Tag Archives: Triathlon

July '11, Triathlon

Cycling in Virginia Beach

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Thank you so much to drivers who share the roads with me on my bike each day. I really appreciate the room that most drivers give me and the slow speed and patience they have when they pass me. I am not asking for an entire lane. I simply appreciate it when, if drivers cannot give me much room, they pass me slowly. It makes my passion a lot more enjoyable.

To the drivers who try to get a point across and nearly run me over. Please remember, I am somebody’s son. Know that running over me will not “teach me a lesson”. It will only put you in jail and make for a very unhappy mom and dad. If you think I shouldn’t be on the roads, please write a letter to a politician in your area, or vote for the guy who advocates additional bike lanes. Trust me, I hate riding on busy roads just as much, if not more than you hate me riding on them.

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July '11, Triathlon

A piece of script

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“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.”

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May '11

Kinetic Sprint 2011

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At the beginning of the bike leg, I had decided whether or not I wanted to watch the race lead ride away from me. Now, on the run, it was time to decide if I wanted to win. I had started the 5k on my own, leading the race. But Ben Bartlett from Arlington, Virginia soon caught up to me repeating what happened when I had tried to race away on the bike. While I expected and hoped to look over my shoulder and see my teammate, Ryan Peterson, he was not having one of his usual dominant days.

I looked Ben in the eyes and remembered that turning to look at your opponent meant admitting defeat. But that was not what I intended to convey. It would have been a lie. I jumped behind him and sat in the tiny amount of draft a runner can give. It was effective enough, I was able to hold his pace. Just before the turn around I tried to make a surge to take the lead and keep Bartlett from surging out of the turnaround but he wanted it more. He rounded the turnaround first and surged out of it, putting a hurt on me to stay with him.

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May '11

Angels Race Triathlon 2011

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I would be returning to Lynchburg, Virginia to race the same course I had raced as my first triathlon over five years ago. I was fifteen. Over a fourth of my life I have doing these multisport races and since then I have done in the vicinity of fifty of them. My goal five years ago was to win and not only that but beat the course record, held by Michael Harlow, a triathlete who would become my coach a few months later, a man I would realize is VERY hard to beat.

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November '10

Breaking my resolution

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“I can’t just walk away. I’ve got to test the waters.”

My new years resolution for 2010 was to not doing anything stupid for a long, long time.

Yesterday I sent out a dozen texts to my triathlete friends around Richmond. “Hey man if you’re home for break, want to go swimming at Huguenot at 2:45?”

Three people were dumb enough to respond yes. At 1pm, one of them bails.

And at 2:45 another bails.

But my friend and teammate Alex Burton who I have been training with and racing against since I started doing triathlons shows up at Huguenot at 2:45.

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October '09

Five step program to cure itchy feet

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1. Get my license back

2. Get a job, save money.

3. Join the cycling and triathlon teams and be involved OR Join an intramural team and goof around

4. Study hard. Study really hard

5. Embark on an adventure every weekend. Be independent. Be alone. Be happy.

The problem with last year is that I was trying to live my life the normal way. I thought that my college experience should be just like everyone else’s. But I am not normal and I do not want my life to be the way everyone else’s is.

I want to come back every Sunday with a new story to tell my friends. I want to not only remember every weekend but let every one be more adventurous than the one before it. And I want my stories to be ones that I can tell my children with pride.

I do not want to limit my enjoyment of life in college to the couple hours of triathlon training each day. I want to bike into West Virginia, sleep in the woods, bike to the highest peaks, sleep again, and return the next day. I want to kayak down the New River for a two day trip. I want to hike deep into the woods and sleep under the magnificent unhindered light of stars.

I have a severe disorder. It is called itchy feet. It is not that I am never content where I am; it is just that the world is too big to stay in one place for too long.

Hiking the Appalachian trail is perfect for me right now because I am always moving. But what happens when I return home? I know what life was like when I sat still. When in school, I will have less than 72 hours to explore and I need to do just that. Beyond those 72 hours I’ll be trapped in the small dorm room for sanctuary and the small campus for entertainment.

I know there are others just like me who want to explore. I know there are others who think that crowding into the smallest space that possibly fits us all is not how we want to continue our experience here.

June '09

Today, champion is just a title

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On the patio, away from the sight of others, my mom comforted me. I didn’t race poorly. I had won my age group and the title of Junior Mid-Atlantic Regional Champion. What upset me was that I didn’t have fun, I didn’t want to be there, and it hurt way more than it should have. I had suffered for the last hour and twenty minutes and after I crossed the finish line, I cracked. I had pushed my body to its limits physically, but more importantly, I was not emotionally capable of handling five races in one week.

Two days ago I laid in my bed with thoughts of pain and suffering swarming me. I wanted to be free of it all. I wanted to take the weekend off from racing. Racing is like burning a fuse and mine was merely a nub before the race even began. My attitude is usually that pain is life and should be embraced but the middle road is looking really enticing right now.

By the start of the bike, the lactic acid burning my thighs uncovered my negativity from the lies of optimism surrounding it. Towards the end of the ride, a typically unthinkable thought swarmed me. I wanted to drop out and return home to comfort and peace. But the shame of quitting still outweighed the overwhelming agony.

I raced on and still fourteen hours later, comfort has not returned to me. I have napped. I have eaten ice cream and pizza and let carbonation of soft drinks settle my stomach. I have bathed, watched movies, and wrapped my withered body in cozy blankets. But none of this has brought a feeling of comfort to me. My fuse burned its way all the way to an explosion of sadness, and I am still trying to return the flavor to my life.

I am ready to train hard but another race lies a ways in the distance. That is comforting but not quite enough to restore my usual full throttle drive. Maybe I need a hug.

At this point I wish I had not raced and I am not sure if it was macroscopically beneficial for me to have stuck it out today. I am now the junior regional champion but what good does that do if the champ did not have fun?

Sometimes I pump up my old basketball, move the cars out of the driveway, and goof around on the court or I go to the local public golf course and lose a few balls. And sometimes I head to a baseball field with a bucket of balls and a bat. I feel at peace when I do those things. There is no pressure and I can just mess around for however much time I want to. The other day I made eighteen out of twenty free throws.  I practiced none but there was no pressure. I just goofed around and ended up impressing myself.

Maybe if I raced with no pressure then I could do the equivalent of my free throw shooting. If I just relaxed and had no expectations maybe I could exceed my high goals. I’ll save that idea for next time. Today I try to restore the damage done from last time. What is being a champion without the feeling to match it?

June '09

The sacrifice for the sport

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It looks like I have a place on the Duathlon age group World Championship team if I want to accept. The problem with that though is I would be setting out on the trail yet another month later. That would run my expedition into one of the coldest months of the year. I probably have to decide by tomorrow.

This is becoming the hardest part to racing. First off I have to plan out a season that is up to eight months long and secondly I have to work my life around that. Whatever gets in the way typically gets booted. I know I have potential but I have potential to go insane if I keep this up. So, I want to hike the trail, but I could do really well at worlds. Which do I give up? What I am looking at is what will provide the greatest long term effect. If I skip out on the late season races and hike the AT, will I lose results that could have propelled me to a low level sponsorship? If I skip out on the AT, will I lose interest in the sport and race poorly next year?

I have bags under my eyes from training stress. I want to hike the AT. I can go to the World Championships next year.

June '09

Mid-Season Recap

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With a second place finish at Power sprint triathlon, I proved to myself that my fitness had returned after a few pathetic early season races.

At my first race of the season, I absolutely cracked and walked most of the run. Over the winter I was taking a medicine to help me sleep that, along with Virginia Tech’s second best in the nation dining hall food, propelled me to 160 lbs. My racing weight is around 135, so I was a little chunky. In addition to the added weight, my training had taken a huge strike from my lack of excitement to train in the bitter cold. Thankfully I had time to improve my swimming in the warmth of the fitness center though.

By my second race of the season I was dropping in weight at a pound a day and my fitness was returning at a steady pace.

The rest gave my body time to adapt to four years of rigorous training though and while my fitness did completely disappear over the off-season, it seems it has come back stronger than ever. My lactate threshold rose about ten beats per minute on the bike and run. In addition to statistical improvement, I am steadily increasing compared to my reference point of Michael Harlow.

In 2006, I signed up for my first triathlon, Angel’s Race in Lynchburg, Virginia. I looked up the previous year’s results and saw a guy named Michael Harlow had won. So I set my goal high. I wanted to win my first triathlon ever. Even with preparation help from a great triathlete in the area, Suzanne Lewis, I was still a beginner triathlete. I came in twelfth and won my age group. My goal never lowered though and it remains the same: beat Michael Harlow.

My teammate, Ryan Peterson, beat him earlier in the season. With the upcoming I love the Tavern triathlon in Richmond, I will get another shot to race the man I have been chasing for years. Ryan will also be racing. My other teammate, Alex Burton, has got legs that could run us all down, but he needs to shape up in transition if that’ll happen. Michael and Ryan will swim in the lead, most likely coming out together somewhere in the top ten. Alex and I will most likely be near each other somewhere one to two minutes back on the other two after the half mile swim.

My chase will begin right out of the water when, legs providing, I reel the two in on the bike. In addition to looking up the road, I will also attempt to enlarge the gap between me and the sub-17 minute 5k runner, Alex. I will look to catch the two up the road, and make it a run race between the three of us. On his two feet, Alex’s chase will begin. Ryan, Michael, and I will all fear the loud thumping of Alex’s feet come up behind us. A short out and back stretch on part of he run course will give us a chance to see each other’s position and at that point the race will be run on pure guts. The I love the Tavern tri is sure to show who is the fastest from the Endorphin Fitness “Super Speedy team”.

Tomorrow night marks the beginning of a three day cycling event, The Kazane Working Man’s Classic. With a merchandise or cash prime on every lap, this race has attracted some of the top east coast cyclists. Racing is at 6pm at Bryan Park Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and I will attempt to rack up enough points for a category upgrade.

We’ll see.