NEW WEBSITE!!

I've moved everything over to ericlagerstrom.com

I'll leave this site up for a little bit while I get everything ironed out, but go check the new site out!!

Ride Blog: The whole Family!

http://www.strava.com/activities/177529219

63.6mi                 3:54:48                   6,047ft

   Distance              Moving Time           Elevation 

I had the great pleasure of taking a ride with my Dad last weekend. (This is actually his Garmin file-I took the Garmin from him once he climbed in the sag wagon!) We rode from our house up Mt. Hood to Lolo pass road. It was a ride I've meant to do for years and for some reason I've just never gotten around to it. The experience was made even better because my Mom came along for the second half and sagged the ride! I was climbing up the pass and got a fresh bottle out the window of my Dad's Mazda. That was about the coolest thing that's happened to me in a while :)






The ride got interesting near the end as there was a bit of a mis-communication on the route. My Dad had climbed in the car while I was capping off my kilo-joules and I put a bunch of time into him and my Mom on a technical, one lane descent. I got to the bottom and went straight, while my parents (some time later) made a right. I almost immediately blew out the sidewall of my rear tire and was stranded while my parents frantically searched for me on the descent and the road that I hadn't actually taken. A goo rapper, 15psi, and a very ginger 3 miles later we reconnected, rejoiced in everyone's being alive and I called it a day. Snacks in the car as we drove down the mountain put the cherry on a perfect day.

Jiayuguan World Cup Recap

The Triathlon.org video gives a pretty good synopsis of what happened, and since I was in the break, I got a little bit of face time.
I came in to the race with just slightly less than perfect preparation, having nursed an elusive patella tendon pain over the previous weeks. It wasn't enough to keep me from training, but it did make me cautious in workouts and I felt I lost a little bit of fitness, especially on the run. Regardless, I wanted to have my best showing ever, and while a breakaway was incredibly risky, being a hot race at altitude, I made a calculated decision based on the speed of the pack and the other athletes in the break. I felt this was my best chance for a top-10 finish and committed fully. Unfortunately, the fitness wasn't quite there and I faded on the run to 30th place. This is still my best World Cup finish in a field of this quality, but I am hungry for more especially after feeling the podium within my grasp. Congratulations to Jarrod Shoemaker on a great race, and a big tip of the hat to the race organizers for putting on a extremely high-quality event!



I've come home to Portland, Oregon now to fully heal my patella and resolve the root cause of it's injury with the specialists at here at P.A.C.E. I am very optimistic about the second half of the season and so far my workouts here have been very strong. My next race will most likely be the Kelowna Pan American cup on August 17th in Canada. I'll be shooting for my first Continental Cup podium.

Thanks for following!

Hamburg in the rear-view, Jiayuguan in two days

I've been off the grid for a while and for that I apologize. But part of my excuse is that I literally HAVE been off the grid. I'm sending this message out from Jiayuguan, China. The Chinese government has put up a firewall that blocks all social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and most unfortunately, Google. This means no Gmail, no Google+, and no blogger. Luckily, a couple of days ago I got an IP-address masking program going and now I can use these sites! On Saturday I'll be racing in my first World Cup of the season here in Jiayuguan and I'm super excited about the chance to earn both ITU and Olympic points. World cups are a great level of competition for me and offer significantly more points than Continental Cups. This looks to be a good race setup for me in that Joe is also here and the bike course would be advantageous to a group making a break out of the water. Check out details and live timing Friday evening on Triathlon.org here.

Hamburg WTS
Last weekend (the 12th) I raced in Hamburg, Germany in my second World Triathlon Series race, and my first where I had no domestique responsibilities. It was the strongest field assembled in years, with the entire Olympic podium present, and something like 19 of the top-20 ranked athletes in the World. I had a great swim, but poor pontoon start position (as a result of ranking) and missed the lead pack by mere seconds. I chased hard, but ultimately had to wait for the second pack and save my legs for the run. I ran a PR 15:45 5k and came in 50th place. While 50th place may sound less than impressive, (and don't get me wrong, I want much more) this is my strongest race showing to date, and represents a great progression point on my way to competing for top-10's at the highest level. Things are going well :)

Back on the subject of China: follow me on twitter and Instagram for frequent updates, pictures and musings. China has a lot to offer with crazy driving, signs, and historical sites. It's an awesome place to visit and I'm super glad I'm able to do it with my squadmates, Jason, Joe, and Coach Paulo.


I have to give a shout-out to my partners, Athletes Lounge, NYAC, Roka, Rolf Prima, and Saucony for supporting me and making races like this possible. USA Triathlon has been awesome with travel, airfare, and accomodations, so please give them your support as well!

Wrapping Camp, leaving the country

Do. The. Work. Every day, you have to do something you don't want to do. Every day. Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable, push past the apathy and laziness and fear. -Grover


It was a good run this year in Flagstaff. A lot of swimming, biking, and running. A LOT of heavy breathing. Despite typical training ups and downs and some short lived exhaustion-induced  emotional "moments", it went infinitely better this year; I wasn't fresh off a heat stroke like in 2013, and I was mentally prepared for the challenge. I am super happy with the work I did and I'm counting down the days until I get to race.



This last week everyone has been prepping for races. Jason and Joe are leaving for Chicago WTS, Kevin is racing San Diego International Triathlon, and Brandon and Jen are driving to Buffalo Springs 70.3. I'm not racing until the 12th, but before then I've got some travel to do.

Joe, Brandon, Amy, and I all swim in ROKA

I've just finished up applying for my visa to China. I'm hoping to get my passport back from the visa service in time for my departure to Vitoria, Spain next Wednesday. I'll be there for a week before heading to Hamburg, Germany to race in either the Hamburg WTS individual race or the Mixed Team Relay World Championships! I'll be spending all of July in Europe, racing in China and Hungary as well. I'll have some other updates before then, but I wanted to get an update out before the next phase starts!

So High Right Now... 7000ft to be exact

Super dry, windy, oxygen-less, exhausting.

Makes you dangerous.

Training goes on

Got a little better than yesterday today. Same thing tomorrow. That's the process.

I'm in a little bit of a racing lull at the moment. I've been back from WTS apetown for a couple weeks and I still have a few more to go before Dallas Pan American Championships. Joe and Jason are racing in Japan this weekend and between all the travel we've each been doing, I feel like I've hardly gotten to train with them this year. I'm really looking forward to the time that we all have enough points to race big races and travel at the same time.

I dug up this Competitor Radio interview with the three of us last year that was a good time. It's not throwback Thursday yet, but who knows if I'll have energy to blog in two days!

http://competitorradio.competitor.com/?powerpress_pinw=2327-podcast

To get ready for Dallas, I'm doing as much warm weayher training as I can. Luckily California is cooperating and the forecast for the next few days is all 95F+. I sweat like crazy as it is, so I've been hydrating like never before. I've been resisting the urge to go shirtless as much as possible and unzipping my bike jersey less often. I'm determined to have a good race in Dallas and am pulling out all the stops on the preparation.

If you aren't already following my Instagram feed, here's a photo summaration of what's I've been up to lately. Thanks for reading!

Pan American Sprint Championships

Last weekend I placed 6th at the Pan American Sprint Championships in Sarasota, FL. The points I earned moved me up about 50 spots in the world rankings to around 160th!

Before I go any further I have to thank my homestay for the event, Stephen Daugherty and his wife Lynda for their incredible hospitality and generosity. They fed and sheltered 4 grown men in their house for almost a week, making sure we had everything we needed to succeed. This goes above and beyond the call of a couch to sleep on and I owe a part of the weekend's success to them. (the pictures on here are also Steve's work!)

In the individual race RESULTS I had a strong swim although not quite what I was hoping for, as I struggled to find my feel the first 200 meters before powering through the field in the second half. I exited just behind the lead group of 4, but quickly made up the deficit in transition and the first kilometer of the bike.The lead group rode very well on the whole and we came into transition with a healthy lead that held through the run. My run is coming along well despite some Achilles pain this winter and I'm excited to see it continue to improve through the next couple races!

I also competed in the Mixed Relay Championships, which featured two men, two women teams from Mexico, Canada, and USA. RESULTS I was on the top US team and we took second place behind Canada in a very exciting race that came down to my anchor leg. I "took the baton" with a 60 second deficit on the Canadians and dropped it to 45 seconds by the end of the 375 meter swim. I almost completely erased the gap on the bike, TT'ing to within 5 seconds of the lead. On the run my effort caught up with me and I couldn't push past the Canadian, but the crowd was pumped up and was appreciative of the show.

I was rocking a new kit that I couldn't zip up, but I failed in style.....

And a HOT new frame setup thanks to Athletes Lounge and custom decals on my Rolf Prima Wheels!

Here's a little highlight video fellow pro John O'Neill put together with footage caught by Brian Macarthur.

UP NEXT:

I'll be headed to Lifetime South Beach on April 6th next, where I''ll be breaking out the TT bike and racing for some big checks and points in the Lifetime Series.

Thanks for following

Race Season

I'll be racing this weekend in Sarasota Florida, at the Pan American Sprint Championships. There is a strong international field assembled, and the possibility of a breakaway on the swim/bike is high. Start list here

Saturday is the sprint distance race and Sunday is the Mixed Relay Championships. This means teams of two men and two women representing their country will race relay style. I'm looking forward to this, as each leg of the relay is super sprint distance (half of sprint distance) and this is a specialty of mine that promises a lot of excitement.

Follow my twitter feed for more info as the race approaches. It's go time!

Mt. Palomar Ride

• 88.0mi
  Distance
• 8,113ft
  Elevation
• 4:36:37
• Mov.Time      http://www.strava.com/activities/104329965
• 
  

The proof. The top. We were there.

We finally got the chance to ride the epic Mt. Palomar climb this morning. If you click on some of the Strava segments in the area you'll see names like Taylor Phinney and Marco Pinotti. We were in fine company. I realized afterwards that I was slightly dillusional in thinking that I may be able to crack the top ten for the descent on the first try. It make take a couple more passes before I have the lines dialed.

Too legit.

The squad was working great together. Jason, Joe, GREG BILLINGTON (back on the squad where he belongs), Derek, and myself took turns crushing the pedals at the front, keeping our average speed in the "total beast" range. They'll sing songs of our greatness some day.

[speaking of songs, play the one at the bottom of the post if you want the full media experience.]



Taking pictures proved to be impossible most of the time while we were riding, as the wind was in the 30mph range, often coming from the side. One segment was reminiscent of windy days at Kona and I was dissapointed I couldn't snap a shot of Jason leaned at a seemingly impossible angle trying to stay upright and on the road.

Paulo followed us for a good portion of the ride and took some video of us doing our thing. He caught me in my element on one of the epic downhill segments. I like to use the whole lane. Mom, you should probably not watch this :)

The best shot I could get from the top while riding.

When we were flying back towards town with a strong tailwind, Joe Jason, and I had survived the strong pulls and hard wind and were riding towards our Mexican food fix in Ramona like it would be our last meal on this earth. We made Nuevo Grill regret their free chips and salsa policy.

I had the song below stuck in my head, and I must have been experiencing that fabled "third wind" because I couldn't stop smiling. Just me and my team mates getting better one day at a time.

I got 99 calls and...