Collegiate Nationals 2013 Tempe, Arizona

                With a solid 9^th 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!

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…

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. 

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. 

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! 

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.

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!! 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 4^th place, and with Justin’s top notch performance the Trihawks men’s team had a legit shot of doing really well overall.

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. 

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. 

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 25^th place coming out of the swim. 

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!!

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. 

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 4^th 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! 

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. 

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. 

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!