I had heard lots of good things about the Concreteman triathlon and had always wanted to do it, so I decided that this would be the year. I drove down on Friday evening and spent the evening with Eric and his wife Alicia as well as Eric’s friend, Dustin. We had a fun time going out to the Springfield brewery and then I retired early so I could wake up before dawn.

It probably hadn’t been the greatest idea on my part, but I had gotten in a new set of Hed aero bars and front tri spoke to replace the stuff lost in the crash on Thursday and had decided to try replacing the bars on my own. So race morning found me at race site making some final tweaks to my aero bars. Finally, I felt like I had them setup well enough to race on so I headed to the transition area.

This was my first open water swim of the season and the first since the accident. I was a little nervous with my hand, but I felt like I was now a fast enough swimmer to avoid the melay of multiple swimmers passing me and swimming over me. 1,000 yards was going to be a long swim, but I felt ready for it. Turns out it was a long swim and I probably wasn’t as ready as I should have been, but when are you ever… The layout of the course was poor as we turned directly into the sun and couldn’t see any buoys for a while, that probably slowed things up considerably and my pace only ended up being 1:53 per 100yds. Everyone else seemed a little slower as well though, so maybe the course was a little long as well. But it was done, first open water swim out of the way!

After a quick transition, I was out on my bike speeding away. I soon realized the importance of a more through inspection of a new handle bar installation. Once out on the course and in the aero position for a few minutes, I noticed the bars were too narrow. Not so much at the hands, but at the elbows, I was feeling really pinched in the shoulders. So, for the next 17 or so miles, I not only battled the hills and course, but I was constantly shifting trying to get comfortable. I’ll never know how badly this affected me, but I only ended up with a 20.19 mph average. I was glad for the end of the bike and I put all my effort into a smooth and fast T2.

T2 didn’t go quite as smoothly as I might have hoped. I had forgotten that during an aquathon a couple of weeks back, the liner had come out of my shoe and had folded in on itself when I had put it back in. So now I’m standing in T2 trying to fix my dang shoe! Finally, I get the shoe fixed and on my foot, probably causing me to lose about a minute or so of time!

Now I’m out on the run and I feel pretty good. In short order I several runners. However, as I had come in off the bike I had seen several of my “competitors” heading out several minutes ahead of me. One of them, Jason Holland I hoped I could catch, the other, Landon Hough had looked to be way too far ahead. Then I hear footsteps coming up behind me. I slowly get passed but not decisively so I pick up my pace and tuck in behind this person. A couple of minutes late I hear someone cheering him on, it’s Eric Chavez. I don’t know if I had ever raced him before, but I knew he had beaten Landon in a tri earlier this year so I decide this run is going just fine.

It’s a 5 mile run and I can’t remember the last 5 mile race I had done, so I’m definitely hurting. Eric continues to set the pace and the miles slowly tick by. Soon we catch up to Jason which I had kind of doubted I could do. A few times I felt like I could speed up a little and drop Eric, but I decide to stay with him and not risk blowing up. With about a mile to go, Eric picks up the pace and I struggle to match it. Soon I can’t and I slowly watch him pull away. It’s all good though as he’s in a different age group and he’s helped me run at 6:47 pace for 5 miles! I end up 5th overall and 1st in my age group!!

Despite the fact that swimming was actually now one of my strongest areas, I opted to do the duathlon this year. I was still concerned with my fragmented trapezium and a mass start in a swim was a sure way to get hit or hit someone else with the hand. So, I found myself lined up with a small field for the start of the duathlon.

Unlike most duathlons, the Show Me State Games starts out with the bike and ends with the run. So there we were all straddling our bikes waiting for the start. We hear the triathletes starting the swim, but nobody tells us to start. Finally after a little confusion we’re told that we were supposed to go when the first wave of triathletes started, but now they were going to start us 5 minutes late with the second wave of triathletes. Finally, the second wave started and this time they actually relayed the start to us and we were off… The bike is a 21 mile course with lots of hills, the first one coming at us right upon the exit of the park. Right off the bat several people sprint up the hill and I begin to wonder if I’ll see them again. However, I’ve got my disc wheel on so I figure the hills will be a little slower but I’ll hopefully catch everyone on the flats. Sure enough, once past the first few hills there were some nice long flat stretches and soon I was with the front three.

Most of the ride ended up being the front 4 of us staying together. Not exactly drafting, but none of us were able to separate from the others. I made several attempts to surge away, but I’m pretty sure they would jump into my draft during those surges. I decided I was better off riding controlled. We all ended up coming into the transition basically together. I was a little behind and was only the third person out on the run. I felt pretty good though and despite the fact that I had only run 7:30’s after the bike at Rec-Plex, for some reason I thought I would be able to outrun everyone.

Within the first mile or so, I had caught the second place guy and was closing in on the front runner. However, once we reached the turn around he seemed to pick up the pace and I couldn’t go any faster. To make matters worse, the third placed guy I had passed earlier now came back and passed me. I was fading fast and I started worrying about the fourth place guy. Fortunately I had enough of a gap on him to hold him off. I ended up 3rd overall with a 22mph average on the bike and a 7 minute pace on the run. Not the greatest, but I’ll take it…

Ok, so I’ve posted my race report regading the Rec Plex Triathlon, that might raise the questiong, what tri-bike are you racing on now? I originally had been looking at some high dollar bikes, but ended up getting a frame off Ebay, a Felt S22 for $450. It was a 2005 model that had never been built up and was painted with the 2006 colors. Apparantly it was a crash replacement, really sharp looking frame for a nice price. Part of the settlement with the insurance regarding my old bike was that I could keep the remains, so I ended up being able to use most of the original Dura-ace components.

I probably could have done most of the work, but I felt a lot better having someone else do it so I took it in to Walt’s Bike shop. They did an excellent job and for a total of $800 I had a new Felt S22 with mostly Dura-ace components. So now I had a great tri bike, maybe a little less than before, but nice regardless, now I just needed a good fitting. Ken and Diane Hood who run Bodymechanix Athletics also do bike fitting, Ken who is a rep with Compu-trainer uses his Compu-trainer in their fitting sessions. So July 1st found me in Springfield MO with the Hoods getting fitted on my new bike. Not only did Ken do a great job doing the fitting, Diane performed a little physical therapy and helped straighten out some crookedness in my back… By far the best fitting I could have gotten. Once Ken had everything set up, he made adjustments getting me as aero as possible, but each time checking my power on the computrainer to make sure we wern’t sacrificing power for aerodynamics. Fortunately I’m still somewhat flexible, at least in my back and I was able to get extremely aero while mainting my power, at least what

power I still had after Cape… In addition to the fitting, Ken worked with me for a while on the computrainer doing some “spin scanning”, working on my pedaling efficency. $125 was a great deal, definitely worth the trip to Springfield, I would highly recomend Ken to anyone looking to improve their fit/aerodynamics on a tri bike.

Bodymechanix Athletics

One week out from Rec Plex, Nikki and I traveled over to St. Louis to visit her parents and to do another race, this time a 5k. Advertised as a fast course, it was predominately a slightly downhill run. After my last 5k time of 24:00, I was determined to do slightly better! My goal was to break 20 minutes…Once out on the run, things felt good. Sure there were people passing me that never could have in the past, but I was feeling decent and thought I had a pretty good shot of breaking 20 minutes. First mile I ran about 6 minutes even, next I went about 6:30, and the final mile was about 7 minutes. Final time of 19:59!

I’m writing this a little late, considering this race happened in June and it is now late August… This will actually be a good exercise in remembrance, I hope to never feel the same way about a triathlon again, or at least not for the same reason. I had signed up for this race early in the year as an elite competitor, I had done the same race in 2005 as an elite and had placed second to Shawn Oneal, I was hoping to do as well again this time, if not better. Of course, I hadn’t planned on the little set back I had experienced in April. Now, rather than battling the elites and hoping for a win, it was a new set of emotions I was experiencing, was I even going to be able to complete my first triathlon of the year? Would my body allow me to continue and give me hope that someday I could return to my previous level?

Upon arriving at the race site at the crack of dawn, my first order of business was to try and make sure that I could get out of the elite division. I really wanted to remain at the front of the swim; I was the second person to sign up so I would be the second in the water, but I really didn’t want to do the course twice as an elite. Initially I was told I couldn’t drop out of the elite division, but finally I was told that I could. However, I didn’t have to give up my spot which was great since with my fragmented trapezium, any collisions with swimmers would have probably knocked me out of the race, even something as simple as my hand hitting another swimmer… Starting at the front of the race, this wasn’t as likely.

I used to be a pretty slow swimmer, but I had really worked hard on this over the winter. Cape Girardeau had been a great swim, but I hadn’t been swimming as much since the accident, and had only had about a weeks worth of swimming to get back in shape. Once in the water, things felt pretty good. I did end up getting passed, but only by one person who ended up with the fastest swim time of the day, Jillian Peterson. My final time was 8:40 which came out to be 1:35 per 100 yds, not as fast as at Cape, but faster than I used to swim, I can live with that.

After a motivated sprint to my bike, I had a slightly slower transition than normal; I got to take the time to put a wrist brace on. Biking had been a little rough; any bumps really amplified through my fragmented trapezium, stabilizing it seemed to help a little. The only problem with getting faster in the water, now I didn’t have quite as many people ahead of me to chase on the bike. Not that I was in any kind of shape to be chasing! Instead I was the one being chased…

Probably 6 or 7 miles into the race, I heard a sound I’m not all that used to hearing, the sound of a biker with a disc overtaking me. I decided this was probably something I was just going to have to get used to. Turns out, not only was I getting passed, it was a girl, Amber Mounday. Not going to lie and say I wasn’t tempted to draft, I hated getting passed but I let her go. Only, now I had someone to chase so I picked up my pace enough to keep her 15 to 20 meters ahead. Eventually she pulled away and I ended up getting caught and passed by Ted Zderic as well, but in all I had a decent bike, nothing like I used to be able to do though… 19.78 mph on a course I’ve averaged 23.9 on before…
Once in T2, I tried to work the quick transition like I used to. It wasn’t too slow and actually got out ahead of Amber Mounday. Wasn’t the best idea as I shortly got passed by her on the run as well. The bike had been slow, but besides the hand while going over bumps, it really hadn’t hurt. The run however was painful, my knees ached and I began to wonder how long I could go before I had to stop and walk. Eventually the pain subsided enough to where I knew I could make it. I was getting passed left and right, but I no longer cared. I knew I was going to finish, something I hadn’t known for sure I would ever be able to do again. I though for sure I would be crying as I crossed the finish line, I choked up several times before I got there. The tears weren’t there but I was crying on the inside as I crossed that line.

My parents had made it to the triathlon and it was nice to see them at the end. We hung out and watched as Nikki came across shortly thereafter.

It was a slow “race” for me, more than 10 minutes slower than the previous year, but I wasn’t complaining. I was back to doing what I loved to do and while I hadn’t done as well as I would have liked, I had finished and left myself plenty of room to improve…