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!

Moving to Utah!

As many of my billions of loyal followers are aware, I have recently moved to Salt Lake City, Utah! There were quite a few motives for this recent move, but the biggest one is quite well summarized by a song “get a haircut” by George Thorogood. I heard it about a year ago while watching the Orica-Scott backstage TDF videos, and thought it was hilarious. One line in the song is even “get it together like your big brother bob” – which is funny because my big brother does “have it together”. I’m currently at phase two of the song, where I am trying that 9-5 scene… Maybe someday me and my rock and roll band will “hit the big time” and I’ll be “10 times richer than my big brother bob” – but I’m not going to hold my breath.

The move started a few months ago in June. After Pacific Crest, which my girlfriend Emily and I road tripped up to from Colorado (a solid 19 hours each way…), she realized that she didn’t want to go to PA school. The applications for PA school, as some of you may know, require more than enough personal information, essays about why you want to be a PA, and generally speaking, are not standardized. This means that every single school you want to apply for, you must specifically tell them why you want to go there. Then if selected, you have to go out there and interview with them, and sell them your soul. If you think that this application process sounds pretty stressful, you’re right. Now imagine getting accepted, then having to commit the next few years of your life to actually becoming a PA… Emily realized that she was more interested in actually doing science with her degree (Biological sciences), than becoming a PA and talking to random people about their mysterious bodily growths on a daily basis. She applied for a job at the SMRTL drug testing lab at the U of U, and was accepted the next week. She committed to starting in August, and before we knew it I was faced with possibly the easiest decision I’d ever have to make: Do I go or do I not go.

Big Cottonwood With Emily 

This past year has been pretty rough for me, and I’ll probably delve into more of that in future blogs depending on my mood when writing. But to summarize my once “friendly roommate”, let’s call him Patrice, decided that I was burdening him by him letting me live in his spare bedroom and pay him monthly rent, and that I didn’t deserve to be treated like a typical human since my name wasn’t on the lease. I was verbally abused on a regular basis, and eventually I left one weekend when he was visiting his girlfriend in Vail. I had contemplated moving out several times before then, but never really pulled the trigger on it until I came home that weekend and he had a friend staying in his bedroom that he didn’t warn me about, while he was out of town. I almost called the cops on the person thinking they had broken before I realized they were his guest. Trust me, I’d love to be making this up.

@ The Pool. 50m outdoor, 25yd indoor 

The next month, I was welcomed in by a great retired air traffic controller and his wife who works as a nurse. They allowed me to stay in their basement for the month, and I felt safe again. Patrice didn’t know where I lived, and I was happily out of a terrible living situation. I had planned on moving in with a Co-worker, Dillan, and a few guys from the CSU Triathlon team in May. We began our lease on May 1st, and the house ended up being a giant train wreck. There were hella bugs everywhere in the basement, and with everyone out of town for the summer at internships, etc. I was the only one living there for a lot of the summer. The yard, which we were told would be cleaned and landscaped for us, was a giant weed fest, and we weren’t even given a lawn mower (LOL). Oh yeah, and it didn’t come with a washer and a dryer. These landlords were CLASSY…

My job was barely paying me enough to keep me afloat. While getting discounts on shoes is sweet, not being financially stable is less sweet. I began trying to court a sponsor to help with my triathlon/financial endeavors, but nothing seemed to bite. Maybe I just didn’t have it as far as they were concerned. After all, I haven’t really had any great results that say “Wow that kids gonna be a world champ someday”. One of my main points of pride is on working hard and doing things the right way, but maybe this just wasn’t going to be and I wouldn’t be able to make it in triathlon. I realized that my most valuable asset was not my triathlon skills or social media abilities, but my college degree. I value risking it all for doing something you love, but my bank account was approaching the point of no return if I didn’t get it together and make a big change. Sitting around and waiting for someone to bankroll me to get to the races wasn’t working, and working part time paid me enough to train, but not enough to actually go somewhere and race!

The view from directly outside our apartment. 5 minute ride straight to the mountains... 

Emily and I decided that long distance wasn’t really our cup of tea. There wasn’t really a point of me staying at my job that I was barely surviving at, when I could get another job that paid the same in Salt Lake City as a worst case scenario. We found a sweet little apartment in the Millcreek area, and have settled in nicely. I began applying for jobs and exercising full time (spoiler alert: my last race of the season ended up getting cancelled). It was nice finally getting to exercise as much as humanly possible, and knowing that there would eventually be a light at the tunnel.

Big Cottonwood, again 

Before we had moved, I began applying for jobs in Salt Lake City, and found that there were significantly more companies willing to look at my resume than in Fort Collins. Despite several distinctions that I would consider significant on my diploma, I felt like I was never truly given a chance to legitimately use my degree in Fort Collins. Most of the jobs required you to start with a base of an amusing 30k, then “work your way up the system”. I didn’t get a college degree in Supply Chain Management to work in sales. And I honestly hate sales anyways… So despite a few interviews for that role out in Salt Lake, I kept looking. In Salt Lake my resume was valued a lot more, and I found myself being responded to by a lot more employers. My bank account was teetering on the brink of extinction, when I finally got an offer from a real Supply Chain Company out of West Valley City, and they gave me one day to respond... This didn't seem fair to me, but I was getting desperate for something in real supply chain! It seemed like an OKAY enough fit, the commute wasn't great, but they had a few coffee machines on site, flexible hours, and unlimited PTO with a decent 401k match. I’d probably take it if I didn’t find a better offer!

You should see what it looks like inside 

The next day I got a better offer from my current employer, O.C. Tanner. The company has been around for longer than you and me combined, and the people here are passionate about what they do. The company produces employee rewards, and among other things, we made the medals for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. We have an insane 401k match, regular profit sharing (which means we actually turn a profit), and a great company culture. There is a casual dress code, gym on site, my manager is awesome, and most of all, they seemed really happy to have me here. The commute is literally 5 minutes from my house. A lot of you might be saying “well I thought you weren’t about money”. Well, I am a little bit about money…. In 25 years I don’t want my kids to say “dad, why can’t I go to college X” – and I want my response to be “because your essay sucked”, not “we couldn’t afford it”.

Unlimited coffee too!

I enjoy life here in Salt Lake City. The pool opens at 5am, leaving plenty of time to get a 10k set in before getting to work at 8am, we have an on site gym, an amazing trail system less than 10 minutes from our apartment, and without a doubt the safest cycling I have ever experienced! The roads are beautiful, the cost of living is cheap, the weather is relatively predictable, and my roommate doesn’t hate me. If you had told me about a year ago that this is where I’d be I’d tell you you’re nuts, but isn’t that how it always works? I’ve got my haircut and real job now, but life is a lot better than it was before, and I’m glad I did.

With all of this said, I'd like to thank the people who have helped me out along the way on this journey. My parents, siblings, Emily, my imaginary friends that I talk to when I'm bored, my bff Conrad, and coach Elliot Bassett (i'll talk more about him in a future blog, but he's a lot better than your coach according to me).


Thanks,
Ernie

--

Ernie Mantell
Purchasing Analyst - Indirect Spend and MRO




1930 South State Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84115
office 801.4XXXXXXX (you're crazy if you think you're getting that number)

Escape Surf City - Get rekt

Last Sunday I raced Escape Surf City in Huntington beach. It was my first experience racing in the pro field, and it was a great experience. Although I didn’t have the race I was hoping to have (As you can probably tell from the results - emphasis on the swim) I did manage to learn a lot about myself and how pro racing works in the process, which is probably more important than crushing it at age 22 (almost 23 OMG).

But first, I owe you guys a life update, since you probably care about that ;). Since my last blog in October, quite a bit has happened. In December I went up to Minnesota for a week for Christmas, and then headed down to Tucson for a few weeks of training with my coach Elliot and friend Conrad. We hopped in to some workouts with the MCTC winter training camp, which featured some athletes from CSU, ASU, and of course, U of A. There was a speech from Hoff (idol), and some good meals.

On the way home, I began writing a blog so I could fold my tray down on the plane in my battle for legroom with a dude who was at least 6-7 and decided it was OK for his knees to spill in to my personal space. Training camp went smoothly, and my run build was going pretty well. I was starting to get pretty fit, and I was feeling really strong in all three sports in February.

In March, I suffered an injury scare. I immediately called my doctor, and saw her within 48 hours. She believed it was a stress fracture in my 5^th metatarsal (outside of foot) based on how it felt and, but wanted a bone scan to be 100% sure. I took my anger out on the Source Endurance cycling camp, riding 420 miles in 4 days with some really good bike riders, and it was super fun. Within a few days, my foot didn’t hurt at all. When I had the bone scan done, it showed absolutely no damage. I celebrated by having to completely build my run back three weeks before the race J. Being injured sucks. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider just quitting triathlon and getting a job or trying to get good at bike racing. Nobody wants to talk about this stuff and how hard it is when you are just struggling to get to a start line, and it’s very hard to find the motivation to train. Fortunately, I didn’t quit, and I committed to doing my best at Surf City, even though I would be in over my head with the competition (both literally and figuratively).

Super proud of myself here

Before I write about the race, though, I think it’s important (and relatively funny) how much of a shit show I was heading in to it, and all the dumb mistakes I made along the way so that hopefully you don’t do these too. I did my best to cover it on my instagram story, but there were certainly a lot of things I left off for my ego’s sake. I also want to say thank you to the UCLA Tri Team (specifically Hannah Grubbs – good luck at Nationals next weekend!), Matt Stewart (UCLA tri alumni), and Cory Schillz (Wattslayer69 operator, full time sender, part time student, legend, and SDSU stud also good luck at nationals next weekend), and Cory’s parents Patrick and Glenda for helping me navigate LA/Huntington. They fed, clothed, and sherpa’d for me all weekend long, and I didn’t spend a single dollar eating out at a restaurants with the exception of using a whole foods gift card for lunch one day.

I originally planned on being picked up from the airport by Cory on Thursday, but he wasn’t able to get out of class, so I ended up Staying at Matt’s apartment near UCLA on Thursday. I rode my full race setup (not advised) to the UCLA pool, arrived only 30 minutes late to practice. After the swim, I realized I only had a cycling jersey, so I got a UCLA TRI “breakfast burrito club” shirt, and then was guest swiped in to the dining hall. It was fantastic. That evening I realized I wasn’t going to be getting picked up the next day, so I began to look up how expensive renting a car was so I could get down to Huntington – about an hour drive. Luckily, AAA members receive 15% off on hertz rentals, and also can dodge the under 25 rental fee, which saved me a total of $27 a day. In the end, I spent $111 + about 30 on gas in order to get too and from Huntington beach. If had picked up a rental from the airport, the daily fee would have been about $50 higher, making me feel like a sly genius.

LA traffic is terrible, and I was scared out of my mind that I would get crashed in to. I didn’t, and safely arrived at the beach around 10:30. The waves were about 2-5 feet tall, and I went for a quick dip in the ocean, trying to figure out how to get through the waves. I quickly realized that the start of the swim, usually the most important part in a triathlon in terms of positioning, was going to be very difficult. I don’t have Cam Dye’s take out speed, I also didn’t grow up surfing or beach lifeguarding, have never done a beach start before, or raced in the actual ocean (just missing bay, in water start, no waves). Come race morning, I was going to be in over my head both literally and figuratively. The field was really fast, and full of strong swimmers, and the ocean swim does not suit my skill set.

First world problems 

Honestly, there was so much stress due to travel, phantom injuries, and other stuff that I won’t talk about here leading in to the race, that getting to the start line was a solid W for me. After being dropped off and setting up my transitions, completing helmet check, etc, I headed down to the beach with my coach Elliot and Erica (3^rd in the women’s field) for a warm up jog before heading up to warm up in the ocean. The waves didn’t look terrible. Until they did. At like 6:20 as we lined up in the start corral, I could barely see the white buoys they set up (genius), and the waves were looking pretty damn big compared to the ones I had been practicing in the past few days. They were anywhere between 3-10 feet, depending on the location, with the current blowing towards the right. Being the dumbass that I am, I lined up on the right side in the front row. I knew that everyone was going to run directly left right at the start, so I figured I’d just hop on Cam’s feet and draft the entire race, drop him on the bike, then run a 29 minute 10k. That last sentence was sarcasm.

The gun went off and we ran in. Basically everyone face planted after hitting this small 3 foot gap in the sand. I stayed with the group for about 15 seconds before getting thrown backwards by a large wave. After collecting myself, I could see them about 50 meters ahead. Then another big wave came and sent me backwards again. I looked up, trying to breath, and realized that I had definitely messed up, and was definitely going to have a big gap coming out of the swim. I’m ok with getting dropped by cam dye in the water, but getting dropped this way was very defeating. My surfing skills definitely needed some work, and I was like 200 meters back to the front group 400 meters into the race. And all of those guys can already swim faster than I can, so whatever hope I had in coming out of the water in a group was shattered...

This picture made it in to the LA Times! pretty sick

I expected about a 2-3 minute deficit to Cam Dye, but due to my ocean/surf inexperience, I was now looking at about 5. Sick! Later on I learned that lifeguards had to make about 60 saves… I don’t think the swim time is a reflection of my swim, but it happened, and I wasn’t ready to get destroyed by some waves and just didn’t get under them in time. Shit happens. That’s racing sometimes...  Thankfully, I will probably never have to deal with that bad of a deficit again, considering that Cam Dye, Eric Lagerstrom, and Ryan Fischer are three of the bests swimmers in triathlon. And they all can surf better than me.

The run out of transition was long, and Elliot gave me a split and just told me to ride as hard as I could. He was very encouraging, and I really needed that after getting destroyed in the water. Once the shoes were on, it was time to mash. I saw Cory (Wattslayer69) and he screamed at me to mash. I put my head down and event to work, slowly picking off people. It hurt. My power meter kept dropping out so my numbers weren't beautiful, but I could also tell that my legs weren’t fantastic. The name of the game on this course was staying aero and keeping the pedal to the metal. It is super flat, the roads are smooth, and there are 4 turns. The stagger rule was in effect, so I basically did the entire race on the left side of the road to avoid getting a penalty. I tried to keep my speed as high as possible, but faded pretty hard about 30 minutes in. I switched bottles to the one that had a gel in it, and then came back to life about 10 minutes later. I ended up with a pretty good bike split, which makes me happy considering it wasn’t my finest hour (still better than the swim tho…). If I had great day on the bike, I might have gone about 30-60 seconds faster, which would have put me in the exact same place on the standings.

On to the run, I actually felt really good right away. I decided to run without a watch and just go by feel since this was my first time running fast for more than 1 minute in over 3 weeks…. So basically it was a test to see what I could do with minimal volume/intensity. Although my run time isn’t super fast, I would say it was solid considering the circumstances! I stayed conservative, and ran by feel. There as also a quarter mile section with sand that I definitely jogged. With 20/20 hindsight, I could have pushed the run significantly harder. I stayed within my comfort zone until like mile 5, and then realized I still had a good amount in the tank, but was just scared of blowing up! After a few years of bonking HARD during the run and switching to a more conservative strategy, I think it’s time to start pushing it a bit more and taking it to that next level around miles 0-6.2. It’s very hard to place in the money when you run and swim 4 minutes slower than the next guy, so maybe I need to start pushing it a bit more and taking more risks as opposed to playing it safe. It’s funny, because I completely feel comfortable crushing myself on the bike and throwing up in my mouth a little bit, but the run is scary.

Looking way to conscious crossing that line. let's change that

There’s a lot that I left off of this blog, but I had a positive experience in my first pro race and learned a lot about the margin of error while racing with these guys. Its cutthroat, and I really needed that. I’m somewhat happy with my effort, not really happy about my result, but at the end of the day it feels good to race again, and I’m motivated to train hard for the next race - Best on Hess time trial this weekend and then KC Tri the following!!

Gettin' fit and Gettin' lit

To quote the late Richard Nixon, "a dormant blog is usually the sign of an injured triathlete". Well, I'm now making a blog post. So I guess that means I'm not injured or something, right? If you have been under a rock/don't follow me on any social media platform/watch my instagram stories, here is some background: On my 22nd birthday I unknowingly raced CDA 70.3 with a stress fracture in my femur. At around mile 11.5 of the run it started to hurt really really bad, and I was reduced to limping, and managed to cross fall across the line as the first amateur - only to have it taken away from me about 25 seconds later when fireman mile world record holder Andrew Drobeck crossed. He had started a few minutes behind me in the rolling start, so the overall amateur win was his (along with a rather quick 1:16 run split).

Really hurting here...
pic James Haycraft

There was a wheelchair ride through the airport, a few trips to the doctors, some MRIs, a cancer scare, money lost on a 70.3 Worlds slot, and no tears or regrets at all (probably the statistic I'm most proud of). If I'm being honest, I wasn't even mad about breaking my leg. Injuries happen, and I got to go out in a really cool way: crossing a finish line and still getting a pretty solid result.

Swim out at CDA
 Pic: James Haycraft

I wasn't taking proper care of my body in terms of nutrition (turns out that pop tarts have the macronutrient profile of cardboard), and wasn't doing yoga or any supplementary strength exercises (even though my coach Elliot was under the impression that I was) for the last 4ish months. 100% My fault. My body could only take so much of that artificial sugar and lack of meal swipes from freshman, so it decided to break somewhere important so I'd get the message. The other reality is that my swim needs work, and this injury gives me a lot of time to work on swimming, one of the key forms of exercise involved in this weird a$$ sport.

New bikes are nice

Missing a majority of the championship races isn't very much fun. It's not a great time watching your teammates go to Omaha and race, then go to Chattanooga and race, then go to Kona (not that I would have been there racing) and race. That's how it goes, I've had plenty of great times exercising in large groups of people, and I'm sure I'll have more great times exercising with all my homies again soon.

Probably the worst thing about being injured and on crutches was working at a running store. Every. Single. Customer. asks "wow what happened to you," and when you respond with "I have a stress fracture in my femur" it does get some weird responses that range from "what's a femur" to "wow you might not walk again". I could only carry two pairs of shoes out at a time, and wasn't allowed to put my left leg on the ground at all (strict orders from Dr. Servi). After 6 short weeks I went back and got an MRI. I'm not gonna lie. When I saw it I thought, FML, probably another 6 weeks. It looked super gnarly still.

CSU Group ride

Then I saw Dr. Servi, and she said that I could start walking again - completely catching me off guard. My dad dropped me off at the pool, and later that day I flew home to Minnesota for some ARP therapy and time with friends that I hadn't seen in a while. The ARP is essentially an electronic stimulation machine that really makes you feel not very comfortable in any way. Pretty much it rewires your neuro system to function properly again in areas that are not functioning - science . . . science . . . science . . . ok yeah enough of that boring stuff.

That machine is making my left leg feel not very great

I was going to write a bunch of stuff up about the recovery process, but then just realized how boring it is. I don't want to have to put you guys through that! Pretty much if you take anything away from this blog it's that if you break a bone/strain a muscle and get hurt do recovery right. Find a conservative doctor who will make you go slow. Take some time completely off all exercising, eat your feelings, and watch a season or 11 of trailer park boys. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get a grand tour during your injury period (I got two). Don't set a "must return by XX/XX/XXXX". Let your body take care of itself and heal, then do your damn yoga/other exercises when you get back, and don't forget to eat stuff other than pop tarts (I find that people with dining hall meal swipes are a great solution - but you probably already knew that).

Dining halls are clutch

There are a lot of people who I need to thank for their help in my injury recovery process, because without their support this would have been a lot more stressful. None of these are in order

• Patrick, for letting me grease up the couch, and keeping me in line
• Coach Elliot for not rushing me back into training and having prior experience
• Tyler Kleinhuizen for the ARP therapy
• Dr. Servi at NCOA for an honest diagnosis
• Ron at Adams and Giddings PT for giving me some PT exercises and telling me I am not flexible
• My family for flying me home/hanging out with the dude on crutches
• Runners Roost for letting me pick up lots of shifts while I was injured and on crutches
• Matt Britton for doing my MRIs
• David for driving me to the ER so I could get crutches then going to Mt. Everest buffet after
• Everyone who has gotten Mary's Mountain Cookieswith me
• Julia for all the medical advice/being my bff (also happy 21st)
• Dean/Diana and Matt Miller for the omega 3s
• Team EMJ for keeping the moral very high
• Everyone who reached out to me with similar experiences
• Everyone who guest swiped me
• Chipotle- because it's just delicious.

Happy 21st birthday Julia!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess this is where I'm supposed to talk about what's next, but I'm honestly not really sure in terms of race schedule. Some people have known for a bit, but I'm planning on beginning to exercising professionally in 2018. There was a lot of thought that went into it, but the main reason that I'm taking my pro card is because I want to. It's not about what someone else wants for me at this point in my life, and I don't have a full time "real" job, kids, or any form of real responsibility. I'm still on my Mom's all-star insurance plan for a few more years, and I don't have student loans.

When she messages you back on Tinder

If there was ever a time to take a risk, it's now. I could probably develop a few more years as an amateur, but I don't really see the point in racing people with full time jobs while I can train pretty much as much as anyone out there. Even though there are still some amateurs that are better than me, I do think that I'm towards the top end of that ice berg. In my opinion, it's not right to race as an amateur when you're just training as your main focus in life. As pathetic as that might sound to some people, I really do enjoy exercising, and really don't feel like I want a full time job. I'm not funded by my parents "gold card" outside of health insurance, and I do have a sustainable lifestyle where I will not accrue any credit card debt and am in a great location for training surrounded by some awesome people, and a college that has a bar with $1 IPAs on Thursday nights.

Before backside of Rist Canyon...  that smile went away real quick

I have been doing a section on my friend Spencer Ralston's podcast - The Grind - where he interviews first/second year pro triathletes and asks them about random dorky triathlon stuff. Each week he asks me about a random business thing in triathlon and I generally rant about it until he tells me to shut up. Next week he's interviewing me on this decision to participate in professional group exercise classes! The podcast is right here, and I can personally guarantee you'll have the greatest 30+ minutes of your life when you listen to it :)

Instagram story from 10/24 - nearly 4 months post CDA

Save some #watts here!

Also, I hope you enjoyed re-living all my old instagram stories/posts :)

Vail, CO

uh oh