going pro

I've moved!

2011-03-02T14:32:00.002-05:00

Going Pro has moved! You can find my new page at http://onektogocoaching.squarespace.com!

Thanks for all the reading!

Chris

Last Lap of the Koppenbergcross

2010-11-03T19:08:00.002-04:00

Every Spring, the skinny tire guys climb the Koppenberg, one of the fearful Helingen of the Tour of Flanders. Every fall, the slightly fatter tire guys also climb the Koppenberg, and then turn right at the top of the hill and ride their 'cross bikes back down through the fields. It's a grueling, classic event, and you can watch the last lap of it here.

Enjoy!

World Cup #1—Aigle, SUI

2010-10-26T17:47:00.002-04:00

Here's a beautiful film about World Cup #1. Calls to mind A Sunday In Hell with the quiet mechanic shots.

Aigle 2010 - 1ère manche de CDM cyclo-cross from Web Petitesreines on Vimeo.

Enjoy...

Cross Crusade #3

2010-10-20T17:58:00.006-04:00

Because I wasn't feeling rather well this past weekend, I ended up not making the trip to Austin for that city's excellent fall 70.3. Friday and Saturday were spent largely inactive in bed, but by Sunday I felt well enough to head out to Cross Crusade #3 at Sherwood Equestrian Center. I backed out of my usual race, the A Men, because I didn't want to make myself sick again by running my engine wide open for an hour. It's a good thing, too—Can you identify the shapely legs at right, winning the A Division?

I raced Bs, and started well to the rear of the field. I made up a bunch of spots and managed 11th place in the end, which for a pukey stomach and sore body is a pretty good result. Then I hung around to watch the fireworks of the big boys racing.

After troublesome starts, Ryan Trebon and Chris Sheppard made some space for themselves at the front of the field. They traded shots for the better part of an hour, with Trebon finally sneaking away in the last lap. The crowd was its usual Cross Crusade froth, replete with a "dollar prieme" crowd that gathered on the slopes of the course's long climb. They placed dollar bills in an overturned cup, and racers had to bend double to grab the cash and keep climbing.

One rider in particular managed to snack himself a twenty-spot. Insult to injury (to the rest of us, that is)?

Pac Crest Promo Video

2010-10-14T11:07:00.003-04:00

Always nice to be called a champion...

The About-Face

2010-10-13T13:28:00.002-04:00

Interbike is returning to Vegas, after announcing it will leave it's traditional location for Anaheim. This turnaround strikes me as odd...isn't moving a gigantic, week-long event hard to do less than a year out? Wouldn't moving it back cause even more hassles? Interbike is a division of Nielsen Expositions (kinda the way that seemingly innocuous beverage companies, like Snapple, are owned by Pepsi Co or Coca-Cola or Disney), and they're saying that they got a "very real response that surveys and discussions alone couldn't accomplish." What is going on here?

The Sweat

2010-10-11T14:20:00.003-04:00

My last two races of 2010 will be Austin 70.3 and Ironman Cozumel. I'm a big guy (trying to get down to 172 lbs before Cozumel), and we usually don't do so well in the heat. Here's a great post from The Science of Sport about what happens to people when they exercise in warm temperatures. Once you're there you can follow another link that discusses why size does matter in the heat. Here's a clip:

"When size does matter...

The first thing (and this is a dramatically summarized version) is that the winner has to be small in size. All things being equal (which we concede they never are!), the smaller athlete will win a race in the heat. Many studies have shown this, and the equations that we use to model performances in the heat suggest the same. Basically, it boils down to a balance between height production and heat loss. Heat production is dependent on body size and running speed, while heat loss is a function of body surface area, and the environment. Obviously, the environment is the same for everyone, but body size is not. The smaller the athlete, the less heat they produce, but their heat loss is not reduced by as much and the end result is that the smaller athlete will store less heat running at a certain speed than the bigger athlete. Ultimately, this means that a smaller athlete can afford to run slightly faster before their body temperature rises. Big advantage! This is of course a oversimplification, but it does illustrate the point that when the mercury starts climbing, the advantage lies with a smaller runner."

So when I show up to race in Cozumel, I'll be facing a few obstacles, since the temperatures here in Portlandia have dropped into the 50s and 60s during the day. The answer? Train indoors, in the heat. This weekend, which saw the return of Portland's winter weather (steady rain, 50s), found me training indoors at the excellent Athletes Lounge Training Facility. I did both my long workouts (2 hour run on Saturday and 6.5 hour brick on Sunday) indoors. I didn't use a fan for the run, and I turned the heat up to around 80 for the bike/brick (I did use a light fan for the bike portion of the brick). I'm trying to figure out my sweat rate, and here's the data:

Saturday, 2 hour long run with tempo intervals (3x25' @ 6:30-6:45/mile)
Weight Before: 179.4
Weight Afterward: 174.2 (2.9 % drop in body weight, a moderate performance liability)
Fluid Consumed: 63 oz
Weight lost plus fluid consumed=9 lbs.
Fluid lost per hour (total weight lost/# of hours exercised)=72 oz per hour.

That seems a very high amount of fluid lost per hour, and somewhat alarming, too. If I'm already disadvantaged in the heat because of my size, I'm worried I'll be disadvantaged further by my ridiculous sweat rate. I performed another sweat rate test yesterday on the bike and came up with this information:

Sunday, 6 hour ride with tempo intervals followed by 30 minute run with pace intervals
Weight before: 181.4 (how did I gain 2 lbs in one day?)
Weight after: 173 (4.5 % drop in body weight, a significant performance liability)
Fluid consumed: 200 oz (12.5 lbs)
Weight lost plus fluid consumed: 21 lbs.
Fluid lost per hour: 52 oz per hour.

It's informative to see that I lose less fluid while cycling than while running. This seems to make sense, given the relative differences in effort between cycling and running. Various sources articulate that one should aim to replace between 1/3 and 1/2 of your fluid loss per hour. So for running I should aim for at least 23.76 and 36 oz of fluid. The maximum absorbtion per hour is 33 oz (rough/average size of stomachs out there), so I'm going to aim for that number, especially in the heat. That means that, on the run, I'll still be losing 2.5 lbs per hour (1.4% of my body weight), so if I want to be successful in Cozumel, I'll have to be significantly hydrated before I start the run, since I'll be 3-4.5% dehydrated in the last hour of the marathon, which is a performance problem.

So on the bike, if I lost 52 oz/hour and put in 33 oz/hour, I'll lose 20 oz per hour (1.25 lbs). If the bike takes 4.5 hours that means 90 oz low (5.625 lbs, or 3.1%). 3.1% dehydrated is too dehydrated to start a hot marathon, so I'm gonna have to figure something out, like getting more used to training in the heat.

The amount of sweat lost this weekend was pretty gross, I gotta say. A white foamy slick formed on the belt of the treadmill on Saturday.

New Story on CXMagazine

2010-10-08T13:17:00.003-04:00

I've got a new story on CXMagazine this morning, about aerodynamics in cyclocross. Check it out here: http://www.cxmagazine.com/tim-johnson-cyclocross-aerodynamics-wind-tunnel#more-14595.

Comin' Back

2010-10-05T16:48:00.003-04:00

Well, this is almost a month overdue, Cyclocross season has begun, and I've only got two triathlons left in 2010. How did the year disappear? Anyway, here is the finish picture from Canada Ironman 2010, where I finished in 8th place, probably my best result of my career. Here's the report as I gave it to Cliff:

Swim: I was determined to beat my worries about the swim, so I started right in the middle of the pack. I saw Matt L lining up on the outside, to my right, and then another group of guys lining up on my left. When the gun went off I actually got a pretty good start, getting out fast and in front of most people. Matt L moved over from the right and soon we were swimming side-by-side and I was in the middle of a good-sized group, I think. I saw a small group heading off the front, and I think that was Kieran and Tom Evans (and someone else). I tried to stick with the Matt L group, but I kept losing feet and getting passed. I seem to really struggle with holding feet when their pace is a little faster than I'm able to go. I eventually got dropped from that group and swam alone behind them until the first houseboat. I got caught by a group behind and worked my way into that group and stayed with them for the rest of the time. Christian Brader and Petr Vebrousek were in that group. It was pretty comfortable, but slower than I wanted to swim (54:37). I really wanted to be in that 51 and change crowd.

T1: Good transition. I seemed to have quick ones all day.

Bike: Rode out of town and resolved to stay with Petr V when he came up to me. So did a bunch of others because soon I was in a group with Olly Piggin, Trevor Wurtele, Stephen Kilshaw, Anthony Toth, Chris Brands, and a few others. We stayed even on the gas down to Osoyoos, not expending too much energy. I took it easy on the climb up to Richter but got dropped a little. On the descent I caught back on and seven of us rolled along into Keremeos. We were in a group but not organized very well. Coming out of the out-and-back I noticed that we were in a group but every one in front of us was riding singly. I tried to get the others in the group to see that we could roll up a whole bunch of guys if we organized (but still worked legally). No one really wanted to come along. Eventually Petr and Anthony Toth and I got free and started putting time into the others. The climb up to Yellow Lake seemed so much easier and shorter than last year. The descent was scary at times (wet roads), but we also picked up Scott Neyeldi along the way, so we were a group of four rolling into town: 4:46:52.

T2: Really good second transition. Entered tent fourth out of group, exited first.

Run: My legs opened up just a few meters outside of transition. Petr V passed me, but I knew that was coming. We went into the out-and-back and Anthony Toth and Scott Neyeldi passed me. Toth's pace seemed doable, so I went with him. Was running quite comfortably, actually. I kept telling myself to take it easy. Toth and I chatted a bit, and the 6:30s-6:40s were rolling pretty easily. Around mile 7 he started to move away, but I thought he sounded labored, so I let him go.

Passed Kieran at mile 9 as he was handing his chip in to officials. 11th place.

Passed Matt L at mile 11. He was walking.

Took it easy going into the hills at the southern end of the course. Hit the turnaround 2 minutes behind Neyeldi and 1 minute behind Toth. Trevor Wurtele and Ernst Moser were 6:20 behind me. I calculated it would be difficult for those two to catch me if just kept running 7 minute miles. I was taking in fluid every mile (fluid is a mixture of Biotest and Nuun, about 280 calories per bottle), a gel every 30 minutes, and water at each aid station. I stayed fluid and easy throughout the marathon, although things started to get hard around mile 16.

I came back to Toth and Scott Curry at Mile 24, and realized that it would be like Pac Crest if was going to get rid of them. Right where the road starts to tilt back down into town I surged and dropped Toth pretty quickly. Curry seemed more tenacious. I was really hurting at this point, but when I turned onto Lakeshore drive Amy told me no one was close. At the turnaround Curry was 32 seconds back and he finished about 45 seconds in arrears.

Then I went to the medical tent for two bags of IV fluid. 8:48:11.

Crested Butte

2010-07-20T20:15:00.006-04:00

As of today, Amy and I have, in the past seven days:

Swam about 10 kilometers.
Ran about 100 kilometers (Amy ran about 80 of them).
Biked about 200 kilometers.
Climbed around 20,000 feet.
Drank a lot of coffee.
Ate a bunch of potato chips.
Made sandwiches on the hood of Amy's jeep.
Cooked quesadillas on stones in our free campsite.
Seen more wildflowers than either of us have seen all year.
Gotten up early.
Stayed up late (we were scared about bears last night).
Stayed in three separate campsites.
Eaten a lot of peanut butter and cereal and chocolate milk.
Iced our legs in mountain streams and lakes.
Washed ourselves seldom, but then did so in public places.

Success!

2010-07-19T10:24:00.003-04:00

Thoughts from the runner: "Other than being touched that Chris includes me in his blog, a forum for his professional athletic exploits, the most remarkable part of this outrageous event occurred at around mile 46. Chris came riding up the trail like a knight--his middle name, indeed. I was so frustrated about running off course, losing places among the women along with the prospect of a sub-10-hour race, that I was petulantly kicking stones. Chris wouldn't let me sag. He sang cute little songs and augmented my spirits from crabby to elated."

Now we're off to Crested Butte. Amy is going to sit in cold water and take naps. I'm going to fall off my bicycle.

Leadville Silver Rush 50 Mile 34.5

2010-07-18T15:47:00.002-04:00

Forgot to take a picture again. Amy is still running at 35 miles, having been running now for seven hours. She's just faster than the 5 mph we talked about as a goal, and she's doing great. She's hanging in 6th place, although placing really doesn't matter here. She's at the point where she's just doing what she can do, and it's impressive to watch. She ate three cookies at the last aid station and promised me she'd eat a gel between that station and the one at 40 miles. When she hits that one, she'll only have seven miles left.

Final results to come...

Leadville Silver Rush Turnaround Aid Station

2010-07-18T13:16:00.001-04:00

I forgot to take a picture of Amy at 25 miles, but she's still smiling, waving her arms in the air, and making friends. She's put down a good amount of water, but might be a bit food low. The hardest part is behind her, though, and she's doing absolutely brilliantly for her first ultra. She got to 25 miles in 4:40, so she's still going a little faster than planned. She said "I feel like I should be done," but I think she'll get another wind a little down the road.

Stay tuned!

Leadville Silver Rush 50 Aid Station #1

2010-07-18T11:15:00.002-04:00

Here's Amy at 13.5 miles of the Leadville 50. She was looking and feeling good, and came into the aid station in 4th place. She left in 6th, but took 5th back right away and was about to take 4th back. I would say she's not taking in enough calories, but she wanted to take an entire bag of potato chips with her, so that's a good sign that she'll start putting some food down. Crewing a 50 mile race is interesting—there's a lot of waiting but a ton of satisfaction, and hanging out at the aid stations is fun. Everyone wants to talk, and this kind of event is so laid-back and cool, so it's easy to make friends.

In other news, Chris Boudreaux and Phillipe Kozub are in 8th and 9th places, respectively, coming out of the water at Vineman 70.3.

Stay Tuned!

Leadville Silver Rush 50

2010-07-18T08:33:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I raced in the Beaver Creek Xterra Mountain Cup and finished about 10 minutes faster than last year—better at riding that mountain bike, but not quite at the level of the other guys. I came in 12th although I suspect I've been hit with a 2:00 penalty that will drop me to DFL in the pro group. It's fine—let's think strength workout for Canada.

More importantly, Amy is presently out for a 50 mile fun run here at 10,152' in sunny Leadville, Colorado. Always the best attitude of the bunch, she was all smiles this morning right from when we woke up at 4:30. See her in all her long run glory at left.

I'm at a coffee shop in Leadville, watching the tour and waiting to head up to the first aid station! More to come.

Form

2010-07-10T11:57:00.003-04:00

I was going to start this post about the pancakes I made this morning, which weren't anything special except for the fact that I topped them with a fried egg. I've often thought about re-naming this blog "Better With An Egg," because then I'd have an unending source of material about which to write. What isn't better with an egg on top of it? Amy often challenges others to come up with things that wouldn't go well with Peanut Butter, and I feel the same way about eggs. Sitting here this morning, feeling the cooler air of today coming in through the window, listening to the classical singer doing scales a few doors down, I cannot imagine any food that wouldn't be improved by the presence of a fried egg.

Now I'm trying to figure out ways of wresting that statement about the versatility of eggs into a statement about racing form, which strikes me as, perhaps, a metaphor too far. The only thing I can come up with comes from this post at Red Kite Prayer, which states that a rider in form can ride just about any bicycle—whether it fits or not, whether or not it is the bike of his chosen discipline, no matter what the weather is doing. It strikes me as funny that the words we choose to talk about our ability to race (or even go out for an hour's run) all derive from structural words: fit, shape, form. The goal of anyone who makes daily exercise a lovely ritual (or a dangerous obsession, or an impressive burning drive) is the same goal as the sculptor's: to bring out a desired vision from something formless. Don't get me wrong, even though I'm using sight words such as "vision" to talk about this; I'm not talking about physical appearance, although the physical usually does change as people come into fitness, shape, form. Form is a feeling that you can do anything: cover an attack, run quickly up a hill, catch those two guys who beat you off the line to the first buoy. It's the sense that distances are closer, that the rim really isn't ten feet above, that you could, in Napolean Dynamite's Uncle's words, "Throw this football over those mountains."

I've never felt this feeling before, until this week, when, despite the increased volume of my Canada preparation, I had the sense that I could drop anyone who ran with me, that the swim speed was never desperate. Watching the Tour every morning helps (anyone else getting weird hiccups on their Versus feeds?), because the Tour is one giant dream dreamt by the 180 men who begin the race every year. Their combined imaginations fuel the whole colorful, glitzy affair, because all of them, even the ones who are their just to work, see themselves every day chasing that 1 km banner alone, the entire field minutes behind, dreaming the beautiful dream of form.

The Bronze War

2010-06-29T11:21:00.007-04:00

Here's a short story about how Picture A (at left) led to pictures B and C (below).

Damian and I headed out to hot and sunny Sunriver, OR, this past weekend for the Pacific Crest Long Course Triathlon (read: 1/2 iron). We'd tangled the weekend before at Xterra Solstice, and Damian was hungry to take it to me on the road. He's extremely talented and driven and has a bright future in the sport, and I'm sure he wanted to get his first big win of 2010.

Here we are at breakfast on race morning, drinking coffee and eating Puffins. We were staying in a ski/golf condo (Sunriver is a vacation community—a little like Disneyworld in its intentional directional confusion) and the race didn't start until 9 am, which felt like a blessing (later, when the temperatures rose into the 80s, it would feel more like bad planning). Amy helped us get ready, and soon we were at T1, getting ready and warmed up. I went for my usual 10 minute warmup jog and then got into the water. Everyone kept saying the water was cold, but after St. George (53 degrees), Boise (57 degrees) and Xterra Solstice (55 degrees) the water felt nice, actually. After the best start of my career last weekend I had probably the worst start, since my only clue that we were starting was the fact that every one around me started swimming. It was a small field, so no real worries, and I found myself with a good pair of feet that I held all the way around the swim. It was either slow or a little long, since we all came out of the water around 27:30. I could tell Damian was swimming on my feet the whole time—I just had this feeling. He came around me at the end when I started to get a bit tired and beat me out of the water by 9 seconds.

Out on the bike D and I put our heads down and hammered for the first twenty miles or so, just the way Cliff told me to. Amy was giving us splits out on the road and cheering us on, and it became obvious that the race was turning into a two-horse affair: we had 3 minutes at 10 miles, 6 minutes at 20, and 7 minutes as the course turned skyward to climb Mt. Batchelor. A brief note about the bike course: this is easily the most scenic and beautiful course on which I have ever competed. The road surface is amazing and you ride through glorious alpine forests, snow still hugging the trunks of trees. At around mile 27 the rolling hills turn up and you climb to the entrance of Mt. Batchelor (the entrance is at 6500 feet, the actual peak is about 3000 feet higher). The climb is about 11 miles long and was a great bit of preparation for IM Canada, where you tackle two 10-12 mile climbs over the bike course. Damian took the lead for a while, I took it back, and then he led us up the climb. I was happy to let him do that, since I knew he would be putting out more effort than I would be—you always, always want to be following up long climbs, especially if you feel you're the stronger cyclist. I knew that Damian was a stronger runner than I, and I needed to get him tired before the run. I also knew that if I tried to break away he would just sit on me and let me get tired out. With the rest of the field comfortably behind, I was happy to let him direct the pace.

At 38 miles you crest the bike course, most of Central Oregon spread out below like a crumpled ocean. I looked at my computer at this point and thought 1:40 to 38 miles? This is going to be a long bike split. Well, the course is all downhill from there, and we covered the last 20 miles of the course (it's 58 mile point-to-point) in 35 minutes, posting bike splits of 2:15:27 (me) and 2:15:35 (Damian). If you do the math, you'll see that I made up 8 seconds of the 9 second differential from the swim: we headed out onto the run 1 second apart. We'd been separated by nothing more than 10 seconds for almost two and three-quarter hours at this point. You can look at my powerfile for the bike course here.

For the first 4 miles of the run, we ran pretty much even, holding six-minute pace or just above it. I ate my first gel (of the run—I ate six on the bike) at 10 minutes and was able to ignore the aid stations by using my hand-held water bottle (I love that thing even though it's dorky. Whatever. Bryan Rhodes uses two of them). At around 4 miles Damian started to pull away and I started thinking about second place. After that, though, recrimination would set in, and I actually said to myself at one point He's 27! That means he was freshman when you were a senior! C'mon! I don't know why odd things like that come up when you're racing, but they just do.

At around mile nine or ten I started coming back to Damian a bit, and soon we were running shoulder to shoulder. I threw a few surges at him to see how he was feeling, and he covered them easily. I settled back and just ran on his shoulder. I was hurting, but I knew that he was a short course guy, this was only his fourth or fifth half-iron (I think I'm on 15 or 16), and that he was hurting, too. We ran together until mile 12. This is it, I thought. I was comforted by the fact that he hadn't attacked me at all, which is good. If you're the agressor on the run, you can probably make your opponent think you're stronger than he is. I put in a strong, hard surge and immediately felt a huge wave of nausea. I didn't hear his footsteps coming with me, though, and turning to look would have been suicide (you look scared). I just kept running hard. One minute into the mile I looked at my watch and thought only five more minutes of this. I was convinced he was only ten meters back, out of earshot but within striking distance. I kept counting minutes like lap cards in Cyclocross: four minutes left, three minutes, two...When my watch said four minutes into the mile I took a brief look back.

I couldn't see Damian. He was gone.

I didn't dare let up, though. If he had taken a few minutes to gather himself and come back I would certainly see him again. This is a guy who can run sub five-minute miles in training. I've never gotten close to a five-minute mile. But when I hit the 13 mile mark, I knew I'd won. I ended up putting about 70 seconds into Damian in the last mile, which surprised me. I think he was pretty much at the end of his rope, and I still, amazingly, had something left. Here's a video, courtesy of Amy, of my approach to the finish (it's a little loud—maybe turn down your browser).

The finish felt...well, odd. I was happy I won, but I was more happy the whole thing was over. As Andy Potts says: "It's never fun. Afterwards it's a little fun, but it's not...fun."

Soon after the finish Damian and I were both in the medical tent. I just needed to cool down a bit, but he was headed into the early stages of heat exhaustion, I think. You might be able to see the worried expression on his face.

Picture B

Picture C

Nice to get my first win of 2010 under my belt, and my first 1/2 iron win of my career.

Xterra Solstice

2010-06-20T11:23:00.002-04:00

Xterra Solstice rolled through (more like "above") LaGrande, Oregon this past Saturday. I had a very strong day, although I really do need to learn how to descend on a mountain bike. Damian Hill, PC Athlete Darren Smith (this guy has Character in spades—he does Xterra, Ironman, and track cycling with a left leg he cannot feel or really move) headed out there for a glorious 36 hours of companionship, camping, and—oh yeah—competition; it's easy to forget you're competing when you do Xterra.

The Venue: The race takes place in Morgan Lake, a small cold lake at 4100.' The water temperature was 55 degrees, making me 3—3 for races below 60 degrees water. I actually like it, since you don't overheat. Anyway, the venue. Most people camp right along the lake, sleeping a few hundred meters from transition. Darren, Damian, and I got out there and went out for a short ride (shortened by a snafu with my cleats—when will I learn to properly maintain my equipment?). I promptly crashed my brand new Scott Spark 20, but nothing was dinged except my dignity. "It was a pretty good one," Damian said. "You got all the way over the handlebars." We went to bed with the sun, and soon I was up at 5 am, ready to race, except things didn't start until 9 am. Down to town for coffee, and then back up the hill to wait around. When you camp 200 meters from transition, it's pretty easy to get your stuff together.

The Swim: I got my best start of the year, probably only because I was watching the guy with the airhorn when it made a feeble warbling noise and some white stuff came out of it. I nabbed about 5 meters as the other athletes said "Was that the gun—oh shit!" I swam well, for me, keeping the lead until the first buoy, when I got caught by super-strong swimmer Greg from Masters. I probably went out a bit hard, since I felt myself weakening about 500 meters through the swim. I tried to keep pushing, though, and came out of the water 3rd in 12:39. Damian was about 25 seconds back, but he beat me out of transition as I struggled to put on socks. That proved somewhat costly as I got caught behind two slow guys on the way out onto the trail. From there the ride was a lot of white-knuckling, as I'm not up to the level of my ride. I quickly became very thankful for the remote lockout system (the Spark lets you choose three levels of travel: 0, 80, 0r 110 mm), since I didn't have to reach below to change the travel. I had to walk one incredibly steep downhill with Captain Dondo's words ringing in my ears (Me: "What kind of bike do I buy to become a better bike handler?" Him: "How about going up a testicle size?"). Still, I managed to get back to transition in 1:27:00 for the 25 k, which was respectable. I came off the bike in 4th place.

The Run: For the second week in a row, the run turned out to be a weapon for me. I quickly caught the incredibly friendly Eric Deroche (friend of Damian's from Bellingham, which sounds more and more like Nirvana) and used the first long downhill to cut into the second place guy's lead (he was about 3 minutes up on me starting the run). Xterra Solstice uses farm/dirt roads for about 1.5—2 miles, I'd say, and then cuts into a treacherous, muddy cow pasture. I reeled in Dave Cloninger (he's from Bend and has an awesome beard) at the bottom of the cow pasture and then tried to drop him on the climb back up towards the finish line. I would heartily recommend this race, but the 4th and 5th miles are cruel. You switchback out of the pasture and then climb the very steep hill you flew down 30 minutes earlier. At the top of the hill I felt like puking. I knew Damian was behind me, and he is the best runner of our little group. But I also thought that if I got into the last little stand of trees out of sight (...out of mind...) he wouldn't catch me. My right hamstring seized up again about 200 meters from the finish, but it turns out I'd put about 40 seconds into Damian on the run, which surprised both of us. I took second by about 75 seconds. He was, admittedly, muscling a rigid singlespeed 29er around the bike course, so his legs were pretty heavy. I somehow felt great all day, my legs responding nicely to the switch from cycling to running. The guy who won, Jason Jablonski, beat me by about 12 minutes, putting all of that into me on the bike (I was out of the water 2 minutes ahead, and he ran 40 seconds faster). Time to learn how this mountain biking thing works.

Next weekend—Pacific Crest 1/2 Iron. Damian and I go for our third showdown.

Race Report—Boise 70.3

2010-06-16T15:24:00.004-04:00

I'm still recovering from Boise 70.3. It was a difficult, hot day, but also one of those days that reaffirms an athlete's belief in his sport. No, I didn't win, despite my upraised arms in the photo, but I did hold on to finish 10th in the professional field. I was left feeling proud about my effort and my result for the first time since Canada IM 2009. Here's how the race went:

Swim: I learned a lesson in this swim, although it's not really the lesson I'd liked to have learned. It was a lesson about integrity, following rules, and how to interpret the rules to your advantage. Seconds after Tom Ziebert admonished us to "Keep the buoys on your right," the gun went off and the pack swerved to the inside of the buoys, keeping them on our left. After swimming in what I felt was an illegal position for a few hundred meters I left the pack and went to the left of the buoys. I lost the pack and Ben Hoffman's feet—I went on to lose 2 minutes to the pack. Afterward, talking to my coach and my teammates, they all averred that I should have stayed with the pack no matter what. I'm not happy about it, and I'm not happy about saying "That's sport," but turning happenstance to your advantage is part of sport, and Michael Jordan made himself better by sometimes going right to the edge of what was "legal." The responsibility is on me, not my competitors, to work within the gray areas of the rules. To their credit, they did go around all the turn buoys. I came out of the water 2 minutes to the big pack, where I really needed to be.

The Bike: Ooh this was hard. The bike course changed at Boise this year, removing a climb, but the course was still rolling (1500 feet of climbing) and a brutal headwind made things difficult. I worked fairly well, posting the 13th best ride, but with 10 miles to go I was caught by Karl Bodine. He's a former professional cyclist, I thought, I'll let him lead me home. The problem was is that Karl seemed to shut things down as soon as he caught me. After rolling along at 20 MPH for 5 miles or so, I decided to leave him. I think I lost another 2 minutes there.

The Run: This is the first time I've ever been able to say that I didn't do anything wrong on the run. I posted the 8th fastest run split (rare air for me) and only gave up 3 1/2 minutes to Craig Alexander. It was a hard day for everyone, with only a couple of runners going under 1:20. I came off the bike feeling good, and my turnover was quick and my strides strong. I ran the first mile in 6:10, the rest of my splits going as follows:

Mile 2: 6:17
Mile 3: 6:35 (this mile hurt—stomach issues and a side cramp)
Mile 4: 6:37 (strangely, I thought I was picking things up here)
Mile 5: 6:34
Mile 6: 6:12 (I had to catch and pass Chris McDonald here, and I knew I had to pass him convincingly, or he'd come back on me—he hung very, very tough, though; more on that later)
Mile 7: 6:20
Mile 8: 6:20
Mile 9: 6:17
Mile 10: 6:35 (I started to hurt again after a very good stretch of four miles)
Mile 11: 7:01? Hard to tell, my watch was a bit messed up.
Mile 12: 6:15
Mile 13: ~7:00.

I think I negative split the run, which is a great accomplishment for me. The run was very hard, and I knew a lot of people would fold up their tents, but all I had to do was to stay strong, keep my turnover high, and suffer. That was put to the test when I tried to put Chris McDonald away; he's a champion, and hung strong at St. George to finish 3rd. When I passed him I thought Good, he'll be gone. When I hit the turnaround he was only 34 seconds behind and still running hard. The next guy was two minutes behind, and I wasn't worried. But Chris McDonald is a competitor, even for 10th place. He made me work for it.

It was a really hard day, but it reminded me of how good hard work can feel, especially if that hard work turns into a good result, and it re-energized me about triathlon and my place in it.

Fantasy Tri Minute, 6/11

2010-06-11T11:09:00.002-04:00

The World Cup is on and Boise 70.3 is only a day away. I'm sitting in my hotel room in Boise doing my FantasyTri picks, and here's what I'm doing:

Men

Tim Berkel: Tim's an old friend, economical at $5500, and he's got a lot of good results. He'll get you points.
Conrad Stolz: I'm guessing he'll win his "favorite race on the Xterra circuit."
Simon Whitfield: Simon is still pretty cheap given the fact that he's a triathlon superstar and legend (he does have two Olympic medals). He's a cruel competitor, and he wants to repeat in Des Moines in the worst way.
Terrenzo Bozzone: Strongest athlete of the year thus far, hands down.
Kyle Pawlaczyk: I needed some pack fill. But he should get points.

Women

Mirinda Carfrae: Hard to pick against her, really.
Leanda Cave: Had trouble in the TriGranPrix UK in terms of tires—Should come back stronger than before.
Renata Bucher: She's been winning points for me in the Xterra races for a few weeks now, and she's relatively inexpensive.
Sam McGlone: She's fast, and she's a teammate and friend. She's going to eat the Eagleman field alive.
Flo Chretien: More pack fill, but the field at Eagleman is very weak and she'll get me some points (if she finishes).

OK, off to the pro meeting!

Mt. Hood Classic, Stage One—Mt. Tabor Criterium

2010-06-03T13:11:00.006-04:00

The Mt. Tabor Criterium features 700 feet of climbing per lap, the parcours snaking through dark, wet, Oregonian forest. The lead pack finished 30 laps of the 1.3 mile course in 90 minutes. Take a second to do the math, there.

Yes, that's 21000 feet of climbing in an hour-and-a-half, if the 700 feet per lap figure is to be believed.

Cyclocross stalwart Barry Wicks was to be seen puffing lightly in the peloton, his giant frame floating above the other figures. The win went to United Healthcare's Morgan Schmitt, whose teammates also occupy three of the remaining spots in the top six—this team has come to dominate the race, it appears. Paul Mach, winner of the Prologue, looked isolated, having to chase the attacks of his UHC opponents. The race split apart several times, with chase groups getting up to 18 seconds on the pack, before UHC brought everything back together and then delivered their man to the line.

The Champion!

2010-06-01T12:40:00.002-04:00

Here's the story about Amy's victory in the Rochester, Minnesota Post-Bulletin: http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=22&a=454985

She was 20th overall, finishing well up with the men. And her time would have stood up well against last year's finishers, too, where she would have finished 3rd. A brilliant effort all 'round, and a captivating post-race interview.

Victory!

2010-05-30T18:37:00.002-04:00

No, not my victory, and I'm happily surprised by how much more excited about someone else's victory than my own. Amy won the Rochester Med-City Marathon today with a time of 3:32 on a brutally hot day. The temperature topped out around 90 on the day, and she stayed strong while the others withered. She couldn't have run a more perfect race, letting an early leader go out too fast and choosing instead to run with the woman in 2nd place. The early rabbit folded at 13 miles, and Amy took over the lead with half the race left to run. She and her racing partner worked together for five miles or more, putting more distance between themselves and the chasers. At mile 19 Amy looked beat, walking an aid station. She set off from the station with only about 15 seconds on the second place woman. She then put more than ten minutes into her chief competitor over the last seven miles. That's an astonishing achievement. No, she didn't negative split the race, but she effectively double-split the race by staying strong while everybody else went home. Racing in the heat is hard—it requires patience and a steely attention to detail, which Amy has in spades. Bravo!

Fantasy Tri Minute, 5/29

2010-05-28T12:07:00.003-04:00

While the firestorm from my last post dies down (331 visitors on one day? going pro has never had that kind of traffic or controversy) I'll get back to my usual dorky/niche-y posting about FantasyTri. There are four races this week, and you only get $50,000 in your budget, so I'm going to pick 8 athletes (one man and woman per race), which means an average of $6250 per pick. The start lists are a little hard to come by, but here's what I've found.

Xterra Italy (European Championships) picks in BOLD

RenataBucher	F	Switzerland	Pro/Elite
		Sibylle Matter	F	Switzerland	Pro/Elite
		Myriam Guillot	F	France	Pro/Elite
		Marion Lorblanchet	F	France	Pro/Elite
		Maud Golsteyn	F	Netherlands	Pro/Elite
		Claudia Hossmann	F	Switzerland	Pro/Elite
		Monica Gabbanelli	F	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Sara Tavecchio	F	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Melanie McQuaid	F	Canada	Pro/Elite
		Claudia Walser	F	Germany	Pro/Elite
		Jacqui Slack	F	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Ilaria Zavanone	F	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Carina Wasle	F	Austria	Pro/Elite
		Emma Ruth Smith	F	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Darrelle Parker	F	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Giuliana Lamastra	F	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Franky Batelier	M	France	Pro/Elite
		Jim Thijs	M	Belgium	Pro/Elite
		Yeray Luxem	M	Belgium	Pro/Elite
		Felix Schumann	M	Germany	Pro/Elite
		Lars Van Der Eerden	M	Netherlands	Pro/Elite
		Olivier Marceau	M	Switzerland	Pro/Elite
		Luca Molteni	M	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Tom Curtis	M	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Graham Wadsworth	M	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Homes Llewellyn	M	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Jean Marc Cattori	M	Switzerland	Pro/Elite
		Fabio Guidelli	M	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Carl Pasio	M	South Africa	Pro/Elite
		Fabrizio Baralla	M	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Alessio Picco	M	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Ronny Dietz	M	Germany	Pro/Elite
		Ole Vinnergaard	M	Denmark	Pro/Elite
		Ricard Calmet Calveras	M	Spain	Pro/Elite
		Jens Buder	M	Germany	Pro/Elite
		Karel Zadak	M	Czech Republic	Pro/Elite
		Gianpietro De Faveri	M	Italy	Pro/Elite
		Nico Pfitzenmaier	M	Germany	Pro/Elite
		Julian Langer	M	Austria	Pro/Elite
		Sam Gardner	M	United Kingdom	Pro/Elite
		Lieuwe Boonstra	M	South Africa	Pro/Elite
		Nicolas Lebrun	M	France	Pro/Elite
		Borja Conde	M	Spain	Pro/Elite

Ironman Brazil

No start list yet for IM Brazil (c'mon WTC!), but I'm picking two-time defending champ Eduardo Sturla ($6700) over longtime vet Oscar Galindez. As for the women, I'm going with two-time IM Champion (last year!) Tereza Macel (a remarkable affordable $5900).

Austria 70.3

Men: Michael Weiss (he's fast from his MTB background and he's got a taste for victory after being the first Austrian to win an IM; he's competing on home soil and costs less then $6000)
Women: Erika Csomor (haven't heard a lot from her in the past few years, but she's fast and knows how to win—expensive at $7500)

TriGrandPrix UK

This is a new race, kicking off a two race series of half-iron distance races that will grow to five next year. The other race is in the Basque country of Spain (hills, anyone?). They've attracted quite a field, and I'm going with Paul Ambrose, who got me some points in Florida a few weeks ago. On the girls' side I'm taking...Leanda Cave. Hard to pick against her in this relatively shallow field. She'll be battling Yvonne Van Vlerken for the win, I think.

Don't go Low! Says Molly Cameron

2010-05-24T23:56:00.004-04:00

One of my students is working at Upper Echelon Fitness, which shares space with Portland Bike Studio, an excellent cycling boutique on Portland's East Side. UE Fitness, run by Russell Cree, is a coaching company paired with a fit studio, and my student is mostly assisting with bike fitting. The cool thing about going there today is that Molly Cameron, badass cyclocrossista and vegan, was running her side of the business, the Bike Studio bit. Molly manages to dominate the Northwestern Cyclocross scene while running two bike shops, the aforementioned PBC and the excellent Veloshop on the other side of town. She rides a Ridley and stocks Ridleys in the store, and I saw a chance to ask her something that's been niggling at me for a while.

"What do you think about the lower bottom brackets showing up on 'Cross bikes everywhere these days?" I said.

"Hate 'em," she replied.

"Can I quote you on that?"

"Please do!" she answered.

Here's the deal. 'Cross bikes have been appearing with lower bottom bracket drops. "Bottom bracket drop" is the distance from a horizontal line drawn through your front and rear axles (you're looking at the bike from the side, OK?) to the line, parallel to the ground, that passes through your bottom bracket. Big name builders such as Sacha White and Richard Sachs like bikes with bigger drops (White's Speedvagen lists a BB drop of 70 mm, and Sachs only builds bikes with 80 mm drops—that's lower than most road bikes, mind you). Bottom bracket drop is important in many directions. Here are the rules of thumb: lower the bottom bracket, and you lower the center of gravity, which makes the bike more stable while turning. Raise the bottom bracket, and you get more clearance underneath the bike, which can be a downright safety concern off-road, in criteriums, or on the track (Captain Dondo used to run a high bottom bracket and 165 mm cranks so he could pedal through the corners at crits back in the 70s—he won a lot of races that way). So you've got that consideration. Here's another one, though. Raise the bottom bracket, and the chainstays shorten a little bit, so the bike climbs better. Lower it and the wheelbase stretches a bit, giving you (again) a more stable/smooth ride.

The 'Cross community seems to headed in a low direction (the Focus Mares sports a BB drop of 70 mm; the Habanero Cyclocross goes 8 farther, with a drop of 78 mm!). But the best bikes in the cyclocross world, Ridley Bikes, still boast a very small BB drop—57-61mm throughout the whole range of bikes. Another great (European) bike maker, Stevens, sports drops of 62-70mm throughout its range, which is just low of center for 'cross bikes (a good median is 65 mm, I believe). I'd been thinking that, perhaps, Ridley had fallen behind the times.

"I used to ride low bottom brackets," Molly continued, back at the studio, "and I was always hitting pedals and crashing. I crashed right in front of Sacha at Providence in '06 and was like, 'See!' But he wouldn't change the bottom bracket drop. I thought I just couldn't handle the bike, but then I rode one of these things (she pointed up at one of several Ridleys on the wall) and thought 'Whoa, I can sprint out of any corner on this bike.'"

Molly detailed a whole bunch of good reasons to keep a high bottom bracket, mostly having to do with the type of cornering one does in 'Cross racing. Bikes with low bottom brackets sweep through long turns, like long shallow descents out of the mountains. But you almost never make that kind of turn while racing a 'Cross bike. Most of the turns are hairpin, requiring the rider to almost stop, navigate the turn, and then sprint out of it—that's why your heart rate stays so high in 'Cross. Since you're moving slowly you can't lean the bike over dramatically, which is where your low bottom bracket would come in handy. But with a high bottom bracket you can turn and keep pedaling, which will help you stay upright (you know how motocross riders correct the back end of their bikes? They give the bike some gas, which is the same thing as pedaling). Then, with the turn almost completed, you can sprint out of the corner. With a low bottom bracket you'll probably spend a lot of time whacking your pedals on the ground. That won't kill you, but it'll cost you, and a few half-second a lap, over 6-12 laps, can mean around 30 seconds. 30 seconds is an eternity in 'Cross racing.

Keep those bottom brackets up! I'll be visiting Molly to price a Ridley in the coming months.

FantasyTri Minute 5/21

2010-05-21T09:06:00.003-04:00

FantasyTri is up and running, and IM Lanzarote and Xterra Texas are on! My technique of trying to pick 5 athletes just doesn't seem to be working, so I'm going to use this week as a dry run—only three athletes per gender, which should let me pick some real belters. Here's the pro list for IM Lanzarote:

Bert Jammaer Male Belgium Pro
Eneko Llanos Male Spain Pro
Gerrit Schellens Male Belgium Pro
Gregorio Cáceres Morales Male Spain Pro
Stephen Bayliss Male England Pro
HERVE FAURE Male France Pro
Ain-Alar Juhanson Male Estonia Pro
Maik Twelsiek Male Germany Pro
Joseph Spindler Male Germany Pro
Chris Brands Male Netherlands Pro
Patrick Jaberg Male Switzerland Pro
Tuukka Miettinen Male Finland Pro
Nicholas Ward Muñoz Male England Pro
Philip Graves Male England Pro
alvaro velazquez Male Spain Pro
Iñigo Augusto Perez-Nievas Male Spain Pro
Eanna McGrath Male Ireland Pro
Cesar Valera Male Venezuela Pro
Rafael Wyss Male Switzerland Pro
Matja~ Kova? Male Slovenia Pro
Benjamin Rossmann Male Germany Pro
Rob Steegink Male Netherlands Pro
Eneko Elosegui Armendariz Male Spain Pro
Cedric LARGAJOLLI Male France Pro
Jorge Rakos Male Argentina Pro
Kit Stokes Male England Pro
Juha Laitinen Male Finland Pro
Georg Swoboda Male Austria Pro
Peter Schoissengeier Male Austria Pro
Alessandro Valli Male Italy Pro
Werner Ueberbacher Male Italy Pro
Jozef Vrabel Male Slovakia Pro 32
Bella Bayliss Female England Pro
Kathrin Paetzold Female Germany Pro
Hillary Biscay Female United States Pro
Tara Norton Female Canada Pro
Rebecca Preston Female Australia Pro
Irene Kinnegim Female Netherlands Pro
Nicole Woysch Female Germany Pro
Catriona Morrison Female Scotland Pro
Beatrix Blattmann Female Switzerland Pro
Joanna Carritt Female England Pro
Kate Bevilaqua Female Australia Pro
Wenke Kujala Female Germany Pro
Yvette Grice Female England Pro
Heike Priess Female Germany Pro
Kathrin Volz Female Germany Pro
Sarah Schuetz Female Switzerland

I'd take Bert Jammaer (he's won the damn thing twice in a row, he's a new dad, and he only costs $5937)
Eneko Llanos ($6964)
Catriona Morrison ($7450)
Hilary Biscay ($7117)

Total Team for IM Lanzarote: 27468

Start List for Xterra Waco, Men:

USA - Matt Boobar, Ryan DeCook, Craig Evans, Scott Gall, Trevor Glavin, Brandon Jessop, Will Kelsay, Josiah Middaugh, Branden Rakita, Cody Waite, Seth Wealing
FRANCE - Nico Lebrun
SOUTH AFRICA - Grayson Keppler, Conrad Stoltz

Start list for Xterra Waco, Women:

USA - Emma Garrard, Shae Rainer, Brandyn Roark Gray, Sara Tarkington, Tracy Thelen, Shonny Vanlandingham
AUSTRALIA - Christie Sym
CANADA - Christine Jeffrey, Melanie McQuaid
NEW ZEALAND - Jenny Smith
SCOTLAND - Lesley Paterson
SWITZERLAND - Renata Bucher

I'm taking Seth Wealing ($4926) as my stud and Matt Boobar ($1986, VT Represent!) and Grayson Keppler ($250) as my pack fill. On the Womens' side, I'm taking Lesley Patterson ($4585, a second scottish woman!) as my...Studette? That sounds awful. Um, what's a good word for strong woman that doesn't sound terrible, like "Amazon" or "Athena?" Anyway. Then I've got Christie Sym ($250) and Shae Rainer ($250) as my pack fill. There are so few athletes that you should really just fill up on Xterra people, since you know you're going to score.

Get out there and play! The race just opened up but you've got to get your picks in before racing starts in Lanzarote!

Integrity

2010-05-19T23:55:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking about integrity a lot, recently: my integrity, the integrity of my students, the integrity of my athletic ambitions, the integrity of my artistic ambitions, the integrity of my professional and life ambitions, the integrity of the people around me.

Integrity has to do with the alignment of all the parts of your being. Here's an example. Some students at my school made some bad decisions recently. No big deal, really—they're high school students and no one ended up hurt (no blood, no foul, right?). When the story started to leak out, though, they conspired among themselves to protect each other. Their desire to tell the truth was out of integrity with the urge to protect their friends. This is a perfectly understandable situation, especially if you are, say, seventeen and thinking about what a suspension might look like on your college applications. The big issue, however, is that their conscience wanted to do one thing while their ego wanted them to do something else—two different directions=impossible to act with integrity. Integrity loathes multitasking.

I am out of integrity with some aspects of my life. This being a somewhat light athletic blog, I will spare you the nitty-gritty of my personal existence, if it can be separated at all from my athletic existence. We'll start with some basic ones.

My core strength is out of integrity with my athletic ambitions. Despite knowing how important core strength is I continue to neglect it, thinking "It's only a half-hour of work...how important could it be? I'm training 25 hours a week, what will 2 sessions of strength work do for me? My core strength and my athletic ambitions are out of integrity.
My weight is out of integrity with my athletic ambitions. I told Cliff, yesterday, that I'll get down to 175 by Boise 70.3. That's six pounds in three-and-a-half weeks. I've said I'll lose that weight for years, now. What part of me wants me not to be successful? I've been too light before, and I don't want to go back there, but a sensible leanness will only make me faster.
My misgivings about the sport are out of integrity with my athletic ambitions. I hesitate to identify as a triathlete, or as a professional athlete. These things seem to be frivolous or narcissistic to people I've met before, and I've taken those things on. So when I'm training one part of my brain thinks "This is amazing—I don't ever want to do anything else. I am the luckiest man on the planet." The other part of my brain is saying: "You'll never be good enough. You're just doing this to keep the demons at bay. You're doing this because you're horribly self-centered."

Having a lack of integrity can be exhausting, even if your lack of integrity is only hurting yourself. As the best boss I've ever had once said: "When you are dishonest you get warts on your soul and those warts do not go away." I see being out of integrity with one's self as dishonesty, even if it's something like being dishonest about your commitment to get one's strength workouts done.

Whew. Heavy! Sorry, folks. We'll return with light entertainment on Friday, for the FantasyTri update!

Legitimate

2010-05-17T17:09:00.005-04:00

No, I couldn't re-tilt the photo at left, so excuse the oddity. TJ Tollakson came in 7th yesterday, making him my best placed male FantasyTri athlete (I swerved at the last minute and benched eventual 4th place finisher Richie Cunningham for no-show Leon Griffin—didn't I say his website didn't say anything about Florida 70.3? Shucks). For a while during the race I thought I'd made a canny decision, picking the only $4100 Tollakson for my team, since he came off the bike almost 7 minutes in front, after a bike split that distanced the pack by almost 10 minutes. He got around in under 2 hours, which is rare air for 56 miles on your own. TJ's effort would place him in the ballpark of professional cyclists competing in long time trials. Toss in the fact that the Florida 70.3 bike course is by no means a straightforward affair: it isn't pancake flat and swoops and curves out in the orchards beyond Orlando.

TJ put in the effort to win his way on Sunday, for which I admire him. After a disappointing race in Galveston where he bided his time, it seems he decided to go back to his trump card, the bike. As playing that card often does, he paid for his gamble by blowing up in the Disneyworld heat. Still, he played it. As an athlete whose strong suit is also the bike (can I really say that any more? I feel more and more middle of the pack these days on the bike) I admire the gamble Tollakson made. On a few days in triathlon the cyclists have their days: Normann's had two, TJ's had one at Eagleman, Jordan's had a bunch until he showed us that, actually, he's a pretty damn solid runner, too. Triathlon is drifting towards a conservative style of racing: sit in the pack on the swim, sit in the line on the bike, save it for the run, so it's nice to see someone still making triathlon about his individual strength.

Fantasy Tri Minute 5/13—Men.

2010-05-13T12:56:00.005-04:00

Only one race this coming weekend, but the field listed for Florida 70.3 is an interesting one. Here are the two start lists (separated by gender—why can't WTC do at least that for its website users?).

Men

Rich Allen—Racing, on the comeback trail, 14th at Knoxville and St. Anthony's. Longshot to get you points. Bargain at $2133, though.
Paul Ambrose—Racing, another relative bargain at just over $5000. He's a steady performer at 70.3 distance. He's probably a good choice.
Dirk Bockel—Racing, but expensive at $7100.
Daniel Bretscher—Not sure if he's racing; website didn't say, but he's cheap at $3900 or so. Probably a good pick.
Mike Caiazzo (NOT RACING)
Andres Castillo Latorre—He's got similar results to me, but only costs $250. If you're looking for a longshot but with some value, he might not be bad (I beat him by a couple of places in Austin last year).
Richie Cunningham—Racing. Richie's expensive, but he'll usually get inside the top five. He's a good stallion to pick for your stable. I'm going to play him this weekend.
Scott Duffy—Couldn't figure out who this person is. Nor does he have a FantasyTri listing.
Stephen Dyke—Canadian bloke, it seems. A few north-of-the-border results. Cheap.
Paul Fritzsche—Paul is just a great guy and a super-strong cyclist. His blog says he's competing, but I think this field might just be too strong for him to get into the top ten. He's good value, though, at just under $3000.
Ryan Giuliano—Part of the US Pro Tri team. Looks like a young pro. No FT listing.
Leon Griffin—Leon is a stud, but his website doesn't mention Florida...
Andrew Hodges—Website mentions nothing about Florida...I got burned by playing Andrew a few weeks ago, so I'm gonna steer clear.
David Kahn—Second year pro. No listing on FT or on his blog.
Stephen Kilshaw—Won Shawnigan Lake 1/2 IM last year, and he's only $25o. Could be a good sleeper.
Greg Kopecky—Also only $250. Young, though.
Reinaldo Oliveira—A few results. Probably pack-fill.
Kyle Pawlaczyk—13th at New Orleans 70.3. Might get you some points if you can spell his name. Only $250.
Bryan Rhodes—His website doesn't mention Florida. Coming back from injury. A little expensive, especially since we're not sure he's competing.
Daniel Schmoll—Who?
TJ Tollakson—Buy! Buy! Pretty cheap. Hungry. Fit. Only $4100.
Nicholas Vandam—Young ITU pro. Florida 70.3 is probably a little too hilly on the bike for him right now.
Matt White—His blog doesn't say anything. Sounds like he's going back to Boulder to get ready for CdA.
Maxim Kriat—Long course guy, had some success. Cheap. You might think about it. Only $2400.
Alun Woodward—I don't know who this is, but he's expensive ($5500). ITU guy?
Viktor Zyemtsev—Still classy after all these years. Won Louisville last year and just came in 10th at St. Anthony's. Not too expensive ($4700) and likely to get you some points.

Here's my team:

Cunningham, Tollakson, Ambrose, Pawlaczyk, Kilshaw.

Here's the women's start list. I'll do them tomorrow.

Women

Leanda Cave
Florence Chretien
Jacqui Gordon
Lisa Huetthaler
Heather Jackson
Tamara Kozulina
Nina Kraft
Heather Leiggi
Emma-Kate Lidbury
Kim Loeffler
Sara McLarty
Kate Pallardy
Ayesha Rollinson
Daniela Saemmler
David Sharratt
Amanda Stevens
Danielle Sullivan
Pip Taylor
Magali Tisseyre
Kelly Williamson

Strength

2010-05-11T23:59:00.003-04:00

I'm not as despondent as I was about racing last week. 8 days of recovery and then a good first day back will alleviate the darkest doubts, although I've now come full circle and deeply regret dropping out of Ironman St. George. It was such a hard race, and I could have finished it—there is beauty in finishing any Ironman. I was just feeling a bit overconfident and poncy about the whole thing. You have to race the whole time—nothing gets handed to you, especially in long-distance racing.

OK, enough philosophizing for now. One of the things I need to address is my core and stability work. If I only suspected they needed work last week, my worst fears have been confirmed by one strength session with zen guru physiotherapist/triathlete/coach/counselor Chris Ramsey (whose name I have finally spelled correctly). Chris is a veteran of many Ironman races, pulling off a 9:10 in his career, which is nothing at all at which to sniff. Chris agreed to help me with my strength issues, and we met in the beautiful (beautiful to an athlete) gym at Portland Center for Athletic Excellence (which has the somewhat head-tilting acronym PACE to go with its name)—if you haven't been to PACE, you should go sometime. They gym floor is old-school astroturf, and there is a skull with crossed battleaxes on the wall, grinning at you through the unmistakable circle of chainring. Think Rocky crossed with Breaking Away and you're pretty much there. Don't laugh, though; there are several Stars-and-Bars jerseys on the wall and—be still, breath—a medium blue jersey enlivened by rainbow stripes. There are Olympic weight racks and buckets of foam rollers. Kettleballs and stability balls. It smells of chamois cream and chalk. That is, to anyone who loves sport, it is the most beautiful place in the world.

OK, enough overblown prose. Here's what Chris did to me:

Pushups on a stability ball ("the point isn't doing pushups," Chris said. "The point is holding your core in the right place while you do pushups. You've got strong arms. You can muscle out some pushups. But do you see that your hips are sagging? That means you're not working what you're trying to work. Do them from your knees.") Doing pushups from one's knees is a humbling thing. We all knew what we thought of the guys on our soccer teams long ago who did pushups from their knees. Sigh. I was able to do two sets of six before throwing in the towel.

Pullups from Olympic Rings: as cool as this sounds, this is actually a modified row exercise. You grab the rings and take about six steps backwards, so the rings' strap to the ceiling forms the hypoteneuse of a right triangle. You lean back so your arms are straight, and then you pull yourself forward, "keeping your elbows straight!" If you do this, you'll feel quite a burn between your shoulder-blades. As with the pushups, you've got to keep yourself plank straight.

Side Planks: pretty obvious, right? Still painful.

Standing Hip Abduction: Let me just say directly that I hate these. Here are Chris's directions:

1) Lift one foot off the floor (slight bend in the leg you’re standing on)
2) Lift the “up” leg out to the side
3) Slowly lower back to the start but keep the foot up in the air

Done correctly, this really, really hurts both sides of your hips. If you have "The hips of a fifteen year-old-girl, as I appear to do, this exercise really hurts.

Squats: I managed 2x12 reps at, oh, 65 pounds. I used to squat hundreds of pounds when I used to play soccer. Sigh.

Standing/Squatting Jump-Thingies: Here's how you do these.

1) Stand with knees bent, as if you're about to sit down on the toilet
2) Raise your arms in front of you, pointing straight out (unlike sitting down on the toilet)
3) Hop quickly for thirty seconds, landing "lightly" ("try not to make any sound when you land) so your quads soak up the contact. Don't aim for height. Aim for quality and speed.

Mountain Climbers: I basically couldn't do these, but Chris says the most important thing (for when I can actually do them) is not to touch one's toes to the ground at the top of the motion. Keep them in the air. It's harder.

Plyometrics: I did so many of these back in my goalkeeping days that it seems totally unfair to be doing plyos again. We did use those cool rope-ladder thingies that you see NFL players using on Nike ads on TV, the ones where each bead of sweat has been placed and lovingly photographed.

Combination Pushup-Walking with Superman: Say what? It's almost impossible.

OK, that's all for my running update for this week. Stay tuned for the Fantasy Tri minute on Friday.

Once [Never] A Runner?

2010-05-05T17:30:00.004-04:00

I come back to John Parker Jr's running classic about once a year, mostly to remind myself that athletic success often comes with a steep price tag. You only have to read the scene in which Bruce Denton puts Quenton Cassidy through the following workout to discover if you even want to try to pay the price (actually paying the price, well, that takes even more guts).

3x(20x400 m @ race pace (55 sec/quarter) w/100 m jog between quarters and 400 m jog after every five quarters).

That's a simple equation, but for a runner of Cassidy's caliber (that's Jim Ryun or Steve Prefontaine or Adam Goucher) you're talking 15 miles at sub 4:00/mile pace with only the barest of recoveries. The whole workout works out to 19.25 miles, a brutal amount of work to be done on the track.

The thing is, you must be willing to go that deep if you actually care about winning in your sport. As I came off the bike on Saturday I felt a lot of things, rust being the predominant sensation. But more unsettling than forgetting that, in a race, you have to be prepared to work hard (how did I lose sight of that one?) was the sense that I just didn't know how to run.

I've run a lot over the past ten years. I remember the run that may have kicked off Chris Bagg's modern era of running. I had on a pair of yellow New Balance 1026s, which felt like beautiful slippers. I was a senior in college, living in a bizarre house off campus above an actress and a poli sci major named Vindhyia. I cruised out for a run on Vassar's Farm and came back feeling cracked open, as if breathing for the first time (I'd run before, but not with the same sense of timeliness and freedom). The awful year in D.C. followed, and my first marathon, and then countless half-marathons, triathlons, cycling races, open water swims, etc, etc...

But I don't think I know how to run.

You've seen people who know how to run. They run the way the Flintstones characters ran: an upper body held motionless, while legs turn in a blur below. No matter the terrain they flow up and over it, their shoes making no more than light scuff, scuff, scuff, scuff on the ground. Looking at the pictures from St. George, I see someone deeply afflicted by gravity, earthbound and irrevocably attached to the pavement. My face has none of a true runner's serenity.

I neglect a lot of the things that might make me a better runner: drills, cadence, core strength. I'm embarking, though, on a quest to become a true runner. That means losing some weight and building some strength. Look to these pages in the coming weeks to see how it's going. I'll try to keep you updated on my process.

IM St. George

2010-05-04T01:40:00.002-04:00

IM St. George was this past Saturday, and I didn't finish. I could have trotted home in a 3:40—4:00 marathon, but I think that would have thrashed me for the next four weeks. Here's the email I sent to Cliff debriefing the race:

OK, I'm pretty disappointed, but here's my post-mortem on the race.

Swim: bright point of the day, actually. I made the second group, which was one of my goals going in. Luke Bell was way out in front (49 minutes), then there was a small group of 8 that contained Hoffman, Macdonald, Kotsegarov, Lieto, etc...I was in the second group that came in at 54:30, about three minutes back. Certainly within striking distance, since Michael Weiss and I came out of the water together.

Bike: too patient, I think. Averaging 246 watts for 112 is just way too low, I think. The wind was fierce, and I really, really don't go uphill very well if I'm being careful. I just felt like I shouldn't push too hard and I ended up putting in a 5:15 split. Feeling like one of the stronger cyclists out there, I think that's a pretty abysmal time. I felt like I was missing a gear in back, because I'd ride at, like, 95 RPM and shift up, but then not be able to turn over that higher gear (around 80 RPM). I'm pissed I rode just so far off the pace. I couldn't really go with anyone that passed me, and I was annoyed that anyone passed me at all.

Run: ugh. Within seconds of starting the run I knew I just didn't have it. My legs felt fine (after the first few hundred meters), but I just didn't...believe. My lungs felt pretty good, but I just couldn't get my legs turning. Then the hills and the wind took the rest out of me. I could have staggered home in 4:00 or so, but I didn't want to destroy my legs for the next month and post a 10+hour IM. I felt fit, but the body just wasn't ready. I feel like a car in which the engine is strong and the frame is decrepit and weak.

I'm frustrated, but I only have myself to blame. I do all the big picture training (putting in hours, working the intervals, etc...) but I'm terrible about strength training and run form. Here are a few areas I have to improve in:

Strength: I never do strength training. Part of it is not knowing what to do (so much information, so much of it conflicting) and part of it is habit/time. I'm not used to doing strength training and so I don't make it a regular part of my schedule. The guy who was working on my Achilles did some resistance tests and said: "You have the hip strength of a 15 year old girl."

Form: my form is poor. Running cadence is usually around 85-87, which I understand is just too low to run efficiently. I don't know what drills to do to improve this.

Weight: I'm too big. I look at the guys I race against and there is a definite difference. I think I could probably lose about 8-10 pounds safely. I don't have good resources about figuring out body fat, so I neglect keeping track of that.

Belief: I don't have any faith in myself as a runner. I don't feel like a runner, I don't think like a runner. When I'm on the bike I think "OK, who'm I gonna get next?" On the run I think "How far back is the guy behind me. Sigh. How many spaces will I give up on this run?"

I would really, really like to address this. If possible I'd like to go to Boise and be competitive (June 12) and then get on the podium at Pac Crest (June 26).

Frustrated, but ready to get working.

Chris

Race Week...

2010-04-28T18:45:00.002-04:00

...It's race week. You can follow along on Saturday at www.ironman.com. Yes, the race coverage WTC tries to pass off as coverage (Anyone remember the opening scene of Sexy Beast, in which our hero's not very svelte (or sexy) hulk bakes under a pool-side sun? that's what the "coverage" WTC trots out every weekend is like: alarming and dismaying) sucks, but it least your friends and family know you're still alive.

I'll be resuming posting next Monday, since it'll be hard to walk.

Fantasy Tri Minute 4/24

2010-04-24T20:08:00.002-04:00

There are five (5!) races on the FantasyTri calendar for this week, which makes picking both easier and more difficult. The huge number of races this week, however, makes me wonder why they don't have my race set up for next week. Hmph. Without further ado (since I'm already a day late) here are my choice for tomorrow (I think you can still get in on the action for another few hours).

Men: This week I'm shifting my strategy and picking more "within the top ten" guys and more "heavy-hitter" women. There are some great bargains to be had at the moment due to some glitches in the FantasyTri ranking system. Here's my lineup, my cost, and my rationalization.

Stephen Bayliss: He's the class of the Ironman SA field and a pretty economical choice for below $8000. Reynard Tissink is in the field, though, and could very well challenge for the win.

Ben Collins: Although he wears a "funny" suit to practice, Collins could be one of the better athletes in Ishigaki this weekend. Among the other American choices are Chris Tremonte and Jimmy Archer, neither of whom should threaten. If you want to pick a possible winner, David Dellow might be your best bet.

Richie Cunnigham: Richie is money in the bank. If he doesn't win, he'll come in third. Once Amy ate his leftover meatballs off his plate in Newfoundland, a continuous source of allusive amusement.

Tim O'Donnell: For some reason, the FantasyTri people have Tim listed at $4585. I'm not sure how that happened with several wins to his name last year. Second best bargain of the week (second best?!)

David Thompson: David is a fighter, and although I don't think he'll win St. Anthony's, I bet he'll place. It will be interesting to see him out there against Crowie in the short course stuff again. If you want a winner, pick Matty Reed.

Women:

Bella Bayliss: By the magic of marriage, Bella neé Comerford is listed Bella Bayliss and, as such, hasn't been awarded any results. You can pick up this multiple IM winner for $250. Natch.

Leanda Cave: She's fast, and is one of the better athletes in the IM 70.3 Galveston field. I'm going to tip her as the winner.

Kim Loeffler: Third place at IM NZ, and that was about 7 weeks ago. I'll bet she's been working on her speed on top of a huge base. I predict podium.

Shonny Vanlandingham: Other than the best name in the sport, she should do quite well at Xterra West. I don't know if she'll win, but she'll be in the mix and get me some points.

Karin Thuerig: 9th at Clearwater last year and she only costs $250?! She'll get you some points.

Barriers

2010-04-20T23:56:00.004-04:00

(Sorry about missing Monday, folks...I tried to publish an old post but it gave itself the date on which I wrote it and is now buried in the older posts)

Early morning and the cops are clearing the street of debris; the fence guys have come along and slowly built a wall a few feet back from the curb; they've butted up the feet of the sections and zip-tied them together; soon there's a channel 30 meters wide and the street has that abandoned feeling usually reserved for very late at night.

Sadly, no race rolled past my door this morning (my front door is that grey archway 2/3 down the block), although I have to confess I felt that tingle one feels walking past the finish line on race morning, the tingle that says maybe, maybe...

I've raised my arms at the finish only a few times in my career, and never at a race bigger than something local, but when you see Phillipe Gilbert do it on the cobbles of the Cauberg, or Crowie do it (with a sharp flex added for good measure) under the palms at Kona, something in your chest wants to raise those arms, too.

We've all done it, I'm guessing, when we knew no one lurked nearby to see us. Pretending to win goes back to our first solo experiences with games, when we hit towering home runs into phantom Fenway lights, or sank countless Bird-esque jumpers that almost touched the rafters of the old Garden. Now we crest a hill after a long climb along and raise our arms just to see what it feels like, and the old magic still flows.

For me, seeing a crew set up barriers along a set of curbs sets those dreams of magic alight. You see yourself, alone after a long breakaway, or running down Boylston street by yourself (Oh those beautiful foreshortened shots of Boylston Street, where the second place runners seem so close, where their dreams of coming back seem plausible for only a second!), or realizing that your pursuers won't make up the distance you've put into them over 140.6 miles.

You enter the barriers at the finishing chute.

Gilbert

Alexander

Cheruiyot

Fantasy Tri Minute 4/16

2010-04-16T12:51:00.002-04:00

It really is a minute this week, since I've gotta get out the door to swim. Here are my choices and my explanations for the two races, New Orleans 70.3 and Monterrey ITU World Cup:

Men

Terenzo Bozzone: Out of the three big "hitters" in this race, I like Terenzo's chances the best. Macca is awesome, but he sometimes does contract races in which he goes and jumps in the water and pulls out after ten miles on the bike. Like Lance, he's all about Kona. Terenzo is all about winning. Andy Potts just had a baby and that's enough of an "intangible" (when the hell is, say, a child something "intangible?") to make me pick against him. Terenzo is also the most economical of the big guns.

Matt Chrabot: I got to swim with Matt last month and he's going really fast. He wins races in Mexico and is the best ITU American athlete on the start line in Mexico at the moment (Jarrod hasn't really been racing, yet).

Brian Fleischmann: Another good, economical choice. These second tier American ITU guys do quite well in Central American races.

Andrew Hodges: Another safe, economical choice. I've raced and traveled with Andrew before and he's a good athlete, very solid, very dependable. Not much chance of a DNF and, if he swims well, he'll probably figure in the race since he's a good runner.

Ben Hoffman: Ben is a super-strong guy and that will suit him well on this powerman's course. He's got lots of good results in the past two seasons and I think he'll pop a good one this weekend in NO. Also economical.

Women

The women's field at NO is pretty dumbell-shaped. Yvonne Van Vlerken, Dede Griesbauer, Heather Jackson, Linsey Corbin, Amy Marsh, Sam Warriner at one end (PROs) and then a whole bunch of lower-case pros at the other end. I went with one hitter (Griesbauer—she's from New England) and some little-know athletes (Jolene Wilkinson, Anne Basso). For the ITU race, I went with Anja Knapp (those Germans) and Misato Takagi (the Japanese have been making a run at ITU races in recent years). Monterrey is such a second-class field that it's hard to pick. Since the fields for the women are shallow in both races (sorry, girls), the game is really to pick people who are just going to fill out the top ten. Make your piece with not getting the winner (it's a crap-shoot) and just try to score, like it's a cross-country race.

Did I mention I came in second during week 15's game?

Paris-Roubaix 2010

2010-04-13T22:44:00.003-04:00

Paris—Roubaix is the one endurance event where all the sporting clichés about "war" and "battle" almost seem to ring true: the cameramen shoot the cyclists from the ground up, dangling the lens inches from the speeding cobbles, so they appear huge, like Japanimation giant robots; the yellow-and-black flags stand out straight in the wind; the trees are leafless; the sun (if there is sun) is broken by dramatic cloudbanks; the light is tragic. You can imagine what the countryside would have looked like hundreds of years ago, as armies marched across it towards their intimate, inelegant slaughter.

The battle of Paris—Roubaix is also inelegant. It is a race decided by force and luck, the kind of contest that scrappy baseball players look at, smirk, and comment upon with a whistle, saying "I'd rather be lucky than good any day." Of course, the rejoinder goes, it's nice to be lucky and good. Poor George Hincapie, his decade of attempts probably closed, usually came with the good part figured out, but had to rely upon his shit luck. Fabian Cancellara was so good that he didn't have to rely upon luck at all—like the greatest ones, he made his own "luck" by being just so much better than everyone else.

Triathletes love Fabian Cancellara—he rides bikes that look familiar to us, and he rides them the way we like to ride them (big power, full on, no thought of tomorrow—he's a hammerhead). But Cyclocrossers love him too—witness the skills on display at The Tour of Flanders, skills he showed again while changing his bike right before blowing the field to pieces in Northern France. With the hallowed double under his belt, should all the tri-geeks be worried about FC showing up in Kona in 2011, instead of another dominant cyclist?

Bike Fit—Dean Phillips Guest Blogger

2010-04-12T13:33:00.002-04:00

While I'm crying into my non-alcoholic beer over my FantasyTri predictions from last week (that Bevan Docherty—how over the hill he is!) I'm going to go ahead and post an email from Dean Phillips at FitWerx that he sent to me late last year about bike choices for 2010. I'm still riding my 2008 P3 58cm frame (happily it fits me quite well), but I thought that Dean's way of explaining stack and reach numbers was worth repeating to a larger audience. I've been going to Dean and Ian (Buchanan, owner of the company) for my fit stuff for years, now, and I really like their approach. Dean is a similar rider to me (big guy, large power numbers), but he's been finding ways to get more "slippery" as he's matured as a cyclist, holding the same power but getting steadily faster. He's an unabashed numbers guy and a painstaking experimenter, and I love corresponding with him since I always learn something really cool. Here's his email reprinted below.

Hi Chris,

Funny you should ask about the stack and reach numbers. I just flew out to California last weekend to go through Dan Empfield's FIST clinic, which was very interesting and informative.

Anyway, I can back calculate stack and reach numbers based on your position. Keep in mind, stack and reach is simply the x and y coordinates of the top-center of a bike's head tube relative to the bottom bracket. It sounds like you know this already, but some people confuse it with other things. There are a number of setbacks using the stack and reach system, but there are a number of benefits as well - such as easily comparing your stack and reach numbers to other manufacturers bike selections to see what works. Determining best fitting bike options using stack and reach are best done when you pre-determine your aerobar and stem setup and use those during your bike fitting. That being said, we can work in reverse here and back into stack and reach given your current setup.

Since stack and reach for a rider is dependent on aerobar selection, proper stem length, stem angle, and spacers under the stem, you’ll ultimately end up with a different stack and reach for different aerobars. Your stack and reach for your setup with the Hed integrated aerobars is going to be very different then your stack and reach coordinates using the Profile T2+ aerobars. Let's say you attach the same stem length and angle to both of these aerobars and slap it on the fit cycle. Since the Hed elbow pads sit about 3cm lower relative to the stem clamp, they'll require about 3cm more head tube length (or 3cm more stack) to keep your body in the same position. You could use spacers instead of head tube, but this starts drifting outside the stack and reach methodology. On the reach side of things, the back of the Hed elbow pads sit about 3.5cm further forward than the Profile T2+ elbow pads. In order for your body to be in the same place, you'll need an additional 3.5cm of top tube length (or 3.5cm more reach) with the Profile aerobars versus the Hed aerobars - assuming your using the same stem setup.

I only mention the above and risk confusing you since I think you have a good understanding of the way this works. All that said, Dan gave us a neat conversion link to compute stack and reach numbers from Serotta's "X,Y" coordinates that we determined during your bike fitting. Serotta X,Y coordinates are similar to stack and reach but are measured to the center of the stem clamp (versus the top of the head tube for stack and reach). Similarly Serotta X,Y coordinates are also dependent on aerobar selection, but those are easy to correct for with known conversions we have in our system. I like X,Y better since they allow me to try different stem lengths, stem angles, and spacer stacks in a design in order to match an X,Y position for a rider. The stack and reach database is great as long as you've done the fitting with the correct aerobar and stem setup.

So this is as good an opportunity as any for me to try his conversion. I have your X,Y stem clamp coordinates converted for the Hed aerobars (about 53.4 and 65.9mm), so I'll assume we set your existing bike up with a 12cm 10deg stem with 20mm of spacers and a 15mm conical headset spacer below it when we were matching it up with your position. I plug them into Dan's calculator here:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Fit_Calculator/fit_calculator.php?use=serotta

You only need to fill out the top 8 fields to compute a stack and reach. This spits out a stack of 54.6 and reach of 44.6. That lines up close to the 58 P3 in Dan's tables (I'm likely off on what stem you're currently using), so at least my conversion and math is in the ballpark.

But let's look at this another way. You're clearly on a long stem with spacers stacked up underneath it. Let's try to set up the 'virtual size cycle' with a 11cm 10deg stem with only 10mm of spacers over the headset cap instead of 20mm. The calculator now spits out 56.1, 45.1 stack and reach. By choosing a more moderate length stem with fewer spacers it makes the size 61 P3 look like a much better match. You're in a similar position to what I use with the longer reach and less drop. I chose a size 61 P3 and now P4 to better accomodate this position. I always feel I'd rather take up vertical distance at the front of the bike with an aero head tube instead of cylindrical spacers anyway. The head tube is more aerodynamic, and the bike will ultimately handle better with less distance from the top of the headset bearings to the stem.

Anyway, I hope this exercise sheds some light, and I guess I should thank you that now I can use Dan’s X,Y conversion calculator if anybody else is looking for stack and reach. Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this. I tend to go and go with the gory details sometimes, so I apologize if you lost me in the 2nd paragraph. :-)

Thanks,
Dean

Fantasy Tri Minute, 4/9

2010-04-09T00:17:00.003-04:00

I'm definitely an addictive game player. Once, a few years ago, I cultivated a nasty competitive two-person Scrabble habit. Scrabble Tim and I were banging out countless game of timed two-person tournament scrabble (each player get a total of 25 minutes, in the whole game, to make his plays—you use a chess clock to track how much time you've got left, and every minute you go over subtracts 10 points from your total; it is a cruel, cruel mistress). I am what you might call an "extreme adaptor." This fact makes sense. One doesn't become a professional athlete in a niche sport because one thinks it's a good or cool idea; one does it because one's nature kinda demands it. I've heard good writers talk about this fact, too. Lots of people want to be writers, and they struggle with the commitment that trade requires. Good writers can't help writing. It is, as the lovely Stanley Kunitz (RIP) pointed out, "something libidinous."

I love games, and I love games in which there's something at stake (this means I have to stay away from gambling for real money). I once neglected my summertime job to manage a fantasy baseball team simply because I was minding the team for a friend who was away from computer access for six weeks—I couldn't deal with the possibility that he might return to find his team in last place. Soon I was buying Baseball Weekly and obsessively canvassing ESPN for "fantasy bargains," which sound like something scumbags look for in Las Vegas. I stay away from the major sport fantasy games mostly because I love things like cycling, triathlon, tennis, and running, and most of those don't have a viable fantasy contingent.

I blogged about Fantasy Tri last fall, and they seem to be getting a lot of the bugs out. Along with Fantasy Cyclocross (Possible? you say—yes) I now have an outlet for my two favorite sports. So you should all go and sign up, and here I'm going to do some handicapping with the field for Sunday's first ITU Dextro World Championship Series. This is the first big race of the year (the World Cup races kicked off last month in Mooloolaba; the ITU has a confusing system in which "World Cups" are less important than the "World Championship Series;" it's kinda like if the NFL had a couple of championships, one called the Superbowl and another called the Superballs—you would have no idea which was more important unless you lived within the system for a while, like Cannondale's crazy frame naming system) and many of the short-course triathlon world gliterati will be racing. I'm going to try to handicap the top ten prospects of each start list, but remember my system for handicapping is entirely unscientific. Fantasy Tri's system relies upon "salaries" assigned to each athlete depending on how accomplished they are. For each race you're given a certain amount of money, and then you can "hire" athletes for your team. You get to choose the athletes, but their total salary can't exceed the money you've got (everyone starts with the same money). You score depending on what place the athletes come in, so it's probably more valuable to pick 2nd place, 3rd, and 5th rather than picking the winner and, say, 7th place.

N.B. Home course advantage, I've discovered, does not exist, unless you are Australian and male. But even that statistical hiccup has an explanation and a big caveat: there are proportionally more Australian ITU athletes than any other nation, and they flock to their home events. At Mooloolaba 2010 Australian men made up 31% of the field and they took home 50% of the top ten spots. When the competition heats up, however, home advantage fades away. At the Gold Coast WCS (Pop Quiz: which series is that? Figure it out, do it now!) last year 9% of the field were Australian and 10% of the the top ten. Australia is one of the "have" countries in terms of triathlon, so you gotta figure that there's a good amount of parity at the most competitive races. So, if you're thinking of stacking your team with Australians, you might want to think twice.

MEN

Jan Frodeno (GER)—$5588. A pretty good bargain at this price. Frodeno didn't finish outside of the top ten last season. At 14% of my budget (the budget this week is $40000) I'm taking him. Figure 7/1 for him to win, and 4/5 for him to get inside the top fifteen. YES.

Laurent Vidal (FRA)—$5322. Another really strong choice, although I didn't take him. Another "not outside the top ten" from last year (except a bizarre 26th finish at the ETU Europe Championships, which had a pretty deep field). You've got to love his dancing. He's got a win under his belt but isn't quite at the level of Frodeno, Kahlefeldt, et al. 9/1 for the win, and 5/4 for a top 15. YES.

Kris Gemmel (NZL)—$6872?! A bit overrated here, I think. Ranked 8th in the world and seems to bring it for big races. Still, you're blowing a big part of your budget, here (17%). 5/1 for the win, although he doesn't really win very often..10/9 to finish in the top fifteen. NO.

Dmitry Polyansky (RUS)—$4374. Not too much cash, but other than one big win (he got Tiszaujvaros last year) he doesn't have too much under his belt. 15/1 for the win, 5/3 to finish in the top fifteen. I'm not taking him. NO,

Jarrod Shoemaker (USA)—$5322. Great bargain. He won Hamburg last year and he's really learned how to run with the big guys. 7/1 for the win. I'd take him. YES.

Alexander Brukhankov (RUS)—$5463. More expensive than Shoemaker with a much, much less illustrious record. Don't do it. 20/1 for the win. NO.

Brad Kahlefeldt (AUS)—He's the man, I'd say, even at $7543. After a great win at Mooloolaba I think he's ready to storm the season again. 2/1 for the win. 5/5 for the top fifteen. YES.

Bevan Docherty (NZL)—Who doesn't like Bevan Docherty? But at $7388 he's WAY overpriced. Might be a bit long in the tooth these days...Still, he can really pop one when he wants to. 18/1 for the win. 10/7 for a top 15. NO.

Simon Whitfield (CAN)—Another bargain at $5911. Three wins last year and one of them was at Hy-Vee against one of the best fields, well, ever. Simon is one of the most competitive guys I know and he really, really loves his daughter. Why would you bet against that? 6/1 for the win. 10/9 for a top fifteen. YES.

David Hauss (FRA)—Huge bargain. Hauss scored me points a few weeks ago, and at $3083 it would be hard not to take him. He won't win, but he will get you some points. 30/1 for the win, 10/7 for a top fifteen. YES.

I realize that's six yeses and you can only have five athletes of each gender per team. So. Who are you going to leave out? Who did I leave on?

See you at the races—women's handicapping coming tomorrow.

CORRECTION: Achilles Tendonitis

2010-04-07T16:37:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I talked about my Achilles tendonitis, and what I'm doing about it. It appears that I've been taking part in an information cascade myself, which Chris Ramsay (note that I spelled his name correctly this time) caught and corrected. Here is his much more accurate version of Active Release Therapy and Triggerpoint Therapy.

1. I am not able to state that I practice ART, as it is a licensed name. I do, however, practice the general concepts as they are commonly used manual techniques in the manual therapist’s arsenal. The concept involves breaking adhesions between two adjacent tissues, as distinct from muscle knots originating from an active trigger point, which we’ll review in a moment. Let’s take muscle and myofascia as a common example. The clinician strives to break an adhesion between these tissues by pinning the myofascia manually – that’s me using my hands – and then actively mobilize the muscle – that’s you contracting the muscle. By pinning the myofascia, it’s ability to be tugged along during a contraction is reduced, and the muscle has the opportunity to break free of it’s adhesion. That, in a simplistic nutshell, is how ART works. It helps to break down adhesions which may be limiting the normal mobility of various tissues. These adhesions form as part of the training response, as training typically stresses the system to micro-failures, which then heal up. Sometimes they just heal up inappropriately. The body is amazing, but not fool-proof. As example, we produce cancerous cells all the time. The body finds them and gets rid of them. Once in a while it misses, and you get a life-threatening problem. It’s a QA (quality assurance) problem, really.

2. Trigger Point Release, on the other hand, is a non-trademark term. I do this technique (officially) all the time as well. Yet another tool in the arsenal. TPR works to reduce the resting tension in a muscle which is overly tense. How or why it is overly tight (contracting a bit more than it should be) is unknown. How or why TPR works to reduce an active trigger point to a latent trigger point is also unknown. The leading theory involves localized ischemia (blood flow restriction) which forces the muscle to shut-down (release). This reduction in resting tension is what you distinctly noted when you said “the leg feels a lot longer than the other one now” the other day.

3. As noted above, these are both tools, working on different issues in a muscle. They do not work interchangeably (TPR will do nothing for an adhesion, and any type of ART will do nothing for an active trigger point).

The Ice Bath and What it Means to Contemporary Triathlon Culture

2010-04-07T10:23:00.009-04:00

"Everyone trains like a pro—recovering like a pro is what's hard, especially if you've got, you know, a job." —Somebody, probably someone who coaches.

I've been getting friendly with ice recently, as I try to recover from Achilles tendonitis on my way to IM St George (tick, tick, tick...). The thing is, as usual, is that research on this therapy (it goes by "cryotherapry" in the SAT Vocab World) is wildly inconclusive. Also as usual, athletes everywhere give anecdotal support to this kind of therapy, resulting in a kind of Pavlovian Informational Cascade ("Cascades predict that you can get massive social imitation, occasionally leading everyone (the "herd") to the incorrect choice. (Because everyone knows that there is very little information in a cascade, cascades are "fragile"; a little bit of new public information can make a big difference)."). Of course, individual experience with one kind of therapeutic treatment is the worst kind of "scientific" evidence (I put scientific in quotes, because individual experience is anathema to science).

Triathlon suffers badly from this kind of informational cascade, in which people make decisions based on the decisions of others, rather than their own instincts, beliefs, and observations. Athletic and cycling companies thrive on this kind of susceptibility, and I'm obviously taking part, with a row of sponsors just to the right of this post. Triathletes (who mostly come to the sport from recreational athletic backgrounds) often don't know what they're up to in terms of training, racing, and preparation, and it's not their fault. The internet has allowed a cacophony of opinion to blast upon all our ears, and the opinions are often differing or contradictory. The only thing triathletes are left to do is to choose which person they'll follow, and those decisions are based on the kind of subjective information with which we judge and root for sports teams (sense of shared identity, aesthetics, good-boy/bad-boy attitude, and what kind of success). Since athletic accomplishment is important to the triathlon community, athletes adhere passionately to the leaders they choose to follow—a brief perusal of the incendiary opinions on Slowtwitch will show the vitriol triathletes reserve for those who do not agree with their perspectives.

The Ice Bath is one of those subjects. Dig around out there and you'll find a host of anecdotal support for the process. Dig a little farther and you'll find studies that are pretty inconclusive on the efficacy of the ice bath. Here's a little digest of studies that may help you make a decision:

Sports Training Blog—"Cold water immersion or an ice bath may be an effective treatment to decrease skin, muscle and core temperatures, decrease metabolism, reduce inflammation, enhance blood flow, decrease pain and reduce muscle spasm...Performance in a time trial on successive days (over a 5 day study) was reduced with passive recovery and hot water immersion and maintained with cold/contrast therapy."

SpeedEndurance—Concludes that ice baths are inconclusive, and that you're best off going with how you feel the next day.

SportsMedicine on About.Com—Points out that for aerobic work ice baths may help, but may hurt weight training performance.

RunningTimes—Anecdotal support for the therapy plus the theory behind it.

Scottish Institute of Sport—Study that warns against the use of ice baths (mostly in a rugby/weight training context).

Clinical Sports Medicine—Digest on recovery procedures. Points out that there has been little clinical support for positive effects of ice baths.

Peak Performance—Discussion of different types of hydrotherapy. Points out that hot water can be beneficial, too.

Time to decide for yourself.

Equipment Choices

2010-04-05T11:32:00.004-04:00

Ironman St. George is 26 days away. That means it's time to get the equipment choices all sorted out so I can have a few weeks of exploring my bike set-up. For years I was the pro showing up with things to sort out the day before a race. That kind of lassitude is just not acceptable any more. St. George is going to be a challenging race. Have a look at this post sent along by the ever enthusiastic Neal Oseland, and you'll see that equipment concerns must be out of your mind come race day. I heard, anecdotally, that the water temp at the moment is not out of the 40s. Couple that with 5-6000 feet of climbing on the bike and a challenging marathon and...well...being prepared will be important.

Bike: I've gone back and forth on the TT bike/Road bike thing for a while. Gordo says road bike, and I'd provisionally decided to do that. Cliff and Mike Lovato, though, think TT bike, and since Mike and I are built somewhat similarly (he's definitely a bit slimmer and fitter, though) and ride somewhat similarly, I've decided on using the P3. From an aerodynamic point of view, the S3 would have been fine, and it certainly would have climbed all those hills with alacrity. The problem is that there are a lot of 2—3% grades on the St. George course, climbs in which you should still be in your aerobars (Chris Ramsay has passed on some study evidence that found you get a benefit starting around 11-12 mph in the aerobars). Toss in 16-20 miles of steep, non-technical descending and the TT bike starts to look a bit better. Yes, it's heavier, and there's a lot of hill to carry that weight over. As usual, though, aerodynamics trump weight concerns (it's true—I know you don't believe it, but it's true).

Hydration: The jury is still a bit out on this one. I'm thinking about using a CamelBak, the least PRO thing one can do ("Hey," you're thinking. "George Hincapie used one, once!"). I used one during one of my race rehearsals, and it kept me well hydrated the whole time. Carrying all one's water at once will make the bike heavier, and it's something to struggle into in T1, and all those straps everywhere must have some kind of drag. I don't have one set up right now, so I'm hesitant to try and find one at the moment. I think the system will be 2 20 oz bottles behind the seat with 2 tablets of nuun in each one, and one aero bottle on the frame with another 2 tablets of nuun. If my race rehearsals are right, I need to get through about 140-150 oz of fluid with 14-15 tablets of nuun to feel "right" at T2. I may carry an empty bottle between the handlebars with a nuun tablet bouncing around inside and fill it up at one of the aid stations. I really don't like mixing sugars during a race (read: Gatorade+Powerbar products), so I'll be hesitant to take anything but water from the aid stations. The CamelBak is starting to sound more sane...

On the run I know I need to consume more fluid and fuel than I did in Canada. During brick runs I've discovered myself getting really thirsty in the first half hour off the bike, consuming more than 20 oz of liquid. That was a good note to get in more hydration than in the past.

Fuel: This seems pretty dialed at the moment. I'm consuming one PowerBar and one PowerGel per hour to hit my 320 calories per hour number. The problem is carrying all that fuel. I'll use a Bento Box (I know, I know...They're worse than CamelBaks) with 4 of each in them, and then take on the other fuel (plus my 120k treat, a king size PayDay) at the special needs stop.

Wheels: Right now it's looking like Hed Stinger Disc rear and 404 front, although I'll bring the rear 404 if it's really windy. Another post on this later since it's going to be a divisive topic, perhaps.

Helmet: Gordo says traditional vented helmet. I think an aero helmet is always better. Going with the aero helmet, but I'll bring the normal one if it looks hot.

Compression: Yes, socks. The sleeves absolutely wrecked my calves in Austin.

Shoes: Newton Distancia Racers.

First Look—Newton Isaac Trail

2010-04-02T10:20:00.002-04:00

These arrived in the mail the other day, part of my participation in the Newton Wear Testing program. In terms of aesthetics, Newton is doing exactly what I hoped they would do: stay away from the more neutral colors they've been peddling recently (who needs more red or white running shoes?) and gone back to the beautifully garish "What the hell are those?" color schemes they brought out in 2007. Shoe style has gotten much more liberal in recent years (are we getting more European?) and these Newtons remind me of the Mizuno Cross Country racers, which look (and feel) like a kind of neon alligator.

At first wear, these shoes are incredibly comfortable. The toebox is quite roomy (maybe a little too much?). I would suggest, if they continue with this sizing, to order down 1/2 a size (I usually wear 12.5s in Newtons—I think a 12 might fit a little better), but I'll let you know as soon as I wear them more.

They feel a bit heavy, but nothing out of the ordinary for a trail shoe. I'm looking forward to trashing them on Portland's muddy trails.

Gameplay

2010-03-31T10:17:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I met TriDamian and Phukér for our first swim of the week. On the schedule it looked relatively hard, the main set consisting of 4 times through a set of a 300 on HIM pace on 4:15, 200 on 1500m pace on 2:15, and a 100 all out on 2:00. After the rest given by the 2:00 100 we were to start back through the intervals. Since my car got broken into (again!) on Monday evening I didn't have any of my swim stuff (if anyone in the Portland area sees someone wearing a new pair of Newtons and lugging a BlueSeventy backpack, someone who doesn't really look like they fit in those accoutrements, please let me know) and faced doing the workout in a dragsuit, sans swim cap. I also felt hugely sluggish in the water. Phukér, warming up next to us, said "Maybe I'll come over and be the caboose for you guys..." Clearly no one felt great, so we turned the main set into a game. Here were the parameters:

1) Each of us would lead one of the first three sets.
2) Each leader would call his shot as to when he would get back to the wall on each interval (ex. I said I'd return on 3:40 for the 300, 2:21 for the 200, and 1:06 for the 100).
3) For each second a leader was off in either direction, he got a point (points are bad in this game, as they are in Hearts).
4) Whomever garnered the fewest points got the privilege to lead the fourth.

I led the first set and got one point (I came back one second under my 200 prediction, on 2:20). TriDamian led the second and got one point each in his 300 and 200 repeats, but made up for the two points but swimming two seconds faster than I did on his 100 (he called and hit, exactly, 1:04), so we decided he and I were tied. Phukér, who wasn't feeling so good, missed both his 300 and 200 repeats by 5 seconds, so he was totally out of the running (kinda like those times that you played Horse when you were younger, and the kid who called a bank shot went on to miss the backboard entirely—we usually gave out multiple letters for that). TriDamian and I decided to share the last set: I led the 300 since I'm the long distance guy, and he led the 200/100. I went for it on my 300 and posted a 3:31 (not bad for no cap and a dragsuit!), and then he just ate the last two intervals alive. I cramped during the 100 and decided to "start my cooldown early."

The result? A hard set no one was looking forward to disappeared quickly. Makes me think that those Swedes (Swedes?) are onto something with their Fartleks.

Play hard.

Achilles Tendonitis

2010-03-29T14:16:00.002-04:00

I've got achilles tendonitis at the moment, which was dismaying to hear until I learned that I could have achilles tendonosis, wherein the tendon begins to look "a lot like a long, thin piece of swiss cheese," says my PT guy (and 9:10 Ironman) Chris Ramsay, who's been helping me through this painful and frustrating process.

I'm not at the swiss cheese phase, and probably won't get there, Ramsay says, since I caught the tendonitis early. It manifested as a pain right where the line attached to "Achilles tendon" points, and seemed to get worse when I ran uphill. In addition to the pain the tendon swelled visibly. "Tendon inflammation tends to run its course in 10-14 days," Chris told me. "So if you take care of it you'll be fine in less than two weeks. If you get tendonosis, well, then you'll be dealing with it for months, or maybe forever." He ran some tests on me and discovered that I've got some weakness in my left ankle (and the hip muscles "of a 15 year old girl," but I'll write about that later) that's probably contributing to the injury. The other possible cause is a tale of three shoes, and it goes something like this: I was running in a year-old pair of Newton Distancia Racers which were getting pretty ratty. I began getting some knee pain, thought I probably had some IT Band issues, and promptly switched out of the Newtons to a pair of old, but lightly used, Nike Lunaracers. Soon my new Newtons showed up from Newton and I happily leapt into them. Chris thinks that I wore down the front lugs on my old Newtons so that they behaved more like normal shoes (Newtons have a very small heel to forefront "drop" due to those lugs under the frontfoot, but when you wear those lugs down the drop increases, turning your Newtons into a more traditional shoe where the foot slopes down from the heel). Having that larger heel—forefront drop takes some pressure off your Achilles tendon (although it's bad for a bunch of other reasons); point your toes—see how the Achilles loosens? Then I jumped into the Nikes, which, for all their close-to-the-road feel, still have about 7mm of heel-toe drop. My Achilles didn't notice a difference between the wore down Distancias and the Lunaracers. But when I started running in my new Newton Gravity Trainers (only 3mm of heel-toe drop) my Achilles had to lengthen by about 4 additional mm every time my left foot hit the ground. That began to stretch (and tear, slightly, the cause of any inflammation) the tendon. And here I am.

So now what do I do? Chris is working on my Soleus muscle (it's the less dominating part of your calf's musculature—look for the smaller inverted triangle that sits below and "behind" the gastroc, which is large and bulgy, like a biceps muscle) using active release therapy, which involves attacking adhesions (we call them "knots) in the muscles by applying specific pressure. You've probably heard of active release therapy. It is as painful (and effective) as you've heard, too. Adhesions are basically tiny cramps, little knots of muscles that can't stop contracting. To get them to loosen, Chris presses on them hard enough to cut off their direct blood supply. Cutting off the blood supply cuts off the muscle's oxygen supply (remember your high school A/P class?), and the adhesion needs oxygen to keep contracting/cramping. Eventually, the muscle gives up, kind of the way MMA fighters give up after dealing with choke/submission holds.

Remember, training stimulus damages your body. It's the only way we get faster and fitter: break down the body so it can build back up stronger. Only thing is that stuff (muscles, tendons) can get "crossed up" or "bound up" in the process. If you keep asking a muscle to contract, don't give it enough food or water or salt, and then don't cool it down properly (get in those ice baths, people) or stretch it back out, it's going to complain. What does complaint sound like?

Tendonitis.

Stay healthy. The only difference between those at the top and those just below the top is the ability to recovery.

Race Rehearsal—Nutrition

2010-03-26T15:24:00.003-04:00

I swear I didn't doctor this photo by adding some extra flashes to that apple cinnamon PowerBar (or a fake finger to the bottom right of the frame). This is a rough approximation of the calories I consumed during yesterday's rehearsal of the St. George IM bike ride. No, I'm not in Utah right now, but with some careful route planning (and a helpful headwind) I was able to mimic what I hope to experience in 36 short days.

First of all, the ride will be difficult. Go have a look at Gordo's impressions of the course—his writeup has me rethinking my goals (in a good way). I "rode" this course a few weeks ago using a Computrainer and the St. George Real Course Interactive Video. I rode the "course" (you only get to ride 67.7 miles of the course—the lolipop stick from the reservoir and the first loop of the lolipop) and, riding steadily, only managed 17 mph avg and 200W avg. There is a lot of climbing, and I think the patient rider will be rewarded.

Nutrition. When I raced Canada last year, training partner Guy Nelson asked "What's your nutrition plan?" and I kinda shrugged and said "Double my HIM plan?" Knowing how that worked out I decided, this year, to put a little more effort into my planning.

The first step when planning your nutrition is to figure out how many calories you'll probably burn in an hour of exercise. The fuzzy rule of thumb is 1 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight per hour. I'm a fairly stout 80 kg with a good amount of muscle mass (former trainer partner Dereck Treadwell once said: "You look like a big guy, I mean a big guy, on the bike."), so I might burn a bit more than the average triathlete at that weight. So that's 80 g of carbohydrate per hour, or 320 calories worth of food. You will want a little protein in that mix (and most energy bars come with some amount of protein), so figure another 10g of protein per hour, and I've got 360 calories to consume per hour.

I set out yesterday to ride six hours (came in about 1/2 an hour short, but that story will get posted with the label "double flat!"), so I aimed for 2160 total calories. My workout involved five separate efforts: 2 @ HIM pace for 20k with 15' recovery, and then 3x45' IM pace efforts with 5' recovery. Those fifteen and five minute windows were my chances to refuel (it's hard to unwrap a powerbar at 40 kph). Here's my menu (disclosure—I'm sponsored by PowerBar and nuun):

6 PowerBars of various flavors (1380 calories—good mix of carbohydrate and protein)
3 PowerGels of various flavors (330 calories—all carbohydrate)
1 BabyRuth bar (I love those things!) (around 250 calories, good mix of carbohydrate, salt, and fat)

Total intake: 1960 calories, about 100 short, but I did double flat at 5:30 and call it a day, so I hit my intake pretty much spot on.

And here was the plan, remember that you should get the calories in at any point during the hour, but don't start trying to play catchup—you can't. Also notice that I was a little low in the first 1.5 hours, that's because your body will still be using the 90 minutes of glycogen stored in your muscles:

2 hours before ride: 750 calorie breakfast consisting of 1 cup yogurt, 1 cup milk, 2 cups Cheerios, 1 banana, 2 T honey, 1 PowerBar.
@30' (2/3 through warmup) 1 PowerBar
@76' (after first 20k TT) 1 PowerBar, 1 PowerGel
@127' (after second 20k TT) 1 PowerBar
@150' (before first 45' IM pace interval) 1 PowerGel
@195' (after first IM interval) 1 PowerBar
@245' (after second IM interval) 1 PowerBar, 1 Baby Ruth bar (note this came at 120 k, right where I'd get my special needs bag)
@300' (after third IM interval) 1 PowerGel

I felt great as I passed the 100-mile mark (right at 310') on this ride, a sign that my nutrition was in a good place. Still, to think that just eating right will have your legs fresh for the run will have you visiting the PortaJohns, trying to unclog your stuffed but not hydrated system. Here's what I did for hydration:

14 tabs of nuun dissolved in 140 oz of water (they recommend 1 tablet per 16 oz of water but A) I'm a big guy who sweats a lot and B) I like the taste of concentrated nuun). Here's the data from the nuun website on what's in one tablet of nuun (and then, in parentheses, how much of each nutrient I received):

Sodium (carbonates) 360.0 mg (5040 mg or 5 g)
Potassium (bicarbonate) 100.0 mg (1400 mg or 1.4 g)
Calcium (carbonate) 12.5 mg (175 mg)
Magnesium (sulfate) 25.0 mg (350 mg)
Vitamin C 37.5 mg (525 mg)
Vitamin B2 500mcg (700 mcg)

I drank about 1-1.5 oz of fluid every five minutes during the entire ride, even during efforts. As a result of this nutritional rehearsal, I feel confident about my plan going into IM St. George...now, how will I carry 140 oz of liquid with me without using a CamelBak?

Life is Good

2010-03-22T18:14:00.003-04:00

I'm back again, after a prolonged absence from this site. Life has turned inside-out over the past few months, the last gasp of normalcy dating from my last post more than three months ago. In that spirit here's a picture from Cross Natz 2009, just after my 29th place finish in the Men's 30-34 race. 'Cross, it seems, is immune to the vagaries of finishing order (at least at my level). No matter where I come in, I'm stoked, in the same way that getting out in the water, no matter the quality of the waves, leaves me stoked.

Perhaps it's a good thing for professional athletes to have another sport in which they compete at a high but amateur level. Cyclocross is brutally hard, incredibly painful. It doesn't leave me refreshed in body, but in spirit. Somehow, over the last ten years, I had lost that ability to find refreshment in most of my life, which is why I look so unbearably happy in this picture. Buoyed by a series of steps I've taken recently, I've rediscovered that joy of spirit in the rest of my life. Writing, of course, is part of that joy, and I'm returning (again) re-dedicated (again) to these pages, hoping to accurately chronicle the ups and downs of a professional triathlete's career.

Thanks, as always, to those that are listening out there.

Presence

2009-12-18T12:57:00.002-05:00

The season is over. 2009 carried some amazing highs and terrible lows in all the aspects of my existence, as every year carries: love, racing, teaching, writing, and training all conspired to reiterate that constant message: change and flux is the only constant.

I've been reading A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, and I won't bore you with the New Age details. Suffice it to say that, if it speaks to you, it speaks to you, and Tolle wants to tell us that looking at the world in terms of "highs" and "lows" is a dangerous way to look at the world. The goal of his book is what he would probably call "presence," and I talked a little bit about it my last post about 'Cross Nationals.

Simon Whitfield is, to me, the kind of athlete who embodies presence. People present in the moment seem to radiate calm and happiness; that is because they are not worried about the future of ensconced in the past. It strikes me as odd, though, that an endurance athlete, someone whose "successes" and "failures" are measured by the cold hands of the clock, could find himself so outside of time.

Try to remember your last best run, swim, ride, or race. If it truly was your best experience, the clock probably meant little. You floated through the workout, lending credence to the pain and pleasure of the effort in equal parts. At the end of the workout, you probably felt peace instead of relief. That sense of peace is what the best athletes in the world are looking for, I believe. I don't think they actively search for it, but it is the thing that keeps them coming back, and keeps them successful. The ego is a voracious thing, and you could say that the ego is what makes these athletes return to the starting line. But athletes motivated by ego, I believe, post uneven results, and eventually disappear from the sport or turn to illegal means of athletic success. Old friend Janda Ricci-Munn always said, when discussing dopers, "How could they be happy with their results?" I think that they are never happy, whether or not they are winning races. Think of poor, distraught Marco Pantani, or Frank Vandenbroucke, both victims of their own egos and addictions.

Athletes like Simon, though, or Greg Bennet, or Jens Voigt or Katie Compton or Barry Wicks or Chrissie Wellington all come to races and experience the race, and themselves, for who they are. The races do not foster an artificial sense of self, for them. For them, the deep discomfort of racing allows them to remain totally in the moment, and that is why they stay successful season after season.

As I walked to the coffeeshop this morning, the sun shone through the mid-December air. Wreaths and evergreens hung on doors and fences. The city felt hushed: school's out, businesses are quiet, people drive more slowly. I listened to music, remembering Emerson's words that music is one of "God's revealers." What does he mean by that, since Emerson wasn't the most traditionally religious philosophers out there? To Emerson, as to Tolle, one finds God in the moment of presence, and music gets us out of our thoughts (which are not us) and worries—we walk along, buoyed by the beauty someone else has brought into the world. I think this fact is why athletes often perform better if they listen to music while training or racing.

Tour de Merde, Final Stage

2009-12-13T11:00:00.002-05:00

Yes, this is a picture of me, and you can find it on Velonews. Here's the direct link. I got a lot of comments each time I rode past the beer tent: You look good in white!—Why white?—White? Bold! When I passed Ben Ross, the Velonews photographer who took this photo, he said "Whoa, nice skid marks. Lemme take a picture. Could you turn around?"

The Nationals Course, warmed up by the 40 degree temps, was a blast. I got a bad start, but moved up pretty quickly, kept the rubber side down, and ended up 29th, 12 spots in front of my 41st place call-up. Every one knows, though, that if you're out of the top ten you're mostly racing to be a part of something beautiful, and this race was no different. I left everything out there, and ended up dry-heaving at the finish-line, so I can't ask for anything more, but more importantly I felt so present in something. Racing 'cross is different from road racing, or triathlon. You really can't spend time letting your mind wander, as you can a bit during a long road race or IM bike leg. You simply are what you are, for 45 minutes or an hour—can I move up here? How hard am I going? God this hurts.

I didn't start very well, per normal, but raced well, I thought, breaking away from a small group of five eventually, despite some shifting problems with my (somewhat) faithful ride. I am always amazed each time I finish a 'cross race, because there are deep moments in which it seems the pain will never end, that five more laps is an impossibility. And then there you are, shivering at the finish line and laughing with the guys you recently, desperately, hoped to drop.

The rest of the day was a dream, except for the fact that Amy couldn't come. I and the other guys from CXM went to see Brian Vernor's new film The Cyclocross Meeting, and I'm happy to report it's his best, most complete film yet (although I'll always love the wacky, off-beat nature of We Just Work Here). As a bonus we got to see some of Vernor's footage from 2005 and 2006 Nationals in Providence, and some races in Belgium, all set to the music of Talkdemonic, a Portland band who has some kinship with Stars of the Lid, one of my favorites. Talkdemonic is a violin/drumset duo who do some amazing things with a looping device, a macbook, and a keyboard through which you blow air. Here's the trailer of the film:

As always, I'm a little sad to see 'Cross disappear for the year. I feel pretty good about 29th, and am thinking about getting the UCI card for next year. We'll see what the coaches say.

Thanks for reading.

Cross Nationals 2009 Course

2009-12-02T23:45:00.002-05:00

I'm gonna be Nationals rabid for the next 11 days, y'hear? Here's the first look at what might be in store for us at Nats in just a few short days. I really, really love 'Cross. Don't you?

Tour de Merde, Stages...Ah, Who Knows?

2009-11-30T21:46:00.004-05:00

There has been one race and four days in Utah as the Tour de Merde has soldiered on. I've missed three days on the bike—one was a day on which work consumed all, one was a rest day, and one was a travel day. So I guess today was stage 18, and there are 11 days until Nationals. No missed days from here on out.

What have the stages been like? Well, I had one standard cross week (easy Monday, short and really hard Tuesday, longer and slightly less hard Wednesday, endurance Thursday, recovery Friday, recovery Saturday with a few short stomps, and race Sunday. You can see what the race was like to the left. Yes, it was muddy. If you ever doubted that having two bikes is an advantage in cyclocross, those doubts disappeared out at Kruger's Farm last Sunday. When the gun went off I found myself near the front, riding the wheel of Portland/Kona superstar Erik Tonkin. He disappeared quickly, however, getting a fresh bike twice a lap, each time he went past the double-sided pit.

I finished on the lead lap, I'm proud to say, in 14th place out of 29, which is not a bad effort out here in Portland, really, especially when Erik Tonkin is driving things.

Then a couple of work heavy days passed before Amy and I headed to Moab for our usual Thanksgiving festival of Turkey, Stuffing, and Mountain Biking. We were a little lighter on the Mountain Biking this year, but I'm happy to report that I'm a little stronger or a little ballsier. I once asked Captain Dondo what kind of mountain bike I should buy to become a better bike handler, and he said "How about you go up a testicle size? Or go down a brain size?" That seemed to be working, as I was able to push up really steep sections without worrying about tipping over backyard, and roll down steep sections without locking up the brakes.

Moab is a special place. The riding is exquisite, the town is lovely. Amy and I got back to Denver before I flew back to the great Northwest and started looking up realty prices in Moab. It's that special. As soon as you leave the town you want to turn around and come back. This year, it didn't last nearly long enough. Happily, we did have our serving of Thanksgiving oysters in the middle of the desert.

Tour de Merde, Stages 2—6

2009-11-18T12:26:00.005-05:00

It's raining in Portland, oh yeah, oh yeah...

Or thus would begin any jazzy ballad devoted to the Northwest's muddiest (if it can't be the grungiest) city. Stage Two of the Tour de Merde was a 40k affair, starting at the shop (see left) and winding through Forest Park on the famous Leif Erickson trail. It was muddy, cold, rainy, and wonderful. You can see the result in the picture. As usual, my body warmed up and then cooled drastically, leaving my hands burning in pain.

Stage Three was the Washington State Cyclocross Championships, and I was one of only six entrants, so I got my best starting spot of the year. All that was for naught, though, as my technical skills let me down and I couldn't stay with the guys killing it off the front. I just haven't found that top 10% of my engine that triathlon season has taken away. But I've got a few weeks until Nationals, and several races. I'm gluing my first set of 'cross tubulars, and I think those will make quite a bit of difference.

Stage Four was a rest day, since I had to work at Open House. Boo!

Stage Five was a quiet recovery ride, flushing out Open House.

Stage Six, from last night, can be viewed here. This workout hurt. It's a cycling field test and it requires two all-out eight minute efforts. I went out a bit hard in the first one and faded, and the second one was better. I averaged 434 watts for the first test and 403 for the second. Those values, interpreted by my coach, should give me my threshold zones for the next month. I'm hoping to re-test after Nationals (think: final day Time Trial) and see some improvement.

Apologies for the delay in posting—life has, as always, intruded.

Tour de Merde, Stage One

2009-11-12T19:48:00.004-05:00

I dragged home from school today, still feeling a bit achy, but thought if I don't get out for some exercise today, I don't think I should go race in Washington on Saturday. Happily, it's the kind of Fall Northwestern day that makes you want to ride your bicycle and then eat some french fries. I rolled up to Thompson Rd and then down Thompson Rd, and then pedaled out towards the agricultural zones northwest of town. It's the middle of the week, which is when you make your hay for the weekend races during 'cross season, so I decided to toss in some VO2 max intervals, the kind of work that is short—but very painful—and is intended to, basically, raise your pain threshold. 5x30 seconds full on, 30 seconds full off. Take a five minute break and then repeat. I used Old Germantown road for this workout, looping back down between sets.

Halfway up the second time, I got an idea.

I'd been talking to Chris B. (no, not myself—my training partner) earlier this year about how we develop the different skillsets that make up triathlon. He recalled a friend who had done insane training blocks of each sport, one after another. He'd do three weeks of each sport then move on to the next, a kind of stage race set. He would mix in short stages, long stages, time trials, mountain stages (difficult in a pool), windy stages, flat stages. It sounded a bit crazy, but I guess it worked for him.

November and December can be bleak months in the athletic world. We're inclined to watch sports, not compete in them, and the fitness we've been working on all year is still there, in the bank, just waiting to be withdrawn. There's too much to eat and too much traveling to be done. I'm feeling the disappointment and confusion that comes out of losing my last A race of the season, but at least I have cyclocross season. Here's what I'm going to do:

30 stages of 'cross riding, between now and December 12th, when I go to 'Cross Nationals in Bend. There will be a few rest stages, but I'm going to do this right. You can check in here every day to see how things are going, and I'll try to post the maps so you can them, just like in the Tour de France.

So, today's stage details:
Distance: 31 kilometers (you don't have to do distance during 'cross season!).
Cumulative Distance: 31 kilometers
Climbing: 862 m
Time: 1:30:31
Workout: 2 x (5x:30 all out, :30 off).
Max HR: 177
Map

Thanks, as always, to Athlete's Lounge, who kept me warm and dry in my Craft stuff.

Sick

2009-11-11T13:14:00.004-05:00

Some days you get the bull, as the saying goes, and sometimes you get the horns. After an exhausting run-up to the Clearwater 70.3 race, I've come down with the flu. I don't think I have the pig, but it's been pretty exhausting, and I've decided not to head back to Florida for my yearly tangle with the world's best. Strangely, I'm not too bummed about this decision. My first year in Clearwater I ran 3:59:57 and came in 24th. Last year it was 3:59:11 and 27th. This year there are 85 professionals in the men's field, and I don't think I'm much of a different athlete than I was 12 months ago. The answer? Shut down the season, take some time to just ride Cyclocross, and try to refocus on what needs to change for next year. After three years in the professional field, I'm ready for a change. On the good side, I've picked up a sweet sponsorship deal with nuun. I love nuun, and am extremely excited to represent them next year. On long 5 and 6 hour rides, using nuun is the only thing that keeps me feeling relatively normal. Since I'm making the move up in distance to IM racing, being normal for 8-9 hour training days will be crucial, and I'm excited to have as much nuun as I can dissolve.

The Swim: I've still got a bit of a monkey on my back about the swim. Although I swam relatively well (for me) at Austin, coming out of the water in 25:53 (my first sub 26 minute swim) I still gave up three minutes to Brian Fleischman and 2:30 to Richie Cunningham, the eventual winner. Swimming for time just doesn't work in the pro field. You have to swim with the leaders, no questions asked. This will be my big goal for the off-season. The swim, although it doesn't matter too much time-wise, really sets the tone for your day. Come out a little behind and you feel like you've got ground to make up. Also, the whole "out of sight, out of mind" attitude comes into play.

The Bike: This is where I need the least improvement, but I'm not putting up the crushing bike splits I used to. I'd rather think of myself in terms of a Chris Lieto or TJ Tollaksen, so picking up a few minutes on the bike is another goal. It means more time at that 332-350 watt range that's just above my threshold.

The Run: Yikes, I don't even know where to start. More volume? More intensity? Both? Lose 10 pounds? The run is really my bogey, and I need to sort it out. Giving up 12 minutes to the leaders in 13.1 miles is just not good enough.

Still, the off-season is a lovely time. You get to rest, refocus, and put next year's goals into play. I'm looking forward to five straight weeks of Cyclocross and my first trip to Cross Nationals since 2006.

Pre-Game Day

2009-10-24T21:53:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting in a hotel room in North Austin, TX, watching the Longhorns beat the tigers out of Missouri (who picked tigers as an apropos mascot for Missouri?). Tomorrow is the Longhorn 70.3, and Amy and I have completed a long, erratic ("You guys are too unpredictable," says training partner Phillipe) pre-race day. Here's how it went down:

9:30 AM. Wakeup. We slept in, having had a long, long work week.
10:10 AM. In need of our rental car (and in need of arriving at the pro meeting by 11), we start jogging to the rental car place. What else would you do, really? Call a cab?
10:55. We realize we won't make the pro meeting.
11:15. Arrive at race site, catch last five minutes of pro meeting which, judging from the glazed look on my competitors faces, featured the regular no new news of pro meetings everywhere.
11:30. Attempt to navigate check-in line. Can someone please figure out a good way to do this at triathlons? Why does it never work?
12:15. Leave race site, on the hunt for a bicycle for Amy (oh, right, hers didn't show up from the airport—minor detail).
12:20. Eat "breakfast" and have first coffee of the day. We were so hungry and in the throes of caffeine withdrawal that we could barely focus on ordering. I kept forgetting I'd ordered food, the addiction center in my brain was so pleased at finally receiving coffee.
1:00. Arrive at Jack and Adam's, an Austin-based cycling shop, to try and sweet-talk them into renting Amy a passable bike. In a move of surprising generosity, they let us demo a brand new Felt road bike and spend about an hour fitting it to Amy. Go and see them if you're in Austin, really. Tell them thank you for us.
2:00. Head back to hotel to try and get everything we might need. Amy and I don't really read those athlete guide things, so we were a bit confused about what we needed to do. We headed back to the race site, hoping to get in a bike and a swim.
3:30-4:00. I try to get some air into my notoriously finicky wheels (disc and tri-spoke wheels are great, but they can be a bitch to inflate). Discover that THE MAVIC NEUTRAL SUPPORT MECHANICS DID NOT BRING A STANDARD CRACKPIPE/DISC WHEEL ADAPTOR. To be honest, I didn't remember to bring mine, so this is all, really, my fault. I forgot rubber bands, too, and electrical tape. For the millionth time, I told myself that I would pack one race bag, or a little stuff sack, that has all this little but important stuff in it.
4:00. 20 minute ride. Everything, amazingly, works!
4:30. We walk into transition as the announcer says "Ladies and Gentlemen, transition is closed." We set up our bikes and head back to the expo, to drop off our second transition bags (Longhorn is a two transition race this year).
5:30. We hit the water for a swim. It looked deceptively short, but took me 28 minutes to swim it, even with a wetsuit. I wasn't pushing, but I thought it would take a shorter amount of time.
6:15. We meet an awesome German woman named Miriam in the parking lot, who asks us about race numbers and tells Amy she's beautiful. Turns out she's doing her first half-iron, and she's straightforwardly German in a refreshing way. She points out that there are a lot of jerks in triathlon, which is true.
7:00. We hit Whole Foods (see the above picture—even WF gets into the whole Texas Longhorn thing, it appears) and buy barbecue, cheese, peanut butter, and bananas.
8:00. Dinner, packing for the race, hanging up wetsuits, checking things.
Soon. Collapse into bed. Amy and I have a unique ("unpredictable," again says Phillipe) way of getting ready for races. Sure, we had a curveball in finding a bicycle to borrow, but pre-race days always have curveballs. Right now we're lying in bed together, happy to have gone through a scattered day together. The great thing about having too many i's to dot and t's to cross is that you don't think about the race too much. Pre-race days when everything is taken care of, well, usually lead to an over-thought race, I've found. Still, it might be nice to lie around all days with your legs up in the air. Tomorrow there is webcasting of the race, so if you find yourself near a computer, head to the endorfunsports webpage to see how they do with it.

Game on!

Kaboom!

2009-10-03T00:20:00.004-04:00

Every now and then, you just kill a workout.

Here's a "picture" of my run workout from today. The postmodern implications of taking a "picture" of your run's "data" are heavy, I'm sure. Just as postmodernity took away the importance of the text and installed ideas such as self-awareness and irony in its place, the rise of training software has removed the central nature of the workout and installed, in its place, this, a representation of the workout. We don't run or ride or swim for the run or ride or swim any more or the fuzzy implications of "feel-based training" (ooh, creepy)—we do the workout to upload the data and find ourselves among the data points. Think of it as reverse constellating: instead of seeing ourselves in the heavens, the best possible mirror, perhaps, we see ourselves as a collection of points on a graph.

Well, this post has taken on a certain overblown tone, hasn't it? Odd, seeing that I've not only found myself in the data's constellation, I just had to tell you about it. Bear with me, though, since I have a reason. If you'd like to have a closer look, you can see the actual workout here. Nick, my coach, told me to try to hit this workout today, a standard 3x10' at 10k pace and then 5' at 5k pace. I did this workout nine days ago and you can compare results here. For those who don't want to open two whole new tabs and figure out how to navigate TrainingPeaks sometimes clumsy interface (those scroll bars are tiny!), here's the short version:

Wednesday, September 23rd
Interval 1: 10'; 1.7 miles; 5:54/mi.; avg HR 166
Interval 2: 10'; 1.69 miles; 5:54/mi.; avg HR 167
Interval 3: 10'; 1.66 miles; 6:00/mi.; avg HR 165
Interval 4: 5'; .87 miles; 5:48/mi.; avg HR 166

Friday, October 2nd
Interval 1: 10'; 1.73 miles; 5:48/mi.; avg HR 173
Interval 2: 10'; 1.75 miles; 5:42/mi.; avg HR 174
Interval 3: 10'; 1.73 miles; 5:48/mi.; avg HR 173
Interval 4: 5'; .92 miles; 5:30/mi.; avg HR 175

There are a few interesting trends and questions here. My heart rates were all about 4% higher (except for that last interval, which was closer to 5%) on the second day. Distance-wise I was 2.5%-5% farther (faster) for the same amount of time. The paces were much closer the second time to paces I would expect for 10k and 5k racing, respectively (I think I could rattle off a high 16' 5k right now, although it would be hard). Here's the other curve ball. The first workout took place one day after a light day (easy swim, easy run) and two days after a day off. The second workout took place on the week's 4th day of training (usually an easy day), two days after an hour-long cyclocross race, and the day after an easy day. I was definitely still feeling the 'cross race (sore back, anyone?) and my calves felt like someone had gone after them with a poker. Still, I was much, much better the second time around. Possible causes. The first is the obvious one: I'm 9 days fitter and probably fully recovered from IM Canada (most people say it takes a month). I would offer the 'cross race as an opposing point of view on that one. Oddly, though, I'm also gonna offer the 'cross race as the reason why I ran better. O.K., weird, right? Well, not so much. If you do want to geek out on training data, here's the file from that race (HR only, folks, no powermeter on my 'cross bike). You'll see my warmup (the low red line), and then the extended high red line. If you select that whole high red line and then scroll down, you'll see that my average heart rate for an hour was 172, a whole five beats higher then my highest average from day one's intervals.

When I learned to run, for real, two summers ago, with Derek Treadwell (yup, that's actually his name) on the fields of Bowdoin College, he learned me that high heart rates are actually important to going fast. I had always thought that, if you want to go long, you need to go fast at the lowest possible heart rate. Completely wrong, actually. Heart rates are notoriously individual, and the only thing that matters is where your lactate threshold is (that's the point where you start making more lactic acid than your muscles can clear—the jury is still out on whether or not lactic acid is what makes you slow down but one thing is clear: once you're above that point, the clock is ticking, for whatever reason). The more you can raise that thing, the faster you can go without setting the timer on the bomb. So in training, a high heart rate is good: it means you're A) going fast and B) raising your LT. Still, HRs are finicky: you can be dehydrated, tired, depressed, or hungover. OR your heart rate can be affected by a workout you did days ago. Yes, that's true too. That's why you'll see cyclists sprinting two days before a one-day classic and then tootling along the day before: you've got to "open up the lungs."

Nothing opens up the lungs, of course, like an hour of suffering on a bike in a field with crazies shouting at you and pouring beer down your skinsuit. I hobbled around yesterday, swam lightly, jogged, and then discovered, today, that my cardiovascular system had morphed into something akin to a '68 Shelby Cobra: I could run fast, and hard, and ignore the discomfort building in my legs.

My reward? You guessed it: an hour of swimming, a 45 minute jog, and a lazy 3.5 hour bike ride tomorrow. Heaven.

DZ Nuts Hard Ride Review and Blind Date at the Dairy Race Report

2009-10-01T12:26:00.002-04:00

I got lost on my way to the Alpenrose Dairy, missing the exit off of 26 Eastbound and worrying that my perilously underinflated right front tire would blow out, leaving me stranded on the way to my first Cyclocross race of the season. The tire held, however, and I found my way to the Portland cycling hotbed by following the other cars laden with road bikes wearing suspiciously wide tires.

Joe Field, the father of one of my students, actually runs the race, and I volunteered to help out with registration in exchange for some community time and a free race entry. I've never registered a race, and discovered its chaotic nature, especially for a weeknight, mostly informal affair. An quick hour passed of taking $15 payments and highlighting names, and then I left to change and warm-up. Sitting in my front seat, skinsuit hooked over the steering wheel to better pin on my number, I experienced one of those Proustian moments, drifting back through all the 'Cross races from the past year. Racing at night, though, is different, and all your usual associations are crossed with the giddy anticipation of green fields lit by powerful lights—the warmup has a little more zip; the air buzzes, powered by the abundant literal and figurative electricity.

Number pinned on, warmup jersey over my shoulders, water bottle in the back pocket, I jumped astride the bike and started pedaling towards the road. The gearing was too high and I tried to downshift. I heard several clicks and felt...nothing. I looked down. No shifter cables exited the hoods of my newly installed shifters. I had asked my mechanic to install some new brakes and brake cables; I'd assumed he would have shift-cabled the bike, too. It was my fault. Not giving your bike a once-over taking for things like, say, the presence of shift cables, bespeaks a wildly unfocused and incompetent nature. No matter, I thought. I'll just ride as a singlespeed. No matter that I'd signed up for an hour of racing in the Men's A field.

I got through my half-assed warmup (30 minutes of light riding and some sprints), rode half the course, and rolled up to the line. Just in front of me: Molly Cameron, Portland Cyclocross superstar and European racer. I said hey and waited nervously for the start. An official came over and fixed my number, saying she couldn't see it. I said not to worry, since I assumed I'd be so far off the back with only one gear that scoring me wouldn't be important. She patted my shoulder and said, laughing, "Good luck!" Joe, the race organizer, passed out last week's money (winners had to stuff the money, dancer-style, into their skinsuits) and an official gave us the dreaded/adored Thirty seconds...

At the whistle, I instantly gave up a row of spots, trying to push my 36x12 gear. The course began flat and paved and then instantly turned right onto a gravel path. I don't think any one went down, but we all fought for the one packed single-track on which you could really push. The pack strung out fast, as it always does, and I sat probably about 20 riders back. The course was short, grassy, and serpentine, with two single barriers (the second one leading into the requisite Portland run-up, replete with mutton-chopped crazies screaming "RIDE IT, RIDE IT!!!") and one set of triple barriers. It was dark when we began (about the light of the above picture, taken by the brilliant pdxcross) and we raced through pools of light and darkness, a profoundly unsettling feeling (I wonder what's at the bottom of that shadow...).

As usually happens, I found myself part of a chase group of five, including super-frame builder Ira Ryan. It's nice to race around with someone well known, as spectators give you greater attention. Soon the group came apart at the seams, and the five of us became more of an accordion, stringing out and coming back together. It was at that point in the race, about 30-40 minutes in, that every one in the race seemed to be wearing the same kit. Why do all of these guys have on those "Gentle Lovers" kits? Cyclocross races, at about a moment 2/3 through, have an odd effect on the psyche—as bile begins to build in a stomach that is shutting down due to lack of blood flow, the brain also begins to drift, making wild associations: did I just ride through a manure pile? What number is that, exactly, on the lap card? Where did I park my car?

I eventually escaped my group of five and picked people off throughout the race. I would guess that I finished fifteenth or so, but that's not really that important. After the race I had some scraped shins (no idea when that happened), a sore back, and euphoria.

The DZ Nuts held up great throughout the race, and I smelled pleasantly of tea tree oil throughout. No chafing, so I suggest it heartily.

'Cross on :).

DZ Nuts Chamois Cream Preview

2009-09-28T21:13:00.003-04:00

Chamois Creams aren't created equal, even though it seems that providing undercarriage lubricant for male cyclists (do women use these products? Speak up, ladies) would be pretty easy engineering. Who hasn't, no cream left in the tub, reached for that pot of aging Vaseline in the medicine chest, the one sitting right next to rusting nail clippers and toenail scissors?

I'm still quite surprised by the number of cyclists and triathletes who don't use chamois cream. My excellent fiance, Amy, burns through several tubes of lip balm/chapstick a season, and I usually say something to the effect of "I hear that that stuff just makes your lips dry out faster afterward." She shrugs and says "So I'm addicted—my lips are moist, though." Chamois cream is the same way. Apply once and you're hooked forever.

In honor of the Blogs with Balls shout-out last week, I'm dedicating this whole week to that phrase's second noun. We're starting, of course, with DZ Nuts, a wag's title if I've ever heard one. I'm gonna give you a preview today based mostly on scent, and then take the embrocation through its paces. Each cream is going to get a short ride, a hard ride, and long ride, so you'll unfortunately be hearing about this stuff for some time. I'll give you all the details for Dave Zabriske's product, and then give you summaries for the other contenders (Assos, of course, and then other less PRO applications such as Chamois Budd'r and its ilk).

DZ Nuts comes in a stylish black tube apropos of a high end hair salon. It describes itself as a "High Viscosity" chamois cream. I wonder if this title is a misnomer. Could you have a "Low Viscosity" cream? Maybe heavy cream is low viscosity, since it still flows, but I think we all assume these products to be of a consistency that will allow them to spread but not...run.

On the nose you definitely get a lot of tea tree oil, which I like, and perhaps some menthol. It's a pleasing scent, one you probably wouldn't mind spreading through your hair until remembering that it's meant for a whole other region. I've got high hopes for this one, especially since it came recommended.

Tomorrow: the short ride!

Well, now, THIS is weird

2009-09-26T02:47:00.003-04:00

When Fantasy Cyclocross kicked off last fall, I blogged about it (can someone remove "blogged" from the dictionary as a viable verb?) in that kind of ironic but earnest manner. Sure, Fantasy Cyclocross is worthy of irony...but it's just the kind of thing you might sink your proverbial embrocated nuts into (I sure did—came in 37th out of thousands last year, and my team is looking better—and more Belgium—than ever). I have discovered, however, Fantasy Triathlon, and, wouldn't you know it, as a card-carrying professional triathlete, I am eligible for YOUR TEAM. Just head on over to Fantasy Tri and pick out your team. No worries about the particular rules, just make sure that I am on your squad. For real, I'll get you "underrated value" (or whatever it was they were talking about on 95.5. THE GAME today while going through fantasy picks for the weekend—who are some of these guys?) when I post a top twenty at Clearwater this year. Oh yeah, you heard it here first.

Top Twenty? Top Fifteen.

The Bigtime

2009-09-24T22:12:00.003-04:00

There's a Tom Waits tune off of Mule Variations Called "Big in Japan," and it's more or less an ironic rant about bands, artists, and people who can't really make it in the mainstream, but are big elsewhere. Big in Japan has long been the cry of those who feel that they're undervalued at home. Of course, this is Waits we're talking about, so any kind of attempt at labeling him as ironic or earnest or post-modern slips off him the way light slips off a convex mirror. Where is all this maundering going? I've hit a patch of good luck, recently, publishing-wise, getting notified by four separate magazines that I'll be in their publications come 20101 (Surfer's Journal, Wend, Mountain Flyer, and another story in Cyclocross Magazine. This blog, too, has gotten some notice, on Blogs With Balls, a venture that seems attached to ESPN. Check out the publicity here. In honor of that website, in a Waits-ian turn, I'll be doing a review special of chamois creams over the weekend. I know every PRO loves Assos, but there are a host of other products out there, such as the even more suggestively named DZ Nuts, courtesy of, of course, David Zabriske. I'll go and pick up an armload of the different types and post a review over the next few days, to justify my "Blog of the Week" status at BwB.

Guest Blogger: Introducing Ben Russell

2009-09-22T21:39:00.003-04:00

I don't know why I never thought of asking others to send me submissions...perhaps it was my sense that no one was actually reading. Well, that may still be the case, but a former student read an earlier post and sent me a note on FB. His response was so well written, and so better captured the ideas I was trying to explain, that I felt I had to post his excellent reply. His musings remind us that, no matter how often we tell ourselves that we can see new stories, all the stories in the world have been told again and again, were old even by the time of Homer.

Enjoy—

I don't follow tennis actively but I do like to read about genius. Regardless, I had a thought while reading your piece that I wanted to run past you. I couldn't help but compare these players to Homeric heroes. It's not just their physical prowess or the "warfare" on the tennis court but also the nature of these players. Federer is obviously Achilleus. His skill, manner and confidence on the court completely mirrors the swift footed half-god in battle. You even describe his shot as sublime. This is a just word.

But what really stamped this idea in verification was your depiction of Djokovic in the wake of the godlike shot. "I'm not going to win this match—even if I am at my best, and I am, there is no way for me to defeat or even come close to this man. " For your interest (whether it be large or small), look at this passage from the Iliad where Hector is fighting Achilleus in front of the walls of Troy. "And Hector knew the truth inside his heart, and spoke outloud: 'No use. Here at last the gods have summoned me deathward... So it must long since have been pleasing to Zeus, and Zeus' son who strikes from afar (Apollo) this way; though before this they defended me gladly. But now my death is upon me.'" Though Hector credits his strength to the gods and Djokovic credits his skill to himself, the feeling of helplessness in the face of divinity is mutual.

Federer's jump of unabashed celebration of his shot also harkens back to the vaunting that Achilleus does over bodies that he has slain. "But what I can do with hands and feet and strength I tell you I will do, and I shall not hang back even a little... I think that no man of the Trojans will be glad when he comes within my spear's range"

Interesting.

Week In Review—9/13-9/20

2009-09-21T13:55:00.002-04:00

Quality, not quantity...it's a theme pounded into us by our coaches, teachers, and parents. When I used to run Workharder.com, though, I really did believe that some of the quality of long-distance training came from its quantity. It's easy to fall back into quantity as just a number to hit, but we have to remember that there's a reason (beyond our physiology!) we like long-distance racing: we like long-distance training. That said, my week in review comment is that I spent fewer hours training this week than I would like to, but the workouts were all high quality. I've updated my training profile link on the right, so you can see what I'm up to. The long and short, however, is below:

Tuesday: 3.5k swim with group; strength workout, lots of pulling. 45 minute recovery run.
Wednesday: 4k swim with TriDamian; MS 15x100 at 1500M pace (1:05-1:10) leaving on 1:40. 2 hour ride with 5x12' @ 40K pace (330-360W).
Thursday: 1.5 hour recovery ride. 1.5 hour run w/9x800M on 5:30 pace.
Friday: 4.1k swim with TriDamian; 6x200 on 2:40 into 6x100 on 1:30 hold 1500M pace.
Saturday: repeat Wednesday's ride; 45 minute recovery swim.
Sunday: 1.5 hour run with 4x8' @10k pace. Did this workout at altitude. It was hard.

My total time was only 13 hours this week, but plenty of fast, hard stuff. This week goes up to a more normal 20 hour number.

Pure Sweet Sweet

2009-09-18T18:27:00.003-04:00

Short post today. The week is going well: back to full time training (1 quality ride, 1 quality run, and 2 quality swims so far among the standard endurance swims, bikes, and runs), but a couple of days ago brought two pieces of sweet news: Athlete's Lounge will be sponsoring me during the Cyclocross season and Cyclocross Magazine asked me to write a profile of Brian Vernor, 'Cross filmmaker extraordinaire (of Pure Sweet Hell fame). Vernor has a new film that he will debut at Cyclocross Nationals, and yours truly gets to chat with him about it, filmmaking, and 'Cross in general (is there such a thing?) in the upcoming weeks and months. Oh, and I'm on my way to see Amy!

Here's the trailer for Pure Sweet Hell. You've probably all seen it before, but why not watch again?

Back at it

2009-09-16T17:20:00.002-04:00

This week marks my first real return to training, and I'm tired! Returning to a full-time job and full-time training is difficult (I'm coaching 6th and 7th grade soccer, too!), and I find my energy lagging by, well, right around now. On the other hand, Cyclocross season is just around the corner (I've started uploading OBRA's 'Cross results to one of my favorite websites: Crossresults. A Wednesday night series has popped up here in PDXLand, reminding me of my first year tearing around the backyard of the West Hill Shop in Putney, VT. When I moved to Portland the lack of a dedicated community 'Cross practice confused me, but the world seems to have rectified the issue for me.

What's left of the tri season? Austin 70.3 and Clearwater. Hard to believe that the season is already mostly over.

Genius

2009-09-13T19:14:00.002-04:00

I just watched Roger Federer beat Novak Djokovic convincingly, even on a day when Djokovic was good—excellent, even. Each set went to seven games for the winner (7-6, 7-5, 7-5), which just goes to show how little separates the excellent from the sublime. Djokovic managed to win 16 games to Federer's 21. If you set aside tiebreakers and advantages, that's a difference of only 20 points, a tiny margin in tennis's bizarre scoring methodology (do you need any other evidence that the sport was invented—or at least popularized—by the French court during the Renaissance?). The shot that gave Federer match point against Djokovic was something we've come to expect from him, even as the physical reality still strikes us as amazing, impossible. To see Federer hit this between-the-legs revelation is to believe, for just a moment, in the awful perfection of great athletes. The shot is, literally, sublime. Its power lies in its almost ungraspable nature. To me, though, the real revelation is the slow-motion shot that shows Djokovic's reaction. He almost sheepishly wipes his mouth in slack-jawed appreciation and then turns for the baseline, the knowledge writ all over his face: I'm not going to win this match—even if I am at my best, and I am, there is no way for me to defeat or even come close to this man. The confidence and brilliance is what we've come to expect from Federer, and even though the game has lost some subtlety as players' serves have turned the style of play into a baselining affair, we know we can turn to him for the confidence we admire (and wish to emulate) in the greatest of athletes.

I thought Melanie Oudin displayed, if not the genius of Federer, at least the same tenacity and expectation of victory. Watching her third round defeat of Maria Sharpova (she knocked out, pretty much, most of the Russians in the tournament), I was struck by how much she seemed confident that she would win. Brash, even. She kept saying "Come on, come on!" whenever she made a mistake, as if defeating some of the best players in the world were simply a matter of stirring herself to her proper abilities. Her play isn't as beautiful or as awe-inducing as Federer's, but she's still young. I found myself riveted to her matches, mostly because I enjoyed watching an athlete for whom victory is the supposed nature of things.

Any endurance athlete battles with doubt, with demons that say it would be easy to stop, that someone is catching us. These two athletes remind us that things are easier up front, especially if you expect to be there. Leading gives you confidence, which makes you better. The chicken-egg question is developing that confidence. Some athletes are born with it, as Oudin seems to have been blessed, but others like Federer, who glide through matches as if on a cushion of grace, give us the sense that confidence can be mastered, like solving a puzzle a dark.

Iron Dreams, Tin Realities

2009-09-05T18:19:00.004-04:00

Don't let the title of this post get you down or wrong—I did finish IM Canada, and I'm more than pleased with my 9:31 finish, but I've got that Unfinished Business kinda feeling when I think about the race in Penticton.

I'm getting ahead of myself, mostly because there's just too much to talk about. So here's a short blow-by-blow of the race, and then I'll post-the-mortem.

The Swim: I can't believe I'm about to write this, but I really enjoyed the swim. The water is comfortable (just under 70 degrees) and cleaner than anything in which I've ever swam. The race organizers do a great job of never having you swim directly into the sun. I swam next to the pack for a little while and then got brave and joined the second pack. Ironman swimming differs greatly from the HIM distance, where you've still got to go pretty hard. In this race I was able to find feet and even jump from group to group. I never felt buried or even as if I was working hard. I could have gone faster, though, than my 54:08. Don't get me wrong—I'm perfectly pleased with that time, and I'm happy to know that I could go even faster.

The Bike: I came out of the water in 23rd, 8 minutes back (Amy did some great split reporting for me). IM cycling is interesting—you've got to push enough to catch people, but you really can't bury yourself. Remember, there's a marathon lurking after all this. I did start moving through the pack, and had moved up several spots by the time I got to the other side of Richter Pass, the second climb on the course (the first climb is little more than a long hill—don't worry too much about it). I went into a little valley after the halfway point due to some long rollers and a headwind. Eventually a guy whose number belt read "Mathias" passed me and I wondered what I was doing. He and I rode together for the next two hours, almost, as we passed and re-passed each other, working hard to keep the requisite seven bike lengths between us. A small group began to form as we headed up the second climb, to Yellow Lake. At this point I started to feel tired, and decided to let the group go so I could spin my legs on the way into town. This is also where my brain started to get a bit fuzzy. I followed my nutrition plan on the bike perfectly: a gel every 25 minutes, a PowerBar at 2:30, and water with Nuun every five minutes. Five minutes may seem excessive, but I'm a big guy and it was a hot day. Still, as I rolled back into Penticton I was seeing things: I imagined a man without his shirt on, wearing blue and white camoflaged cargo shorts, standing next to TriDamian. It tured out to be CompuTrainer Kurt, but he certainly wasn't wearing those shorts—lesson: your brain does funny things during an Ironman.

The Run: Everybody told me, before the race "It's all about the run, Chris." Well, as I started to run, feeling invincible, I thought "It's all about the run, and I'm about to run down almost every one in this race!" I can't explain enough how good my legs felt. Good enough to only eat two gels in the first hour of the run. I can already hear your sharp intakes of breath. No, that wasn't enough food. After passing a bunch of people on my way south, away from Okanagan Lake, I hit the hils at mile eleven and things started to come apart a bit. I'd run 6:40s since the start of the run, and looked and felt great:

This is probably the last place where I look good. Soon, taken apart by bad nutritional decisions, hills, heat, and wind, I was walking the aid stations. I started giving up the places I'd taken. Mathias, my partner on the bike (I'd passed him two miles out of town on the run) passed me back at mile seventeen and went on to 14th place. Coming into town I pulled things back up to 8:00/miles, but the damage was done. After running 7:00s for the first half, I ran 9:00s for the second, and my marathon time was 3:30, well off my hoped for pace.

9:31 for a first IM is better than fine, of course, but what gets me is the standard "What could have been" thoughts. If I had kept running the way I felt (Was I really just 200 calories away from a much faster run? Is it really that little?) I would have charged into the top ten.

Still, put the Shoulda Woulda aside, right? Let's talk about the why.

Jordan Rapp won with a convincing victory, tearing away from the field and winning by more than 20 minutes. Jordan can be a prickly guy, a little hard to talk to sometime, but you have to respect him, and I believe that he is, at heart, a more than alright guy. Within hours of his win, he was offering advice and help to age groupers on Slowtwitch. I've always loved athletes who make themselves available to their fans, and Jordan deserves praise. He also deserves praise for his attention to detail. Anyone who knows Jordan knows that he is a details guy. He is obsessive about his preparation, and instead of slagging him, people should respect him for that. IM requires obsessiveness, I think I see now. There's so much that can go wrong, so much time for things to unravel. If you're not careful, more than careful, your times will suffer. As someone a lot smarter than me said, "Failing to plan is planning to fail." I had a great plan for the swim and the bike, and then foolishly believed that the run was just a double-HIM run. 26.2 is very different from 13.1 (as any 6th grade mathematician will tell you) and you just can't think of them the same way. I'd like to think that not too much separates me from Jordan; we turned pro about the same time, have similar strengths and weaknesses, and have had some similar results (he, of course, has dedicated himself to the sport more than I have—another good lesson). So I'm turning my eyes towards my next full Ironman eagerly, looking forward to the chance to put everything in order.

For a while, on that run, I really did feel unstoppable...

Inactivity

2009-08-14T11:07:00.002-04:00

The thing about training full-time is that, suddenly, you have tons of time on your hands.

After going to masters' practice this morning (felt good in the water for a change—must be the five days in a row thing...who knew that technical sports required practice?), I sauntered over to Wooglin's Deli, checked my email, ate a bagel sandwich, and eavesdropped on Alison Dunlap, who was having breakfast at the neighboring table. I thought about introducing myself ("Hey, Alison, it's Chris Bagg, the writer who wrote a profile about you for Cyclocross Magazine...yeah, it is weird that we've never met in person, isn't it?) but then figured she probably wanted at least some time in the day when people don't introduce themselves to her. Presently I'm sitting on the front porch, with my legs up, waiting for UPS to arrive (and, good God, I hope I get the above-pictured UPS truck) so I can get my bike and wheels back from their sojourn across the country. Then it's off for a four or five hour ride through the Eastern Coloradan Countryside (read: flat). But other than that, I don't have poop to do, and I find that fact wildly unsettling.

The life of a professional athlete is an odd one. When you're really focused (and I am, presently, after the dalliances of our two-week vacation (too many cookies!)), there isn't much to life except training, fueling, and sleeping. I know many age-groupers who espouse a desire for this monklike life, but I wonder how many people are actually suited for it. We all live busy, busy lives most of the time, and subtracting the ebb and flow of a regular workday can leave you feeling, well, antsy. Witness the productivity of this blog. When I don't have anything to do, I turn to this outlet. But I feel the post winding down. I hope UPS arrives soon.

Ordinary

2009-08-13T18:59:00.003-04:00

If you can see the pursed lips and flat expression below the visor's shade, you can sense the disappointment in this shot. Of course, it's almost indistinguishable from the pictures taken during the Boulder Peak Olympic race, just over a month ago. A few reasons for the similarities: Boulder 5430 takes place at the same location as Boulder Peak and, since this is Colorado in the summertime, the weather is almost always exactly the same (I'm almost able to set my watch by the afternoon thunderstorms, one of which currently rumbles outside the window); second, I've gotten to the point in the season when the race kit is exactly the same from top to bottom; third, I've got the same kind of "not bad, but not good, either" kind of feeling from Boulder 5430, a half-iron that, sadly, will fall under the purview of the WTC and its insatiable gorge next year.

After the race, I chatted with Simon Thompson for a few minutes. Last year, Simon came from way back to overtake wire-to-almost-wire racer Tim O'Donnell, catching ToD in the final 400 meters, a tiny distance over 70.3 miles. Simon finished one place ahead of me, in 7th out of 8 professionals (yes, I was DFL among the pros, something that hasn't happened to me since my first pro race, almost three years ago in Chicago). I asked him how he felt and he said "Ordinary." Contrast that description with Tim O'Donnell's 2009 race performance, which had him leading out of the water, off the bike, and in the run. Usually, that kind of day results in a win, and O'Donnell crossed the line for the win in a very un-ordinary 3:45, twenty-five full minutes ahead of me.

But this post isn't to be a hand-wringing post. 4:10 and change is respectable for a half-iron, if not a professional half-iron. Talking with my coach, Nick White, after the race, he asked me what the previous two weeks had held. I'd gone back home to visit my and Amy's families, and the pressures of home (going out with friends, going out with family, making time for every one, sleeping in, seeing my new nephew, eating too much, and training too little) had caught up to me, perhaps. Toss two cross-continent flights in there, and you start to see a less than ideal prep for a big race. Nick also reminded me that Boulder 5430 was supposed to be a B race, with Canada IM (later this month) providing the second of my season's three A races (Boise, Canada, and Clearwater).

"Did you feel like you could keep going?" he asked.
"For a while," I said.
"Well, good, then," he replied.

And I was being honest. I never felt deeply challenged on Sunday, but I also never felt like I had the capacity to be deeply challenged. The legs were willing, but the lungs and heart (and, perhaps, head) were looking down the road.

The final dose of perspective came two ways at the end of the day. The first was wonderful, the kind of thing that makes you happy to associate with this sport. My only coaching client (my excellent fiancee, Amy) went into Boulder 5430 having only swam with one arm the day before (she tore her triceps and deltoid less than a month before, during an off-road race in Deckers). Having paid her entry fee she decided she'd float through the swim and see how she felt.

She PR'd by almost half an hour, coming home in 5:29:and change.

How'd she get there? After slow-stroking through the swim in 40 minutes, she went sub-three on the bike (2:58 or so) and then ran a 1:50 half-marathon, getting within 10 minutes of her open half-marathon time. But the numbers, as always, never tell the whole story.

"I decided to push it," she said afterward. "I didn't know how to do that on the bike, before."

This was a huge validation for me, since I've been watching her train all year long, and I really felt that she had a strong effort in her. She, having no datapoints with which to evaluate her performance, doubted whether or not she was going to even be able to race. The day of, however, it turned out her engine was ready to go. To say I was proud would be to wildly understate things.

Perspective number two was less positive. When we returned to the car, it became clear that someone had stolen the race wheels off of my bicycle. Now, this event was wholly my own fault. The bike was hanging off the rear of the car, unsecured in any way. I returned to the race to watch Amy come in and hang out in the beer tent. But I had higher hopes in the kind of person who races triathlon on a beautiful weekend in August in Colorado.

The problem with having something stolen from you (beyond the attendant monetary difficulties) is that you lose all faith you have in humankind. Everyone becomes a thief, for the next few days, and that fact, more than anything else, put me out. It would be wonderful to trust in the world, in the essential goodness of ordinary people. I hope I'll be able to do that again, but I'll also be securing my wheels to the car in the future.

Insult to injury, upon returning to Colorado Springs I discovered that my car had been impounded. Ha! Ordinary!

On Difficulty

2009-07-20T11:19:00.004-04:00

I've stolen the title from one of Jorie Graham's poems for this post, in attempting to explain the Xterra Mountain Cup race in which I competed this past Saturday. I'm choosing that title because, like Graham's poem, the appearance of difficulty did not match the actual difficulty. That is to say, it was much harder than it looked or, upon reflection, with lots of numbers and equations, much harder than it was computed to be.

I'm making a reach, here, comparing excrutiatingly difficult contemporary poetry with an off-road triathlon, but when you come upon a poem by Graham called "On Difficulty," you believe that things will finally be explained. The curtain will rise, the numbers will reveal their manifold truths, the trees will part for a second. Unfortunately, Graham's poem does little to explain her poetry in general, choosing instead to flirt with your sense of clarity. Reading it is a little like knowing you have to dance a tango (difficult to begin with), but that you've got to do it in the dark, with a dwarf, accompanied by an orchestra on, at the same time, amphetamines and oxycodone. Here's a chunk of her poem "Just Before:"

At some point in the day, as such, there was a pool.  Of
                                                        stillness.  One bent to brush one's hair, and, lifting
                                                        again, there it was, the
opening—one glanced away from a mirror, and there, before one's glance reached the
                                                        street, it was, dilation and breath—a name called out
                                                        in another's yard—a breeze from
                                                        where—the log collapsing inward of a sudden into its
                                                        hearth—it burning further, feathery—you hear it but you don't
                                                        look up—yet there it
                                                        bloomed—

OK, confused yet? And still, there is something lovely in this section of poetry, the cadences are regular (even though there isn't anything you might call a "rhythm" or "meter" to it), and there's this kind of bemused sense of wonder and exploration, the feeling you get when, as I am now, you sit at your desk in the summertime and listen to the myriad sounds of the world coming in through the window.

Right. Where am I going with this? The race on Saturday, in Beaver Creek, Colorado. My first off-road triathlon. I'm going to approach this (obviously) from several oblique angles and one quite direct angle. The direct angle: it was hard. Very, very hard—similar to, perhaps, competing in two 1-hour cyclocross races, and then popping off the bike for a nice, lung-cleansing run up a mountain. That description, though, doesn't capture the difficulty of the race. I have, in my athletic career, felt so buried exactly three times, all of them cycling events, not triathlon. The first was the Cat 1/2/3 Exeter Criterium a couple of years ago. That was my first 1/2/3 race (the top three cycling categories, for those of you who don't carry a USCF card around in your wallets), and we traveled 28 miles in 56 minutes, according to my bike's computer. That's exactly 30 mph (or just under 50 kph) for close to an hour. Any description of "how hard" that was doesn't come close to how I felt afterwards: elation, hallucination, despair, desperation. If you've read the section of Once a Runner when Quenton Cassidy runs 60 1/4 mile repeats at sub 4:00 pace, you might know how I felt. I won't bore you with the details of the other two times, but one took place at a mountain-top finish after 100 miles of racing, and the other at a 'Cross race, where I came over the finish line and then dry-heaved for about 200 meters.

The point? Sometimes these races seem elementary, simple, straightforward, but the pain and anguish your body goes through belies all of those descriptions.

OK, here's the number crunching section, since Justin tells me that Brandon would kick my butt in a geek-off (well, that's obvious, but I've got to fight back somehow).

Cycling power has become the buzz-tool for defining effort and training these days. You can calculate it using a power meter, but if you're going pretty slowly, you can figure it out longhand, too. Why slowly? at around 9-10 mph, the resistance between your tires and the surface over which those tires roll is pretty much equal to the resistance between you and the air through which you're traveling. Faster than 9-10 mph (or 4.4 m/s) and you get into some pretty hairy equations that involve calculating the frontal area of a human on a bicycle. I'm not going to go there. Still, for your own fun at home, here's the equation:

F_air = ½ Area Coef_Drag D_air V_air²

Happily, the formula for rolling resistance is much simpler:

F_roll = 9.8 W Coef_Roll where:

W = Weight of the rider and bike, kg

Coef_Roll = Coefficient of rolling resistance, dimensionless (wooden track = 0.001, smooth concrete = 0.002, asphalt road = 0.004, rough paved road = 0.008)

I'm going to assign a value of .012 to a standard, sandy, Coloradan singletrack for the coefficient of rolling resistance, and I + my rented bike = 93.63 kg. So F_roll = 11.01. I'm calculating a force, here, so I'm assuming I'm figuring this all for Newtons? Not sure. Anyway.

Another important consideration, of course, is the force of gravity. This one is also pretty easy to figure out. First you have to figure the average gradient of your climb, which is simple. I'm going to use the opening climb of the race, which was brutal. Coming out of the lake, you pedaled along a nice paved road for about a mile before kicking directly upwards. You then climb 2000 ft (610 m) in 5 miles (8 km). That's an average gradient of 7.6%, and you've got to do it on dirt and sand and grass. The force of gravity is computed as such: F_grad = 9.8 W grad. Here we go. W is the weight of the rider and bicycle, in kg. So we get 9.8*93.63*.076 = 69.74. I know I should be labeling my units, but I just don't know what they should be. It will all come out in the end.

Power can be figured out as such: P = (F_air + F_roll + F_grad) V. Happily, as I said earlier, I was only traveling around 10 mph (took me 1:35:00 to complete the 15.5 mile course), so F_air= F_roll. Thus, we get the following figure: P = (11.01 + 11.01 + 69.74) 4.4 m/s. It comes out to 403 W.

403 watts is a big number, and you can take the time it took me to make that first climb (around 45 minutes) to figure out the work I did. Power = work/time, so if you just slot in 403 W = x/2700 s (we're working in seconds, here, remember) you get 1,088,000 j, or 1088 kj for simplicity's sake. It works out to about .302 kwh.

What do all these numbers work out to? Well, like I said above, they are big numbers. 1088 kj is a lot of work. 403 W for 45 minutes is a large outlay of power, probably one of my better figures.

I got passed by close to 20 people on the bike leg of this course. Now, I'm bigger than most (80 kg is huge, for cyclists), and I was hauling around a relatively heavy mountain bike (I did get some props/stares for showing up to a professional race on a rental), but a lot of these guys went past me with ease. They certainly went past me with ease on the downhills, too, where my weight, ostensibly, should pose an advantage. Sadly, this isn't on-road racing, where things are straightforward and the only limiters are a) your fitness and b) your mental ability to do things that your brain really really doesn't want to do. I learned, the first day I raced Cyclocross, that the strongest guy doesn't win. On Saturday I was neither the strongest or most skilled guy, and I finished somewhere in the top 30, well out of the professional field.

All of these numbers, however, and assurances from me still don't tell you the whole story. Riding your bicyle uphill can be quite hard. Coming back down and then running back up the mountain (400 m in 9 km) is even harder. I spent most of Saturday sitting in the passenger seat of the car, eating, saying things like: "It was quite difficult," in a meager, confused tone of voice.

Jens Loses It

2009-07-17T10:54:00.002-04:00

Yes, we all love Jens Voigt. I've gone on and on about him in these pages before: he's strong, he's selfless, he understands that you have to attack and attack and attack (perhaps he's been tutoring Nicki Sorensen, and helped the aforementioned to his brilliant stage 12 victory—as the breakaway was about to reel Sorensen and Sylvain Calzati back into its clutches, I found myself saying "attack, attack, you've got to attack again," and, seconds later, Sorensen sprouted wings and flew away, the kind of thing that Voigt would have done).

I also love Jens because he just sounds like a genuine crazy man. Listen to his rant about cereal and food in Overcoming, or, for more immediate satisfaction, just tune into this New York Times website spot (anyone else notice that they NYT website has really come into its own recently?), in which four riders talk about what bugs them the most during a twenty-one day stage race at the center of the universe. If you only listen to one thing today while you're waiting for your Friday at work to finish, make it this audio post.

Single Speed

2009-07-15T20:41:00.005-04:00

Yes, single-speed bicycles are hip (but not as hipster as fixies), and they have their applications. They'll make you a stronger mountain biker. They're perfectly fine for cyclo-cross (less chance of dropping your chain, too!). When an athlete becomes single-speed, though, something may be up.

At the beginning of Boulder Peak last Sunday, I felt flat and unmotivated. Toss in the fact that I slept brilliantly the night before, and I knew that something was up with my brain. Sleep well two nights before a race, but if you sleep well the night before...I don't think you're excited enough.

What followed was pretty easy to predict: I swam below my potential (even on a slightly long course...probably around 1650M) and cruised into T1 about 3:30 behind the leaders, way too much of a gap for an Olympic distance race. I biked well, making it to the top of Old Stage road in Boulder in around 26 minutes, one minute slower than my goal for elapsed time from T1 to the top of the hill. The next 18 miles, for contrast, took only 39 minutes. I biked solidly, but not spectacularly. The run, well, let's just leave it at the fact that I was able to outrun IM distance guy Bryan Rhodes, who greeted me at the finish line with a resounding "Jest croosing, mayte." Croosing indeed. Looking at my times, I basically raced half-iron pace: swam 1:25/100M (that's slow, actually), biked 24.8 MPH (slow, again, but there was a bloody big hill right in the way), and ran 6:13/mile, or right on my current half-iron run-split speed.

I'm a single-speed.

That's not that surprising, actually. After the frustration and disappointment, I realized that I'd done no specific speed work for about four weeks leading up to the race, as I acclimated to Colorado's altitude. The last hard workout I did was Boise, exactly one month prior, so I was pretty much racing on that work.

The solution? Well, other than the obvious, I've decided to mix things up a bit. I'm racing an Xterra race this weekend, in Beaver Creek, Colorado. I don't own a mountain bike. The last trail run I did still haunts my nightmares (The horrific Spring Runoff 10k at the Teva Mountain Games: my 59 minute split was only ten minutes off the leaders, to give you an idea), so I'm looking for solace...in the swim? I know, sounds crazy, but my difficulties with the swim are largely mental, so maybe a slightly less intimidating swim race will bode well for me.

On the other side? Race pays 8 deep, and ony 3 men are signed up thus far. Natch.

(I'm sure the field will swell by Saturday. Think of me on that day, as I try to climb 3600 feet in just a few miles)

The Fit

2009-07-09T11:46:00.003-04:00

Last November, at Clearwater, I was stronger on the bikel; had a lighter, more aerodynamic, faster bicycle; felt more focused and stable in my training environment; usually feel stronger than everyone else on the bike. The result? I was two-and-a-half minutes slower than the previous year. My watts were high (around 320 for 2 hours and 8 minutes), so something with position was wrong. I called Dean Phillips, at Fitwerx in Peabody, MA, for help.

Here's Dean, riding a very similar set-up to my current bike (Cervelo P3, HED Aerobar, Zipp 808 front and 900 disc rear). Dean is a wildly strong cyclist, but for all his power he's gotten faster over the past few years, as he's added some years, while his watt numbers have remained mostly the same. How? Well, he's a nutcase about refining his position, and he's had a lot of success using some very complicated aerodynamic protocols for testing that you can use on the open road. Like any good scientist, he's deliberate, exact, and controlled, and he uses the same techniques when you go to him for a fit. This below information may be boring as hell to the non-triathlete/time trial crowd, so I urge you to go and read Brandon Stafford's post on his excellent blog pingswept about leveling the floor in his partner's office. It's much easier to understand.

I'm posting this information not only to give a shout to Dean and Fitwerx's excellent program, but to dispel some myths about bike positioning. We've been conditioned to believe some truths:

Lower in front is better. We're triathletes, not cyclists, but we look at Fabian Cancellara's 17 cm drop (that's the difference in height from the saddle to the aero bar arm rests, distance "I" in the figure above and table below) and think "I better go lower in front."
Narrower in front is better. A narrow shape cuts through the wind with greater alacrity, right? Well, maybe not. We've got to remember that we're dynamic shapes as we move through the air, and things such as how the air moves around our upper arms and across our (literally!) cycling thighs change with different body shapes.
Compact is better. A brief perusal of Slowtwitch's accounting of bike positions at Kona last year seemed to make the point that more compact will get you onto the podium. Again, that's probably true if you've got a body type like Craig Alexander or Normann Stadler. That kind of position might not work for Bryan Rhodes, Mike Lovato, or me.

OK, now look at the numbers that Dean found for me in an incredibly useful bike fitting session this past January. Numbers in regular font are my old position (Clearwater '08). Numbers in bold signify my new position. I've put in italics the three items I outlined above: saddle-to-armrest drop (I), armrest width (G), and length of cockpit (C).

Existing TT Position
Recommended Baseline TT Position

A Saddle Height over BB 79.8 cm
A Saddle Height over BB 80.3 cm
B Crank Arm Length 175 mm
B Crank Arm Length 175 mm
C Tip of Saddle to end of Aero Bars 77.0 cm
C Tip of Saddle to end of Aero Bars 85.0 cm
D Nose of saddle to BB +2.4 cm
D Nose of saddle to BB +2.3 cm
E Aerobar Angle 4 degrees
E Aerobar Angle 0 degrees
F Saddle Horizontal Tilt -2.5 degrees
F Saddle Horizontal Tilt -3 degrees
G Aero Bar Pad Width (Center) 21.25 cm
G Aero Bar Pad Width (Center) 22.0 cm
H Aerobar Size/Extension 35.0 cm
H Aerobar Size/Extension 37.0 cm
I Top of Saddle to Top of Armpad -14.5 cm
I Top of Saddle to Top of Armpad -13.3 cm

Let's talk about saddle-to-armpad drop first. Instead of getting lower in front, Dean raised my front end by 1.2 cm. That might not sound like a lot, but raising the front end opens up the angle between your torso and your thighs, and can improve your power output. Tradeoff? Well, you're higher in front. What do you do to go faster on your road bike? That's right, ride in the drops, lowering your front end. So, in order to counterbalance that move upward, Dean moved me outward, as in statistic C, distance from tip of saddle to tip of aerobar extensions, or, in shorter terms, the length of my cockpit. Dean moved my hands a full 8 cm forward. If 1.2 cm is significant in bike fitting, 8 cm is a galaxy of distance. Part of that number comes from the new HED aerobar Dean installed, the extensions of which are 2 cm longer than my previous bodily torture Profile Design standard-bend devices. But even accounting for that equipment stretching, I'm 6 cm farther out in front. Dan Empfield at ST is probably smacking his forehead as I write this, but here's what Dean has to say about it:

"For larger cyclists and triathletes, extending the front end of the cockpit can make air flow more easily under the arms and across the thighs."

Dean lengthened my cockpit, and then counseled me to keep my wrists twisted in, so my shoulders would shrug and come in closer to my body. This wouldn't have been possible in my old position, as my back would have arched up into the air. An arched back? I'll agree with Empfield that an arched back is the key to a slow bike split. So, if you're a big cyclist, maybe everything you've heard about being low and compact might not work for you.

The third myth I'm going to dispute is the "narrower is better" myth. Dean moved my armpads out 3/4 of a cm, again to facilitate airflow between my arms and out the space created between my arms and thighs. The slightly wider position also gives me a greater power platform against which to push.

The result of all this? Let's compare my bike split at Clearwater (2:08:29) with the winner's, Terrenzo Bozzone (2:01:29), exactly seven minutes. Remember, Clearwater is a perfectly flat course, supposedly my powergel and clifbar. Now let's look at the numbers from Boise.

Christopher Bagg: 2:10:40
Craig Alexander (winner): 2:10:09.

Not bad, I say. If I can bike in Craig's company, I'm sold. I believe Dean's fit is the difference, as my bike training hasn't been too different this past spring. Go and see Dean. Or at least remember that you are a unique athlete, and may not benefit from a riding style of what you see on the streets of Monaco.

Sleep

2009-07-06T11:09:00.002-04:00

The tour is off and rolling, with my prologue picks ending up somewhat suspect (sure, I picked the winner, but who didn't have Fabian Cancellara?). I didn't count on Tony Martin blowing the doors off or Roman Kruzeiger having such a great ride. The tour is now into its traditional first week sprinter's parade before we get to the first mountain stage. The first week of the tour provides great final seconds, but the run-up to the line usually consists of long breakaways, disinterested pelotons, and, in the words of Cyclingnews.com's live reporter, "not a whole lot of action."

I'll take this lull in an interesting sport to return to triathlon for a few days and the particular importance of sleep. I wrote a piece for Cyclocross Magazine recently on the comeback of Alison Dunlap to the professional cyclocross circuit. Alison is a gifted athlete, no doubt, with 12 total national championships to her name and a world title on the fat-tire bicycle. Her greatest limiter? "Sleep," says her coach Jay Gump (weirdly, I know Jay pretty well from my time kicking around the Pioneer Valley; he runs Incline Training in Greenfield, MA, and has a lot to say about triathletes and how we can better take care of ourselves and our equipment). "Alison's most important workout, out of all her threshold workouts and sprints, is the '10PM' workout. She has to turn the lights out a 10PM and go to bed. No work, no internet, only recreational reading." Jay is a great coach ("He's a genius," Dunlap says) and we could all listen to his holistic approach. In my little work with him, he's counseled me to worry less about things like body composition ("some body fat will help you recover, stave off injury, and race for longer periods of time, so don't try to get down to, like, 3%!" he says) and worry more about focusing on having fun and getting rest. We all put in the training, but many of us eschew the little parts of racing, like changing our chains on time (more from Jay about this in a later post), getting proper rest, doing yoga, and eating correctly.

I just finished up a big week for me: 25 total hours of training, 40 miles of running, 225 miles on the bike, and 15K in the pool (that should have been higher, but the prologue party kept Amy and me out of the water Saturday morning). Complicating things was the fact that I wasn't getting great sleep (my sister was pregnant to bursting this weekend, and that plus moving concerns tended to flood my REM time over the past few days). Last night Ame and I hit the sack at, get this, 7:30. Yes, the sun was still high in the sky. We slept until around 7 this morning (Amy also put in a big week, finding about 20 hours of training while still doing her full time job). Today is the traditional athlete's holiday, with only about 2K in the pool on the schedule for both of us. We're both racing this coming weekend, so sleep at this point is the training priority—you can't make any more hay at this point, but you can make the hay you've got better hay (I'm reaching, perhaps, with that metaphor). So our goal for this week? 9 hours of sleep a night, ten if possible.

A final note: I've added a sponsor this past week: Newton Running. I've worked with Newton before, but now I've got a real deal with them. I've run my fastest 70.3 runs in Newtons, and like the effect they have on my gait (a little shorter, a bit more efficient). I'll have reports on their various models as I try them out over the next few months.

Handicapping the Prologue, Part Four

2009-07-03T15:18:00.002-04:00

Phew! Last post on the Prologue (pre-Prologue, that is) which makes these posts some kind of Ur-Prologue, or Proto-Prologue. Here are the last of the twenty riders I see making a possible impact on Saturday, although most of the guys mentioned here are more top ten figures than top five types. I know little about them, so the posts here will be pretty brief. Go back to Part One if you'd like to review the rules of my little game, but essentially you're picking the top five riders in the prologue tomorrow. You get bonus points if you get any of the top three in the correct finishing order (it's a lot like The Kentucky Derby betting in that regard). Alright, without further ado (and there sure has been a lot of ado on these pages the past few days).

Gustav Larssen:Whoa, you're thinking. Gustav Larssen is a graph? Well, in prologues and time trials riders really are graphs. You aren't racing anyone but your own training ability, and here's a great way to see a rider's ability to push watts. I'd point your attention to the lower left portion of the picture, where you see the number "561" under "Avg. Watts." Yes, Larssen averaged 561 watts for an hour and twenty three minutes during the Solvang Time Trial at the Tour of California. He only came in 6th with that kind of effort. He is a bigger man (around 170 lbs. O.K., he's big for a cyclist), and that TT is pretty hilly, which will amplify one's watts. Still, holding that kind of wattage for that amount of time is nothing short of, well, remarkable. Larssen could, with a massive effort, squeak into the top ten, but I think there's just too much talent ahead of him.

Mancrush Factor: His wattage number are dreamy, and his name is Gustav, for god's sake. Rides for SaxoBank...hmm...a respectable 7.

EuroScore: Again, spiky, blond, goes by a Viking's name. Pretty Euro. 4.

Team Scandal Score: What have I been giving all these SaxoBank guys? 9s? 9.

Form: He is your Olympic Silver medalist, and he came in second at the Criterium International, behind only Jens Voigt. I'm gonna lend him an admirable 13.

Course Suitability: 5. Take another look at that graph.

GL Total Score: 38, putting him on par with Lance Armstrong? I may need to rethink my numbers.

Yaroslav Popovych:Popovych is a domestique with the abilities of a GC man, which means that he fares pretty well at the ITT. He was 4th in the discipline on the final day of this year's Giro. He's been in the top ten at the Tour before, in 2007. He can climb. He can certainly descend (he's got one of those awful Phil Ligget given nicknames like Contador's "Cobra" or something—maybe Popovych's is the Pelican, for his diving ability; that sounds like good old Ligget to me), doing things on downhills that scare the crap out of his peloton-mates.

Mancrush Factor: I like domestiques, especially if they're from Eastern Europe...Western Russia...whatever. 6.

EuroScore: Ukranians are a bit more willing to be continental, I believe. Ukraine isn't in the EU, but I'd append a big old yet to that description. They've had a democratic revolution (European) and then a terrifyingly Soviet attempt at assassination when President Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. Poisoned! What is this, the late 1800s? Anyhow. Let's give Popovych a 6.

Team Scandal Score: Astana. 4.

Form: If you're riding in 4th place at the end of the Giro, you've got form. He hasn't raced much since then, but let's assume he's on the same kind of plan as Lance and figure his form is red hot. 13.

Course Suitability: Watching Popovych on this course will be fun, as his bravery on technical descents will net him some time through those tough corners towards the end. 5.

YP Total Score: 34.

Michael Rogers:Rogers is all the way down at 80-1 in some of the betting sites out there, which surprises me, as he's good on the TT bike. He's lower than George Hincapie, perennial bridesmaid, which also strikes me as odd. Hincapie is, what, 50 by now? Rogers is a three time time trial world champion, but he hasn't done too much recently. I do think he should be mentioned, however.

Mancrush Factor: Hmmm...Australian, tall. Kinda boring, though. 5.

EuroScore: Australians can sometimes be Euro, unless their names are, like, Cadel Evans. Witness my friend Tim Berkel, who looks like a girl much of the time. Rogers looks like he could be Euro, but he also looks like he could have stepped out of an Iowan corn field. 5.

Team Scandal Score: Columbia-HTC (anyone out there know who "HTC" is? I'm getting tired of typing it without knowing what I'm saying). Boring. 10.

Form: Gee, who knows? He was 8th at the Giro. Tired? In shape? 12.

Course Suitability:4.

MR Total Score: 36.

Jose Ivan Gutierrez: I'm slowing down, here, at the end of all this noise, so these last two might be kinda quick. Gutierrez has been Spanish National Champ at the TT, so he know's what he's doing. He deserves a look and will certainly be in the top 20 tomorrow, I'd say.

Mancrush Factor: He's Spanish, but he's listed in Velonews as 5'11.5." Who lists himself as 11.5 inches? Just have some huevos and call yourself 6 foot. 7.

EuroScore: The Spanish are quite European. They may even have defined the term, along with the Germans. 3.

Team Scandal Score: This is Alejandro Valverde's team, remember, and Caisse d'Epargne has never really been able to get out of their own way. How far away was Operacion Puerto? 5.

Form: 10?

Course Suitability: 4.

JIG Total Score: 29. Yikes.

Sylvain Chavanel: Chavanel gets in here ahead of folk like Vladimir Karpets (now there's a name. Dude should be a sketchy rug dealer) and George Hincapie because I like him, and he's the only person in France that seems to know how to ride a TT bike. He's wildly aggressive, in Jens Voigt territory, always trying, it seems to get a win for his country instead of his team. Chavanel alone seems to want to erase the many years of French mediocrity in the sport that country adores. Other French riders like Christophe Moreau and David Moncoutie seem to give the good old Gallic shrug at their MOP status. He's won his country's TT championship twice and always always always attacks, even when it seems there cannot be any hope of victory. He's the kind of rider you love to love.

Mancrush Factor: Anybody who gets out there as SC does has more than my respect: 9.

EuroScore: He's French, but he's really tough, and racing for a Belgian team. 7.

Team Scandal Score: Can you imagine what the QuickStep-Innergetic parties are like: mountains of Tom Boonen's blow abounding while all the other guys get bamboozled on Belgian brew? Yikes. 5.

Form: If you're going to attack all the time, your form eventually suffers. 11.

Course Suitability: Chavanel is good at climbing and descending, but I think someone with a bit more power might prevail on this course. 4.

SC Total Score: 36.

O.K., that's it! Leave me a comment with your picks. Winner gets virtual recognition.

Handicapping the Prologue, Part Three

2009-07-02T11:05:00.005-04:00

Out of the following five riders, maybe one should find his way into your own top five. These riders display talent at time trialling, but maybe have dimmer GC hopes or less overt power on a bike with aerobars. Still, many of them are solid picks.

Kim Kirchen: Kirchen is an odd rider, with surprising highs and lows. He's worn the yellow and green jerseys in the TdF, so he's got talent, but he also displays a penchant for getting hurt. He's good against the clock but not outlandishly good, as this article from Cyclingnews.com points out. He placed 2nd and 3rd in the time trials from last year (and would have done better, I believe, if a certain rider in blue and white hadn't appeared out of nowhere to crush the clock) and could pose a threat to the big time GC contenders from Part One. He's had a lot of adversity to fight this year, however.

Mancrush Factor: 5. He's one of those good, solid guys you never get crushes on. He's probably great at doing the dishes and taking out the garbage, though.

EuroScore: Kirchen is squeaky clean, a requisite for being Euro. His jeans drawer is probably out of this world. 3.

Team Scandal Score: Columbia—Highroad (although I think they're now "HTC", the new co-title sponsor. Maybe now they'll get rid of those awful Saunier-Duval knockoff kits). 10.

Form: Coming around, but dealing with a broken collarbone from the Giro. 10.

Course Suitability: For someone who is improving at the TT, climbing+technical can be difficult, although he did well in the straightforward (but up-and-down) long TT in last year's Tour. 4.

KK Total Score: a solid, if pedestrian, 32.

Thor Hushovd: The "God of Thunder" (could someone really have come up with a less inspired nickname for a dude named Thor?) has had a good spring, coming home to the Cervelo Test Team (best kits and bikes in the peloton, if you ask me). He won the Het Nieuwsblad this year (that race used to be called Het Volk) and a stage of the Tour of California. He's very good against the clock, can sprint, and sometime can get away in a breakaway. He's Norwegian, too. What more can you ask?

Mancrush Factor: As usual, I like riders that reflect my own tastes and abilities. Hushovd and I are basically the same size (he makes me feel better about myself when I see pictures of him on the bike and hear comments from the two riders drafting me like "He's like a double-wide!"), and we both like skinny bikes with extensions. He gets a 9.

EuroScore: He's Norwegian, blond, and spiky. Sorry, Thor. 4.

Team Scandal Score: I'm amazed the CTT is even a team, there's so little news coming out of their camp. They're not as squeaky as Garmin, perhaps, but I doubt there's much needling going on over at Cervelo. 10.

Form: He's done very little since winning Het Volk, so I've got to downplay his numbers a bit: 9.

Course Suitability: He does weigh 180 lbs, but he can also bend the cranks on his bicycle. 4.

TH Total Score: 36.

Christian Vande Velde: Despite the goofy, un-ironic Rock-n-Roll gestures deployed at left (or is Vande Velde mimicking Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects, as Kint tries to make the devil horns in Agent Kujan's face while trying not to cry?), CVV has the tools to be a GC contender, which means that he needs to be mentioned here. He's recovering from some horrific injuries, but he got away from everybody during Stage 4 of Paris-Nice this year, and that shows that he's got some form in 2009. I think you'd be better suited to pick DZ as a #5 guy, but hey, you might like Vande Velde a lot, and he's one of few Americans to ever wear the pink jersey in Italy, courtesy of a brilliant TTT (note: not an ITT) in 2008.

Mancrush Factor: Meh. I've been reading the tennis news recently, and there's a touch of Andy Roddick to CVV: a few touches of brilliance and then a lot of, well, mediocrity. He does look good in pink. 4.

EuroScore: Vande Velde resides in Spain, which ups his ES a little bit, and his name sounds more Belgian than Midwestern (Illinois). In the above photo, however, he looks like he's auditioning for a spot on In Living Color's "Mo Money" sketch. 6.

Team Scandal Score: It'll be just my luck if it turns out Jonathan Vaughters (TD at Garmin-Slipstream) is spinning his riders' blood down every evening, since I'm talking so much about their dedication to cleanliness. 10.

Form: Gosh, who knows? 8.

Course Suitability: He can climb, and deals with technical stuff well. Knows how to mete out efforts. Might not be strong enough for this particular TT. 4.

CVV Total Score: 32

David Millar:How did I let Millar fall so far to this spot? He's presently running at 25-1 in the betting out there, which makes him four times as likely to beat CVV, who resides at 100-1 odds (that makes sense to me). Also, check out that kit! Is that pimping or what? He's totally putting whomever he's riding with to shame (that guy seems to have a selection of insoles sticking out of the left seam of his jersey, anyway). Millar is a strong rider and a moral exemplar, having returned from the darkness of doping (I hope). I believe him because he's got the zeal of the convert, although you could say you don't believe him because he protests a bit too much, youthinks. Who cares, with a disc wheel upon which the queen would be proud to roll around?

Mancrush Factor: Accent, and the ability to push 400 watts for close to an hour. Swoon. 9.

EuroScore: Hmmm, British, like BW, but pretty Euro in appearance and affect. I gotta split the diff on this one: 5.

Team Scandal Score: Garmin, Garmin, blah blah blah...10

Form: He cracked the top ten in the Tour of California's prologue, but that was a real prologue, and this is a TT, one of his specialities. He's not done much else of note recently, though...10.

Course Suitability: 5. He's got the power to make that first climb, sustain it through the middle section, and the savvy to get through the technical sections towards the end. 5.

DM Total Score: A very impressive 39, albeit inflated by his TSS. I still don't see him beating Lance.

Andreas Kloden: Kloden currently resides at 33-1 in the odds, but I kinda wish I didn't have to include him here. I used to love Kloedi (as he's referred to in Hell on Wheels, when Erik Zabel says, hilariously, "Kloedi's got cotton in his nose!" to a hideously beat-up AK. But then the whole thing with T-Mobile broke a few years ago, and the riders I used to admire (Kloden, Rolf Aldag) suddenly lost a bit of their lusters. There have been some rumors about Kloden that he just can't seem to shake, too, which doesn't help my suspicions. Still, he is quite fast on a TT bike, and deserves a quick look.

Mancrush Factor: I just don't trust the guy any more. 3.

EuroScore: German. Likes white sunglasses. Has a girl's name. 1.

Team Scandal Score: Astana, once again, is danger for me. 4.

Form: unquestionable, at this point. Many wins and top five finishes at this point in the year. No huge races, but he's been going quite well. 14.

Course Suitability: AK can climb, descend, and break his pedal spindles easily. 5.

AK Total Score: 27, brought low by some bad early figures.

Last five tomorrow! Thanks for reading.

Handicapping the Prologue, Part Two

2009-07-01T10:43:00.003-04:00

O.K., here's where things get a bit more interesting. The next five guys on the depth chart can win the prologue, but might not seem readily apparent, what with yesterday's five brilliant TT specialists. Who would have picked Stephan Shumacher last year (probably his team doctor at Gerolsteiner)?

Jens Voight: Jens is my favorite rider in the pro peloton, and I'm not saying anything revolutionary by pointing that out—thousands of people love Jens, and his performances on the road and in the documentary Overcoming continue to endear him to new fans. He is strong, aggressive, self-sacrificing, friendly, and manages to beat the odds more often than not. He lingers around the top of every TdF TT, and this course might suit him well. He probably won't win tomorrow, but he'll certainly find a slot in my top five.

Mancrush Factor: Obvious, isn't it? 10.

EuroScore: This is a tough one. Jens is pretty Euro, but he still doesn't quite fit my parameters. He's more Belgian than Euro, with his hardman reputation. Who can forget his "Don't mess with my food!" line in Overcoming? 6.

Team Scandal Score: Nothing doin' over at SaxoBank, unless you count Bjarne Riis as a perennial scandal. 9.

Form: Hard to say on this one. Jens has been pretty quiet this spring, but he's getting a bit long in the tooth, and he did win his fifth Criterium International in a row. He's also a steady helper, and I'm pretty sure he's in good shape. I also don't think he'd spoil Cancellara's day unless Fabian was having another bout of agita. 11.

Course Suitability: Is there a course that doesn't suit Jens Voigt? 5.

JV Total Score: 42.

Bert Grabsch: this photo should strike fear into the hearts of all those who are picking FC (including yours truly). How much power can Bert Grabsch put out? He's got that great, compact position and a trunk like, well, a trunk. He's the current world champion at the TT discipline, and could be a good pick to best the sapling-esque Alberto Contador or hunky Fabian Cancellara.

Mancrush Factor: 5. I don't know much about the guy, really, and he has a hard time winning races beyond the TT.

EuroScore: 5. He's German.

Team Scandal Score: Columbia-Highroad has been justifying its name all year, in wins and in staying out of the doping pages. 10.

Form: Grabsch did win a race recently outside of the TT (in the Giro, maybe?), and may be maturing beyond his single-minded abilities. 13.

Course Suitability: With a body like that, going up has to be a little bit of a detriment. 4.

BG Total Score: 37.

Bradley Wiggins: Gee, how did Wiggins fall this far in my estimation? He knows how to TT, and certainly could be an outside choice for that 3rd step on the podium on Saturday. Everyone knows how much the Brits love the time trial (the country is crazy about the track, which, like the time trial, is an odd form of cycling, probably analogous to drag racing:NASCAR), and they've got a lot of hope pinned to this guy, along with the admirable David Millar.

Mancrush Factor: I know I've been trying to keep it to one photo per rider, but I just couldn't resist on this one. Is Bradley also a member of some British Invasion band like SoftCell or the Culture Club? This possibility boosts his Mancrush score, if only ironically: 7.

EuroScore: Although British, a member of that freely floating, associated with no bloody continent clan, one look into those soulful eyes lets you know that BW would love to be...Dutch? 4.

Team Scandal Score: He rides for Garmin-Slipstream, the members of which sit around in their off-hours knitting argyle socks for each other: 10.

Form: Oooh, tough one. Haven't heard much out of BW all spring. He certainly gets up for opening day time trials, however, and prologues. He won the opening of the Dauphine in 2007 and came in second on the final day TT of this year's Giro. That's gotta help, especially seeing that the races were comparable distances. 12.

Course Suitability: I think BW would like things just a touch flatter. 4.

BW total score: 37. Even footing with Grabsch.

Denis Menchov: I've always had a soft spot for Menchov, and it was great to see him win something other than the Vuelta this year. Sure, people say he's boring, but he actually wins stuff, other than a previously mentioned boring rider. I'd say he knows himself as a rider, and although he's not as explosive (or doped to the gills) as Danilo DiLuca, he knows how to win. I think that the Tour de France is out of his reach, but he's certainly got to be mentioned in the time trials and rolling stages. On the other hand, he's already had to win a grand tour this year, and that's got to take something out of a rider.

Mancrush Factor: He's Russian, I like him! 8.

EuroScore: Russians, like Brits, freak out when you call them European. Just mention the term "EurAsia" around a Moscovite and see what happens, even if they do all speak French. 9.

Team Scandal Score: Ooh, RaboBank...the team of Rasmussen and recently disgraced Thomas Dekker? Eeeesh. 3.

Form: He won the Giro. He might be tired. 13.

Course Suitability: See the Cinque Terre TT? 5.

DM Total Score: 38. On par with LA.

David Zabriske: What's not to like, here? Creepy mustache (I think that's gone at this point, actually), former beard-wearer that made him look like Ewen MacGregor trying desperately to look like Alec Guinness. One time wearer of the yellow jersey in a year when LA competed? Holder of the fastest time trial...ever? Not a bad long bet, I think. He's currently residing at 25-1 (same as Menchov and teammate David Millar) and could be a solid 3rd-5th place bet. Dark horse winner.

Mancrush Factor: I've always loved Zabriske. I think CSC was a better place for him, but he's certainly committed to Garmin—Slipstream, which is admirable. Former roommate of Floyd Landis, though, which weirds me out a bit. 7.

Team Scandal Score: See Bradley Wiggins, above. 10.

EuroScore: The only thing that might make Zabriske European would be if Viking-style beards and Detroit-style facial hair counted as European. He is pretty skinny. 9.

Form: 81st place in final day TT of the Giro? 1'40" in arrears? 9.

Course Suitability: Recall the opening day, 21K TT in Brittany in 2005. There was a little climbing (over a bridge) on that one. 5.

DZ Total Score: 40, but that number feels a bit inflated, mostly by his EuroScore and placement on Garmin—Slipstream. Still, he's beaten Lance before...

Handicapping the Prologue, Part One

2009-06-30T17:26:00.004-04:00

OK, triathletes, you're gonna have to be patient for the next, oh, month, as I go TdF crazy, checking Cyclingnews.com every five seconds for race updates. I'm tossing my own proverbial hat in the bucket, inspired by J. Dukes' amazing handicapping aunt, who comes up with subjective criteria for the 20 horses in each year's Kentucky Derby. There's hard data in those criteria, to be sure, but there's a lot of other stuff, too, like whether Dukes' aunt likes the horse trainer personally. So, in her honor, I'm going to run through the twenty or so riders who will place highly in the Tour's prologue on Saturday. My top five go today, followed by five a day until Friday, at which point those attending a super-secret Tour Prologue party will have to make their picks for the big day. At stake at the party will be a case of Oregon Beer to the man or woman who scores best in the following manner:

Each player picks his or her top five riders, who accrue points in the same manner as a cross-country race: you get points equal to your position across the line (i.e. points are bad, like in hearts). The player with the fewer points wins, with the following bonuses:

Pick the winner -1 points
Pick the perfecta (1st and 2nd place are correct) -3
Pick the trifecta (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place are correct) -9

For example, if you picked, say, Fabian Cancellara, Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Bert Grabsch, and Cadel Evans, and those riders came in, respectively, at 1st, 2nd, 7th, 4th, and 11th, you would receive 1+2+7+4+11-1-3=21 points. Get it? Cool. If you'd like to play "online," drop me your picks in a comment and I'll send you a case of virtual beer in a later post. Alright? Alright. Without further ado, the first five riders:

Fabian Cancellara: Cancellara is currently top dog in the odds, going at 4:7 on several sketchy European betting companies like Unibet.com. Here's his C.V. from the incredibly unscientific criteria of Chris (note that these are mostly scored from 1-10, with exceptions provided for data that just won't fit that kind of limiting parameter).

1: ManCrush Factor—9. You'd think that a guy my size with a similar penchant for weird facial hair and the ability to absolutely drop trousers on the TT bike would take home top honors in the mancrush category. Sadly, Fabian, that honor is going to go to a teammate of yours to be featured a little farther down. Still, Chris can't help his heart from fluttering a little bit at the sight of those treetrunk legs and high-schooler mustache.

2: Team Scandal Score (note for this score, you still want a higher number, since all of these points are going to be added for one number that will indicate how the rider will possibly fare during the opening prologue. But a low scandal number indicates the presence of controversy. Skewing the numbers and predictions even further, however, is the fact that a high TSS will probably indicate the presence of doping, which will directly relate to the rider's daily performance—I guess that this score envisions a perfect world): 9. Things have been really quiet over at Team Saxo Bank, even though the team has three legitimate tour contenders (2008 Champion Carlos Sastre, and Brothers in Yellow Andy and Frank "I looked like a rat when crossing the line at Alpe D'uez in 2006" Schleck. Fabian will have few distractions when it comes time to roll up to the starting gate.

3: EuroScore (like everything in Europe, I just ran these two words together and then capitalized one of the letters. This score tells you how much this particular rider is shaving and embrocating, spiking his hair for the podium, and maintaining arms that an 8-year old girl would be proud of—I have no idea how this score will affect riders' ability on the road on Saturday, but as I run through my list of contenders, I realize that guys who are good at the Time Trial don't really rack up high EuroScores. So, again, just like above, the lower a number, the more Euro he is): 8—Fabian sure has a Euro name, but he weighs 81 kg, which won't even let him fit through the door in most Italian Espresso Bars.

4: Form (OK, this one actually means something, so I'm gonna score it out of 15 points—it relates to how good a rider is presently going): 13. Cancellara had a quiet spring (anybody remember his 2008 spring campaign?), but then recently destroyed everybody on the final day of the Tour de Suisse. Sure, he was on home territory. Sure, give this guy a chance on a final day TT and he's probably gonna be up for up. Still, I think that we'll see an on-form FC on Saturday take another TdF stage win and yellow jersey.

5: Course Suitability (a kinda minor concern, but some of these guys are better at pancake flat and some like the rollers, so we'll only go out of 5 points, here): 4. FC likes the flat flat stuff, and this course has a climb and some technical cornering that might suit a riders like, say, Lance Armstrong or David Zabriske. So I'm bagging on FC a little bit here, but I still see him bringing home the proveribial Swiss Chocolate.

FC Total Score: a very respectable 43 out of 50. Chris's top pick.

Lance Armstrong: Lance didn't do so good in the Giro, but, c'mon, he was recovering from a broken collarbone and several weeks of light training. Word in the peloton (see Ivan Basso's comments in Cyclingnews recently) is that he's going better than ever. Toss in the fact that he's only lost an opening day time trial once (2005, to the excellent David Zabriske), and it makes sense that his odds, at the moment, are 8:1, second only to the abovementioned Fabian Cancellara. I'm predicting that Lance won't win this TT, either, but will gone on to have great success later.

Mancrush Factor: 6. Lance is not crushy. However. He has won seven TdFs and he is harder than any one in the peloton. He's never failed a drug test and has as much polish as Peter Fonda. Still, I wouldn't buy him a drink.

Team Scandal Score: 4. Who's the leader on this team? Contador? Lance? Leipheimer? Popyvych? Even Brunyeel doesn't know who to tap, although I'm pretty sure where his allegiances lie. Lance's TSS is pretty bad, but he's also brilliant at avoiding distractions. Maybe this one doesn't hurt him too much.

EuroScore: 9. He's from Texas. He's raced in Europe for almost two decades, but he knows how to wear a baseball cap.

Form: It's Lance in July, and he's got three weeks of hard cycling under his legs from the Giro. Easy call. 15. No, he's 37. 14.

Course Suitability: Lance loves time trials that go up and down slightly. This course could only suit him better if it were 45K longer. 5.

Lance Armstrong Total Score: 38. His team is bringing him below FC's 43.

Alberto Contador: I personally don't like Contador very much. He backed into the tour win in 2007 after bizarro Michael Rasmussen disappeared to Mongolia. He then, did, rattle off wins in the Vuelta and Giro in short order. He can really ride. He knows how to time trial. Still, he's on the same team as one Lance Armstrong, and I don't think Lance's competitive, um, juices will let Contador one-up him. He might not have the power to destroy a relatively short (but relatively long prologue) time trial.

Mancrush Factor: 5. It only ends up this high because he says his favorite climbing gear (and this is in the Alps, remember) is something like 39x16, which is insane. He climbs like Ricardo Ricco off drugs, which is impressive. Still, he's pouty, which, as anyone knows, is not alluring in a man.

Team Scandal Score: 4. See Lance's entry, above. Except Contador might be even at more of a disadvantage, as he may feel the odd member out at Astana's tea party. Remember, Leipheimer has worked for Lance before...

EuroScore Factor: 4. See those arms?

Form: Here's my one concession. He just came in third in the Dauphine Libere and won the Spanish TT National Championship. Boyfriend can flat out ride, and I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be close to perfect. 15.

Course Suitability: Again, he might like it longer, but this is a good course for the Spaniard, with some climbing and technical corners. 5.

AC Total Score: 33.

Cadel Evans: Gosh, I wish I liked Cadel more, what with his button nose and cute cleft chin. Still, I'm not a huge fan of riders who never attack. He's a former World Mountain Bike Champion, for god's sake, couldn't he get away somewhere on a descent and then use that climbing ability to get some time, somewhere? All of us who hoped to see Evans challenge Sastre last year on the slopes of Alpe D'uez just got to see the Schelcks destroy Cadel's chances, and he seemed to take that shellacking as if he were accepting a marmite biscuit.

Mancrush Factor: 3. Goes downhill like a bomb, but cozies up to second or third place like no professional cyclist I've ever seen.

Team Scandal Factor: Gosh, is Silence-Lotto even a team any more? No one hears anything about them. 8.

EuroScore: 9. One area Cadel does well in. He wouldn't know what to do with a bottle of Perrier if he found it in his bottle cage.

Form: Here's an interesting one. He's been going quite well, recently, and has had several under the radar results this spring, particularly in the time trial. Let's say he's in at least as good shape as Fabian: 13.

Course Suitability: He's a GC Contender. Up (and particularly, technical down, which this parcours has) is his bread and butter. Marmite and toast. 5.

CE Total Score: 38, putting him on even footing with Lance.

Levi Leipheimer: I was going to try to just use cycling photos, but this image (the first, if you type Levi's name in Google Image Search—interesting) was just too good to miss. It encapsulates a lot of how I feel about Levi: a nice guy, good with animals, but so clueless as not to know which animals to like. What else do you say about a guy that can dominate a mediocre stage race in California, but then can't seem to ride with the others across the pond?

Mancrush Factor: 3. Look at that dog!

EuroScore: Levi, like Cadel, would use a croissant as a boomerang. 9.

Team Scandal Score: 4, courtesy of the Astana mess. Levi is a bit exempt from this liability, seeing as he is definitely not the team captain. Still, I can imagine him bursting into tears whenever Lance and Alberto get into a spat over who gets to go through the line at the baguette store first.

Form: He was pretty so-so during the Giro, and then skipped the Dauphine to go ride in a pro-am in...Nevada? 11.

Course Suitability: Levi crushes up and down time-trials, like the one in Solvang in California. 5.

LL total score: Oddly, Levi scores evenly with Contador at 33.

OK, that's it. This took longer than I planned. The next five tomorrow!

Observe your VDOT

2009-06-25T10:48:00.006-04:00

While most cursory web searches for the term 'VDOT' returns pages for the Vermont and Virginia Departments of Transportation (side note—Vermont does better in terms of environmental impact: they have fewer paved roads, but Virginia takes the prize in terms of road maintenance: on many long rides around Charlottesville in the past two years, I have been amazed at the quality of third tier country roads), you'll find an athletic training gem slipped in among the bueracratic sites: RunBayou's VDOT calculator. VDOT is Jack Daniels' (the running coach, not the distiller) modified VO2 max term, and it can be used to predict your training performance. Better yet, it can give you the times at which you should run your intervals. Run below your VDOT and you don't improve; run above your VDOT and you risk injury. It sounds simple and, happily, it is simple.

For example, I ran a 1:20 half-marathon earlier this year in Portland (not great, but I went out fast, Ryan Hall style, with the front runners, and blew up a little bit). Using Jack Daniel's VDOT tables, I found a value of 58, which feels a bit low for my cycling VO2 max but is probably in the ballpark for my running. Daniels' tables, though, don't offer the level of specificity some of us desire. Enter Runbayou.com, which lets you enter a race performance (note that this figure is an actual performance, not a goal) and then breaks down your interval numbers in fine detail. Entering my 1:20 1/2 marathon time, I get the following results:

VDOT=58 (good, consistency)
Easy Pace (25% of my weekly training): 7:34/mile
Marathon Pace (about 35-40% of my weekly training): 6:25/mile
Threshold Pace (about 12% of my weekly training): 6:00—6:04/mile, depending on whether I'm doing shorter intervals (400s, 800s) or longer intervals (1200s, 1600s).
Interval Pace (about 8% of my weekly training): 1:23 400s; 3:28 1000s; 4:10 1200s.
Repetition Pace (about 5% of my weekly training): :37 200s; 1:17 400s.

The page nicely warns you about running above your VDOT, saying that you'll hurt yourself. The proof is always in the soup, however, and on Tuesday I ran 12x200, aiming for that 37' mark. Too bad I ran with a runner above my abilities, and most of our intervals came in around 35'. Yesterday my quads hurt; today they are full of the mythical cobra poison that endurance athletes learn to love and hate. I went for a recovery trot this morning and could barely manage to keep one leg moving in front of the other. The lesson?

Observe your VDOT.

Living the Life

2009-06-24T11:59:00.002-04:00

Now that it's been almost six months since I last posted to this blog, I think it's about time to get started again. During the year the pressures of training plus teaching overwhelmed any ability to publish on the blog regularly, and now that the summer months have arrived I think I'll be able to return to these pages more often.

Presently I'm in Colorado Springs, dealing with a little altitude sickness (are you supposed to feel that you're drowning at the third flip turn of a 100?), and living with my fiancee, Amy VanTassel, who has been killing it recently on the road running circuit (8th in her age group at the ridiculous Spring Runoff 10K at the Teva Mountain Games and then 1st in her age group and 5th overall at the Colorado Springs Sailin' Shoes 10K).

I'm adjusting to life of just being a professional athlete, which the title of this blog ostensibly states. It's a funny transition, since I'm used to filling up the hours of the day with work and training. Now there's just training, and it can be a little overwhelming. I haven't been good about getting to the pool in the morning, since it's easy to say "Oh, I'll get there later." Still, getting into the water early (before breakfast!) makes the rest of the day Oh So Much Better.

Racing has been hot and cold up to this point. I've only raced twice, at Wildflower and then two weeks ago at Boise 70.3. Wildflower was a bummer, with a bad swim and two flat tires. Boise was much better, although I still swam poorly (28:30! Yikes). I came out of the water 4 minutes behind the front group and got back to T2...4 minutes behind the front group. My cycling, it appears, is on par with the Craig Alexanders and Ben Hoffmans of the triathlon world. I ran well, too, for me, posting a 1:22, which, at this point in the year is quite good. Final time 4:05 and change, 10th place. I missed the money by two spots, but I feel that I raced well.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the season:

Boulder Peak Tri
Boulder 5430 Long Course
Canada IM
Scott Tinley Challenge
Austin 70.3
Clearwater 70.3 Worlds

I already punched my ticket to Worlds at Boise, courtesy of my training partner Chris Boudreaux, who has been a huge help in getting my head around this whole professional thing. Chris has had a tough season thus far, but he'll figure it out—he's mentally tougher than most, and knows how to compete when he has to.

That's it for now! More updates to come. A huge shoutout to Athlete's Lounge in Portland, OR, who are presently helping me out with race related expenses and equipment.

Triples and Schedules

2008-12-24T20:45:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I've worked out three times a day, preseason in college, perhaps, when I didn't know that the pounding headaches resulted from dehydration and caffeine withdrawal. Better about watering myself (and never far from my next cup of coffee), I don't face those headaches anymore, but the mind-numbing, "I'll just lie here with my legs up in the air" exhaustion still results. Over the past two weeks, on the gift of an entire week of snow days last week (Portland, OR, knows just about nothing on the topic of snow removal; they're so liberal they don't use salt or sand, probably because they know someone would be offended), I've gotten in three-a-days on the majority of days. This is what a pro's life is like: wake, swim, eat, rest, bike, eat, nap, run, eat, sleep. Life always finds a way to intrude, just a bit, but that's pretty much what you've signed up for, I'm discovering. Making this choice to really dedicate myself to the sport (and not worrying and equivocating about it; I've decided that I love the sport, and that's enough to fuel my dedication; as J.L. Parker points out, if you get stuck in the metaphysical wonderings, someone out there is gonna eat you for breakfast) has resulted in a clearer set of training priorities: you've got to get it done on a daily basis, no question about it.

Making the leap from 15 hours a week to 20 is surprisingly hard. To get to that magic number, at least 3.5 hours a day have to spent swimming, running, or biking. Yep, a marathon's worth of time a day, six days in a row until the sweet relief of your active recovery day (an hour of swimming).

So here's the race schedule for the coming year. You'll see some running races in the early spring, which I think is crucial for developing your triathlon running speed. There'll be some bike races in there, for sure (I live in Oregon, now, where you can race six days a week), but those will appear on a weekly basis. So, here it is:

January
Masters SCY Meet, I'll be swimming the 500 and 1000 Free

February
Masters Animal Meet, 500F and 1000F
Hagg Lake 25K Trail Run (mud!)

March
Leprechaun 1/2 Marathon

April
California 70.3
Bridge to Brews 10K

May
World's Toughest Half (May 31st)

June
Boise 70.3 (or Eagleman, if I just can't stay away)

July
?????

August
Boulder 5430 Long Course
Timberman 70.3

(or, depending on schedules, Calgary 70.3 and Lake Stevens 70.3)

September
Rest and get ready for 'Cross and fall tris

October
Austin 70.3

November
Clearwater 70.3

December
'Cross Nationals in BEND, OREGON!!!

Fewer races; better results.

Discomfort

2008-12-12T14:51:00.002-05:00

There are few moments in endurance racing when you feel real pain. Sure, there are blisters, shin splints, plantar fasciitis, but these are injuries; they don't result from the endurance effort. Your quads may "burn" after an interval session and your back might hurt during a long pulling session, but there isn't real "pain." Deep, deep discomfort, maybe, but not pain. A close friend who is a runner passed this thought along to me last summer, and I discovered its origin while finally reading the running classic Once A Runner, by John L. Parker, Jr. OAR is one of those genre books that falls prey to many of the faults of genre fiction (overwrought language being its most egregious fault), but it rises above its sins by aptly defining many of the intangibles which we conversely love and hate our sports.

Right now I'm dealing with a couple of things. 'Cross season ended for me last weekend, although I can't really say that it ever began. I started four races this season, and finished two. The picture above is from the Saturday race of Portland's USGP of Cyclocross. I raced the B division, not feeling up to tangling with Ryan Trebon, Tim Johnson, and Jeremy Powers. Since I registered early I started near the front, and after two laps found myself in the lead group of five. The course kinked and turned all over the place, wriggling around a motocross course at Portland International Raceway before diving in and out of the infield's trees. The leaders pushed the pace and I felt...profound discomfort. Soon, as the last lap approached, the lead group began to come apart, just the way a pack will split when swimming or running, as the racers with higher anaerobic thresholds will be able to maintain higher rates of speed for longer (they're not in the "red zone," so to speak; once you start to work in that anaerobic realm, you've got about five minutes before the postman comes calling). I caught the guy in third, noticed his discomfort outstripped mine, and passed him. I came across the line alone, third.

Outwardly, I'd told friends that I just wanted to finish this race, that 'Cross season was just about having fun this year. Inwardly, I thought what I think before every race, no matter the odds: win. Still, I'd stayed realistic, and coming in 3rd put me in my best mood of the week. These were Category 2 'Cross racers—no slouches, and there were over one hundred of them. 3rd? It seemed beyond believable.

Of course, Cyclocross is capricious mistress, and the next day paid me back in full. After getting a spot on the front line, I completed two laps before I took a turn too sharply and pinch flatted. About one yard beyond the exit of the pit, I had about a mile+ run ahead of me if I wanted to get a spare wheel. Natch. Done.

That's when you feel pain, even though it is figurative pain. Frustration is closer to the truth, but that doesn't do the frantic not possible, not possible warning bells that echo through you as you walk your bike off the race course. Mechanicals leave your mind blank, take away something that, seconds before, had been real. Before the flat I was in the lead pack, a few seconds behind my podium-mates from the day before. Now I was...headed home, the reason for my day gone in whiff of air.

And then you face the next reality: 'Cross is over, it's time to get ready for next year's triathlon season. I took about 8 days off after Clearwater, but now I'm back to pretty much full time, trying to get 15-20K of swimming, 200 miles of biking, and 50-60 miles of running a week. I've found a renewed pleasure in the training, though. There's a section in OAR which talks about why Quenton Cassidy, the narrator, runs. He runs because it's his raison d'etre, his reason for being. That may sound reductive or single-minded beyond belief and, well, it is. But once you get beyond the philosophies and the feel-gooders and the "mystic" runners (Parker's words), the only thing left is the sport itself. I interview kids for part of my job out here in New Belgium, and I always ask the sporty kids why they pursue their particular sports, just to see how they do with this impossible question. Almost all of them say "I don't know...because I like it?" Unlike adults, who temporize, quibble and worry, kids are (when talking about their sports or activities) happily free of artifice. Most of you know that I worry about the self-centered nature of this sport, that there are so many other things I could be doing to make good in this world. For the time being, though, seeing that I can't imagine life without racing bikes and triathlons, I'm making my peace with the sport. The only thing left at that point, of course, is to find the discomfort and get used to it: it will be there the next time you put the hammer down and, you know, that's exactly what you're looking for.

Not...Last!

2008-11-24T11:43:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I rolled to the line for my second 'Cross race of the season. I had three goals: A) Stay upright, B) Don't come in last, and C) Don't get lapped.

Two out of three really isn't that bad. Just shy of a D+, actually! O.K., no need for irony or sarcasm; I left the race cold and happy, having achieved goals A and B. Staying upright worried me, as I've still got my wholly inappropriate Ritchey Speedmax tires on my bike. After one warm up lap, the tread had disappeared, turning the tires into brown slicks. Not too much mud adorned the course, although one long stretch, just after the Start/Finish, rode like a Northeastern sand pit lightly watered. The fans made riding that section both A) harder and B) fraught with peer pressure as they piled up a makeshift barrier out of trashed pumpkins. If you looked carefully, you could see spots where a tire might fit, and cranking hard would bring you over without requiring a dismount. Making it over without running brought a huge, drunken cheer from the PDX crowd, while carrying brought whistles and derision. About four laps in I started worrying well in advance of the pumpkin barrier: They won't like me if I dismount! See a great picture of the pumpkin barrier here.

I started fairly well, about 2/3 back from the front, but bobbled badly after the first set of honest barriers and lost the front group, which kept streaking ahead. Soon I was off the back but not riding slowly, and I picked up a few spots. I learned later that I am basically the canary on the 'cross course, as getting passed by me appeared to be the nail in your race's coffin. Everyone I passed (except one crucial figure) dropped out of the race. One bloke left trailing a long strip of race tape, as if he'd just left the bathroom. My cranks were making this sound like they were about to fall off or had been filled with gravel. Although my 'Cross fitness sure isn't where it needs to be, it appears my barrier running remains solid. One spectator, alone in the fields by a set of barriers (placed there, I'm sure, to keep riders honest), lauded my technique each time through, and I did feel pretty smooth going over and back onto the bike. Only problem was, he called me "Big Legs" on one lap. I do forget that I don't quite cut the svelte figure of most cyclists. Final result: 23rd out of 24 finishers (you gotta leave out the four or five that I, personally I'd like to believe, forced out of the race). I did get lapped, on the last time around, but only by the lead group. For racing the As, and only finishing my first race of the season, I'll count that a success.

'Cross in Portland is everything it should be. It's every bit as fast and hard as the races in New England, but the spirit is wackier. Near the other set of barriers (I counted, actually, four full sets of barriers, leaving out the pumpkins; put that in your pipe, UCI!) congregated the bike shop tents, with their beer-drinking crazies, folks who had already raced that day and therefore felt justified in yelling things like "Run it, fattie!" and "C'Mon, this is a race!", all while spewing beer over the riders. Someone had lit a bonfire, and Belgian flags flew. If you want to see the true spirit of cross, head over to pdxcross.com. Someone there knows his or her photography, as I quickly lost count of the beautifully composed and honest pictures. You get the sense, looking at the black and white, sharply focused pieces, of 'Cross's outward pleasure and inward pain. People always say: "Looks easy, they're not going too fast." Get those same people out there on a bike in the mud, and they'll look at the sport differently, afterward. The photographer composed these pictures with that contrast in mind, and I think captured the weirldy Calvinist beauty of this sport: All that work and pain for...what? An afternoon in the mud?

Last night, aching in several places, I went to sleep happy.

Sacrifice

2008-11-21T11:41:00.009-05:00

(Thanks to Carrie Goodbrake—a pseudonym if I've ever heard one—for the beautiful picture; see it in it's original format here)

When I saw this lovely, albeit 'shopped, photo yesterday, I finally admitted that this 'Cross season is, officially, a wash. The Cross Crusade, with its not-heavily-veiled proselytizing, gathers more people to one race site for eight weekends in a row up here in the PacNW, and I planned, back when my tri season was folding up like a cheap lawn chair, to focus on the Mecca in my backyard.

Things happened. I couldn't afford a new bike for a while; my tri training picked up and two solid results followed; I spent a few other weekends settling into my new digs, or spending time with Amy, two things I wouldn't trade, even for a 'Cross race. But something had to go, and 'Cross went. I'm hardly regretful, probably more bemused at the choices we have to make in our weekly, monthly, and yearly lives. Interested, I contacted two athletes I respect deeply: one is a professional triathlete many of you know; the other is a retired athlete on the comeback trail who killed it, back in the day, racing 'Cross nats when pedals had toeclips, steel bikes got chopped into 'Cross rigs in your backyard, and wool was a technical fiber. I asked both of them what they'd had to sacrifice to "make it" in their respective sports (I've got "make it" in quotes because, in both of these pursuits, making it is more about finding personal and social success, rather than financial).

My triathlete friend laughed at first, and spat out "My 40K a year job!" He later (mostly) retracted this statement, since his coaching business runs smoothly right now, and instead said that the only thing about which he's got any reservations is how training can affect his mood, and, by extension, his partner (I thought this was a pretty admirable concern to note–the names have been changed in the following quote):

"I'll also be honest in saying that I'm not always a fun person to be around, especially for poor Alison; If I'm not tired and cranky during the big training blocks, I'm nervous and on edge as race day approaches. I think that it's also fair to say that my focus boarders on self centeredness the vast majority of the time. As such, I'm not the only one that has to sacrifice. Ali has to deal with a lot of B.S. thanks to my constant mood swings, lack of interest/energy in most things non-triathlon related etc."

He followed this admission up with a frank "But... I don't regret a thing. I'm doing exactly what I've always wanted to do so it's all good. I take the good with the bad, do my best on the athletic, personal and professional fronts and plow forward. I don't plan on staying in the sport after my days as a 'PRO' come to an end, so my attitude is that I'll have plenty of time for the house, kids, money and leisure time/activities in the not-so-distant future."

You'll not he used upper-case letters; it's o.k. He deserves them. My other study subject, a garrulous fellow with whom I share a lot of loves and issues, responded thus: "At the time I would have said, 'Sex.' But looking back, knowing what I know now about teenage boys, the answer is, 'Working at a Joe Job to earn enough money to operate a car so I could partake in the fruitless pursuit of sex.' I worked at Joe Jobs, but only long enough to earn a stash for tubulars and entry fees for the coming season. Most chicks don't dig guys who can't afford to take them out and entertain them. I suppose later on I had some educational and career opportunities that I turned down because they were incompatible with my training lifestyle, but one of my training/racing buddies was a med school student, so I'm not sure I wasn't just using the bike as an excuse to dodge boring jobs and lifestyles. Maybe that's where my materialism got sacrificed, but that's a plus in my book. I don't know, Bucky. There was a lot of physical pain required to do what I did, but it really was a panacea for the emotional pain I was in during my teens and twenties. I may have sacrificed a lot of beer drinking and recreational drug use because, after a 350-mile week, I was pretty much looped on two beers. I'm not sure my liver thinks of it as a sacrifice. Overall, I think of the whole thing as more of an indulgence than a sacrifice. I'm never covetous of other people's mundane stories, but they sure like to hear about old racing tales."

I think most of us can sympathize, here. Picking up an "indulgence" that's actually more about pain than pleasure, but that also whispers, quietly, to you for other good reasons: there's a camaraderie of pain and, of course, the objective appearance of steady improvement. I wrestle with these issues a lot, as you know, wondering if the payoff is worth the pay-in, the decisions made, the other interests sacrificed. I guess, if had decided it weren't, I wouldn't be posting this, today.

Turkey on the Trail?

2008-11-19T19:16:00.003-05:00

O.K., a tangent. Thanksgiving's my favorite holiday, because eating is just about my favorite thing to do. But this year is different: Amy and I are going to Moab for three days of mountain biking, and we'll probably spend the day in question picking gravel out of my knees. What, do you think, is an acceptable Thanksgiving day meal, consumed on the side of a singletrack trail? Any great suggestions from the admittedly tiny peanut gallery? What would you eat that A) would be different from your standard during-exercise nosh and B) is plausible, considering we probably won't have access to an oven or the ability to consume a monster like the one above, here.

Gobble gobble.

1st Day Back

2008-11-17T17:18:00.003-05:00

When the alarm went off this morning, I wondered "What's that?" Taking a week away from training quickly erodes the Pavlovian Workout Response. Ascending the responsiveness scale to just below Alert and Oriented, I swung the legs out of bed and switched on the light. I'd packed the night before (always a good idea) and soon found myself driving across the St. John's Bridge, in the dark, headed for that morning swim.

My lane at Masters boasts a murderer's row of athletes: Michelle, who's swum the Channel (and is planning to pull the yo-yo there, soon), the Catalinas swim (10+ hours straight), and numerous other long distance swims; Greg, whose easygoing manner belies his age-group winning swims at Alcatraz; Curtis, a lanky businessman who swam for Auburn University, I believe, and a I-Shit-You-Not Russian named Vlad who answers to the sobering sobriquet "Parrakeet." Swimming in their lane, I most steadily worry about getting lapped.

Today that worry seemed very real. The workout was nothing special (all distances in meters):

700WU
400 pull descend by 100s
6x150 kick-drill-swim by 50s on 2:30
8x150 on 2:30
200 pull DPS
6x100 on 1:30
200 CD

But not swimming for eight days had me floundering in the water, and Curtis seemed scarily close on those swim 150s.

Still, day one of aiming for those 15,000-17,000 YPW, and I got around 4500 today.

What's Wrong/Awesome About This Picture?

2008-11-14T10:42:00.003-05:00

Cyclists and Triathletes, comment away. Can you find five things that:

A) Offend your sensibilities as an athlete?
B) Define you as an athlete?

Thanks to Natalie Ciocca for the picture. Apologies to all 'cross riders wincing as they look at this picture.

The Off-Season, Day One.

2008-11-12T10:59:00.003-05:00

Sunday was a recovery day, Monday is my usual day off, and so today, Tuesday, day three of no training, officially marks the beginning of a profound shift. We’re all familiar with economic terms these days, and know that two straight quarters of negative growth equals a recession. For an endurance athlete, more than two days off equals sickness, injury, or that other two-headed beast, the off-season. Taking a break now seems so counter-intuitive, while our fitness is at its peak; I had, arguably, the best race of my career the other day. But I know that it’s time for this season to be over, and the lessons I learned will make me a better triathlete in 2009, if I listen to what 2008’s races taught me. And the next few weeks hold the promise of something sweet: rest. Not too much rest, not, like, six weeks, but a good, controlled pattern of rest. That pattern looks like this:

This week: zero. Nothing. Really. Nothing.
Next week: some light swimming, a little time on my ‘cross bike, perhaps a ‘cross race at 75%.
Two weeks: One workout per day. Still just swimming and riding. Five days of Thanksgiving mountain biking with Amy.
Three weeks: Two light workouts per day, two ‘cross races over the weekend.
Four weeks (second week of December): Back to two full workouts per day, especially if my Plantar Fasciitis has improved.

For next season, I’m going to focus on training goals, instead of performance goals. Most of us are familiar with Peter Reid’s apocryphal quote that “With training comes confidence.” The last two months, with their 12-13,000 yards of weekly swimming, and 40-50 miles of quality run training, gave me the confidence to push it on the swim and run. My bike training has always been pretty good, and those 315 watts point to a solid bike split (my aerodynamics, it appears, say otherwise; friend Brandon, in response to a question about how my bike split could have been so slow, rejoined: “Headwind? Flat tire? Fat?” Touché, Brandon. The off-season provides a great time to lose some weight).

My training goals, then, for next season, here on day one of the off-season.
1) Swim 4-5 times a week, totaling 15-17,000 yards per week.
2) Train like a real runner: higher mileage, more quality.
3) Maintain my bike strength, and play with aerodynamic options to develop a powerful AND fast bike split.

2009 Race Schedule on the way.

70.3 World Championships

2008-11-09T07:44:00.003-05:00

It's funny how quickly races pass. 24 hours ago I was already about fifteen miles into the bike leg of the race, and the next few hours, with packing, checking work email and getting to the airport, will probably take much longer than the four hours it took me to finish the race yesterday. Races have this odd compression/expansion of time. They really don't take that long, but the distance traveled (roughly Boston to Athol, Ma, if you take route 2 the whole way) and the intensity of the experience make it seem much longer. To come over the finish line yesterday and realize it was only 10:45 in the morning was vaguely surreal: what would I do with myself for the rest of the day?

Lie around and eat, of course (and take a deep two-hour nap). But so much collapses into that small window of time that I see the appeal of these sports. Yes, racing hurts, but where else do you get that intensity for such a sustained moment?

The swim: the swim has always been my bogey, and today was only a little different. I did have my best swim at the 1.2 mile distance (26:14, just what I was hoping for), but the front of the pack swam an absurd 21-22 minutes, putting four to five minutes into me on the swim. If I'm going to make the step from pro to PRO someday, my swimming has to improve. Those 15-20 guys in the front pack all came out of the water together and, while they weren't explicitly drafting, rode together for a good bunch of the bike course. It's perfectly legal, but if I want to have better results, I've got to be coming out of the water closer to the front. This means swimming in the middle of the pack and getting bounced around, something I hate. Still, I'll happily take the 26:14. And, for the third race this year, Chris Legh and I swam together. That gives me some hope, since I know I can ride like him (see Eagleman), and if I run the way I did yesterday, I can post some Chris Legh-like results. The other bonus was that everyone could see it was Chris Legh as we came out of the water, so I heard a lot of "Go Chris!" as I ran up the shute to the transition area.

The bike: my bread and butter turned into my, I don't know, crumpet and marmite yesterday. I felt good, was putting out good numbers (averaged 315 watts for the whole ride), but posted a disappointing 2:08:25, a full two minutes slower than last year. I'd given up all (and more) of the gains I'd made on the swim. Something must be wrong with my position/equipment, and I'm thinking back longingly to my HED disc and trispoke I sold after Eagleman. My slow time, coupled with the crazy times of the guys up front (lots of 2:00 and 2:02), consigned me to a MOP finish. Still, some good things happened. I used the downhill into transition (about a mile) to lightly spin my legs, and I think that helped immensely going out on the run.

The run: this went surprisingly well. Leaving transition my legs shed the standard leaden feeling post-bike, and I found myself running well. First mile went by in 5:47, and I figured I was on my way to a PR. Good splits kept showing up on the watch, and I actually got faster as the leg went along. I finished with my best 13.1 run in a triathlon, at 1:20:06 (oh, how I would have loved to have broken 1:20!). I ended up 27th out of the pros (five spots lower than last year) and 34th overall (10 spots slower than last year, but there's so much drafting in the AG ranks that I'm only going to remember the 27th part) but the field, this year, was much stronger. Still, I'm not totally satisfied with this race. To do that much work on the bike and only put up a 2:08 is frustrating. At 315 watts for a flat course, I should be right around that 2:02-2:03 split I was hoping for, and I would have been in the top twenty, a select group. Full results are here, and a quick perusal shows some pretty big names.

The course, for the pros, is a nice one. For the AGers, I imagine it's disastrous. Some narrow lanes, and it's so flat that athletes can't help but draft (which is funny: all that money getting aero and then getting a lift from your neighbors). I saw some bike packs come in that were 40-50 strong. I think WTC should be a little careful that they don't drive people away, because a world championship should be one of the hardest races of the year, and to have your PR blemished by a drafting asterisk takes away the honest pleasure of accomplishment. I don't think many AGers set out to draft, but there's really nothing they can do about it on that course.

Next up: one week completely off (although I may jump in a 'cross race next weekend, ha!), before I start swimming religiously. I've got 3 more weekends to race 'cross, so I'm gonna take advantage of those, but I'll be hanging up the running shoes for a bit (throwing them out, actually, as I think all four of my pairs are played out). The next few posts are mostly going to equipment related, I believe, as I try to sort out my position for next year.

Thanks, everybody, for your support in leading up to this race. I met three separate people who read this rag of a blog (can it be a rag if it's all contained on a piece of silicone somewhere?), and that, more than anything, amazed me. Time to turn up the quality control.

The Day Before

2008-11-07T17:47:00.005-05:00

(N.B. I don't know if this picture is earnest or ironic (the police tape makes me think it is earnest) but either way it is pretty awesome—the FosterGrant bit makes me think it is ironic, but that might be too generous)

The day before a race is sometimes more stressful than the day itself. Triathlons, sadly, aren't like bike races, which make good on the imperative to simplify. Triathlons require the kind of obsessive checking and re-checking that makes our sport attractive to the more type-a professions out there: doctors, or businessmen and women, people who really love lists (it's funny that more cooks don't turn into triathletes).

Races with "clean transition areas" make the day before even worse (although they make the day of better). You've got to put run stuff in the red bag, bike stuff in the blue bag, and make sure the bike is ready to roll with shoes attached and helmet clipped.

Here's the day that was:

7:30 AM get up and run: 20' with four 20" strides
8:00 AM oatmeal and coffee
9:15 AM ride to race site with my amazing homestays
10:00 AM check in, get the aforementioned colored bags, talk to another Vermont transplantee
10:30 AM swim course (I got in about 2000M, I think)
11:00 get bike and gear back from gear bag check-in.
11:00 AM-12:00 PM purchase new tire for dicey rear wheel, drop bike with mechanics, cruise expo, move water bottle back from downtube to between aerobars (had a great, conclusive discussion with Chris from Cervelo; I asked him why the CSC guys ALL had their water bottles on the downtubes during the tour TTs this summer. I wondered if, for the P3C, that putting the bottle down there might actually be beneficial. No, it turns out: "It's the worst place to put it," Chris told me. "The CSC guys put it there because of tradition, and because they say the bike handles worse with the bottle up on the aerobars." Happily I won't be doing anything technical tomorrow (the course is about as technical as making cereal), so the bottle is back on the aerobars), check out THIS:
12:00-1:00 PM sort gear into blue bags and red bags. Recycle all the garbage that was in the race packet.
1:00-2:00 PM pick up bike, check in with a friendly volunteer named Natalie (she surprised the hell out of me by saying she'd read going pro; I thought only friends and mom read the damn thing)
2:00-3:00 PM pro briefing, and good god there were a lot of PROs in attendance (no Craig Alexander or Paul Amey, however): more Volcom, shaved legs, and chunky sunglasses this side of a surf competition in Malibu.
3:00-3:45 PM attempt to hydrate, get a pre-race massage from a kindly portly chap named Manfred. Yes, Manfred. He was marvelous.
4:00 PM-Present moment return home. Start re-hyrdrating. Shave legs (Belgians everywhere are going nuts), try to deal with stupid rookie wetsuit hickey I gave myself this morning. Eat.

Soon I'll be off to bed. Race report tomorrow.