Hy-Vee 5150 Championship

If you don't wanna read it but want to know what it says - I felt horrible in the days leading up. The weather was terrible at first but it got better. It rained sideways the morning of the race, then stopped. I almost missed the start. I had an average swim but good for me. I almost forgot to take my swim skin off. Had the best bike I've had in a long time. We'll just say my run could have been better.

At the beginning of this year I raced St. Anthony's Triathlon and won my age group qualifying me for the series championship in Des Moines, Iowa. This would be the second year I would be racing it and was really looking forward to it because it had been my best performance to date and wanted to see what kind of improvement I had made over a year. The race organizers had changed the course slightly but nothing too major, the swim would be a point to point instead of a loop and the run would be an out and back instead of a point to point.

Pre Race - The weekend before my race i had planned a trip to Colorado to visit my brother and get a little riding in with a good friend formerly from miami Matt Straney, a fellow Wattie Ink team member Travis Thomason  and a new fast friend Andrew Knutsen. I have to say thank you to you guys for showing me the roads and mountains of colorado but I was in rough shape on monday after two long days in the saddle. Living and training in central Florida isn't quite the same as riding at 6,000-12,000 ft of elevation and it took me about two days to fully recover. Tuesday I got in the pool and did an easy 2,000 yards cutting the workout a little short because my left shoulder started to bother me. Of course this would start the week leading up to my race, I made the decision with my coach that I wasn't going to swim the rest of the week until my race. Thursday evening I had a massage mainly to work on my shoulder and loosen up the lower legs which are typically tight for me. Fast forward to Friday morning (Wednesday and Thursday are filled with boring classes a lot of studying waking up early and going to sleep late trying to get all my homework done before my flight early Friday morning) when my flight departs at 8:00am which meant I had to be up and out the door by 5:30 am at the latest. Three airports, two planes, eighteen screaming children, and one lady who wont stop talking to me while I try to sleep later I arrive at my hotel in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Upon arriving I feel like absolute garbage which i think was a combination of nine total hours of travel, post massage feeling, what i call "tired taper feeling" and it being 102 degrees outside at 7:00pm as I walk to packet pick-up. I was so beat that night I decided to just order room service and put my feet up. Saturday surprising enough everything was going according to plan, I felt much better than I did Friday. It was 9:30am as I was walking to the expo after breakfast (had to go buy a new pair of goggles because the ones i brought leaked. Good thing i tested them!) and i checked the weather, it was 75 degrees! by this time tomorrow I would be off the race course with a 7:16 start time. I was no longer even slightly concerned about the heat.

Because my coach said so.

It was ridiculously fun but 4.5 hours was not the plan!!!!!! oh well

Race Morning - Standard alarm time for race morning 4:30am but of course I open my eyes and am instantaneously wide awake at 4:20am, also Standard wake up procedure for race morning. I walk down stairs to catch the race shuttle, look outside and realize there's a mini hurricane happening. So much for the heat! Our "race shuttle" drops us off 1.5m from race site, mind you our hotel is only 3m from race site so we walk... in the rain. Once I arrive in transition theres an announcement made "The race start will be delayed 45min" everyone around me goes back to their cars to stay warm and dry and while I sit under the bike mechanics tent in the corner of transition freezing. Eventually the rain starts to clear up I finish preparing my transition and head over to swim start.

Heres a picture of our shuttle outside the hotel race morning.

The Swim - I really believe that three bad things happen to me at every race. This race just happened to start with one, I was out getting a long warm up in to test out my shoulder so i didn't have to struggle the first 500 meters. While I'm in the middle of the lake I hear my cap color being called so I sprint to shore run around the barricades, over the timing mats, line up at the front row of swimmers, look to my left and right and I'm the only one panting, oops! 20 secs later the gun goes off! After a little shuffle to about the first turn buoy I am able to settle in find and find some feet. 100 meters later the swimmer in front of me starts to slow down. Over the next 50 I proceed to swim around him and he jumps on my feet. Until about 200 to go I couldn't catch any one and no one was catching me when someone from the wave start behind me glided past me I sighted one time to see how much longer was left and decided to just sprint on the guys feet that passed me. I got out of the water 4th in my age group in 23:43 and it felt effortless.... by effortless I mean I was exhausted.

Heres a video someone got of me coming into T1 after a strong swim.

T1- Usually this wouldn't get its own section but I made a mistake that cost me major time here. As I am about to cross the timing mats out of T1 with my bike I look down and realize that i still had my swim skin around my waist, mistake #2, oops!!! I clumsily laid my bike down on the grass rather than run back with it, get my swim skin off next to my transition area, run back to my bike, pick it up off the ground, drop my water bottle in the process, awkwardly reach over my bike to grab it and get going. bye bye 40 seconds I gained in the swim. While all this is going on I hear a volunteer say "Just relax, you can recover from that" which actually really helped me get my head back in the right place.

the volunteer turned out to be either Mark-Kate or Ashley I'm not sure.

The Bike - First 5 miles of the bike I didn't feel too hot, the legs weren't warm just yet but that would quickly change. At about mile 2 a guy passed me, so i dropped back the required distance and rode with him, thinking to myself "Perfect, i'll have someone to take turns setting the pace with at 3 bike lengths". Less than a mile later I passed him thinking I better have a go, the pace was slowing. Five minutes later I looked back and he was no where to be found. I had two goals in mind this race for the the bike 1. Break 59:59 and 2. average 300+ watts. I rode the rest of the course consistently absorbing riders every 6 minutes or so and not getting passed by anyone. Goal #1 was a wash with a bike split of 1:00:05, but goal #2 was a success with an average power of 303 watts, I got back to my rack and I was the second bike on the rack.

This is what I looked like...

This is how I felt.

T2 - This is simply to gloat over the fact that i had the 3rd fastest bike to run transition. The first fastest begin a good friend of mine Paul Gantzer who runs completely Barefoot so he has an unfair advantage (Paul had a great race and won is age group, congrats!). The second fastest, the overall winner.

Someone tried to snap a photo of me in T2, this is all that came out.

The Run - The first half of the out and back run course felt great, I was cruising along just under a 6 min pace knowing I had left everyone in the dust on the bike i was running into a 2nd place finish. right at the turn around I got passed by someone I had passed earlier on the bike. I tried to run with him for about 5 seconds and quickly realized there was no way I was gonna hold the 5:20s he was putting down for the next 5k. Right as we made the U-turn I could immediately feel the head wind dead on and I knew it would be like this all the way to the finish. At this point I was struggling. I knew I hadn't over biked, I hit the nail on the head back there but this head wind was something else. Two more guys passed me on the way back who I attempted to run with but again the 5:10s-5:20s weren't happening for me today.  I came across the line in 40:16 a poor run split for me but 5th place finish, coherent and drinking water on my own. As i came up the finish chute someone tried to sprint with me and I quickly pulled out my best 2009 Simon Whitfeild impression at the line.

Simon would be proud.

Final Thoughts - My main goal going into this race was to improve my swim from last year which i did by 3 minutes so I was pleased with that but I know as I continue working I have plenty of room for improvement. With over a 5 minute improvement on my overall time last year I'm excited to go back and see where i will be a year from now. I have to say thank you to my sponsors Wattie Ink, K-Swiss, PowerBar, ISM, Fuel Belt, Speedfil, and Blueseventy who make the best products to get me through long training days and enable me to have races like this. Major shout out to my coach Sara for putting a perfect plan together to prevent piss poor performance and coach Misty for putting me to work in the pool and the gym and really developing my swim over the past 3 months. 

Last but certainly not least thank you to the person i really race for my mom who supports me 110% 

I leave you with a rad picture of me crushing the bike.