The past few weeks have been filled with lots of training,
racing, homework, and of course, froyo. I was recently offered an internship with PICKY BARS,
an all natural, gluten free performance bar company based out of Bend, Oregon.
Obviously, I accepted, because who wants to live in Phoenix during the summer?
Exactly. Oh, and Bend is a great location to train for triathlon (the CEO Jesse Thomas is a professional triathlete).
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| Yeah, science! |
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| My new backyard :) |
A few weeks ago I traveled to Duncan, AZ with the ASU Cycling Team for the Javelina Chase Road Race. The town was "all in" with the
race, and they did a great job organizing it and making it fun for everyone.
They even let us sleep in the local high school gym the night before the race
so we didn’t have to pay for hotels. It was a 50-mile race, which is the
longest race I have ever done, and it was a blast. If you want to analyze the
data from the race yourself check it out here.
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| Congrats to Nick (1st) and Conrad (2nd - not pictured) on a great race! |
The beginning of the race was a little sketchy, so I made my
way to the front of the group, and sat there at a moderate pace up until we hit
the hill. Once we hit the hill, I just tried to keep my speed and cadence up.
The whole group was going pretty hard and it was a lot of fun to battle for
good positioning within the group. After the hill, we took off and had a solid
pace line going to stay away from the people who got dropped on the hill and
were trying to catch back on. One of my tri teammates, Nick, was an
absolute workhorse during the entire race. He went on to win the sprint finish,
while I cruised into 3rd place collegiate (10th overall).
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| Our group heading up the hill |
Shout out to the whole collegiate B squad, who worked
together super well and ended up with a complete sweep of the podium (1-5). In other Cycling Team news, we were named ASU Club Sport of
the Year. Hopefully, along with this recognition form the university, we can get
some additional funding J
This past weekend I raced the Marquee Triathlon. Any time you get to sleep in your own bed the night before a race
you are pretty dang lucky. After camping in Havasu, and sleeping on a high school gym floor in Duncan, my own bed felt pretty nice.
Lifetime requires that you check in your bike the day before
the race at packet pickup, so I brought my fresh TT bike (thanks Alec) down there and racked
it up next to all the carbon bikes with disc wheels that cost over $1000. It’s
always cool looking at other people’s fancy bikes.
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| Armed security guards watched our bikes overnight |
The night before the race we had a team dinner at Oregano’s.
Hanging out with the team was great, and we have bonded a lot since the beginning of the year. We were missing several people who were racing SWCCC in New
Mexico (a cycling race - obviously their priorities are questionable).
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| I wonder how many filters Andre put on this... my guess is at least 3. |
RACE MORNING:
Since my wave went off at 6:34, I got up at 4 to get a quick jog in and eat breakfast. I went with my brother’s pre race breakfast from before Havasu of
rice, almond butter, and bananas all mixed up – it obviously worked for him,
since he won that race. It was actually really good, and you should probably
try it too if you want to win ;). I then headed down to the course, which is
only about a mile from my apartment, and set up my transition area.
THE SWIM
One of the cool parts of this race is that some of my
classmates from lifeguard training class were lifeguards for the swim portion
of the race. After warming up, I went over and said hi. The first 200 is always
a mess. I went out easy, and was about mid-pack at that point. By around 400 meters in I had
made my way up the field, and it was me and a few other guys in the front.
I wish I knew who they were, but it’s a swim, and you can’t really talk to each
other during that point of the race.
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| Beautiful Tempe Town Lake |
Normally, the sun would make sighting in Tempe Town Lake
around sunrise really difficult. fortunately for us, it was cloud, so finding the buoys was easy. I kept sighting, thinking I must have gotten dropped by a
big pack, but there was nobody in front of us. I was shocked and really happy
with all the improvements I’ve made on the swim. I ended up getting out of the
water in second place heading into transition, which I was super psyched about.
THE BIKE
Trainer road has to be the best bike investment ever.
The plan I’ve been following called for some pretty rough workouts this week
past week, so I wasn't sure how my legs would do. I passed the other guy in T1, and I knew they would all be trying to chase me down on the bike so I needed to get going pretty fast.
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| What a TR workout might look like |
The first lap was awesome. There was nobody on the course in
front of me, so I could hold my speed through the corners. I built up a solid lead on the bike, and hoped it would carry through
onto the run. One of the cool parts I liked about the bike course was that all
along Rio Salado there were a ton of pedestrians cheering us on. It’s so much
fun racing when people are watching.
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| Crossing the Mill bridge on the first lap |
The second lap was a mess. Since all of the sprint waves
were now out on the bike course, the roads were overpopulated. It’s something
that everyone has to deal with. I was able to keep a solid speed on the
straight sections, and pretty much spent the entire time on the left side of
the road racing my own race. The corners were tough, especially when someone
cut me off pretty bad heading onto the Rural Bridge. I ended up doing both of my laps on the bike course in about the
same amount of time.
At Havasu, I was on a road bike with clip on aero bars. But this Sunday, thanks to Alec Trip and some kind people on
Stevebay, I was able to ride a time trial bike (more aero) and get a sweet deal
on an aero helmet (you probably got a snapchat of me wearing it).
I felt super fast because of the TT bike/helmet, and obviously looked really
cool too. I am confident that the combination of bike racing, trainer work, and the bike/helmet upgrades contributed to me improving my bike split by over 3 minutes.
THE RUN
I had a quick T2, and headed out onto the run course: 2 laps
around Tempe Town Lake. Shout out to the volunteers who handed us
water, Gatorade, gels, and clif bars on the course. You guys rock.
I had no idea what my miles splits were when racing, I felt slow. I was in a lot of pain, and it wasn’t just from the
bike. It was one of the hardest 5k’s I’ve ever run. The second lap went a lot
better, and I started to have some endorphins kick in, blocking out some of the
stress. I ended up holding even splits through the two laps, but feel like as a whole my
run could have been faster.
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| Definitely felt it on the run |
OVERALL
The race was a ton of fun. Marquee was intended to be a test
to see how ready for nationals I was, and I feel pretty good about how it went
down. I won the 20-24 age group with a time of 2:08:11 (looks like I’ll be eating rice, almond butter, and
bananas for breakfast again) and came in 10th overall.
Congratulations to Pedro Gomes, a local professional triathlete, who won the race and
then biked SOMO after to "shakeout" his legs. Nearly everyone from ASU tri made it on the podium, which was great to see. You can check out official race results here.
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| Congrats to Travis, right, who competed in his first triathlon! Great work! |
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| Great to be on the podium with ASU Tri Alum (and star of ASU's journey to Nat's 2014 video) Gabi Wasserman. Also, check the footwear ;) |
WHAT’S NEXT?
The next couple weeks will be spent getting all my homework
out of the way and training for Collegiate Nationals, which is in Clemson, SC
on April 24/25. I’m looking forward to racing with the other athletes from all
over the country and representing ASU.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments you have in the
section below. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
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