New Site!

Hedgecock Triathlon has moved to:

danhedgecock.com

Colorado Engagement

Tiny frog Claire found while we explored.

Big news, Claire and I are engaged! Since I haven't had any race news since Chicago I thought it'd be fun to put up a few pictures of our trip out to Colorado. We left last week and stopped for a night in Badlands National Park. Kevin has recently fallen in love with Custer State Park and tried to convince us to stop there, but we just used the stop to break up the 14 hour drive. We had a little time to climb around some of the formations. From the Badlands into Colorado we had to cross the South Platte River which has been flooding because of the heavy rains in the front range. After a quick stop in Denver we drove up to Leadville. We had planned on staying at my brother Eli's house for 3 nights, but he and his roommates have not prioritized cleanliness... the house was semi-uninhabitable and after making it through one night we decided to book a room in the Leadville hostel for the next two nights.

Good morning.

Close-up Claire took of some wild raspberries.

We had time in Leadville to spend a day relaxing and one day went on a dayhike most of the way up La Plata peak, one of Colorado's 14er's. It was gorgeous weather for the hike and a pretty exhausting trail. We made it up to about 13,500 and decided to call it a day.

First night's campsite.

 We left Leadville Saturday morning and drove to the Maroon Bells to start our backpacking trip. We were planning on hiking the 4 pass loop around the Bells over 5 days. Eli and I hiked the same loop in 2009 and I was excited to do it with Claire. The mountains are stunning and all of the Aspen were turning yellow at the time. We hiked up to treeline and set camp for the first night on a rock outcropping overlooking a nice stream. We had a great dinner and the skies were clear as the sun set.

During the night a storm rolled in and dumped rain on us all night long. We stayed dry in the tent which was great, considering how hard it was raining. It was still raining when we woke up in the morning and we snoozed in the tent for an hour or so hoping it would let up. It didn't. I decided to get up and see how the skies looked. Amazingly, two other backpackers were hiking by at that moment. I waved and jogged over.

Me: “How's it going?”

Random Hiker: “Pretty good, a bit wet, haha.”

Me: “Haha, yeah. Where you guys headed?”

RH: “Home!” (tone implying that this should have been very obvious)

Me: “Did you come over the pass?”

RH: “No, we were planning on hiking over this morning.”

Me: “Yeah... so do you think this weather is going to blow over?”

RH: (stares at me like I'm a complete idiot) “I think this is here to stay buddy.”

Me: (abashed) “Yeah... that's what I was thinking.”

Dramatic re-creation of the proposal.

Claire and I hashed it out for a few minutes and decided to call it a vacation. It was time to head home and have a couple days of staycation to recover. I had been planning to wait and pop the question on Claire as we reached a stunning lake set beneath a mountain or topped a pass with an all-encompassing beautiful view, but that wasn't going to happen. But I wasn't going to let the weather stop me, so I interrupted Claire and told her I had a surprise. I pulled out the ring I had smuggled into my pack and got down on one knee. I had mentally prepared a romantic speech about how I love Claire's confidence and integrity and everything about her, not just the sunshine and rainbows. But what I actually said was very short and confused... I don't really remember it all. Relevant Video

Despite all that, Claire said yes. We packed up camp and hiked back down to the car. We don't have any plans for a location or date yet, but it's going to be a blast of a wedding!

We're so happy!

It's a shame we have to leave.

Opportunity Costs

Two weeks ago I raced the Chisago Half Iron for the third year in a row. It's a fun race about an hour outside of Minneapolis with a great course. Heading into the race I was hoping to improve on my time from last year and get a little closer to a sub 4 hour half, but the race had other plans for me. I swam well enough, and came out of the water in 2^nd to Mr Thompson, took a little extra time to put on socks and hit the bike course. It was cool enough that I was thankful whenever the sun came out for a little warmth and somehow the laws of physics allowed a headwind for 50 miles! of the 56 mile bike course. My legs felt great through 30 miles on the bike, but then my lower back and glutes started to tighten up. My bike position isn't overly aggressive, but I hardly ever ride in the aero position for longer than 45 minutes and my body didn't agree with me on 2 hours 15 minutes. By the time I hit mile 50 all I could think about was getting off that damn bike. Of course as soon as I started running all I could think about was not running anymore. All in all it was a fair showing good enough for 2^nd and $750. Results Here

My hotel stay courtesy of Nordica and TK. Those are not real
elephants guarding the entrance.

Last week I made the 3.5 hour drive to the Wisconsin Dells for my first Rev3 race. The Wisconsin Dells is America's indoor water park capital or something like that and is the biggest tourist trap in the country outside of Branson, MO. The people watching was spectacular. My friends Nordica and TK were staying at the Kalahari Resort and very very graciously let me crash in their room Saturday night. TK bravely tackled the half while I was thanking the heavens every step of the way that the pro race was Olympic distance.

Race morning was, no surprise, cold and raining. At first it was just chilly. But then as the half athletes started and I was setting up my bike it started to sprinkle. By the time I got out of the water and onto the bike it was really raining. Karma has decided to punish me for enjoying an entire winter of good weather with the worst season of weather possible. To date, every race I've done in the Midwest this year has been cold, windy and wet except for one. Results Here

At the end of the race I was 12^th. Another fair showing, but certainly nothing to write home about. The theme of the year so far has been solid racing that puts me just outside the money. In all honesty it has been a bit disappointing. Although I'm racing consistently and at the start of the season I knew that with all of the time I would need to spend working this summer it was going to be much more of a foundation building year compared to the big gains I've made the last two years. But knowing that it's just going to take time and patience doesn't make missing the main pack in every race any less frustrating.

At times like this it's hard not to ask myself if I can actually make this work in the next few years, because for most people it doesn't. And at times it feels like there's just no way that I can go much faster. If I'm already working so hard, but still need to improve so much more how is that going to happen? Whenever I feel like this I'm glad that I have so many years of running to look back on for perspective. I remember in high school when it took a perfect race and everything I could muster to run 1:56 in the 800. It just about killed me. Then a few years later at the Drake Relays in the 4xMile I ran the first 800 in 1:56 trying to hang on to a guy's heels. Back in high school if you had asked me whether I could run an 800 in that time and then another after that for a 4:06 mile I would have said, impossible.

So when I'm struggling to drop time and it seems just impossible that I could ever swim faster, I remember that people are always doing things that are impossible.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'll actually be successful! Which is where the self doubt comes from. But it's all not nearly as troubling as I make it out to be. I very well may not make it, and I'm ok with that because there isn't anything else I'd rather be doing right now. Most people see an 'endeavor' like training to be a professional athlete as something that carries a huge opportunity cost. I was reminded recently of this idea by a great interview with David Epstein called “How Athletes Get Great” on Outside magazine's site. (Great article by the way) Epstein's book partakes in the nature vs. nurture debate concerning success, specifically in athletics. He talks about opportunity cost and the role it plays in producing world class runners in Kenya. Over in Kenya there is not a high cost to running, because there is a severely limited number of opportunities. If you don't succeed, you haven't missed out on any other opportunities. For athletes in developed countries there are many options, especially endurance athletes because we are so uncannily intelligent compared to other athletes. (Only kind of kidding, of the 20 odd people on my high school cross country team, 4 of them were national merit finalists meaning in the top 1-2ish percent of the entire country. In college, close to 1/2 of the cross team majored in engineering or pre-med. David Thompson has a graduate degree in nuclear engineering from MIT. TJ Tollakson is an engineer that creates and produces carbon aero products. Jordan Rapp is a technology guru that everyone listens to, etc. etc.)

Most people would look at my current situation and say that my opportunity cost to training as a triathlete is about $75k. If I weren't training, I could have dedicated myself to working hard at Target, gotten promotions, schmoozing with big wigs and be earning a salary of $90k. Instead, last year I made $12k.

And most people would see that as the only opportunity cost that matters, lost wages, because they think money is all that matters. But I was raised by a couple of hippies and know that there is an even higher opportunity cost attached to working a corporate job: it crushes your soul. My personal sanity attached to not sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen 8 hours a day playing office politics and enduring pointless meanings is more important than monetary loss unless I become homeless and starving for food in the near future.

That doesn't mean I'll still be training full time if I don't start earning some money racing soon. I've given some thought to what I would do if I wasn't racing and think I'd like to try something in the outdoors field, like a guide or park ranger. But I'm fully committed to the racing scene through the 2015 season. I'm at the head of the 'B' pro pack right now. If I can't make it up to 'A' pack after two more full years of training and racing, then I'll start thinking about what to do with an English degree.

Heavy Rains/Foot Balance/Doubling Down in Wisconsin

This weekend was chock full of action. I know that some people aren't big into reading anything longer than bullet points. (I learned that while working corporate) So there is an executive summary for anyone who doesn't want to get into the details. Yes, a video recap would be more engaging, but the technology isn't quite there yet. Someday.

The Executive Summary:

There was a monsoon Saturday morning, parts of the bike route flooded.

Sara McLarty and I rode into each other but neither of us crashed.

I smashed up my left foot and balanced out my foot injuries for the season.

My dad was in town for the day and we had lunch after the race.

Claire and I drove to Milwaukee Saturday afternoon.

We got up at 4:20am Sunday for the Pewaukee Tri.

It was a very toasty race on a challenging course.

I finished 2^nd to a 40 year old from Christchurch New Zealand who crushed the bike and is very funny.

The details:

Saturday, the Minneapolis Triathlon aka Don't Forget Your Galoshes

I woke up early on Saturday for the Minneapolis Tri and it was raining cats and dogs. Really really raining. I

Saturday's monsoon was likely because I thoroughly cleaned my bike
Friday night in the laundry/bike room.

later heard 5 inches in 5 hours and I don't know if that's true, but there was plenty of flash flooding in the cities so it's possible. I carpooled to the race with Pat Parrish, whose alarm didn't go off, hoping the rain would lighten up at least a little. It didn't at all, and after we found a parking spot I was completely soaked in 5 minutes. My favorite rain jacket doesn't have a hood and has a few holes in the right sleeve from a bike crash so it isn't quite waterproof.

Transition was closed when I got to the race site because of lightning and everyone was huddling under tents to try and stay out of the rain. Thankfully Gear West had a large tent for wrenching so I chatted with Kevin and waited for any news. First the race was delayed until 7:30. Then we found out the olympic bike course was impassable. All of the pros met to figure out what we wanted to do. We had some back and forth between the swimmers and runners and settled on doing just the sprint course, throwing out the equalizer because of the disproportional bike length and not altering the prize money. Then the race was delayed until 9.

Almost 5 hours after waking up I lined up with the rest of the pro men to get the race under way. I lined up to the left, hoping to get on the swim pack and use them as a break from the waves rolling across the lake, but after a few snafus found myself about 15 meters back for the entire first lap of the swim and then farther back after the 2^nd lap.

On the bike I had my closest call ever with Sara McLarty. I was riding behind her, because of my stellar swim, through a fairly technical part of the course and moved to pass on the right (which is legal in a pro race). I didn't announce my upcoming pass loudly enough and just as I was moving past Sara she banked right through a sweeping turn. We made contact and suddenly we were physically leaning into each other, both of us on the aero bars, through the turn. Sara justly screamed, “Dan what the fuck!” and I lamely yelled “Sara on your right!” Visions of our base bars tangling and me ending Sara's career with a horrific crash flashed through my head and then amazingly we separated and neither of us went down. Close call.

Balance has been restored to the universe.

I got off the bike and needed to make a hard, hard right into transition to get to my rack but only completed a hard right and smashed up my left foot. I have now achieved foot injury balance and would be more than happy if I could manage not to run into anything while barefoot for the rest of the year.

On the run I knew I wasn't going to catch either of the guys in front of me without really burying myself and had to do a quick cost benefit analysis. With Pewuakee Tri offering $1000 for first the next day and 10^th place paying out $100 at Minneapolis I decided not to completely empty the tank in hopes of making some good money the next day. I'll admit I'm not proud of not “giving it my all” on Saturday, but stepping outside of the abstract into the concrete world of 'how am I going to pay for food this month' sometimes I have to compromise.

Minneapolis Triathlon Results

My dad was in town for the weekend and we had lunch at the Townhouse Tap after the race with Claire. He was supposed to get into Minneapolis Friday evening, but weather delays down in the Carolinas pushed his arrival to midnight. After a quick lunch Claire and I jammed everything into the Mini and hit the road for the 5 hour drive to Milwaukee.

Sunday, the Pewaukee Tri aka Bring on the Heat!

My alarm went off at 4:20 am Sunday morning, even earlier than Saturday's 4:45 wake up call. Pewaukee is a charming little town about 40 minutes outside of Milwaukee with transition set up on Main Street. It feels a lot like the Heart of the Lakes race at Annandale. The olympic was scheduled to start after the sprint racers had started. During the last wave of sprint racers there was a medical emergency with one of the racers and we all tried to patiently wait 20 minutes or so for the rescue boats to get back into place.

Absolutely gorgeous day in Wisconsin.

The theme of the day was surprising heat and humidity. The day was clear and standing on the beach in a full sleeve black wetsuit left me a little light headed after 10 minutes. As soon as we hit the water I could feel Saturday's race in my arms, but wetsuits are an amazing thing to give you that little extra boost. Three guys went off the front and ONCE AGAIN I was just off their feet. I swam solo about 15 meters behind them for the first half and only gave up 40 seconds total to the first guy out of the water. It was a good thing I was able to stay within contact for sighting, the sun was shining directly into our faces on the return trip and was blinding. The only thing I could see was the standup paddle boarder that was leading the course, so I just followed him.

I've been using the rowing machine at the pool for 10 or 15 minutes every day before I swim for the past few weeks. I simply don't have the upper body power to get out fast enough right now to stay with the main swim pack. I'm always just out of reach after 200 meters and vainly struggle to stay within contact through about 800 meters before slowly falling farther and farther back. It's frustrating because I know that if I can be in that pack at 400 meters I'd have the ability to ride their draft into transition and I'm so close to doing it. Building top end speed is never easy, and I think swimming is one of the hardest sports to try and do it in. Sprinting in swimming is like trying to execute a perfect golf swing, but you have to execute that perfect swing over and over while standing on a wobble board after running a quarter mile as hard as you can while breathing through a straw. A lot of sprinting is muscle memory, which is why sprinters do drills over and over. In the moment of actual execution you aren't thinking about technique, because your brain is screaming at you to stop trying to kill yourself. Building muscle memory takes time, which is frustrating. And in swimming all of the rules of force and balance that I have ingrained from 12+ years of running are backwards, the plane of motion is horizontal with an emphasis on rotation and the surface you apply force to is only semi solid.

I don't mean to complain though. Since starting swimming I have gained an immense amount of respect for the people who are able to swim very well. It's an unnatural thing that requires years of focused practice, which is why good swimmers are all very tall and oddly proportioned people who appear to be drunk whenever they're trying to exercise on solid ground. Every time I make a breakthrough in the pool it gives me an immense feeling of accomplishment, I love it. It's so challenging that in some ways I've come to love swimming more than running. I know I'll make that pack, I'm so very close to doing it.

Meanwhile back at Pewaukee the bike course was a challenging and technical double loop of the sprint course. Claire had told me beforehand that the bike was rolling hills with a few turns, which was an outright lie. Lots of hills, with some screaming 40mph descents that were exciting and some very tight turns that I was able to use to make up time on the couple of people in front of me. My bottle shot off the front of my bike like a rocket going over some railroad tracks on the first loop, which has never happened to me. I was bummed because of the heat and missing out on fluids. I slowed at every aid station on the run to drink water, which I haven't felt the need to do in a race before.

This is not Bryan Rhodes, this is my dad. However
Bryan is only 5 years younger than my dad.

At the end of the day I was 2^nd to Bryan Rhodes, a 40 year old! Plus he's an iron distance guy! I've always said old man strength is a powerful thing and he proved it by crushing me on the bike by 4 full minutes. We chatted after the race for a while which was fun because he's actually a hilarious guy. Like a lot of foreigners(he's from Christchurch New Zealand), Bryan spices up his conversations by liberally dropping the F bomb with a casualness that I envy. At first my midwestern sensibility was shocked and a little uncomfortable with his callousness, but then I remembered that I hate being politically correct and trying never to offend anyone with language and we had a couple great laughs.

Incidentally, Bryan seems to also appreciate the value of great facial hair, which you can see in the pictures on his website: http://www.rhodsey.com/index.htm and ESPECIALLY this one: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151142319263319&set=t.692096367&type=3&theater

Pewaukee Triathlon Results

Afterwards Claire and I packed up and drove the 5 hours back home. Killer Weekend.

Now I have two weeks of training before my annual dose of self destruction at the Chisago Half. This is a good chance for me to try and figure out how to better fuel for the 4 hour sufferfest without bonking in spectacular fashion as I am wont to do. Further upping the challenge, my coach, who is me-self, reminded me that I haven't ridden my bike farther than 30 miles this year and that a half iron bike is 56 miles. So I will do what most 'coaches' who actually don't know anything other than how to copy training plans out of a book would tell you not to do and squeeze in a ride of 75 miles this Wednesday and 55 miles this upcoming Sunday.

Wish me luck and train safe out there.

St. Louis 5150

Race Morning Setup

If you looked at the results from the 5150 St. Louis Tri last weekend you might have said to yourself something like this, “slow run times, slow bike times and that Dan Hedgecock swam terribly slow...” And you would be right about the run and bike times. The course was incredibly hard. A very technical close to the bike followed by the hardest 10k course I've ever run left me crying uncle by the finish line. As for the swim and that Dan Hedgecock, not so! I did come out of the water dead last. But the problem was just that there weren't any other professional duathletes racing at this tri.

Where I needed to come out of the water to be in the race was about 19:40 and I swam 21:04, 1:25 behind. A minute and a half to a minute has been the gap for me this year and it's still a big chunk of time to make up. But last year I was looking at a 2 to 2 and a half minute gap to where I needed to be. I'd love to be right on the toes of the swim pack coming out of the water, but you can't wish yourself to be fast.

At my first race my sophomore year in high school I ran 4:27 in the mile. Two and a half years later I had only improved my mile to 4:20. At that time I knew I could run faster, but I just hadn't been able to make it happen in a race. Then, 6 months later I ran a 4:09 mile. Getting stuck in a plateau is never fun, but it's a part of racing. There's just no way to avoid plateaus. There's always articles in the sport magazines about “breaking through plateaus” and inspirational things like that. But it's a bunch of rubbish.

Right now I know that I can swim faster, and it will happen much sooner than two and a half years. But until that happens I just have to buckle down, put my nose to the grindstone and keep putting in quality work.

G$'s Room

 Post Race: I was looking forward to this race for a month because of everyone I know who lives in St. Louis. Mark and Amy Livesay started me down my multi-sport career without me even knowing it when they gave me a job at their running store back in college. Seeing both of them now that I'm racing was great. The Jeffries cooked me a delicious salmon dinner Friday night. I stayed with my college roommate Garett Saturday. And the Tipper O'Brien brought me ice cream after the race.

Next weekend is Lifetime Minneapolis Tri where there will be plenty of fast swimmers and hopefully a few duathletes as well.

5150 Results

Pictures from West County Photo

Trinona And Rochester

David popping victory champagne at Trinona courtesy of Yndecam.

If you've been racing in Minnesota this spring you probably have a little more hair on your chest now because the weather has been TOUGH. Lots of rain, clouds, cold and wind. Last weekend Claire and I drove down to La Crosse, WI and stayed with Claire's sister Sarah before racing at Trinona. We had a fun road trip even though we were both shivering cold by the time awards was over. Dave Schutz puts on the race and really delivers on the experience. Winona is his hometown so he's personally invested in the race and it shows. There are even podium girls to give out the awards. I was second to Thompson, which I was happy with and managed to barely win the King of the Mountain bluff climb again.

Trinona Results

Yesterday at the Rochesterfest Tri put on by Final Stretch the race was delayed 30 minutes due to a threatening line of thunderstorms that slowly crept across Minnesota all morning. We were fortunate and had no lightning so the swim wasn't canceled. It's a two loop swim with a short beach run in between, which I think is a blast. All of the spectators line up and cheer. I swam behind Thad and came out of the water a minute and a half back.

After the swim the fun was over. Even though there was no lightning the wind was very strong and somewhat gusty, getting up to the 20-30mph range. The bike course is an out and bike on country roads that run in a grid and the wind happened to be blowing at either a direct head/tailwind or a 90 degree crosswind. So the ride out alternated between white knuckle riding leaning into the crosswind praying that I didn't get knocked over by a big gust and cruising at 35mph not even pedaling because of the strong tailwind. After the turnaround the crosswind was the same back into town but the portions of the bike riding into the wind was a slow grind straight into the headwind. I was riding my Gear West 808 Zipp front and Zipp disc. It was the most nerve-wrecking riding that I've ever done. The entire time I was counting down the miles until I was off the bike and safely on two feet for the run.

Kevin actually got off the bike a couple seconds ahead of me and when I caught up to him I asked if he wanted to run together. We had a very big gap back to second place and I haven't run a race with a teammate since college. He was all for it so we pushed through the 10k and tied for first at the finish. I thought about asking him if he wanted to hold hands crossing the line, but Kevin is too classy for that.

Rochester Results

All in all it was a fun race. It was certainly a memorable race. I complain a lot about the weather up here in Minnesota, but that's mostly because I'm only tough in the heat and crumble in the cold. And even though I whine about it being cold, you just can't beat the races up here. In just 5 weeks I've raced at two duathlons and two triathlons that were really great races. And if I had wanted to I could have raced the Liberty Half the weekend I took off and made it a consecutive five. I've been racing for a long time and still, after getting the car packed up and driving home after each one I've said to myself, 'that was really fun'. There's not many other states where you can do that.

Trying to get my running legs back at
Trinona. Another great shot by Yndecam.

Other than getting in some great early season racing and some good training I haven't done much else. I've been putting in 25-35 hours a week at GW to replenish my woefully small bank account and that has kept me busy. Thank god it's a fun place to work and I get to talk bikes all day or I would probably have gone into depression. Claire and I are renting a room down in Bloomington now and the location is great. I haven't done much riding outside, I usually just get on the trainer and crank for an hour to squeeze more work into a shorter time frame, but the running down here has gotten me really excited. The Mississippi river bottom trails are only a mile away and Hyland Park is only a mile and half. Maybe this summer I'll find my running legs out on the trails somewhere.

I'll be driving down to St. Louis on Friday to race at the 5150 Innsbrook on Saturday. There is a professional field and I'm looking forward to my second 'pro' race.

Train Safe

Pig Sprint Recap

Two B2s, 4 Zipp Wheels, 2 Race Bags and 2 Racers. Claire and I packed the Mini to the maximum for the drive down.

I traveled down to Cedar Rapids IA this weekend for the Pig Sprint Tri with Claire, who is the best road trip partner there is. We both love this race because the elite men and women compete in an equalizer format for a $750 bonus to whoever crosses the line first. Last year the women's head start was 9 minutes over the men and Claire ran away with the race and set a new women's course record. This year, the elites all agreed to try and make the race a little closer by cutting down the head start to the difference between the men's and women's course records, 7:43.

Race morning was cold and windy. I forgot to pack a jacket and walked around all morning with a blanket from my car to keep warm until it was close enough to race start to put on my wetsuit and go jump in the water. Even though the water temp was only 64, it felt great after the cold wind and I had enough time to get in a good 10 min swim warm up.

Kevin hooked me up with a new Blue Seventy Helix wetsuit this winter.
I had to model it in the living room for Claire this spring because the lakes were still frozen.

Tami Ritchie led the women out of the water in 6:17 as the men lined up on the beach. By the time we started, most of them have already started the bike course. I made a solid step toward redeeming myself after my St. A's swim debacle with a respectable 6:23 for a 500m swim. David was out of the water 9 seconds ahead of me and although he had an uncharacteristically off day, I was excited to be able to actually see him since he's normally on the bike and gone by the time I finish the swim.

I very quickly made up that 9 second difference in transition when David realized he had left his helmet in the Gear West van. He had to run through the parking lot, grab his helmet and then run back to transition. Daniel Bretscher, Thompson and myself all started the bike together and put in some time leading. The wind was so strong that I was getting blown all over the road and was white knuckle gripping my bars on the long straight descent out of the park at 40mph without any tree coverage to break the wind. Because the three of us rode together there was a very advantageous draft even though we maintained 3 bike length separation. At that distance there is a slight draft even without a headwind like we had on some sections. The women were much more split up and also got pushed around more by the wind because they are lighter.

Riding into transition we were pretty much on top of the lead two girls, Claire and a fellow Mizzou track and field alum Sunny Gilbert. I once again got an advantage coming into transition when Bretscher and Thompson drifted into each other during dismounting and both went down. Neither was hurt, but I ran past the two of them and racked my bike next to Claire as she was putting on her shoes.

Pig Sprint is hands down one of the best
races in the Midwest, but it fills in January
so you have to register early to get in.

Claire gave me a slap on the butt and told me to go catch Sunny. I got my legs under me running through the uphill transition and started the first mile running as hard as I could. I know from personal experience that in a run as short as 5k, if someone has a decent lead at the turnaround it's mentally really hard not to just let them go. The run was slow because of the wind, but I felt good and was really happy to cross the line first.

Race Results: http://www.pigmantri.com/pigman-sprint/results/pig113b.pdf

After the race David and I didn't want to do a cool down run with Kevin, so we all went for a walk with Claire and I was right back to freezing cold. We spent the rest of the morning huddled in the van trying to warm back up except for Kevin, who apparently doesn't feel cold even though he was wearing shorts, he spent the entire morning catching up with Iowans he knows and helping people with mechanical problems.

Now it's time for another big work week with good consistent aerobic mileage. Claire and I are driving to Winona MN next weekend for Trinona, “The world's biggest little triathlon”.

Train safely and wish me luck.

St. Anthony's and The Gear West Duathlon

I never finished a blog after St. Anthony's. I started one a few times but I didn't have much to say. I had high hopes for the race and then swam so poorly I got beaten by a girl. I've become familiar with the ups and downs of racing, thankfully, and after such a disappointing race I just had to put it behind me and get back to training.

St. Anthony's results

With a little more time and another good race under my belt I can revisit St. A's. I swam awfully which wasn't a surprise with the waves. The last half of the swim went farther out into Tampa Bay and the swells were 4 to 5 feet high. I haven't gotten good enough at swimming to do well in rough conditions. But I also raced terribly on the bike and run. I just felt like I had nothing in my legs. I've only run slower than I did at St. A's (34:41) once and it was at my very first triathlon in 2010 (34:57 on a much harder run course). There's nothing more disappointing than tapering for a race and performing terribly. I think the issue is that I put in some great speed work this winter and kept my overall mileage low. Then during March and April when I was moving back to Minneapolis and getting back into the routine of working I missed a couple days here and some workouts there which isn't a big deal if you have the strength to back up your training. For me, tapering after a good long strength block takes a few weeks to get that feeling of snap back into my legs. Tapering after doing a lot of speed work on the other hand is basically nothing. The entire speed block is a taper to keep my legs fresh and work on top end speed. But that also means that after a month and a half of moving, not getting in fast workouts and keeping my mileage low I was well rested but didn't have it on race day. It was my first pro race and I'm fairly confident in saying that I will never forget it.

After St. A's was the worst Minnesota spring ever. It continued to snow through March, then through April and even once or twice in May. The lakes were frozen until the last week in April and a few still held into May. Lake Nokomis, which I live next to, didn't ice out until April 28^th which is the latest ice out ever on record.

Tough stuff.

One of these toes is not like the others.

Now spring has finally arrived, and with plenty of rain and snowmelt everything is very green and the state is recovering from last year's drought. The Gear West Duathlon was yesterday and the weather was warm and muddy. Plenty of rain left standing water ankle deep on much of the run and the second time through plenty of mud. It's always fun to get off the roads and run through a bunch of muck.

We get very excited every year at Gear West for the duathlon and try to put on a really great race. I think this year was a success despite the threatening storms. We had Caribou coffee, pancakes, hot dogs, Zipp give-aways, lots of mud and sunshine at the end of the race. The women's t-shirts this year were also a home-run.

I raced well, which was a relief after St. A's. During the first run I ended up on my ass in a puddle coming

It's better to be lucky than good.

around a turn and thought that I couldn't get any muddier. Then running through transition with my bike I smashed one of my toes into a rack. I got on my bike a few miles into the ride and made the most dangerous error I have ever made while racing. I was trying to get into a rythym and focusing on relaxing while coming down a long, straight moderate descent. The road ends in a T at the bottom with the course taking a right turn. I wasn't paying attention to the road and looked up when I saw the lead vehicle turning right out of the corner of my eye. I was in the intersection with about 20 feet of road before it ended in a ditch with trees and road signs on the other side. I panicked, locked up my brakes, slid forward through the intersection, tried to turn my bike which came to an abrupt stop and threw me into the air. Very, very luckily for me there were no cars driving through the intersection and after skidding across the road my bike and I both ended up in the grass in the ditch. No permanent harm, just a respectable grass burn on my shoulder and a bit of a stiff neck this morning. I hopped back up and the rest of the race was uneventful. It was a fun day. Claire and I first met at the du two years ago. A lot has happened since then.

GW Du Results

Hopefully my toe heals up in time to start running again before Pigman Sprint in two weeks.

GW Du Start Line

Slowtwitch Interview

I am excited to have had the opportunity to do an interview with Slowtwitch. If you haven't heard of it, Slowtwitch is the LetsRun of the triathlon world. 

Slowtwitch Interview

I am also happy to have been able to stir the pot with the pro/amateur argument because I think the current system has some legitimate problems and have tried to sum up my thoughts on the issue here.

Triathlon distinguishes between “professional” or “elite” athletes and “amateur” athletes, but it's a vague distinction and this limits the value of using the distinction. As an amateur, you can still win money and have sponsors and even be paid by sponsors though it's unlikely. You can do everything that a professional athlete can do except compete in races with a cash prize purse of over $5k. In order to become a professional all you have to do is meet one of USA Triathlon's requirements, like top 5 at Age Group Nationals, and then send in an application. A lot of people talk about how hard it is to become a professional, but it is actually very easy to meet one of the requirements if you are legitimately fast enough to race professionally. As an amateur even though you can't compete for over $5k in cash, because USA Triathlon does not extend this limitation to prizes Hy-Vee was able to give away $151,000 in prizes to amateurs last year at their race and first place was a car worth $22k and a gift certificate to Orbea for $6k for a total of $28,000. I think if you win $28,000 in a race you aren't an amateur. Even if you can only sell those prizes for $20k, you've just made a year's worth of living expenses.

Even using the term professional isn't clear. USAT uses the term elite for professional racers and elite amateur for the amateurs that are faster than most other amateurs which creates confusion.

If there is going to be a distinction between professional and amateur athletes, I think it's important to only use the term professional for professional athletes and reserve elite for the elite amateurs at the front of the amateur pack. I also think the cash limitation should be extended to prizes. This creates a clear distinction between professional and amateur athletes which is valuable in two ways: athlete marketing and increasing the sport's legitimacy. Having clearly defined professional athletes gives those athletes a better ability to market themselves. The term professional implies that you are an expert in your sport at the top of the field and your opinion/recommendation is worth more than a non-professionals. This isn't actually true, but for marketing purposes implications can create realities which helps athletes market themselves to potential sponsors. As for the sport of triathlon clearly separating and acknowledging professional athletes as just that, professionals, helps to increase legitimacy compared to other professional sports. Of course triathlon is a far far cry from the MLB, NFL, etc., but why would outside companies ever invest large amounts of money into prize purses for the professional race when many people don't seriously see those athletes as professionals.

Basically, if we as a sport are going to have professional athletes we shouldn't stop halfway and need to commit to the system. Have fewer pros that are all legitimately professional and use those athletes to elevate and market the sport in order to give companies a reason to invest money into the big race series. Elite amateurs can spend a few more years racing as elite amateurs until they are faster.

In the end as an endurance sport I don't think triathlon will ever capture interest and investments like football or baseball and so we shouldn't have a separate professional system in the same way that running doesn't. But if we're going to have the system we ought to do it right.

Clermont Recap and Exercising Patience

2013 is officially on! Every winter I spend months training without any real racing and for some reason at the end of every winter I have an absurd fear that I won't be fast anymore. I know that it doesn't make any sense but I even have dreams about it. What if I'm doing all these workouts and think that I'm going to be faster than last year, but when I step up to the starting line I just don't have it anymore?

Putting this annoying fear to rest is always a priority for the first race of the season and this weekend I was able to do that at the Clermont Draft Legal Challenge. The race was early Saturday morning, 8:30 eastern time. It was a sprint distance of 750m swim, 20k bike and 5k run. There was 75 people in the race. 75 guys doesn't sound like a lot, except that all 75 of us start at the same time, and the distance to the first buoy was only 300m, and it was a U25 Elite Development Race, so almost everyone was fast all things considered. On top of all of that I put off registering until the very last minute and each person gets to pick their position on the start line based on when they signed up, so I had a terrible start position right in the middle of the field trying to squeeze in half a step behind two other guys. The first 200 meters was closer to a wrestling match than a swim, complete with swallowing plenty of lake water, getting kicked in the face, swimming over people and getting swum over.

Despite all this, I finally kept my cool in a race, found some open water and got back into decent swimming form. Up until now I have always took off sprinting at the gun and shot myself in the foot with sloppy technique. I could feel myself losing form and kept refocusing on a strong connected pull. I came out of the water in 20^th and was right on the tail end of the first pack getting on the bike. With the draft legal format this made all the difference for me. I couldn't be happier with the swim progress that I've made over the winter.

The bike was four 5k loops with a 180 degree turnaround at one end and a tight circle through transition at the other. My Florida training partner Jake Rhyner and I pushed the pace on the bike to make sure that the first chase pack didn't catch us before the run. I love the draft legal format, the pace is constantly accelerating and decelerating with people moving up and down the pace-line. 20 kilometers of biking goes by in what feels like 2 minutes.

The best part of draft legal racing: the bike.

Coming off the bike 5 or 6 guys put a really hard effort into leading out the run and opened up a couple seconds gap. I panicked, thinking that I was going to get left in the dust, and tried to pick up my cadence to stay as close as possible. After about a quarter of a mile they all started to slowly come back and I kept trying to move my feet as fast as possible. My final run time was a little slower than I had hoped for, 16:28, but for this time of year it's a good start.

Results are here: http://www.allsportsevents.com/Results/triathlon_results/ClermontChallengeDay12013.html#/results::1363039210251

I will be racing as an amateur through HyVee this year. It was a tough decision but I'm certain that it was the right move. Racing professionally is like running a small business. I know that as much progress as I have made, I still have work to do before I will be a contender. If I spent the spring traveling and racing as a pro I would likely make almost no money and would certainly have less consistent training. Instead, I will spend another half of a year focused on getting all of the details right and making steady progress training. I've been getting a lot of crap for not racing pro, but the choice between stalling my development to make very little money and buckling down for some hard work and getting faster yet with a very good chance at winning $26k at HyVee is a pretty easy one. Patience is a virtue.

I wouldn't do that if I were you...

This post shares my thoughts on our obsession with ultra endurance events and why I don't think that's a good thing for most people.

I want to argue that most people shouldn't make the jump to ultra(iron) distance and what's more, they shouldn't want to. I want to argue that racing, really racing and not just finishing, a shorter race is more enjoyable, healthier, and more challenging than finishing an ultra distance for nearly everyone.

It's not just triathlon that has become infected by the ultra-endurance bug. Marathons have been the king of road racing for a long time and the niche race of ultra trail runs of 50k, 50 miles and even 100 miles have seen a huge increase in popularity recently. And there's plenty of ultra enthusiasts among open water swimmers, mountain bikers and RAAM participants.

I think it's fair to argue that the growth and interest in these events is due to the extreme difficulty they present. When the existence of these events is brought to the attention of normal people, aka non-athletes, aka muggles, their reaction is a predictable “that's crazy” or “why would you ever want to do that?” Mostly though, they are grudgingly respectable of and sometimes openly admiring of people who finish these events. They know that it is a testament of a person's will power to get to the finish line for one of these “crazy” races.

As an aside, there is an unfortunate mentality among some athletes that they're better than muggles because they exercise and eat healthy and they will brag about the 2 hour workout they got up at 4:30am for to finish before work. If you brag about these things with your co-workers you should stop, immediately. It's akin to when that vegetarian¹ blathers on about how they're saving the planet by not eating meat, and about as enjoyable for them as when that coworker shows you pictures of their cat that they dressed up in costume over the weekend.

¹ Don't call a crusade on me angry vegetarians, for I am one of you. But let's be honest, vegetarianism, like religion, is something that should be encouraged through example, not frequent, self righteous lectures.

Challenge

Back to the point, ultras are a challenge, a proving grounds where you can step out of the hum-drum of ordinary routine and attempt something courageous. And ultimately, ultra events actually are just that, a challenge. But, marketing and social hype have taken this challenge and made it the ultimate challenge, the toughest event and so on. Finishing an ultra is made out to be the end all and be all for the endurance athlete, and that continues to drive the obsession to sign up for the longest possible race your sport offers.

But consider this: In order to finish that ultra you'll have to put in a lot of miles. A lot a lot of miles. Finishing is absolutely possible. I talk to people every week who put in one year of really hard work and just barely finished one, but they did it. So if you have a functional foundation to work on, it will just mean an exhausting number of hours of aerobic work. If you don't have the foundation, it will probably mean injury. Most people's lives are already plenty time crunched without trying to squeeze in 10 to 15 hours of training per week. Do you really want to get up at 4:30 every morning so you can ride the trainer for 2 hours before work?

A shorter race means less time spent logging miles. You could use that time to get some more sleep, or tackle a project you've been putting off for a month. If you really want to improve your health the time difference is a great opportunity to work on range of motion and overall strength. It won't necessarily make you faster, but it will help put an end to injuries, and who doesn't want to put an end to injuries?

So would you rather be a lithe cheetah or a rickety Energizer Bunny with kinesio tape covering you from head to toe?

Of course even though it means you'll have more time and feel better and not have to spend every season nursing your tight achilles, you may still be mesmerized by the challenge of completing an ultra. Here's where I will be a bit unorthodox. If you want a real challenge, something that is truly difficult and so tough that you may never be able to accomplish it, race an olympic distance tri and finish in under 2:15. (Sorry girls, I'm not good at estimating an equivalent time, maybe 2:40?)

I have a feeling a lot of people will respond like this: That's unreasonable, you think that's reasonable because you race fast, but that's so much faster than I've ever gone, I could never go that fast, that's impossible.

Yes, it is very very fast, and yes you would have to drastically improve to do that and some people no matter how fit they get may not be able to achieve that time, but that's the why it's more challenging, harder, more courageous than finishing an ultra. In order to be that fast you'll have to work for years balancing strength, speed and endurance, smartly avoiding injury and you will have to get very lean. It will take intelligence and commitment and long term planning. But if you achieve that goal you'll feel every bit as on top of the world as crossing that ultra finish line.

So here's my question to you: Are you up for a real challenge?

Minnesota: Where Duathlon Lives

USAT has published their 'Athletes of the Year' for 2012. Patrick Parrish and I represented MN well by receiving Duathlete of the Year and Elite Duathlete of the Year.

The full list of athletes in all categories is here: 2012 Athletes of the Year

If you've never done a duathlon before, they're a great way to test the waters of the 'multi-sport' world. The atmosphere is usually a bit lower key and more friendly than triathlons and for the majority of people a whole lot less stressful because you don't have to worry about the swim.

Gear West Bike has put on an early season duathlon for years and is the perfect venue for anyone thinking about trying out a duathlon. The race will be held on May 19th this year.

This year the crew at Gear West will be going above and beyond to make this the best duathlon of the year with the following perks:

• Pancakes and Caribou coffee at packet pickup
• On-site childcare
• Spectator friendly cross country style run course
• Sponsorship with Zipp to bring you some great give-aways.

Zipp is sponsoring the race which means there some great prizes up for grabs, and you don't have to be fast to win any of these, just lucky!

Each month prior to the race all of the registered entrants are entered into a drawing. Matt Moen won the prize for January, a pair of Zipp Tangente tires.

Still up for grabs:

• March: Two Zipp carbon water bottle cages
• April: Zipp Double Wheel Bag
• May: Zipp Gear/Transition Bag

And on race morning, a pair of Zipp 404 Clinchers will be awarded to one lucky participant!

So dig up your lucky rabbit's foot, put a horseshoe in your back pocket and sign up for a really top notch event today to get your season started the right way.

Registration and course info can be found at the GW Du website: Gear West Duathlon

I hope to see you there!

The Importance of Saying Thank You

I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success. I highly recommend it. In the book, Gladwell argues that the widely held view of great success as a result of purely individual determination and hard work is misleading and causes our society to let many potentially great successes stall and fail in their infancy. If you think this view isn't widely held just think back to the one man island rhetoric of the recent election. Through a number of very compelling examples Gladwell argues that success is a combination of individual determination and hard work meeting the right opportunities, and the importance of acknowledging those opportunities in enabling success to happen.

I know that I have worked incredibly hard to get to where I am right now. I've done things like riding my bike to work for two months during Minnesota winter, working for 6 hours and then riding to the gym in the dark to swim at 9:00 at night before riding home. But I also remember teammates from college who ran 100 miles a week and had just as much determination as I did who have fallen far short of their dreams.

With all of this in mind, I wanted to post an acknowledgment and an appreciation of a number of special circumstances in my life that have happened in such a way as to provide me with the opportunity to capitalize on my hard work. Each of these circumstances are not enough in and of themselves to produce success and are by no means inherently necessary for success as a triathlete. But what I want to acknowledge is the cumulative advantage of all these circumstances and to say thank you to those involved.

Special Circumstance #1 – Birth Place and Genetics

Two summers ago I had the opportunity to participate in a study at the Mayo clinic in Rochester on the effects of aging on oxygen uptake in athletes. I did a number of tests, but two in particular were very interesting for me personally, a VO2 max test and a lung capacity test. I found out that my lung capacity is 25% greater than average for a person of my size and that my VO2 max while cycling is 74ml/kg/min. The doctor administering the test also noted that runners using a cycling VO2max test will usually have results understated by around 10%, so my VO2max is probably closer to 80-82ml/kg/min. Here is an interesting roll call of some great endurance athletes and their VO2max numbers for perspective: http://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm

Both of these aspects of my physiology are more or less entirely out of my control, but still have a big impact on being fast. Having unusually large lungs and a high VO2 allow me to get more oxygen into my system and predisposes me to be successful at endurance events.

I am, by birth, a mountain man.

I have my birth place and genetics to thank as the first special circumstances that have gotten me to where I am. I happened to be born at 5000 ft in Denver CO and spent the first 5 years of my life in Boulder and Nederland CO at altitudes of 5k-8k feet. Studies have shown that populations born at higher altitudes have physiological differences including... increased lung capacity. VO2max is a more or less static number that is determined largely by your genetics and cannot greatly be improved except through the use of performance enhancing drugs like EPO.

Special Circumstance #2 – Growing Up “Not Affluent” When Kids Played Outside

I didn't grow up in poverty. I always had food to eat and clothes to wear. But I certainly did not grow up wealthy either. I never watched TV as a kid, and didn't have a gaming system until 8^th grade. I'm not complaining, in retrospect I consider this one of the most important circumstances of my life because as a result I spent all of my time outside. As a kid, what I remember is learning to ride a bike without training wheels and spending every day after that riding everywhere on my bike. I remember every evening getting together with all of the kids in the neighborhood and riding bikes or playing tag or football until the sun went down. What I don't remember is sitting in front of a TV playing video games everyday. Please don't think I'm condemning anyone's parenting. I'm simply acknowledging that I spent nearly every day of my childhood running and biking outside. This was the “base” of my endurance training. Every kid my age in St. Louis played soccer. I spent countless hours running up and down a soccer field as fast as I could, and I usually played mid-field, the position with the most running.

Special Circumstance #3 - 8^th Grade Track

When I was in 7^th grade, there were no sports at my junior high. Then when I was in 8^th grade we had spring sports for the very first time for 8^th graders. The sports that were offered: baseball and track. I wanted to do a sport, but would never have chosen track. Except that I am terrible at the only other sport that was offered, baseball. As a result of this circumstance I happened to go out for track. This is significant because if I hadn't tried track in 8^th grade I would have played soccer as a high school freshman and would not have ever run cross country and probably would never have done track either. I can assure you that I would not have had a chance as a professional soccer player. So as a result of very fortunate timing, I ran track in 8^th grade because it was the only sport offered besides baseball and as a result began running competitively and accumulating training hours in 8^th grade.

Special Circumstance #4 – Mizzou Mindset

The head coach when I ran at the University of Missouri was Rick McGuire. He is well known in the sport psychology field and placed a very big emphasis on sports psychology for our team. In 11 of the 12 Big 12 teams if you were a scholarship athlete and you ran poorly, your scholarship was pulled. In 11 of the 12 teams the only goal of the team was winning. At Mizzou, if you had a scholarship, it was never reduced. There was no cut throat mindset and no extreme pressure to perform. If you performed well, it was rewarded and if you didn't, you just went back to work, no negative consequences. From this I learned everything that I use today in regards to sports psychology, which is another post entirely, but I'll say that without the lessons I learned about how to think about racing, I would likely have given up at this point or would be struggling with external pressures.

Special Circumstance #5 – My Dad Worked at Target Corp in 2009

As a junior in college I got an internship with Target for the summer. I may have gotten this internship through my own merit, but I doubt it. My resume was passed to the head of HR by my dad because they were friends and I “happened” to receive a call from a recruiter soon after. Luckily I am reasonably intelligent and getting the internship is much harder than getting an offer, so in 2009 after I graduated I started working for Target. While at Target I had a moderate interest in getting back into racing for fun and looked into the tri club. The tri club happened to have a presentation for rookie triathletes a week or so later. Who happened to put on the presentation? David Thompson, professional triathlete from Gear West Bike. Through a number of circumstances and opportunities too long to list, I ended up living with Thompson and soon after working at Gear West Bike and Tri.

I cannot emphasize the importance of this opportunity enough. As a rookie triathlete, I was able to live with and observe a professional triathlete that had been racing for over a decade. I had a job at a store focused on triathlon with a staff that knows more about triathlons than any other tri store in the country (IMHO). Because I worked a salaried job for one year and then worked at a store where I could get product at cost I could afford a road bike, a top end tri bike and all of the equipment that young athletes struggle to afford. And when I started to seriously race, because of the groundwork that Gear West Bike has put into fostering the multi-sport community in Minnesota, I had a summer schedule of over 80 races to choose from all within driving distance, many of which offered prize money. I cannot think of better circumstances to have started racing in.

Special Circumstance #6 – A Moustache and a Speedo

Now that's a headshot.

This is my favorite circumstance of my current situation. In Oct. 2011 I grew a mustache for Movember. Everyone said that it looked horrible. I knew that it looked awesome. So I kept it and raced St. Anthony's with a mustache. Jake Rhyner, who happened to live next door in Wisconsin at the time happened to be racing St. Anthony's as well. We happened to be treading water next to each other while waiting for the race to start and Jake complimented me on how good my mustache looked. I won the race and he was second by only 30 seconds, so after the race we cooled down together and chatted for a while. Because he was a cool guy and was racing Lifetime I offered him a homestay at my dad's place for the race. Jake happened to be coached by a guy who lives outside of Clermont FL and could get Jake a job in Orlando. Clermont FL happens to be a hotspot for professional triathletes and after Jake moved down here he was able to finagle a way for me to live and train down here for the winter. Since moving down here I've had the opportunity to swim, bike, run with and learn from more professional athletes and have had huge improvements in all three sports.

At the end of the day, I have worked very, very hard and struggled often to get to this point and I am confident I will make it. But the truth of the matter is, without all of these circumstances happening just so, including 5 or 10 more that I don't have the finger strength to type out, I wouldn't have made it to here.

So thank you to everyone who has made this possible, especially my parents and Kevin O'Connor at Gear West Bike. I appreciate the opportunities you have created which I have worked so hard to take advantage of.