2017 Charleston Sprint Triathlon Series - Race 1 - 5th!

Hey guys!

So I finally had a race this year! Woot! It went fairly well. I mean... I didn't die. I finished 5th. And got some great fellowship with other athletes. Doesn't get better than that right?

(Caveat: there is no funny vlog with the kiddos for this race. However, we're hoping to capture more of these priceless moments in races to come!)

So it was the first race of the 2017 Charleston Sprint Triathlon Series. It's a great group of 5 races. This year, I was considered a "Defending Champion," even though I won the series in 2015 and not 2016. They did this for me as a courtesy, because I was unable to compete in 2016 (save for the first race, just for fun). Aren't they NICE?!?!?!? Man! (I knew it would be tough to win today, because some pretty fast guys have been racing in Charleston lately. But I'm always out there to go my fastest!)

So the morning began by me sleeping a half-hour through my alarm clock. Marian kicked me out of bed in a flurry and helped me get out the door in a record 8 minutes. On the way, my morning "movement" started to become somewhat... uh... urgent. So had to make a stop at a local hotel. TMI...?

Getting to the race, I was calm but slow. (Typical....) I did however, manage to finally squeeze in at least 5 minutes of swim warm up before the race. (Marian in the meantime was having a dickens of a time trying to get the slothful kids to the race. But literally 60 seconds before the horn blew, I saw Rianna run up to the edge of the lake and start waving wildly at me. WOOT!!)

Backing up 2 weeks before this... I had gotten my obligatory spring injury. This time in my hip. My run fitness was coming back very quickly, and I went on a 4 mile brick run one Saturday and managed to average 6:17 pace and stay very much in control. However, I strained a muscle of some kind in my left hip while on the run, and spent the two weeks leading up to the race hobbling around, wondering if I'd be able to race at all! So this was a bit of a question mark...

But with a little bit of encouragement from Marian, and a few little jogs to test the hip out the day before, I felt like it could handle the race. We would have to see.

So the horn blew and our elite wave took off! I'd been swimming a lot and was hoping that this part of the race would be "no sweat". The swimming part was just fine. The navigation part was HORRIBLE. I swerved and swayed every direction I thought possible. Pretty sure I swam an extra 100m across a 600m swim! (After the race, Jacob and several other guys I was racing with commented on seeing me way off in no-mans land..... it was THAT bad.) But somehow, I managed to swim a PR on the course. (It must have been short...heh)

When we got our way to bank and ran into T1, I knew this would be first test of the hip. Could it transition and run easily to my bike. I figured I'd know here whether or not I'd be able to finish the race. It held up with a little bit of pain, but nothing major. So I continued on.

I reached my bike, threw on my helmet and glasses. Then I ditched the glasses, because they were completely fogged. And I pulled my bike off the rack--

**CRASH!!!!**

--The bike rack completely collapsed in a heap in front of me!Fortunately, there was only one other bike in the heap (because of my swervy swim). I wanted to be courteous. So I layed my bike down and remove the pile of rubbish from atop the other bike. I probably lost about 30 seconds here. A bummer, but also it's important for me to not be a JERK at races. If I'm going to be a witness for Christ, then poor behavior like this simply won't do!

I ran out of T1 and got to work on the bike. There were guys out there to hunt down! I cranked my way around the lake and caught one guy in front of me. About the same time, two more guys come rolling by like a freight train. I upped my effort to try and stay with them. When we were out of the park, we caught up to Jacob, and he latched on to the pain train. I tried to go to the front and pull away, and the group just stayed with me. Then other folks would try to do the same, and we'd reel them back in. I did my best to keep distances as legal as I could here. It's difficult when you have a rotating crew of four guys riding together, all of them strong cyclists. We all wanted to be in the front!!

When we hit the turnaround, I saw George Moreno riding back already and saw that Miles Fowler (a friend who had beat me in the final race of 2015) was still about 30 seconds up on us. Ug... we still had some work to do. We upped the pace and rode over 26MPH back to T2, and Miles was just putting his shoes on as I ran up to rack my bike. I grabbed my race belt, took off and---

**CRASH!!!**

Ohhhh nooooo.... It happened again, I thought.

I looked back and, yes, a rack had fallen over. Fortunately this time, it wasn't mine. My heart went out to the poor soul who now had a large mess on his hands, and I took off on the run.

My hip in the mean time was protesting a bit, but holding up. The rest of my body was NOT happy with me. That first mile, I felt like doo doo. George was so far ahead, I couldn't see him, Miles was way down the road, and the guy I'd come into transition with was pulling steadily away. Nevertheless, I knew that I couldn't blow myself up on the first race of the year; ESPECIALLY with my hip. So I stayed within myself and kept it steady.

As I was coming around the lake, another guy passed me, putting me in 5th place. But then Rianna bolted out of the crowd yelling and screaming like a crazy fan and I threw my hand out to hi-five her as I started lap 2. THAT gave me some more spring in my step!

Plus, I could hear footsteps and breathing behind me...

But I DIDN'T look back! Instead, I ran faster. I picked the pace up, determined to hold whoever it was at bay from catching me. Then the footsteps and breathing got quieter. But I didn't slow. I ran the rest of the race like I was being chased, and I didn't quit. I ran to the end and crossed the line in 58:03 and 5th overall. A personal record for this course for me... HA. All of us guys in the top 10 were shaking our heads at how fast the race was. Way to start the season with a bang!!

It felt silly, to be setting PR's on the first race of the year. But I'm hoping that it bodes well for how the rest of the year will go. I really can't take any credit for it. I'm just thankful to God that I have the opportunity to feel His pleasure when I swim/bike/run and to be able to enjoy the company of great people and share Christ's love with them!

Me with teammate Brad Hipp

I am ALSO thankful for my wonderful wife Marian, who is my forbearing confidant and coach. She is SUCH an encourager; and she's SO wise about athletics. I would have quit or broken myself a long time ago without her.

....since the race. I have spent the last few days trying to recover my hip, which tightened up like a drum afterwards. I could barely walk by the evening. But I'm doing better on Wednesday, and doing some spins on the bike now. Next week, I should be able to bring back swimming (we do a LOT of kicking at practice). And then we'll see how that goes before I reintroduce running.

Until next time! Take care!

2017 Update! Goals and Vision

Hi Everybody! It's been a great start to 2017. It began with me still being in the middle-east on my military travels, which began in July of last year. But I returned in mid-January to much hoorah and fanfare! 

We are all pretty much ecstatic.

Also, when I was away, I was able to log some pretty decent training. I rode a couple thousand miles on the trainer, ran a fair bit until October (then I just focused on cycling and gym strength), and - believe it or NOT - I was actually able to SWIM on occasion! (But that ended in October as well.)

Then one of my buddies, John and I decided that we were going to create and ride our own Tour of Sufferlandria while I was gone. That was 9 days of cycling with no rest days, and all of them were very intense sufferfest workouts. Also, we made Blender day 8, and It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (aka ISLAGIATT) as day 9. It was tough, terrible, and terrific all at the same time. It also helped me get into super good cycling shape. So I hope to carry that into this next year... Here is a picture of us starting the first day, complete with a Sufferlandrian Flag. (And yes, we were doing it in December in an unconditioned expeditionary structure. So it was very cold on some mornings.)

So now that I'm back, we are still here in Charleston, SC and I'm going to continue to train and make it the best year I can. It's been interesting. As I become a more experienced athlete, I realize that I should try to stress less about training, and stress more about making sure that I'm putting my relationship with God and my family FIRST before training and work. When I do that, I enjoy my job and my training much more; and I can still remain competitive.

Here are my goals this year, in priority order:

1) Win the Elite category for the Charleston Sprint Triathlon Series.

2) Complete the the Festivelo with at least two of the days the 100 mile route.

3) Run a sub 37 minute 10k by the end of the year.

That last one may be a bit of a pipe dream, but I think I can actually do it, if I'm smart about my periodization this year. I think I can probably do it in August/September. We shall see.

My periodization plan will be to continue enjoying the next few weeks with the family and just doing whatever I feel like. When I start back to work, I'll pick back up with structured training, mostly focusing on Swimming (if work allows) and cycling, and reintroducing some brick runs. I'll stick to this for a couple months, and then start introducing some tougher running stuff in March/April.

When I get into the thick of the Charleston Sprint Series, I'll even out the training hours across the three sports. (Because that's where I shine as a triathlete. I'm not the fastest in any one of the sports, but I'm fast enough in all three that I can usually fight for the overall win.)

Then as soon as the final series race is complete, I'll simultaneously try to run that sub 37-minute 10k and up my bike trainer volume to try and finish the Charleston Vestivelo with at least two of the days being the 100 mile route. The event is across Veterans day weekened and is four days of consecutive riding. Some people manage to do 100 miles every day!!!!

Charleston Sprint Series - Race #1

Hey Everyone! So I had a GREAT race this last weekend! It was awesome to come away with a win on my only race of the year. (The military has "other plans" for me.)

 But this race was a BLAST. But before you read the rest of this blog, you need to watch this video... (see below). It my attempt to do a "vlog" with the kids. And it completely failed on the race report report front, but yielded some pretty awesome results on the "kid humor" front (and I included a couple shots of the race too). I thought it was pretty funny...


So the race went REALLY WELL. Obviously. I'm STOKED. It was awesome to be the first across the line. I think I'm most happy that I won without putting in as much training, because I'm mostly taking this year off racing. I really only did this race for fun because my Uncle Mike came to visit us, and we wanted to do it together. So I really only spent about 5 hours a week prepping for the last couple months. But here's how it went:

Uncle Mike and I got there and grabbed our spots in transition and checked in. We chatted with some of the other athletes. I talked with Sandy, Carole, Jacob, Krista, and some other swimmers from my masters team who were all racing. (Our swim team pretty much rocked the entire swim, BTW. The first 15 people out of the water were almost all Palmetto swimmers...)

So as I was getting in the water and putting on my goggles, *SNAP!* My goggle strap broke. This normally wouldn't be a problem, except - oh by the way - my other pair of goggle broke last week, and I didn't replace them. So now I'm down both sets of goggles, and I'm up a creek, without a paddle, and the race is starting in like... 5 minutes. So I'm running back to transition, and Marian yells, "what are you doing?? The race is THAT way, silly!" And I explain my dilemma... so then Marian Poppins pulls out her magical bottomless bag/purse thingy, and hands me her goggles... which are the same brand as mine.

Ok..... uhm. Thank you....? *sheepish*

After that crisis was averted, I head back to the water and jump in. I hadn't warmed up yet, since (as usual) I'd taken forever getting set up in transition, and talked with a bunch of people. So after then national anthem, I tried to splash around for a couple minutes until they counted down and blew the horn.

AND off we went!

For triathletes: You know how you might know everyone around you in the swim, but then as soon as you start swimming, you forget you're all friends and you suddenly start punching and kicking each other like we're a bunch of wildebeest crossing the Nile while trying to escape the crocodiles? Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. The good news is that we all swam pretty hard and fast. Which is good, because they had lengthened the swim, so even though our official times were a little longer than last year's races; we were pushing the pace more than we normally do.

Unfortunately, because of all the kicking and punching, someone swimming on my feet knocked my timing chip off my foot. First time that's ever happened to me! But otherwise we finished the swim a little battered and bruised, but all the still ready to keep racing... heh. (I heard a couple folks panicked and had to be pulled out. I felt badly for them.)

I jumped out of the water and tried to actually hurry through T1 this time. I failed miserably when I got hung with my aero helmet. Ug..... (This one is my bad, because I hadn't practiced in advance. And the aero helmet is a bit tricky, in my defense.) As I was running out with my bike, Marian, Jenn (Marian's/our really good family friend was also in town visiting us), and Rianna were all cheering up a storm! I LOVE THAT. I also managed to yell to Marian that I'd lost my chip on the swim before I rode off.

So since I'd been passed by a bunch of people in T1, I hammered on the bike for the first 3-4 miles until I saw Jacob up ahead with the lead vehicle just ahead of him. I worked my way up to him and passed him shortly after a sharp turn. I shouted, "alright! Now let's go!" But the truth was, I needed to slow a bit to recover from the catching-up effort.

When we hit the turnaround, I felt like I had some energy again, but then we were working our way into a head-wind, so I needed to be conservative to avoid burnout. It was about this point that a "new guy," named Sterling, passed me and I thought.... "Who is that?!?" He pulled away for a mile or so, but then I increased the effort again and pulled him back in to the minimum legal distance. But then, who should come by me again but Jacob! Then he shortly passes Sterling. And then Sterling passes him back. We were both thinking the same thing, we could tell we needed to keep him close on the bike, lest he escape and we never see him on the run. But I also wanted to avoid leg-burnout. It was a battle of moderation. (Amidst all this, I spotted Uncle Mike going the other direction to the turnaround, and I gave him a holler. That was cool to spot him!)

We came in to transition together... well kinda. Sterling hit the afterburners or something, because he was out of the transition probably 20 seconds before Jacob or I. I almost forgot my race bib, but grabbed it at the last second. Then, amidst the cheering, Marian yelled that the timing folks would manually record my overall time when I finished. So not to worry about the lost chip.

I rocketed out of the transition on a mission to get Sterling. He was moving quickly and with clear purpose to hold us off. So I knew we had to get him in the early stages of the race if either Jacob or I wanted a shot at winning. I saw Jacob put down some pretty fast 5k runs on this course last year, so I also wanted to try and give myself a leading edge by pushing it early in the run and then hope I could hang on in the end.

I caught Sterling right around mile 1, and then decided that I needed to put some time into him. Even though I'd run the first mile quickly, I evaluated myself and decided I had enough in the tank to go faster. So I bumped it up a notch. When I completed the first lap around the lake, Marian, Rianna, and Jenn's cheers pumped me up and gave me a boost to bump it up even more. I didn't look back and held my own all the way around the lake again and then headed out on the dog-leg out-and-back. I got to see Uncle Mike coming in on the bike and gave him a hoot and holler; and he hooted and hollered back!

Then I hit the turnaround and saw that I'd put a good amount of time into Sterling and Jacob; who seemed to be locked in a battle at this point. It would have been enough of a gap to cruise in to the finish, but I wasn't satisfied with that. I pushed the pace even more. Knowing that I could go into the red at this point, because there was less than a quarter-mile to go. Everyone yelled and screamed as I came around the final corner to the final run-in. It's kind of special to be at a race where you've raced enough and most of the volunteers and staff know you on a first name basis.

It was awesome race. We spent the next couple hours just talking with friends and other athletes and cheering Uncle Mike in as he finished the race. Then we ate donuts, and other goodies, and waited for the awards ceremony. Then we refueled at "Boxcar Betty's", which pretty much has the best fried chicken sandwiches EVER. And then we played Candyland with Rianna after eating lunch.

Here are a few photos. Credit goes to Marian!

The Podium, From the left, Sterling, Myself, and Jacob

Fellow teammate, Jake Bergman podiumed in his age-group!

Jake and I together

Some of the Palmetto Masters swimmers

Uncle Mike and I

And then we had naps. The end.

Most thanks go to my coach: Marian. Winning races on 5 hours of training per week is not easy. And requires some tight planning. As usual, she was a big factor in ensuring this training was executed properly.

Also, I have the best team in the world! US Military Endurance Sports is a great team to be a part of. If you're military and you'd like to ask me questions about them, please shoot me a message.

As usual, Trainerroad provided me the best possible time-crunched bike training, and triathlon training plans out there. If you don't know who they are, then you're seriously missing out on one of the best cycling training gems in the world.

Also, Coach Doug and all my teammates at Palmetto Masters Swim Team. You guys are awesome, and I'm so thankful to have such a national-class team with national-class swimmer to kick my butt every day in the pool.