Blog – Page 53 – Ben Collins

Tinley’s and Tiburon Photo Journal

Thursday morning I arrived at the airport with my bike case prepared for a weekend of fun in California. I knew it was going to be a good weekend when the airline lady told me that the ticket was accidentally made in my mother’s name, but she wouldn’t mind changing it for me. This immediately flagged my ticket with SSSS, which stands for “Super Special Security Selection”. Then I found out that while she did change the name, my new name was “Denjamin Collins”, which the Quad S team thought was pretty funny. I thought this was a good travel story, but Chris Tremonte’s was far better. He can now tell you how to fly and rent a car when you forget your Driver’s license at home.

After a night in Tiburon with the Pokornies, Loren and I took to the road. It’s four hours from Tiburon to San Luis Obispo, but Loren drives fast. It was also pretty fun to play with my new Garmin Nuvi 270 handheld navigator. After race registration and a loosen up on the course, we went out for dinner with the girls from the Endurance PTC team, Kelly Couch and Lara Brown, along with Amanda Felder and Kelly’s husband, John (he’s a pro fan, if you ever want to know how to cheer, ask him.) I think the amount I laughed at dinner contributed a lot to how I raced the next day.

The swim was a two lap course in lake Lopez. I haven’t swam much in the last few weeks due to illness, and travel, but the training I did was focused on front end speed and stroke efficiency, and it paid off. I was able to pull away from the pack really fast. I swam the first lap with somebody on my heels, then backed off and let him pull me through the second lap. It worked beautifully and by 3 miles into the bike I was alone in the lead. A position I held until the last five miles of the hilly 40km course, when a school bus passed me, along with five cars and Greg Remaly. Going into the run I was 30 seconds back, after the first lap I was 50 seconds back, and half way through the second lap Matt Chrabot came by me fast. By the time we hit the last hill (massive) a mile later he had 30 seconds on me, but at the finish line, I’d closed back in some. I ended in third in my first non-drafting pro race, which I’m pretty happy with. I also won a check big enough to pay for my entry, flight, gas, and hotel.

Loren’s race was less successful. He ended up with a rock, the size of the tip of a pinky finger, embedded in his foot. He didn’t do the run, and instead spent an hour with a nurse digging into the open wound trying to get the rock out. (Loren and Chris didn’t have their race reports up when I wrote this, but I’ll update the links when they do.)

Back in Tiburon after the race we celebrated the quitter’s birthday with cheese cake, pizza, and wine. Three things that are not a big part of my normal diet, and the combination of which put me into a comma so deep that I didn’t even mind that I was forced back into Piper’s room for the third time in three trips (Somebody more important than me inevitably comes on the same weekend and ends up taking the guest house.)

Make sure you look at the slide show embedded at the top, it’s kinda funny.

Another First Time

This week I have another guest writer. Also a former Columbia swimmer, Ben Neuwirth (c/o ’06) is responsible for keeping me out of the 400 medley relay at my senior conference meet by being faster than me. While I was off crying in the corner, Ben pulled out a 48 low in the 100 fly and helped our team move up a few spots in the rankings. Ben was a transfer from the Banana Slugs – UC Santa Cruz, and he brought with him a California attitude (positive) and the quiet bluntness that could pull people right off their high horse.

Now Ben works for Microsoft, which I find amusing because he is the least nerdy Computer Science major I’ve ever met, and also knows less about computers than my 12 year old cousin. He lives with Jake Abbot, another CU swimmer (c/o ’07), in an apartment in downtown Seattle. Jake has been a Seattle resident for almost an entire month now, and was lucky enough to move here just before the nine months of gray skies and drizzle that makes Seattle the suicide capital of the world. He’s also lucky enough to spend no less than 12 hours a week commuting to Tacoma, which is the auto theft capital of the world (or at least the US).

A couple weeks ago Ben and Jake raced in the Kirkland Triathlon. I rode my bike there with Brian Davis to cheer on our friends in their first ever triathlon. What we saw was pretty funny from our point of view, so I thought it would be even funnier from theirs.

From left to right: Tobin White, Henning Fog, Ben Neuwirth, Jake Abbot, Mike Bentley, and some guy that sneaks into all our pics. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a picture of swimmers with clothes on.

Yo dude, here it is, better late then never. Sorry it took me so long. Let me know if it’ll fly for your blog. [it’s flyin’! – ben]

Kirkland Triathlon

On September 16, 2007 myself (Ben Neuwirth) and my roommate (Jake Abbot) participated in our first triathlon (the Kirkland Tri). Jake and I were not quite as prepared as we could have been for our first tri, but we were depending on our general can-do spirit to get us through the race.

Our alarms went off at 5:30am the morning of the race, and I immediately popped up and began cooking eggs/getting ready. Jake chose to take the more relaxed approach, and remained in bed until I reminded him that no one was going to win the race for him, he had to go out there and do it himself. Finally, race gear in hand, we were out the door and on the road, praying that we hadn’t forgotten anything important.

Arriving at the transition area, Jake and I began anxiously preparing for the race. Jake laid a towel out in front of his bike and lay down. About 5 minutes later he went off in search of a bathroom, but returned mumbling something about “No TP”. I stretched out a little bit and made nervous comments about the approaching inclement weather. About a half-hour before the start the race-director invited all athletes to the starting line for a pre-race pep talk. Jake and I declined his invitation, and continued our preparation. About ten minutes before the race started, a volunteer actually had to come over to us and kick us out of the transition area, saying if we didn’t go over to the starting line we wouldn’t be allowed to race. “Ahhh man,” we said, but began to disrobe.

Walking to the swimming starting line, one thing became immediately clear: we were in Speedos, and everyone else was in wetsuits. While on the outside we loudly questioned the manhood and testicular fortitude of our competitors, on the inside we were like “uhhh…crap, I wonder how cold that water is?” No matter, it was too late to turn back now, and Jake and I made our way down to the edge of Lake Washington. Toes in first, and then the ever-shocking groin region, we were in the water, and waiting for the send-off. Go! Continue reading “Another First Time”

Back to School

UW Campus

I’m always surprised my first day back at school at how little is accomplished and how much more work I have than I expected. I was only planning to take honors organic chemistry, but since I just happened to show up to that class two days early. Having already claimed the best seat in the small lecture hall, I had to find something else to do so that my time on campus was not wasted. “Why not sign up for biochemsitry” I thought…

When did professors decide that the first day of class should be wasted on the syllabus? If I’m going to catch a 6:30am bus so that I can ensure the perfect seat in a 650 person lecture hall, I want to experience a lecture worth of 650 people’s time. The way I see it, the quality of the lecture (Q), the preparation that goes into it (P), and the WOW factor (Wf) (which happens when you reach a new level of worldly understanding) should all be proportional to the total time that lecture consumes. Here’s the simple equation: Continue reading “Back to School”

B-Days, Travel, and my first day of School

Monday morning I woke up at 7:30. It was my rest day from training, so I ate breakfast and wrote my post about Sunday’s auction. After stretching and chatting with my parents I caught the 9:30 bus so I would be at University of Washington campus with 40 minutes to spare before my first class. by 1:05 I was the first person to Honors Organic Chemistry and I took the premier seat. It was the front row of the bleachers, with three rows in front, but no seats directly in front. That way the prof can see me, and will know who I am, but I’m not so far forward that my bobbing afro becomes a daily part of the lecture (after workout I tend to nob off). I was pleased with myself. A state of mind that is comfortable to be in, and which didn’t change until 10:27 when I looked up from my book to see that with three minutes I was still the only person in class. I opened my laptop and confirmed that I was in the right room number. I walked out to building entrance, and, sure enough, it was the right building.

You should have seen the look on the secretaries face when she explained to me that the quarter starts on Wednesday, and the reason nobody else showed up to class is because, rather than 30 minutes early, I had shown up two days before class. I wasn’t sure if she was dumbfounded at my stupidity, or impressed that somebody would up the anti to such a degree in the battle over prime seating in honors chemistry.

Sada and Piper

Tomorrow is Loren’s birthday. I’m celebrating by staying home from school for another day. Actually, I called him up yesterday because I’ll be skipping my second day of class for a trip down to California. Apparently B-Day celebrations are being held off a couple days, so Erica (the nanny) and I can join in.

For today, however, I’m gong to say “Happy Birthday” to Loren by sharing a story with everyone about the smallest of the Pokornies (plural of Pokorny).

In late July I was staying in Tiburon with the Pokornies. Geta’s mom (a.k.a Karen, a.k.a Grandma), Loren and I were working on dishes (by hand because the dishwasher was going to give us Botulism) while Greta showered Sada and Piper. There was an indiscernible shriek followed by laughter from the bathroom and a moment later Greta was calling Loren to come quickly. The moment would probably have passed and been put off as a family moment, but luckily Loren thought to share it with Grandma and me. Moments after disappearing from dish duty, Loren returned with a completely nude kid, and said, “Piper, tell Uncle Huli (That’s what they call me) what you just told me.”
“Piper, you’re making Uncle Ben uncomfortable!” I started edging out of the kitchen to avoid the nightly naked stamped of two and four year old girls.
“Piper? Tell Uncle Huli!” (Loren doesn’t give up easily.)
“I’M NEKED!!” (should be read as “NEEAEIEIEKED!!!!!!!!!!!” Listen to the audio link, and imagine this coming from a two year old blond girl with an afro and a multi-megawatt smile.)

She says it with such conviction. At the time her tone seemed justified, but we gave her so much attention for it, that pretty soon she was just flat out lying.

My last night in Tiburon we went out for Pizza. We were all exhausted from work, kids, training, racing, wine tasting, etc, so it was hard to devote the kind of energy a 2 year old craves. Piper (fully clothed) fought this by starting to scream, “I’m Neked, I”m neked” in the middle of the restaurant.
“Piper, your making Uncle Ben uncomfortable!”

No noise, no vision?

A woman bids in the silent auction

Last night I went to my first ever “silent” auction. I was a little curious how an organization for visually impaired athletes would conduct a silent auction. I figured, maybe the exhibits would have a recording that says what they are, or possibly you were allowed to talk only if it was to help someone read an item’s description.

Aaron giving a speech

The moment I walked in it was apparent that I had the wrong idea about silent auctions. There was nothing “silent” about this place. It was held at the Redhook Brewery in Woodenville, Washington. There was beer on tap, music, slide shows of CDifferent Athletes, raffle tickets, food, and a bunch of people bidding no-so-quietly on all sorts of sports apparel, jewelry, and memorabilia. Continue reading “No noise, no vision?”

Mike Bentley & First Impressions

This week I’m starting my first of regular guest written posts. I suppose Brian Davis’ posts are technically guest written, but he’s completely undependable when it comes to writing, so I can’t make promises for when I’ll have more of that.

This week’s guest writer is Mike “Party Boy” Bentley. Mike currently lives in his home town of Milwaukee Wisconsin. He is the only person I know that has found a way to graduate from an Ivy League School and maintain a professional engineering career, all without ever wearing a shirt. Mike was one of the few people that I trained with all four years at Columbia. We pretty much defined the IM group, and set a standard of (cough cough) ethical behavior for team travel events. One of my favorite memories of Mike when we were living together my senior year. I walked into the apartment and saw a few wires going from Mike’s room into the Bathroom. I don’t remember if it was curiosity or invitation that lead me into the bathroom, but when I got there I saw Mike sitting in the tub. Next to the sink was a 20inch computer monitor with speakers on top. He had filled his queue with an entire season of Arrested Development and sitting in the tub for the entire 10 hours it would take to watch it. Every 30 minutes or so he would drain a few gallons and add scolding hot water to keep the tub warm, and by the time I walked in his entire body looked like a prune (a pasty white one).

This week, Mike writes about how he started racing triathlon, and more importantly, why he stuck with it.

First, I’d like to thank Ben for giving me the opportunity to post on his blog. [nobody else made the deadline -ben] I’ve known Ben since our freshman year at Columbia on the swim team [we had to share a bed in Aruba…awkward -ben]. He’s making all of us “Lions” proud. Ben asked that I write a little bit about my experience with triathlons, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I started swimming when I was probably about 8 and continued swimming right up through college season, peaking at about 20 hours a week of training. All I knew about training was that you show up to the pool, on time and do what the coaches tell you, and you’ll become a better athlete. Sure enough, this worked and I achieved some moderate success in the pool [He’s modest. -ben]. By the time my senior year was rolling around, I knew that I had to start thinking about continuing athletics in my post-collegiate career. I’ve seen too many friends go from toned athletes at their prime to coach potatoes. I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

Triathlons seemed like the logical step up from swimming. I was already proficient at swimming and biking and running didn’t require any hand-eye coordination (I was never any good at ball sports). The only problem I saw with triathlons is where to start. I didn’t really know anyone who did triathlons, I didn’t know there were clubs, I wasn’t exactly ready to hire a coach over the internet. A met up with a friend of mine who I swam in high school with and he told me that he was doing a triathlon in Wisconsin and that I should give it a shot. I thought, now was as good a time as any and signed up for the race. Fast forward a couple weeks to my arrival at my first triathlon. Holy Nervousness!! It was like I was 10 again and going to the State Meet.

I felt horribly out of place. Here I was, standing there with my 4-year old mountain bike, a borrowed pair of bike shorts and jersey and a deer-in-headlights expression. I didn’t know much about bikes (I still don’t), but I knew that everyone else there had better equipment than I did. All the bikes looked so aerodynamic, the athletes so toned, their shaved legs shining in the morning sunlight. I tried my best to act confident, but it felt like everyone’s eyes were on me while I was wheeling my bike through the transition area to my number. “They must think I’m such a chump” I thought. I overheard some of the guys nearby talking about how they bought the new Dura-Ace rear derailer and were able to shave a couple grams off their bike weight. I was so in over my head. It still only got worse from there.

As anyone from Wisconsin can attest, most lakes stay pretty cool all year round. I didn’t have a wet suit. I was only armed with my stars-and-stripes speedo. So there I was, swim cap, goggles and speedo in a sea of wetsuits. Now I knew everyone’s eyes were on me. I lined up in the back of my wave, thinking that I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. My goal was just to finish the race. Once the gun went off I found out, although a lot of these guys looked the part, they weren’t all that fast.

Fast forward through the race (nothing special, just swimming, biking and running)… I ended up finishing the race in the top ten percent of all the athletes. Not bad for my first race, I thought. I’ve done about 10 more triathlons since that first one, improving a bit on each one. I finally got an entry-level tri bike and have spent much more time running. Interspersed with those triathlons, I’ve also done some mountain bike races, duathlons, 5k’s, 8k’s and cyclocross races. I have pretty good aerobic conditioning and am able to “muscle” my way through most of the races and have had consistent success. I usually am able to finish within the top 5%. Even with this success though, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m the odd-man out and all the other competitors know it.

I wonder if everyone else feels the same way. Maybe they’re just as nervous and self-conscious but mask it better by discussing bicycle components. Maybe they really are interested in bicycle components.

Regardless of the nervousness I feel in the transition and at the water’s edge, I always see kindness and respect out on the course. One of my favorite aspects of triathlons is when you pass (or in my case, get passed) on the bike or the run, it’s pretty common to hear “keep it up” or “way to go.” With words like those, even newbies feel at ease.

Healthy and Focused

My core subscribers are in an uproar. I’ve been ill for the first time in over two years. Brian’s wife, Marijana, said something nice to me. I think the world must be turning inside out. The past week since I returned to the US I’ve been taking a much needed mental break from competition, and I think it has shown in the lack of substance on this site. For this I apologize. I’m back into training now, and I’m as focused as ever. You can expect to see this reflected in my writing.

This week I posted on Slowtwitch. For some people in the tri community this is a normal occurrence, but I tend to avoid it. The ST forum includes an intelligent mass of knowledge, and many diverse opinions are represented. That’s a great thing, but it’s also what turns me off of the site. Here’s an example:

This week I wanted to buy a bike case for travel. On my trip to Europe I used my Physical Therapist’s soft case (Mike Rogers is a pro cyclist, USA Cycling coach, as well as an MSPT, but not much of a web designer), and a hard, clamshell case from Speedy Reedy. Both were imperfect. The soft case was really easy to pack, just take the wheels off and turn down the handle bars, strap the wheels to the frame and your done. Easy as banana bread (I know because i made a loaf today). Adding in extra stuff requires finesse, but it’s no harder than loading the dishwasher. The downside: it’s a soft case and that makes me nervous. The hard case, on the other hand, was a horrible pain in the butt. You have to remove the seat, the pedals, the handle bars, the dÃ©railleur, and the wheels. Then you add padding so all the loose pieces don’t rub together, and finally you figure out how to fill the empty space around the frame with just enough clothing that the 30 lbs box with the 17 lbs bike doesn’t break the 50 lbs limit of the airlines. It’s more like washing dishes by hand for the freshman cafeteria. After about an hour of placing, replacing, finagling, and fiddling with the contents of the box you will be left with a 3 foot stack of padding, bike, clothes, and wheels all sticking out of half the clamshell. To get the other side on, you have to squish the pile by commissioning your out-of-shape relative to take a nap on the lid while you snap the ten separate clasps. Forget to put something in? Leave it behind, it’s not worth opening the case up again. Think the hastle is over after you’re done packing? Think the soft case loses it’s advantage now? Wrong. The soft case has four wheels, and when you get to a set of stairs, the entire thing weights 40 lbs tops. The Iron Case (should be named the lead case), went cheap on wheels and only has two. I managed to put about 70lbs in the case, and it was about as much fun to carry around as a two year old in Cancun on spring break.

How does that tie into slowtwitch? Despite the fact that 80% of the pros I saw in Poland were using the same soft case, and despite the fact that it’s the official case of the Discovery Channel team and USA cycling, I still wanted to hear from somebody who could reassure me that my bike will not be damaged, and that there is no better option out there that I haven’t considered. There were several threads on the subject, but never a good conclusion. All I found was hearsay, which doesn’t help me make a decision (Anything that costs me more than a plane ticket to someplace nice requires me to research the hell out of it.). The only strong opinions were from product reps who undoubtedly love their own product. I went onto ST to find a resource of educated opinions and left feeling like I’d wasted my time.

In the end I called a company selling the two different cases I was looking at (both made by Sci-con), and he talked me out of the super expensive hard case, and back into the same soft case with four wheels that I used in Europe. The rep had used both, and had some real opinions based on fact. His answers were exactly what I had hoped (but failed) to find on ST.

Don’t take this as a bashing of ST, it’s not. I enjoy reading posts and putting in my two cents when I know something helpful, but sometimes one sure sounding guy on the other end of the phone is way more helpful than 100 people giving their two cents.

——

I’m also back swimming with the U of Washington masters team, which is pretty fun. Yesterday a guy showed up with Olympic rings on his shoulder, and true to the tattoo, he kicked all our butts for the 1500 yards he stayed in for. Brian and Marijana were there too, and after we worked out, Marijana said, “I think I missed you.” Which may be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me. I was worried that I was losing some fitness in the water from the past couple weeks, but Brian’s lack of fitness made me feel much better. About half way through the workout he started asking Marijana if she was ready to be done, and making sure I knew that he had only planned to do part of the workout. He told me, “My heart is going to explode!” and for once I really believed him.

Safeway supports schools

If you shop at Safeway, check out your receipts for this month and next. Safeway will donate 10% of eligible products to a school of your choice. If there isn’t a school that you are particularly fond of, my Alma Mater, Garfield High School (school ID 5000005658) could really use the extra cash.

You just enter the number on the receipt and presto, school gets cash. If you don’t do it, it’s like stealing the money from the school and giving it to a giant corporation (I’m using “like” very loosely.).

As an aside, I’m feeling better today. I’m about to go ride run and swim before pigging out on my friend Peter’s birthday Trifle. mmm…good.
(Just to clarify, I’m referring to the 3rd definition of Trifle, and not the first two, which would undermine the importance of Peter’s brithday.)

Recycle

I was just looking at the GU website, and I found that they have a pretty cool program to encourage us not to litter our empty packets. Save up all your old gels and mail them in, for every 10 you get a free new one. Or if you’re not quite as frugal as me, but still don’t want to litter, pick up those empty packets and hand them to me the next time you see me (plastic bag appreciated). I’ll gladly return them (and keep the reward.) Oh, and they don’t care if it’s a GU or a Hammer Gel, or a Clif Shot or a Power Gel. It just asks for empties.

Also, for all the Kona qualifiers out there, don’t forget to sign up for your free GU goodie bag. $200 value. (I’m not sponsored by these guys, I was just really surprised to see this because I thought Hammer and Clif were the only companies that boasted environmental love.)

Ok, enough for the free advertising. Moving on to this weekend’s eventfullness.

I’m joining a cycling team here in Seattle. The next two months there are “meet the team” rides every Saturday morning, and this week I joined 1st Rate Mortgage. It was a lot of fun, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never ridden the Mercer Island loop quite so quickly.

Saturday I went out with some friends to an art show that was taking place in a condemned Motel in the part of town where motels charge hourly. It was pretty cool. In one room they had ripped out the ceiling, poured dirt on the floor and made a campfire (complete with s’mores!). Another room had a human sized spider web to crawl through, and yet another room required us to remove our shoes and walk barefoot on beach sand around a room that featured a video of an aquarium and random pages from a woman’s diary (it was eclectic). There were more exhibits, but they’re harder to explain.

After the show I called it an early night, but apparently not quite early enough. After riding in the rain to watch the Kirkland Triathlon on Sunday my sniffles have turned into a cold. It was worth it though. Two of my Columbia Swimming teammates, Jake Abbott and Ben Neuwirth were competing as their first triathlon (I heckled them as they sat on the lawn to tie shoe laces and change clothes after the swim). I also made a point on Saturday of trying to make Chris (three time Kirkland Champion) a bit nervous by leaving a message on his phone saying “Hey Chris, I’m back in town. Looking forward to seeing you at the race tomorrow, it should be a fun one!”. Chris is the nervous type before a race, so I figured he needed something to sweat about. Apparently it worked.

Tomorrow I get back into training, so I’m hoping my throat and sinuses clear up soon. I still feel like I have Polish “food” in my system.

My favorite workout

This month I was featured in the “My Favorite Workout” column of Inside Triathlon. I wrote the workout, but Melaina Junti (Staff Reporter) wrote the introduction. I knew she was a cool girl when I received my first email with the subject “love mail” (Ok, so maybe I force you to use that subject on my contact page), and she referred to me as “Dude.” I didn’t realize how cool until I opened the magazine she sent me and saw what she wrote:

With an engineering degree from Columbia University, aspirations of med school and a multi-megawatt smile, Ben Collins is quite the catch. Add the 2007 USA Triathlon age-group national championship overall title to his pedigree and it’s a wonder the 24-year-old isn’t swarmed by women – yet.

I need to update the “about” page on my website, can I just use this intro? Oh, and Melaina, do you have any plans Friday night? Dude?