USAT Collegiate High Performance Camp

Happy 2013 triathlon season to all! After coming off a successful elite debut to end the 2012 season at the 5150 US Championship, I am back at it, beginning what I am expecting to be an even more exciting 2013 campaign. After some much needed rest, I kicked off the start of my training with a USAT Collegiate High Performance Camp in San Antonio, Texas this past weekend. I made the 18 hour drive down with two great teammates and friends, Alex Libin and Allison Kindig. Below is a full recap of what went down in the state where the size of your truck usually matches the size of the burrito in your hand.

Iowa City to San Antonio. After an outrageous week of organizing, studying, packing, exam taking, essay writing and easy training, we left at 10pm on Wednesday night after Allison's mechanical engineering exam.  Our plan was to leave Iowa City and drive two hours to Alex's house in Des Moines, sleep overnight and then wake up early Thursday morning to knock out the remaining 16 hours. We needed to be in San Antonio by Thursday night/ early Friday morning in order to make the start of the camp at 7am on Friday.  

So, we loaded up the cooler with the essential items (hummus, rice cakes, peanut butter, etc.) and hit the road. 

Alex Sr. giving Alex Jr. some helpful road trip tips before we head out. 

After about 2 hours, all was going as planned. Allison was sleeping peacefully in the back seat while Alex and I talked about something random as usual. Our plan was to simply rotate paying for gas. Alex and I did this when traveling to the East Coast in June and it seemed to even out the expenses pretty well. Alex offered to pay for the first fill up and got out of the car to pump the gas. After about 2 seconds of realizing a form of payment is needed in order to receive the gas, Alex could not seem to find his wallet. And in some sort of jaw dropping, stomach turning epiphany, Alex realized that he had left his phone and wallet on top of the car when we pulled out of his driveway in Des Moines. At the same time, Allison sleepily mentions that she saw a "leaf" fall off the roof of the car as we pulled onto the interstate and did not think anything of it. That leaf was an iPhone and a wallet full of cash, credit cards, ID's and race prize gift cards. 

Alex called his mom and she immediately rushed over to the on-ramp of the highway to look for his lost items. She ended up finding his phone right away but the wallet was still MIA. Alex canceled his credit cards and sulked into his chair as we forged onwards towards Texas. 

As the drive went on, everyone got over the bummed-out-ness that resulted from the cellphone/wallet snafu and the drive started to fly by as we talked about all things life and triathlon. Around 4pm Alex got a call that a man had found his wallet on the side of the highway and was going to drop it back off at his parents house! Success! Wallet and iPhone both safe and sound. (Still not with him on a 36 hour road trip but we would make due with sharing a phone and Steve fronting both mine and Alex's bills for now. (thanks dad) 

We got through the shit-storm that is Dallas rush hour traffic and made it to San Antonio around midnight on Thursday. We unloaded the car quickly, made it up to our rooms and crashed as soon as possible to get a few hours sleep before breakfast at 7am. 

USAT Collegiate High Performance Camp 

Friday: 

Breakfast in the hotel lobby, which actually had a pretty nice spread of oatmeal and fresh fruit. Of course, we brought down our large bag of necessary additional items like PB2 and granolas (notice the plural). We sat down, had a few cups of coffee and felt as good as one can after 6 hours of sleep and an 18 hour drive. 

Introductions in the hotel conference room and free swag collection. The camp was run by Shelly O'Brien, a USAT Level 3 and International Elite Development Coach who was literally the most knowledgeable triathlon-minded person I have ever met. Throughout the weekend she would come to teach us some invaluable lessons and skills as we each progress into elite and professional triathlon futures. 

I <3 FREE STUFF

Swim video and testing. We were staying at a hotel that was within walking distance of the University of Texas at San Antonio campus and aquatic facility. After introductions, we walked over for swim video filming and to complete the USAT standard 200-800 test. After suiting up in my new speedo and warming up, Alex and I lined up on the blocks to start the test. First, you dive in and swim a 200yd all out sprint, then take :60 seconds rest before completing an 800 all out swim. Your total time of the test is compared to standards and used as a baseline for future improvement. Shelly actually asked the group if we had all had experience diving off the blocks before. I had never really practiced diving off them in a competitive situation, but I figured diving from the edge of the pool every swim workout couldn't be much different. Well, I was VERY wrong. Diving off the blocks sucks if you have no idea what the hell is going on. So, I dove in, filled my goggles with water and struggled through the 200. Swimming the 50 in :28, the 100 in :60, the 150 in 1:34 and the 200 in 2:08. We took the :60 rest and then hit the 800 effort. I knew this would be my better test as I have always been stronger over longer distances (and there was no water in my goggles). Still, the pool is only six lanes and very warm on one side (there was literally a hot tub jet coming out of the deep end) which made me feel pretty terrible. I ended up swimming the 800 in 9:32. With splits of 1:06, 2:19, 3:31, 4:44, 5:56, 7:09, 8:21 and 9:32.

UTSA pool (Alex concurred, that test sucked) 

Walk back to the hotel. After the painful swim test, we walked back over to the hotel to grab a quick snack and get ready to do our bike threshold test. As we walked under the highway and past the van, I noticed something rather peculiar. The passenger side window was smashed in and my Dad's expensive cop-radar in addition to Alex's girlfriends Garmin GPS was stolen. We stood there in shock for a few moments before angrily walking back into the hotel to figure out what the heck to do.

A rather inconvenient problem. 

Problem solving. We spoke with Shelly and told her the situation. She completely understood the situation and urged us to take care of the window first thing so we could put that behind us before moving on with the camp. So, while the others reviewed their swim analysis, Alex and I broke out the cardboard and duck tape to construct a make-shift window.

Getting somewhere...

Lunch. After 3 hours of sun baking, hand cutting on glass and engineering, we finished the widow and grabbed a late lunch. 

SUCCESS!!!! You can even see our reflections. 

Swim video analysis. We came back from lunch and directly went into analyzing our swim strokes. Both Alex and I had some serious problems but nothing that was unfixable. With a few minor tweaks and some consistent drill work over the next few months, we both could become faster and more efficient swimmers. 

Bike threshold test. Around 5:30pm, we set up the computrainers and got ready for the step-threshold test. It is a brutal bike workout that pushes athletes to their max effort over a 20-30 minute period. We warmed up for around 10:00 and calibrated the trainers for accuracy. The test starts at a comfortable but working effort and builds by 10 watts every 2:00 until you literally can not go any harder. I warmed up around 200 watts and then started the test at 250 watts (comfortable but not easy spinning). The test began and Shelly came around to record our current wattage number, heart rate, cadence and rate of perceived exertion (1-10) . 

Below are my results from the bike test. 

Wattage	Heart Rate	Cadence	RPE
250	145	95	4
260	152	95	4.5
270	155	95	5.5
280	158	93	6
290	159	94	6.5
300	164	95	7
310	168	93	8
320	172	96	8.5
330	176	103	9
340	177	101	10
350	181	101	10
360	184	98	10
370	186	95	10

Forcing a smile after punishing myself on the bike. At least my shirt looks cool. 

Without a doubt, I crushed that test because I was wearing the Craft Mesh Superlight base layer. This shirt is unbelievable. The hotel conference room had no air conditioning and with a group of cyclists going all out, it got rather toasty in there. Happily, I stayed cool the whole time. 

Saturday: 

Bike to high school track. After waking up and having a lighter breakfast, we rode our bikes over to the local high school track for a full morning of activities. First up was the 2-mile all out threshold run test.

Rolling out to the track. 

Run test. After a 3 mile warm up with a few short efforts and a couple track drills to open up the hips, we got on the line to start the test. I focused on taking the test in four, 800m parts (similar to how I would run a 10k in a race). Going out steady, building into a pace, suffering and then working to take it home in the fastest time possible. My confidence was not all that high going into the test because I was coming off a complete 3 week stretch of no running at all. My goal was to put in as hard of an effort as I could possibly do but I also realized I was nowhere near full fitness. This was simply a baseline test and I was just going out to set a time that I will build upon. Also, the test gave Shelly a chance to film our run stride for later analysis. Below are my results from the run test. 

Meter	Time	Heart   Rate
400	1:24	176
800	2:47	180
1200	xx	xx
1600	5:37	185
2000	7:03	186
2400	8:30	188
2800	9:54	191
3200	11:14	191

B-E-A-UTIFUL 

Drills. After jog/ walking a 400 and somewhat catching my breath, we met up to start some basic track drills that worked on the common issues Shelly saw among the entire group. Some of the drills we did focused on dynamic hip flexion, glute integration and foot landing position. 

Transition practice. We finished up our drills and then rode over to an empty parking lot to work on some bike skills. We did drills that worked on bike handling in a group, cornering, mounting, dismounting, riding through traffic and quick bike/ run transitions. We even had a transition rack to do the drills and it got pretty competitive by the end. I fared pretty well except for the drills that required us to take off our wheels and then put them back on, that definitely needs some serious work! Also, I thought it would be pretty cool to capture the entire transition practice on my Garmin 910xt (you can check it out here).

Alex and Mason. It was 75 degrees and sunny (one positive among all the negative aspects that are Texas) 

Bike straight chillin' after being thrown around for an hour. 

Lunch/ Strength Training. We rolled back to the hotel after the AM workouts and headed straight to the Roadrunner Cafe (dining hall) for lunch. We actually ate all of our meals here which made it easy to please everyone. After eating large lunch, we went straight back to learn a few strength training exercises that focused on our specific running and swimming weaknesses.

Where I found my new love for cottage cheese.

Swim. After strength training, we grabbed our swim gear and walked over to the UTSA pool for one more swim session. Having analyzed our swim strokes on Dartfish (sport video analyzing program) the previous day, each of us had a pretty good idea of what our major problems were. For the most part, my swim stroke is very efficient and strong. Still, we found that I was entering the water with my thumb first rather than my pinky finger which was forcing me to cross over and not get the most out of my pull. Also, when I followed through with my pull, my elbow was totally straight and I was losing a ton of power in the process. With a simple bend of the elbow and alteration of the entry finger, I picked up speed and efficiency almost immediately.

Wrapping up Alex's battle wounds from the window building process. Kitkat wrappers from the locker room floor and rubber bands did the trick. Also, should there be some nudity warning on this picture?

Run video analysis. Feeling confident that my swimming abilities literally improved over the course of the past hour, we sat down to go over the video from the run test earlier in the day. All of us had our individual problems but again, nothing that could not be fixed and improved upon with hard work. My two main issues were 1.) pronation with my right foot and 2.) weak hip muscles. The pronation in my foot caused my entire leg to fall inwards and was inhibiting my ability to properly spring off the ground. Also, my weak hip muscles kept my right foot on the ground much longer than optimal causing a low cadence and hip injury susceptibility. With some single leg isolated hip exercises and a good pair of orthodics, I will be running faster and more efficient than ever.

Analyzing my run form on the big screen. 

Exactly whats going on. Picture A= good, picture B= bad. (nice a$$ dude) 

Sunday:
Bike skills. We woke up Sunday morning (extremely sore I might add) and rode over to another grassy field to do some bike skills work. Shelly set up cones and markers for us to weave in and out of, practicing our handling and cornering. We did some partner activities and played some skill games. We finished up with a 10:00 game of tag that got a little intense as Alex and I chased each other around.  Results from bike skills:
1.) Bruised forearm and cut hand from crashing with Allison multiple times (and I got off easy compared to some others!)
2.) Much improved bike handling and confidence

Shelly and myself after bike skills practice. 

San Antonio to Dallas. After bike skills, we made the quick ride back to the hotel. We did a quick camp wrap up where we went over some of the testing data and asked any final questions (pretty much picking Shelly's brain to the absolute max while also enjoying a second breakfast). We said our goodbyes, showered up and hit the road. Allison actually lucked out because she has family in Dallas and planned to spend a few days there on the way home. We made the 5 hour drive up, dropped Allison off and then continued onward while she planned to fly the rest of the way home later in the week.

Dropping Allison in Dallas. Yes, Alex and I are wearing matching USAT outfits (it gets you places, I swear) 

Dallas to Oklahoma City. After meeting Allison's uncle, learning how to actually do a pistol squat and grabbing some gas in a majorly sketchy area but still making friends with some random guy in the Quicky Mart, Alex and I were off to our final destination of the day, Oklahoma City. With the help of Mom, we were able to find an amazing Hampton Inn to crash in for $89.99 with free breakfast!

We couldn't leave Texas without some authentic TexMex. El Fenix hit the spot! Guac and fajitas all day. We're on vacation right?

Monday:
Oklahoma City to Des Moines. After a great nights sleep in OKC, we woke up to a delicious breakfast spread in the lobby. We made our way up I-35 and the time seemed to fly by without the need of loud music, podcasts or DVD's (our conversation is always entertaining enough). We made it Des Moines by 4:30pm and had plenty of time to catch up with Alex's mom and brother.

That carrot is going to need some guac on it. That guac is in Alex's crotchal region (as are the remaining carrots). Welcome to the driver/ car chef dynamic. 

Des Moines to Iowa City. We had some delicious Russian food before hitting the road one last time to finish up the remainder of our journey. The two hour drive was nothing in comparison but we were iching to get out of the car and move around. We got into Iowa City around 8:30pm and I was unpacked, relaxing and watching Dexter by 10:00pm. Successful day and successful trip all around.

The USAT Collegiate High Performance Camp served a number of purposes for me. First, it was the kick off to my 2013 season. I was able to set baseline test numbers that will determine my training zones and allow me to build upon as I continue to get back in shape. Also, the camp gave me my first introduction to draft legal racing. Through our informational meetings and simply speaking with Shelly, I have come to the realization that in order to be at the top of this sport, I need to have some draft legal experience. Among the top pros who are competitive on the national and world stage, having some draft legal racing and training experience is nearly a prerequisite. Finally, this camp gave me the opportunity to have a kick ass weekend with my friends doing the one thing that I love more than anything else in the world. It invigorated me to push forward and gave me the confidence that with the right steps, I can achieve all of the goals I have set out for myself.

Sup y'all. 

I am happy with how rapidly I have come up in triathlon over a short period of time and I am excited to see exactly what the future holds. Keep on the look out for a finalized 2013 race schedule, we are close to marking down the dates! I will let you know that I plan to continue focusing on the non-drafting Olympic distance while adding some Elite Developmental draft legal racing and you may even see some 70.3's on the calendar.

I would like to foremost thank my parents who have always been there supporting my goals and dreams. I know you will continue to do so in the future and I would be nowhere without my #1 fan's and sponsors!

Also, I would like to introduce my latest sponsors for the 2013 season! (I am very excited about this, word's do not do it justice!)

Craft Sport Clothing

Karhu Running Shoes

Look out for product reviews and feedback as I get the opportunity to work with these great companies.

I will be in the Chicagoland area for 5 weeks over winter break from December 14, 2012 to January 22, 2013. Shoot me a message, I would love to train with all of you while I am home! Otherwise, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Holidays and Happy Training to all.