Triathlon – The Final Chapter

After a compressed winter ultrarunning season, with 3 races (Lookout Mountain, Bandera, and TWOT), 2 FKTs (AT 4 State and SCAR), and 1 weekend as the Barkley Marathons utility man, it’s time to fully switch into triathlon mode. Well, now that I’ve also had a little fun with a transition race at the London Marathon.

With one final season of triathlon, my main 2018 goal is to get back to Kona and see what I’m fully capable of. Sure, getting on the age group podium that I fell just two minutes short of last year would be awesome, but as long as I know that I’ve put it all out there I can walk away without ever having to wonder “what if.”

Of course there will always be marginal gains to chase, and in theory I could quit everything, train like a pro year round, and chase every last one of those gains. But, this is real life, and like everyone else no matter how many things I want to do I have finite time.

My first priority is my family. As far as sports go, I feel I have much greater gains left to chase in the one that I’m also more passionate about: ultrarunning. But, there are many chapters left for that. This chapter is about triathlon.

Prologue

I spent much of this winter actually continuing my triathlon training. Yes, I stayed pretty busy with ultrarunning events, but my training itself continued pretty consistently with swimming and biking. I finally relented and joined a masters swimming group, the Montgomery County Ancient Mariners. To the extent possible, I’ve been joining them for all my workouts.

The gains are already noticeable, with the times on my sets of 100 dropping significantly and my strength in the water beyond where it was even at the end of last season. Maybe before this is all over I’ll even manage to swim a sub 1 minute 100 (yards). Katie Ledecky swims faster than that pace for 1,500 meters at a time, but I’m still pretty proud of where I’ve come from the 3 minute 100s I started off with 3 years ago.

On the bike I’ve managed to at least stay close to where I was at the end of last season, which is a huge step up from the hole I’ve had to dig myself out of the previous two years. This has primarily been through continuing my bike commutes throughout the winter. I not only hate the trainer more than the treadmill, I just don’t have time to get on one. I think the last time I even set mine up was 2016 (which makes me think…. anyone want to buy a trainer?).

Team EMJ Training Camp

I had a lot of people ask me why I joined a team again this year – I already had pretty much all of the gear I needed. The answer is easy: the guys on Team Every Man Jack are incredible athletes and even better people. Seeing what they accomplish on the course is a big source of motivation. Off the course, I’m proud to be part of a group of such great ambassadors for the sport.

There’s also nothing like pushing yourself to keep up with stronger athletes to provide that extra motivation and training benefit. So for a few days in early March I once again headed out to the Las Vegas desert to train with Team EMJ and put my progress over the winter into proper perspective.

One great thing about triathlon: no one is the best at all 3 disciplines, so at some point you’re going to find yourself chasing. This year, though, I wasn’t chasing quite as much. In the pool I averaged 8 sec / 100 faster, and moved all the way up to the 3^rd slowest lane. On our long ride on the bike, I put out 20% more power than last year, roughly equal to the power I put out at Kona even including the easy effort sections at the beginning and end of the ride.

My winter of doing more than occasionally dipping my toes in the pool and spinning the pedals a bit had seemingly put me in position to build upon last year, instead of starting again from scratch. But now comes the true test – actually building upon last year and being better all the way to the end of the season instead of just better at the beginning.

Main Act

I’m excited about the local races I’m doing this year, and am kicking off my season with the General Smallwood Triathlon in late May. These types of events are what really grows the sport and forms good communities within it, and they’re unfortunately becoming less common due in large part to the WTC forcefully driving competing events out of business.

That’s a bit hypocritical of me to say, as my next event a few weeks later is the WTC-run Ironman Boulder. Unfortunately official Ironman-branded events are the only way to Kona, though, which is where the highest level of competition at that distance is each year. Imagine if the BAA decided to host marathons across the country and then made those the only qualifying races for the Boston Marathon.

But, my feelings about the WTC are a rant for another day. IM Boulder is where I’m aiming to re-qualify for Kona. It’s much earlier in the year than I’ve ever done a serious triathlon, but fortunately I’m in a better spot than I’ve ever been this early in the year. If I don’t qualify there, my backup plan is IM Mont-Tremblant in August.

My other big race is the ITU Long Course World Championship in Denmark, where I get to put on a Team USA kit and compete for my country. Rather than the standard iron distance, it’s 3K swim, 30K run, 120K bike, which unfortunately for me is just slightly heavier on the swimming.

Then, if all goes as planned, I’ll return to the big island for my final big race at Kona. Nothing there is a given, and not even getting there is a given. If I do, I already know I’ll be facing some great competition. All they’ll serve to do, though, is push me harder in achieving my goal of reaching as far as I possibly can. The only person that goal gets measured against is me.

Epilogue

Before I leave competitive triathlon altogether, I would like to grab my pro card and do one race as a professional. I don’t know which race, but it would be a fun victory lap and a great experience to be able to look back on. But if I had to choose to only look forward or backward, I would definitely choose forward. And for too long now, the mountains have been calling. I must go.