Check out my most resent post on the Garmin Blog.

I still have no camera cable to download pictures or charge my camera.

Today we’re doing a brick workout and we (the campers) will likely try to kill each other. Sounds like fun.

I’m so tired. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

After taking it easy on Tuesday when I arrived in Colorado Springs, I jumped right into the mix with the rest of the Elite Development Program athletes (go EDP!). We’ve done some track workouts, some swim sprints, some long bike rides, and some serious eating. Seriously, we eat A LOT of food.

Other than that I sleep as much as I can.

The Olympic Training Center is pretty cool. There’s lot of good riding around here, and the ten lane 50m pool on campus is pretty much perfect for a training pool (“pretty much” because it’s indoors). I could see myself getting a little bored with the running trail right next to campus, but it’s nicer than the Burke Gilman Trail in Seattle (where warning signs should be posted to indicate the dangers of running on crowned pavement next to crazy cyclists and dog walkers).

We get to take advantage of an ice bath and the physical therapists at the Sports Med Center, and there’s also a recovery center with massage therapists and other wonderful things, but the EDP isn’t granted access.

I tried to find a campus map on the internet, but couldn’t, and I still don’t have my computer cables so I can’t take any pictures to put up. I’ll try to fix that soon, ‘cause I totally suck at blogging the past two weeks.

This week in New York is full of stories worth telling, but I feel obligated to write first about the actual race. The 2008 Nautica New York City Triathlon Presented by Toyota was a lot of fun. It’s the first race I’ve done where getting to the start line is my warmup. I rode over to transition from the upper east side, which is a little more than four miles, then I set up transition, and jogged over to the swim start, a little more than a mile from transition. Aside from a shortage of bathrooms, the event seemed to be running very smoothly.

Diving into the Hudson River was no fun. As soon as my head pierced the surface I could see nothing but black. three feet below the surface there is no light showing through. I did a long underwater breakout and when I came up I must have shocked whoever was swimming above me because I’m sure he didn’t see me coming. With the strong current the entire field stayed together on the swim, and the entire field was stung repeatedly by jelly fish! There must have been hundreds. It felt like being stuck in a sand storm, or water skiing in heavy rain – every part of my exposed skin was stung, especially my arms neck and face. As this was happening I forgot about the peculiar salty taste of the Hudson, and the lack of visibility, and the fact that I was probably being exposed to all kinds of nasty chemicals.

Out of the water there was a long run to transition, which was reminiscent of the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon last month. I don’t understand why race directors allow this. The triathlon swim is already insignificantly short, so why negate a swimmer’s advantage with a long run? If we want to give runners a chance to get ahead before the bike, let’s just call it a duathlon and skip the nasty swim in a jelly fish infested urban waterway. Of course I understand that logistics of a race this size, and I’m quite impressed with John Korff’s ability to pull off the event, but it would sure be nice to improve the transition layout.

On the bike I felt good, but had a hard time maintaining my pace. On the second half I didn’t feel particularly tired, but it was hard for me to keep pushing hard. The bike course was really neat. We rode up the west side highway and into the Bronx before turning around and coming back. I couldn’t believe how much traffic was rerouted for this event! Unfortunately my poor pacing was evident when I went from 60 seconds behind the leaders at the bike turn around to four minutes back heading into T2.

Onto the run I charged up onto 72nd street where I was met with a preview of the apocalypse – The entire street was shut down to traffic. It was empty! I was running down a major street in Manhattan with six lanes open for me, and no cars. We were on 72nd for nearly a mile, and I would recommend this race to my friends simply for this part of the race. Actually, if you’re in New York City when the triathlon is going on, head down to 72nd and run it. Go back and forth – experience how cool it feels to be alone with the touring buildings on either side. All I can say is: wow.

The rest of the run was familiar to me – a loop of Central Park Drive where I’ve been riding my bike all week.  The route is rolling, but not really all that hilly. It’s just not flat. It was extremely humid, so I never really felt able to push 100%, but I did run comfortably and maintained even splits for the full 10k.

I finished in 11th, but was the fastest athlete competing in the Ivy League Championships! Columbia University also won the team title, which happens every year.

The race was a lot of fun, and I’m happy that I was able to improve on last week’s performance. I’ve been feeling really flat lately, so I’m hoping that four weeks at the Olympics Training Center in Colorado Springs will help me get to the next level of fitness.

I had a lot of expectations for myself today. I went into this race thinking that there would be a small break out of the water, and I assumed I would be in it. I’ve been putting in some really good swim workouts lately, and riding strong too, so I figured an early break on the bike would be my ticket to a great finish.

Unfortunately, none of the work I’ve put in lately came out.

Continue reading “Expectations – Musselman ITU Pan-America Cup”

I’m sitting around waiting for my second breakfast slash brunch slash pre-race meal, and I read Chris Westall’s latest post on Nutrition 53 There’s a coupon code for 50% off on your order (code: Triathlete). That should be good incentive to give this stuff a try. It’s not “sport” nutrition so much as “life” nutrition suppliments. For instance, I wouldn’t take Lean1 as a recovery drink, I’ll stick with Clif Recovery for that, but it is a great snack replacement (as Courtenay has mentioned several times). The sleep1 puts you to sleep, and the Neuro1 wakes you up, and all three products are boosted with vitamins and minerals that will help to maintain consistent health. Sounds like a lot of other products, except these ones actually work. Courtenay is using Lean1 in a little experiment to see if she can lose weight before the last few races of the season. She’s measuring quad diameter, weight, and waist diameter every week (can you believe a woman is posting her weight to the internet? And she’s publicizing her 30th birthday!), and using Lean1 as a snack every day. I’m interested to see the results, as this reminds me a little of my own experimentation with Base Performance.

Alright, time to go have my meal, then it’s nothing but Neuro1, Clif Shot Electrolyte Drink and Base Performance Water for the next 3.5 hours before the race.

Yesterday I finally arrived in Geneva, New York. It’s beautiful here. I’m staying with the Blume family, which is famous here for being Victor Plata’s host for three weeks last year (Victor won the race, then stayed for a few weeks to do the NYC Triathlon and another race in Canada). Tomorrow’s the 5th Musselman Triathlon and the second Musselman ITU Pan-American Cup. The water is a pleasant 72 degrees, which is about 22.2 Celsius, and (thankfully) just above the wetsuit cutoff. I find ITU races with wetsuits are way more aggressive in the swim because talent doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference with who can hang in. Maybe that’s cocky (or wimpy because I like open water), but there is a big difference in the way a race gets spread out in wetsuit swims vs non-wetsuit. Tomorrow there will not be neoprene, and that makes me happy.

What would make me even happier is if today’s upper 70’s and rain would stick around another day. I’m pretty sure nobody else in the field has dealt with as much rain the past nine months as Seattlites, and I love racing in cold weather. Unfortunately, we can’t always get what we want, and tomorrow will be a high in the mid-90’s with all of today’s rain evaporating to make a nice humid sweat bath for our 2pm race start. Apparently Geneva rarely gets this hot in the summers. I think that means we’re lucky!

The start list for this race went from 17 to 41 in the final week before registration was cut off. This means there were a lot of guys waiting until the last minute to choose a race, and hoping for easy ITU points. I will note that, while I did decide on this race over Life Time Fitness just a couple weeks ago, I was still one of the initial 17 on the list.

I’m getting my stuff together tonight rather lazily. The 2pm start time has me procrastinating on number placement and all that wonderful pre-race organization. Swim, bike, and run races are so easy to prepare for individually, why is it that when they’re all together it takes so much more thought?

When I was in College at Columbia University I used to fly Jet Blue exclusively. My parents had a gazillion miles on US Airways, and always tried to coax me into flying with them, but I was young and in love. Jet Blue’s new leather seats and (at the time) state of the art Direct TV experience, plus direct flights and friendly service made them worth a few extra bucks (although they were usually the cheapest). Today I flew Jet Blue again, and I’m sorry to report that Jet Blue is no longer worth flying. The great flying experiences I had between 2001 and 2005 are a figment of the past.

My trip today was from San Francisco International to Rochester, NY – via JFK. Because of some booking confusion I managed to have the two legs of my trip on separate reservations, and although I tried my best in the weeks before the flight to put them on the same ticket, Jet Blue insisted that I would have to claim my bags at JFK, and recheck them – all in a 65 minute layover.

I’m a superhero, so I was able to claim my bags and check in for my next flight with 50 minutes to spare, but then it took 15 more minutes to get to the front of the “bag drop” line (needless to say you do more than just “drop” your bag off) and it only went that fast because I cut about 20 people (yeah, I’m that guy). Just to reiterate the falsity of the “bag drop” statement the ticket agent spent 15 minutes checking me in. She couldn’t seem to figure out how to check in a bike without a bike fee (because I had already paid it in San Francisco). It took her 15 minutes, then she handed my bags to a guy and told him to hurry the bags to the gate. I took off and got stuck in a line for security. It wasn’t that long a line, and I made it to my gate 10 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave, but they closed the door in my face and told me I was too late. The next flight was five and a half hours later (well, there was one three hours later, but they canceled that one), which would put me into Rochester at 12:20am. YIPEE!

Right now I’m still in New York City. After writing an email to Jet Blue they credited me back the $50 bike fee, which I spent on a hotel in Rochester since there’s no way I was going to ask my host family to pick me up at 12:30 in the morning. I don’t even want to be there at 12:30am.

I complained to Jet Blue and they credited me $50 for my bike fee. That doesn’t quite make up for me not being in Geneva tonight, but at least they offer free wifi in their JFK terminal so I can write my war story for free. That’s kind of cool.

Hopefully when I get to Rochester my bike and bags and everything will be there and the cab ride to the Motel 6 will be quick and inexpensive and my bed will be not too hard and not too soft, but just right. Ahhhh.. I can’t wait to sleep tonight. Tomorrow is going to be an awesome day.