My unwitting entrance to draft legal racing.

Thats right folks.  My first race of the year is this weekend!  Saturday at 12 noon in Sarasota FL--draft legal olympic distance.  At the least it should yield an interesting blog post for next week!

Side-note, my law class is crushing me so I am eating this right now.

With the start of the season I have been putting together a race schedule...well piecing a race schedule around the rest of my schedule.  This will be my second year as a pro and again I decided that it would be good to spend at least one more year focusing on the olympic distance in an attempt to get fast--especially at running.  Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to get as fast as the top guys, especially in running.  I mean my swimming has improved a TON this winter and my biking has never really been an issue but how do you get your body to run super fast?  I've always followed the precedent of the kenyans, run a lot, run fast, run fast a lot, and when you arent supposed to run, dont.  Of course I think they have a physiological advantage on me since my legs are as thick as their chests.  Who knows, each year I keep getting slightly faster which is encouraging but I still have a ways to go to compete with those top guys. 

As I mentioned, my first race this weekend in Sarasota Florida as a draft legal race.  I have never done a draft legal race (so that will be interesting) but for those of you unfamiliar, the format of this race is that you are allowed to draft on the bike portion.  Therefore the tactics of the race change dramatically since large groups typically come off the bike together.  Basically you can lose on the swim and the bike but you can only really win the race on the run.  These races almost always come down to who can run the fastest 10k at the end.  Sure I am a bit concerned about that, but honestly this being my first draft legal race I will probably do something totally dumb like drop by shoes or crash my bike.  So I figure I should just focus on finishing without any major screw ups.

This also kicks off the first travel of my jam packed year...I just added it all up and I will be traveling a LOT this year:

14 different cities for triathlons

3 different cities for chemical engineering conferences

2 more different cities for weddings

Thats 19 different cities in one year.  And that only takes me to the first week of November.  I assume I will be going somewhere for the holidays (or else my parents get sad) so that would be some more travel there on the end.  Yikes.  I am going to get cancer from all the gamma rays.

In other news, winter finally hit Boulder.  We have had snow like 2x a week recently.  About time we got some precipitation in this place.  Its real pretty actually.  And weird because I kind of like it.

Thats all for now.  

Rudy

February. Is it over yet?

Hello peoples.  Two weeks since my last post.  Whew time flies.  I dont even have anything to write about, but I have to make an effort to write about something otherwise it will be 2 months.  

Winter finally started dropping some snow--its pretty cool to be swimming outside in a blizzard!  I should add that to the list of perks of swimming at FAC that I outlined in my last post.  Also, I have ridden my bike to school every single day since I have lived in colorado = 2.5 years.  Rain, snow, ice, nothing can stop me.  One time I rode through about 14 inches of snow!  This is a shot from this week on the way home.  No big deal really.  It gets a little slick.

I have kept the swimming up and recently have been collecting swim caps.  As I mentioned in the last post about swimming, the coaches include Dave Scott and Simon Lessing, and each of them run their own coaching business which they promote through swim caps.  Haha.  I was getting a lot of crap for my old cap which is orange and see through (sorry Joanna), so Simon gave me a cap to wear (Boulder Coaching).  Well, that cap was not kosher at Dave's practices, so he gave me one too.  Now I have to make sure I wear the right cap on the right day!

Oh yeah I dont think I wrote about this yet, but one of my roommates Ginna is in school for acupuncture and other Chinese medicine rituals.  She is like a witch doctor (Sorry Ginna, I am a chemical engineer, I cant handle non-science (though I certainly do believe in the placebo effect...)).  She works on Rob and Nate sometimes (my other roommates) but I dont let her touch me with any of them needles.  Why?  Here is a perfect example.  I come home from school one day and she is lighting her foot on fire.  Literally.  With some herb that smelled a lot like marijuana.  She is a runner (which is why I still love her (plus she is super nice)) but I think she was trying to remedy a case of plantar fasciitis? I dunno if it worked, but it blew my mind.

Besides that, I also failed to mention in my last post the awesome law classes I have been taking.  So, just to be clear, I am still doing a PhD in Chemical Engineering but have finished all the coursework required for that degree--more than a year ago--so now I just have an undefined amount of research in my future.  So, just for fun, I have been taking energy policy classes in other departments, and last fall, I took Energy Law in the Law School.  It was mind blowing.  Of all the different departments I have now taken classes (both in undergrad and now in grad school) including engineering (duh), the business school, environmental science, environmental policy and law, law is by far my favorite, probably because it is also the most erudite.

And, my professor has a PhD in science as well as a J.D. so I think he has a soft spot in his heart for scientists.  Anyway, he convinced me to take Environmental Law with him this spring.  I am such a sucker for learning; I signed up.  Law school is sooooo cool!

Maybe it is just because I have a flipping amazing professor, but I have learned more in these two classes than in anything else I have ever taken, I think.  Well, I probably learned a whole heck of a lot in graduate thermo but not much of that applies to everyday life...plus it is still kinda fuzzy what exactly we did learn...it was all abstract stuff like partial derivatives of thermodynamic properties which honestly make no real physical sense anyway even though pretentious enginerds pretend that they do; dont let them fool you.  (Rule of thumb: just because someone's area of expertise makes no sense to anyone does not mean they deserve deference.)  In contrast, law is just rational thought applied to everyday circumstances.  Its like, "Joe Schmoe is angry because his land is now covered in toxic chemicals from the chemical factory that got built next door."  Its like yeah I get it Joe, I would be mad too.  Figuring out the solution in terms of the law can be complicated (and funky) but the circumstances of the case are pretty easy to understand.  

Anyway, reading for the class is taking all my spare time, but I am also ramping up the piano playing as of late.  I recently learned Requiem for a Dream, the theme song from Peanuts, Moonlight Sonata, and Dawn (theme song from Pride and Prejudice haah).  I am working on Claire de Lune, but its pretty tough, not gonna lie.  I have a tendency (OCD/perfectionism/possibly both) where I cant stand learning the watered down version of piano music because I feel like I would be offending the original composer, but in the case of Claire de Lune, I really dont know how it is physically possible to even hit all those keys with only 2x hands.  Claude DeBussy must have had like 4 hands at least.  When it feels too daunting, I just look up and Mohammad Ali tells me that impossible is nothing (I have had that poster since high school).

Also, I am having some serious problems right now because my electric keyboard has only 76 keys (though it was only $50 on craigslist).  Naturally, all of these pieces I am learning pretty much require the full 88.  A real piano is kinda out of the question at this point, but one day I will have one... mark my words...

Rudy

My new Blue. Its black. And has red components.

As promised it has been less than 3 months since my last post.  Read it and weap momma.

One of the new advancements of this spring is that I have upgraded my bike.  Back in 2011 at Age Group Nationals, I had the fastest overall bike split and "won" a Blue Bike Frame.  After sending +/- a zillion emails to various employees of Blue, I never received a frame and so I entered 2012 basically giving up.  Then, I had the fastest bike split at Collegiate Nationals in April 2012 and "won" another Blue Bike frame.  So at this point, I emailed them and was like, look guys, if you just send me one full bike (not 2x frames) that would be cool.  I even contacted the CEO to try to light a fire under their buns.

So finally they said ok yeah they would send it in May...I wasnt fooled.  I tried to put it in the back of my mind for the summer and sure enough, after "warehouse problems" and "shipping problems" and large chunks of time without contact, I finally got a bike in November approximately 15 months after "winning" the first frame.  Better than never I guess! I still got a brand new bike although, looking back it was hardly free--for the time I spent contacting them and the value of the bike it worked out to about $3.50 per hour which I am pretty sure is less than minimum wage.

Anyway, when I "won" the 2x bikes they put you up on stage in front of everyone so every random person seemed to know I should be getting a new  bike and have been asking about it for like 15 months.  So here you go, here is the story.  I finally can say yes it came.  And here are some pictures.  They ended up sending me their limited edition Matte Black frame so it looks pretty cool, but it doesn't actually have red components like they said it would, surprise (it has SRAM force).  Still, they have won this battle, I concede, I am not sending it back to them.  By the time they got back to me there probably wouldn't be roads anymore.

And of course the old Cervelo P2 is now out gunned.  I got the Cervelo back in December 2008 and have ridden it all over the US, won a couple national championships on it, got 16th at Hy-Vee on it this year, taken it on century rides--not to mention all the quality trainer rides we have had together.  In deciding what to do with it, I was talking to my friend Drew Scott who said that his dad Dave still has his first bike that he raced Kona on back in 1980.  Its probably steel and has like 5 gears and some downtube shifters.  In short it is pretty much worthless to anyone except for the personal nostalgic value it holds for Dave.

I know I know its sad but, I decided that although that bike and I have had some great times together that it was time for it to move on and get on with living its life.  So, I sold it to a nice guy who promised to treat it well (I think he could tell it was meaningful to me).  I figured, (a) this guy could get good use out of it or (b) it could sit and collect dust for a couple years by which time the value and usefulness would inevitably decrease leaving me with a rusty dusty outdated unridden bike that would be viewed as 'junk' by anyone other than myself.  (Its probably good too since I still have like 5 bikes.)  Maybe I will even see it out there on the roads sometime!  Until then, it will be remembered:

Besides the bike news, my dad recently sent me a bar of dark chocolate.  Normally this would not be noteworthy, but in this case the bar in question weighed 5kg or about 11lbs.  It has like 125 servings, 30,000 calories (roughly) and enough caffeine to jump start Sonya Sotomayor's rate of speech from its dismal state of 40 words/min to the audiobook recommended level of 150 words/min (I'm speculating but the world can only hope).  I also ate too much last night and couldn't get to sleep until like 4am...

If you want one for yourself, good luck... the bar was imported from Belgium.  My hobiless dad (to the endless vexation of my mother) apparently has nothing to fill his time since there are no more soccer tournaments and little league baseball games, so he started going to this french bakery every morning at like 4am (since he apparently doesn't sleep either).  Now he and the baker are BFFs and this baker imports all of his chocolate from Belgium because it is of higher quality than is obtainable in the US.  He gave my parents a chunk of a bar at one point (which was sitting in our freezer at home) and over Christmas I pretty much demolished that stash.  Sensing that I like dark chocolate, my dad arranged to have a whole bar sent to me!  HAH!  11lbs...it will  probably last me like 3 weeks.

Side note, the bar is like 2 inches thick so you cant bite it and you cant break it.  Apparently my dad cut his with a band-saw in the garage (which I think is terribly wasteful), so I got a chisel and a hammer and have been shattering mine to get it into bite-able sizes. 

Thats all for now, hopefully my arteries wont clog up with saturated fat before my next post. (Each serving of the chocolate bar is 50% of daily value).

Rudy

Since my last race: a flock of seagulls and a ham sandwich

Hello blog readers.  My mom got on my case again saying that it is "pathetic" that I havent written anything since October 2, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to kick off 2013.

Since the Los Angeles Triathlon back in September I have mostly been focusing on school.  I was the TA for an undergrad chemical engineering class Material And Energy Balances to fulfill a teaching requirement for my PhD...basically, I taught approximately a zillion office hours and since it is a weed out class for chemical engineers, a large number of people failed...random nightmare scenarios ensued. 

I passed my yearly PhD evaluation and am on schedule to finish my PhD early (3.5 year range) which would be mildly inconvenient considering I have the perfect setup here in Boulder.  For example:

I joined the local Flatirons Athletic Club at the end of last season so I would have a place to swim this winter.  After last year's Collegiate season, I decided it was time to move on from the CU tri  team.  I had a pretty good season in 2012 as a first year pro and it seemed like the proper time to move on.  Plus, it has been phenomenal to get away from the required practices and meetings and events of the team.  For the first two years I lived in Colorado, the tri team was a great way to meet other CU students and train, but there were a growing number of reasons pushing me to move away as well.  This fall I joined the team as usual but now as I am writing this email, I realize I havent been to a single practice all year.  I didnt really mean to have a full exit from the collegiate scene but thats kinda how it has happened.  The crazy thing is that I could theoretically race Collegiate Nationals 4 more years if I wanted to!  (Already I have raced it 6x which seems rather absurd in itself).

Moving on from that is kinda weird.  I feel all grown up.  This will be the first year in the history of my triathlon career in which I havent had collegiate nationals in mid-April.  Usually, I am still freezing my buns off and counting down the weeks till the biggest race of the year.  This year I have the ability to really focus my year on the summer and not worry so much about early season racing.

Still, my first race is going to be mid-March at the Sarasota Pan Am Cup--an ITU draft legal style race. For those of you unfamiliar (like my mom), most of the races I do are non-drafting making it illegal to draft on the bike portion of the race.  In the ITU format, drafting on the bike is legal and the dynamics of the race are enormously different.  In these races, being a strong biker matters less and the race almost always comes down to the run since large packs form on the bike portion.

Anyway, for the time being I am continuing my swimming focus with 7-9 practices a week.  The last two years my swimming has been pitifully slow during the school year being forced to swim at the CU rec center with simply not enough swimming per week with the CU team.  Now, I am getting drowned by some freakin fast swimmers at FAC.  I must say, I have never had more fun swimming than right now.  I think swimming is the one discipline that most triathletes shy away from but I think there are some crucial aspects which can make it enjoyable:

1) Swimming outside: the pool I joined is outdoor year round!  Yeah.  In Boulder.  What.  There have been days with snow and 10 degrees and we are still outside swimming.  (running from the locker room to the pool can be quite harrowing).  Being Boulder, most days are at least sunny and I am surprisingly tan for January.  Maybe its the added Vitamin D, the ability to look at the sky, no longer having the oppressively claustrophobic state of stagnant chlorine radiating from the walls of the dimly lit CU REC center and sucking your life out of the pores of your skin, or the sheer human appeal of the novelty of no longer being in the aforementioned situation, but whatever it is, swimming at FAC is flippin amazing.

2) Swimming with awesome masters coaches like Jane Scott.  I dont know her too well really, but Jane is probably one of my favorite people.  Jane coaches practices at all of the major swimming groups in Boulder and I go to a couple of her practices every week where she has absolutely no sympathy for complaining and dispassionately reels off marginally impossible sets while deriding softies with a wry sense of humor.  "Why dont you try leaving 1/2 a second behind, I dont think you are drafting enough."  She probably wouldnt work too well anywhere else besides Boulder...

3) Swimming with fast people.  Really fast people.  Like certain pro triathletes.  Plus, to be honest, I have lived in Boulder for coming up on 3 years this summer and I am still awed by the people I work out with.  When I first got into triathlons in 2006, these people were just names on websites.  Now they know who I am.  Which seems insane most days. Well, basically all days.

Anyway, besides that its winter time so trainer season is in full swing.  Last year I set up the garage as a trainer studio and have a 32 inch TV a surround sound system and some motivational posters.  And of course, I took this picture while watching a James Bond movie (staple of the rudy diet (Goldeneye in this case))...

Currently, its great weather here in Boulder--its hit mid 50s every day this week!  But it was freezing cold a few weeks ago.  Here is a shot of the flatirons from outside my lab one day when it was like 12.

It still surprises me how cold it can get when it gets cold here.  Back home in Virginia we would get 'cold' days where it would get down to like 25.  Here it gets easily below zero.  These pictures are from a run on a day where the high was like 8 degrees.  I wore a balaclava to make it easier to breathe and the snow you see is from my breath freezing!  I even had icicles on my eyebrows which periodically would freeze shut.

Anyway, now that the season is approaching, I am starting to add in more biking and running workouts, plus as usual, there is more than enough work that needs to be done in lab.  Recently I made some palladium thin films (I am not even going to bother explaining why because its probably boring anyway).  But they looked kinda artsy and what can I say.  I am a nerd I guess so I took pictures hhaha.

Oh yeah I I cant believe it but my I got an iPhone over Christmas.  So now I can take pictures and document everything for the upcoming season!  Hope you all are ready for some super thrilling shots of the inside of an airplane.  The next post will be sooner than last....

Rudy

LA tri...its definitely not a nashville party

Ahh the last race of the year.  a) I cant believe it is here but b) yeah I guess it is time.

After getting back to Boulder at about midnight last Sunday after Galveston, I had Monday to Thursday to get as much schoolwork done as possible before leaving for LA on Friday.  My travel prowess has outstripped even my gains in triathlon--I unpacked my bike in LA in a record 6minutes!

So I hoped off the plane at LAX with a dream and a...well but I had accidentally packed my cardigan, oops.  Later, I had some awesome mexican food.  A massive burrito for like $6.  It was the most expensive thing on the menu!  I swear, california mexican food is so much better than anywhere else I have been.  "The land of fame, excess"?  There weren't any famous people at the restaurant and $6 is pretty cheap to be honest.

Blah blah blah, I worked out on Saturday morning and then my home stay and I drove into the city for the pro meeting--driving there, I looked to my left and saw the hollywood sign! (I swear its there to the left; is that smog?)

Sunday race time was 7:15.  I knew the water had been about 68-70 during the week and I was convinced that the refs would be sticklers and wouldn't let us use wetsuits.   Whoda thought, they did.  Charlie Crawford has a heart after all.   (Charlie BTW is USATs #1 ref dude; he takes pleasure in extensively quoting the rule book and obsessively enforcing the rules (which I think is a good thing actually (I also think he has lost weight recently; he was looking pretty fit))) --but I digress.  My first pro race I have been allowed to use my XTERRA Vendetta wetsuit.  Been waiting all year for that.

This was my first ocean swim and the waves were pretty intense--I think it was 5-6ft swells by Sunday morning making the wetsuits nice backup in case of a drowning scenario.  As soon as the race started, that scenario unfolded.  Sometimes at the start of races I just lack killer instinct.  Most races really; I am just not a mean person I guess and when people are whacking me on the head I usually just try to get out of their way rather than fight them.  The waves were crashing the heck out of us and I got in a group that was too slow for me so I dropped them and was left in no mans land the rest of the time.  

THEN coming in I got rocked by like 3 waves simultaneously.  The first one I felt coming and I was like "Ok, cool I am just gonna body surf this thing in no problem."  Wrong.  I ended up being face planted into the sand, half drowned, rinse, repeat x3.  It was like being in the "extra dirty" washing machine setting where it takes a break after draining and you gasp for air, glance anxiously and think its done so you can move your stuff to the dryer, but then the dang thing just keeps adding more water and vigorously swishing your clothes around.  When I finally got out, I was glad to be alive.  It was kinda funny actually how bad I got rocked, hopefully entertaining from the beach.

The bike was... meh.  I was just kinda plodding along but I guess it was ok.  I mean my time was decent.

Then the run, I just felt awesome.  I think after such a weird race otherwise, I was fresh and ready to go.  Just FYI if you havent done the LA tri, there is a massive hill that you have to do 2x.  I cant think of anything bigger I have ever done in a triathlon actually?  I will keep brainstorming but I dont think so.  Still, I was just cruising the whole time and had my fastest run ever in 32:48.

Who woulda thought, with that I accomplished my 2x goals of 2012; make Hy-Vee (I was the 30th pro of 30 to get in) and run sub-33 (did it in my last race of the year).  Somehow I always seem to make all these ridiculous goals even though I almost always consider them out of reach and usually write them off before they end up happening.  Again, thanks Athena, greek gods et al, I cant think of any other reason why they would happen.

Ok, so I forgot to take much video this weekend; I guess I am getting lazy, but this one basically covers everything else I did, saw, etc:

It was sad to pack up for the last time, but I am honestly psyched about racing next year.  One thing I worried about this year racing as a pro was that it would make triathlon more of a job than a fun pass time; more stress than enjoyment.  BUT, in fact this was the most fun I have ever had racing triathlons.  The travel, the Chobani tri team, free race entries, meeting new homestays, experiencing culture around the US, getting to know famous pro triathletes, and gaining support around the country.  I will surely be training hard this winter for an even better 2013.

Rudy

Galveston 5150, mosquitos, and cheese dipped bacon wrapped fried shrimp

Well, after a nice 3 week break from racing following Hy-Vee, I am finishing the racing year back to back at Galveston 5150 and the lifetime fitness series LA triathlon.  Really, racing as a pro this year has been FANTASTIC for a ton of reasons, but I will write about that later.  Right now, its just tough because school has started and its taking all my time!

Also of note, last Sunday I almost got hit by a car and hit a mailbox at 20mph instead (haha, I am an idiot sometimes).  I went down hard and twisted my shoulder pretty bad, cut up my back and got the worst whiplash I have ever experienced!  Naturally, I was determined not to let it set me back with only 2 races left.  I tried swimming but the shoulder was in serious pain.  (It was also nearly impossible to flip-turn with whiplash, seriously).  My parents, being physical therapists, of course obliged themselves by lecturing me about icing and resting and pumping ibuprofen down my throat.  I ended up doing a little bit of all of this since my shoulder really did hurt a lot.  A number of friends and co-workers told me I should drop out of the race, but by roommate Rob came through, "screw them" he said.  True, when do you ever race 100%, really. I mean I never seem to.

I got in Friday; on Saturday I ran and biked and swam, but you couldn't really tell the difference between them, it was so humid you felt like it was all swimming!  (I secretly like humidity actually; the air is so thick and delicious).  Later, I cranked out some schoolwork for an upcoming committee meeting presentation and chilled with my home-stay John and Kara who were AWESOME.  Another thing I will write more about, but home-stays are a great way to visit an unknow place--its like instant friends in an unknown city!  They give you a place to sleep and show you all the cool stuff!  Plus, their friend Tara was there from Corpus Christi, so we had a fun group.  Here is Tara, John and me after the race.  (Kara was taking the picture)

Sunday, we got to the race nice and early, the sun wasn't up and as I stepped out of the car a herd of mosquitos viscously assaulted every inch of exposed skin on my body.  I plastered myself in some volunteer bug spray and warmed up a lot (to keep moving so they couldn't land on me).  I also took an ibuprofen since my shoulder was still quite a bit touchy.

I ended up having a great swim (I need to write a blog post about Jane sometime because her coaching this summer has helped me tremendously).  I was less than a minute from the leaders out of the water and got out on the bike course with the leaders in sight!  Oh snap.

The bike course was literally flatter than the swim course.  It seemed like the whole thing was uphill and I had to constantly fight the urge to stand up since I knew it was actually flat.  (Galveston is basically a sandbar so there are literally no hills.  (Ok, there WAS a bump in the road at one point; a good 3 inch hill).  I had a good bike (my fastest ever 40k in 55:something) but the highlight was passing Matt Reed at like mile 15.  I looked over and was like, 'holy crap, its Matt Reed, holy crap, stay calm, holy crap' followed by a couple minutes of biking way too hard.  The whole time I was thinking of this line from a James Bond movie where the villain is driving a blimp and saying in an eastern european accent, "more, more power."

The run was eventful too actually.  I was in third at this point by a lot and the course was windy all around this weird Jurassic Park-ish theme park area (tourist haven).  I accidentally missed a short out and back on the first lap and passed Tyler Butterfield.  I had absolutely no idea I cut but he did.  He yelled at me like a mile later when he caught me and I felt like a total idiot.  Here I am totally lost and now I blew my best pro race.  I ran mile 4 pretty dejected until I got to the point I had gone wrong on lap 1.  I figured what the heck, I will just run it twice this time, they are probably going to DQ me anyway, I might as well get a full 10k in since I flew all the way here.  Who knew, one of the race directors was on the course and saw me do it twice, thanked me and said since I was so far ahead of 4th, they would let it fly.  Wow, I definitely appreciated that.  Thanks for looking out for me Athena.

Finished third, my first professional podium!  Super cool.  Home-stay Kara got some pics (she is a professional photographer for BP actually).  Side-note, the petrochemical industry is HUGE there--of interest to me being a PhD chemical engineer--I felt right at home with all the distillation towers and cute birdies covered in crude oil (just kidding, chemicals are awesome!!).

The day only got better after the race.  We cleaned up and headed to the fishermans wharf area for some seafood--I had a bowl gumbo, a breadbowl of clam chowder, and some cheese dipped bacon wrapped fried shrimp.  It was insane.  I could barely find the shrimp.  THEN, we went to the confectioners and I had 3 scoops of homemade ice cream (2 were mine (moca chip and coffee) and 1 was an uneaten scoop of peanut butter chocolate chip from Tara).  I was about ready to pass out at this point...

With an 8pm flight back to Denver, the sun was setting when we took off and the atmosphere of the plane echoed the peaceful surfeit of tired bodies returning from eventful weekends.  By now I have become so used to flying on weekends that it really is completely comfortable.  It just seems right.  There is no stress.  In fact, I love it.  The cabin lights were dimmed; I wasnt sleepy but was in a state of total content listening to passion pit and almost in a trance (listen to the song and you will understand).  I just took a look around at everyone on the plane watching their ipads, wondering where they were going, what they were thinking, and thought about how cool it is to be able to travel all over the US to race triathlons, win a bit of money, make great friends, experience some local culture, and be back for school on Monday.  Really, I must be one of the luckiest people to have this life.  Athena sure is looking out for me.

Its the end of September and already it is snowing in the mountains here...I guess that means its a good time to finish the season.  LA this weekend and then I am on break!

Rudy

Hy-Vee. Go fast, try not to explode.

Hy-Vee triathlon.   The biggest race of he US Olympic distance circuit, and the most prize money of any triathlon race in the world.  $1.1 million up for grabs and quite a bit of talent grabbing at it.  30 men and 30 women are invited every year and every position gets paid.  As it turns out, the perks are even better than they seem...

As I mentioned in last week's post about the Chicago triathlon, I only recently found out that I would be getting a spot in Hy-Vee.  After asking around at the pool where I swim in the summer (Scott Carpenter; 50LCM), I found out that the reason I was given a spot was that Tim O'Donnell had decided not to race and instead to focus on 70.3 worlds (which is this coming weekend) and then Kona which is in about 5 weeks.  So, going into the race, I was the 30th qualifier...  30th of 30.

I flew in Friday with a whole posse of pro triathletes.  Seems we all had the same idea for flights--the Bennetts, Bevan Docherty, Matt Reed, Leanda Cave, Damian Hill, Michael Fox, Lisa Marangon, Jeannie Seymour, and a bevy of others who I dont even know their names (but who looked really fit and hipster at the same time coupled with foreign accents = dead giveaway).

We got to Des Moines uneventfully and packed a shuttle bus full to get to the race hotel.  I must say, Hy-Vee does a fantastic job putting on a professional race.  Each pro was given a suite in the downtown convention hotel, the Embassy Suites for 3 nights.  I walked into my room to a gift basket full of random goodies and a greater Des Moines gift certificate to spend wherever I wanted.  After a quick run and shower I was off to the pro meeting at 5pm.

Again, it was a pretty cool thing to head into the pro meeting and see just about every famous pro triathlete who ever existed.  Even some of the legends of triathlon were there (I guess to watch?).  I sat behind Lisa Norden, and obviously everyone was scouting out Alistair Brownlee and Javier Gomez.  I wanted to ask for autographs, but figured I better race them first.

Later my parents arrived and we went out for some mexican food for dinner followed by an early night to bed.  Saturday was the usual drill with a 30min run and a 30min bike ride to check out the course.  With school starting this week, I have been swamped with work for the class I am TAing for as well as reading for this awesome law class (Energy Law and Regulation) that I am taking just for fun.  On top of that my research is going really well, and I am trying to keep it rolling along too!  SO, I spent most of the rest of the day Saturday working hard to get as much work finished as I could.

While I worked my parents rented some bikes and spent the day exploring Des Moines!  That night, we went out for some pasta and ran into Adam Webber (the amateur who beat me by about 10 seconds in the elite wave in 2011) and chatted for a bit about the race and his chances of taking home another Mini.  After that it was another night of about 9-10 hrs sleep.  I must say, with these late races, you really can get a lot of sleep in on the weekends.  Its been great for catching up.  I set my alarm for 8:30 so I could walk downstairs to the front of our hotel and watch the Elite Amateur go by at mile 5.5 to the finish.  Dan Hedgecock was crushing the field with Adam webber in Second and my boy Drew Scott in 3rd--the AG nats winner Brian Duffy was in 6th.  Its always a tough race and I know the boys duked it out hard on the bike.  It was pretty thrilling to watch the race that I would have been in only a year ago.  It got my HR pumping.

Now, the pro race wasnt until 4:30pm so I had quite some time to waste (not to mention eating right!). I went to breakfast and had some oatmeal and toast while my friend Travis Johnston (also in the pro field) cranked down an omelet!  Whatever works.

Getting eating right for a normal morning race isnt too tough, you just wake up and eat the standard PB banana and bread and are good to go.  But when you have to make it to dinner time to race (yes I sometimes eat the geriatrics dinner at 4:30) it can be a bit tough.  Fortunately, I was tapered well enough that I wasnt really to hungry and made it through the day ok.

I watched a bit of the womens race to get an idea of the course and then set off to T1.  It was a scorcher for sure.  It had been overcast all morning for the amateur race, but the sun came out at about 11am and it heated up quickly!  The race was done so professionally--all the ITU setup with carpets and barriers.  I went into T1 to rack my bike between (who else) Alistair Brownlee and Bevan Docherty.  Javier Gomez was close by as well.  Whew, what a day in store...

I did a short run warm up (not that I needed warming) and then hopped in the water with the others to feel out the course.  At 4:10 we needed to be back in the athlete tent for the special introductions.  It was quite a sight looking around at all of the best triathletes on the olympic distance circuit all in one tent.  I didnt really feel intimidated; honestly, it was like I was only there to spectate.  Sort of a metaphysical out of body experience--like I was a random water bottle that had been placed in the tent equipped with only a preschool level of rational:  "huh. this is cool. how did I get in here again?"  "Oh, it was nice of them to supply gatorade for everyone" "wow, is that Alistair Brownlee right there?" "hmm, that lake was rather slimy"  "I wonder why that table is designed that way, it would be sturdier this way" --that was what was basically going through my mind.

Next, the race introduced each of us behind a local kid who carried our country flag.  It was pretty awesome getting announced and walking down the gangplank.  The race directors were playing music that made it sound like a march to the guillotine.  I waved high to everyone and chatted with my flag carrier dude.  I was really just thinking about what a nice job Hy-Vee did with all the festivities.  I wasnt really nervous at all.  "This is what it looks like on TV, cool." "This blue matting stuff is really squishy!"

The swim started pretty normally and I must say, what I like about racing in the pro field is that everyone knows what they are doing.  Theres no overzealous idiot who pushes his way to the front sprints a 100 and then tanks like an anvil right in front of you.  Everyone knows their pace and if they go out hard its because they can hold it.  I dove in and just felt out my Jane Scott pace.  (for those of you who know Jane, she is one of the main swim coaches at Scott Carpenter pool; all of her sets are basically lactate threshold for 1hr straight...).  So, I was comfortably at LT.  At the end of lap 1 I was on the back of a group and came out of the water just with them.  I sprinted around as fast as I could to stay with and just unloaded on the dive--knocked the wind out of me a bit but I managed to stay with the group (barely tailing off at the end) and go into T1 as the 29th out of 30 swimmer but only 2min down to the leaders.  Not too bad really considering how good of swimmers those guys are.  My Xterra skinsuit helped too I think, I didnt wear it last week in Chicago but I think it helped.  More than anything it pulls me in toight plus it is super water wicking.

I hopped on the bike and already there were guys in front of me scattered over the road.  I put down the hammer from the start and thus began the race.  I had lots of friends and 2 parents around the bike course which was 4 laps so I got to see them all multiple times.  After a lap I had made a few places and after another I had passed a few more.  I was crankin hard but it was weird because I was just going passed people pretty consistently.  "Wow, I feel like I passed quite a few guys"  "Hmm, that is a real nice bike he is riding" "Was that Chris McCormack?"

After 3 laps I had noticed that the lead pack (of about 10 fast swimmers who had stuck in a group for the bike) were not gaining any time on me.  "Wow, I guess I am doing ok."  I hopped off and immediately I knew it was a hot one.  I had cooked it pretty good on that ride and I knew it was going to be a tough run.  All I kept thinking about was the Teddy Roosevelt quotation I had put above my desk for the last week--The man in the arena.  "Oh well I thought, it is better to have risked all in a worthy cause than to have sat idle."  "If I blow up, it will have been worth it."  As my Chicago homestay always said "they cant take my birthday away."

As it turns out, I just kept an even pace on the run and no one was passing me.  It was brutally hot by now and everyone was suffering from the threshold pacing.  I knew my run pace was nothing special, but I also could tell my heart rate was pretty jacked and that to push a little harder would be a bad idea.  So, I just cruised along and lap after lap thought about the friends I had on the course, a couple random scenes from James Bond movies and one of the law cases I had just read.  There was a huge hill leading up to the finish line which we had to do 4 times (once each lap) and by the last lap still no one had passed me so I pushed a little more to crank it out and crossed the line with a huge smile.  I knew it was a good race!  I was cooked.  I fell to the ground in a heap.

Afterwards I congratulated some of the other pros, said hi to my CU teammates who were there cheering and gathered everything up and headed back to the hotel.  I even got asked for a few autographs and pictures!  (they must have confused me with someone else).

And in spite of the brutal race it was a beautiful night in Des Moines.  Its really a very pretty city.  I didnt mention but we took a tour of the capital on Saturday--it is a magnificent building!

Maybe next year they will spell my name right....

It was already 8pm and I packed my bike and as much stuff as I could before heading out to dinner.  Talk about gastrointestinal calamity.  I was a wreck.  It took about 30min and an ice cream sandwich to clear me up enough to get to the restaurant, but it was worth it for a BBQ pizza.

The flight back on Monday was again loaded with superstars and somehow I again lucked into a ride home with the Bennetts.  What wonderful people.  Again, it is just a pleasure to know them.  Triathlon aside, they are just sweet-hearted fun people.

What a whirlwind weekend.  Its been a great season so far and I couldnt do it without the support from my team Off The Front Multisport and the title sponsor Chobani Yogurt.  Thanks too to Rudy Project, Endurance Shield Sunscreen (which I gobbed on before the race) and Xterra Wetsuits.

I am crushed with school for the next milenium but am racing Galveston 5150 on September 23 and the Los Angeles Triathlon on September 30th.  Until then,

Rudy