The Word

I’m sitting here at home typing this entry and I can still feel the fatigue in my legs from the race two days ago. I have been training on hills for the past month preparing for the race, but since I didn’t exactly know how intense the course was, I guess you can say I may have been slightly under prepared. The bike course was super hilly, and I’m always up for an insanely hard bike. I thought I was ready for the run as well. But this is how the race unfolded for me…

It was a chilly overcast day at Hagg Lake just outside of Portland. It was a no wetsuit swim, so we all put warm clothes on after the swim warm up. Unfortunately for Jarrod Shoemaker, the cold got to him the worst and had a touch of hypothermia coming out of the water.

I thought I was having a great swim the first 200m until I looked up to my left to see I was in basically in the last group. I actually stopped for a second to empty water out of my goggles before really putting the hammer down. After a solid, all out effort, I finally found a position in the field where I felt comfortable with: on the leaders’ feet.

Coming into T1, I really hit it hard and was first up the hill on the bike out of transition. I found myself off the front with Matt Reed, Joe Umphenour, and Brian Fleischmann. I led the group into the hairpin turn around and hit it real hard coming out. Matt came around me real fast. He opened up a gap, so instead of going to the back of the group, I filled in and sat in on his wheel. This was the beginning of what became the hardest race of my life. The two of us rode away from Brian and Joe.

Making a move like that would have been almost suicide if I chose to sit in on any other rider on this course. Since it was with Matt, I decided only to speed up and ride away from Brian and Joe even further.

For the next 30Km, I took my equal share of pulls. After that, during the last two laps the hills finally started to break me down. Matt dropped me after riding through transition and sat up to wait for me at the top of the hill. I was completely spent and I really respect the sportsmanship he showed by waiting a few seconds for me to catch up. I refused to ask Matt if I could sit in and I still tried to take my fair share of pulls, even though the it was no longer 50/50.

Heading into the run, I thought I was done. We had opened up the gap on the main chase group by about 1:40. The run course was the same as the bike leg…only the hills felt 5 times as long. I felt ok the first lap of 2.5K, great the 2nd lap, started to fade on the 3rd lap, and was on survival mode on the last. I held onto 2nd until Joe and Ethan Brown pasted me with less than a mile or so to go.

Finishing 4th wasn’t my goal for Nationals, but it was the most gutsy race I’ve ever done. After I crossed the line I was so tired I sat on the boxes of Gatorade for ten minutes. I didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed with my race. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t show any emotion. I wanted to just lay down, thought about going to the medical tent, but didn’t want any real attention. A massage would have been ideal, but I couldn’t remember where that was.

All in all, I’m happy with my race on the hardest course I’ve ever done.

I fly out to France on Wednesday morning and race on the coast of Brittany in Lorient for the next World Cup.

Until next time…
MC

I’m 100% Fully Recovered from the shin splint problem I developed this summer. Lots of rest and proper attention will get you through any type of injury in this sport. If the injury keeps resurfacing, you aren’t 100% devoted to getting over it…

Since then, I’ve been in touch with CytoSport. They have some absolutely great nutrition products you should try if you haven’t already. Since I’ve been healthy back up to speed, CytoMax has gotten me back into the game coming off my base phase. Just about every workout has been a breakthrough. I’m fitter than I was the previous day.
I’ve posted fastest times up Cheyenne Canyon, broke my old record by 45 seconds, swimming faster than ever, and now I’m hitting run splits I wasn’t even expecting to see until October.
Best part: “CytoSport does not now, has never and will never condone the use of performance enhancing drugs, such as steroids, androstenedione or prohormones. That’s why you’ll never find these, or any ingredients found on the banned substance lists of governing sport organizations, in any of our products.” - Greg Pickett, Founder CytoSport™ Inc.

My favorites are CytoMax Performance Drink (Tangy Orange), CytoMax Energy Gel, and Muscle Milk (for optimal recovery).

Up next: US Pro Nationals - ITU Portland Premium Continental Cup September 20th.

—MC—-

Wow. A ton going on since I last updated The Word. Glad you got a hold of the word, how ever you have found it.

First off, the Olympics are in full swing. Phelps has set himself up for the title “Greatest Olympian of All Time” and with out him the Chinese would be really kicking our butts in the medal count. Only history and the test of time will be the true judge of that title.

My former Tidewater Aquatic Club teammate, JB Walsh born in FL, hometown of Virginia Beach and U of Florida swimmer Alumni has won his heat in the 200fly at the 2008 Olympics. JB broke 2:00 and kicked the crap out of the heat.
I tried to post the You Tube video, put there was a copy right issue with a third party.

I’m back in Colorado Springs, CO training in and out of the Olympic Training Center. For some reason I thought watching the Olympics with a bunch of guys that didn’t make their respected teams would have a weird vibe. No way! It’s really like watching the Super Bowl every night.
I’m living at Nate and Sarah Haskins-Kortuem’s house while they are away in Beijing. Sarah races Triathlon at 10AM on Monday August 18th. I emailed Nate last night to ask how things were going and he says the team is fit and ready to go.

GO USA!

In other news, I’m on the solid road of recovery with my shin splint issue. I started running again last week and have been slowly getting back into the groove…pain free!
It sucks learning the hard way sometimes, but it sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise. For one, I don’t have to cancel my races for the rest of the season. And secondly, I’ve become an expert on the issue.
I’ve learned that when you have an injury. Any sort of injury, especially an “itis,” you learn that it could have been prevented 100% once you gather enough info and have talked to the right people. Here’s a list of the types of people I talked to on shin splints on recovering quickly:

Coaches (at least 4 of them)
Teammates and Competitors (probably around 20)
Multiple Physical Therapists
Masseuses (3)
Chiropractor (2)
Athletic Trainers (2)
Orthopedic Doctor
Podiatrist
Physician
even a Sport’s Psychologist!

If you’re satisfied with one opinion, fine good for you, but it’s always worth it to get multiple opinions…plus you never know when the guy giving you the prognosis could have been a the bottom in his class….

MC

The Tizy World Cup turned out to be a solid race. I was a bit nervous heading into race day with these crazy shin splints that don’t want to subside and go away. Running sub 34 off the bike and aqua jogging all week seemed to work out just fine. It was a hot day, so the run hurt like hell. Glad to finish 15th though.

I’ve been in Kitzbuhel, Austria for the past week. I took a 6 hour train ride from Budapest to Salzburg the day after the race. I’m staying at a quaint bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town. The place is very old so they don’t have luxuries like TV or internet.

I’ve been going to dinner at the HuberBrau restaurant every other night while here. The owner is super cool and the food is great. He’s doing the age group triathlon today.

So after another week of aqua jogging, I’m a bit more leery of my run. Before the shin splints arose, I was on pace for running a sub 32 10K off the bike…right on track for my exceeding my goal for the season. I feel like I’ve been set back a bit, but it’s not serious or something that will bring my season to an abrupt end. Sunday, I’ll prepare the same way I did in Hungary and hope for the best.

After this race, I head back to VA Beach for a few days then onto Colorado for the remainder of 2008. I’ll be in and out of CO Springs occasionally spending time in Denver and Boulder. Ultimately, I will take advantage of the sports medicine services the OTC offers to get my minor injury cleared up before it turns into anything major.

My friend Sara McLarty just emailed me today with sad news that she’s pulled out of the Kitzbuhel WC along with the rest of the 2008 season due to a chronic foot injury. Best of luck and a speedy recover Sara.

——-
This is probably my longest ever post, so I thought I’d add a bit more with a statement I totally agree with and by an athlete I truly respect and admire:

Stepping UP? - Greg Bennett 2008-07-08 www.team-bennett.com

Once again I have had the question asked recently, “Greg when will you step Up to longer Ironman distances?” This question has been asked repetitively since I started to call North America my Northern Hemisphere home in 2000.

For a while I did almost go longer but then I realised that this was not my challenge. My challenge was to race the best in the World, and I asked myself where that competition was… my answer is short course (except for one Ironman event each year, the World Championships in Kona, Hawaii). So for me I felt that going longer was not a step up but in fact a step back! I mean no disrespect to the work and long hours the long course guys do. They are very strong and have tremendous aerobic endurance. But I believe to be a great short course athlete you need all of this plus agility, speed, power, aerobic and anaerobic threshold.

As I get older the challenge becomes even greater to find more speed and power and develop an even greater engine.

I have always wanted to race Hawaii Ironman but I have no interest in racing another Ironman to qualify for it, as this would totally destroy all my short course season.
—–

MC

Alright, so I’m in Hungary now getting ready for the 12th annual Tiszaujvaros World Cup. The town is quite small, but the people here are very friendly. So far I haven’t been able to pick up on any Hungarian dialect, so I usually just point and smile when I’m at the grocery store or at a restaurant.

The weather is much warmer than I expected especially compared to Germany or Belgium. It’s supposed to be about 93 on race day…definitely looking forward to it. The terrain is also very flat. Not a hill in sight. I saw some mountains to the north on the 2 hour drive over from Budapest.

I flew over on Lufthansa. I wish the “Legacy” US airlines would take note of the foreign airlines’ customer service… You from, what I hear, they used to have great service up until about the 1990s. Just because they don’t feed us big meals on every flight, doesn’t mean they also have to lower standards of customer service…

MC