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Double Double...

With Winter looming in the high country of Colorado, I made the easy decision to pack in two last races in one weekend before the season ended. I traveled to the Western Slope of Colorado, my old stomping ground when I attended Colorado Mesa University.

First stop was down in Montrose, CO for the Black Canyon Sprint Triathlon on Saturday morning. A race in which I was coming to defend my Overall title from last year. I ended up defending my title on a very ugly effort, but I got the win. I will post a video shortly of my effort.

Sunday we made our way up to the Olympic distance Desert Edge triathlon in Grand Junction, CO. I was feeling very good from my win on Saturday but I wasn't fond of the the early morning conditions we had to face going into this race. With a slight cold front moving in we were looking at morning temps in the low to mid 30's, and mother nature didn't disappoint.

We arrived at the race site early and ready eager to get this race started., but I will admit those feelings faded fast when we arrived and saw that the temps would literally be in the low 30's at 8am, our race start time. I quickly racked my bike and headed straight back to the car until i was ready to head down to the lake for my pre-race warmup. The race organizers moved the start time back 15 minutes but that didn't help much at all. Once I got my mind and attitude back to race mode I was ready to rock.

I ended up finishing 6th Overall and 2nd in age group. I lost this race to better athletes today (for Now), but am very happy with how everything came through today. It's been a short season for me due to the injury I acquired earlier in the year, but I left the season on a great note. I'm looking forward to next season as I have my sights set on Ironman Coeur 'd Alene as well as returning back to Vegas for the 70.3 World Championship.

Life has two rules: #1. Never quit. Rule #2. Remember Rule #1.

Tour Of Vail

I made this video for my Roommates/BFF's at the Tour of Vail/USA Crit Championships in Vail, CO.
Conor ended up with flat with only 8 laps left to go while Kevin ended up fifth overall. A bitter sweet race knowing that they including myself knew they could have taken the Overall win. No Doubt!!!!!! Congrats to both of them on an amazing season. You can follow these guys Here: Conor and Kevin

Oktoberfest Sprint

Here is a short video recap we put together of my race at the Oktoberfest Sprint triathlon this past weekend. It was my first sprint in over a year and I am very pleased with the result. It felt great to rub elbows again with the gazelles of the sport, taking 9th overall and 2nd in age says a lot after coming off  3 months of little to no training since my injury. Up next is another sprint triathlon in Montrose, CO and then the Desert Edge triathlon in Grand Junction, CO. Ill be sure to bring you guys more race footage, enjoy the footage and let me know what you think.

Summit Assault hill climb.

With a shortage of stones these days I was able to kill two birds with one this last weekend. With Fall fully upon us here in Colorado, we took advantage of the weekend and drove up to the high country to check out the beautiful scenery that Fall has to offer. But not without a good training day included.

Today's training included a 5mile Summit Assault trail running race from the base of Granby Ranch up to the summit of the ski resort. I must say the race organizers of Summit Assault did a fantastic job for their first year. I encourage everyone to include this race on their schedule next season. Well organized, perfectly marked course, breath taking scenery and course, and an amazing staff. You can check them out here at http://summitassault.com/

.Our ride from the finish back to base camp.

The start: no warm up as the climb begins immediately.   

I'm either giving or receiving a pep talk.

And we're off!!!

The "flattest" section of the course.

Single track

Amazing colors to help distract you from the suffer of climbing 2000 ft

Taking 2nd place Overall. More breath taking views at the finish

Photo Dump: Boulder Canyon Ride

I worked hard for this shot

An Early Start to the day.

Up the Canyon we go

My first Bear sighing!!!

Over 2,000 riders were on this climb, a very cool scene.

Conor doing his community service, helping a rider who crashed going up hill.

Near the top of Nederlands 

A rare moment

One of many aid stations

Business call, or so that's what Conor says.

The final stretch after 4hrs of wheel sucking

A day of Altitude

Depending on who you talk too, Colorado has about 53 Mountains above 14,000 Ft.

Here is a quick photo dump from a recent 14er (Mt. Bierstadt) we scaled this last week. Climbing a 14er is an experience that can't be described. So here are a few photos that made the cut.

 Early start to an amazing day.

So it begins

Mat, our Tour Guide taking a much needed break.

Mt. Bierstadt in the distance.

Me being me!!!

Staying hydrated with some Scratch Labs Mix.

Summit, 14,060ft

Our tour guide Finally made it.

Mt. Evans on the left

A local Road Race Fearuring Kevin Mullervy

I had a fun time making this video of my roommate at a local RR. Stay tuned as there will be more to come.

Making the local newspaper

http://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/broomfield-sports/ci_20944679/my-town-broomfield-man-perseveres-becomes-ironman

M.I.A...

Here's where and what I've been up too since that epic day of  Ironman St. George:

The Injury:
In the last few miles of the run at Ironman St. George I began to feel a slight strain just below my knee's. With every step and every mile the pain worsened to the point I had to pull over and attend to  with less then a mile to go to the finish line. After the race I knew something wasn't right but I didn't pay much attention to it since I was just happy to be done.
After two weeks of complete rest this pain/tightness was still lingering around. I began to do some research of my own and found out that I had a "condition" called Pes Anserine Bursitis. All the info is here if you feel the need. If not, here is a short version of what it is; its an overuse injury to the tendon (Pes Anserine) that sits on the medial side of the knee. This injury can take up to a few weeks to months to recover from. As most of you could guess with this post, I'm still recovering.


Mental Show:
 Having an injury forces one to really step back and tone things down a bit from training. For a few weeks I began to force myself and the injury to some training but the symptoms only continued. So I then forced myself to a few weeks of no training which obviously really helped. I will admit that I have enjoyed the little break, doing things that I usually wound not have done due to training. I've been on both sides of where I want to go from here, either I throw in the towel for the season or I get back to things as fast as possible to finish the season strong. I'm finding myself stuck in the middle but with little complaints. I know I have so much time to prevail as a great athlete in this sport and forcing it, especially with this injury, will only come with consequences. I'm still hungry to succeed but I'm taking this thing one bite at a time.

From DNS to DNF

I signed up for the Boulder Tri Series earlier this year and once you're in you're in. This would have been my 3rd take at the series and I was eager to do some damage. The Boulder Sprint was on June17th, I was at the point of maybe giving it a go but knew a local sprint was not worth the risk of forcing anything yet due to the injury, so I sat out of this one and instead went on to support  some friends of mine in the race. It was a new perspective watching a race that you knew you should be racing in.

Just this past weekend was the second race of the series, the Boulder Peak. An Olympic distance race that is always sure to bring in top notch athletes. I've been back on my bike this past week with no discomfort in the knee and have splashed around in the pool for a bit with no structure to the training. I made a last minute decision (meaning race morning) to go ahead and pull the trigger and attempt to race the Boulder Peak. But I told myself I was not allowed to run, NO RUNNING!!

So I arrived at race morning ready to rock, I got in a good warmup before the swim start. We were off by 8:05, knowing that my swimming skills and speed have declined I still toed the line up-front with the faster fish. I had a good start and found a good rhythm to survive my longest swim yet since the Ironman. I came out of the water in 23:06....almost 10 seconds faster then last years time...HUH??? Very odd, and not sure how to explain that one. Anyways onto the bike, I opted to ride with my training wheels and a road helmet unlike my usual setup with my Zipp wheels and aero helmet. The bike felt good but I was hurting, I knew the fitness was obviously not there. I rolled into T2 in a time of 1:13:57...about 8min slower then last year...now that's more like it.

The hardest part about this race was handing in the timing chip, I didn't explain or give my story as to why I was handing in the chip. I just knew as I walked away that bigger things are to come, can't take away my heart and passion to comeback racing with a chip on my shoulder.

Up next is the Boulder 70.3, hopefully the fitness will be back enough to where I can at least finish the race. I have no rush to force it as I know there are bigger fish to catch and fry.

Train Safe and always capture your dreams.

Ironman St. George

I began to write this thing just a few days after the race but couldn't find the words to describe what the HE!! happened out there. So I walked away and allowed it to soak in a little more. But I'm still having trouble finding the right  words, video or pictures to describe the carnage of Ironman St. George 2012. So many emotions ran through my head during the race that I think its hard to put them into one place. So here's my account of the 140.6 miles of mayhem.

Yep!!!

Swim: 2.4 miles (1:10:09)

The gun was set to go off at 7am for the age groupers...that's me!!! The pro's had a 15min head start as some would say, not that I was attempting to chase them down. I immediately made my way to the water shortly after the pro's went off. I found a good spot to tread water for 10 min, but as usual your personal bubble is quickly invaded by other swimmers. I think I did more jostling and bumping around during this time then any other segment in the swim. I even accidentally kicked someone in the gut, and made them short of breath about 2min before the gun...SOrry!!!! For those unaware exactly what an Ironman swim consist of, imagine 1700+ athletes all vying for position going in the same direction. Its like 5 O'clock traffic, besides the white lines, break lights and insurance claims after swimming over somebody. Mad Chaos!!!

Once the gun went off I found myself plenty of open water in front of me and was feeling absolutely amazing for the first 10min or so. Shortly after taking our first left turn around the buoy I felt a few rolling waves pass by. First thing I thought was "where's the D@&# boat", so eventually I looked up in search of that boat but spotted nothing, only more waves. I didn't think much of it until we made our next left turn directly into the waves. Immediately we were pummeled by 4-5ft waves, winds up to 40mph and gusts up to 60mph. The ugly part was that we had roughly 1.2 miles to go directly into the waves until our next buoy where we would eventually turn towards the finish. At most I was only able to find about a handful of competitors near me during the remainder of the swim, and for a moment I thought I was in the movie Castaway, looking for Wilson!!!! I told myself the only way out of this is to keep swimming. I thought about the rest of the swimmers, and only feared for there safety. Turns out that over 200 swimmers were pulled from the swim, not only did they have to be rescued but of the 60 kayaks and lifeguards on SUP boards, 57 had to be rescued themselves......you might wanna read that again.

 My reaction shortly after the swim.

Bike: 112 miles (6:26:22)

The swim threw everyone off there game, but it was the bike that everyone had previously feared coming into this race. This course has a little over 6,000 feet of climbing, so about 70% of the ride was uphill or a least at an incline. But add to the equation 40mph headwinds, being sand blasted multiple times and dodging random tumble weeds, and it makes for a wickedly tough ride. I knew right away that it was everyone for themselves, pure survival mode.

2 Loops, Elevation anyone???

If you had a chance these were the views you could take in while on the bike.

The main goal on the first loop was to stay in control, I knew it was gonna be a  long day, so there was no need to push hard and fight the wind. At times I was only going about 6mph into the wind, then up to 50mph with the wind at our back on a down hill section of the 2 loop course. A little over half way into the bike I began to feel nauseous, with this feeling  I had to force my nutrition down and back off my pace. Just looking at my bike time is a very good indicator that something went south. Not sure what happened here but its something that I'm looking deeply into as this feeling carried with me onto the run. So the last half of the bike I was in some very dark places, I came out of this "dark place" with about 15 miles to go on the bike. Luckily the last 15 miles were all down hill, I tried to put down as much nutrition as I could without overdoing it in preparation for the run.

Run: 26.2 miles (3:49:56)

Not only was that my first time riding 112miles but I was now on my way to run my first 26.2 miles. 

The run course included more hills, you were either going up or down. It consisted of 3 loops, in what they call a "very spectator friendly" course. So there was much support out there to see your friends and loved ones. The first few miles of the run I felt like a new man since my "dark episode" on the bike. My legs were in full stride, I felt so good that I pulled back my pace to conserve energy for the miles ahead. It wasn't until after the first loop I began to feel nauseous, yet again. I knew I was in a huge calorie deficit, and with only half of the run done I tried hard to put down some sort of calories. I relied mostly on ice and coke. Once I got going my pace was solid but my gut was pulling the best of me. I pulled over to the side multiple times in attempt to emit what might have been causing this, but nothing was coming up. This was the most frustrating part of the race, knowing you're capable of a solid run time, but running and the feeling of being nauseous don't mix very well.

All Smiles!!!

The run course gave everyone a good look to just how much carnage was dealt to us that day. I knew I wasn't the only athlete that had it bad after seeing almost every athlete including professionals walking the course, even pulling out of the race. One female professional in particular was being assisted with an IV as she laid motionless on the side of the run course. The day was long but I knew the fastest way to the finish was to keep pressing, so I pressed forward onto the finish. 

Many are recording this race as the "toughest" Ironman to date, its also recorded as the slowest times ever in an Ironman, including the pro's. This race had a 29% DNF rate, the highest ever in an Ironman. Many athletes who have completed multiple Ironman's including Kona will tell you that his was by far the hardest one they've done. So its nice to know that my first Ironman would be "considered" the toughest, so I'm assuming that they can only get easier from here!!??? We'll see about that.

At this time the race feels like a distant dream, the high's and lows, the pain and suffering are mostly all depleted from my memory. The only feeling I have left is an appetite for more, call me crazy but whatever was served up on Saturday left me hungry. This experience opened my eyes to exactly what it is that I need to do to further better myself. I find myself excited to keep climbing up this journey and to truly test my limits against the worlds best.
 
Its Past Possible!!!!!

The Journey...

A Thousand Mile Journey Begins With A Single Step..............

It was just over two years ago that I decided to embark on a journey, that journey was a decision to become the absolute best possible triathlete I can be. Whether that athlete is the best in his age group, an Ironman Champion or even a World Champion, I'll be making yet another step in that direction tomorrow with my first Ironman here in St. George, UT. I've set out goals that to some seem impossible but to be successful you have to have some delusional quality, you have to believe that something different can happen. I've never been the fastest, strongest or biggest but I've inherited a certain quality from my parents that very few have and something I never knew I possessed or recognized until now, Work Ethic.

Its with this quality that I believe gives me the edge to run down this dream of mine.I've done the work, put in the time and have made the sacrifices that I think will give me my best chances for success. But with sacrifice comes expectations, definitions of success from others that weren't with you 5am at the pool or lying next to you exhausted, doused in sweat of hard work after a 7 hour training day. Expectations from those that find it easier to take the short cuts in life....to be average. Its those expectations that distract you from your goals and dreams and I found myself being sucked into those distractions. Until now, now that I find myself face to face with the beast of Ironman St. George, I begin to recognized why I chose this path. It wasn't for the finishers medal or the cheap T-shirt at the end of the race but to be a Maverick to society's expectations. To step outside the normal thoughts and actions of society belief's and believe that something CAN be different. That we don't have to be some esoteric, god like creature to capture what we truly want in life.

  Everyone has dreams in life and those dreams are unique to each person. The simplest step to making that dream a reality is making the decision and believing in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, how is anyone else gonna believe. I hope you choose to ignore the expectations of others and choose to walk your path, with every foot print leave your Legacy!!!

The Count Down....

So we're just less then 3 weeks away from Ironman St. George, and I must say that the previous 3 weeks have been the longest weeks I have ever been through. I find myself wishing this race was tomorrow, I can guarantee that I wont be repeating this as I stand on the bank of Sand Hollow reseviour on May 5th. It'll sound more like, "what the H. E. Double Hockey Sticks am I doing here''.

But really I'm very excited for this race, with only 16 days left I feel that my preparation has been solid and I'm doing everything in my power, for a first time Ironman..."attempter" to be ready for this race. With about 2 weeks to go I'm beginning to start the taper mode, which includes a drop in training load and duration. A process that I have been waiting for with open arms. Tony DeBoom has a variety of clubs that he brings to the training table and each one has a purpose and most of them can hurt a bit.

Overall my mood has been great in preparing for the race. I've had my highs and lows but I'm very happy with my fitness and mental aspect of things. They say Ironman is 5% physical and 95% mental, a side of training I've desperately been working on. Mind is everything, and it can guide us to being good or great. We have the power to make the choice on Who or What we want to be. For this race its being the best I can be on this day and giving everything I have...so Cliche...I know!!!

But earlier in the year I sat down and mapped out splits of where I would like to finish for the swim, bike and run..and overall placing. After finishing this map list I found myself over obsessive of splits, time and how fast I need to be today, or who I need to beat. I was spending all my time and energy (wasted time and energy) on focusing on other athletes time's and their training method. "what's he doing this week?'', "how fast is he running, swimming?" I can beat him here but not here, or if I do this"...STOP!!!

The biggest lesson I have learned so far while training for this Ironman, is that the power lies in my hands. It comes down to me, this sport isn't anything near the "traditional" sports here in America. In the game of Basketball, Football and Baseball you have teammates to point the blame to. Since I live in Colorado I can use a perfect example of something that I hear daily; its the much debated topic of Tim Tebow and Peyton Manning and why the Bronco's didn't make the Superbowl...yet again??? To everyone's suggestions and finger-pointing the answer is Tim Tebow. But what about the rest of the team?? A 53 man team, and they blame one man......off my soap box and back to my point.....Here in the sport of triathlon the only finger to blame is yourself. I know I've had my blame game card on Mother Nature a few times this year. But come May 5th there's no hiding out on the race course for me, no ball to pass to another player to "take the winning shot." The winning shot is in my hands, not my competitors or teammates...just me. So this concept has been a huge driving force for me this year. I know that come race-day nothing magical is gonna physically happen and make me faster.

So whatever that rant was about, the main point is to stay focused on your Potential and not Your Limitations....wow that was so much easier :)

Check back for more updates as I prepare for St. George.

An EC favorite, and kinda how I'm feeling

What I'm calling Base camp/home...for now!!

Cabin Fever...

Well hello world.....So its been some time since my last post and well and for good reason....as much as wish or want to write about how exciting my training has been, I'd be lying... and I'm not good at lying, even on a blog...this also why I don't play poker 1. its boring and 2. no poker face. Anyways, I have made some huge fitness improvements and have pushed my body past limits I never thought it would pass. My build for Ironman St. George has been good and I believe I've made the best of what I'm capable of doing with the circumstances that have been piled (snow) or blown (70mph winds) on us here in Colorado. Its been a rough winter here so far and our snowiest months are still to come. YAY!!!!! =/ Now I'm getting a good sense of why IMSG has yet to sell out. So here are a few photos of what training for IMSG had looked like these past few months. Until next time Ill be cooped up like a hermit plugging away.

This is where it all began!!

You know you've been on a trainer too much when 3hrs becomes second nature.

Took'em 2 weeks to finally shovel 1 lane.

The only thing I think of that snow is good for, Cryotherapy.  It was hard to avoid the Yellow Snow.

My trainer support during a business trip, thanks Guys!!!