US Elite National Championship: Race Report

Well, it was quite the first experience in "the show". I was well prepared on all fronts, and super ready to go. Going into the race, I figured with a dive start in choppy water with no wetsuit, I'd have every advantage I need in the water to get myself in a good position for the bike. Yup, things were looking up. At the start I sprinted out to the front, the field was at by feet by 100m. At this point, I "settled" in and tried to find a rhythm. Of course, what actually settled was the lactic acid from the 100m sprint. Consequently, what followed was Brett getting passed by everyone smart enough not to sprint (just about everyone else in the race). Oops. I feel like I should have known that was going to happen... 

Race Reports

You know it’s been too long since you’ve updated your blog when you have more than one race to report on. Well here it all is!

Vermont: The Branbury Classic Triathlon

It was a great weekend for a race. Our friends Ian and Anna joined us for our typical Vermont camping excursion on this trip. We rolled into the Moosalamoo State Park camp grounds around 4 or 5 on Saturday afternoon. Set up camp, went into Middlebury for some dinner, and stopped on the way back to camp at the grocery store to get some S’mores fixins. When we got back, camp fire and S’mores and commenced as we enjoyed the starry night to the sound of a half dozen drunken campers blasting the worst compilation of music I’ve ever heard at the next site over. Fortunately, there are rules in Moosalamoo that stipulate quiet time after 10!

Clermont ITU Continental Cup Race Report: It’s back to the bottom!

Well folks, this last weekend marks the start of my 2012 season and the first of many ITU format races, and let me tell you it was not quite the smashing debut I had hoped for…

The swim: A 750 meter aqua job/dolphin diving contest between 50 extreeeemely competitive men. The water was absurdly shallow for the entire swim. (Seriously, Streamline Events, you need to find a real swim venue for this event.) It was a real knock-down, drag-under (water) contest that I was just not ready for. I don’t like to toot my own horn too much, but as far as triathletes go, I consider myself among the strongest swimmers; until this weekend I've always been at or near the front of the swim. So actually “racing” (aka fighting for your life) in the open water is pretty new to me. I was not ready for such a vicious affair, and it certainly showed – I came out of the water in about 40^th position. I’ll blame the swim venue, but I think that this worst swim I’ve ever had in a triathlon could also be attributed to my naïve-ness on what to expect in a real open water racing experience. Lesson learned – so all you ITUers out there, watch out for me next time!

The bike: Saris/Cyclops was kind enough to lend me the second best pair of race wheels I’ve ever ridden. (A review on those is coming in a blog post shortly…) That in combination with all the hard work I’ve been able to put in after a warm New England winter made the bike leg the best part of my race. Granted, it was the second chase pack on the course, but I actually felt like I was in control of the group. It was my pulls that connected my group with the small groups and stragglers that trailed the first chase pack, I was the one shouting to motivate the group and get them organized, and despite doing a solid portion of the pulling, I felt fresh for the entire ride. My only regret was not trying to make a break and jump to the first chase pack early on, but for my first legitimate draft-legal experience, I was very pleased with how I handled the position I got myself as a result of the swim.

The run: Back to a bit of disappointment here. I’ve been posting some pretty solid numbers in my run workouts lately, so I was pretty surprised at how sluggish I felt after feeling so strong on the bike. All but one runner from the pack that I rode with ran right past me out of the T2, and I didn’t pull a single one of the back. By the time the last of them came by me, my legs started to warm up, my foot speed picked up, and I ran away from him pretty definitively. Unfortunately that wasn’t until about half way through the run. I rocked a very disappointing 6:08 pace for that run… not cool.

Take-aways:

• Despite the ability to win little local races like it’s my job, I am NOT all that awesome. Not even at swimming. Perspective. Humility. Ouch.
•  It’s time to start playing water polo, or doing some other kind of vicious water sport to help me become a little more agile and aggressive in the water. Pure speed just won’t cut it anymore.
•  It’s also time to hit the bike, run, bike, run, bike, run workouts again, and HARD.

Special thank you’s to Cyclops for wheels to race on, Chipotle for burritos to chew on, and Tri-Hard Coaching for bike, run, bike, run... workouts to look forward to this spring.

Knoxville Rev3 Report - 2nd Mamature

(Seriously – I’m sorry for how long this is, but I hope you enjoy the detail!)

So I think it’s become abundantly clear at this point that I am terrible about blog posting. I’ve pretty much resigned to the fact that Gered is the slightly more creative/disciplined writer. I will however continue to try and be a good blog poster, starting with a race report. I’m sorry, I mis-spoke – starting with a story of awesomeness. Ok maybe that’s a little on the strong side. Let’s just call it a story about a really, really, really good day. Read on if you’re interested in a highly detailed (probably too long) blog post about how Scrappy triathlete Brett Nichols officially entered (the bottom of) the ranks of professional American triathletes by getting second place in the "Mamature" division... :-)

This weekend marked the first Olympic distance race of the season for Team Scrappy, and we (I) started out in Knoxville all by my lonesome (hardly). I was joined by a very supportive team parents consisting of my Mom (thanks for funding all but my flight and race registration!), and Emily’s parents – Marge and Dan. This is the first race I’ve done without either Emily or Gered in attendance or participation since my first summer of racing. It was surprisingly easy to balance focus and distraction to keep me logistically prepared while suppressing any prerace anxiety that can happen when I’m just left to think about the race.

Momma Nichols and I arrived in Nashville and hustled over to Knoxville just in time to miss the last “mandatory” race briefing, but make it to build my bike and drop it off in transition before the shut it down for the night. We then spent about an hour walking around trying to figure out how the swim and transition worked. Missing the race briefing made this a bit more of an adventure than it would have otherwise been – honestly, I still wasn’t sure which buoy was the Olympic turn around till I asked someone IN THE WATER 30 seconds before the race started. Then it was off to our free Marriott hotel room (thanks Dad, and Marriott rewards program), to get settled, do a quick run along the river, and have some dinner. By the time dinner rolled around we decided that eating in the hotel would be quickest and easiest. Not to worry folks – my mom still got her Martini, so with less than 12 hours to the race, all was still right with the world. J This plan of action also worked out nicely as Marge and Dan arrived shortly after we sat down to have dinner with us!

When it was finally dark at 9:30 – I headed to my room, packed up for the morning, and went to bed. Naturally, it took another hour to 90 minutes to fall asleep, but I was plenty happy with 6 hours of sleep.  I could have headed to bed an hour earlier, but I still don’t think I would have fallen asleep any sooner. That’s getting tough to do without Emily under normal circumstances, let alone the night before a race. In the morning I was up at 5:15, and chowing down on my 3 chocolate chip clif bars. Mmmmm… (not really). To let my mom sleep, I went down to the lobby and enjoyed the quiet while watching a dozen other racers wake up and head off to the race. Around 6 I tattooed up, and Mom and I headed over to the race.

When everything was set up in transition we headed over to watch the pro start. To my surprise they were wearing wetsuits, which meant it was colder than I thought. So in a last minute change of plans, I ran back to the car (good warm-up) and grabbed my wetsuit, I got it on, and was ready to go with just about 2 minutes before my wave started. I hoped in, asked someone where to turn around, and we were off! I’ve been dealing with some tendonitis in my toe lately which feels like something is going to tear in my toe when I first start swimming (and kicking), so the first 100 yards or so was an upper body sprint, while my toe got used to stretching out. I was fortunate to have picked the end of the starting line opposite the crowd of stronger swimmers, so I had a very clean start, and came into the turn around buoy clear of anyone else from my wave. Unfortunately, the turn-around point was crowded with swimmers from the first Olympic wave, and the Half Ironman waves which were coming back through the swim course from a turn-around point further up the river. The last 1200 meters was a mess. I let another strong swimmer in my wave take the front and cut through the crowd for a little bit while I shook out the lactic acid from the start, and with about 600 meters to go I turned it on again, and put some distance between myself and the rest of my wave.

Exiting the swim was a trick. We had to pull ourselves up on a floating dock. Note – this is not the same as pulling yourself out of a pool. There is no wall to put your feet on as you pull yourself up. When my feet reached for the wall, I slid right back in the water and under the dock. I tried again, and this time I just threw my torso on the dock, layed down and rolled on deck. I’m sure I looked like an idiot, but better to look like an idiot while exiting on attempt number two than to try and look cool for two or three more tries at getting out.

My (relatively) new Cervelo S1 performed about as I expected. Thanks to the bike fit master Grady Lynch’s at Landry’s Bicycles who gave me a fantastically comfortable and aero position on a road bike with clip-on aero bars. I wondered how much difference I would see between the performance of my ride and the ride of those around me. There was a 2-3 minute difference between myself and the other top cyclists. I’m sure I’ve got some work to do fitness wise, but I’m going to chalk some of that difference up to the lack of a TT bike as fancy as theirs. As my mom says, my bike doesn’t “schwoooosh” like theirs do. That said – it got the job done, and I’m grateful for the bike that God has blessed me with! Also, FYI – you’re overall time might suffer a bit, but if you race on a road bike with a TT set up, you’ll dominate the hills. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed climbing in a tri.

Coming in off the bike, I transitioned quickly to the run. By that I mean, transition was quick, my body’s transition from biking to running, however was not. Maybe it was the cold, but my core was TIGHT when I came out on the run. For the first 3 miles I felt like I was hyperventilating. Unable to take consistent deep breathes, I had a really hard time settling into a rhythm as my breath usually syncs up nicely with my cadence. Fortunately, the number two position was just 100 yards up the road and he was struggling too. Motivation. For the first three or four kilometers, I struggled to close that gap, but by about 4k, my chest loosened up, I was able to lengthen my stride, breathe deeply and really cook the second half. I pulled into the number two position just before the turn around at mile three and never looked back. I was hopeful that with my newly discovered Superfeet insoles, I would be blister free at the end of the run. I figured out that would not be the case around mile four. I wish I took a picture of them fresh for you but I forgot before popping and draining them, and I'm pretty sure Emily would advise against posting said imagery. Let's just say I’ve never had them fill up with blood before… Just as well, blisters are an ignorable pain during the 10k so I was able to continue pushing my pace for the rest of the race. I was 6:00/mile pace on the way out, and 5:48/mile pace on the way back for a 36:38 10k, and a 2^nd place finish! That was the longest run I’ve done in two months, and still it matched my best 10k ever. Turns out fitness on the bike and in the pool translate pretty well to running, and maybe there are some other factors at work there…

I have to give all the glory and awesomeness of this race and the day to God. I really couldn’t even try to rationalize such a fantastic performance any other way when I consider how early it is in the season and the fact that I’m still recovering from both a stress reaction in my shin, and tendonitis in my toe. Thanks be to God for bringing it all together for a performance I couldn’t have dreamed to be any better, and for the blessing of FINALLY entering a career I’ve felt called to for years. AMEN.

So I actually wrote this yesterday on the plane. Since then - I've come home to an apartment full of applauding friends with some bubbly (thanks Ryan and Ian!) and pepperoni and pineapple pizza (seriously the best topping combination you could possibly imagine). It's been a wonderful two days. Thanks so much to all my friends and family - I can't thank you all enough for your support and encouragement!

Race Report #101: Clermont Draft Legal Challenge

Well, we had a great race, and got some great pics to prove it  (thanks for the snazzy Christmas camera Brookie, it really helped Em get actual people in these pictures!).

For those of you new to the concept of draft legal racing, the format is a little different than a standard USAT tri. The bike course is looped, and you can hug a wheel and work together to crank out some serious top speed. Each loop takes you through transition, and requires hairpin turn skills and powerful accelerations to maintain group contact. The final loop ends in transition where shoes are slipped on for a foot race of epic proportions.

The neat thing about a draft legal race is the format actually brings people in at the same time for ticker tape photo type finish, as it eliminates the separation that results when strong bikers (like me) pound skinny little cross country stars (like I might have been if I didn't play tennis in HS) into oblivion in the TT portion of a non-drafting race.

The reward in draft-legal racing is for the strong swimmer who can make the first or second bike pack, and also has the bike handling skills and lactic acid flushing power to crank out ~15 one minute intervals at 500 watts to survive with that pack into the footrace. Then, whoever has run the most strategic race and has enough pop left runs a sub 5 minute mile for 5k runs to ultimate victory.

Pretty easy in theory right? Well, lets just say there are some skills required that aren't as easy on paper as they are on race day. Here's a rundown of Team Scrappy's race and what we need to work on to get better at this format:

Yes. There are gators in there. I'm that crazy.

The Swim:
After wavering on temperature all day, and making the girls race wet suit-less at 9 am, the boys were allowed to put on our superhero costumes for a VERY shallow 750 m swim. In my opinion, this was a shameless USAT markettering excuse to get some shots of hot chicks in bathing suits coming out of the water, and squeeze top speed out of the men's group for results purposes. But I digress.

Too bad I left my wet suit at home. And thank god it was shallow so I could run to keep up.

As usual, Brett came out of the water first, and I third to last. Into the main pack for Brett, and catchup time for me.

The Bike:

My fellow hydrophobic triathletes.

Running through transition without a wet suit is awesome. I don't regret for a minute (60 seconds) the 90 seconds I lost in the water, or the 20 seconds I gained back in not having that stupid suit on.

Thankfully everyone at this race was able to do a flying mount and the transition exit was smooth an unobstructed.

Then it was time to make the donuts. Brett had a 20 second lead to protect in the first bike pack, and I needed to rally my poor swimming friends to help me bang out a huge bike.

Brett in hot pursuit

Things never quite go according to plan. My end of the swim wave didn't quite have the bike power to sustain a good peloton, and I only spend about 4 minutes in a choppy 5 man group (which actually was nice to spin down for a while) which I dropped on the climb and completely broke up on the last turn of lap 3. So, it was a long lonely 32 minutes for me, but I do have to say that my new 'TT' bike (Fuji SST 2.0) kept me in the game and helped me move from 48th place up to 28th (estimates here) over the course of this leg. Lesson learned: SWIM FASTER. 24 mph on your own aint gonna cut it in a DL race.

Wishing this guy knew what he was doing so I could stay closer.

Brett had a tough day up front. The lead group of athletes was composed mainly of VERY strong bikers from UCF and Florida proper. And Brett got chewed up and spit out by the two lead biking packs. It wasn't until after the race that it finally donned on us why he got smoked so hard by the  FL troupe. 1. We were up against actual training teams that have been working together on DL style racing, particularly short power type workouts (1' on 1' off at 600 watt type stuff). Advantage FL guys. 2. People in FL have been riding and running in nice cozy weather all winter. March, it seems is their August. Hopefully they'll hit a little 105 degree 200% humidity lull this summer, and they'll get their comeuppance at nationals in Burlington in August.

Hey FL, also, you are all really really nice and that almost makes up for the shelacking you gave us northerners. Nice to meet all of you!

On the Run:

Brilliant form.

Mobil will probably sue us for this new race report column. So, after the abuse endured in the lead packs, Brett was a wobbly old guy. Time to hit the trainer and crank out 20x1' power work and brick it. I'll let him chime in here but it sounds like there's a huge difference in the abuse you sustain from a peloton type bike leg, and if you aren't ready to flush the lactic acid that's bound to build up from a dozen huge pulls, then you're in deep doo doo. Brett's run was on the slower side but in my opinion was still a pretty good showing for March 5th of a race season that doesn't typically start till June. And look at that form right there. Great stuff Nichols.

Getting down to business.

I threw down some pretty good numbers on the run (5:20 pace), due in large part to the sustained speed work I've been doing on the bike this winter at the Bike Hub's indoor computrainer rides. My bike leg was functionally a windy little loop TT, and I'm pretty accustomed to getting of and running away from this kind of workout. My number were 1:10 faster than  5k done last year in May, and I think that's a pretty big deal.

Here's what you will remember most about me.

Something to think about. Both Brett and I finally settled in to the run about 10 minutes in. I really opened things up on the last half lap and put down a half dozen folks ahead of me. There's defintiely a huge correlation between the type of brick work you are doing and your ability to settle in to a run and get down to business. We've been hitting the bike run pretty hard, but our run workouts are early season 'progressives' where you run a stable speed for about 30 minutes and then pick up the final 15 ending at 5k pace. I'd say the first 5 minutes of this are in the 6:15 range and the last 5 are in the 5:00 range. And pretty much that's exactly how we ran our 5k yesterday.

Can you smell what the Rock is cooking??

Business: Part II

Is there room for improvement? Heck yeah. The pros banged out 29 minute bike legs and sub 14 minute 5ks. that's just rediculous. But totally doable. I'm excited out of my mind for my next DL race and will be smarter by the time I get there too. Thanks to USAT and the 4:28 mileing Jarrod Shoemaker for getting this age group tri off the ground.