I’ve absolutely never had so much fun getting my butt whooped before. I got it handed to me this morning at the Patriots Sprint Triathlon in Williamsburg. It was my first time finishing out of the top 3 in a local race since I can remember much less out of the top 10. I got 11th overall and 9th collegiate. But I’m am absolutely stoked. It was Eastern Virginia Medical School Triathlon Club’s first race in the MACTC and I’d say we had a not bad showing for being a new program. Continue reading Patriots sprint triathlon race report
Tag Archives: swimming
Return to triathlon
It’s been almost three years since that cold, rainy day in October. I was racing at my best, at least on the good days. I can’t truly explain why I stopped. Likely it was a number of factors. I was graduating college and transitioning into the working world, beginning to realize that at the top levels people were willing to do some dirty things to win, was tired of the grind of training, and I wanted to try something new. I had grown up with triathlon, and needed to stop racing to remember exactly why I started in the first place.
3Sports triathlon store
I am very excited to announce my partnership with 3Sports triathlon store in Richmond, Virginia for my upcoming Appalachian Trail self-supported thru-hike record attempt. They will be outfitting me with shoes and nutrition for the trip. I really couldn’t do it without their support and expertise so major thanks to all the amazing staff at 3Sports! Check them out at their store off River Rd. in Richmond and online here: http://www.threesports.com/
And on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/3Sports?fref=ts Continue reading 3Sports triathlon store
Zen and the Art of Freediving
Today I stood between mountains of coral that towered next to me. Beneath thirty feet of crushing water, I sunk like a rock to the bottom and firmly stood with my feet planted on the sandy ridged bottom. Beneath the turbulent waves, I felt only gentle swaying with little current. Fan corals rocked back and forth alongside me. I could walk on the sandy bottom, pressing off each tiny dune in the sand for traction. With my arms spread wide, the walls of the reef were nearly within reach of my fingertips. Several large barracuda rested just above the sand, watching my every move with their teeth spilling from their jaws. Continue reading Zen and the Art of Freediving
Sampling long-course racing
For over a third of my life I have competed in short course triathlon. With my first triathlon a Sprint distance race and my third a leap to the Olympic distance, I never considered tackling the challenge of distance racing at such a young age. Ironman and Half-Ironman distance races have never been on the radar for me. In fact, up until three years ago, it was very evident that my performance at the Olympic distance was significantly weaker than at sprints. I was blessed with an abnormally high VO2 max which is simply the volume of oxygen I can absorb in a given time. In fact, it is one of the highest. My lactate threshold on the other hand, was something that needed to be trained. This left me behind in longer races but enabled me to suffer immensely at high speed, something I am still much better at than distance racing. But recently my dreams have teased me toward new goals. Continue reading Sampling long-course racing
Sustained love
Frequently I wonder whether my competitors are lying about their training or if they really do swim 30,000 meters, bike 300 miles and run 70 each week. My training is so far from that I cannot even compare it. Actually, looking back at my training for the last month, that is near exactly the distance I swam, biked, and ran for an entire month.
So how is it that I continue to improve at such high rates along with guys who log almost four times as many miles as me? In all honesty, I can’t even imagine training that much. It would kill me. My first reaction to hearing that guys train that much is that maybe my body would adapt. Maybe my body would learn to recover faster. But even still, I imagine that I know how to recover. I focus a lot of my time on recovery. In fact I spend almost exactly the amount of time that I spend training working to recover for the next bout.
Xterra Sport Richmond ’08
This is an article that was written a month after my high school graduation and published in The Richmond Times Dispatch. Andy Thompson, the writer of the article, met me out riding the James River trail system a couple weeks before the event. I knew he was a sports columnist because I had read several of his articles and we ended up riding for several miles together, conversing the whole way. He came to the event to spectate the pro race. But, when I crossed the finish line first in the sprint race, I managed to attract his attention to write a column on another story. I hope I can satisfy these expectations established when I was such a young athlete. Continue reading Xterra Sport Richmond ’08
Luray Sprint 2011
I absolutely love being short. People crack short jokes all the time. Hell there’s even a song about how I’ve got no reason to live. Don’t get me wrong, seriously, I love the jokes and the song, I’ll even dish it right back. But what people may not understand is that, while yes it limits the selection of girls I can date, I absolutely love my height. Being short is awesome.
Colonial Beach 2011
In the days leading up to the race I had told my mom that having won four for four races in Virginia would make it hard to lose again. But then I recognized, maybe not. Maybe I would be satisfied with coming in second or even third in a race. Of course, the target remains the same, but sometimes maybe another guy just has a better day. I train for first, but maybe the other guy just had the upper hand that day.
A piece of script
“The problem is that once this happens, it almost always happens again. And if it does, I don’t know what I’m gonna be able to do for him. He’s an older dog. I honestly don’t think he would survive the surgery.”
“Well, we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Well, most likely, it is gonna happen again.”