Pumpkinman and Season in Review

“I’ve been working on my stabilizer muscles in the offseason”

Last weekend I capped off my season with the Pumpkinman Triathlon in Las Vegas/Henderson/Boulder City (not sure really how to label the location for this race). This race holds a special place in my heart because it was my first Olympic distance race and it is an epic hard course. If GCN made triathlon videos, there would probably be one about this race because it’s pretty dang cool.

I had some great training leading up to this race, including a high altitude training camp in Flagstaff with the ASU Tri team (it was epic). You can stalk my training from that weekend here. There was no reason for me to count myself out as a player in the race. My goal was to prove to myself, and my competitors, that I belong towards the front part (not necessarily off the front) of the race with a really competitive field and can be consistent across the board in a swim-bike-run exercise contest.

Squad about to crush Snowbowl

Swimming with the ASU Tri team, biking with power and using it to push myself, and running with Andrew (4:25 mile pr) have really helped me step my game up. After reading Lionel Sanders’ blog on kona lessons, I learned quite a bit about the importance of variance within training. The main lesson being that you don’t need to simulate races every freaking workout.

I do it way too much, and eventually the body doesn’t want to adapt to that stress and it hits limbo. I’m gearing towards instead of going at “race effort” or “race watts” or “race pace” all the time that I just start letting myself go crazy in training when I want to, then seeing what happens, then applying what I know my body is capable of doing during a race instead of trying to calculate values I’m supposed to train at. Obviously there is a general baseline I can go off of that I have already established, but instead of limiting myself in training sometimes I need to go crazy, and that’s what has been great about having training buddies these past few months. They push me even when the clock says I’m going fast enough, and at the end of the day that’s what makes me go faster.

blah blah blah trainer road blah blah blah

Using a power meter coupled with trainerroad has probably been my biggest weapon, and it’s always motivating to have something tell you to go harder, which is probably one of the reasons my cycling has improved (and I can hold aero for like 19 billion hours now too). I still have a ton of room for improvement on the bike, and until I can bike well under 56 minutes for a 40k I won't be satisfied. Next year, as my season progresses, my goal is to not limit myself and hold back during training. I think that a shift in mindset away from being uber calculated in training and racing into using my data instruments as tools for improvement and measurement will bring me a lot more enjoyment from the sport and let me push my limits more. I will still train hard, but with more varied intensities as opposed to “Race intensity” or “easy” so that I can develop all the ranges of speed necessary to be a well-rounded triathlete and compete at a much higher level.

Now to the fun part: Vegas!

We left Tempe on Friday at around 12, and arrived at the hotel just before 5. After a quick run, Andrew and I headed to packet pickup, very inconveniently located 15 miles from our hotel (which was right next to the swim start… thx BBSC). After that, we got some food from Teryaki Madness, then dropped our run gear off at T2 since it’s a point to point race. I made a last minute decision not to wear a visor or hat. In previous races I felt like I was melting alive under it, and I had just cut my hair on Tuesday, so I figured it was time to give the bald running look a try. More aero.

We had a quick team meeting going over all the basics for the newbies and then went to bed.

Race morning:

When I woke up I was freaking excited. Like way more jacked up then I was for Tempe when I felt like I could have just gone back to bed and forgot entirely about the race. I was excited to test myself on one of the toughest Olympic courses and see what my body could do. I had a quick run, ate some rice cakes with peanut butter/banana and a picky bar with some Gatorade. The weather was literally perfect. mid 60s with no wind. I can handle that J

Swim: But did you die though?

Equipment: blueseventy fusion, brand new mirrored goggles, Troy’s swim cap (sorry dude), and a bunch of rocks embedded in the bottom of my feet.

This was without a doubt the most violent swim of my life. I think people were practicing their mashpit skills for the Vegas clubs on Saturday night during the start. I got kicked, punched, hit in the nuts, you name it, it probably happened to me (but my goggles somehow stayed on). Within a few hundred meters I started to get past the cloud of blue caps and made my way towards the main pack. The buoys were like three feet tall, so it was pretty much impossible to sight. Which sucked.

Honestly, I was trying so hard but they were so dang small! Within 8 minutes I was sure that I had absolutely screwed my race, having redlined it for that whole period, but I carried on, stopping a few times to try and find buoys. Eventually I got to the halfway point and told myself “yep, I’m swimming a 25 today”. I made it through to the end, and got out and heard Nic yell that I had a great swim. I looked down at my watch and saw 21:30ish. I was pretty psyched, given that I though it had gone awful, but I knew that I had to start preventing the lead swimmers from putting any time into me on the bike so I could hopefully run some of them down.

Bike: Managed to not blow up, didn't get any cool pictures

Equpiment: Salsa el gogo, Zipp 404’s, quarq power meter, and rudy wing 57.

As usual, people were absolutely redlining it on the climb out of transition. I kept my power steady and just relaxed. Pumpkinman is a really hard course, and I knew from my experience at Pac Crest this summer that redlining it out of transition is like lighting your matchbook on fire. I swapped a few times with some athletes, but I found that most of my time make ups were coming from the downhills. Being able to push consistent power kept my breathing steady, and let my legs get used to the rhythm they’d have to maintain for the run.

They didn't even get a bike pic of me in the race so this'll do

Instead of crushing souls on the little hills I tried to just maintain a smooth pedal stroke, drink, stretch, stand, and keep consistent power. It’s a lot easier to put out more power going up a hill, so instead of focusing on crushing it I let my body do the work and stayed as mentally relaxed as possible, reminding myself that there was still a 6 mile climb at the end. By the turnaround I knew I was having a great ride. I had a brief lull from 45-1 hour where my power dropped. I just got a little tired, told myself to harden up, then kept going. Seeing all the ASU kits out on the course made me realize how much our team has grown this year. My bike split was pretty good by my standards (until I saw some of the others– holy crap). I put a gap into a lot of the people behind me, but still made up very little lost time to the race leaders (all except Dmitry were from CU).

Run: Almost made it without dying

Gear: ASU Sunglasses, NB 1400s, garmin 910, custom back zipper.

I know that my body tends to like to overheat, so I needed a cooling plan for the race on the run even though the weather was in the 60s. At each aid station I grabbed three cups of water. One down the pants, one to the face, and one down the back. This helped a ton. I did my best to keep my Crowie face, and just maintain the rhythm as long as I could. About 1.5 miles in Jesse Frank, a solid runner from CU came by me. He put about a 15 second gap on me, but I was determined to make it stick right at that. I felt great up until the turnaround aside from some slight ab cramps that went away after one mile.

Doing my best Crowie "Terminator" impression

I hit the turnaround and realized just how uphill the rest of the race was. I put together a solid pace for miles 4 and 5, and was beginning to fatigue a lot, but was determined to finish strong. At mile 6 I started to get dizzy. Once I hit about 500m to go I hit a wall. I just couldn’t go fast anymore. I tried to sprint the last 500 in and speed up but my body wouldn’t let me. I ended up coming in 12^th overall in a pretty dang fast field. I am happy with the result, but more happy with how the entire season went as a whole.

Being able to cap a season off with a pr swim by over a minute, pr power on the bike (15 minutes longer, and 15 watts higher than LT Tempe), and a PR Run that could have been even faster if I could have closed better was pretty cool and not something that many people get to experience. So I decided to celebrate by laying on the grass while everything was spinning in circles and pouring water on myself (there was no med tent). Special thanks to Jesse Frank for stopping my garmin and carrying me off the railing on to the grass, you’re a classy dude, and had a great race!

After waiting for all our members to finish, we got some chipotle and went down to our hotel (the Venetian) and celebrated a great finish to the season in Las Vegas. Next up: I’m going to be taking at least two weeks super easy, with minimal running. From what I’ve heard/seen from creeping on pros stravas this is necessary in order to maintain resilience and not burnout. I’ll be volunteering at IMAZ (Run aid station!) so come give the ASU Tri team a shout. If you’re interested in winning a $500 gift card to Destination Kona Tri Store you can sign up right here - message me for payment info if you have questions. Also - if you're interested in buying an ASU Tri shirt or kit or whatever check out our shopify page. It should be updated shortly J

We brought out quite a few people this year :)

Lake Mary in Flagstaff 

Met an olympian and world champ in the same day!

A few of us went to the pool

Average run in flagstaff

Thanks for reading!

Getting Dunked on by the Sun

About a year ago I completed my first triathlon at Tempe Beach Park and it was probably one of the coolest things I’ve done. I was hooked. Last weekend I got to go back and do the Olympic distance race, and compete against some of the top athletes in our conference (CU wasn't there, though). I knew it would be a good test, but I also knew I had to pull out a solid race and defend our home territory since the race is literally on our campus. The swim is in the grosses body of water on the planet, the bike course is pretty technical, with 6 U turns on it and a bunch of corners that can make disaster come fairly easily when 8 billion people are doing their first triathlon ever (me last year), and the run course burns people to death.

So here’s how the lead up to the race and the race itself went down:

Training lead in:

After Lake Stevens in August, I took about a week to recover and get my bearings back. It sucked, but eventually I felt pretty solid again. I have been seeing steady improvements in my swim still, probably because our coach makes us swim fast all the time (so when you swim fast you go faster) so that’s always nice to see. My bike has been good, but I placed it on the back burner and kept it cooking, but moved my run up to the front. I have been doing around 2 track sessions per week, and have never been running this fast. One day is a hard bike run brick and one is just running.

These sessions always get the best of me

These bike-run sessions have helped me control myself when my heart rate skyrockets during a race, and I hope they can pay off big time come spring when I want another key set of improvements on the run. My bike has still shown progress, but not at the rate my run has in the past few weeks. That said, my focus heading into Tempe Tri was to stay a little conservative on the bike and then smash the run. In hindsight, I do some of my best running after absolutely ripping my legs off on the bike, so maybe this wasn’t my best idea, but I was still focused on nailing the plan.

Race morning:

I had struggled to get sleep all week, so getting up at 3:50 to go for a quick run and breakfast was not very easy. This was the first race I’ve ever been tired the morning of, which probably shows that I should have gotten more sleep leading up into it. My stomach also didn’t feel very good, and I prayed that I didn’t poop myself at any point during the race (thank god I didn’t!) I felt surprisingly good during my warm up, and then got tired again and my stomach started hurting. After setting up my transition, I went over and helped some of our new athletes set theirs up, and make sure everyone had enough pressure in their tires. Then some lady stole my pump, which made me angry, but I didn’t have much time to wait before my swim start.

Probably the funniest thing that happened all morning was getting a massive tear in the bottom of my swimskin (right in the butt). Sammy said “pull it up a little higher” then I heard a big ripping noise, and was like “crap that can’t be good” – wore it anyway, and it still probably made a difference in my swim. Thanks, Pedro (and check out ambitiontri.com).

Swim:

While I was peeing they decided to start the race… Cool guys, thanks for the 30 second/15/5 second count down! Really appreciate it! Honestly, it was brutal. I was in the second line of swimmers, and got quickly kicked in the face a bunch of times because I had no idea we were about to start and couldn’t get in position. I made one of the packs chasing down UA uber-swimmer Dmitry Baer (out front by about a minute, I was down 3.5 coming out of the water to him). I found some UA kids to swim by and just stuck to them. Sighting for the entire first half was a disaster. The sun was awful, but we managed to hold a pretty straight line. I thought I had burned too many matches at the swim start going out too hard, but I ended up hanging in just fine, and got out of the water with a decent size group. Two other ASU athletes got out of the water ahead of me, so that was pretty cool to see them in transition.

Heading out into transition

Bike:

I was able to get settled in fairly quick. I didn’t have a set nutrition plan (which I probably should have) and got going and kept it comfortable. The first lap Felt pretty easy, and I made a few catches within the first 10 minutes. After that, it got slightly harder, but nothing unmanageable at all. Looking back, I could have biked a lot harder, but then again my focus was to stay relatively conservative on the bike and make up for it in the run. I knew since I had worked pretty hard this week my legs would only be able to handle about 1 hour of max effort before I would die, so I tried to just keep it smart and smash the run.

Can't wait to get the new Rudy Project helmet!

I still have nightmares of the pac crest race, so I tried to be more conservative toward the beginning this time. The biggest mistake I made on the bike was my failure to hydrate. Normally in a  1 hour training session I will drink at least 1.5 bottles, but during the race I had about .5 bottle, which is not enough to keep up with my abnormally high sweat rate… If I had hydrated properly I probably could have not experienced what happened during the run…

Run:

Heading out on the run. Gotta start the garmin perfectly ;)

I freaking bolted out of transition (epic picture here) and held a really good pace for the first four miles. I caught everyone, and ran myself into 1^st place in the collegiate division within 4.5 miles. I had never ran this fast for this long, so it was sort of an experiment to see if I could hold it. At mile 5 my legs started to slow down a little, and my turnover dropped off a bit. I put my head down and told myself to suck it up. There was literally one mile left. Then I went through the last aid station, just before the only “hill” on the course. People were screaming, but I just wanted to lie down and take a nap. I ran up the hill, and got tunnel vision. I can vaguely remember hearing the slapping of my feet and thinking “this isn’t good. I’m probably going really slow right now”. I ran the last mile in around 6:30- way slower than my first 5, and shuffle-sprinted my way in.

I say shuffle sprint because apparently I was shuffling for like 10 seconds, then I would pick the pace up pretty good, then blank out again, repeatedly for like the last two minutes. I fell over at the finish line, and was escorted to the med tent (nothing unusual here). It got really hot out during the run, and I didn’t consume enough liquids on the bike to keep me going throughout the run at my desired pace, and I paid the price.

My stride didn't look this good 30 seconds ago, but i'll take it.

Post race:

I got my crocs stolen at Nationals last year (maybe they’ll read this and donate) so I was stuck wearing jorts and our sweet new QSW Tech tee for the awards ceremony. I want to thank everyone on the ASU Tri Team and all our sponsors for their support, and also say congrats to all the newbies who raced. They all did awesome!

Collegiate mens podium, see you at PMan Colin and Jeff!

Next up:

I’m racing Pumpkinman in Las Vegas. This is my target race for this falls Olympic build, so I’m excited to see what I can do if I nail my race plan (not be peeing when the gun goes off, go a little harder on the bike, actually drink enough, and go fast on the run). On a side note, if you are interested in one of our ASU Tri tech tees shoot me an email at emantell@asu.edu and we’ll get you all set up J

Catch ya at the races!

Summer Recap and Lake Stevens 70.3

Wow, summer went by fast. Hopefully I can say the same thing about this coming school year.

A few months ago my dad and I took a road trip up from Tempe, AZ to Bend, Oregon. I had heard good things about Bend, and it did not disappoint at all. For the first few weeks I was in awe at the awesome riding, trails, and the great pool. But most of that was covered in an earlier blog post.

Thanks for coming out Mom and Dad! 

I had an awesome time this summer interning for PickyBars, and got a ton of hands on experience. It was cool to have so much responsibility and actually have a (minor) impact on the company. Also, I got to see how Amazon works from an sellers perspective, and who doesn’t love amazon? Getting to know all the people who worked there was the cherry on top, and it’s obvious that the people who work at Picky Bars like their jobs a lot. They taught me how important attention to detail is, and that building solid relationships with the right people means a lot more than getting a big contract with Walmart.

My parents signed me up for Lake Stevens 70.3 as a birthday present way back in June, so I had been targeting that race all summer. It was my first time tri-ing the “half “ distance (and first time ever running more than 12 miles in one run). The race was on one of the toughest courses in the US, with over 3500 feet of elevation gain on the bike and another 500 or so on the run. I like this because it (sort of) prevents me from shooting for goal times on each segment and makes me focus on racing smart and saving it for the last 10k, when its going to hurt the most.

My parents rode their bikes from Seattle down to Portland, then picked me up in Bend on Friday and we headed up to Washington. We got caught in traffic jam after traffic jam, and it was brutal. What was supposed to be a 6 hour drive turned into a 10 hour drive, but eventually we made it to our VRBO, about 10 minutes from the race course.

The day before the race I was pretty stressed out. I used some of my tactics from goaltending to calm myself and get ready for the next day. I had trained as much as anyone, and knew I was ready to put out a solid effort for the entire duration of the race if I was smart from start to finish. This race turned into the focus of my summer after a blow up midway through the bike at pac crest. If you want to analyze my training you can check out my strava.

pretty foggy out there on race morning

Race morning I got up around 4 am (wave goes off at 6:49) and ate my go-to breakfast of rice, banana, and eggs. And another banana. And a picky bar. I ate this before literally every single swim this summer (which means at least once per day) so I figured my body was used to it at this point. It made it from point A to B to T relatively quickly, so that was a relief.

Even though they talk about the importance of the swim warmup, Ironman only gave us a 3 minute swim warm up. So I decided to go for a quick run before hopping into my wetsuit and getting in the water with 70 of my best friends.

The swim:

This portion of the race went exceptionally well for me. I had heard about a line on the bottom of the lake that follows the buoys perfectly, but didn’t believe it until the day before the race when I actually swam the course and saw it. That, and all the buoys were on my left, so I could sight super easily and breath to my preferred side at the same time. In training I practiced starting fast then settling into pace, so I was ready to do that in the race. I knew I’d be going fast to begin with because of adrenaline, so instead of trying to force my body to go harder I just went with the effort then settled in to a solid pace.

It was tough to sight sometimes because it got so foggy that you couldn’t see the buoy that was 30 meters in front of you. I had to stop and find the next buoy a few times to make sure I was staying on course. But that’s life, and everyone swims the same course. At the turn around I had a feeling I was at the front, but didn’t want to look back. To my left was Curtiss, following the buoy line, so we swam the entire back half together. Curtiss and I both raced pac crest – and the dude is fast. On this day he topped me, and ended up coming in 3^rd OA and winning 25-29. Going out of the water I wanted to see if I had gotten completely dropped on the swim. My parents hadn’t been expecting me to come out near the front so weren’t ready with the camera, but shouted that I was in 4^th AG coming onto the bike. Strava here.

Onto the bike my heart rate was high (but I messed up my garmin and bike computer so nothing was showing up for time, just heart rate and cadence). I learned at pac crest how important it is to realize how hard your body is working and not forcing anything out of it 30 minutes into a 4.5 hour race. I spent the first few minutes getting under control and building.

Steve had told me that a few people were going to go smash the hills right away, and that by mile 40 they will be toast. He was right. I went up the first hill with my heart rate around 170, which meant my body was working even if it didn’t feel like it. Dudes on road bikes were flying by looking at me like I was a slug on the side of the road. Then on the descent I kept my pace up, but my heart rate dropped to 150. Go time. While they sat up on the descent and let their legs rest I got to work, and set out on a steady pace.

I road with a target heart rate around 160. I knew from training that I could maintain that effort for a few hours and keep the same power output, so I was going to stick to that on the flats, uphills, and downhills. Not that heart rate is perfect, but until the quarq comes in (this week) I’m trusting my body to be consistent. On the uphills I set a few limits for myself not to go over so that I didn’t work too hard. It’s really hard to stay in control when you feel like you can go harder but I trusted my training and my body to go at the correct effort throughout the bike portion. By mile 40 I had moved into 2^nd place, and was making my way up the field. I felt great, but knew there was a lot of pain coming (the back half of the run) so I made sure to keep it under control and not go too crazy.

I spent most of the bike focusing on nailing my nutrition, choosing the appropriate gearing for the hills so I wasn’t blowing out my knees, and thanking volunteers. There was a lot of bike course support and it was well marked. They did an awesome job making sure that nobody went off course despite it being pretty technical. I probably could have biked faster if it had been an “easier” course, but I still really liked the bike course. It kept you honest, and if you hammered for the first three hills you would regret it for the rest of the day.

Two of my favorite things: Biking and eating

For nutrition I had two bottles of powerade (cheaper than skratch), 1 of water (Aid station) 1 pack of gu chomps, and 3 powergels. I would take a chomp and a sip every 7 minutes. Keeping tabs on how I felt and making sure I hydrated even though it was cold. I practiced it a lot during training, and it really paid off. Strava here.

Getting off the bike I couldn’t feel my feet at all. It was cold on the bike and I wasn’t wearing socks. I put on socks for the run, grabbed all my junk, and headed out onto the two lap, hillier than expected course. Since auto multisport had gotten messed up after the swim (probably my fault) I had to turn my watch to start a new segment. I looked down and it was 5:30 pace. That’s way faster than what I can hold for a half marathon, so I tried to force myself to slow down. Running a mile in the 6:30s never felt so easy.

Struggling to put on my belt

I felt great the first lap, and used the downhills to make up some time. The run course was way hillier than I had expected. I took a gel at 3 miles and 10 miles, and water at every aid station. There were a ton of spectators out on the course and they were super encouraging when things got tough after the first lap. I heard that I was 2 minutes down from the lead guy, and at my current pace I would catch him. I kept it steady, but it felt harder and harder (as it should). Within 2 miles I caught the leader. I sat behind him at his pace for a bit to rest and get ready for a surge. I blew by him and put it a hard 30 second effort. The idea was to completely trash him and make him not want to chase me down. It worked, and I heard him fade away and I hung on for dear life until the end. Strava here.

Start of the out and back in lap 2 - lots of pain

Around mile 11 my splits started to drop off into the 6:50s, but I held on and ended up winning my age group by around 2 minutes. It’s crazy how when you start the run going fast feels so easy but after a few miles it can really come back to haunt you. I felt a little dizzy after the race, and tried to take a nap on the pizza table, but it was a lot better than the pac crest and I had made a smart, strong effort. I executed my race plan, stuck to it when it got hard, and I’m pretty psyched about the result. This couldn’t have been possible without the help of my brother, parents, and Picky Bars.

obligatory post race med tent visit

I’m excited to be coached by Frank Sole of Sole SwimSolutions for the coming season! He has a great reputation, and I’m looking forward to learning from him and getting faster. Thanks to our sponsors: QuestSports Wear, Tri Scottsdale, Destination Kona, and Rudy Project. Next race is Lifetime Tempe (in the beautiful waters of Tempe Town Lake) followed by Pumpkinman in Las Vegas in October.

Good luck at IM Louisville Curtiss!