Lifetime Tri Oceanside- 2nd!!

This past Saturday I raced for the 16th time this season. It's been a long and intense first full season as a professional. I couldn't be more happy with the way it's wrapping up. It was amazing to back up my Elite Sprint National Title performance by placing second at the Lifetime Fitness Series Finale race in Oceanside, CA.The who's who of non-draft triathlon were in attendance including multiple Olympians. This result rivals my National Championship as the biggest of my career and to have them in one right after another confirms for me that I'm headed in the next direction and next year will be very exciting.

Results: http://edge.raceresults360.com/custom/oceanside2013/#/results::138193010984500

Photo: Paulo Sousa

I came out of the water 2 seconds off the lead, behind my training mate Joe Maloy as well as Cameron Dye. From there I started a long acceleration that wouldn't falter until I crossed the line at the end of the run. I had the strongest bike of my career, maintaining a 15-20 second gap to bike leaders Ben Collins, Cam Dye and Stuart Hayes. I started the run with Stuart Hayes, about 30 seconds behind Cam and 40 behind Ben. When we came through 5k Hayes had taken the lead from Cam and I caught Ben. With 2 miles to go, Cam still had 30 seconds on me and Joe Maloy had come up to my shoulder from almost 90 seconds back. The whole time I saw him coming I was thinking, "Without a doubt, Joe WILL catch me. If I want to be on the podium, I have to catch Cam Dye." I fully committed and accelerated, bringing the gap to Cam down to 15 seconds with a mile to go. At 800 meters to go I was almost kicking, dropping Joe and catching Cam 300 meters from the line. I went by, maintained my sprint and finished less than 15 seconds behind winner Stuart Hayes and 2 seconds in front of Cam. I found Joe in the recovery tent a few minutes later and I had to ask him how much money I had won! I hadn't put any pressure on myself going into the race other than to demonstrate how fit I was, and I hadn't even looked at the prize money breakdown.

The result STILL hasn't fully sunk in, but I am over the moon and I know this race was simply an accurate representation of the work that I've put in with the Triathlon Squad over the last year. I live and train every day with Joe and Jason and our Coach Paulo Sousa. It's the heated competition we have every time we get to a hard workout that gave me that extra bit to finish strongly and fully empty the tank. I can't overstate the impact they have had on me this year.


I can't wait until my next Lifetime race, they put on such a great event and I'll come in ready to chase after that elusive top step on the podium!




NEXT RACE:
This coming Saturday I will compete in my last race of the season, the Fearless F1 in San Diego. This is another double super sprint race and I'm looking to cap the season with another strong finish!

End of Season Plans

I saw this picture while searching the web for awesome bike related stuff and it got me to thinking about the off season, which is just two short weeks away. Once I cross the line at the last race of the season, I'll switch into fun mode and attempt to catch up on all the nonsense I've been missing all year while living the spartan lifestyle.

Among the list of things to do: beer mile, run Mt. Woodson, and motorpace with Derek's scooter.

Back to business!

Lifetime Oceanside on Sunday 

Making Videos

It's tough. It's a lot of extra work to film and edit stuff while you're trying to carry on with the usual training load. I think that's why you don't see endurance athletes do it very often. Action sports stars have film crews paid by Redbull or Nixon or whatever company that can follow them around 24/7 and edit film while the athletes sleep. Since there isn't currently a strong video culture in triathlon, despite some serious steps forward by Specialized (Day in the life), Cervelo (Beyond the Peloton), if athletes want to have any video insights into their training and lifestyle, they have to do it themselves. I think it's the way triathlon is going to go, especially if we want to bring athletes in at younger ages.

Zone: HAM

The workout: 5x4min paceline as fast as possible. This typically ends up being much more difficult than the same workout solo because it's so punchy and the level of effort is so high while riding on the front and even higher when jumping back into the line. That's why we call it Zone HAM. It's a 6 on a scale of 1-5. This workout prepares us for the fast-paced riding in draft legal racing. Watch for Jason at Cozumel World Cup this weekend, Joe at Tongyeong World Cup the following week, and all three of us at the Fearless F1 in San Diego on Oct. 26.