Last week the ASU Tri team headed to Clemson, South Carolina for Collegiate Nationals. This is our teams main event for the year, and by far the most fun/competitive race out there. Special thanks to our Sponsor Tri Scottsdale for their generous donation. It's not cheap or easy to take a decent sized group of people across the country for 5 days, and we really appreciate you helping lift some of the financial stress off of our team!
Lake house = amazing
We left PHX on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in South Carolina Just after midnight. After a quick run to walmart to grab the essentials....
We finally arrived to our prestigious rental house. It was about a 10 minute drive from the airport. We had 11 people staying in our house, and there was more than enough room. It was significantly less stressful than staying in a hotel. We could all sit around in the living room, on the porch, at the dock, ect. and just hang out. Another major benefit of renting was that we got to cook dinner and save some money.
Just one of a billion bedrooms... 4 bunk beds and two bathrooms
Yeah, we were stoked to be there
It wouldn't be a normal race if I didn't have a bike crash leading into it. Two weeks prior to the race, I was making a very shallow turn into a parking lot on campus to meet our team for a brick workout, and my wheels slid out from underneath me. My derailleur hanger was bent, and ego was bruised...
As if one bike incident wasn't enough, I figured I should probably borrow some race wheels. After some brake compatibility issues, I decided to order the new tririg omega x brake. After a Facebook message and some google searching I concluded that it would indeed fit my bike and leave me with enough room for the massive 808 rear I was borrowing. The brake was shipped to Clemson so that it could be put on the bike by the Raceday Transport mechanics when we arrived in Clemson.
After a lot of fiddling and trouble, we concluded that the 808 was simply too wide to fit within the tririg brake, and that the center of the tire would still rub against the middle of the brake. Luckily, my teammate Andrew has an 11 speed p2, so we switched wheels and brakepads so that he would have the rear 808 and I would have his shimano training wheel. I wasn't exactly stoked to find out that the brake still didn't close on the right spot of the rim. We decided to file down the pad to ensure that there would be no rub on the tire, which took about two hours.
Pretty #aero
As you might be able to tell, I've got #bikeprobs
Before we knew it, it was friday, and the draft legal race was going on. There were some really impressive performances, but I thought that Josh Fowler from U of A had a great race. He was really agressive on the bike and really made sure he put himself in a position to run well (and did just that).
On Friday I also picked up my packet and found out that I would be starting in wave 2. USAT had allocated slots based on team standings, and since ASU wasn't ranked in the top three teams in the conference we had been given no slot in wave 1. This wasn't ideal, since I would have no idea where people actually were, and wouldn't be able to work with some of the strong bikers (or so I thought).
These guys came through big time
After we finished fridays open water swim and run, we went back to the house for dinner and to check out our competition in the Jaybird Journey to Nationals video contest. UVA had an awesome video this year, as did SDSU. Sadly, we didn't take home the cake for the #3peat, but there were some great videos this year!
Saturday morning came around, and everything felt like it was in place. I was pretty nervous and tense, but Steve's coach Mace came over and got me pumped up and ready to go. Seeing Erica from U of A win the women's race was so awesome. She is incredibly strong on the bike, and has no problem keeping up with the dudes.
Erica smashed it
I lined up at the start next to Willie from CSU, just like at Havasu, and prepared mentally to be smashed 1/3 the way through the swim. We took it out hard, and by the turn buoy there was a solid string of people. A group of two was pacing about the same as me, so I hopped over to a hip and grabbed a draft for the rest of the swim. With about 200 to go I started to push to try and get around some people who might be fading and get a clear line out of the water up to t1. I got out of the water with David from U of A, who I have exited the water with at literally every single race this season now.
After Mace got me pumped up for the race
Just before heading out onto the bike I looked over and saw Jack Toland from CU in hot pursuit. After getting on my bike and putting on my shoes I immediately put the hammer down. I wanted to make riding with me seem like a suicide mission. After around 7 or 8 minutes Jack caught up to me and made a pass. We road through wave two, and by 15 minutes in, we had already established around a 1 minute gap on the rest of our wave. The pace didn't feel too crazy, and I took the lead again while going up one of the climbs. This years bike course was significantly different than last year. There were two pretty significant climbs on it that forced me out of the aerobars and way up the cassette.
Chasing Jack
As we made our way to the top, the leaders were just beginning their descent. It looked like a Sunday group ride on TT bikes, and everyone was yelling at each other to stop drafting. In some ways it was expected, but still upset me because earlier I had talked to Jimmy Richatello (head IM ref) and he said that the 3 bike lengths rule is pretty much a joke. he explained that you can still save 30 watts by sitting 3 bike lengths back. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, 30 watts is about equal to 1.5-2.5 mins, or ~1mph. In the team captains meeting the day before we had been told there would be 7 motos out on the course. I saw zero.
Throughout the second lap I faded a bit. Jack put about additional 7 seconds on me at each turnaround, and by the time we got off the bike he was ~20-30 seconds up. Half of my fade was probably due to the effort during our first lap. We had hammered pretty hard. The other half was me trying to not completely cook myself before taking one step of the run.
Out onto the run I took a minute or two to settle in. I knew that the leaders would likely be starting their second lap while I was going onto my first lap, so it would be a good chance to try and hang on to some feet and make up time with a pacer. Right as I came down the hill onto the main road, Dan Feeney from CU (who runs very fast) hit the turnaround to my right. At Havasu he went by me like I was standing still. On this Saturday, I decided to leave my brain at home and go for it. I ran shoulder to shoulder with Dan for the entire first lap, passing a bunch of people who were riding the struggle bus. Looking back, though, that's how I would like my second lap of the run to feel, because shortly thereafter.....
Holding Dan's feet
Smiling, because now there is photo evidence
I was feeling good and feeding off the crowd all the way until mile four, and then I started going up the hill and my legs started to completely unhinge themselves. Was it nutrition? No, I wasn't cramping or anything. And I took a gel and BASE Salt. It must have been pacing. The speed of the first lap combined with the heat meant that I was either going to pay the price of slowing way down or die trying to maintain that pace. Long story short, I chose the second option (trying to keep going the same pace) and pushed my body farther than it's ever been before to the point where I actually fainted at mile 5. Thankfully, there was an aid station near this spot, and a volunteer quickly got over there and got me to the med tent safely.
Looking back at it, I am brutal not a very smart racer when it comes to run pacing. I tend to start well beyond my limit and then fade hard as opposed to start at something that feels comfortable and will eventually become hard and let my perceived effort build. As one of my old goalie coaches JJ would say "You're in a hurry to be horses**t". I want to feel the pain of the 10k right away, and it always ends up coming back to haunt me at around mile 4 like clockwork. I also need to increase my run volume if I want to be able to maintain that speed throughout the course. The last true "long" run I did was in March, and before then it was in August. We've really been focused on speed, and while I've proved that I can run a 5k at a decent pace, at the end of the day it's still a 10k run. I haven't done the volume to warrant running Tim Don-like #dirtyfast speeds for the entire run.
#TheDon
Even though not finishing is a hard pill to swallow, I am still happy with how my race went up until implosion happened during the run. Special thanks to: Sammy, our swim coach, and Danny our bike/run coach. Without you guys I wouldn't have any idea what to do, ever. The ASU Tri team for being great training partners and teammates. It has been awesome bonding with everyone this year, and I'm looking forward to next year already! My parents and brother for listening to me complain about my #bikeprobs and being my personal consultant on what I should do for pretty much every situation and keeping me in check. Erin, our president for all of her hard work this year. Our team has grown exponentially because of you, and you nailed it this weekend with our nationals planning. Dmitry, thanks for coming with us, looking forward to doing Lemmon with you this weekend!
Candid shot by the lake
BOULDER 70.3
Going into Boulder 70.3, having enough volume in all three sports, fueling properly, and following a smart, negative split effort pacing strategy are going to be the critical elements in focus.
