It's almost August?!

Blogs: The thing I start writing at least once per week, then either decide it’s a little bit too PG 13 to publish, or forget to complete it. Since beginning a full time job, it’s been tough for me to keep all of my thoughts in order on where I’m at, where my racing’s at, etc – and I haven’t done a good job of writing it down. It seems like we’ve suddenly went from January to June without the pesky months in between – and my road bike still doesn’t have a crankset on it, the outdoor 50 meter pool is open, I’ve switched my rides from inside to out, and the treadmill is a long lost memory.

Me every time I begin a blog

My race season did in fact begin with a bang, as I blew up real hard! I was feeling fit and wanted to test myself with another ocean swim, so decided to hop on the Oceanside Start list for a good pounding. I still haven’t quite nailed that beach swim start, and Oceanside’s start wasn’t nice to me. Within about 5 miles on the bike I had managed to eject both of my water bottles with all of my calories minus one gel, and was still riding like a crazy guy who hadn’t raced in like 10 months and didn’t realize how terrible a ½ IM can be without nutrition. Long story short, I blew myself to pieces in the first 70 minutes of the bike, then cramped for the remainder, continuing to neglect nutrition. Off the bike I could feel that my legs were not in a position where continuing would be healthy, and I had salt stains all over my kit. I decided to run moderately for a bit, then jogged around to the aid stations and got all of the free snacks I could before pulling out of the race. It sucked – but was an experience I probably needed.

No pics from Oceanside bc I'm lazy

After Oceanside, Emily and I headed to Phoenix for 5 days. Phoenix is not only where her grandparents live, but also where my boy Conrad lives. We exercised non-stop for the entire trip, and it was awesome. Conrad also was racing St. George next – and I was glad to be able to hook him up with a homestay for that race!

I can't get this picture of us to rotate, but you can turn your computer/phone upside down to enjoy Delicate arch in Moab!

St. George went a lot different. I was able to get back on the chase pack in the swim, but then biffed the T1 and almost lost my shoe doing a mount. I could see the giant train of people I wanted to be with dropped by (including Kienle, hoff, etc.) and watched them ride away from me. I made sure to keep the power on the pedals, but for whatever reason wasn’t really crushing anyone on the bike. Eventually, Trevor Wurtele rolled by me, we caught up to Paul Stevenson (who had a slightly better T1 than me despite me swimming on his feet the entire time) and I decided to stick with them. I knew that if anyone was going to have a smart race at St. George, it’s probably going to be the guy who races there religiously every year, and the pace didn’t feel hard. I also remembered how terrible Oceanside was after mile 30, and the elevation profile of the St. George run course doesn’t exactly lend itself to someone who has overcooked the bike. I ended up losing some more time in T2 taking a pee, but ran my way back into almost 14^th after losing in a sprint finish. First time under 1:19? Yup. If I can do it at St. George, I guess I can probably do it anywhere now, right?

OMW to a 1:19 and change run... Emphasis on the change...

After St. George, Conrad trekked back up to Salt Lake and we did some more exercising together!

Another adventure took me out to Los Angeles. It was an interesting dynamic, with a work trip to Vegas on Thursday-Saturday, then driving out to LA Saturday night for a race Sunday Morning. Missing the "pro" meeting was inevitable, but luckily I knew a few guys racing so arranged for Robbie Deckard to have me on speakerphone while I sat in the car heading out of town. LA Traffic is no joke... I spent way too much time trying to figure out where to park, and still ended up paying over $40 just to be parked in the same spot for one night, despite having a $40 parking voucher...

Since I didn't go to a pro meeting for this race, here is a picture of me at one

The race was point to point, so I dropped my T2 bag off the night before and got some subway for dinner and picked up some muffins for breakfast the next morning. Herbalife was nice enouogh to hook it up with a room at the JW Marriott - so that was cool. I did a little splash in the hotel pool and convinced myself I was ready to ball out and swim with Ben Collins (which I wasn't).

The race took a while to start because of some road closure delays, but then again, they were closing down 20 miles of 4 lane road so I can't really complain. Once it began, it was pretty chill.  I swam with the group, and then biked with Paul Stevenson. Until I hit a rough patch of road and ended up with a pinch flat in my back wheel. Luckily, a stranger on the side of the road who happened to be spectating handed me his rear wheel, and I only lost 10 minutes on the change. Also it was an 8 speed wheel pumped up to about 20 PSI (not super great for making U turns or riding down hills, but better than walking 15 miles). I was bummed that the race had a wheel sponsor, but couldn’t seem to throw together enough brain cells to have an actual wheel pit for the race. Lesson learned on my end, and I’ve got an appointment setup to turn my race wheels into tubeless monsters! It was great to be able to just finish the race – and despite a not great “result” on a day where my legs would have been able to maybe do something good, I didn’t scrape my cornea like I have before, so I guess that’s good?

Ron doesn't wear a cape, but he is a baller.

The next event I participated in was CDA 70.3. Many of you will remember this as the race where my femur said “naw” and I limped a few miles in and then collapsed and then didn’t run for like 5 months! I’m happy to announce that I did successfully complete the race, ran 5 minutes faster than I did with a messed up leg, and broke 4 hours on a pretty damn tough course. I also have an awesome homestay up there that make the trip so enjoyable, and luckily Emily decided that she could come too, which also made the trip a lot less stressful! 

Race morning was pretty early, but now that I'm a full on corporate dude, early mornings are pretty normal. We were allowed to swim warm up, and also got  to enjoy one of the best part about WTC Races: AN ON TIME START! Seriously, it's mindblowing how many races that aren't standardized end up having delays from 5-30 minutes at the beginning. About 200 meters in someone decided that my goggles no longer belonged on my face, and decided to remove them with a swift blow to the head. This forced me to stop and tread water for a second while I put them on, and really pissed me off. I sprinted back up to the group I was in, desperate to not have my race ruined by that particular jacka*s who definitely did that on purpose. I managed to get out of the water just a little bit behind where I would have liked to be – but probably where I “belonged”.

Happy to see Trevor's butt

Through transition, I saw Andrew Talansky and a few other strong cyclists like Nathan Killam and Trevor Wurtele, as well as Robbie Deckard who also happens to have one of the dirtiest runs in 70.3 (which he put on display later). After not messing up in transition I sat directly behind Talansky for the first 25 miles of the bike, thinking “wow this is so easy”! My power file agreed. Sitting 2 wheels back might be easy, but try sitting 5^thwheel behind some BIG guys, and you probably save around 50 watts even at the legal distance… Then, Andrew Talansky decided to show us just exactly how he placed top 10 at the Tour de France, and dropped us insanely hard. I was still feeling pretty solid, and was able to bridge from 5^th wheel to around 3^rd with Robbie, and we managed to catch another one of our buddies Timmy. For the rest of the ride it was pretty uneventful. Nathan rode away from us while I was distracted, and by the time I realized we were getting dropped it was definitely too hard to bridge back up, and I knew that I would be better off conserving my energy in the group, so after a brief tenure off the front I soft pedaled at 150 watts back to the group, which took a surprisingly long time to catch me (kinda regretted not sticking with that move). Then Jon came by and I had another chance to get a golden ticket back to Nathan, but was not feeling super great and was running low on water so decided to not push my luck with dehydration. I botched a few (5) water bottle hand ups at the down hill aid station, and was definitely feeling dehydrated while rolling into T2 (cramping, etc).

Ref's checking out my legs

Over this year I’ve made slow gains in my tactical decisions, and this race I definitely made a few mistakes that could have cost me anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 seconds, but I also made some great decisions that gained me a few. At the end of the day, as long as I keep trying different things and they keep working, I’m pretty happy with it! On that note, going into T2 at St. George I was in last position of my group, vs at this race I made a note to be in the front. I nailed that, and then was also one of the first guys in the group to hit the run course. At St. George, I couldn’t pee on the bike so stood there and lost over a minute while I peed myself in transition casually chatting with some volunteers. At this race, I decided that I’d either end up peeing myself while running (wait, aren’t you dehydrated?!?!) or pee myself at the finish line. I took out the run pretty hard, which it’s easy to do when your GPS isn’t functioning and you know you’ve got guys coming in HOT behind you! My legs felt terrible, but I had faith that eventually they wouldn’t feel terrible (haha right…). I saw the local tri team from salt lake had a cheering squad (BAM) and they recognized me and gave me some cheers, which was greatly appreciated. At this point, Robbie already had somehow run like 40 seconds into me (probably less than a mile in) and I was thinking about the finish line. I was passed by Kevin Portmann, who was breathing a lot harder than I usually am about 2 miles into a hard run, so I chose to let him go.

Turn your phone again for full effect

The course in CDA is pretty honest, considering all of the spiky hills and twists and turns, and I knew that my legs were not huge fans of running dehydrated, so I tried to keep them from raising their little white flags and giving up. My position stayed literally the exact same until mile 9, when I could tell that I was closing back in on Kevin, and then could also see Justin Daerr painfully close and definitely targeting a pass on me. Ugh. My legs still felt like at any second they were going to just cramp up, and that I would go from running sub 6 miles to 9 minute miles, so I decided to back off a bit and make sure that I didn’t fade insanely hard. I caught and passed Kevin fairly easily and gave myself a mental pat on the back for knowing my body and not being an idiot 10 minutes into the run. About 3 minutes later Justin passed me and I knew it was going to stick, because my brain was starting to get fuzzy and My legs were also starting to feel like 400 lb bricks. I backed it off slightly more, and told myself that if I still felt OK in 2 miles, then I could push for the last 800 meters and try to dig it back and catch him off guard. I crossed in 10^th, about 20 seconds or so behind Justin and 20 ahead of Kevin. I also jogged so I could finish with a finish time of 3:59:37 because 37 is my lucky number which I also stole from Steve..

Robbie dropped me less than a second after this was taken

Post race, I kicked myself for not sticking with Nathan or Jon on the bike. If I had simply hung with them, I could have had the chance to place 7^th if I executed a slightly better run (then Nathan also might have run faster…). Either way, I still would have walked away with $0 in prize money and $0 in sponsor bonuses, and a net loss on the trip, proving how priceless the lessons you learn in this sport can be .

Having fun post race with Emily. Huge thank you to our homestay Nid and David! I even drank a beer...

Up next on the agenda is 70.3 Santa Rosa, followed by Boulder 70.3 the next weekend!

I have to finish this by saying thanks to everyone who has supported me so far this season - my Family, girlfriend Emily (and her family), friends (especially Conrad), homestays, GU, Intermountain, and O.C. Tanner!