Steamboat Springs Race, Rodeo, and Friends Weekend

A lightly planned weekend trip thanks to our friend Shelby who acted as our host and guide in Steamboat Springs was the perfect way to spend the Independence Day weekend.  We drove with the hordes of people to upstate Colorado late on Friday night to the secluded ski town and fell in love with the livable, diverse, and aesthetically pleasing town quickly.  I imagine the place will become increasingly exclusive as people continue to learn how livable it is year round.  The best way to explore your first day is a race (duh) so three of us ran the Mountain Madness Half Marathon which included beautiful quiet roads and one nasty long climb.  I had my best performance since coming back from an unplanned layoff and was able to use the big hill to run away and hang on for first place overall in the race.  It has kept me sore for a few days!  The local running community was friendly and lovely just like the views.  This was just the start of our mountain town getaway!

1st Place Mountain Madness Half Marathon

After the race we cleaned up and went out on the town with friends.  Shelby took us to Storm Peak Brewing to try out the local brewery scene.  The crew we were with (besides the two very underage boys) are all members of the Brewer's Cup in Colorado Springs so you know we have to grab a cold one after a race.  Storm Peak had a great variety and each was clean on the finish and thoroughly enjoyable.  Worth checking them out especially since they are dog and kid friendly.

"The Fit Shall Inherit the Earth" - Endurance Conspiracy

That night, we ventured to the nighttime clothing optional hot springs at Strawberry Park.  Obviously, at night, in a place with nudity, I didn't get my camera out for my own sake and yours.  Jess and I have been to multiple Hot Springs in Colorado including Mount Princeton, Pagosa Springs, Glenwood Springs, and Conundrum Hot Springs.  Strawberry was unique in its layout and feel which means we'd highly recommend the unique experience if you're in Steamboat.  No lights and large very hot pools contained along the edge of the river with a lot of extracurricular activity around at all times.  It is also well worth taking a short swim in the stream of mountain run off before hopping back into the hot pools to enjoy the lively tingling of returning feeling to your feet.  Go after dark, take $15 per person and a flashlight ... but be careful where you aim it!!

The following day we spent the morning hiking the ski resorts summer trails, watching the kids enjoy playing on the "beach" by the main square in ice cold water, getting great food and outdoor hangout time along the river at Sunpies, napping for way too long, and then we headed for the rodeo and bbq! Jess, the horse lover she is, has never been to a rodeo in her life and was quite excited for the experience.  We didn't know (should have clarified) that we had signed up for a "Ranch" Rodeo which means we missed out on a few classic events such as bull riding, mutton busting, barrel racing, and of course, the rodeo clown.  This rodeo featured cowboy competitions of Bucking Broncos (cool) and very repetitive cattle herding and handling competitions (got long).  The venue in Steamboat is really nice and relaxing with beautiful views and the old west mixed with the upscale ski town is a pretty awesome dichotomy to experience in the same town.  

Hang On Buddy!

On July 4th Steamboat has a nice parade where the kids collect endlessly thrown candy and avoid camels, horse poop, and fire breathing metal dragons followed by watching a summer time ski jumping competition.

If you're willing to take a little bit of a longer drive and get up there to Steamboat, you'll be doing yourself a favor.  Jess was looking at homes there the night we got back home.  It is a town that can accommodate the cowboy, skier, mountain biker, runner, food enthusiast, and beer drinker in all of us.  Happy Travels!

Jess telling this horse how good of a job he did.

Ironman Austin 70.3 Race Review 2015

This year my triathlon race season ended on November 8th at Ironman Austin 70.3.  We elected to undertake the relatively long drive to Austin for the race knowing that we'd need to have a car either way and that we could avoid shipping my bike if we just saddled up and completed the 13 hours down south.  We weren't that brave however as we spent nights in Lubbock both on the way down and on our return trip.  Buddy Holly and Texas Tech welcomed us to the Texas plains town and the people were as kind as they come.  This is mainly a race review but we did have good food on this trip at Triple J in Lubbock, and Black Star Co-Op in Austin.

First off, Austin is a cool, active, and fun town.  This race is not in cool and fun Austin.  It is 15+ minutes NE of town where there isn't too much going on.  Open land and ranches mixed in with some concentrations of town like density made up this race course.  Staying for the event was easy but you'll need a car for this race (no staying downtown and just walking everywhere).  This is an event with 2 transitions, T1 down by the lake, and T2 by the arena where you finish indoors on the run. The event transports your items from T1, such as wetsuit, googles, etc., if you shove it all in a marked bag before you run off with your bike.  Not really a big deal, just know what you're doing and expect an extra 30 seconds in each transition.

Pre-race and race day was WINDY with a strong 20+ mph torturing everyone from the north as it was much colder than expected due to the cold front and rain storms that were ravaging the area for weeks up to the race.  I was happy to see no irreversible damage to the area while we were there; it didn't seem like we were too huge of an additional burden to the town.  The main problem was the mud in T1 as bike drop the day before and transition set up the morning of pretty much destroyed the grass.

The Swim:
Unfortunately, my day didn't start till 8:15 am while transition closed at 6:45 that morning.  Jess and I hid from the wind and begged for the sun for a few hours in the morning and I put on my wetsuit for warmth about 90 minutes before my start.  In hindsight, that was a poor choice even though it kept me warm, because it is hard to go to the bathroom when bundled in skintight neoprene.  Due to the wind, the swim was choppy, the roughest water I have swam in for a few years (since ocean swims back in Virginia).  I had my fastest half ironman swim of the year despite dodging and swimming around a range of swimmers performing breast stroke, back stroke, and even elementary side stroke.  This was kind of a shame since I felt it slowed me down significantly to swim behind many slower age groups as I felt great but had to take longer lines at times.  The design of this race had men age 30-39 in 4 waves all starting at the back of the race, which turned out to be absolutely unsafe and terrible.  The swim was safe, but a pain catching many slower swimmers from what in general are slower age groups.  It's not really fair to those swimmers who have competitive males trying to get past them while they are uncomfortable in the water, nor to the competitive age groupers who have their race in-proportionately affected by their start time to other competitive male age groupers competing for top finishes.

The Bike:
+I'll preface this by saying I think I'm a rather positive and patient guy, because this review will look like the case is otherwise+
So I wasn't too happy having to start behind what amounted to pretty much every athlete in the race for the swim.  Where it really became unfair and a burden was on the dangerous and shameful bike course that was put forth by this race.  The course was bumpy and rough, which is fine enough if that is it, the problems come from when large gaps of broken road and dirt accompany the bumps as well as a large stream of athletes.  A cyclist couldn't pick their own line and people you were passing were swerving and endangering everyone else as they tried to avoid getting stuck or having to replace a flat.  ... It didn't stop there.  After the first 10 miles of the course, the course is open, and in this case that means cars driving slow paces between cyclists going the same direction as well as cars coming the opposite direction down the road.  You had three choices to pass the massive sea of athletes you were catching.  1.  Play chicken on narrow roads passing a car in your lane while another approaches you at uninhibited speeds and a vast majority in inertia.  2.  Wait behind the car in your lane hoping you can pass all the cyclists along the right side of the road when that car can.  3.  Pass illegally on the right dodging between cyclists and a car heading in the same direction.  It was disgusting to be so focused in a race you identified as an "A" race on trying not to die from the terrible road combined with terrible congestion.  So, yes it did get worse.  After you passed the roughest sections of roads you would see a few athletes the next mile all replacing flats or waiting for support.  Ambulances were whizzing by us in the opposite direction every few miles.  You cannot get nutrition because all of those much slower athletes you are catching are clogging up the flow of the stations as they wobble on their bikes.  I started going to the full opposite side of the road in aide stations and screwing my chances to do well by becoming dehydrated so I wouldn't be involved in a wreck as I saw two people in misery from aide station crashes during the first part of the race.  I carried 62 oz of water on the bike, which is a good portion but not enough even on a cool but humid day.  My final concern is this, I love that the city police come out and support us/help us stay safe, but there was not real evidence that they knew what was expected of them for this race.  I was traveling at 32 mph down a -finally!- flat  and smooth stretch when an officer controlling traffic turned a van directly in front of me and a female competitor.  We both violently swerved into the other lanes small shoulder as not to run directly into the side of the van at which time the van threw it into reverse while blocking the whole road and barely missed my rear wheel as I squeeked by screaming.  No I could not have stopped in time unless I bailed and I would have likely slid under the van, so I consider myself very lucky and Ironman very lucky they don't have a lawsuit from a few competitors.  As I looked back at the officer, who I didn't like at that moment, I saw that over 10 cyclists had stopped on the course and had to wait for the van to turn around.

The Run:
Boy, was everyone happy the ride was over.  One pro female (who started and came into transition a long time before me) had quit at T2 calling the bike course what it was and ripping off her timing chip rather than continue.  I don't blame her.  The run was very boring.  Out and back on a road and around a little section of park 3 times.  It was overly congested and once again I had to play chicken with either bikes which were on the same road or runners coming in the opposite direction multiple times as the hoards of walkers/joggers took to the course.  I'm not against anyone completing a race in any time, I am against my race being limited by it and potentially also their race as neither had a clear path.  On the 3rd lap my severe lack of fueling on the bike took effect as the day heated up.  I had a full water bottle of Skratch waiting for me in T2 which means I felt well at first in the run.  To be honest I was so done with the race that I just struggled in the last 4 miles and was ready to leave.  It was easy to leave this race as the indoor finish and after party was severely lacking and minimal anyways for such a big and expensive race.  Good riddance, Austin.


Race Recap:
I wish you best in your training if you choose to race a 70.3 distance race, but I will simply warn you that your training maybe completely wasted if you head to Austin to reap the fruit of your labor.  I don't dislike Ironman; I really enjoyed their Boulder 70.3 course and Boulder Peak.  In the future, however, I will give weight to race reviews as I read many negative ones on Austin and a few "it wasn't as bad as people say" reviews.

With the completion of Austin, it is officially triathlon off season for me, and I look forward to many small and local running races with Jess.  Life is good, but only because I survived Texas.  (barely).

Happy training and stay warm this winter!

A flat tire, a thief chase, and World Championships Qualifying - Funtimes at USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships

The dust has settled, my swelling has gone down, and my mind is rested.  So it is time to look back at my fun racing vacation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships.

We traveled to Milwaukee on Thursday for, in many ways, the amateur USAT event of the year as the weekend included both Olympic and Sprint National Championships.  I had earned entry into the qualifying Olympic event a few times over the past year and decided to make the trip, and for the fun of it, I decided to race two times in as many days.  We arrived in the humid and warm Lake Michigan city and took our chance off the bat to get ourselves a famous local beer and some Wisconsin cheese. Cheese is good everywhere, of course, but the cheese curds at Lakefront Brewing on this trip are especially worth the trip.

Olympic Race Recap:

I had a distinct plan for the Olympic race, it was simple, just don't mess up the swim so bad that you can't bike and run yourself back into some contention!  While I can't say it went perfectly to plan as I came out of the water 6 minutes behind the leader, I did PR by a massive 4 minutes for the 1500 meter distance on the year and heightened my chances to put out a good time if I could manage on the bike and on my feet.  Catching the feet of other competitors throughout the swim undoubtedly assisted my time and I was ready to rock as I ran to transition stripping off my wetsuit.

I went out HARD on the bike, maybe too hard in retrospect, but this is a national championship and I would be damned if I didn't at least try for it.  Well, because of my aggressiveness early I continued to find a fast rhythm as my power jumped up and down as I sought out more people to pass.  The course was surprisingly difficult with the crosswinds on the bridges which were the de facto hills on this course.  After the final turn, to head for home, I began being passed by a few cyclists who I had powered by earlier in the course.  I realized my speed wasn't quite where I wanted it to be but thought I must be struggling more than expected.  We approached the final "climb" and I was really laboring and the road was awfully rough.  It was at the crest of the hill, when I thought I had my chance to fly downhill into T2 that I realized what had been wrong the whole time.  I was smashing out watts on the descent and unable to breach 30 miles per hour, low and behold, my rear tire was flat and my poor carbon wheel rim was doing all the rolling while the floppy, deflated rubber attached to it did it's best to drain my chances.  I came in on the bike about 4.5 minutes slower than desired and averaged 24.6 mph on the 24.8 mile course.  I was happy to get off my disable 2 wheeled vehicle and onto my own feet, and that's where the fun began.

Now, I can't say I was in the shape I wanted to be for a 10k entering this race as I don't think I was near my running only PR, but I knew that running was my both physical and mental strength in a triathlon.  I took off at a steady pace and did my best to hold off the rib/chest spasming I have continued to experience after T2 in races this year, luckily, I had my amazing wife to adjust my spine at 4:30 in the morning, which greatly reduce the level of the tightness.  I exited T2 in 25th place, and over the next 6.2 miles ran myself into the last spot on the podium moving up 15 spots to 10th.  

A very happy 10th place finisher crossed the line.

A Thief Chase:

To many this is their favorite story of my weekend.  To Jess, she calls this my 2nd of 3 races.

I used Race Day Transport, so between the races I checked my bike back into Race Day to hold until I could check it into the Sprint Race Transition.  It was an hour or so after my finish of the Olympic race and I sat on the grass next to my bike rack to replace the flat from the race.  It was peaceful as Jess and I chatted about the race and my parents waited outside transition for our much needed trip to lunch (and famous Milwaukee beer - gotta get that from the source PBR).  Suddenly, one man was yelling at another - it was the head of Race Day Transport following a young man out of Race Day's personal trailer.  The arguing escalated and as Jess and I sat on the grass we thought nothing of it in general despite the obvious oddness of the situation.  Then, as I fed my tube into the tire, "Stop HIM", "SOMEBODY STOP HIM" echoed under the trees.  Jess and I look up to see the young man running through the fenced in area of Race Day with multiple smart phones in his hand.  He sees that the front entrance is blocked - and shoots up a side path - the exact one where Jess and I are sitting.  Jess is between him and I and goes to grab him.  He shruggs her off, accelerates and uses his free "non-cellphone" hand to launch himself over the chest height fence.  Now I am not sure why that "SOMEBODY" had to be me, but before I knew any better I run past Jess and jump the fence in pursuit.  Unfortunately, my tired legs didn't respond well to what was on the other side.  Race Day had all of their rain tarps laid out outside of the fence and as I landed and attempted to accelerate they grabbed my ankles like Devil's Snare (I know you know the reference).  Now you can picture a guy launching into a chase only to immediately face plant.  I usually take pride in my athleticism, but maybe that is why I needed the ego check.  I quickly push to get up, and guess what?... that's right, the Devil's Snare struck again.  Now I'm mad, and in a blink I was up and moving with determination.  I'll give the beer-gutted asshole thief credit (notice how before he was a young man), he had an good burst of speed and got away from me to start as I weaved behind him through a row of tractor trailers over the grass.  Then we hit open field and the folly of stealing from a group of endurance athletes must have become apparent to him.  I closed the ground on him shouting "stop him, stop him!" to the oncoming pedestrians.  I mostly received confused and noncommittal looks from the first few groups, but the next group of good samaritan guys stood in front of him and we blocked him in.  No one, including myself, committed to violence or physical altercation as I wasn't about to risk getting stabbed.  Instead, I paced with him, ready to finish the pursuit if needed.  Soon, a group of guys rode their bikes down from Race Day and helped keep him from attempting another run as he panted "I just need to catch my breath".  He was constantly calculating his escape but made one last attempt too late.  The final group to arrive was a group of 4 police officers who put him on his stomach in handcuffs and boy was I happy to get that part of my day over with!  I came out of it with a nice cut on my left leg, an opening of my recent bike wreck hand and arm wounds, and a little anger it took me that long to run down the jerk.  He's lucky I fell twice I keep telling myself.  Haha, anyways, it was a story I will remember and the swelling has gone down/the cuts are scabbed over, so the physical memories will soon be distant.  

Hope you enjoyed the story! Onto the Sunday Sprint...

Sunday Sprint Recap

I was a little sore/swollen/tired entering Sunday.  Saturday had been a good day and I was thinking "Why the heck did I sign up for the Sprint?"  I was happy to see the smaller crowd and it reduced my stress to have a much smaller swim wave.  The gun went off and *smack*pull*punch*grab*push* ... this small, supposedly less competitive group of athletes had a bunch of purposely violent swimmers!  I struggled to find a rhythm and find fast feet like the day before.  I came in from the swim at a much slower pace than the twice as long Olympic and had a lot of work to do if I was going to get myself onto the top-5 podium of the Sprint Race.

I felt that I could push the bike, especially with a newly inflated back tire, to get back into the competition.  Boy, did I struggle.  I pushed and pushed and pushed but struggled to hit the times I thought I was capable of when coming to Milwaukee.  My bike legs were by far the most disappointing of the weekend, but I did continue to move up on the bike to get myself into the top 10 to enter the run

Today was a good run day.  I had none of the pain and spasms that had limited me in my previous 3 races and I knew I had to take full advantage.  I began to turn the screws during the run and continued to feel stronger throughout the race as I ran down 4 athletes for ... 6th place and 7 seconds too slow for the podium.  What a fun weekend.  I really think I did earn my recovery week of diet cheating and sleep.

Downtown Milwaukee is a beautiful place with the river walk and contains world class amenities including museums, art centers, and breweries!