Buffalo Recap, Going to Worlds, OTC Day 1

It's been an absolutely crazy last week, I've been meaning to put out a blog, but with all the recent developments I thought it would be a good idea to save it all for one. I hope I made the right choice, there's a lot to cover!

Dan Feeney, Myself, and Jason Pederson after Buffalo

First off, the Buffalo race was USAT pro nationals. This means it was draft legal and the top American athletes showed up to go for the title and some pretty decent prize money. I had my best showing yet, and got a little closer to making it into the money. The start was hectic as always, and I was the 48th call-up out of 50 athletes. This means everyone except for me and three other guys had already picked out there spots on the start line. This is a critical part of a race because being next to a group of fast swimmers will be immensely helpful with actually getting into a pack with those athletes. I was 30 guys away from the guys who made up the lead pack and my start wasn't good enough to get me into their group. I came out of the water 20 seconds behind about 9 leaders and couldn't close the gap in the early stages of the bike. I fell into the chase pack, which worked decently well together, but far from ideal, and we lost about a minute through the 40k ride. Going into the run I felt fresher than I have the last two races and I had an awesome first 5k. Around the halfway point, my quads started doing their typical cramping routine and the pace lagged just a bit. I couldn't quite close down the gap to the U23 podium, and finished in 4th place. I was the 9th American and 16th overall. This is definitely my best result so far. Kelowna was a 16th place finish, but didn't quite have the depth of talent that this race did.

Following the race I spent a week hanging out with my buddy, Matt Curbeau in Penn Yan, New York. His folks have a beautiful house on Keuka Lake, which I found to be a perfect training location. Matt is training for the Hawaii Ironman and was in the middle of his "big week" so he had some big workouts that I joined in on and some that I didn't!

Two days into the stay, USAT called and asked if I could do U23 worlds. My task would be to "domestique" for Greg Billington, which meant that I would break the wind for him on the bike and give him any support that he needed in order to better team USA's chance at a medal. Also included in the deal would be time at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, and a short training camp in Australia prior to the race. Needless to say, I jumped at this amazing opportunity and started getting myself out of off-season mode and back into race mode. I had a return flight to Portland that got in at 9:35pm Saturday, and a flight out to the Springs on Monday afternoon. Just enough time to get together 5 weeks worth of training and racing equipment!

I've now been at the training center for almost 24 hours and I'm already very tired and looking forward to bed. Swim practice was at 8, bike ride with lots of all-out hill repeats at 11, and run at 4. Typical day really, except it was at 6000 feet and I felt like a fish out of water. Until a thunderstorm with lots of rain and lightning chased us off the hill and back to the training center. Nothing a long, warm shower, and some nap time couldn't fix. Day one of many in the books.

Looking forwad, Greg and I will be racing in Coronado, CA this weekend in an F1 triathlon. This means it's super short and super intense. 300 swim, 4 mile bike, 1.5 mile run. Two times straight through. Running back into the water for a second swim after an all-out mile and a half run should be interesting!
www.f1tri.com/    If you're interested in checking out the website and pro start list.

Here's to taking things to the next level! Thanks for reading :)

...I'll elaborate on the time at OTC and the details of the World Championship preparation a little further down the road.