2013 Bigfoot Triathlon Race Report

FACT: Winning is better than not winning.

Although I had always planned to race this past weekend, the Bigfoot Triathlon was a late addition to my 2013 event lineup. Dwindling triathlon funds, a hectic week prior and lower race priority made Lake Geneva the perfect destination for a lesser pressure event that usually turns up descent competition.

What made the race even more appealing was the fact that Bigfoot Beach State Park is only 60 miles away from home which meant I could sleep in my own bed, save money on a hotel and both my parents could come watch the race (my mom had yet to actually see me on the course this season!) Additionally, Coach Craig and a large Precision Multisport contingency would be present and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to race alongside such good friends.

Below is the race report from my first overall victory of the 2013 season at the Bigfoot Triathlon in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

After an early morning wake up call (3:30am), we loaded up the car and sleepily hit the road at 4:00am to drive up to the race. Dad sipped on his 40oz coffee mug while driving, Mom crammed herself in the backseat and I made myself the usual pre-race PBJ rice cake deliciousness. If you didn't know, spreading individual layers of peanut butter, almond butter, jelly and sliced banana on a rice cake while moving isn't the easiest task; not to mention repeating it 2-3x. Nevertheless, the entire process took about a hour and before I knew it, we were pulling into the race site.

I was all like...

Around 5:30am, we cashed in on our $5 VIP parking, I got ready for my pre-race bike warm up and then hit the road. After spinning around the parking lot trying to navigate hundreds of anxious pre-race triathletes, I finally made it out onto the open roads.

Steve downloaded Instagram the day before the race. So, yeah, he got excited. 

I road for about 20 minutes, getting a good feel for the strong winds and rolling hills that made up the bike course. As I was heading back to the car, I noticed an odd rubbing sound from what I initially thought was my bottom bracket. After further inspection, I noticed that my rear wheel was rubbing up against my chain stay/ frame. Long story short, I spent the next 30 minutes messing with the rear set screw trying to ensure that I wouldn't have an issue during the race.

Transition closed at 6:30am and I finally made it in there at literally 6:25am. I quickly set up my gear, messed around with my rear wheel a final time and then got out of there with no time to spare.

Me messing around with the wheel at 6:29. Profanity may have been used. 

My wave went off at 7:30am and so I spent the final hour before the race start warm up jogging, waiting in line at the bathroom and putting on my wetsuit.

Quick side note here: I was literally waiting in line in for the mens bathroom for almost 20 minutes (thanks to a serious lack of porto's) and there were still 4 guys ahead of me with 40 minutes to my race start. There were no women in the women's bathroom so I b-lined it over there and within seconds I was takin' care of bidness. Of course, as I do this, a MULTITUDE of women came rushing into the bathroom. This made exiting rather uncomfortable for everyone. Sorry ladies! 

I did some pre-race dynamic stretching, put on my wetsuit, hopped in the water for a few seconds and then lined up to get ready to go. 

I actually do this before I race. Looks ridiculous but really helps when I don't make the swim warm up! 

I positioned myself right in the front of the pack standing on the shoreline in hopes of catching the front guys feet, assuming there would be a few fast swimmers in the 30 and under division. At 7:30, the gun went off and I was right out front. Almost immediately, one guy went off and I latched onto his feet. As most of you know, drafting is legal in the swim portion of the race and is actually incredibly effective at saving energy while maintaining a high rate of speed. Yet, when drafting, it is not uncommon to tap the guys feet who is ahead of you. The guy who's feet I was sitting on was getting VERY annoyed that I kept touching his feet and at one point actually stopped swimming to turn around and look at me in anger. I swiftly navigated around him when he stopped swimming, latched onto the guy to my right and cruised to the turn around buoy. As we made the turn, I noticed the two of us had a pretty big gap on the chasing group. I was working really hard to stay with this guy but felt quite good. I kept with him for another 400m but coming into the final stretch, he pulled away and I couldn't quite stick with him. I came out of the water in second place, feeling strong and ready to get to work on the bike. 

After a rock bludgeoned my big toe coming out of the swim in 2011, I was stoked to see no blood as I ran to T1!

I flew through the first transition and was out on the bike ahead of the guy who slightly beat me in the swim. I charged onto the bike course, yelling at the carefree sprint racers making their way out onto the course at the same time. 

Sorry if I yelled at you while you were cruising on your mountain bike. I know you are trying to have fun out there. I was just in super "holy crap I'm in first place don't F this up" mode!

After charging up the first hill out of transition, I fell right into a rhythm and started to hammer along. A strong headwind combined with the rolling hills made the course really tough but I had the pedal to the metal the whole way and the legs were responding well. There is no better feeling when you are working at your max but not thinking about how bad it hurts- just going faster. 

Woah. Sweet pic! 

The course did not have any mile markers and I do not race with any type of technology that would assist me in estimating how far along I was on the bike. But, I had made it through the entire out section with the headwind and had started coming back towards the transition area with a wicked strong tail wind. I was geared out and absolutely flying up and down the hills! After about 3 minutes of exhilarating roller coaster like speed, I made a left turn and felt my rear wheel start to stop. I initially thought it was a flat tire, forgetting about the 1 hour debacle before the race. Then, it donned on me that the set screw may have slipped once again. I proceeded to get off my bike, adjust the wheel, get back on, start riding, realize it was rubbing on the chain stay, got back off, and repeated the process before getting back on and gently riding the remainder of the course. Thankfully, I had a descent lead at this point but I still probably lost over two minutes. Although I had the lead, I came into T2 feeling great physically but somewhat scared, fearing that my chasers hadn't gained on me after losing time on the side of the road. 

Thankfully, the wheel held up for the final stretch and I was still in the lead! 

T2 was flawless, similar to T1 and I was out onto the run with the fastest second transition split of the day. 

Dad yelling at me to pick up my cadence. Never an easy task for me, not to mention running on grass! 

Now, the run course at Bigfoot is known for being challenging on a dry, cool day. It is made up of two, 5k loops with a few sizable climbs and screaming descents. Not to mention, it is nearly 100% comprised of either grass, mud or tree roots. It had stormed very hard the two days prior to the race and had turned to course into more of a tougher mudder rather than an OD triathlon run course. Still, I remained relaxed and felt great. I felt steady on the first lap and then came through the second lap to hear a :90 second lead on second place. I didn't think that I would be caught but this put a little extra pep in my step as I charged through the second lap feeling better than the first. I crossed the finish line, in 1st place overall, with the fastest run split of the day! 

Can't beat that feeling! 

Obviously, Mom was the lucky charm at this one and it was great to have her there, screaming at me to run faster and be amazing. Also, you can't forget Dad who was the Insta-pro for the weekend. I'm excited yet slightly afraid when he discovers Vine. 

After waiting around for the awards ceremony in the heat, I basked in the spoils of being the 2013 Bigfoot Triathlon champ and collected my $30 Starbucks giftcard. Frappachinos all around! 

Top steppin' it! 

After making a much needed Egg Harbor brunch stop, we hit the road and headed home. I debriefed the race with the rents and then something oh' so delicious caught the corner of my eye. 

Just a little spontaneous post race Strawberry pickin

Addictive little SOB's. Already half gone. 

I also want to let everyone know that I am now an official Precision Multisport Coach! If you are in need of any personal swimming, cycling, running, triathlon, strength training or nutrition coaching- I'm your man! I know what it takes to just get started all the way to elite competition and together we can build a stronger you. Not to mention you'd automatically be part of the best triathlon squad on the North Shore. Email me at justinmetzler1993@gmail.com for more info. 

PM representing as usual 

Next up is some hard training for the back half of the season in preparation for AG Nationals and HyVee then Lifetime Minneapolis Triathlon on July 13th! 

Leon's World's Fastest Triathlon Race Report

I know some of you may be tempted to scroll through this post, checking out the sweet pic's like a magazine at the dentists office, but it's my dang b-day so read them articles playboy!

Yesterday was my second trip back to good ole' Hammond, Indiana (very close to the ever famous Gary, Indiana- aka the murder capitol of the world). Below is the recap of how I managed to avoid the smog, swim around the dead guy in Wolf lake and explain tea bagging to my 70 year old grandmother. Enjoy! 

One of the perks of living in the Chicago suburbs is its close location to the city and therefore, Northwest Indiana. Only a 40 minute drive up 294 and a 4 dollar toll each way got me into the Hoosier state where it's illegal to sell cars on Sunday and catch a fish with your bare hands. 

After a quality slumber on Friday night, I woke up Saturday morning, scarfed down a few rice cakes and hit the road with Dad for a morning spin and run. I felt really strong on both and this got me even more excited for the race on Sunday.

Try to keep up son! 

Soon after, I hopped in the car and headed to the race site for packet pickup and a swim on the course. On an unrelated note, check out this guy doing this cool thing at the lake.

Also, I got interviewed for the TV coverage that airs on CSN July 4th!

Well, that was pretty pro 

Now, enough with those pre-race shenanigans. Time to get down to business. Leon's Triathlon is known to be super flat and super fast. If you're interested in a PR, come to this race. One may expect that I would be past this point in my career but coming into the race, I had yet to break 2 hours for a true Olympic distance event. Early season snafus with course measurement and adverse weather conditions deterred my ability to break this benchmark and I was down right ticked! Barring any catastrophes, I knew the sub-2 hour performance would be there but it was only a matter of how much...

Racing in the elite wave (what they like to call at Leon's the "Amateur All Star wave") meant a start time of 8:05am, a little later than normal for other triathlon races. I woke up around 4:15am, had some breakfast and then hit the road around 5:00am, making it to Hammond around 5:45. I quickly organized my things and got right on the bike for a nice, long 30:00 minute warm up/ course preview. Although it was a little windy, the weather was looking pretty perfect for a fast day.

Spectacular venue. Most of the fencing was actually barbed wire *sarcasm

I made my way over to the transition area, racked my bike and then stood in line for one of the four porto's they had on site...

HOLD IT TOGETHER JUSTIN 

Around 7:00, I went out for my run warm up and felt really, really good. I was getting excited but calmed tried to calm myself down as much as possible, trying to avoid a premature explosion nervous excitement before this s**t got real.

I made my way back to the transition area, made sure everything was tidy and then started putting on my wetsuit. In the span about 15 minutes, I began putting on my wetsuit in 60 degrees and sunny and by the time I was zipped up and ready to go, it was 50 degrees, crazy wind and sideways rain.

After standing around for about 5 minutes, I starting to shiver and watched my perfect pre race warm up fly out the window. I considered jumping in the lake for a swim warm up but it was so damn cold that I figured getting back out and being even more cold would do more damage than good. After a short delay, we walked down the dock and jumped into the refreshing bath-like 65 degree water. I swam around for a few minutes and then took my position, waiting for the gun to go off. 

Yeah it was cold, again. Wetsuit and RAM cap for warmth all day 

To my overwhelming delight and surprise, the swim start was relatively calm. I didn't get smacked in the face or kicked in the nether regions. Although I felt pretty crappy for the first 500m simply due to no swim warm up, I was able to settle into a groove on the second 500m, pass a bunch of people and then hammer home the final 500m, feeling outrageously strong and smooth. I came out of the water on a really quick swimmers toes and was confident in my position. I was elated to find out after the race that my swim split was 18:26- a new PR for 1500m! 

Gosh that water tasted odd (they found a dead guy in this lake last year, no joke)

Solid crowd cheerin at the swim exit 

After a perfect first transition, I was onto the bike where  the cold, wind and rain were all huge factors. Honestly, I really had a tough time settling into a rhythm. There were a lot of bumps, lots of turns and lots of headwind with nothing to block it. I was passed by a few guys and tried to stay with them but quickly realized my counter punch was absent. Whenever this happens, I try to block out my competitors and singularly focus more on my own effort- going as hard as I possibly could within my limits. Once my legs warmed up a little bit, I felt descent and was able to find my threshold effort and hold it for the remainder of the ride. Surprisingly, I still managed a 1:00:26 bike split which is awesome considering how flat I felt early on. 

Pretty sweet highway they shut down for most of the bike course 

Despite some frozen fingers and toes, I had a smooth second transition and was out on the run with no problems at all. Once onto the flat out and back, I immediately settled into a rhythm. At this point in the race, the cooler temperatures and spitting rain worked in my favor and I was absolutely flying. I felt exceptional. My cadence was up, my form was on and I don't know what it was, but I could just tell that a run PR was in the midsts.... I pushed hard, all the way to the finish and crossed the line with a 34:49 run split and a 1:55:40 overall time.

Grittin' the teeth. Super hardcore. 

Speaking of Steve.... Not to mention being a trooper and coming out to watch the race in the pouring rain for the second event in a row, he also decided to rock this Ed Hardy t-shit from '04. 

BOLD move. 

I ended up coming in 4th place in the elite division and 8th overall including the Best of the US series competitors. I joked after the race with a few friends that Leon's was like the midwest national championship this year; the field was stacked! Congrats to new friends Adam Zucco for kicking ass on the bike and Jason West for taking names on the run. Not to mention Colin Riley for taking the overall W. 

After the race, I jogged around for a little bit, met up with a few friends and then hauled ass out of there. Not only was it cold, but my sister's graduation from high school that afternoon and Mom was going to punch Dad and I in the jejunum if we didn't make it on time. In true Metzler fashion, it all worked out and we were sitting there cheering Jillian and 650 of her classmates on as they painfully walked across the stage for 3 hours. Congrats Jillian, you've made it. 

It was also great to have Poppop in for the race, he's my #1 fan (literally #1), if you think you are a bigger fan, take it up with him and he will tell you all about his days as a boxer. The dude is 78 years old but don't mess around. 

I want to give a special thanks to Rick and Essie Streicher for their love and overwhelming support of my dreams. You guys are the absolute best and am happy we established such a comfortable relationship over the past few months. 

I also want to give a shout out to my entire Precision Multisport team who took 4th in the team competition at Leon's (especially Mark Kolar for being in charge of team spirit and organization). You guys rock! 

Feels great to be part of such an amazing group of people  

Also, thanks to Vishal at Nuun, the guys over at Running Away Multisport and Coach Craig. 

That's all for today. I'm off to enjoy a much needed birthday massage. Up next is some serious training and then Bigfoot Triathlon on the 23rd of June. 

-Justin 

Kansas 5150 Triathlon (duathlon)

Finals are over and my brain can officially shut off. Heck to the yeah!

After an extremely hectic couple of weeks following my early season heroics at Collegiate Nationals and St. Anthony’s, I headed down to Lawrence, Kansas for the Olympic distance event at Lake Clinton Park. My coach and I had decided that although this race would present descent competition and a challenging course, it had to be lower on the priority list when considering my race schedule as a whole. So, I went into the race with a sizeable block of training in the legs and planned to take the “play it by ear approach.” Below is the recap of the wet-n’-wild weekend in the great state of Kansas.

After wrapping up my last two exams on Wednesday night, I was finally able to focus on getting organized for the race, preparing a few meals and getting in some high quality, undistracted training sessions (check out Strava!). I spent all of Thursday training some more, cooking more food and trying to distract myself in order to stay up past 9:00 PM in order to pick up my Dad at the Megabus stop at 10:30 who was meeting me in Iowa City and then coming to the race. After a quick jump five in celebration that I didn’t fall asleep on the couch, we were off to bed.

We woke up relatively early on Friday morning to get in a quick run and some hefty breakfast consuming/ Giro d’Italia watching. We loaded up the car and then hit the road for the 5-hour drive to Kansas City, MO where we were staying. Unfortunately, Lawrence is also the home to the University of Kansas who happened to have their graduation the same weekend. So, this left us with the only reasonable hotel option 1 hour away in the portion of Kansas City where you wouldn't want to raise your family.

We checked into our Holiday Inn Express, which was surprisingly spacious and pleasant given the surroundings. I immediately got onto the bike for a 27-mile ride through the many neighborhoods of South Kansas City. Along this out and back route, I saw: a gun lying in a ditch on the side of the road, a car getting robbed and a rabbi in a pimped out Escalade with hydraulics. Despite the distractions, I felt really good and the short efforts I added throughout the ride felt pretty easy considering the power I was putting out. I rolled back into the hotel, stretched, showered and we spent the rest of the night eating my pre-cooked food, foam rolling and watching some Michael Moore documentary about capitalism which got my attention but simultaneously got me somewhat angry about the world.

Hotel food done right 

 

STOP MAKING ME SO IRRITABLE MICAHEL 

We woke up Saturday morning to another delicious hotel-room breakfast spread and then packed up the car with training gear and lunch essentials. We got into Lawrence and after some short course inspecting, we found a small beach were some other athletes were swimming. So, I donned the wetsuit and hopped in the water for a choppy 1-mile swim.

Breakin' the rules all day 

Continued my streak of ripping my wetsuit 2x per swim while putting it on! 

After almost getting reeled in by angry fisherman and run over by speedboats, I changed into my cycling kit and went out for a full loop of the bike course. I had somewhat of a longer workout the day before the race, and really felt that riding the entire course gave me the confidence to tackle each hill and take every corner with a lot more confidence. After the bike, I put on the run shoes and similarly went out for a one 5k loop of the run course (plus a little extra), feeling really confident about how to run the hills and stay out of the wind as best as possible.

Hot, hilly and windy 

I took a quick dip in the cold lake and then we got back into the car for lunch, packet pickup, and a quick stop at the grocery store and then back to the hotel to hang out for the rest of the evening.

After another pre-made hotel dinner and some more foam rolling, Alex arrived around 7:30 PM. He had come to Kansas City from Des Moines and would be tagging along with us for the race and a ride back home. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and relaxing before our 3:40 AM wake up call and drive to Lawrence.

While I researched brunch places for after the race.... 

Steve (successfully) opened a bottle of wine with a coat hanger 

The alarm went off and we all sleepily stumbled around the room making breakfast and packing up the rest of our things. Dad decided it would probably be a good idea to look out the window and grimly announced the forecast- lightning, thunder and torrential downpour. Perfect racing weather! 

Looks wet out there dude. 

As you can see, Alex and I were quite chatty in the morning after having a look outside for ourselves  

We loaded up the car, threw the bikes on the back and hit the road to Lawrence around 4:30 AM. After getting slightly lost, we got to the race site around 5:30 AM just as the rain seemed to slightly back off.

Trying to ensure the wind wouldn't catch our discs and blow the bikes off the back 

I got onto my bike right away, put in a short warm up with a few efforts and then rolled down to the transition area. I set up my things, got marked, picked up my chip and started to mentally prepare for the race. Then, just as we thought we were in the clear… more lightning, thunder and hard, cold rain. The athletes found shelter where possible and anxiously awaited an announcement from the race director as to what was going to be done. I heard everything from “the race will go on as planned” to “we are cancelling it completely.” Either way, around 6:30 AM, Alex and I decided it was now or never to get in a run warm up if the race were to somehow start on time at 7:30. So we jogged around for a bit, essentially running the entire 5k out and back and made our way back to the transition area. I tried to stay warm as best as possible, still waiting on any type of decision.

 

Coming in from the bike warm up,

Almost certain the swim was cancelled, I still put on my wetsuit for warmth 

Finally, around 7:45, the race director came onto the loud speaker and announced that they were in fact cancelling the swim and would be doing a bike-run duathlon instead. Athletes would line up in their bike gear and would be sent off in time-trial fashion every 3 seconds.

 

SO flippin' cold 

Well, this sure put a damper in my plans of racing a triathlon, but I tried to simply focus the factors that I could control. It was time to have a nice, hard training day in good ole’ Lawrence. I grabbed my bike, threw on my helmet and shoes and was lined up as the first elite to be sent off. 3…2…1… GO!

After waiting around so long post-run warm up, I was practically shivering before the start. This made the first 5 miles or so on the bike rather uncomfortable. 4 or 5 guys within that first 5-mile stretch immediately passed me and I simply could not get anything going… the legs were unresponsive! Thankfully, at the first right turn, I started to warm up and locked in on the guys who had recently blown past. I picked off a few right away, battled with another and then set my sights on the last guy ahead. I saw him at the turn around and he was way up on me, I’m talking WAY up! This guy was super strong and instead of turning myself inside out to catch up to him, I focused on my own effort and made the decision that this was not the race that I was going to dig myself into a hole for. Still, I rode right at my threshold level and came in with a strong bike split.

Starting the bike. Hey legs... you don't feel good 

I stumbled through the transition because my shoes were still soaking wet from the morning downpour. At this point, the skies were clearing up and it started to actually get pretty warm. I knew I was in second place at this point and locked in, hoping the guy ahead would fall back on the run. The course is two 5k out and back’s, so it was the perfect course for me to gauge the competition ahead and behind. Around mile 1.25, I saw the guy who was in first place coming back the other direction; this meant he had roughly a .5-mile gap on me within the first mile of the race. The legs started to come around at this point and I proceeded to launch my attack but could never quite settle into that rhythm. I never felt bad, but I never felt good. I was able to see that I had a pretty comfortable hold on second place and that first place was pretty far out of reach. I didn’t let up by any means, but I didn’t push it that extra gear- making the smart move. I came down the final hill and cruised into the finish with a respectable but not overly quick run split. I was happy that I had made my first podium at a 5150 event but was slightly disappointed it was not a true triathlon, especially because by the time I finished, the weather was absolutely perfect. I think that if we had swam, I would have possibly been in closer reach of the first place finisher. I might have been able to hold him off on the bike and take him down on the run but that is all speculation and at the end of the day, I was happy with the performance.

 

Cruising along but still making it hurt 

After the race, I met up with a few friends, did the usual post-race debriefing and then got my water-drenched gear out of transition. I slowly, rode up the hill back to the car, grabbed a snack and then biked around for a little while to cool down. I eventually met up with Alex and we jogged around for a few minutes to make sure I was fully cooled down before getting into the car for the long haul back home. I picked up my prize-cup and we quickly bounced out of there, driving first back to Kansas City for breakfast.

We got properly fueled up on coffee and peanut butter pancakes and then got right back in the car. Long journey short, we went from Kansas City to a random fireworks shop in Missouri, dropped off Alex, drove to Iowa City, had dinner at chipotle, packed up most of my apartment for the summer and then drove back to Chicago, making it back in time for a few meetings my Dad had first thing Monday morning- rounding out a nice 22 hour day!

Jacked up on sugar and coffee  

Although I had to roll with the punches a little bit on this one, it was a really fun weekend and I had a great time pretty much just chillin’ with my Dad. It was also nice to get the free entry to the 5150 US Championship race at HyVee and to lay down a really strong performance on a day where the conditions were rough and my race priority was low. I look forward to putting in another couple of hard training sessions leading up the my next race of the season, the Leon’s World’s Fastest Triathlon in Hammond, Indiana. If you are in the Chicago land area, come check it out!

As always, thanks to my Dad for being a straight up beast race supporter, Craig Strong at Precision for the coaching and support, Nuun for that oh’ so good fizzy deliciousness and Running Away Multisport for the Zipp disc.

Go ride your bike today, I guarantee it will be a good time!

 
Justin

2013 St. Anthony's Triathlon Race Report

This was the third year in a row that I decided to make my way back to the great state of Florida to compete in one of the most prestigious Olympic non-drafting races in the country. Up until about two weeks ago, this race was not even on my calendar and I had written it off as an event that required too much effort, time and money. But when my good friend and first year pro Alex Libin decided to do the race and asked me if I wanted to join, I gave him a big 'ol "YUP!"

After a rather successful weekend at the Collegiate National Championship in Tempe, I was feeling pretty awesome the week before the event. I took a few days to recover and then put in a solid 10 days of hard but controlled work to maintain my fitness and sharpen up. Being a last minute addition to the schedule meant I would be heading down south for a good time, some sun and hopefully a nice hard race without any expectation or pressure. 

Below is my race report from the 2013 St. Anthony's Triathlon in beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida. Enjoy! (and sorry for the slight delay- I am still in school for another two weeks people!) 

The trip started off with a Thursday evening flight out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa directly into Tampa/ St. Petersburg.  Making the trek to the race would be Alex, his girlfriend Kelli and myself. One may think I was doing some hard-core third-wheelin' but these guys are two of my really close friends and it was great hanging out together all weekend. The flight was quick and smooth, bag pickup and car rental was easy and we were on the road by about 10:00 PM. After a 1 hour drive, we made it to our final destination, back to Siesta Key where we were staying at Rick and Essie's house! (the same gracious hosts from my trip to Florida for the ITU Sarasota race in March)

Dinner time-flight means full buffet style/ odd looks from my flight companions. Pre-microwaved sweet potato, vegetables and avocado do the trick! Unintentionally super beta-carotene'd on this meal. 

As if Alex and my coach were conversing, we both had a complete day of rest on Friday. So, after getting in pretty late on Thursday night, we slept in as late as possible on Friday morning. After having a quick morning snack and a little bit of coffee, we decided first things first and off to the gluten-free bakery/ grocery store we went! The rest of the day was super relaxed and carefree. We built our bikes, went to the bike shop to get bikes properly reassembled (I'm still learning the in's and out's of completely taking a race bike apart/ putting it back together) and then kicked up the feet for the rest of the afternoon/ evening. We even rented Django Unchained which is a super-bad-ass movie that I would totally recommend to anyone (even though we had to stop it half way and finish it the next day because it was getting late- yep we are lame and yep Kelli let us know that). 

That's my bike! In a much smaller form. 

Saturday was a pretty traditional, hectic pre-race day. We started things off with a morning shakeout brick and a sizeable breakfast. We then got our things together (yes, we broke out a cooler for food) and made the 1 hour drive from Siesta Key to the race site for packet pickup, Alex's pro meeting and bike check-in. After strolling through the disappointing expo, picking up my packet and racking my bike, I headed over to the tent where Alex had to be for the mandatory pro-athlete informational session. Besides awkwardly strolling in about 30:00 after the meeting started, I sat down next to some of the best triathletes ever to walk the face of this planet. I tried to blend in, look cool and keep calm, but all I wanted to do was jump up and down, cry from excitement and sit on Jan Frodeno's lap all the while not involuntarily wetting my pants. I was like a 12 year old girl in a room of 50 Justin Bieber's. 

ME (on the inside)

After that episode, we made our way back to the van and headed back to Siesta Key. I spent the rest of the evening relaxing, foam rolling, eating and watching the rest of Django. I got to bed early and besides being awoken by 1 missed call, 1 voice mail, 1 reminder that I had a voice mail, 1 text message and 1 reminder that I had a text message at 2:00 AM because of a Hawk Alert, I slept pretty well! 

Happy I was nowhere near the stabbing-asian main pumped about being an American but not so happy that it was 2:20 AM. 

The Hawk Alert was pretty much ended up serving as a pre-alarm clock because I had set my alarm for 3:45 AM. I half slept/ laid there for a while before getting up to have my traditional pre-race breakfast, load up the rest of my gear and hit the road for the 1 hour drive back to St. Petersburg.

This is what I mean when I reference the "traditional breakfast" for those wondering. 

Running a little late, we rolled into the race site around 5:40 AM but were lucky enough to have VIP parking due to Alex's pro-status (perks of traveling with this dude- suck it Elite Amateur competitors who had to walk 5 minutes to the race site!) Alex and I stepped out of the car, commented on the VERY strong winds, exchanged good luck's and then headed our separate ways. I found my bike, pumped up my tires, set up my transition area and then went out for a 15:00 warm up jog. I did some dynamic stretching, made sure my transition area was 100% set to go and then spent a few minutes putting on my wetsuit (water temp was 76.5 degrees= HOT). After suiting up, I speed walked/ jogged the 1500m down the beach to the swim entrance. As I was walking up, the pro-race went off at 6:50 AM which meant I had 10:00 until my wave went off. I dipped into the water to fill up my wetsuit and then hopped right back out to jog over to the holding pen. 

Looking out on the swim start

The pro females went off and I got mentally prepared to race as the race director got on the loud speaker. Long story short, they were going to shorten the swim to ~800 meters due to the high winds and bad chop. In his words, "we have to look out for the 20% that shouldn't be out there anyway." I was annoyed but quickly refocused my attention to factors that were under my control- like beating each one of the guys next to me. 

Time to kick some ass. 

After the 15:00 delay, they loaded us in the water for the start around 7:15. As always, the field annoyingly creeped forward before the gun and before I knew it, we were off. Unlike the previous three races of the season, this swim start was like a playful-pillow fight. No violent punches to the face or cage fight kicks to lower regions. All was good as I latched onto the back of the main pack, working hard but in complete control.

The new swim course was a straight shot parallel to shore with a sharp hairpin right turn at the final buoy. As I made my way around the buoy and approached the exit, I noticed some familiar faces of strong athletes and felt confident in my position with a swim time of 10:04.

Another downside to the altered swim was the fact that we now had to run a full 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) from the swim exit to the entrance of the transition area. I exited the water, stripped my wetsuit around my waist and started to haul ass on the pavement. I passed a few guys and saw one very strong runner in particular gap me in this section. I ran up to my bike, pulled my wetsuit completely off and got out of transition as fast and as cleanly as possible. Onto the bike with a total first transition time of 3:29 (including the 1k run).

Right out of transition there is a long section of cobbles that I hammered through like Cancellara. I strapped my shoes on and got to work right away. My legs felt stiff for the first 5 miles or so but I was able to stay positive and build into the effort. By the 10 mile mark, I was hammering along- threading that needle between "okay this is hard but I can keep it up" and "holy crap dude, calm down, we still got more biking and a whole lot of running to go!" My pedal stroke felt smooth and I knew I was in for a fast split. Although I do not wear a watch while I am racing, I was elated to find out that I had set a new 40k bike PR with a time of 0:58:55. BOOM!

Transition two was pretty flawless. Out and onto the run in 0:49.

With temperatures creeping up towards 80 degrees, it was getting rather toasty when we hit the run course. As I started to get my feet under me, I questioned if I had pushed the bike just a little to hard. My legs felt stiff, my cadence was low and I simply could not find a rhythm.... It was going to be a long 5 more miles at this rate!

And then, literally out of nowhere, I started passing a few guys. This put a little pep back up in my step and I started cruising. No accidental Gatorade shower, sharply painful foot blister or side stitches were going to stop me now! My cadence was on point and I was running light, strong and relaxed. I ran as hard as I could sustain for the remainder of the course and crossed the finish line 100% depleted....

WITH A NEW 10K RUN PR! 35:40 meant an average pace of 5:46 min/mi for the 6.2 miles.

One could say that I was rather happy with this performance. Not only did I manage to set a new 40k best bike split AND 10k run split, but I made my way through the field to finish 7th overall. Not a bad day at the office for a race that wasn't even on the schedule two weeks ago. Full race results: here.

After the race, Alex once again used his pro-status to get us into transition nearly an hour early to get our bikes and gear. We headed over to the car, left Kelly with all of our junk and went for a short cool down spin/ race debriefing. We grabbed some snacks and then got right to work on packing up the bikes. We had a flight to catch!

Hen House's all around!

We actually made surprisingly quick work of packing up the bikes and got in the car around 12:00 with 3.5 hours before our flight departed.

Not going anywhere before a shade and snack break in the back of the mini van. That hummus wasn't going to eat itself before getting thrown away at the security line. 

Took down this bad-boy on the plane. Yes, that is a buckwheat banana pancake. Yes, that is self stirred PB2 to put on top. Yes, the incredibly small asian woman sitting next to me was unamused. That's what she gets for sleeping on my shoulder later in the flight! 

I want to first and foremost thank Rick and Essie for letting the three of us stay at your house. It is so nice to be able to feel so comfortable and at home before a race! You guys are the absolute best.

I also want to throw a quick shout out to my #1 sponsors, supports and die hard fans; Mom and Dad. Thanks for allowing this trip to happen at the last minute and being there to support all of my larger than life goals. 

As always, big thanks to Nuun Hydration for that oh-so-good Lemon Lime on the bike, PHL for that Endruox R4 getting that recovery going right after the race and Craig Strong at Precision Multisport for putting the plan together that has allowed me to not only progress in the sport over the years but also have such a successful start to the 2013 season. 

Now here is a teaser for you all... With the success that I have had at my first few races, I may be taking my season racing plans in a slightly different direction. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks! 

Happy training and racing. 

-Justin