Black Diamond Half IM - 1st Overall

Really liked the 9AM start time a whole lot. Other half IM races should be like that, seriously! Theresa, Donovan and I got up just a little earlier than normal, ate some awesome hotcakes, stopped to get coffee, and got there with enough time to park, sign in, set up, etc.

I got my cow bell all ready! Go get 'em, papa...

It was a bit cold in the morning, and I knew it would take me a while to warm up after the swim. I planned ahead, and put arm warmers + full-finger gloves on the bike (just in case...) as well as toe warmers on my shoes, and left my tri top in transition.

The water temp was not too cold. Either that, or I'm getting used to swimming in colder temps. I forget how rough some of these swim starts can be. After getting away from all the flailing arms, I swam my pace and exited 3minutes down. If it hadn't been for the beating in the water, me thinks I would have come out with the lead guys. Another good swim time for me in my (awesome) Helix.

It was a wise decision on my part to play dress up while riding the bike- The dry tri top, arm warmers, gloves kept me at the right temperature. I was feeling good and rode hard, and caught the lead moto at 23-25mi. I put my head down, hydrated/ate, did my best to keep on riding strong, and got to T2 with about a 2min lead. My power and HR numbers say I pretty much even-split the ride, with a time of 1:09 to 1:10.

Lost a gel bottle with coke running out of T2, so I ran on just water and a little bit of EFS liquid shot. I waited & waited for a moto to come up & give me splits, but, well, no moto was gonna come at this event... So I just focused on running hard. At the end of the day, I got a 6min+ lead. Btw-the offroad sections and hills make this run a really tough 13.1mi route. I was pretty happy to see the finish area, and got to run the win in with Donovan.

Race you for it, papa!

Props to my buddies Michael Gordon and Kara Nielsen, who showed up on Sunday to take the Olympic-distance races.

Once again, I want to thank NUUN, Blue Seventy, Oomph!, and SportsQuest Direct for their continued support.

See? This is what the award looks like.... from the side....

Most of all, thanks to my beautiful family, Theresa and Donovan. Donovan endured the day with a cold. As the winner, I got a bouquet of dahlias- Theresa's wedding bouquet, 7 years and 1 week ago, was all dahlias. Go ahead, call me cheesy, but it was great to share that with her.

A win calls for one of these, my favorite beer & my favorite mexican tarro.....

Lake Chelan, Lake Chelan...

Haven't written much lately b/c I've been crazy with work since we came back from an awesome few days of family vacation at Lake Chelan.

For those of you who have never been, boy, let me tell you, it is purty nice out there. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Penticton. The lake water is the clearest I've ever seen, and I thoroughly enjoyed swimming in it in my wetsuit every morning before the boats got going. Donovan was ready to go at the crack of dawn every day, and he would give me just enough time to get out the wetsuit, take a shower, eat b-fast and head out to the pool with him. He had a really good time, building sand castles, swimming in both the lake and pool, and playing putt-putt golf. All uncles and aunts were there to keep him entertained, which was great. It gave Theresa and I a rest from time to time. Below is one of the works of art built by Donovan, uncle Teddy and uncle Chris.
Training-wise, it's been ok lately- I swam a lot while on vacation, and found some really good rides. Haven't done a whole lot of running lately. I almost broke a toe, thanks to kicking a kitchen chair about a week ago, and I also have some issues with my left hip flexor, giving me trouble at the knee. There's a local Half IM I was planning on doing this coming weekend, and I still have not decided either way. We'll see.....

The end of the summer is quickly approaching. I'm getting in as many lake swims as I can, but the mornings are getting crispier and the sun is coming out later and later each day.

Last, yesterday was our 7th wedding anniversary, and Theresa and I got to go out and celebrate a little bit. Our life is good.. :o)

Ironman Canada 2009- 23rd MPro, 34th Overall

Another one for the books. This was the toughest race so far. The forecast called for hot temps. The wild card was the wind.

The swim went well for me, thanks to my awesome Helix suit. I swam in the main pack for a while, until a quick acceleration left me in a smaller pack. I am positive I would have gone sub 60mins had it not been for a swift kick from someone, putting too much water in my goggles to navigate and forcing me to stop. I swam the entire last leg of the triangle by myself, and had a quick T1, even with a slight race belt malfunction.

The ride was good up to ~ 3hrs or so, holding an average 228watts to that point. This was a tad higher than my target, which may have overcooked me a bit early on, but at time it felt right. I found it crazy windy from the rollers to twin lakes, making that part of the ride very tough. I got to special needs at 3:20, which should have given me a 5hr split, but the ride into the wind up to that point had put a good-size dent on me.



At the end of the ride, I put out my target watts (Ave 210, NP 218), fed myself according to plan with a mixture of CarboPro and EFS, and stayed hydrated thanks to NUUN in my bottles, but was quite tired thanks to the wind.

Off the bike, my plan was to run an ez 10k, then hammer like the race was only 30k long, and hang on for dear life. Well... I did run an ez 44min 10k, but the plan (literally) blew out the window after that.

Let me describe the carnage in the pro ranks that I remember- I saw Dallas Cain hobble off the run course with cramps; I watched as Ryan DeCook took off his shoes and jumped in the lake to cool off; I told a very-slow-walking Andriy Yastrebov to hang in; I offered words of encouragement to Steve Kilshaw, who was just barely shuffling up a hill- I don't think he even heard me;

I have no idea at what point I passed my fellow countryman Sergio Quezada or fellow Seattle-ite Adam Jensen; Scott Curry vomitted his nutrition; Volunteers were running to keep Michael Simpson vertical at the turn around. Amongst all this, I too was struggling with my run. I resorted to counting just about every one of my steps up to 10, and repeated this process from mile 13 on, just to try to stay focused and keep my legs ticking thru pain and exhaustion. I left it all out there, and it got me 34th overall, 23rd amongst the guys. I'm a-ok with that. Wind sometimes beats the crap out of the best laid race plans.

I would like to mention my buddy Jeff's excellent 12:30:00 performance. That is EXACTLY his goal time for the race, so he had perfect execution! Very well done, Jeff. And thank you for your words of encouragement on the run.

Congrats to Jordan on his win. And Tereza as well. They both battled the tough race conditions better than anyone, and were both in a different zip code on the run.

I want to thank NUUN, Oomph!, Blue Seventy, and SportsQuest Direct for their continued support. A great big THANK YOU to Mike, Su and Anja for their hospitality, which made our trip awesome. Thanks to Julie for helping Theresa keep Donovan entertained on race day while watching Jeff race. Thanks for all the emails, vmails, calls, texts that I received on the lead-up days and everyone who followed it online. (We really missed you, Liz!)

I want to thank my beautiful family, Theresa and Donovan. You guys make possible, and are with me, every single step of the way.


Thanks for reading.

JC