of 2009 living out of a van and dragging a trailer of triathlon swag to races for the USA Triathlon Endurance Mobile Tour. Sitting in a coffee shop figuring out what we’ll do next is much more exciting with this particular group than it might be with your average coffee shop dweller.

I’m leaving Honolulu tomorrow for the island of Maui. The Canadian National Team is over there training until the end of the month and I’m going to go join them (thanks to Andrew Russell, who put in a good word for me.). I don’t know yet if I’m coming back to Oahu afterward or if I’ll go to San Diego like I originally intended.

The big downside of heading to San Diego is that Courtenay will be here on Oahu until March 2nd, which is a long time to be away from my special someone. Then again, in San Diego they have a Normatec MVP – not a bad trade.

[spoiler alert, follow me on twitter and check back here soon for how you can win a free pair of K-Swiss K’Ona’s]

Courtenay and I went into a bike shop in Waialua last week (Sugar Mill Bikes)  to fix a sliced tire. The proprietor of the shop told us about a private road he likes to ride through the cane fields of Oahu’s North Shore. So the next day we rode to a locked gate with the intent of riding up a cane haul road – mostly dirt, rough roads – to get away from the dangerous holiday traffic.

My Garmin Edge 705 actually showed where the cane haul roads go, so it was easy to pick an entry point and plan a route. Just as we were hopping the gate (which we assumed was to keep motor vehicles out) a big van pulled up and a big Hawaiian guy started yelling at us, threatening us with a $500 fine if we didn’t leave right away. So we rode a few miles down and entered a cane haul road that didn’t have any locked gate across it. We rode for miles up past farmlands – some abandoned, some with coffee, some with pineapples. We did see about a dozen cars, and a couple farmers, but they just waved and smiled, so we were pretty sure we weren’t bothering anyone. The roads were certainly not ideal for a road bike, but focusing on bike handling was a welcome change from focusing on not getting killed on the narrow highway.

Eventually we did reach a big “no trespassing” sign, which is where we turned around, but my Edge 705 claimed that the road would continue up the hill, wind through a few valleys, and eventually come back down the hill and exit where we were yelled at earlier in the ride. We decided that we should find a way onto those roads, and the very next day we did. I took video of that experience, and Courtenay edited it (because she has the fancy MacBook Pro). It was an awesome ride, and we even found a newly paved road through the hills with zero cars on it. It was among the most adventurous rides I’ve had, but I’ll let the video do the talking:

Yesterday I heard from the USAT Lords that I have been approved for residency at the Olympic training center. This means that I can live permanently on campus in Colorado Springs. There are OTC campuses elsewhere that hold quite a bit more appeal to me, but Beggers should not be choosers, right? Apparently USAT doesn’t have any beds in Chula Vista (San Diego), which is where I would prefer to live, but they will let me go there for a few months this spring! I’m a little bubbly with excitement, as much as I love my home in Seattle, I also love the adventure that comes from moving and learning a new place. So my latest plan for the next 4 months is this:

December 15th to January 13th: Honolulu with Courtenay
January 17th: Fast Triathlon in Brasil with Chris Foster* and Matt Chrabot.
End of January: come back to Seattle, pack my stuff into the Honda Element and drive south.
Feb-may: training in California!

I’m not so keen on driving straight through to Chula, so I will definitely be looking for some people to stay with (and possibly train with) along the way.

I’m goin to miss my friends and family, but I think this move is going to be really fun.

*Courtenay would like to point out that she suggested that Chris would be a good teammate for the fast triathlon AGES ago. Thanks for the good idea CB.