With a
solid 9th place performance last year, Collegiate Nationals 2013 in
Tempe, AZ was a huge goal race for me. I wanted to improve on my results from
last year and test myself against the best collegiate triathletes in the
nation. New this year was a draft legal sprint distance race the day before the Olympic non drafting event. This draft legal event was included for USAT to
identify young collegiate talent potential in the draft legal version of the
sport. So even though I had a previous good performance in the Olmypic event to
improve upon, in my mind, Friday was the race I was really focusing on. My coach JJ, had my training leading up to the race included lots of hard back to back days to
simulate doing the double race weekend and I felt confident in my ability to
perform well in both. I had maybe over done the training just a bit and had to
start my taper a little early because I was crossing that line between
overreaching and over training, but I was hoping that some much needed rest
would leave me in prime condition for the race!
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| Awesome to see the TT bike all race ready for the first time thanks to Kyle's Bikes! |
The bikes left Iowa City earlier in the week under
the guidance of some of the Trihawks in a trailer. They all arrived safe and sound
the morning of the same day we were planning on getting into Phoenix. Now all I
had to worry about were blisters, saddle sores and competitors who only had to
perform in a single race…
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| Check out this weird single strawberry |
Our
travel to Tempe ended up taking a full 27 hours, by a combination of cars and
planes, not what I had in mind but shit happens. Weather and plane equipment
anomalies kept us grounded for a long time and heading the wrong direction. Kelli and I left our apartment at 2:30pm in Iowa City, we picked
up Allison and Justin, and we were off to the Quad Cities airport in Moline,
Ill. Shortly after we arrived to the airport our flight got delayed… things
weren’t looking good for us. By 6:45pm the plane we were supposed to fly out on
still hadn’t landed and we were definitely going to miss our connection in
Dallas. Luckily the ladies at the gate counter were extremely helpful in
finding a new flight for us. This had been difficult due to three days of
terrible weather cancelling flights and no available options to fly into
Phoenix on Thursday or Friday (there was probably some stupid major event
drawing people there from the entire country!). We ended up getting a new
connection flight, but it was to Tuscon, close enough that we could ask our
teammates in Phoenix to drive down and pick us up.
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| Gourmet airport backpack dinner! |
Eventually
we got onto the plane and strapped in, only to have the pilot tell us that
there was some anomaly with the equipment when they were landing the plane and
a mechanic would have to come take a look at it. Time ticked away and
eventually we were asked to get off the plane. I got back in line to talk with
the ladies at the counter for a new flight option. Everything from Dallas into Phoenix
was booked up for the next day…our options were not looking good even if the
plane did manage to take off early the next morning, and all other flights out
of Moline to anywhere were completely packed. So we struck up a new plan, we
would drive to O’Hare and get on a flight to Tuscon leaving Chicago at 9:40am
and getting us into Tuscon at 11:20am, add the drive to Phoenix and we may even
have time to check out the course before the prerace meeting! As a bonus, since
now the plane was having mechanical issues we got hooked up with a free hotel
voucher.
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| Hotel lobby, I'm sure it's a nice place...I just never got to see it in the light |
Our
hotel was modeled after some sort of German beer house castle combination.
Between the strange architecture, cobble street hallways, stuffed bears,
antique decorations and in my airport exhausted state, it will remain one of
the strangest places that I’ve ever been. We finally got to bed around 11pm and
we were on the road the next morning at 5am. The drive into Chicago was rainy
and boring, and we got into the city just in time to enjoy some rush hour
traffic. Lucky for us though, our plane was delayed arriving into Chicago from
Dallas so we had some extra time to kill. As compensation for the mechanical
issue the day before, American Airlines hooked us up with $57 worth of airport
money to use as we wish. After eating only snack food on corn tortillas for the
previous two meals, a hot airport Chili’s meal was much needed! One of the perks of
having the same name as a father who flies all over the world is that we could get into the United Club to restock our personal food, thanks Dad!
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| Eggs thanks to Chilli's, avocado thanks to Justin's backpack! |
The drive to Phoenix was uneventful
and I entertained everyone by talking about the crazy math book that I’m
reading. I was trying to explain how fractals allowed shapes to be 1.26
dimensions and the four dimensional shape that was our universe in which the
deeper you look the further back in time you go. Surprisingly, this topic would
come up frequently throughout the trip. Anyways, we got onto our bikes for a
little shake out and course preview. The race site was just a couple miles from
our hotel which was super easy to ride to.
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| Beautiful Phoenix, Arizona |
However, the draft legal bike
course ran completely against traffic and we had no chance of riding the
course. We did what we could; put in some efforts rode back to the hotel and
did a little running too. It was weird to be back on the road bike again, but
after a few hot corners I got the feeling back for the bike. Prerace meeting
went really smoothly and I was getting super antsy to rock this race! The bike
course was very technical and had a decent sized climb in it. Finally my kind
of course!!
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| View of Tempe Town Lake from the top of Hayden Butte |
Justin and I rode our bikes to the
transition site race morning. The roads were all blocked off for the race so we
got in a couple laps of the course. This was going to be an amazing race. As we
got a chance to finally ride the real course I kept thinking about all the
opportunities for attacks and how to drop everyone in the corners. I was
feeling unstoppable and this was going to be my day. Even in the morning warm
up run I was feeling on form and just absolutely flying. We got into the water
for the race start. There were about 50 guys in the race and the swim course
was two square loops and things were going to be very tight. Water temp was a
nice 67.8 degrees, so unfortunately wetsuits were going to be the norm.
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| Feeling super pro with my own name on my transition slot |
I lined up closer to the right side
and prepped myself for battle. The horn went off and a mass of human fish
pushed off the Tempe Town Lake wall. I have never had a more physically brutal
swim in my life. For the first 150m I couldn’t even complete a full swim stroke
and I was floating from body to body trying to kick and punch my way to open
water. I kept getting boxed in as everyone fought for a good position into the
turns. I was pushed straight up at the buoys as everyone climbed over each other
again. I felt like we were a bunch of fish being fed at the zoo. I began to get
worried that the top guys were swimming clear in the calm waters out ahead.
After maybe 2/3 of the swim completed I was finally able to get a rhythm going
in my stroke and I made a surge to transition.
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| Tight squeeze as the horn goes off (photo cred: Kristin Petry) |
To my surprise I was at the lead of
the second group out of the water, freaking awesome!! My basket flipped over
when I threw my wetsuit into it, so I lost a little ground trying to correct
that, but was on the bike and solidly in the second group. We began to pick off
some stragglers from the first group easily and I let everyone else lead up the
hill for the first time. I wanted to assess my group's cycling ability. I got the
feeling that there was some strength in the group and it was time to put that
to use. We were within 30-45sec of the leaders who had yet to form a distinct
pack. If we surged now, we had a good chance of catching them. I was feeling
amazing on the bike, power whenever I wanted and I had a feeling of complete
control of the situation.
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| Athletes finishing the first lap of the bike, my race was already over (photo cred: Kristin Petry) |
I attacked from the back of the
group hoping to drop any dead weight and light a fire under everyone else to
make a push to the leaders. Launching myself ahead of the group going into a
fast right turn I was confident I could break away as we turned into a tailwind
section. But it wasn’t meant to be…there was a lip between the pavement
sections through the corner and as I reached the apex if my turn I realized it
too late and nailed the lip with full force. I was cornering hard and simply
couldn’t let off my saddle to let my legs absorb it; the full force shock went
into my back wheel. Trying to turn a block later my rear wheel slid out on me
and within a minute I had gone from hero to zero. I crawled to the wheel pit
where there were no neutral wheels, and by that time I had lost so much ground
that my day was over. The race that I had been eyeing for months was over
before I could even get through a single lap on the bike. I felt like
screaming, throwing up, breaking things and crying all at once. I lost focus on
the road surface for just a moment and it was all over.
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| Our tent set up on the finish chute |
I believe this was my first ever
DNF in triathlon, and I really had trouble handling it. I couldn’t help
thinking that had I been able to execute my race, maybe I could have made the
podium. I spent a long while being pissed off and thinking if only, if only…but
there was another race to start focus on. Justin ended up have a great day and
outrunning the rest of what became a large second chase pack on the bike to
earn 4th place, and with Justin’s top notch performance the Trihawks
men’s team had a legit shot of doing really well overall.
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| Hotel room was a tight squeeze |
I had my pity party but eventually
it was time to move on. I was just wasting energy being pissed off and upset.
So I tried to focus on how fresh I was going to now feel for the Olympic race
the next day. I basically redid the same shakeout workout from the day before
and tried to rid myself of the negativity from the morning. I did get a chance
to pre ride the Olympic course and it was going to be a mostly flat, technical
and fast endeavor come Saturday morning.
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| Murphy ready to cheer on the girls after his race |
Waking up Saturday morning I felt
like I was going through déjà vu and here was my chance to make up for
yesterday’s errors. I felt a little bit on autopilot that morning, I tried to
push it out of my head but yesterday’s events were still draining me down some.
The mix of soft Christian rock and country music playing on the speakers wasn't helping the situation. I mistimed my warm up a little bit and ended up only getting a few minutes in
the water before the start of the race. Not ideal, but in a 1500m swim there’s
plenty of time to get warmed up. After getting boxed in a lot in yesterday’s
rough and tumble swim I decided to start way off on the outside to have clean
water.
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| Sun coming up in transition, it was a tight fit |
The start gun went off and I had a
smooth start. The course was a very simple rectangle and I started out a little
slower than normal hoping to be able to build into the swim as it went on. My
lats were unhappy with me and overall I was just not really feeling it. I got a
couple good drafts as I worked my way up the outside of the group and at the
halfway mark I was just off the back of a the lead group. I pushed hard but so
did they and by the end of the swim I was about 30 seconds off the lead group
and about 2 minutes down on the leaders. I was around 25th place
coming out of the swim.
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| Ready to start, but we would end up treading water for over 5 minutes.... (photo cred: Kristin Petry) |
My transition was sloppy and I knew
I was bleeding seconds to the competitors so I tried to run hard through the
long sea of gear. Once onto the bike I tried to shut down what was a quickly growing
gap. But I was feeling really stiff and couldn’t find my rhythm on the
bike either. I was picking off a few stragglers from the front group but for
the first lap of the 40k course I was just not getting the power I needed.
Luckily, I had 200mg of caffeine in my bottle and the more I drank the better I
felt, 2-3 cups worth of coffee tends to do that to a person. The first lap was
my chance to ride a clean and well executed race before athletes from other
waves would clog up all the good lines through the corners. Unfortunately for
me, a referee motorcycling decided to ride just ahead of me and take it’s sweet
time rolling through the inside lanes of all the corners. I don’t know how many
times I had to swing it wide or slam onto the breaks. It was extremely
frustrating and I even tried to ask them to stick to the outside. But after the
first lap they were gone and I finally got some good feeling in my legs. I
began working well and legally with an ASU rider who I would later find out is pro
mountain bike rider Ryan Petry!!
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| Starting the run hot on everyone's heels (photo cred: Kristin Petry) |
I came off the bike in a top ten
position and was close to about 5 other competitors as we all started the run.
My mouth was super sticky from all the espresso flavored gels in my bike bottle
but I wouldn’t get a chance to rinse that out until about a mile into the run.
The run felt awful, my legs were heavy stiff and I was really not having a fun
time. At mile two I was not feeling any better and mentally I was weakening up,
but luckily the bike course was close by and Jack Parr was riding there. His
vigorous shouts of encouragement were the fuel I needed to get positive and get
back to crushing it. I kept fighting and slowly began to reel everyone in.
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| Gutting it out all the way to the line (photo cred: Kristin Petry) |
With what I thought was about two
miles to go I moved into 4th place overall and could see the target
between me and the final podium spot. I rounded a turnaround and tried to use
the railing to help whip myself around the tight bend. This worked too well and
my momentum carried me around swiftly onto an unexpected downward pitch. I
unnaturally rolled over my right ankle and immediately felt a rush of pain. The
adrenaline made short work of this pain. There was no time for my brain to comprehend
pain from anywhere; after all, there was a podium spot to obtain!
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| Papa Mike in classic Collegiate Nationals style |
The final mile is a little hazy in
my memory. All I remember is running on a nice gravel path next to the lake
convincing myself that the CSU guy ahead of me was slowing down. To my shock he
really was slowing down! In the last km I kept surging ahead desperate to catch
him and to put some distance between me and the footsteps I swore I kept
hearing behind me. I made the catch with less than 200m to go and didn’t look
back, letting the noise of the crowd carry me forward. I kicked as hard as I
could not believing that I was safe until I got across the finish line. As I
ran down the finish chute everyone was trying to give me high fives but all I
could do was keep sprinting for the line, not convinced that I had enough of a
gap to celebrate. I collapsed across the line, completely spent from giving it
everything and desperate for an ice bath.
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| Top 5 men from the olympic race |
After brining my core temp back
below fatal levels my brain slowly allowed myself to realize what had just
happened. I got onto the podium at a national level event! I had achieved my
goal, fighting hard for it the entire way. I was absolutely elated and although
the pain in my ankle would keep me from jumping for joy, my spirit was sky
high! Especially after having a gutting DNF the day before, this was absolute
redemption in my mind. However, the sprained ankle would mean that the weekend
would also include my first DNS as I had to give up my spot in the draft legal
relay. It was a tough choice but I could hardly walk, and didn’t want to do
more damage to my ankle with my next race, St. Anthony’s, being just two weeks
away.
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| The Iowa Trihawks! |
My course time was incredibly fast,
I think the bike was about 2 miles short, but I also heard that the run was
about .3 miles long. So my race fastest run split of 33:29 was maybe even
faster than that. Full results can be
seen here. Everyone really stepped it up during their race and the men's side of our team got 5th overall and we got to climb onto the podium too!To get back home 12 of us piled into a suburban and made the drive to the airport, what a way to finish off an amazing weekend. It’s incredible to see all the hard work paying off, but the
work is never over and this is just another step in the right direction. My
goals were achieved for this race, well at least for the one that I finished,
but like always there’s more work to be done and it’s on to the next one.
Thanks to all the Trihawks for an awesome weekend, and as always thanks to
everyone who has ever had a hand in pushing me forward. Whether through words
of encouragement, pushing my limits during training sessions or even by
doubting my abilities and dreams it’s thanks to everyone else that I’ve even
able to come this far, and hopefully this is only part of the beginning!
