San Francisco on Trical TV

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.


Hamburg World Championship Series Race Review

Saturday was my second round of World Championship Series Triathlon. Bolstered with the confidence of someone able to swim ride and run alone for a draft-legal Pan-American Cup win a week earlier, I approached the start line with an undeniably brilliant race plan. I would swim to the front, drive the pace so as to string out the rest of the field, then ride away from the bunch in a small breakaway, and run to a finish that would make Slowtwitchers* raise their eyebrows in awe. Why would I even need a contingency plan for such a bold, and unbeatable strategy? I was so content and sure that my nerves before the race, normally quivering with anticipation, were calm as a sunflower in Kansas.

When reality sunk in I was three feet underwater near the first turn buoy. In an instant my thoughts had turned from the race to survival. I hadn’t had a dry breath in nearly 20 seconds and as 65 men swam over me I didn’t seem to have much of a chance at breathing again soon. I found myself near the back of the swim pack – a place I have very little experience with – and was quite unhappy about it. The clear water and non-combative attitudes I have experienced at the front of other big races seemed mythical in comparison to the brutal battering, blatant grabbing, and completely unnecessary aggression of the mid-pack swim.I would like very much to never be there again. A few days ago I was violently angry with the way people around me were swimming. It was unnecessary, it hurt, and it slowed down everyone involved. Now, I’ve just resolved that it’s worth swimming faster in the future. Easier said that done, but if I’m feeling off, I’ll have to remember Hamburg.

I exited the water with a small gap in front of me. I was with Mark Fretta from the USA, and Beavan Docherty of New Zealand, among others. We caught the group in front of us in a lap, then caught the leaders by the third lap. Yes, I was in the second chase group – without a contingency plan. Half way through the bike Mark Fretta was riding in front and slowing the pace. Nobody seemed to want to go around him and he looked as though he was expecting someone to break away. So I did. I got away and nobody followed. I was hoping someone would bridge up, but they just let me take the television cameras and go. I got lots of television time, but after a little more than a lap I was sucked back into a frenzy of counterattacks. A lap later Fretta took off on his own solo breakaway and I blocked for him as best I could. He quickly gained 30 seconds on us with a lap to go, then lost 10 seconds as the pack jockeyed for position.

I started the run a third of the way back in a pack of everyone. Within a lap I caught up to Mark, and lost contact with 45 men from my bike pack. Over the next lap I stopped being passed, and by the 5k I started bringing back some of the men who had blown a gasket in front of me. I finished in 41st place, and ran 32 minutes 42 seconds on the German Certified 10km run (they lengthened the course this year after being criticized for having a short run in previous years). I was 3 minutes slower than the winner, Javier Gomez.

Certainly I had hoped for a better finish. I had hoped for a career day, and I had hoped that I would run well below 32 minutes. I believe I’m capable of that, and I would love to prove it. Unfortunately, my day in Hamburg was not that day for me. If I use my swim as a barometer for my overall performance compared to my potential, then I was clearly having an off day. That said, I was bold on the bike, given my circumstances, and while it didn’t pay off, I’m glad I was willing to take the chance. It was fun to be in a solo break at a WCS race. Suicidal? Yes. But fun!

*Slowtwitchers, or STers are the community of people that follow and comment on, almost obsessively, the going-ons of the triathlon world through a community forum hosted at slowtwitch.com

I’m in The New York Times!!

I need a few hours to decompress and think about my race before I do a Hamburg Race Report. If I wrote it right now it would be laced with obscenities and insults that I probably don’t mean. Not that my 41st place is anyone else’s fault. It’s most certainly not, but right now I’m pretty pissed with myself.
In the meantime, take a look at this article in the New York Times! It’s about Aaron Scheidies and the new paratriathlon rule changes for Vision Impaired athletes. I wrote about it a couple months ago, but the NYT is a little more objective, and they included a sweet picture of Aaron and me from 2007. This is the second time I’ve been photographed in the NYT! Awesome!!


Flying to Hamburg

All I’ve done the past week is travel. I drove to Boulder, then I flew to San Francisco, raced, Flew to Denver, hung out in Boulder another night, drove to Colorado Springs, packed, then flew to Germany. This is not my ideal weekend, but it’s made for a few eye-rolling experiences. I’m of the opinion that if nothing goes wrong during travel, then you weren’t paying close enough attention. So with that in mind, I just had to roll my eyes after paying United Airlines $200 to abuse my bike the same way they would any other piece of luggage. Then I rolled my eyes again when the bike didn’t show up in Hamburg yesterday morning. That’s twice in less than a week that my bike has been lost. Since bad things happen in threes, I’m not expecting to have a bike in London next week either.

Once I filed a claim for my bag I walked out of the baggage claim area to find that my shuttle driver had left without me, so I would be waiting an hour for the next shuttle with our team doctor and Laura Bennett. An hour went by, Dr Andy showed up, but not Laura. We waited another hour. No Laura. Turns out she’s coming in the next day – big eye roll.
Once I was at the hotel things shaped up. I found some Thai food after wandering around Hamburg for 30 minutes on foot. I was so hungry that I couldn’t decide what to eat. Once i was fed, I started falling asleep standing up. I wandered back to my hotel, via the grocery store where I met up with Jill and Jenna, then took a quick nap while I waited for the group to be ready for a trip to the pool.
The pool here is quite large. It’s an eight lane 50m pool with a 10m dive tower, a water slide, and a cafe on the side of the deck. It’s the type of place that the US needs more of (Seattle does at least). Of the eight lanes, however, there were only two being used for lap swim. One of those was a double wide lane with at least twenty people in it, while the other was a normal lap lane, but with two men who together were as big as twenty people. Jill, Dr Andy and I jumped in with Humpty and Dumpty and banged out a quick 3k. Jill was yelled at by one of the giants, after his 8ft long arm nearly took her head off during a pass. Dr Andy and I managed not to engage in arguments, but both of us had very close calls with at least one of the men’s flailing oversized limbs.
Hamburg is an old town with streets that don’t go straight. It makes navigation difficult for a foreigner, but when I was here in 2007 I spent enough time getting lost to have a pretty good idea of how to get around. Confident in my own memory, I asked the coaches to take my swim bag back to the hotel for me while I ran back. Scott asked if I’d like to look at a map first, but i declined, sure that my navigational memory from three years ago would be sufficient. Now, the better story here would be to say that I got completely lost and it took me hours to find my way back to the hotel – during which time I was lost in the Reeperbahn (Hamburg’s red light district), stopped for a refreshment, met the love of my life (for a price that I couldn’t refuse), learned German, and was finally able to ask for directions back to the Marriott. But since nobody witnessed any of that, I’m going to claim that my memory was flawless and I beat the cabby back to the hotel.
The best part of the day was after dinner when Robby arrived and was able to get me onto the table for some biped revitalization. Robby is the USAT massage therapist, and he’s absolutely the best. I trust nobody else to work on my legs the way he does before a race. He just knows us so well that he can feel how much pressure to give, where to give it, and he’s worked on each of us enough that he knows how to make us sharp on the day that counts. He’s not just our massage therapist, he’s also our Team Wizard. Plus, he seems to operate primarily on Nuun, claiming that adding a tablet of the stuff to his water bottle will keep him going all day long. We’re in Europe for 12 days, so I brought eight tubes for him. Thanks Robby!!


San Francisco Race Report – I WON!!

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!


Race Morning – San Francisco Preview

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.


The Quicky

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.

This and That

This weekend I’m racing in San Francisco. It will be my first of three weekends in a row of racing, so I’m viewing this one as a fancy, fast workout. The San Francisco Pan-America Cup is held on Treasure Island, in the middle of the Bay Bridge, and it’s a really unique and technical bike course. Despite the fact that I’m coming in tired, I’m excited, this race is going to be fun!

Here in Colorado things are going smoothly. It’s been really hot, like I talked about in my post a few days ago, so I’m looking forward to the cool weather in San Francisco. I’ve started to become possessive of swim workouts. It’s not a good thing, but I’ve been pushing the pace so frequently that when I have an off day (or someone else has a good day), I start thinking something is wrong. This morning I wore my wetsuit to get ready for Saturday (it’ll be my first wetsuit race since this race in 2008!). With a wetsuit on I thought something was wrong for a different reason: I was way too hot! Luckily, it doesn’t seem like I’ve lost my ability to get out of the suit quickly, and my new Blue 70 Helix is a pretty awesome suit. I was absolutely flying down the lane. I really like the detailing they’ve done with the arms to allow for greater feel of the water. It’s too bad winning swim practice doesn’t translate directly to winning races because with that suit on I would be the world champion!

Next week I head to Hamburg, then London, and we’ve been told that internet costs 20 euros a day, so I will likely not be blogging while I”m there. Instead, I may just repost the blogs from the last time I was in Hamburg.


Sleepy Mornings

I’m really tired today, despite having laid in bed for over 10 hours last night. I’m looking forward to a recovery spin and some easy running miles this afternoon. At breakfast this morning everyone else looked tired too, so at least I’m not alone.
Here are two pictures from a bbq we had yesterday at Robby’s new house.

The dog on the motorcycle is Buckley. Robby saved him from an abusive family, and now he’s the happiest dog in Colorado.

And this is Kevin Collington. He’s just happy to be here.