5:30am came early. I was up, out the door and on my way to the start line with fellow Rev3 teammate, Julia, in tow. While I tried not to put too much pressure on this race, it had the potential of completely changing my race schedule for the year. I could either lock down a qualifying slot at one of the first local triathlons of the season, or I could scramble to try to enter race after race for the next 2 months in hopes that I can grab it somewhere else.

To avoid getting too strung out, I tried to focus on it just as a fitness test, with an added bonus of a potential nationals slot if fate decided to be nice to me.

Sprint races are great because they are simple and fast, but you have ZERO time to settle into a comfortable pace and take a breather. If you aren’t digging deep and making it hurt at any moment, you are losing seconds. Especially since the super short course favored the swim (400 yard swim, 7 mile bike, 2.3 mile run) I knew I’d have an uphill battle since it is still my weakest of the three.

Swim

A time trial pool start, zig zagging and pushing off under lane lines is a mess. There is no easy way to get 300 people through 400 yards of swimming in a pool. It just won’t happen. I may have done a little bit of wishful thinking when I entered my seed time, but I didn’t cause a traffic jam or end up swimming over people, so I’ll take it. 400 is an odd distance. Too long to all out sprint till you are blue in the face, but not quite an endurance swim.

I exited in 6:20 (1:35/100 yards). Not awful, but less than awesome. It was actually a 1 second per 100 slower pace than my 1650. Um, WTH?! Did zig zagging under lane lines slow me down that much? Yikes.

Bike
Out of the pool – shoe, shoe, glasses, helmet. GO! I was in the saddle and pushed as hard as I could. If I started to feel comfortable, I went harder. I was worried that it would be a mess of traffic because of all the fast high school swimmers who were seeded in front of me, but were riding mountain bikes, but the course was relatively clear. I cheered on a few of the little fishie kids as I passed and kept craking along.

Two loops for 7.2 miles and I was back in transition in 20:42. That averages out to 20.8 mph, but since the timing mats include T1 and T2, it was closer to 22 mph. Solid.  Not spectacular, but right on with my expectations.

Run
While the bike definitely hurt, the run is where I really started to feel it. 27 minutes of hard work behind me and my throat was dry, my legs were getting heavier by the step and my heart was about to explode in my chest. Because of the time trial start, people were still starting the swim as I was heading out on the run, which made it all really quiet and hard to pace off of anyone else. I followed the same philosophy as the bike. If I felt like I had more to give, I gave it. Never comfortable, always searching for more.

I gathered enough of a breath to cheer on some more people I passed along the way, but brought home a solid  7:18 pace. Not fast enough to win any olympic medals, but fast enough for me. Right about where I thought I’d be.

Final time – 43:51

pretty much collapsed after the finish because my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore. But the funny thing about sprints is that you want to die when you finish, but you can only do so much damage to your body in 44 minutes. An hour later, I was out running along the course, cheering people on and feeling like a champ.

Because of the time trial start, we had to wait a LONG time for the results. And apparently the race director forgot how to use the timing machine, but the race management company is known for being a slightly disorganized, so you can’t really get too mad about it. About 2.5 hours later (yes, no joke. Three times longer than my actual race) I got called up onto the podium! I haven’t placed top 3 in my AG a ton of times before,  but was the first time there was a legit podium for me to stand on. Sorta cool little moment. Apparently the first place guy didn’t hang around for the awards. And it turns out the 3rd place guy was just 10 seconds behind me. I’m glad I didn’t dog it into the finish line!

The Bad News: 
The first place guy in my AG was WAY faster than me and placed 4th overall. I wasn’t upset about getting beat by him. He was out of my league. But after reviewing the results, there were only 8 people were in my age group. Eight out of 423 total athletes?! Goddamit!

So the short story is that because of USAT’s qualification criteria, only the top guy in my age group qualifies. I’d need to place 2nd in an AG of at least 15 starters to get in. Craptastic.

Oh well. Onward and upward. Rev3 Quassy is the next battlefield/qualifying opportunity. It will be require a HUGE effort there to qualify since some serious guys always show up, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

I didn’t earn my spot to race in Vermont, but I did get a solid fitness test in, brought home some hardware, and hung out with some cool peeps from my local tri team. Not a bad day. I’ll take it.

I think I’m in the best swim/bike shape that I’ve ever been in at this point in the season. The run? Meh. We’ll see if I can pull that together, but it is definitely coming along. Race season is coming up quickly and that is the true test of my training after all. In lieu of actual real SwimBikeRun updates, here are three random thoughts.

• I was out doing a BRick on Sunday  (2hr bike/:30 run) and passed a fox. Random wildlife spottings in the ‘burbs aren’t that uncommon, but this guy was just strolling down the sidewalk like he was someone’s dog that got off his leash. I didn’t even realize that he wasn’t just a small dog until I passed him. A few cars stopped next to me and we gave each other “WTF?!” looks, smiled and kept going. I considered turning back around to grab a pic, but I figured that chasing down a fox probably wasn’t a good idea. It almost makes me wish I wasn’t an adult who thought ideas all the way through to their probably conclusions and just acted on them sometimes. But I am, so you don’t get a picture of the fox. I’m sorry for both of us.

• Trying to qualify for Age Group Nationals is frustrating, terrifying and intimidating. Earning my spot is just as much about who shows up for the race as it is my own performance. If one super speedy dude shows up, I’ve got no chance of qualifying that day. And if less than 20 guys between 25 and 29 start the race, I’ve got to win my AG. Period. That puts a LOT of pressure on something that I don’t have a lot of control over. I found myself digging through old race results to see what sort of competition there was last year and ended up in a gigantic mind fuck. To the point where I’m questioning why I was doing it, if it was realistic, if I have what it takes, if I can do it all and still have fun…. everything. I’ve been focusing on staying cool about this whole thing is a challenge, but I’m making a big effort to make sure my qualifying efforts to suck all the fun out of my racing this year. I’m just going to focus on what I have control over, give it my all, race the clock, smile big and see what happens.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

• Rev3 Knoxville is this weekend and I’m not happy about not being there. The Rev3 team and athletes have become like my extended family over the past 4 years and missing out a race and a chance to hang with a bunch of them at once is like having your whole family go on vacation and leaving you behind.  I did the Knox Oly 2 years ago and had a blast. One of these years I’ll make it there. Unfortunately budget and timing just weren’t working in my favor this year. The pro field may be one of the best they’ve had. Richie Cunningham has been killing it lately, but he’ll have to fend off Matty Reed, Cameron Dye, Greg Bennett and a mess of other top pro men. The women’s field is solid too. It’ll all be fun to watch over at http://rev3tri.com/live/ on Sunday. It’ll be the best I can get w/o actually being there.

Photo Credit: Eric Willis

Between the chick laughing in the back and the tons of aero gear sprawled out over the ground, I got a good chuckle. I feel bad for the guy (because this is exactly the kind of thing that will happen to me one of these days) but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. You know what that means?

CAPTION CONTEST!

The person with the funniest caption suggestion wins a high five from me.

Here are a few to get you started.

• “My coach’s plan is to swim all out until I get on the bike. He said nothing about transition”
• “Someone pause my Garmin!”
• “My aero helmet and firecrest zipps reduce the time it takes for my face to crash into the ground by 2.5 seconds in an olympic.”
• “Damn bananna peel. Should’ve stuck with gels.”
• “I refused to get chicked in transition, so I dove for the line.”
• “Apparently there is such a thing as ‘too much TriSlide.’”

And on a side note – I do hope the guy is alright. And is that his shoe to the right of him in the picture? I REALLY hope his foot isn’t in there. That would be a twisted mess.

It is the clothing equivilent of screaming.

“Most of my marathons have been after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike…” or

“Why are you stressing out? Your race will be done after ONLY 3 hours. My ironman took me 10.”

It is why I hate it when people ask me if I’ve ever done a marathon. While I’m very proud of my race accomplishments,  it is hard not to sound douchey when responding with  ”only during an Ironman.”

As yesterday’s hot ass Boston weather reports slowly started to become reality and the BAA announced that it was allowing runners to defer because of the heat, Twitter blew up and the triathlon HTFU-ness was turned up to 11.

To be honest, I was completely on board in the beginning. What a bunch of p^$$!e$! Did they not think that this race would be held OUTSIDE? Did someone convince you that this was supposed to be easy? Are you allergic to ice and sunscreen? Your race starts at 10am. Most IM marathons start at 2! The hottest part of the day!

I’m not sure what happened, but all of a sudden something clicked. BAA wasn’t doing this because they thought the athletes were fragile flowers that would wilt under the hot sun. They were doing this because they know that marathoners are kinda screwed up in the head and are capable of dishing plenty of damage to their own bodies without blinking an eye. You’ve got every type of runner, young and old, but they’ve all got that in common. Add plenty of heat to 22,000 crazy masochistic runners and something bad is bound to happen.

It isn’t uncommon to have someone die during or immediately after a marathon. It just isn’t. As conditions get worse, the entire race infrastructure gets stressed. Every single extra degree requires more water, ice and medical support to make sure everyone gets to the finish line safe.

While it is easy for iron-distance triathletes to pound their chests about the crazy conditions that they survived to get to the finish line, comparing an IM to a huge marathon just isn’t fair. 1,855 athletes finished Kona last year. 22,426 athletes started Boston this year. Every marathoner is going to require a TON more support (ice, gels, medical, water, etc.) to get to the finish line. While an IM is a far more complex race to organize, the BAA is dealing with more than 10 times as many athletes.

What I started to realize was that this wasn’t about protecting the athlete’s ego. It isn’t an issue of who has the biggest balls. It is a public safety issue. For every runner who decides to defer, they are able to be that much more confident that the resources they’ve put in place will be able keep everyone safe and healthy along the way. The BAA made a smart move in recognizing that putting added pressure on people to race when it may not be in their best interests was irresponsible. They recognize the inherent risks in running 26.2 miles in 85 degree weather with little shade. I have to respect that.

For everyone that finished today. Congratulations. You just became someone’s hero. Never forget this accomplishment.

For everyone that deferred, don’t hang your head in shame. Just tell people that you know enough about yourself that you are sure that you wouldn’t be able to hold back and keep your engine revving within safe limits and would run until your face hit the pavement in a big bloody mess. Live to fight (and run) another day.

Instead, I picked out a local 5k just down the street from my house for a little run fitness test. It could not have been any more different than the craziness going on downtown. I registered 30 minutes before the race. Just walked up and handed over cash in exchange for a bib and timing chip. Then Sam and I decided to just lay in the shade on a soft patch of grass until the race director called everyone to the start line. It felt more like a big neighborhood group run than an actual race. I loved it.

Also, my trusty race photographer/wife decided to pull a fast one on me. As I was getting dressed yesterday morning, she kept asking questions like “So, how much does this race cost?” “You are just going to pay cash and register before the race?” Then she threw on her running clothes and decided she’d join me. She has been working out a lot lately, but hasn’t been training for the race at all. We’ve only ever done one race before, so it was a fun change of pace. She kept apologizing for not being able to take pictures of me on the course, but I was much happier knowing that she was out there on the course with me, kicking butt.

The race itself was pretty uneventful. I tried to go as hard as I could at a pace I could hold. For a 5k, if it wasn’t hurting a lot, I wasn’t going hard enough. I was about 10 seconds/mile slower than I wanted, but I just kept pushing. By mile 1, we started up the second hill and I dropped a few people. I was left with two people right in front of me. An older guy and the first place woman. I tried to hang with them, but couldn’t. I was only able to keep them close enough to use them as my rabbits for the rest of the race.

The hardest part of the race was having to run PAST the finish line, up a hill to my car so I could grab my camera  and make it back to the finish line in time to capture Sam coming across the line. Awesome form and great sprint to the finish. Proud husband. Rocking a vintage pink Trakkers visor too.

And we were able to head back to our house for a quick shower and still have time to check out the awards. I ended up a minute behind my goal time, but locked down 1st place in M 20-29 and 9th overall!

Not a bad way to start the season, eh?

1) So much of triathlon is uniquely personal and what works for me won’t work for a lot of people

2) I worry that I’ll come across as pretentious somewhere along the way. Triathlon is an insanely complex sport and I am constantly made aware of how much i still have to learn.

Despite that, I do have a few favorite racing and training tips that I’ve picked up over the years that I’ve decided are worth sharing. Here is the first – the swim cap saddle bag.

A lot of tri bikes are set up with behind-the-saddle bottle cages simply because it is a great way to add on two extra bottles and allow you to go a lot longer without having to top off. That also means that you’ve probably had to work out some weird saddle bag situation to fit around your bottles or you stuff your extra tube/pump/CO2/levers in your bento box. A lot of behind-the-saddle bottle cage setups have extra straps to hold extra goodies, but no  real “bag” to speak of. It forces you to somehow wrap up all of your goodies in one neat package using only two Velcro straps and hope that nothing falls out and leaves you stranded.

I’ve tried to use my extra tube to tie a knot around my CO2/lever/multitool, but that inevitably just falls apart.

I’ve tried taping it all together into one neat package, but that gets sticky and messy.

I’ve tried rubber bands, but they quickly break down and fall apart because of all the sun and sweat.

Then I started using leftover swim caps from old races. I’d shove all my extra gear into the cap, wrap it up tight, and BOOM. I’m good to go. Everything is neatly held in place. It even keeps everything tight enough so there isn’t any annoying jingling noise coming from behind me when I’m on rough roads. And the best part? It is free! And if it breaks, I’ve just got to do another race and I’ll have another cap to bundle up my ghetto saddle bag.

Note: I’m not sure if I came up with this myself, or leeched the idea off of some older/wiser/more attractive triathlete and don’t remember. If you’ve been doing this longer than I have, kudos to you.

This year is getting kicked off with one HUGE way to give back to the cancer community by supporting Rev3′s run across America and mission to raise $100,000 for the Ulman Cancer Fund. The team left Oceanside, California 11 days ago and is currently making its way through Oklahoma. 1,350 miles of running in the bank! They’ve raised over $30,000 so far too! Great progress, but we need to keep up the momentum.

Their blog updates are awesome/hilarious/inspirational. You NEED to check it out. Plus, you can see where they are right now via GPS. http://rev3tri.com/america/raa-blog/

I’m really jealous that I couldn’t be there running through the mountains, BUT I’ve thought of a my own way to support the cause.

Micro Donations – I want to earn YOUR donation – one at a time.

Do you have an idea for some thing (ANYTHING) I can do to give you a little extra satisfaction beyond knowing that you’ve supported a good cause? Name it and tell me about it. Let me know what you think it is worth. If I agree, you make the donation and I’m yours.  They can be physical challenges, embarrassing stunts, manual labor or anything in between. Get creative.

Here are some ideas (in general order of the money you’d need to donate for me to do it).

• Submit a guest post to be published here
• I’ll write a poem for you
• I’ll photoshop a custom blog header for you
• Jump into a ice cold lake and post a video to YouTube
• Bake you dinner
• Raid my collection of vintage Team Trackers race and training kits
• Hire me as your personal “race sherpa” for the day
• Post an instructional YouTube video for how to do the “wiggle dance”
• Get me to part ways with my signed Crowie, Rinny and Gollnick T-shirt. (yes. I have one)
• Get your name tattoo’d on my butt cheek

Basically, just complete the sentence “It would be really cool if Jamie…..”

You just have to pony up the appropriate level of cash, and consider it done. 

Well… maybe not the butt tattoo…

Everyone has their limits.

They just started and we are already at 20% of our goal – raising $100,000 for the Ulman Cancer Fund.

Go to www.rev3tri.com/america for more information or go to http://rev3tri.com/america/raa-blog/ to check out stories from the road and track their progress live via GPS.

I could not be more proud just to be associated with such strong, selfless and inspiring people.

Do you train to race or race to train? 

Just about everyone that I’ve met that is into triathlons seems to fall into one of those two categories.

Is racing just an excuse for getting out of bed every sunday morning and charging up hills on your bike before the birds start chirping?

Or is training that annoying thing that you have to do when race directors are inconsiderate enough not to have a new event for you to compete in every single weekend of the year?

Me? 

I 100% in the “train to race” category. While I love racing, testing myself and competing against the clock and others, it is nothing compared to the fun I have splashing through Walden pond as the sun sets behind me, hitting switchbacks on a hilly trail run or rolling for miles on quiet country miles on my bike. I’ll always add a few races throughout the season to keep me motivated, but given the option on any given weekend, I’d much rather spend a long day training with friends than slogging it out by myself on the race course.

What about you? 

Like how when you push down on the pedals, the bike actually moves forward. Funny, eh?

It was fun, so I kept pushing down for 50 or so miles with some friends, finished off with some BBQ burritos. A great reminder of why I love cycling so much in the first place and why I spent so much time on the trainer this winter.

Masculinity is such bizarre concept to me. Mainly because sometimes I like to think I have a talent for embodying a modern day Davey Crockett, but other times (usually when resigning to other  people’s definitions), I’m the fanciest lady-boy you’ve ever met.

While there is an endless list of characteristics that define “manliness,” one of the few that I think we can all agree on is sports and athleticism. Physical competition. Man-on-man tests of strength and will.  Characteristics that some would say I embody pretty well 6 days a week during my triathlon training, but I still have close friends (who are very aware of my training schedule) say “Jamie – he isn’t that into sports.”

For whatever reason, my mind immediately goes to comparing myself to a 300 lb man watching football for hours alone in his basement, sucking BBQ sauce from between his fingers and leftover cheeto dust from his favorite team’s sweatshirt.

“Is this guy more masculine than me?”

I couldn’t tell you what channel number ESPN is on my cable box, or a damn thing about recent Red Sox or Patriots trades, or what the hell the Celtics are up to this season, but somehow that qualifies as just cause for dropping the emasculating quote “he just isn’t that into sports.” While never meant as even a direct attack on my manhood, it wouldn’t be that out of place to follow up with “he has such soft hands and is afraid of fast moving objects.”

It is something I’ve heard plenty in my life, and it doesn’t really bother me. More than anything else, it just confuses me. How exactly did Football/Baseball/Basketball monopolize all that is “sports.” Even Basketball is just over 100 years old, but somehow American culture has decided that athletic competitions that have been around for thousands of years should stick to the bench. How did the amount of time I spend watching Sports Center become tied to the strength of my manhood. And no, I’m not using that in a phalic way, but snicker if you must. I’m not going to try and bother to get through this post without a penis joke thrown in there for good measure.

The idea that I’m “not that into sports” isn’t  something I’ve ever challenged, probably simply based on my confusion. It is hard to attack something when you have no idea where it is coming from. Drunk monkey kung fu style. Plus, my chosen sport has more spandex, shaved legs and neoprene body suits than a gay fetish porn, so I’d already start that discussion with an uphill battle ahead of me. Given the choice between questioning their word choice and ignoring the comment completely, I rarely find myself with the motivation or interest to tackle the former. So I’m stuck with the latter.

But more than just understanding what comes to mind when people think about “sports” and why, I’m always puzzled why that limited definition of “sports” seems to seep into people’s definition of “manliness.” I’m more fit than the average American guy (unfortunately not saying a lot), battle other guys to determine our physical supremacy on a regular basis and can grunt and scratch with the best of ‘em. But all of that is moot to many people because of my choice to workout in a speedo and shave my legs. Triathlon seems to have earned me as many “man points” as I would have gotten doing pole dance aerobics and “booty boot camp” classes at the local gym.

But one through process that this rambling stream of consciousness HASN’T brought me to is questioning my passion for swimming, biking and running. Being outside and getting sweaty.

Passion, commitment and confidence. Maybe I’ll start using those as my main definitions for “manliness” now on.

Or maybe my confusion around different definitions of “manliness” is really all rooted in my worries that people are questioning my love of BBQ sauce and cheeto dust and this entire dialogue has been horribly misguided…

I show up, stroll on to the pool deck and check in. Which apparently literally is just putting a check mark (not an X) next to your name to say that you are there. What, no USAT card? No showing my driver’s license? I’m confused. Oh well.

The ladies are in the middle of their heats for the 1650 and I’m completely befuddled. The guys on the opposite end of the pool counting off laps with those plastic flip board things are counting up to the 50s and 60s?! WTF?! How long is this race? How many laps do I actually have to do?? This probably should have been something that I researched more than 2 hours before my race, but thankfully Google was there to help out. I figured out that they were counting LENGTHS and not LAPS, which made a LOT more sense. PHEW.

1650 yards is 66 lengths, and at 65, they just showed two red squares, to show that you’ve got one length to go. Like a checkered flag thing.

Needless to say, I had a lot of blank stares going on until I figured out what was happening in front of me (and tried to remember just enough to make sure I didn’t make an ass of myself.)

The only thing I seemed to have going for me is that my new Rev3 suit arrived in the mail the day before. It has proven to make everyone on my team faster, so there was a little glimmer of hope that my performance wouldn’t be completely embarrassing.

Behold – the power of the shimmer.

Unfortunately, I was flying solo and my cheerleader/wife/race photographer wasn’t able to get any sweet race shots, but here are some fast  ladies that went off before me. I’m sure Sam is appreciative that there isn’t photographic evidence of me rocking a speedo on the internet, too.

Despite some (not surprising) rookie mistakes and flooding my goggles (and looking like a convulsing seal doing an arm-less breast stroke to try to fix it without touching the bottom of the pool and DQing) I actually did pretty well! My “A” goal was to hold a 1:34/100 yards pace. That would bring me to the wall around 26:00. I managed to beat it with a solid 25:51!

Happy boy! A nice confirmation that not only was I fully over my cold, but the MANY pre-dawn hours spent in the pool for the last 3 months were paying off big time. There is no way in hell I’d be able to pull off that time last year – even at peak fitness.

And my team was right. There is some magic in that suit…