Devil Challenge Recap

Sunday was the last tri of the 2013 season and it ended with a bang!  I came through with back to back wins in the WI Tri series!

My plan going into this race was to lay it out on the bike.  The more I race, one thing becomes very apparent...if you can't ride towards the front you'll most likely not be in the hunt for a podium, regardless of how small/big the field is.  This is more or less true across all distances.  So yeah, after talking with Will, the ride was going to be a calculated hammerfest.

Race morning we were greeted with miserable weather.  I don't know what it is about this race, but every time I race Devil's Lake, it seems to be cold and rainy.  My apologies go out to all racers, volunteers and spectators ; )

I made sure to get a solid warm up prior to race start, this was especially important with the cold conditions.  Everything went off without a hitch and I headed to the beach.  When the horn blew I dolphin dove as far out as I possibly could because of the shallow water.  This is much faster than swimming (at least at my swimming level) but really tore my feet up.  The rocky bottom combined with the run to T1 left the bottoms of my feet battered and bruised.  But when the adrenaline is flowing, that doesn't matter!  With one of the faster swim times and the fastest T1 I was out on the bike with the lead.  As exciting as that was it was short lived.  While trying to get my left shoe strapped, it came completely loose, so I had to spend some time going slow trying to fix that.  However, once I was done with that dumb mistake it was game time.  From that point on my head was down.  I quickly took over the lead and didn't look back.

The bike course was slightly different this year due to construction, but it wasn't much easier.  The last 3.5 miles before the turnaround involve a lot of climbing.  When I hit the half way point I knew my best chance at making up time was on the descent.  The roads were wet, but I'm fairly confident with my descending abilities in the rain.  This was no time to let off the gas.  I think I came into T2 with nearly 2 minutes on 2nd place!

Getting my legs loose was my biggest priority at this point, so when my calves were cramped up at the run start I was slightly worried.  Luckily, I had an awesome cheering section at the end of the parking lot and my legs loosened shortly after.  I was running solid until the turn around, at which point I was able to see how big of a lead I had.  2nd-4th place were a decent ways back so I was able to cruise it in the rest of the way.  Rounding the final corner was a ton of fun!  This was my 4th time racing Devil's Challenge, so to take the win was a really nice surprise.  Its amazing how far consistency and dedication can take you.  Big shout out to everyone who raced, the conditions were far from ideal.  Also a big thanks to everyone who stuck it out and cheered.  It was great seeing some close friends at the finish, and my girlfriend Ali!  She made post race much more bearable, even though I was freezing and my clothes were completely soaked.  A BIG thank you : ) It was also great to see Scott, Bobby, Jay and Jordan rock the relay teams division!

Racine 70.3 RR

I had an entire draft written up for this race and absolutely hated it.  Everything sounded so robotic...maybe I just had some weird mental block because I'm focusing on Rev Dells?  I don't know.  Instead of writing up another standard race report I am going to try something slightly new by getting some more pics in here with quick tidbits of race day fun.  I might end up leaving out some stuff but that's ok!

This was my 2nd time doing Racine 70.3.  Last time was in 2011 and was my first half distance and can be summarized with 2 words: HOT and CRAMPS.  That is all.

I was no fan of the rough road conditions last time around, so I was not looking forward to the bike this year.  My goal for this race was sweet, sweet redemption.  I can say with confidence I achieved that goal : )
Since the race was Sunday, I arrived in Racine on Saturday morning.  Paul Eicher and his family were gracious enough to let me throw a tent on their camp site.  We had a blast!

Stuck inside Sunday post race.  Pouring rain for hours is no match for having fun!

On Saturday, Paul and I headed to the race site to get registered and do bike check in...we also got a nice swim in.  After getting my bike checked, I headed back to camp while Paul attended his pro meeting (he's sort of a big deal :P).

Race Highlights

Since I had such a late start I was very relaxed race morning.  After taking care of everything in transition and double checking my set up, I wandered towards the big hill overlooking the finish where I met Wattie Ink teammates Scott, Travis, Andrew Kohl, and Patrick.  I had also seen Cate and Jen earlier.  Since all the guys (including friend Mike T.) had roughly the same swim start we made our way down the beach together to get in a swim warm up.

Travis, Scott and I before warming up

Long walk down the beach

The swim was rough!  The wind was coming right into shore which made for less than ideal conditions.  During the swim I focused on keeping a high turnover, not taking in water and just going from buoy to buoy.  Very happy with how this turned out!  I came out of the water feeling great.  Time was 33:xx and I think 19th in the AG.  That's a big improvement for my weakest of the 3 disciplines.

Very happy to be done running on the beach!

Biking in Racine (as I mentioned before) is not very fun.  The roads are beat up and very congested for the later waves.  My best option was to just bike hard and keep passing people.  I was definitely out of my comfort zone, but felt really good throughout.  The back half of the bike had a lot of headwind, so I was really happy to see my pace didn't slow down as much as others.  Total time riding was 2:25:xx.

Bike start...biggest hill on the entire course

Done biking and eager to get off of those roads!

Heading onto the run was a slightly different story.  I just felt kind of bleh...stomach was in a knot and I could tell I would be dealing with leg cramps at some point.  Within the first few miles my stomach settled and I found my stride.  However, after I hit the first turnaround, I had some sort of leg cramp going on for the remainder of the race.  If it wasn't both quads feeling like they were being stabbed, one of my hamstrings was completely seized up.  Luckily, I am no stranger to this.  Experience has taught me cramps eventually go away so I kept downing liquids, taking salt tabs and just kept running.  I had no idea on my pace, my only focus was moving my legs and keeping a high cadence.  Total run time of 1:32:xx.

Finishing up lap 1

Finishing!  Still feeling pretty good at this point.

It was so much fun seeing teammates and friends out there and having people cheering on the course.  That is what keeps me going when I'm really hurting and ultimately keeps me in the sport.  Whenever my mind goes south I remind myself how fortunate I am to be able to take part in triathlon and any sport for that matter.  So a big thanks to everyone who was out there cheering and racing, whether I knew you or not.  As always, thanks to my coach Will (I love seeing the constant improvement), all of the awesome Wattie Ink team sponsors, and  BIG shout out to Nick G and Andrew Kohl's crew.  You got some great action shots out there!

How do we rock the dub again??

There it is!  haha...

Winter Training in the Midwest and Looking Ahead

Today marks the first day of Spring! ...at least on the calendar.  Wisconsin, and much of the Midwest/Northeast is continuing to get mid-winter like conditions.  Last year at this time, we were seeing temps in the 70's and even 80's, and are now well below normal temps.  But if memory serves me correctly, April and May had some pretty awful weather.  Maybe this year will be different?

Recently, I had gotten close to the point of a mental breakdown (not really).  Extended periods of time spent running on treadmills and riding on trainers is not my cup of tea (I prefer green).  However, this extended cold weather has allowed me to focus my energy on some positives:

1.  I'm really starting to nail harder efforts on the trainer.  Really excited to see how this translates to my outdoor fitness.
2. As much as I dislike running on treadmills, the controlled environment is making it much easier to focus on specific zone work prescribed by my coach.
3. I love hot tubs even more now.
4. Last year at this time I was dealing with some nagging foot/lower leg injuries.  Since I'm forced inside because of the cold (mainly right after training sessions), I've been spending A LOT more time foam rolling and getting quality stretching in.  This is key to remaining injury free.

LOOKING AHEAD!

My first "real" race of the season is coming up in about 2.5 weeks.  Its a small 13.1 in Milwaukee called the South Shore half-marathon.  I haven't been putting in a ton of mileage to really perform to my potential for this distance.  My hope is that my overall fitness (and lots of hill running) will translate to some decent speed.  I'm in my 3rd week of picking back up with my coach Will Smith.  I have 100% percent faith that he will get me to the start in a good place physically and mentally.  This will also (hopefully) be my first race rocking some awesome Wattie Ink Team Elite gear and K-Swiss kicks.  Now I just need to pray to the weather Gods that I'm not running on ice!

Think warm thoughts : )