USAT Age Group National Championship Race Report

After forgoing my early season plans to race a mid-summer 70.3 in order to focus on the Olympic distance, I pinned my focus on two National Championship events in the back half of the 2013 calendar. Below is the race report from part #1 of my National championship double, the USAT Age Group National Championship in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

Following my first overall win of the year at the Bigfoot Triathlon in June, training went from challenging to borderline insane. 100,000 meters in the pool, 1500 miles on the bike and 350 miles of running in 6 weeks. And we're not talking about logging slow, Ironman type miles; this stuff was intense.

This little guy knows what's up. 

So, if you haven't gotten the hint, I wanted to be somewhat well prepared for this race. I knew the field was going to be stacked and the race was going to produce incredibly fast times on the mostly flat midwestern terrain. I went in with a full week taper, slept about 10 hours a night and was ready to give it my best shot to contend for the overall top-15 and a top-5 finish in my 20-24 age group division.

Being only an hour away from the race site made this event outrageously convenient. After a quick bike- run, a classic quinoa breakfast for me and a bagel stop for Dad to load up on some grub after his 16-mile run, we hit the road and booked it up to the race site. 

I was able to get in the water for a practice swim, get through packet pickup quickly and rack my bike with ease. Before I knew it Steven and I were back at the hotel, with the feet up relaxing before dinner. 

He may or may not have dozed off here for a bit. Well deserved! 

If you don't know, I am somewhat particular about my diet these days and even more so the night before a race. I often bring my own meals for the days leading into a big event and this one was no different. I spent the day before we left cooking up a bountiful harvest of roasted vegetables and sprouted quinoa-deliciousness. Steve got hungry and our conversation went a little something like this... 

We're family, so we share. 

After a full nights rest, it was a palatable 5:30am wake up call for my 10:30am, final wave start time. Although transition closed at 7:30am and I had to wait around for three hours before the gun went off, a larger breakfast and a relaxing build up to the start was refreshing compared to traditional pre-race hecticness. 

I even had a minute to soak in the picturesque morning! This was very zen. 

I'm not really sure how I achieved VIP status at this race, but it turns out being a very important person comes with its perks. We had our own tent to hang out in before the race and had our separate line at packet pickup. USAT even sprung for personalized name tags! 

The red-velvet rope was a classy touch. 

Going all out with these bad boys. 

The rest of the morning flew by quickly and smoothly. I got in a nice run warm up, did some dynamic stretching, got on the wetsuit and then headed down to the dock. I hopped in the water, swam around for a while and then made my way over to the in-water start area. The announcer gave us a 2 minute warning and then all the sudden, BANG! Thanks for the countdown dude. I positioned myself in the middle of the line, assuming the fastest way to the first buoy would be straight ahead. What I failed to take into consideration was the fact that the other 150 guys in my wave would all be diverging to that single first buoy. I was clobbered, held up and already behind in the first 200m. 

Already fighting from behind, definitely in that back 2/3rd's! 

After getting some clear water following that first buoy, I was finally able to make my way through the field and up towards the lead group. I was still a ways back, but I felt like the gap was not as substantial. I exited the water somewhere around 25th place with a lot of ground to make up on the lead swimmers with a 20:24 split.

A bit wobbly coming out of the homemade, super-sketchy exit ramp. 

I sprinted through the large transition area and made my way over to my bike. Unlike my usual blazing fast transition times, I was held up in T1 for a little bit. I couldn't quite get my wetsuit off right away and didn't put my helmet/ glasses on in the correct order. I positively lost few seconds here, but that is going to happen every now and again.

Me and my new cop friend 

If there is one discipline in the sport where I feel that I have not raced up to my potential, at least in terms of the results I have seen in training, it has to be the bike. I was prepared to change that in this race and immediately went to work. I pushed hard right from the start and did not let up until the very finish. I knew I had to make up ground from a somewhat sub-par swim and also had to put in time on the faster runners in the field. I came into T2 hurting but also aware that I had just put together one of my best 40k bike efforts with a time of 56:49. 

And imagine if I had been on the P5! Patience is a virtue, soon enough I'll be rocking the new steed. 

Immediately after dismounting the bike, my legs felt more like concrete blocks than jet fueled pistons. I tried to stay calm, but worried that I had indeed pushed the bike just a little too hard. To my delight, right after exiting T2, I got the split that I was roughly :60 down on the lead and somewhere around 10th place in my division. This put some fire under my step and I started picking people off. I moved up through the field and by the 4 mile mark, I had moved all the way up to third place. I was pushing so hard in the final mile of the run that I found myself simply trying to make to the next course cone, a mere 10 feet from the last. I made it to the finish shoot, elated with my podium finish and 100% physically depleted. 

Had to really dig deep for this one! 

After crossing the finish line, I had an uncharacteristic out pour of emotion. I work so hard, sacrifice so much. And to execute my race plan to near perfection, produced a feeling of self satisfaction that is unparalleled to any other. Races like this are the culmination of a process, not the event in itself- it is weeks and months all encompassing focus that it takes to simply outwork the competition. 

Not only was my time of 1:55:08 an Olympic distance personal best, but I had also shattered my goal of top-5 age group with a podium finish in the 20-24 age group, one of the most competitive in the nation.  In addition, I had crushed my secondary goal of top-15 overall with a 9th place finish. 

After my near blackout in the final mile of the race, it took me quite a while to come back down to earth. We walked around the race site before I somehow made my way over the Normatec tent to get some much needed love from those oh-so-sweet space boots.  

Special thanks to Uncle G for the hook up, literally one of the most down to earth people I have ever met. 

I debriefed the race with a few friends, got my gear out of transition and then made my way back to the car before we hit up some dive diner for lunch. 

Oh yeah, and Hillary Clinton was there. 

You could say that this wasn't the most health conscious establishment and my post race egg whites with vegetables didn't quite get the job done. So we scrambled to find me some second lunch. 

Sushi did the job! 

But not really... An almond butter, jelly and banana rice cake picnic for lunch #3 rounded things out properly. 

And if it wasn't enough for USAT to put 20-24's last in the wave start for the race, we were the final group to be announced at awards! This meant a lot of waiting around to get up on stage for my 20 seconds of fame! 

Bling bling. 

Huge thanks to my #1 sponsors, support staff, vegetable choppers, laundry washers, loving and incredible family. I couldn't do anything without them! 

3 triathletes and a personal trainer. Relatively fit family! 

He's on it. DON'T MESS.  

Next up is the 5150 US Championship HyVee Triathlon in Des Moines, Iowa on September 2nd. I have a few weeks of hard training and then it will be another relaxed taper leading into the race! Hopefully I can capitalize on this end of the season form and make a name for myself as a up and coming contender. 

Thanks for sticking around, 

Justin