Mexico Part Tres – Pan-Am Race Report

Chillin' - not reallyPuerto Vallarta is really hot in October. It’s strange that I was able to go the entire summer without suffering through any hot races, and as soon as Labor Day rolled around every race required a buzz cut and an ice pack in my helmet. I came prepared with my ice vest and frozen drink bottles as well, but no matter how well you prepare for a hot race, it always sucks – for everyone involved (spectators don’t like to stand on hot pavement any more than we like to run on it). That last fact is why hot races may actually suit me. It seems that conditions that require everyone to slow down a bit tend to bring some people back to me. It’s no question that I’ve failed to make a breakthrough in my run this season like I did at the end of 2009, but in hot weather my 5:15-5:20 min/mile pace is much closer to the fastest guys on the day. So as much as I hate hot races, there may be good reason not to avoid them.

p1010181_4After my crash in Huatulco I didn’t swim for the six days between races. I knew this was a bad idea, but I was hoping that I could depend entirely on talent to stay with Cameron Dye and Eder Mejia in the front pack. That was overly cocky. I was fine up until the first buoy, but managed to blow up like the Hindenburg on the second straightaway. People were moving past me like I was driftwood in a hydroplane race. There was a separation on the second lap of the swim, which I’m confident was my fault. As I moved backward, trying desperately to pull myself into someone’s draft I blocked the men behind me from keeping contact. I felt like a paper bag trying to swim – absolutely no connectivity through my core. (The lesson for next time, keep the abs in shape, even if you can’t get in the water, and eating quesadillas for three meals a day does not help with this). I ended up in the front of a large chase group about 20 seconds down on the top 6 men out of T1.

p1010203On the bike my legs were jell-o. The water had been in the upper 80s and the effort had my muscles fried. Conditions like this require top fitness, which I left on a section of blacktop in southern Mexico a week earlier. I hopped on Andrew Russell’s wheel and prayed that he could close the gap. (I’m certain I would have bridged up in any other race, though I wouldn’t have missed the front pack in any other race either.) I had nothing. I was overheated already and it was only 30 minutes into the race. I cracked my instant-cold ice pack in my helmet, and the rush of cold helped a little, but not enough for me to really help the group I was with. I went to the back of the pack (new territory for me) and tried to stay out of the way so the stronger cyclists could work together. We kept losing time each lap, and our group was one of the least organized I’ve seen in the men’s field. Guys were surging to the front and immediately pulling off, leaving the second wheel in the wind. Nobody wanted to work and each lap we were 15 seconds farther back than the lap before. The course was pretty sketchy in places (e.g they covered the gnarly cobbles with hard packed dirt that dried up and became loosely packed dirt before the end of the day). There were more 180s than needed, the section near transition was floored with red tiling which boasted a friction coefficient similar to Zipp’s ceramic bearings and required two hard right turns, a hard left and a 180 before returning to the blacktop highway where the center of the road had cracks large enough to harbor monsters (I’m pretty sure I heard something yell, “feed me your tire!”). Luckily, nobody went down, and I was able to finish my season with a 5/12 ratio of crashes to ITU starts (I just ordered a 2011 Scott CX Team from Momentum Multisport in Honolulu – hopefully a little cyclocross will help me keep the rubber-side down through my aggression (“This aggression will not stand, man.”)).

p1010209_2Staring the run I was way too hot. On the bike I had seen everyone else glistening with sweat and someone my skin looked dry. That’s not a good sign in the heat, but I figured if I was conscious enough to realize that then I probably should be running faster. I will say this for Mexico: they know how to provide water and ice. Unlike USATs terrible display of water support in Tuscaloosa (aide stations at the turnarounds so that you can only hit them once per lap? And they were equipped with warm water? Do they want us to die or was all the ice in Alabama being used for game-day cocktails?), the race directors in Puerto Vallarta had at least 6 times per lap where you could grab an ice cold beverage and a cup of ice. And the volunteers were trained well, they unscrewed the bottles so that a quick squeeze would pop the cap off – only once was the cap on my bottle so tight that I had to unscrew it myself. By the end of the first lap I was finally cool enough for my muscles to fire. I started passing some guys and was told I was in 14th place. I passed a couple more and was running with Mejia on my heals (at one aid station he wasn’t able to get a bottle, so I passed him mine after I took half to pour over my head – the next lap the situation was reversed, but he didn’t pass back. That’s bad Karma, dude.). At the end of the second lap I had reeled Sexton and Collington back into my sights and was sure I would catch them. Unfortunately, they must have seen the same thing and their paces increased enough to hold me at a steady distance. Mejia finally blew and I finished in 8th place in front of a group of charging Brazilians. It was a solid finish.

It’s easy to look at a race like this and think “if only A B and C I could have…” Well, that’s true, if I had had my normal swim I would have been in a break with Matt Chrabot and Cam Dye and with my normal bike we probably would have put another minute on the chase group and I likely would have been on the podium. But I didn’t and I wasn’t and 8th place is nothing to be ashamed of. I had a solid run – still not even close to what I believe I’m capable of – and I learned quite a bit about myself. How I respond to a week off at the end of the season is not great. How I swim in hot water after training in a cold indoor pool is not great either. How I prepare for hot races is pretty good, however. For next season I have plenty to work on. For now, however, I still have two races left, the Super Sprint Grand Prix in Oceanside on Halloween, and the Amica 19.7 Sprint in Phoenix on November 7th. Both should be a lot of fun.

Full race results here

Mexico Part Dos – What to do for a week in Mexico while injured

After the Huatulco World Cup I planned to stay put for a couple days. Originally this was so I could train and recover from the heat before dehydrating myself on another airplane. Instead, I spent Monday and Tuesday whining about how badly my back hurt, changing bandages, and riding my rollers indoors. It did seem like I was recovering quickly, but I was definitely not getting in the water with such massive open wounds on my back, hip, arm and hands. Also, running hurt like crazy thanks to the contusion on my hip and the raw skin under my armpit.

Tuesday evening I flew to Puerto Vallarta where I would spend the next 8 nights. At that point, I really didn’t think I would be healed enough to race in a dirty harbor in Mexico before Sunday, but change fees and late cancellation for the hotel would have cost me almost as much as staying. Besides, Rory and Mojdeh were flying in from Colorado to spend the week with me, and I wasn’t about to miss out on my end-of-season vacation (post race) just because of a little pain.

Wednesday afternoon my friends arrived. I was studying for an accounting exam, so I told them to go enjoy themselves while I stayed in the air conditioning. Rory brought fishing equipment and was out on the beach catching fish within an hour of landing while Mojdeh found a sunny piece of sand and thawed out in the radiation.

That was pretty much par for the week. Rory fishing, Mojdeh fishing until she got bored then reading a book in the sun, me studying, changing bandages, and keeping out of the sun and water. By Thursday I was running again, though I couldn’t swing my right arm and my hip was painfully causing me to limp. Friday I took my exam and reluctantly agreed to spend Saturday morning at a time-share presentation in order to get a discount on a fishing boat trip the following Monday. Mainly I wanted to get out of the hotel room for long enough to feel like I was getting ready to race.

The presentation turned into a humorous morning. We met the guys who organized the trip for us that morning outside our hotel and were briefed on the protocol we needed to follow. Rory and Mojdeh were asked to wear wedding rings that were purchased for them on the way to the resort. The cab ride was much longer than expected, and by the time we arrived at the resort I was already starting to feel the “I’m racing tomorrow and things need to go my way” primadonna attitude coming out. Luckily, there was free food, which always makes me happy. Our guide spent about an hour asking us questions, though she was mainly interested in Rory and Mojdeh and had very little to say to me. They asked where I like to vacation and I told them “home” because I rarely get to spend any time there anymore and that’s where my friends are. Rory told them straight up that he hates resorts and would never buy into a massive place like that. Mojdeh told them she wouldn’t be interested in anything like that until she was a mother (I think she nearly said “until I’m married” but caught herself). I looked at the offer and figured out that what they were offering could provide a 30% annual return on the investment, and started asking lots of questions. The salesmen ignored me, and told Rory that the reason he doesn’t like resorts is because he doesn’t feel he can afford them and subconsciously he would rather believe he doesn’t like the resort than admit that it’s a financial situation. I don’t think he knew his audience very well.

After the presentation we hurried back so I could do the bike course preview. I’ll summarize by paraphrasing Jarrod Shoemaker’s tweets regarding the course: This is the most dangerous course ever. Cobble 180s, freshly paved sections with loose blacktop, and tire eating cracks in the center of the road. We weren’t able to ride the entire route, however, because they were still paving part of it.

Saturday is when I finally made the decision that I was healed enough to race. I hadn’t swum since the previous Sunday, but I was healthy enough to give the race a shot. It didn’t go so well because of that, but I learned a few things about how to keep myself prepared when I can’t train. Two words: core strength. That’s what I should have been working on during the 6 days of rest.

Next up, a full race report for my 8th place finish at the Pan-American Championships.

Mexico Part Uno – A partial race report (for a partial race)

This is the story of how I managed to burn the skin off my back on fast-moving hot asphalt, and why you should know more Spanish than I do for the Emergency Rooms of Mexico.

I arrived in Mexico on October 7th with a bunch of other people. Matt Chrabot and I were on the same itinerary from Colorado Springs and we met up with Jillian Petersen and Melisa Mantak in Houston to continue our journey south through Mexico City and on to Huatulco.

At the Mexico City Airport we found even more athletes sitting in the Star Alliance lounge, and even more at the gate. There must have been 25 athletes with us on the 90-minute flight from Mexico City to Huatulco on a small prop plane that only held 45 people. It turns out 25 bikes will not fit on a plane that small. In fact, they had been short on room for bikes for several flights already, and the only bikes that made it onto our plane were the bikes being delivered to athletes from previous flights. None of us had bikes when we arrived to Huatulco, and there were so many delayed bikes that the airline had to send some to another airport and drive them on a truck eight hours to Huatulco.

Meanwhile, I was perfectly content to have no bicycle. I was sitting in a hotel room with Mark Fretta watching some of the best television I’ve experienced outside the US, eating fajitas con pollo, and finishing all my homework for the week. When I did venture out is was to go swim in the bay.

My first time to the beach was frightening. Mark and I went over to get in a swim and found that the beach was littered with jelly fish. They were everywhere, little translucent blobs of nasty sticky jelly. But there were other athletes in the water who weren’t being stung, so maybe they weren’t the stinging kind, right?

It took about 20 minutes for us to brave it into the water, during which time we walked up and down the beach looking for an opening without any jellies. After that proved to be impossible, and after we were assured by at least two people that we would not be stung by the thousands of jellies, we finally ran into the ocean, screaming like little girls, and swam head high until we didn’t see any jelly fish. After that we did a couple of loops of the bay stopping only to shriek and complain about all the jellies that kept getting stuck between our fingers, rubbing our faces and sliming us with their apparently tentacle-less bodies.

The next day we were braver. There were fewer jellyfish, and since we hadn’t been stung before we were ok with the idea of swimming in a bay of gooey gumdrops We got in quickly and swam out to the end of the bay – only this time something hit me in the face and stung. I stopped to shriek (obviously the most effective solution) and found that were in the middle of school of box jellyfish (with tentacles). I shrieked again, then Mark told me which direction to swim in, and I took off with him on my feet. That was it for my pre-race swimming, which was okay since it was the day before the race.

Sunday I felt great. I did my normal pre-race routing and arrived at the starting line feeling confident. I was lined up at the far right of the swim start where only a few brave souls ventured to join me. Unger, Serrano, Fretta – the guys who had as much faith my swimming ability as I did. Unfortunately, beach starts are not my forte, and I found myself behind the right-side-starters and I cut my way across the field and hopped on their feet as soon as I could. I was in pretty poor position around the first buoy, but kept moving up until I was boxed in behind the leaders. The pace felt slow, but I had no escape route. The leaders were swimming four or five wide because all of them were going for the $500 prime at the end of the first lap. It went to Eder Mejia from Mexico, and if you watch the video on the ITU website you can see that at the swim start he waited on the beach, walked in, assessed the situation in front of him, then dove in and swam around everyone. I’m a confident swimmer, but I don’t have the balls to walk into the water in a World Cup.

Running from the water and into T1 I was passed by Matt Chrabot. This has become a trend over the past few races, as Matt sprints by me and makes it into the front pack on the bike while my running-speed-to-transition gets me a few seconds back that I have to close in the first lap of the bike. But I did, and once we caught up to the leaders I went off the front with Matt and two other guys. We were away for a lap, and then I crashed by crossing wheels with the guy in front of me (Supanov from Ukraine). We both went down at 40+mph on a descent. He got back up and finished, I tried to start riding again (after a bit of bike fixing) but was bleeding profusely and in quite a bit of pain. I gave in and let the ambulance take me to the nearby emergency room.

I was missing a lot of skin on my back from the crash. Maybe a quarter of my back was scraped and burnt from the asphalt, and it felt like blistered sunburn worse than any I’ve had (and trust my, pasty white guys like me know sunburns). At the ER the doctor wanted to get X-Rays of me, which I was not happy about. Radiation scares me enough at the high-tech radiology labs in the US, but this was an old machine and the guy wasn’t even standing behind anything while taking pictures of me. I tried to ask for a lead blanket while he aimed the machine at my shoulder for the first X-Ray. He dind’t understand. I pointed at the lead vest hanging on the wall (does a lot of good there, right?) – no comprehension. I pointed at it again and said, “Lead por mi pene?” which is probably not even proper Spanglish, and certainly didn’t help with the tech’s comprehension. He stood a foot away from me and fired off the first image, then moved the x-ray machine over to the center of my hips, as if to take a picture of the “pene” I was trying to protect from radiation. “No!” I screamed, then started flapping my limbs around and moving in any way I could, which must have looked like a lurching seizure, and seemed to confuse the guy even more. “No fractura en mi pene, no fracturas en todos, no fracturas para mi!!” was the best Spanish I could come up with on the spot and must have meant something to the tech because he responded, “no photographia de tu pene?” No senior, no photographs of my penis, but thanks for asking.

I was pretty upset with myself for crashing and not finishing another race. This is the third race this year where I’ve crashed and not finished, and the fifth time I’ve crashed. Clearly I need to change something about the aggression with which I ride, or get better at riding aggressively. Luckily it’s an easy problem so solve, and I have a whole winter to work on it (after a few more races).

As for the Huatulco World Cup, there’s always next year. Besides, the best parts of the race are the monster hill, the after-party (Mexicans know how to make a fiesta!), and the food. The hill was cut from the course because of construction (should be back in next year), and I skipped out early on the party to start my recovery for Puerto Vallarta the next week. At least there was still some great food.

The Garmin Forerunner 110

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.

Three Weeks of Fun – and a brief Nationals race report

My new raod bike from Orbea!

Woah! It’s been three weeks since Worlds, and SO much has happened. I’m back in Colorado and finishing up what is probably the last little training block of 2010, getting ready for Huatulco and Puerto Vallarta (World Cup and Continental Championships, respectively), catching up on schoolwork (I guess if I wasn’t behind it’s not really catching up, but that’s how it feels), and trying to keep focus for just a few more weeks (meaning I’m NOT thinking about all the awesome things I’m going to do in the off-season… maybe a trip to Hawaii for a month or two, if I take a trip to Europe I’ll be Platinum Elite on Continental Airlines – that could be fun – somehow I need to get my cross country skis to Colorado, so maybe I’ll go back to Seattle for a little while… okay, I’m NOT thinking about this yet!)

After Worlds I felt pretty terrible until a few days ago. I trained right through the fatigue, knowing that it was mainly just jet lag, and was hoping for a miracle at Nationals in Tuscaloosa last weekend. The miracle happened in the form of a crash and a blown tire within the first minute of the bike. In other word, there was not a miracle. By the time I got to the wheel pit and changed tires I was out of the race, so I caught up with a small group of U23 athletes and turned the day into a fun workout. Once the pressure was off, I managed to have a much better time than most of the guys in the front pack. Steve Sexton, for instance, had a temperature of 107 degrees when he crossed the finish line – WOAH!! Maybe in Tuscaloosa one should wear their ice vest during the race, not just before.

So I came back from Tuscaloosa empty handed. I dropped out after a hard 5k run in order to save my legs for the bigger races coming up.

Back in Colorado… There’s really not much going on here. I spent a few days with Rory and Mojdeh in Boulder, and got a bike fit from Retul on my new Orbea Orca road bike frame. That bike is awesome! I really wanted to get some exposure for Orbea at Nationals (it’s going to be on Verses 10/14), but I’ll have to get my TV time at another race. The bike deserves a blog post of its own, so I’ll stop here and save more for another post.

ITU World Championships Budapest Race Recap

My first pro world champs was another big learning experience. For the first time this year I arrived at a race prepared both mentally and physically, and yet I still made a few minor mistakes that likely had very little effect on the final score.

The weather was delightfully crummy. It was pouring on the ride down to the race sight, and the two separate transition areas meant we had to place our running shoes out in the rain a full two hours before the start of the race. At the race site the rain eased up as we sat in the muddy, soggy, cold athlete’s lounge waiting for the race start, and by the time we started Budapest was sopping wet, but the rain had stopped. (Despite the crummy weather, this city is the most beautiful I’ve ever been to.)

The swim was cold, and probably shorter than 1500 meters. On the opening stretch I couldn’t seem to get my sprint going. I was in good position going into the first turn buoy, but certainly not great. I went the long way around for a change, and was surprised at how much less fight there was by not trying to cut the buoy. Still, the cold water kept getting in my lungs and I found myself panic breathing as we rounded the second set of buoys and headed back to shore. I have no idea where I was in the swim, but I knew I wasn’t swimming very fast, and I was having no trouble at all staying put where I was. It always amazes me how much water gets pulled in these races, but it’s clearly why “poor” swimmers (I use the term loosely, everyone in these races is a step above the average pro triathlete) are able to stay right in the mix with guys like Javier Gomez and the Russian squad of super swimmers. I excited the water and was struggling with my wetsuit going into T1. I’m not sure what I did differently, but my Blue Seventy Helix, which normally pops right off, seemed suctioned to my skin. Perhaps it was my choice of mineral oil, rather than the canola oil I normally use for lubrication, but regardless I found myself trapped in a virtual straight jacket of neoprene with my hands and feet too cold to feel what I was doing. I tripped next to my bike, knocked over three bikes, including my own, and finished removing my wetsuit in the prone position. It probably looked like a turtle on his back as I lay there frantically tugging at my suit and squirming in the mud (thankfully there was carpet over the deep muddy grass) trying to get back to my feet. By the time I found my helmet and sunglasses and pulled my bike back up I was a full 20 seconds slower through transition than my counterparts. A false start would have cost less time (and would have let my hands thaw out a bit) – I will remember that for next time.

I was in the first chase pack when I finally started pedaling. I wasn’t too worried because my group had some big guns in it who know how to fight. By the end of the first lap we caught the lead group, and I jumped to the front.

I should take a moment to talk about this bike course, which was certainly not the safest of triathlon courses. It was beautiful – with the landmarks of Budapest looming over every inch of the course – but the road was soaked, littered with invisible potholes and bumps and some quite visible but unavoidable railroad tracks and white paint. From T1 we headed up to the grandstands about 5km away. From there we did a reverse clover leaf under a bridge into a long flat straightaway, which was the only safe part of the course. Then a 180 degree turn, a short but bumpy straightaway, a chicane over some carpet covered railroad tracks (which were extremely slick), another chicane, then a really bumpy section of road before the transition area.

In the first lap I saw Tim Don laying on the ground beside a wrecked bike. The second lap there was an ambulance there and as we passed another person went down in the exact spot where Tim had been laying. I narrowly escaped to the right, and Javier went to the left, where his shoulder scraped the ambulance. Luckily, we both kept the rubber down.

There were lots of crashes. Matt Chrabot had gone up the road and was riding solo for most of the bike leg, though I didn’t know this until about two hours after the race had finished. Luckily, the spectators thought I was blocking. The announcers also caught me laughing near the end of the bike and thought that we were telling jokes in the front. That was false. I was laughing because of some unnecessary profanity being used. That same person has called me this four letter word before, and it just seems uncalled for in a professional field. Since I wasn’t the target this time, I just laughed it off – which was caught on camera.

I had great position going into T2. The best I’ve had at a WCS race, and it was awesome to be out on the run course with the leaders. That lasted about 50meters, as I just couldn’t seem to get my heart rate up. It felt like jet lag, and I’ll blame the late arrival time. I hope that was all it was. I will say that wet shoes were not the problem. My K-Swiss Kruuz went through the wet and puddles and drained the water out without any problems at all. Not a single blister or hot spot after the wettest run of my career!

I ran my way to 42nd place, which was off my goal of a top 30, but as the second American (3rd if you count the soon-to-be American Greg Bennet) I’m happy that I was able to stay strong in such a tough field. Strategically, I think I had a nearly perfect race. I just need to figure out my wetsuit removal and travel itinerary for next time.


World Champs

So I’m in Budapest for the Triathlon World Champs. I have not taken a picture, and have spent the majority of my time here sleeping. I arrived a day late because of terrible airline delays, but I’m ready to rock. Just a few more hours to go!!!

The internet access has been difficult, but I’ll try my best to put up a race report when we finish. Submitting my yet-to-be-finished homework may take priority, but I’ll try to do both.


San Francisco Triathlon at Alcatraz – I WON!!

Sunday was another great day for me in San Francisco. We dove off a boat at 7am into the San Francisco Bay, turned our feet to the Alcatraz Prison and swam for shore. I lead for most of the swim, but as we came into the Marina I found myself behind some guys with much better lines. Out of the water fourth, I took off on the bike with some great company. John Kenny, Kyle Leto, Brian Fleischmann, and myself attacked the first hill like it was the deciding factor of the race, but at the top my legs were screaming at me. I looked around and everyone else was in just as much pain, so I pushed over the top and took a lead on the first quick decent by Big Beach. I never looked back, but at the first turn around I was about a minute ahead of Leto, and at the second it was closer to 90 seconds.

When I started the run nobody else was close to transition. I ran for a while before I saw Kyle and Brian come by me still riding, but I wanted to get in a good hard run, so I refused to back off. I pushed it hard enough that I didn’t even notice the Golden Gate Bridge looming in the foreground. It wasn’t until I ran though the small tunnel under the Golden Gate and hit the single track that I started to relax and really enjoy my surroundings. The Pacific ocean was misty with the morning sunlight just shining over the hill making the cliffs light up with glowing dew… It was quite a pleasant run until I dropped down onto Big Beach and realized that the new Tri-California course removed the 1 mile out-and-back section on the beach. With that extra mile in 2008 I had been able to run down to the hard packed sand and let my legs recover some from the hard decent. With the new course, you pop out onto the beach just a short distance from the bottom of the treacherous sand ladder, and there’s no time to run for hard pack. It’s about a minute of slogging through soft sand, which gets your already beaten-up legs to the point of furry, then up the “ladder” which is really just a big sand dune with some buried logs that help with traction. When I did this race in 2008 I had the fastest time up the sand ladder by 12 seconds. This time, I decided to go the slow methodical way – grabbing the ropes on the sides and alternating between walking and skipping my way up the dune. Through all the sand my K-Swiss Kruuz started to get some sand in them through the holes in the bottom (meant to drain water out of the shoes). I was worried, but when left the sand it drained from my shoes as quickly as it had entered. No harm done! At the top I started running again, and was glad for my conservative effort because the “top” of the sand ladder is really only half way up the final hill. As I turned onto the hard pack and continued up my mom was there telling me I had a three minute lead over Leto. At this point, I started smiling. I kept the pace fairly high, but chose to enjoy the last three miles: the Golden Gate, Crissy Field, the single track section and concrete stairs up and over the old bunkers. This is the most scenic and fun race in the world.

I surprised the announcer, who was not yet expecting me when I appeared in the finish chute. I was raising my arms and high five-ing spectators for 100 meters before the loud speaker announced that I was about to finish. So I took my time, smiled, high five-ed more of the crowd, took a bow, and then waited for four minutes to greet Kyle Leto and Steve Sexto (who had a great run) finishing in second and third respectively.

It was a tough race, a beautiful race, and a good indicator of my current fitness. Thanks coaches!!

This is my sister congratulating me after the race. See any family resemblance? Perhaps the smile, or the nose, or the way we squint into the sun? She says next year she’ll do the race – WATCH OUT!!

Me and my 9 month old nephew, Carter. He flew down from Seattle to watch me.