First Win of 2013 in Galveston 5150

I crossed the line in Galveston last Sunday with great pleasure & some sense of certainty that I had actually won, but I couldn't be too sure. I had to wait and see for all the others to cross the line! I'll spin the yarn in the following...

Galveston was my last stop on my nomadic 5 month tour of the US & Europe. After 70.3 Worlds, I stuck around at a friends place in Las Vegas and waited until Ashleigh arrived in direct from London WTS. We planned a little respite together, and gave some service to our sponsors at the annual Interbike expo. It ended up being a whirlwind week full of debauchery, intoxication and gambling (just kidding, we're model triathletes), with no moment to spare or relax as intended. I even managed to squeeze in a supersprint race in Las Vegas to little success, but it was a lot of fun on these tired middle distance legs. I arrived in Galveston in pretty rough condition with a cold, and many missed hours of sleep & training, but still motivated to make up for a winless 2013. 

When I arrived, the Galveston area was experiencing some large weather fronts getting pushed in from the North, dumping lots of rain and blowing enough wind to give Team Oracle another victory on the right day. Come race day, the RD decided it wasn't going to be safe to swim because of the choppy water so they called it off. By this point, I was so over the travel and still feeling ill that I didn't care what they did. I just wanted the race to be over with so I could get on that plane and start the journey home. 

The format was to be a bike/run, with TT start at thirty second intervals. Being #1, I led off first and was chased all day. To be honest, I hardly new any of the athletes in the field, and was just interested in racing my own race. I was still in some reasonable biking shape, but was getting frustrated when I wasn't putting any time into the #2 athlete Daniel Bretscher. Turns out he was fresh off a second place finish in Ironman Wisconsin and also riding very well. We battled it out & even splitted the whole 40km in the heavy heavy crosswinds and uninteresting roads of Galveston. Daniel ended up riding only 5 seconds quicker than me, but we both rode considerably clear of the rest of the field. I felt as if I had a good ride considering my undesirable lead up to the race, and rode at 316 average watts (65kg race weight). You can view my power file here. 

Onto the run, I knew I would have to put time into Daniel quickly to break his morale. The run course was really fun, full of corners, u-turns & technical sections. There were many chances to get some sort of split of the competition behind, and I knew I was putting time into Daniel but he kept pressure on me the whole way and made sure I delivered a honest performance to take the win. My travel buddy Brooks Cowan from Detroit was third. 

In summary, good move from the RD to cancel the swim. I really enjoyed the format of the race, it kept me on edge the whole time not knowing where anyone else apart from #2 in the formation was. Would be interested in racing this format again, but a swim would need to be added of course! Any more RD's out there fancy on making another pro race a TT start? Any interest in Australia? Ahh anyway, keep dreaming. Here's a few shots!

Thanks to the community of Galveston for hosting such a good event. My homestay Bel & George were very accommodating, as well as the locals who shouted Brooks & I dinner, Kim & Steve, owners of the local tri shop who showed us around and all the athletes who came up for a chat. What a blast! For now, it's really good to be home, bring on the end of season races in Oz. 

Cheers

Vegas 70.3- Taking the Good With the Bad

With a tear in my eye, I say goodbye to the 70.3 World Championship course in Las Vegas. As most people would know, the rotation of new 70.3 World Championship venues begins next year, making it the last year the event will be held on this spectacular course. If you've not read my race reports before, I always like to give a run down of the course with swim/bike/run maps & a short commentary on each, so please see my post from last year's race if you need to be bought up to speed on the course. There's also the race video to watch to kick things off!



I'm still yet to report on my race from Hy-Vee the week prior, but I'll get around to that next. It is difficult to write about a topic when the culmination of a years' work leads to nothing but disappointment, so let it be known that I got a drafting penalty early on in the bike in Hy-Vee which put me out of the race. With the focus of 2013 however always being on Vegas, and Hy-Vee merely serving as a well-paying primer for Vegas, I still had my eyes on the Vegas prize. I had dreamt of the race in Vegas many times, trained to the thought of the course many more, and desired a spot on the podium every day. With my setback early in the year from a fibula stress fracture, I gave myself every opportunity to build into the season to peak in form by September. I think I got this part right, but my race tactics left me in the gutter, literally. I finished the race in 33rd, under a big shadow from last years 7th place.

The day started perfectly. I think I was tapped on the feet only once or twice during the swim. I lead the swim form start finish after a great start. I breathe to the left hand side, so I always like to start right so I can see the spread of athletes after the gun, and judge my position easily. I saw Andy Potts line up next to me, so I must have been in a good place. I started hard, had a clear lead to my left and set about keeping the pace high the entire time. Jan Frodeno told me after the race that the swim was fast & that he was hurting, so that makes me feel king beef. Swimming at the front isn't always easy, and it's never clear whether others behind are struggling from the pace or doing it easy, just slowly letting you burn your matches.

It had been raining all morning, and I was hoping it would have cleared up by the time we got onto the bikes so the Vegas weather could do what it does best. I typically have my best races in the heat, when the stress across all competitors is at it's highest. High hopes left me disappointed, but still eager to get on with the job. I had managed to split the swim considerably, but there was still a lot of pack meat about. There's some good climbs straight out of transition, which typically brings the workers up the front, showing portants of the 90km ride in just one section. It was Tim O'Donnell, Potts and myself up front. We swapped the lead a few times in the first 15 minutes or so and then we hit the first downhill. I was set up the week prior on the new Felt IA, and without this trying to sound like a salesman, it felt incredible. I got off the brakes and took the lead again, notching up top speed on the downhills. At this point in the race last year, I was probably second to third last wheel in the pack, but was now driving the pace up front. With the media cars and bikes around, this was a pretty amazing feeling. I think my cycling has been steadily improving the last couple years, but I had bought my best to this race. The next time I looked around to see what the situation of the pack was, I was by myself, entirely out of sight of anyone else.

Was this my race plan? Go all out, bust everyone up less than a quarter way into the bike leg and hit it off by myself? Please don't think I was stupid enough to think I could go at this course by myself, I always knew I would need a couple (minimum) athletes to work with to have gas left for a fast run on a hard course. But would could I do, it was a World Championship, and I was now out of sight. Jim Felt always tells me he's waiting for me to do a Craig Walton and go mental off the front and dominate the race. With this thought in my mind, I couldn't let the opportunity go so I went for it. I held my watts steady, tucked as aero as I could and jammed.

At the far turnaround, I could see there was now one large chase group that I wasn't gaining much time over. It had the momentum of Sebastian Kienle, so there was little chance I was going to extend my lead but I wasn't phased the slightest. I was committed to riding at the front and I did so until he caught me at the start of the longest climb on the course. Unfortunately, this was the first point in the race where my legs started to feel heavy. It was always going to be a huge ask to ride with him but I gave it a go and didn't ever come out the other side. My watts jacked up tantamount with lactic acid, and it was soon clear to me that this was the beginning of the end.

(Ride file here)

After this point I switched into survival mode, and only just made it to the end of the bike at the time the chase pack caught me. As soon as I got off the bike, I knew I had nothing to give for the run, and my legs sadly made it through the half-marathon. However, with a smile on my face, I could reflect on the fact that I seized on an opportunity to win. With some more experience and some more years in the legs, I have no doubts I'll be able to race in this manner and finish the job, but just not in 2013.

So with the long campaign to Las Vegas over, I look forward to finishing off the season in Australia and having fun with my training into these events. I thank everyone for their belief and support, and know I'll be working harder next year to make it all count.

Cheers!

All photos credit to

Paul Phillips / Competitive Imagine

and

Timothy Carlson / Slowtwitch

4th in Wiesbaden 70.3

Time to get back into the blogging after a long mid-season blogattical. It seems to happen to everyone right!

On Sunday I competed in my only European race for the year, and probably the second most important race  for me next to Las Vegas. It was the European 70.3 Championship held in Wiesbaden, just East of Frankfurt. I'm told it's where all the rich Frankfurtans live if that makes sense, or where the rich Wiesbadens who work in Frankfurt live. Anyway, it was an neat little place to visit, and only 15minutes taxi ride from Frankfurt airport if your driver shows enough zeal on the Autobahn. 

I flew in on Friday from Vitoria (Spain) after completing part 1 of a heavy pre-Vegas block. I was a little fatigued on the start line, but made sure I had just enough freshness to be competitive in the race. Wiesbaden is notorious as being one of the hardest courses around, specifically the bike leg. It would be pointless to line up in such a competitive field only to deliver a sluggish performance. My main motivations behind starting the race was to race a field and course similar to what we will see in Las Vegas. 

The Course

The swim is a good change from the normal out and back course. There's a lot of corners to break the pack up and string things out. The only thing holding this course back is the 23c water temp, making wetsuits legal. WTC really needs to mature on this rule, 24c limit on wetsuits for pro's is embarrassing. I'd say the gaps in the field would have been a lot bigger if wetsuits were ruled out for this event. 

The bike course is legit. The first 40km is mostly flat & rolling, with the next 50km massing up 1,500m of altitude gain alone. The whole course adds up to 1,634m (5,361ft). Tell me another 70.3 course that matches this, Las Vegas alone only tips over 1,000m of gain. When you're not climbing, you're descending through tiny towns and around hairpins corners. The longest climb was about 15minutes long, and you can view it as the one split in my data. I had no idea where I was going the whole business end of the course, most of it remains a blur, just following the wheel in front of me. 

The run was one of the best courses I've done. Four laps is a good number for starters, and most of the course is on hard packed gravel and some asphalt road. Almost the entire course is shaded, and it's a nice 1-2% gradient on the way up and similar on the way down. There was also lots of crowd to keep everyone going!

The Race

It was a deep water start to kick off the day. I like a deep water start, I'm normally pretty good at them but was a bit sluggish off the line and settled in third from the front. The pace was solid, so I didn't feel a need to swim up to the front once I settled into a rhythm. This was a good thing because my swim cap fell off after a few hundred metres and the rest of the swim looked something like this every time I breathed or tried to sight

 My transition was shocking, I couldn't find my swim bag on the race to collect my gear for the ride, and I fumbled for a good 10 seconds with a careless wetsuit removal. I was #59 so finding my bag gave me grief in both transitions on the day. I started a ride a good couple hundred meters behind the pack so I had to dig to catch early. I think this took a little out of my legs and I had a hard time finding a rhythm most of the bike. We passed the 40km marker, still with the front group intact (Vasiliev brothers, Jan Frodeno & Matt Chrabot) but I thought things were improving. I was wrong! I was the lead wheel and we just began the ascent up a long 8km climb when Sudrie Sylvain came storming past. I knew he was a strong cyclist, so I hoped he bridged up to the group solo. I soon looked around and saw this exact view (probably seconds after this shot was taken) which was very disheartening.

We weren't blazing up the front, but we weren't mucking around either. It's just that when Sebe Kiele is racing, the whole dynamic changes. I think because conditions were very cool (around 17c / 60f) and the first 40km was relatively easy, a lot of athletes were able to latch onto him as he went neberwerfer up to the front. From this point until the end, the front group remained large, and the stupid hard course almost worked for the group instead of stretching things out. I think because the ups ad down were so frequent, athletes could sit in and recover for the next surge of pace. Athletes did drop off, but not many, and most of the key runners were left intact in the group. I though I must have been one of the weakest runners up the front, so I was happy to sit in and conserve as much as I could, which still wasn't much when Kienle is driving. The guy is just amazing. My ride data is here if anyone wants to look (race weight about 65kg).  

Just before T2, we climbed and descended the 8km beast I mentioned earlier, and I think this is where the group split up the most. Beginning the descent, you could easily spot the guys who weren't confident on the downhills and were beginning to drop wheels. I did  my best to tuck and quite easily made my way up to Kienle's wheel, topping out at 96kp/h (60mp/h), and hitting T2 within seconds of the leader. I was happy to be up the front at this point in the race, but I still didn't rate my chances for a medal or good result considering how many good runners I was up against. Be sure though that I wont be writing myself off this like this again. 

Another fumble in finding my gear bag ensued but I quickly got my shoes on and was out the hatch with my mind focused on running my own race. Athletes were going blazers all around me, and Ritchie Nicholls looked like he was setting off for a 5km track race. Coincidentally, his fastest 5km lap around the course was clocked at 15.44, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was recorded on the first lap. 

My legs felt good, but not great. It wasn't until I completed two laps that I felt I could begin lifting the pace, and once I did, I was catching athletes quickly on the uphill segments. I've been doing a lot of shallow hill reps specifically for the Vegas course, and I think this worked to my advantage in Wiesbaden. I was in 7th, then 6th, and by the last lap I could see 5th place in my sights. All the while, athletes were blowing up everywhere and the chasers were getting fewer by the lap. The only athlete running through from the second bunch was bike/run stud Boris Stein. I caught 5th within a couple of minutes after targeting him and then out of nowhere I saw Kienle, and ran up behind him within another couple of minutes. I must have been negative splitting the shit out of this course because I never run through the field! It felt like a career highlight passing Sebe, and at this point I was 4th with only 2km to go. I held my gaps until the finish and celebrated like a German in the month of October all the way to the line.

I couldn't be more thrilled with 4th in my first European Championship 70.3, and my performance on such hard course. From here, I'll work on my recovery and then do a final short push into Hy-Vee & Las Vegas. But all things are looking in check for the big tests, and I'm more motivated than ever to test myself at the World Championships. As always, thanks everyone for the support and please check back leading into the big one to see what I'm up to before the big day!

Cheers

Photos available thanks too...

@photo: Sebastian Kuhn / drehmomentede

&

Daniel Kraft Fotografie

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 :)