2015 Vegas training camp and MCTC Championship

The past three years I've had some amazing spring breaks. First I spend four days in Vegas doing a training camp with the CSU Triathlon Team, then we journey to Lake Havasu for the Mountain Collegiate Conference Championship.

After a hard brick on Saturday, we loaded up our trailer (now outfitted for 45+ bikes) and prepared for our week-long training and racing adventures.

Bikes safely loaded inside the trailer

31 of us headed to Vegas Sunday morning and arrived in the early evening. The house we rented in Vegas was outstanding. Four bathrooms, five bedrooms, a pool, hot tub, beach volleyball court, basketball hoop and a master bathroom that was comparable to many one bedroom apartments.

We somehow managed to fit all our food for a few days in one fridge!

For the next four days we biked to the Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon, did a few runs, swam outside and enjoyed each others company.

Taco bar night

We also met up with a CSU alum, Bailey Hinz, who is living in Vegas working as a music therapist and competing as a pro triathlete. She arranged for snacks at her local bike shop after a ride which we all enjoyed.

Thursday morning we drove to Lake Havasu. We did one last hard workout, then relaxed and recovered for Saturday's race. By Thursday night we had over 50 people in Havasu with CSU Tri for the race which was incredible to be a part of.



Going into the race, I had very little expectations we had only just started working in speed the past couple weeks. Our collegiate conference has some of the best competition in the country and despite a couple fast guys missing this year, the race would still be competitive.

Race Day

Race morning started at 5 am. I heated up some rice and mixed in two bananas and a big spoonful of almond butter. After breakfast, we headed down to set up transition. After a quick run and swim warmup, I bumped into my brother and we headed to the start corral.

Swim

I started on the far right hoping to stay out of chaos and made it to the first buoy in a large pack without taking too many punches. After a slight detour by the lead swimmers, we made our way in and out of a canal. I steadily made my way up through the pack and came out of the water just behind my teammate, Zack, in 5th position.

Swimming out of the canal loving the Roka wetsuit

I was expecting to have to make up a 1-2 minute deficit starting the bike and it ended up being about 45 seconds by the time I got to the mount line.

Bike

I started the bike with the strategy of going out hard and hoping to put a large enough gap into the field where I wouldn't have to worry about getting caught by faster runners. This was my first race riding with power. While I didn't have an exact number I was trying to stay at like for a long-distance race, I had my FTP and data from a race simulation brick to work off of.

I used the power meter to stay slightly more conservative on hills so I could continue pushing all the way over the crest and downhill. I took the lead about 1 mile in. The first set of hills came about 3 to 4 miles. They were short and punchy. After a mile or two of weaving through the neighborhood, the course has its first u-turn. I estimated a decent gap of about 45-60 seconds. Paul Stevenson from ASU was in hot pursuit of me and I knew he was a very strong cyclist. I had ridden with Paul at training camp in Tucson this winter. At the second out and back, (~mile 12) the gap to Paul had increased and faster runners had fallen back as well.

Being out front without anyone to chase after I tried to focus on having an efficient pedal stroke and even power. Heading back I made sure I was staying hydrated and took in some calories. Riding back I saw all my teammates at various points on the course which was uplifting.

Getting out of the shoes

 Run

About 100m into the run, I saw Paul just reaching the dismount line and estimated I had about 2-2:30 gap without any others in site. I planned to run hard until the turn around (about 5k in), see what kind of a gap I had, and then push with whatever I had left or run more conservative.

Heading out over the bridge, thanks to Jimmy Song for the pictures!

I reached the 3 mile mark around 16 min on my watch and still felt in control. After turning around, I saw my gap was still fairly large but decided to try and not back off knowing that however much this run hurt, it would only benefit my training and racing. Making yourself hurt during a 10k is challenging when people aren't breathing down your neck or you don't have someone to try and chase. I did my best to leave it out on the course until the last mile and tried to give everyone encouragement.



With under a mile to go, I knew I would win and tried enjoy the rest of the course. Running to the finish with teammates cheering was an awesome experience.



After the race I cooled down, cheered on teammates and got an In-and-Out milkshake with Geneva. We packed up the trailer, hung out on the beach and I was able to catch up with my brother and parents which was nice.

I was a little worried that I would have trouble gaining back speed after doing an Ironman but I think I've gotten some back. Right now it is too early for me to know if I'll be back competing at Havasu in 2016 but I would like to be involved with the team in some capacity at that race. CSU came in a combined second place which was almost as awesome as seeing so many beginners smiling their way to the finish!

Big thanks to everyone who helped organize training camp and Havasu. Coordinating logistics for that many people is not easy or cheap! Thanks to MP Multisport for the training plan, Dan Frost for the pictures, Every Man Jack and Roka for making awesome and fast products, Powerbar for supporting the team with delicious bars for the entire week, Skratch Labs for keeping us hydrated and the other members of CSU Tri for being great training partners and housemates.



Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Team Every Man Jack Training Camp

A few days ago I returned from Team Every Man Jack's annual winter training camp in San Diego. Other than being met with the harsh reality of several fresh inches of snow at the Denver airport, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent meeting new teammates and training outside.  Here, I'm going to highlight my favorite parts!

Setting

The camp took place in Oceanside, California.  To accommodate the 45+ people attending the camp, two incredible houses were rented, right on the beach.  The houses each had several floors, a couple full kitchens, tons of bedrooms with incredible views of the ocean.





Just outside the door was a section of the Oceanside 70.3 run course and a nice bike path.  It was shorts weather--even at night!  And while the mornings started off foggy, they always cleared to sunny skies by the afternoon.

Food

Everyone knows that triathletes eat a lot on a regular basis.  When at training camp, we take that to a whole new level. The main kitchen area in one of the houses is where we ate most our meals.  Sag Monkey played an enormous role in getting food ready for all of us before workouts and for dinnner each night.  For early mornings on the way to the pool, breakfast burritos were warm and waiting for us to grab out of the oven. After returning from a morning workout, there was granola, yogurt, fruit, bagels/bread and PB&J.  

Nutella and Banana rice cakes!

Sag Monkey also made a huge daily batch of Skratch Labs rice cakes for long rides.  The rice cakes were a huge hit with the guys.  All of us really appreciated everything done by Sag Monkey because it allowed us to focus on what we were there for; training and getting to know one another. Thanks to Team Every Man Jack's nutrition sponsor, GU, there were several different flavors of chomps, gels and drink mixes available for us to use during workouts.

 

Swim

I hope I'm not the only one who is thinking this, but all of the swims we did at camp were hard! The pools were outdoors which was nice.



At the first swim, we did a crazy long pull set, totaling around 4000m of just pull.  Yea, "m", as in meters, as in we swam long course.  Man, that was rough.  One morning we were lucky enough to meet representatives from Roka, Team EMJ's swim sponsor.  They have some sweet new products coming out soon so be sure to check out their site.

Bike

There were rides scheduled for every day of camp. Team EMJ is known for having all-around strong athletes (most of whom focus on longer distance races) and this was definitely made apparent on the rides.   The routes took us up and down the coast, inland to a beautiful area with punchy hills and included some incredible descents.  One day the session called for hill repeats which we did on a section of road that led to a nice overlook.

Inside Sag Monkey's van

Once again, Sag Monkey provided incredible support with extra wheels, nutrition and blocking intersections for our rides.  We all were wearing our new Louis Garneau kits and rocking new Rudy Project helmets and glasses. Everywhere we went we got a lot of comments and questions about Every Man Jack.

TP file from hill repeat day

 I enjoyed the rides for several reasons.  The first hour or so almost always started off at a reasonable pace.  During this time we were able to get to know each other, and more often than not remark at how our arms felt as if they were about to fall off after the morning swim or how sore abs were after Meridith Kessler's core workout.

Meredith Kessler whipping us into shape!

After a while, the pace would start to pick up. I knew some of the younger guys likely were itching to turn some screws.  I tried to reign things in and remind myself that it was a four day camp and it made no sense to destroy myself on day one or two.  Interestingly enough, the more veteran guys on Team EMJ seemed to gain strength as the rides went on and even throughout the camp! Instead of launching an attack 10 miles in (like on local group rides), guys at the camp would start cranking things up around 50 miles into an 80 mile ride.



I think one of the best ways to get to know someone is by going on a long ride with them.  Before the camp, I knew a lot of the guys through social media, but going and participating in all the workouts, especially the rides, allows for more personality and uniqueness to come out.

Run

We had runs were scheduled for every day in San Diego.  The first few days were "low stress" runs after rides, while the last few runs included some progressive efforts.  Running along the beach was fantastic.  Having people to run with for every session was nice, too!

We capped off the big training with a long run in our new Lululemon gear.

Meeting People
One of the highlights for the camp took place one evening when we all cleaned up and went to the Tripalooza awards.  The ceremony celebrated the accomplishments of American endurance athletes and featured appearances from endurance celebrities such as Dave Scott, Bob Babbitt, Meb Keflezighi, Taylor Phinney and several other phenomenal athletes.

Matt and I with Meb, 2014 Boston Marathon winner!

Meredith Kessler, one of the top women in half/full distance triathlon, trains frequently with Team Every Man Jack members and joined us for the first few days of our camp.  After thoroughly kicking our butts for three days, she accepted an award at Tripalooza. The evening was incredible and filled with lots of inspiring stories from survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings and Challenged Athletes Foundation.  The Team is planning on doing a large bike ride fundraiser for CAF at different locations across the country.  I'm excited to be involved and raise awareness for such a great cause.

Everyone I've spoken with had a fantastic time in San Diego.  The camp was well organized and definitely got us all excited for the upcoming season!



Next weekend, I'm heading back to Clermont, Florida with MP Multisport and some fellow CSU Triathletes for some draft-legal racing.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Training Camp and Turning 23

With the spring 2015 semester starting tomorrow, I would look back on the past couple weeks of winter break and recap, mostly in pictures, some of the fun things that have happened.

I returned to Fort Collins in time to celebrate new years. 

A group of us planned out a big swim. I ended up getting in 100 x 100s.  We did the first 70 or so on 1:30 then incorporated some drills and pull to spice it up.

I've been putting my Stages Power Meter to use. I'm really liking it.  After my knee started feeling better, I had about 1 week of biking indoors to try and get ready for the massive volume of training camp.  I've been using Trainerroad.com and the training plan from MP Multisport for my workouts.  

One of the workouts from trainerroad.

Some trainers that measure power, computrainer and wahoo, force you to no matter what pedal the assigned power for the workout. There is much more variation because I'm using a traditional trainer with a Stages power meter but I like this system because it requires me to focus and constantly evaluate how much I'm working.

January 7th, 30 people from the CSU Tri Team headed down to training camp in Tucson, AZ.  We had 4 FULL days of workouts and a "flex" day.  It was fantastic getting to ride with some killer riders and do one of my favorite climbs, Mt. Lemmon.

Dinner: Chicken marinated overnight with spicy mustard, soy sauce and onions

Ski valley on Mt. Lemmon

My brother was also at the camp with the team from Arizona State. I really enjoyed running and cruising down Mt. Lemmon with him.

Mantell boys at Ski Valley

Lemmon was a pretty epic day for me, 113 miles and over 10,000 ft of elevation gain

A couple days after returning to Colorado, I turned 23. Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday.  Geneva and I celebrated by...

Eating some cake

and climbing the Incline!

Hiking the incline with Geneva was a blast.  We cruised up and took the scenic way down, almost falling every 10 seconds because of snow and ice.

The next couple weeks I'll be trying to get into a routine again with school and working to add speed back in to workouts.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!