4th in Buffalo Springs 70.3

Buffalo Springs Lake (where the 70.3 is held) is a neat little spring-fed oasis is an otherwise barren and dessert landscape. It's really quite an amazing place, located just outside of Lubbock in Texas.

So essentially...

Jokes aside, it was a really cool event, made even better by our fun homestay setup in a student house. I traveled down with my Boulder housemate Jimmy Seear a couple days before the event. Immediately walking out of the airport doors, all one can smell is 'farm'. After some jokes we drove & settled into our homestay. 

The race is notoriously difficult. I was told that some AG'ers refuse to compete in it and would rather do a full distance instead. While the landscape is very flat, the course is punctuated by massive canyons  of erosion that the cycle & run courses dip in and out of. I had my own personal difficulties to deal with during the race, and one mistake led to another. I was dealt a 4 minute drafting penalty which cost me a spot on the podium.

The Course

The swim would be my only criticism of the race. It was 3-4 minutes short. I swam 19.58, probably a world record. The temperature was another nail in the metaphorical coffin of favorable opinions, with wetsuits deemed legal in 75.6f/24.2c water. This rule is a disgrace and needs to be changed, for pro's at least. 

The bike course looks mundane but is really quite cool. It contrasts between flat open farm roads to the gorgeous canyons I spoke about before. The flat open spaces are mentally straining as one has to deal with average road surfaces, wind and a lack of landmarks. 

The run course is one of the most joyfully painful & uncomfortable course I've done. Picturesque, but hard. Lots of steep grinding hills, nice lakeside sections and one long exposed grind up and down the 'energy lab'.

The Race

This was never going to be an easy one to win. Guys like Greg Bennett, Terenzo Bozzone and Tim Reed were never going to be pushovers. The key to winning this was to build a lead a on the swim & bike and hold on in the run. 

I managed to get an early gap on the swim rather easily, and had only Jimmy Seear come along for the ride. The water was so warm & uncomfortable that I thought about pulling out once I hit transition. The feeling of overheating was so repulsive that I just couldn't imagine getting on my bike & hammering. Lucky the outside air was only 20c at this point, and I felt normal upon taking the wetsuit off when I hit transition first.

On the bike, I felt good straight away, attacking the first couple of steep hills. I was comfortable & jamming the pace, thinking of nothing but establishing a lead. I dropped Jimmy after about 15minutes and was committed to the solo grind off the front, until I hit the first turnaround at 35minutes in. Because of short swim, my lead was less than normal and it seemed like the pack of contenders were closer than what they actually were because I had already slowed to a dead stop u-turning around the extremely narrow road. In the group was Mark Bowstead who was driving the pace, Greg Bennett, Tim Reed & Terenzo. Mistake one. Seeing all these great runners just behind, I immediately I lost the commitment of racing at the front and started to soft pedal (what a pussy!). I dropped my watts 50-60 points, and was caught about 15minutes later. In hindsight, I was probably riding the same pace if not quicker than the pack and this first mistake cost me the win if I could have held it together. 

Within five minutes of being caught and settling in behind Bowstead, I was surprised by the technical official with a 

in my face. Second mistake. Four minutes penalty, just like that. I'm an honest athlete, & I didn't think I was drafting. It was just an error in judgement between my perception of 10 meters and the officials. Greg Bennett was just behind me at the time & after the race he felt I had been hard done by. But without playing the victim, I kept my cool and kept on pushing hard behind Bowstead. By this point it was just us and Benno out front, so I thought a podium may have been still in sight if Terenzo & Reedy had a rough ride. I ended up taking the penalty at 80km and watched all my main competition fly by and off into the horizon within 2-3minutes. I entered transition by myself & remained strong in my will to chase down some positions. Here is my Quarq power file from the ride http://connect.garmin.com/activity/336280452

The first couple of miles on the run were really rough. I felt uncoordinated & slow, but found my legs once I hit the steep rolling hills. Running down the hills was like a treadmill & it really helped my turnover. I built faster & faster and it turned to a really good feeling. I could see Bowstead in the distance and caught him at 10miles. I could see Terenzo was next but I was running out of real estate in the last two miles. There was no way I was going to catch him so I turned off the gas and cruised in for a fourth place.

Obviously the penalty dashed my shot of a podium finish, but a good progression of form from Boise was evident and I felt strong the whole day. The thing that hurts me the most was just not being able to 'race' the others. So lessons have been learned and another good test of the legs has been banked. This was only my third race finished of the year and I feel it will only keep getting better from here. 

Next up is Boulder Peak 5150 on July 14. Thanks all for the support!

DA-licious

Here's a small gallery of my new custom DA1 from Felt Bicycles, equipped with full Sram Red gruppo, Quarq powermeter & Zipp 808/Super9 disc + VukaBull/VukaShift cockpit. I'm also using Keywin pedals & a Selle SMP 'Chrono' saddle.

I'll be racing it for the first time this weekend in the Buffalo Springs 70.3 in Lubbock TX.

Feel free to ask any questions about my set up below. I hope you like it!

Interview with X-Tri

...Twenty-four-year-old Josh Amberger made a big splash during last year's 70.3 World Championships, placing 7th in a race that wasn't even on his radar at the beginning of the season. After an injury slowed the beginning of 2013, he has hit the ground running with a 3rd place finish in Boise this past weekend. We caught up with Josh after he finished up a swim session yesterday in Boulder...

Congrats on a great race in Boise, how are you recovering?

Thank you! I am still new to the half distances, but one thing I've noticed is the recovery gets quicker each time I race. Being 5 days after the race, I am feeling pretty good. It was great to finally get out there and race, I've had some bad luck this year with a stress fracture from over training and a mechanical issue in my comeback event in St. Croix. I have been training harder than ever this year and to finally get a good result is a big relief for me.

Please head over to X-Tri to read the full interview

3rd in Boise 70.3

Third ain't first, but it's a fair start. This result come as a big relief for me, but most who've followed this blog would probably already know that. There happened to be 6x 70.3's staged around the world on the weekend, but the field in this race was by no means thin. There was $10,000 on offer for the win so one can always expect great athletes to show up. So... let's get down to the nitty gritty.

The Course

Boise is basically a city sitting on a geographic crossroads. It's where the desert ends and the mountains start. Most locals thought that when the race first came to town they would be treated to a majestic mountainous course, but we got thrown out in the desert instead. With a unique 12pm start, we went from a cold 58f/14.4c snowmelt reservoir straight into a gargantuan 90f/32c desert headwind, then finished on an equally hot but lush river loop run course.

The swim

This was a pretty straightforward swim course. You're a wombat if you got lost on this one.

The Bike

but really...

The bike course was brutally honest. As I said, we raced in a hot desert headwind/crosswind in full sun with 780m/2,560ft elevation gain. The elevation was gained on climbs that were mostly long grinds 6-10 minutes in length. There were very few rollers. The course was perfect for a swim/bike athlete, as the competition can only really see you once the entire 90km. Here's my file from my Quarq power meter.

The Run

This was a two loop course. It was under shade for some parts, but exposed and windy on others. It's rather twisty so you can only catch a glimpse of your close competition on a couple of long straights and on two u-turns a lap. Kevin Taddonio got some footage of the run leg seen in the video below

The Race

The field was thin on great swimmers. I knew this was a race I would have to ride at the front by myself or would be caught by a pack at some point. I was wrong on both accounts.

I ended up leading out of the water by 45 seconds to a small bunch of athletes. After about 10 minutes on the bike we were greeted by a long steady climb straight into the wind. When I was at the top of the climb I looked back and saw one athlete had broken clear from a group. I hadn't done a 70.3 since September 2012, so I was lacking the confidence needed to ride and entire 90km by myself. Naturally, I was excited by the prospect of sharing the workload with another athlete. I was joined after about 20 minutes by longtime hardman Bevan Docherty. Bonus. As he caught me there was a long sweeping turn, and I could see we had a good gap over Brent McMahon, the next athlete coming through who had also ridden off the group.

Bevan and I shared an even workload into the heavy wind until the turnaround point. The turnaround & the switch from head/cross to tail/cross winds can easily be seen in my heartrate data below.

After the turnaround, Bevan hit a rough patch and made it pretty clear that it was up to me to keep the time gap growing. I rode hard and confidently feeling pretty solid. I ended up taking the turn for the next 60minutes until out of nowhere I was flipped a

for a positioning violation. We were sent down the left hand side of the road on one part of the course. With this my natural riding side in Australia, I instinctively kept to the left of the road instead of the right. I was therefore blocking and had to make a stop start penalty at the next penalty box. Fortunately the next box was in T2 so I didn't have to lose time on the bike course, just in transition. After this, I was frustrated with myself & Bevan for sitting on, so I jammed the brakes and made him conduct a pass. It was about 15minutes from that point to transition and we both eased the watts considerably as we began sapping turns again (also palpable in the HR data).

Into T2, I made the quick scribble on the sheet of paper and was out transition 20seconds behind Bevan. I felt lighter on my feet than expected but still a little awkward. Brent McMahon ran me down quickly, probably within 15minutes and I sat in third for the remainder of the run until the finish. I found my legs a lot more on the second lap and had a nice buffer to 4th to enjoy the last minutes into the finish and play with the crowd. The run times from the race were typically very slow, reflective of the really hard cycle leg. There's still a lot more work left to do on the run, and I have an enhanced understanding of how much more I can push certain areas of the 70.3 distance in my next event. I think the bottom line is we can always go a little harder & faster than what we expect, and next time I wont be afraid to explore these limits a lot further.

Thanks so much to everyone for their kinds words since the race, it really means a lot. Also a special thanks to my homestay family Tim & Tony Ramey, for making my time in Boise so enjoyable. Cheers :)

Boise 70.3 Preview

It's been a rough year for me to date. Everything started well in terms of training but a stress fracture put my plans to sleep at beginning of March. I missed a bunch of races and it took a while to get running again. My first race back at the St. Anthony's 5150 was a misfire in almost every way, and showed a slump in form from injury. In the St. Croix 70.3 a week later I was dealt a blow of bad luck with a flat & mechanical. I'm hoping to turn around my misfortunes tomorrow in the Boise 70.3, and finally get my 2013 season underway properly. 

My first impressions of Boise are solid. It's the capital of Idaho, sits at 850m elevation and is surrounded by stunning geography & landscapes. I've been here only a couple of days but it feels more like a home to me than Boulder. I'm yet the check out the bike course, but the swim is in a stunningly clean snowmelt reservoir and the run is looped around a nice greenbelt along the Boise River. It's nice and hot here, we should be served temps in the 30's tomorrow. It's a 12noon start as well, a nice break from the early wake ups, which also insures we will be in the heat from the get-go. All my good 70.3's have been in the heat so I have a good feeling for tomorrow's race.

The field is srong here. I'm not going to say it's 'stacked' because apparently every 70.3 field ever is stacked. Some names lining up are Docherty, McMahon, Bell, Hoffman, Griffin, Millward, Reed (Matt), Lieto (Matt), Wurtele, Matthews, Twelsiek et al. I'll be trying to race this like I always do, be at the front of the race for as long as I can. This race is just one small part of bigger goal, and while I wont be expecting to be in red hot shape, I know my training has me in a good enough shape to take the win. Either way, it will still be progress for me considering the tardy start to the year I've had. This will also be my first ever race coming straight from altitude in Boulder, so I might even surprise myself. Here's to hoping!

Boulder Canyon Run

Here's another training video from my block in Boulder CO, please watch, enjoy & share!

Cheers

Swimming in St. Croix

Please excuse the bad quality, had some issues with some old firmware on my camera & had to make a file conversion so I lost some quality.

Enjoy!

Slower Start in St. Croix 70.3

It's been 12 days since the 70.3 in St. Croix. Predictably, the elapsed time between then and the tardy publication of this blog simply means that things didn't go my way. So without dwelling on any negatives I'll fire up the narrative.

The Course in St. Croix is amazing.

A crystal clear harbor swim to start the day

RELENTLESS 90km cycle. Kind of multi-loop, but not entirely (which I didn't finish)

And a challenging gravel, grass & asphalt mixed run (which I never started)

Typically, the roads in St. Croix are good.

I'm sure a large percentage of the Island's small GDP is spent on laying hot mix, largely with the triathlon in mind. The triathlon is big tourism for the island, so I would imagine having goods roads is important to them.

Unfortunately though, when I say 'typically', it does not mean entirely. And the conditions of the 'other' roads looks like this

...which ultimately left me feeling something like this

About three days before the race, the road sweepers looped the course and made a good job of clearing debris, restoring the portions of road above to an acceptable racing surface. Though as Murphy's Law suggests, everything that can go wrong will, and the island had heavy rains & storms the night before the event.

We were now doing a partial cyclocross race, on TT bikes.

70.3's for me are still a fun event, something I don't take all too serious. I'm still leaning how to race them, and I've still only done three 70.3's so far. Consequently, I don't put too much pressure on myself when I race them, and I tend to be overly relaxed before the start. Even with the roads in such bad shape I was still calm. I guess everyone had to race over the same course so it was fair game.

The swim was pretty uneventful. I didn't get the greatest start and wasn't really that motivated the use too much gas early on in the race. The bike was the deal maker (or breaker in my case). I swam comfortably & was happy to let most of the main players sit on my feet. I led out and just tried to keep my heartrate as low as possible through transition. (this is the only race picture I have)

Once on the bike, Ben Collins took the lead immediately, and I knew it was my ticket to stay with him as long as possible. He was jamming hard, and every five minutes or so I would look behind to see fewer athletes holding on, and by 20minutes into the race it was just him and I.

They say the race doesn't start in St. Croix until you hit 'The Beast'. The Beast is a significant climb, .9miles in length with an average gradient of 15%. It even hits 26% for some meters. Ben & I got to The Beast in 47minutes, having already gained 1,300ft in elevation with an average power of 293w. We climbed The Beast side by side,  matching breath for pedal stroke. It was one of the most surreal feelings I've ever had in racing. Out of the saddle the whole time, looking around the corners, longing for the top; every second of the climb was garnished in pain. A few words of consternation were sworn by Ben, I think because he actually hadn't seen the climb before he started the race. This made me feel relaxed and composed, like I was in control. I knew if I stayed with Ben for the climb, I could stay with him the whole race. We ascended The Beast in exactly 6minutes, with 500ft of gain and an average power of 363w. That's a 5.65w/kg effort in the middle of a 70.3.

We started descending The Beast, and this is where my effort stopped with a flat tyre. I felt all like

...but had plenty of time to compose my thoughts as I waited 10minutes for some spares to arrive. The spares truck didn't have any tyre levers, so there went another 5minutes to change & pump up the tyre. After I stopped with the flat, it was a good 5minutes until the next competitors rode past. It was at this point I realised that two main players in Dirk Bockel & Tim O'Donnell had also dropped out from flats.

So I got back on my Felt, struggling somewhat for motivation to get myself back in the race. I was always going to finish, but just with a little less effort than I would have given racing for the win up the road with Ben Collins. Ben went on to ride a 2.14 90km. This was two minutes faster than what Lance Armstrong rode the course in last year. An absolute phenomenal effort, one which obviously cost him the race. He passed out later on in the run, making it Deja Vu for the second time this year (see San Juan 70.3). He wrote on his blog that he rode conservatively; maybe a little meat missing between the ears there Ben.

Anyhow, about 10minutes after flat change, I started catching athletes until my gear lever failed and I was stuck in the 11 on the back, which was dire on this course to say the least. It was at this point I was all like

...and decided to retire from the race. Without coincidence, this is a picture of Dirk after his flat earlier on.

So this narrative still leaves me without a result for the first half of 2013. Expect to see me start in Boise 70.3 in three weeks time looking to make amends.

Thanks Amigos, take care

Slow Start in St. Anthony's - Prelude to St. Croix

10 weeks after my stress fracture & 28 days after my first run, I threw myself into one of the most competitive non-drafts of the season, the St. Anthony's 5150. I'd by lying if I didn't say I wasn't disappointed with my dismal 21st place, but I'm happy that I've now got an honest measure of my race fitness, and it gives me confidence that I can build my results into the season. Full results are here (skip across to the 'professional' tab).

I was 4th in the race last year, so I was hoping for an equal or better performance. Considering the training I've done & fitness I've experienced this year, I thought this result was possible. But when I put some context in place, it brings me down to earth a little. There was no way I was ever going to be able to run close to some of the best names in the sport from ITU only four weeks past a fracture & on my first outing of a season. The other point of context is that I literally didn't sleep for the five days leading into the race, the Australia-East Coast USA travel really bought out in the inner insomniac. So, moving along to the race...

(this is my first race report of the year & it's pretty boring, give me a few goes to ease into some more entertaining prose)

Winds kicked up a nice swell in the Tampa Bay which made the swim conditions pretty tough. There was $1,000 up as a swim preme, and I knew the conditions would play into my hands to get the much needed bonus. The start was the standard affair of creeping forward before the gun, but I managed to get in front pretty quickly even though I wasn't one of the dicks sculling forward (there really need to be some sort of control over this). I think I was only touched once on the feet before I managed to swim off the front so I was really happy with this. A trouble free swim is always a good way to start the race!

I exited the water with a gap & took the prime. I got to my bike quickly and was really excited to see what kind of bike shape I was in. I felt fantastic at the start of the bike and led the race for a good 10min before Cam Dye (the Spartacus of trithletes) rode up next to me. With the stagger rule the way it is in the States, I had to ride side by side with him if I wanted a chance to ride with him the whole way; there's no 10m rules to freshen the legs here. He hurt me pretty quickly, and I was shelved after a few minutes. After this everything slowed down and I was caught by the chase pack after about 25minutes. I sat up the front of the chase pack with some heavy legs until T2. There was a good 50-80 watt difference in effort between the start of the ride and the time I hit transition. 

As expected the run was a bit of a struggle, with my split sitting just under 36minutes. I felt as limp as a wet flannel the first few KM's on the run, but I was happy to finish stronger than what I started. I could have started the run with fresher legs had I sat further back in the stagger pack on the bike, but there was little point to this in the first race back when I was looking as much for fitness than a good result. I'm assuming this race has probably given me more fitness than other single session this year. Playing this fitness card is also what has bought me to St. Croix for the 70.3 this weekend.

St. Croix is down in the Caribbean, and is one of the oldest races on the circuit. It thoughtfully doubles as perhaps the hardest race on the circuit as well! This island is literally a steaming hot wok of pain. It's hot, humid, windy and mountainous. On a course like this, it's almost like you race yourself to the finish, not your competition. So if the 10km off the bike on the weekend was hard, of course a 21.1km run is going to hurt. But while I'm here to win, I'm here to really consolidate some race fitness and actually feel like my training has had some purpose. So I'm going to leave it at that, and hopefully check back with some good news after the race.

Here's some shots of the island!

The view from the homestay

Swim course with Burgs, Will Clarke & Clark Ellice 

This is part of the course, aptly named 'The Beast'. The climb is .7miles long & at 14-26% gradient

Unfortunately, this is the local style

Local swim pool

Feeble Fibula Fracture Gone but not Forgotten!

So it seems I have become unfamiliar with this blogging interface & the prose of the English language, so excuse me while I reacquaint myself after a long absence! It's been that long that I have actually written this blog 100 times in my head, and also forgotten it 100 times over. So without further delay, let's get to the nitty gritty!

The skinny on my injury was that I was diagnosed with a minor stress fracture in my proximal fibula (just below the knee) on week 6 of a 6 week training block. At the end of the week, I was supposed to fly to San Francisco to compete in my season opener at Escape From Alcatraz (won by Spanish amigo Javier Gomez). I was also going to press on to Puerto Rico two weeks later to race the San Juan 70.3. The injury was a big blow for me. I was training & recovering very well, so when the fracture happened literally overnight it was a huge shock. It was going to be amazing to test myself & my form against Javier, and I had organised to meet a couple of my new sponsors over there. In short, a great opportunity missed but I had to focus on getting my season back on track.

When the fracture was diagnosed exactly 10 days before the race in Alcatraz, opinion amongst the medical staff was that there was a chance I could still race, but that I had to avoid running up until the event. The nature of the fibula bone such that it is relatively unaffected by weight bearing compared to the tibia, & that it's function is geared towards anchoring supporting muscles & neural structures (I'm not Pro as this stuff so please forgive me if you're slapping your face right now). So ultimately it was theorised that it was a low grade fracture in a non-weight bearing bone, allowing me to have a minimum of two weeks off, that I could race if I chose to, and that it would be a maximum lay off time of four weeks. I could do normal swimming & cycling around this.

With the advice given to me, I chose not to race Alcatraz & San Juan. It was very early season (& still is), and if I didn't let it heal properly I was worried that it could plague me all year. I opted to take the maximum healing time of four weeks off so I could give myself the best chance for the season. The first week off was tough on the mind. I had planned this as a recovery week anyway so it suited, & I really didn't do much at all. The next weeks were okay, I got plenty of cycling in & I was riding up to 24hours a week. I thought that I may as well keep consolidating my base training! Eventually, the end of week four rolled around & I was pretty eager to get out for a run.

I started out very slow & very short. My first run back was only 5 minutes long. I waited two days and then ran again for seven minutes. Both of these runs were pain free, but the day following my second run the pain returned. I was freaking out & could see my season disappearing before me. I assumed the worse, that I had reopened the fracture. I was even thinking about places to disappear on a solitary holiday too... it was a very bleak feeling! I restarted the process of consultations & I saw an entire new team of therapists. Experience in the past tells me that if any advice from professionals doesn't work the first time, it's not going to work the second time. My prescribed four weeks of 'just rest' wasn't going to heal my injury!

I went and saw Ashley Mahoney (super podiatrist), who actually fixed my previous injury to my achilles two years earlier. Basically we've both concluded that if I get injured again I'll just go straight back to him. This guy is simply amazing. Over an hour long consultation (in a park at Burleigh Heads, how cool) he diagnosed the cause of the injury and mapped out a plan for recovery. Essentially, my peroneal nerve and surrounding soft tissue was brutal tight and my fibula head was locked up in the knee capsule. This was all new to me, none of my previous therapists had thought to check this out. So while I had done the rest, and the bone had healed in this rest period, the root cause of the fracture remained. Ultimately, all I had to do was work out this tightness, release the capsule & I would be sweet. After hearing this is was simple,

Within two weeks of seeing Ashley I had run a 20km week. The next week I ran 32km, and the following week (last week) I ran 50km. There has been no hints of pain and I'm well and truly on my way back to race capacity & full training volume! :) :) :)

So this all brings me to my next event & new season opener, the St. Anthony's 5150 in St. Petersburg FL this weekend. I left Australia a couple of days ago and will now be in the US & Europe until later September. I'll be backing up next weekend with St. Croix 70.3 too.

I'll write another blog in the coming days with my feeling about the race, and my path for the months ahead. Thanks a lot for reading!!!

Cheers, Josh

I have since had a hair cut