Summer in Colorado

Since racing Boulder 70.3, I've been thoroughly enjoying  the summer in Colorado.

Steamboat Tri the Boat

The last weekend in June, I raced a half-Iron distance race in Steamboat Springs. Last year was my first trip to Steamboat. The town and race are beautiful and challenging.  After hearing from friends how how challenging the half was, I really wanted to race it this year.

The day before the race was spent getting in a few short workouts with Geneva. After picking up packets with Erik (another MP athlete also doing the race) I was able to relax and try and get ready to race. David, a CSU teammate, showed up around dinner time after riding to Steamboat from Fort Collins - a truly epic ride. He was training for IM Canada and the ride (~175 miles, >13,000 ft gain) capped off a big week for him.  Since the main focus of my training for this year has been IM Boulder and Kona, the training plan had only had a few easier days before the race. I wasn't sure how things would go but I was willing to push hard and learn.  

Since Boulder 70.3, I'd changed a few things with my nutrition / hydration strategy and was looking forward to putting them into place.

After setting up transition and a quick warmup, I lined up in the swim right next to Erik. The field was relatively small and there wasn't much contact at the start. I quickly found Erik's feet and we began to pull away with another guy way off to our side. I stayed on Erik's feet for 2/3rds the swim then tried to let him know he could swim off me if he wanted - we were swimming a similar pace. The other guy who was with us took some crazy lines around the buoys but still ended coming out of the water with us.

Onto the bike, I was happy I had come out with Erik on the swim. He is a great swimmer and biker and I wanted to be able to at least have him in sight starting the ride. We quickly went past the other swimmer and settled in.  The bike course was a 14 mile out and back x 2. As we neared mile 10, the pace felt a little too easy. I knew there were some strong riders and runners behind us and I didn't want to let them get too close. I went around Erik and started setting the pace. I wanted him to stay with me so we could continue working together. However, when I reached the turn around, there was a sizable gap back to Erik. I kept pushing, trying to keep an even pace and ride steady.

 
I began to focus on my hydration and nutrition heading back. The ride felt hard but not blow-up hard.  I got a big boost of energy riding back around transition and seeing Geneva and David.  I also knew several other MP athletes and teammates racing and tried to yell them words of encouragement during the bike.  The second lap went by relatively quickly. On the way back to transition, I estimated I had a gap of around 4 minutes to Erik and 6+ to some other strong riders.

As I got off my bike and put on my Saucony Fastwitch 6's. Things felt good. I tried to  relax for what I knew would be a challenging run. The run course was two loops with a lot of hills and no shade. All at a elevation of over 8,000 ft.  I brought a water bottle to run with and was very grateful I did. The aid stations were spread out and it got hot out there.  The first 2 miles were straight uphill to a campground entrance. My stomach tightened up like crazy but I kept running. I've experienced the feeling several times before and I think it's mostly from not stretching out enough on the bike and trying to cram down too much food at once. I also had gone out much too fast at Boulder 70.3 and so my goal was to pace this run better.

The first loop was tough and I did my best to hold back because I knew the second time around was going to be worse. I completely stopped at an aid station before starting the second loop to refill my water bottle. My stomach was still very tight and felt a little bloated but I tried to get some calories and fluids in while running. Running was uncomfortable.  As expected, the second loop was hot and hard.  With about 4 miles left, I saw I had a big gap to the next runner and knew I could win. I had to power hike up a steep hill for 5 second bursts (which was demoralizing) but eventually I made it to the top and refocused for the 2 mile downhill / flat section to the finish. When the suffering got really bad out on the course, I just remembered that I partially do the sport for those exact experiences. You learn so much about yourself when your body wants to stop.  

After the race, I hobbled around for a bit and jumped in the lake to try and cool down. I tried to drink some fluids but my stomach still felt pretty bloated. Before we left, someone from the local paper wanted a quick interview which you can read here.

Geneva, Erik and I quickly packed up our gear from the hotel and got something to eat from downtown. While Erik headed back to Fort Collins, Geneva and I went up to the hot springs to relax for a bit. After a few hours, my stomach and body started feeling much better.

Ironman Training and Hiking

Since Steamboat Tri the Boat, I've been focused on training for Ironman Boulder. I've gotten in some big rides with friends. July 4th, I went from Fort Collins to Estes to Trail Ridge Road to Grand Lake and back. The ride took just under 10 hrs and was around 160 miles with over 14,000 ft of elevation gain. An Ironman will never be that long of a ride but the main goal was to be exercising for about how long the race will be.  MP Multisport has quite a few athletes training for IM Boulder and we've also done some great long runs incorporating speed. 

I've also worked on trying to figure out what nutrition works for me.  The race in Boulder will be much different from my IM Florida experience. For one, I have more confidence in my bike and run and will be riding at a higher effort level. This make digesting certain foods more difficult. And, more than likely, it will be much warmer which also influences what can be eaten on the bike. One of the things I'm most looking forward to for the race is getting to see everyone out on the course. Having all the support and encouragement helps a ton.  No matter the scenario, I'll do my best to work through the ups and downs and enjoy the day!

Training for an Ironman takes a lot of time and makes you very tired. After a solid block of training, Geneva and I went camping in Aspen, Colorado to relax for a few days. The trip was amazing and something I really needed. We did a good amount of hiking in the Maroon Bells area. The Maroon Bells are arguably some of the most photographed mountains in America. After a few miles from the trail head, the crowds disappeared and we were hiking through some amazing landscapes. I definitely hope to be back to explore more some day.

 

We worked in a photo shoot for Boco Gear (a Team EMJ sponsor) at one of the more stunning snack break stops.

Doing fun things outside of training helps remind me there is more to life than training and racing.  With that being said, if you're not busy August 2nd, come out and cheer on the thousands of athletes competing in IM Boulder.  You can find course maps here.  We would all love to see you out there!

Thanks to my parents for always supporting me. Thanks to everyone who has trained with me and pushed me this summer. It's been a great time and you make the workouts that much easier. Big thank you to Team EMJ and all the team sponsors for helping us do what we love.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Boulder 70.3 and MP training camp

The past week has been a blast.

Boulder 70.3

After a busy week at work, I got all my race gear ready for Boulder 70.3.

Geneva thought the old lace served as a good bow / headband

After an early wake-up and quick breakfast, I was soon at the Boulder Reservoir.  I set up transition and headed out for a jog with some music to relax. As I was putting on my wetsuit, I wished CSU alum Bailey Hinz good luck as she headed down to the beach for the pro women start.  After getting into my Roka, I headed down to the swim start with Geneva to warm up.  I started swimming about 30 minutes before our wave was scheduled to go off to make sure my swimming muscles were feeling good.

A few minutes before our wave was to go, I found Mace for some last words of advice and headed to the front. Even though there were two age groups, everyone in our wave was casual getting into the water and giving each other space. I sprinted hard for the first two or three minutes. By the second buoy, there was a group of three of us in a line. By the first turn, one of the guys in front of me had dropped off the pace and we were starting to hit congestion from the earlier waves.  The remainder of the swim, I tried to find a solid rhythm in between dodging around swimmers and sighting.   

I ran hard out of the water to my bike. After nearly running over a few spectators at the mount line (completely my fault :) ) I found my pedals with some words of advice from an onlooker to "look forward no matter what".  One of the wires on my left shoe came unhooked while trying to slide my foot in (the second time it's happened during a race) and after cresting the first short hill, I completely stopped, put my bike down and fixed my shoe.

Going into the race, my plan was to go harder than 70.3 pace for the first 20-ish minutes to get into race mode. Only thing was, my computer wasn't picking up any signal from the power meter. I had switched mounting positions so I think this confused it a little. After basing a lot of my bike strategy to rely on watts, I did my best to not freak out and just rode hard by feel. My legs felt good and I tried to keep a steady effort up and down the first part of the course with some rollers.

After a while, my power meter started picking up a signal every few seconds but would lose it quickly. Having the computer directly in my face was quite distracting because there was no data for me to care about other than my heart rate, which was extremely high. Since mounting the bike, it had not gone below 170. I tried to ignore the high heart rate and focus on pushing at the effort I had wanted to.

Not from the race, but needed another bike shot...trying out the Wing 57 (such a sweet helmet)

In most of my previous half-distance races, I've unwillingly slowed down the last few miles of the bike and run. I attributed this to lack of proper nutrition and hydration during the bike leg.  For Boulder 70.3, I stuffed 5 rice balls (same that I used in IM Florida) into a case mounted on my top tube. I began trying to eat around 30 minutes into the ride after I thought my stomach had settled.  Trying to chew and eat at a heart rate of 170 was ridiculous. It took me a good 20 seconds to eat half a rice ball where I had to chew like a caveman to get enough air into my lungs as well. Talk about multi-tasking.  I ate 4 and a half of my rice balls during the ride and went through about two bottles of fluids.  I felt that I had fueled myself well enough as towards the end of the bike, I still felt strong and whenever my computer decided to sync

sink some watts, I was within the range I wanted to be in. (Strava file here)

Heading to the dismount line

Cruising into transition was awesome because of all the cheers.  I dismounted and threw on my Saucony Fastwitchs and headed out onto the run. 

THE shoe - matches our kit too!

heading out onto the run

I felt confident about my run endurance going into the race, I just knew I needed to pace myself well and manage the heat which was steadily increasing. After a few minutes I looked down at my watch to make sure I wasn't running too fast. I wanted to start around 6:30 min/mile pace and settle in before picking it.  Instead,  I saw 5:30 pace. I tried to slow down but it felt easy. I knew I was going to majorly blow up if I tried to hold that pace for too long but I was only able to slow down to 5:55 after a mile or so.  I threw out my pacing plan (bad idea) and tried to settle in to the effort.

At every aid station, I grabbed as many cups of water, ice and gatorade as I could. Next time, I should try and make it a game to see how many I can get my hands on. (Kinda like in ASU's 2014 Road to nationals video)  

A pretty cool picture of me tossing a cup on the second lap

After a few miles, I had a dreaded feeling that my stomach wasn't absorbing any more food.  Post race, I looked up a few things and realized this has happened to me a few times on the bike in a triathlon. Instead of letting my heart rate relax right away, I've started eating food too early for my body, trying to follow a nutrition plan that some one else has said works for them. Eating too much food, and food that is too difficult for me to digest at a high effort, ends up shutting down my stomach. (This article does a better job explaining than I can.) I didn't feel too bloated, it just felt like things weren't being adsorbed. The past week I've been experimenting with different strategies and seem to have found a combination of liquids and solids that I'm able to digest in the heat and at a high level of effort. Most importantly, I've tried learned to trust my body, relax into a 4+ hour race, and listen to what it wants.

I hung tough on the run and felt really strong through about mile 10. Around then I really had to focus on form and managing the slight uphill efforts to keep a decent pace. 

 

All the cheering really helped, and so did latching onto a pro women's shoulder the last 2 miles (no shame, I was hurting). The last 1/2 mile was painful. I leaned hard on my volunteers and Geneva, and poured water all over to try and cool down. I was relieved to have made it. While I could have raced smarter, I knew I gave it everything and reached my limit the last half mile which is all I want during a race. Once again, I learned a lot and got my butt kicked by my first half-iron of the year, but still want more.

With the CSU Tri team

After the race, I jumped in the reservoir, got some fro yo with the CSU crew and hung out with EMJ teammates Yoni and Rudy Kahser. 

When I saw Rudy before awards, he didn't say anything about him winning OA - congrats by the way! I only found out on the way home that he had gone 3:59 on a day when many pros didn't even break 4 hours. That guy is a stud and his attitude and humbleness is a testament to team EMJ : a group of elite athletes but not elitists. Such class.

Very grateful for Geneva's support!

MP Multisport Altitude Training Camp

After an easy day Sunday, I packed up my stuff and headed to Granby, Colorado with a group of MP Multisport athletes for an altitude training camp.  We stayed at the YMCA Snow Mountain Ranch (> 8,000') and swam, biked and ran for 5 days. It was a fantastic experience. Recapping would take a lot so here are some pictures and you can find my rides from the week on Strava!

Dinner with a view

We had a chef prepare all our meals. Fanciest and best food I've ever eaten for a week. This meal was roasted half chicken over apricot brown rice and sauteed veggies, drizzled with an apricot pan gravy. Amazing!

Testing our balance and learning was also incorporated into the camp

Not a bad place to get lost on the second day

Everyone at the trail ridge road visitor center

The four of us had a pretty epic day

Love the trail ridge ride!

The time spent training in the mountains was fantastic. It was great meeting some other athletes and learning.  Next year is a ways away but I would love to be there again and I'd highly recommend the camp to everyone.  The food alone is enough to go next year!

Up next is another half-iron race in Steamboat Springs, CO. 

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Clemson 2015 - Collegiate Club Nationals

A few weeks ago, I traveled with the CSU Tri team to Clemson, South Carolina for the Collegiate Club National Championships. It's taken me a long to finalize this blog because since returning to school, I've been working hard to prepare for finals, finish assignments and other things in life.

A group of us competing in the draft-legal events left Colorado Wednesday to arrive a day earlier then the majority of the 30+ CSU athletes that would be attending. As I'm sure most of the other schools can attest to, the logistics of getting to Clemson was a little hectic but eventually we made it to the hotel around 12...am.  

Thursday was spent doing a course preview, loosening up, discussing strategy with Coach Mace, getting checked in and drinking smoothies.  

This swimskin is awesome!

I think we made 3 trips there over the weekend...

Friday morning started early with some rice, almond butter and bananas. The weather was fantastic and my body felt good! 

After getting set in transition, I warmed up and waited with the others on the beach for the start. With a low number I was starting second from the outside on the left.  Eventually, we were off. I quickly crossed over Dylan to the outside and sprinted for a minute or so before trying to cut back and find a pack. After the first turn I saw was a few seconds behind a larger group and tried to make up the distance in the last straight-away. I came out of the water with a few other athletes around me ready to work on the bike.  

I was excited about trying to work with the athletes around me on the draft-legal bike after having  success motivating the group the second day at Clermont.  After mounting my bike, Coach Frost told me that everyone was strung out and that no one was working together. I could see a steady line of athletes just up the hill from me. My legs did not like the effort I was forcing them into but it was time to race! After heading out to a highway, the bike course was three loops of a boring straight away.  The straight away with 180 degree turns was pretty lame for a draft-legal course and made it really hard to split things up because no matter what, everyone had to slow down for the 180s.  Coach Frost and other coaches stood at one end of the loop giving us splits and updates.

Strava file here.

The first few minutes in the pack I tried to be relentless about taking pulls. I encouraged people and had no problem jumping to the front when the pace slowed. There was only one group ahead of us, with 2 faster swimmers off the front.  Most of our group was content with sitting in but we still caught the group in front of us.  Michael from Texas A&M had some hard pulls and looking back we should have tried to get away from our big group with one or two others. 

The road leading back to transition was lined with people all of the schools, cheering us on. The energy was amazing.   I made it out to the run course at the back of a small pack.  The road was again lined with people yelling and screaming.  Whatever energy people had not showed on that bike they were smashing the run.  I hung on at the back of the group waiting for people to drop off as they usually do but it never happened. These guys went HARD.  The 5k felt ridiculously fast and I wasn't moving up through the field as I usually did.  I passed a few people and ended up possibly running my fastest 5k ever.  

After the race, I did a quick cool-down and then cheered on the women draft-legal team.  Emily, a freshman from CSU came off in the lead bike pack and ended up leading the run for almost a full lap. She had a gap on second place and I was getting chills watching the race unfold. It was so awesome to see some one from our school doing that!  A few girls caught her on the second lap but she had an amazing race and I know she learned a lot.

Emily - leading the women's DL race!!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, eating and getting equipment ready for Saturday's olympic distance race.  I spent some time with my parents who had made the journey from the Tundra (Minnesota).  It was great catching up with them as always.

Saturday started early and before we knew it we were at the race site in a slight drizzle.  My brother stopped by in transition and we wished each other luck.  Ernie had a great race and most importantly enjoyed his experience.  I did a shortened warmup, and got in my Roka wetsuit for the 730 am start.  I swam around a bit then lined up far left.  After a slight delay, things got underway.  I tried to push myself for the first few minutes but my body wanted to build into the effort.  I didn't start feeling like I was in race mode until we headed back to the beach.  I was afraid any chances of being towards the front were gone after that but I told myself to not give up. 

My glasses fogged up heading out of transition so I shoved them down my jersey momentarily. I pushed hard the first 10 minutes and made my way up to the guys who I normally exit the swim with.  It was raining a little bit which made the ride a really cool experience. Riding in the rain sucks if you're commuting to school and or if its cold. Racing in the rain can be a lot of fun.

Strava file here.

We gained some time on the race leaders the first lap and passed a lot of the faster swimmers.  I was really impressed with Cole Bunn from CU. He showed an enormous amount of maturity on the bike, pacing and riding smooth, unlike someone at their first Collegiate Nationals.  After three laps we headed back to transition, bombarded with cheering from all sides. 

I headed out on the run intent on running my own race.  A couple guys took off immediately and I picked up my pace to not let them get too far head.  The run was very spectator friendly. There was a hill at one end and a color run was happening nearby playing music. I couldn't tell you what songs were playing but it did help to forget a little about what we were putting our bodies through. 

Running uphill I didn't make up much ground until we hit the hill for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th times.  Again I found myself with Cole and was happy to run with someone for a bit.  I saw Ernie out on the course a few times and we grunted encouragement at each other.  He moved up a lot during his run! I ran my way up a few spots and ended up finishing 10th. After, I cheered on the rest of the CSU men and was so pumped for them all to have awesome races. 

After the race, the rain died off in time for the women's race to have dry roads and a cloudy sky.  I hobbled around trying to yell for Geneva and the other girls.  Cheering them on for their run was a highlight.  All of our girls were spaced very closely and in the thick of it, competing!  The Wisconsin tri team had about 20 people at the turn-around doing awesome cheers which more often than not made those suffering in the race laugh or smile.

Both our relay teams did awesome and I'm really glad some of the older students were able to experience the draft-legal atmosphere, having the majority of people yelling and screaming at you like only college students can.

After the relay, we headed back to the hotel were the officers had coordinated for Chipotle to be catered. It was delicious.  A couple burrito bowls later, and in our rainbow costume, we headed to the awards ceremony.  

We knew both our men's and women's team had done well. It was heartbreaking to find out that our men placed 6th by just 5 points and the women 8th.  Even though we did not make the podium, nobody can take away from the team how hard we worked to get ready for this race and how much of a family we became for each other in the process.  In my four years of competing at this race, I'm always reminded each year of how much bonding happens while we are all suffering together.  We had an amazing build up for this race with so many people supporting us and believing in us. 

A massive thank you to the team's coaches that guided us to becoming a nationally competitive team, having fun along the way. Thanks to everyone's parents who came and supported us or cheered us on virtually.  And big thanks to the team for making this year's race so memorable.  All the volunteering, late nights and early mornings were worth it for a great weekend. I don't know what next year will bring for me but I know this team is headed in the right direction. Thanks to friends, family and EMJ Teammates for all the encouraging words. I truly appreciate it.

Collegiate Nationals - always an amazing experience

Up next I will be focusing on longer distances starting with Boulder 70.3 on June 13th.  I'll be following a training plan to build endurance for focus races IM Boulder and Kona towards the end of the season.

I'll do my best to keep my outdoor rides updated (I ride the trainer a few days a week) on strava so follow along and feel free to give me some feedback! I'm looking forward to some solid training the next few weeks with friends.  Thanks for reading - train smart and have fun!