NerdFest2013. If you thought training was tough try sitting through this...

June 2:  Made it to Louisville KY for NerdFest2013 aka The North American Catalysis Society biennial meeting.  I caught a direct flight from the Dallas ITU race to Louisville to minimize travel time and since I got there so early, I built my bike and went out for a ride!  Absolutely beautiful riding in KY.  Humidity was delicious, I got slimy and sweaty on the ride, and everything smelled so green and fresh.  Ahh I love the south.  Sensual.

But of course I was there on 'work' so I wasnt going to have much time to train.  The conference (The North American Catalysis Meeting) is the top catalysis conference in the word, catalysis being the branch of chemical engineering that I study.  The research we do involves studying materials (catalysts) which make chemical reactions happen (ie. petrochemical, oil company, renewable energy research).  I think there were about 1500 people at the conference about half of which are grad students and the rest professors and researchers from around the world.

Sunday night was the opening reception at Churchill Downs, the venue of the Kentucky Derby, and this being a pretty well funded conference (imagine every petrochemical/oil company ever trying to get involved) it was super classy.  Here is 'Mine that Bird,' the 2009 derby winner who recently switched to soccer.

They had just about every type of Bourbon imaginable (this being KY).  Since I know literally nothing about alcohol it fell flat on me but had to try this one because it was named after my favorite person ever, Thomas Jefferson.  One sip and I nearly choked to death.  Does that mean its good?

Mark Twain however was apparently a fan: "If I cannot drink bourbon and smoke cigars in heaven than I shall not go." Doesnt exactly sound like my life.

Here is a panorama of the 'Hat room'

Of course the food was also delicious.  Sidenote: it was funny watching all these sedentary 60yro nerdy engineers shovel down pastries all week at every break session.

Here are some pictures of the outside of Churchill Downs.  The three people are the three other students from my lab at Colorado.  Simon, Rhea, and Matt.

And finally the conference started...

Each day there were presentations from 8am to 8pm (6 always going on at the same time that you had to choose from), so if you went to everything it was pretty mind numbing.  The first day was pretty hard core, I presented Monday afternoon, but honestly after that it wasnt that bad.  I was still able to get out Tuesday night for another bike ride!  Beautiful southern greenery.

I won a Kokes Award for the conference which paid for my travel and hotel and stuff for the week and one of the perks was that Tuesday night we got a paddle boat ride on the Ohio River.

I still managed to get some swimming and running in either early in the day or as a break from some of the sessions.  I wouldnt ever want to live in Louisville, but it was a pretty cool place to hang out for a week. Made it back to Boulder Friday afternoon just in time for a sick awesome weekend with roommate Ginna's family!

Next up is St Louis 5150 June 28th or so.  Its gonna be another back to back to back with that, then my undergrad friends Todd and Amara getting married in Charlottesville VA and then the Boulder Peak.

Now I can finally enjoy my first weekend of summer!

Rudy

YOLO in big D.

Race #3 in 3 weeks.  June 1 in Dallas TX.

Headed down to Dallas Thursday night for the Pan Am Cup ITU draft legal race.  The draft legal format isn't exactly the best for me since I am strongest at biking, but I was again impressed (this being my second race) with the quality of race setup, the ease of registration, the fact that it was so freakin easy to get a pre-race swim and didnt require driving all over the city looking for a pool, etc.

The team that I am on (Off the Front Multisport) is funded this year by Team Psycho and the focus of the team is draft legal racing.  SO, I put this one one the schedule.  Plus, I got to stay with a bunch of them at the race!  Stephen (heroic team director), his girlfriend (cooler than him), Jake Shoemaker (voluble sidekick), Chelsea Burns (emerging star/sweetheart), Jess Broderick (tri-gossip library).  I also got to see my bud Ryan Bice who I hadnt seen in ages!

Not gonna lie, it was awesome to fly in to Dallas and breathe in the hot humid air.  Its so delicious.  Only 4 days after New Orleans I was experiencing withdraw. 

The day before went so smoothly I spent the entire afternoon reading in the lobby and eavesdropping on the USAT development meeting (thats them in the picture).  They are charged with developing collegiate runners and swimmers into draft legal superstars, including some of my friends.  As far as I understand, they are naturally better at injuring people, so maybe its a real blessing that I was never good enough for them.

Here is the pre-race meeting later that night.

In all, the race prep was great.  I had my 3rd box of kroger brand chocolate cheerios for my 3rd straight race (though I had to ration it this time since I almost ate the whole thing on the plane Thursday).  Fortunately I had my sleeve of pre-race oreos to top off a large pizza and sizeable dose of Stephen's rhetoric.

OH, AND they had madagascar3 on TV.  Freakin amazing movie.  It was the makings of a good weekend.

Its honestly rather hilarious, these draft legal races.  I have done two and each has been just loaded with drama and stories and people hatin on other people.  Its nuts.  The non-drafting 5150 races are boring in comparison--here there are hot athletic chicks everywhere--makes me understand why the olympics is purportedly such a party.

Anyway, I slept in on race day (another perk to add to the list) since the guys race wasnt until 12pm.  I went read a bit and went down to watch the girls bike and then warm up.

In the morning the weather was overcast (as the pictures sorta show) but supposedly Zeus was pissed off and it was supposed to start lightning hailing and blowing at about 12...so I get back from my bike ride warm up and the race people are like yeah we are moving up the start 30 minutes.  Warm up fail.

Funny side note: at the start Manny Huerta was wearing #1 and had PUR on his suit.  The announcer goes "and Manny Huerta from Peru."  PUR is actually Puerto Rico, but the point is that Manny is from Cuba and raced for the US in the olympics last year...none of which makes any sense.

The swim was about what I expected.  I felt fine but got literally drowned.  Some races I swim so hard that I contemplate whether I am drowning (which feels normal after doing swim practices with Jane Scott), but in this race, I wasnt swimming hard...I was just drowning.  Maybe one of these times I will figure it out, but it seems like I would be better off to take up self-water boarding and save the travel money.  Honestly, I just need to suck it up and swim faster at the start.

Anyway, I think I was about 3rd pack out on the bike and was with my teammate Jake who is our super runner extraordinaire.  The plan had been that if we were in the same group, I would bike hard to put him in a good position.  This sounds strategic, but its not.  Our group pretty much sucked at biking; I got bored and ended up riding on the front to stave off daydreaming.  Just like my last DL race, the bike ride was pretty darn useless except for the added value of losing time to the first group...yay...I guess I didnt bike hard enough.

Yeah then we hit the run and everyone literally sprinted off at like 4:40 pace.  I was probably 30th of 30 from our bike group.  But, I just ran what felt like a sustainable pace and remember thinking, damn I would be impressed if they held that.  It was hot as hansel on the run (the sun literally came out halfway through the race--the weather guys were wrong...surprise) and by mile 4 people were wilting like pansies and running with worse posture than my grandpa.  I'd say in that last lap or two I passed like 15 guys and ended up finishing about 14th or so?  I havent seen any results, but probably it was probably a pretty good race for me.

Three sentence summary:
My swimming has improved but I still got drowned.
Biking is useless.
Run was hot as balls.
Synopsis: ITU guys are fast but not tough.  I am bad at ITU.

Oh yeah I had red bull on the bike ride again (mixed 50:50 with water) and it was flippin delicious.  When I went to collect my bike after the race it had sprouted wings.

The day got better when I had 4x muffins (on sale at this bakery place) and completed a mind numbing puzzle in the froyo store.

Besides that, friend Ryan Bice attempted to interact with Dallas infrastructure.

Another fun weekend.  Direct flight Monday morning to...Louisville KY.  What?  NerdFest2013.  The North American Catalysis Conference from Sunday to Friday.  Guaranteed to blow your mind...and your training...that post coming next.

Rudy