2017 Aquabike Worlds - Penticton Part 1: Pre Race vacation

Since Worlds was in Penticton BC, we decided to use the trip as a family vacation. Through AirBnB we rented a house on the same lake as the race for the week prior to event.

The location was incredible. Here was the view from the house:





The moms and T flew into Vancouver Saturday and drove the minivan to Penticton on Sunday. It is about a 4 hour drive through some of the most beautiful and desolate mountains you'll ever see. Once you hit the moutain range, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, until you reach the Kelowna/Penticton area.

Zack and I flew into the Penticton airport a little after midnight Sunday, but our luggage didn't come with us.

<< MUCH MORE TO COME >>

2016 USA Aquabike Qualifying Race - MiamiMan, Nov 13, 2016

Long time away, but want to begin to start chronicling the journey again.


2017. What a year. I'll touch the highlights.

Triathlon for 2017 actually starts in 2016. After looking into the ITU World Championship series, 2017 was announced as the first year the ITU added aquabike as an event. Further, your age group is determined by the age of the year of the competition. That would put me in the 55-59 for the 2017 event, which was being held in Penticton, BC Canada, as a 55 year old, which as we all know means I'd likely have the bests chance ever to qualify since I'd be at the youngest of my age group.

The USA qualifying event was Miami Man in November. I decided that since the top 18 in each age group are eligible for Worlds, I would enter and try to get onto Team USA. Obviously November isn't a good time for a New Englander to race, but the course is pancake flat and therefore weight doesn't matter so trainer rides should be fine. I decided to travel by car and go with my mom. Also, Terry from the Asphalt Junkies lives in Miami, and he was doing the same race. Lots of good reasons to do it!

I'll fast forward to race day. I went into the event without the best training block, but felt ok. My swimming was better than ever. In the weeks leading up to the event, I did a 2125 yard interval each week, with times of 35:30, 36:39, 34:52. That's a good 3-5 minutes faster than I usually do in a half swim, and I felt nice and relaxed at the end. My bike training hadn't been as complete as I had hoped, but I felt pretty well prepared. I knew the week before the race would be tough given we were driving for 2 days, but going with mom added an awesome piece to this endeavor.

Anyway, I started on the bike very comfortable and hoping that the carry on effects of the kick wouldn't be bad. To my surprise, everything felt great. I held my power a little below the overall target of 195 and settled in. The course was flat, and I mean pancake flat. The road surface was pretty good but not super smooth, and the wind was light, so great conditions. I passed a lot of people and the course is so flat there really wasn't any strategy involved except stay in the aerobars and just maintain power.

After the 1 hour mark, I pushed the watts to 200 and continued to evaluate. after one half hour of that, my legs felt ok but my lack of aero training was beginning to take its toll. Without any hills, there was no natural opportunity to get out of the bars and move around a little. he wind had also picked up, so not being aero really cost speed and energy. My legs were starting to get very fatigued, and it was clear over the next 10 miles I wasn't going to hit my time target of 2:22. I was surprised the my legs were really fried. Given the swim I was mentally worried that I wouldn't be able to qualify. I really just pushed the pace as much as I could given how much time I was spending sitting up, and ended up at 2:31:23 and 187 watts.

In the end, the effort was good enough to qualify in the 55-59 group, though I didn't know until about 2 weeks later when USAT sent me the confirmation email.

Despite not having a very good day, I'm going to Worlds!

2010 Eastman triathlon

Old post/ never posted. This is from Eastman triathlon, June 19th, 2010. So long ago!


Been a while, so I need to keep up. Had my first race of the year last Saturday. It was most interesting, it's always fun to race. Probably the best part of the day was that my oldest son did the kids version of the tri! It was awesome to see him get ready, prepare transition, and then go through the race. He finished holding his running shoes and flying barefoot through the finish gate. Awesome experience for dad!

I had a most interesting race. 59/181 total, 11/18 AG. The swim was brutal but not for the reason I thought it would be. My time was actually about goal time, so I can't complain much about the swim. There was pretty good pile up at 200 yards, and about 5 of us spent about 50 yards hammering each other quite a bit, not on purpose but it just worked out that way. That went fine, it was actually fun in a way. But then about 50 yards after it broke up, I just lost it. It was like I'd never swam in my life. Couldn't breath, couldn't stroke, total brain cramp. I struggled in and don't really know what happened or why. Oh well, I guess I'll do more long uninterrupted swims and see how that goes.

The bike was very hard but also very fun, pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. The roads were perfect since they were newly paved. It was essentially an out and back, uphill most of the way out and downhill back, with some very steep inclines. I love that kind of ride and did pretty well I thought.

The run was weird. It was a trail run with some parts on the beach. The trail was very rocky and rooty and lots of holes and such. Maybe all trails are like that - I've done no trail running. Due to a previous history of ankle issues and this not being a big race for me and not wanting to cause a problem which would keep me off my feet for a while, I was very cautious, to the point of walking at times especially down some pretty steep inclines. As a result, I wasn't really gassed at the end of the run which was a bit disappointing. Anyway, I finished the run in 28:10, my slowest 5k since I started running and measuring 5k times. There must be a secret to this trail running as some others were cruising fairly quickly running the whole thing. No one went too fast though - I think the top 5k time was 21:04.

All in all, we had a great race and I'm happy to have done it. It was a beautiful location and a well run event.