Longmont and U23 National Championships/Pan Am Cup
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Aaron Kamnetz
Aug 12, 2007, 9:38:41 PM8/12/07
to kamnet...@googlegroups.com
Let me start by saying that I don't have official results in my hands yet, so I wont be able to tell you the exact place I got, but I will have a rough idea for you. The race started with 55 racers toeing the start line at 11:45am in 97 degree Colorado high altitude heat. No shade, no breeze. Water temp was a warm 24 degree centigrade (the ITU people are from Canada, so they don't understand Fahrenheit). Most of you know that I was scheduled to begin the race at noon local time, but at Saturday's pre-race meeting we were told it would be 11:00am local time instead. So, that means we all planned for that start time. When it got changed, nobody told the athletes until they were lining up to enter the water. That kid of messed up our warm-ups, but it didn't really faze any of us.
As for the race...
The swim went really well this time around. I took a spot on the start line behind Hunter Kemper and Andy Potts right in the middle and followed them into the water. I held a great position at the front all the way to the first buoy turn (this was roughly 250meters out) where I had a bad turn and got kind of messed up. No problem though, we gt right back into it and clipped on to some feet and swam my arms off. I need stop here and thank those of you that have been going open water swimming with me, as it helped. When I finished the fist lap of the swim I was with the 3rd pack of swimmers. I stayed in this pack all the way through the rest of the swim and came out in a strong place with a good group of people to work the bike with. The lead pack was made up of Andy Potts, Hunter Kemper, Brian Fleischmann, and Tim O'Donnell. The 2nd pack was fairly large, but not too far ahead of us.
My swim to bike transition was going great until my flying mount where I missed the shoe and snubbed my toe into the ground. I recovered quite nicely though and sprinted to catch the pack that I was going with. I got right into the mix of things with about 8 other guys with all of us working together really well at first. Then, people started being stupid to put it mildly. Guys would launch attacks on the group or go onto the front and slow us down on the straights which was getting to be annoying, but it was the least of my worries. Once people started behaving themselves, we were cranking along. My down fall came shortly there after on lap 3 of a 6 lap course. We had a stretch of about 800 meters that had 4 turns mixed into it. While I may be a very powerful, and overall strong cyclist, I still need more work on my handling. These few rapid fire turns caused me to lose contact from the small pack I was in due to my in ability to stick with them at the high speeds they had in the turns. I'm just not experienced enough with that yet...so that is the big thing I need to work on here. I was lucky though. Due to us having the top ranked triathletes in the world with us, a number of athletes got lapped and therefore taken out of the race. I was not one of them. While I had to kill myself to make that happen, I made it through the bike with a time-trial ride over the last 3 laps.
We then moved into the run. I was feeling the heat at this point and took the transition from bike to run a bit slower than I would have liked but knew I needed to put down more fluids and decided a few seconds in T2 was worth the extra hydration. It was odd coming though there and seeing all the lapped racers packing up their stuff though, I will admit that.
As I headed out onto the run I realized that it was going to be a very lonely one. The packs that had ridden together on the bike leg were just far enough ahead of me that I never could quite see them around the turns in the dirt, yes dirt, road. On the first lap of the run I felt pretty awful for the first 2K before finding my rhythm and pumping it after people. I started to really feel the heat once again at around the 7K mark on the run. It hit me pretty hard and I slugged up the rest of the one hill on the course. From there, it was all downhill. By this point a number of people that had managed to make the bike leg dropped out due to the heat. Tim O'Donnell (one of the possible 2008 Olympic Contenders) was among those dropping from the race. A few people were taken out via medical personal in ambulances. My last scary moment of the run was with 800m to go when I all of a sudden began to cramp...there was no stopping now though. I pushed through (I can still feel it a bit in that leg like a dull burning now, 5 hours later) and managed to hit the finish line in 34th or 35th place (again, no results yet so I can't tell for sure) and 6th or 7th in the U23 division as the youngest athlete at the race.
All in all it was a better experience than Geneva was, though I am still far from where I would like to be. I could blame it on the altitude or the heat or anything else, but to be honest I just need more time in the pool still and some good old fashioned technique work on the bike to better hit those corners.
What that means is my next big race is November 10th in San Fran (I am no longer doing Clearwater 70.3 Worlds anymore as I want to focus on the Olympic Distance), but I will most likely throw in some non-drafting races here and there for high effort workouts and transition practice. I will also be doing any cycling race I can find in the area to improve those handling skills. I'll keep you all updated here via e-mail on on my blog at http://www.sponsorhouse.com/Members/kamnetz/Home.aspx and http://kamnetz.googlepages.com/ as well.
I send out an e-mail tomorrow with the official finishing place for you all to see.
Rock-on!
--
Aaron R. Kamnetz
USA Triathlon Collegiate Commissioner
MWCTC Director and Webmaster
Coach, Monona Swim & Dive Club
Co-Head Swim Coach, UW TRI Team
Asst. Coach, McFarland High Track & CC
College Republicans Executive Board
>>> Kona Endurance Supplements <<<
http://www.dbmnutrition.com/index.html
http://www.sponsorhouse.com/Members/kamnetz/Home.aspx
Mailing Address:
45 N. Randall Ave. #510
Madison, WI 53715
(608) 438-7872
Kam...@gmail.com
www.mwctc.org
www.uwtriathlon.com
www.gusports.com
As for the race...
The swim went really well this time around. I took a spot on the start line behind Hunter Kemper and Andy Potts right in the middle and followed them into the water. I held a great position at the front all the way to the first buoy turn (this was roughly 250meters out) where I had a bad turn and got kind of messed up. No problem though, we gt right back into it and clipped on to some feet and swam my arms off. I need stop here and thank those of you that have been going open water swimming with me, as it helped. When I finished the fist lap of the swim I was with the 3rd pack of swimmers. I stayed in this pack all the way through the rest of the swim and came out in a strong place with a good group of people to work the bike with. The lead pack was made up of Andy Potts, Hunter Kemper, Brian Fleischmann, and Tim O'Donnell. The 2nd pack was fairly large, but not too far ahead of us.
My swim to bike transition was going great until my flying mount where I missed the shoe and snubbed my toe into the ground. I recovered quite nicely though and sprinted to catch the pack that I was going with. I got right into the mix of things with about 8 other guys with all of us working together really well at first. Then, people started being stupid to put it mildly. Guys would launch attacks on the group or go onto the front and slow us down on the straights which was getting to be annoying, but it was the least of my worries. Once people started behaving themselves, we were cranking along. My down fall came shortly there after on lap 3 of a 6 lap course. We had a stretch of about 800 meters that had 4 turns mixed into it. While I may be a very powerful, and overall strong cyclist, I still need more work on my handling. These few rapid fire turns caused me to lose contact from the small pack I was in due to my in ability to stick with them at the high speeds they had in the turns. I'm just not experienced enough with that yet...so that is the big thing I need to work on here. I was lucky though. Due to us having the top ranked triathletes in the world with us, a number of athletes got lapped and therefore taken out of the race. I was not one of them. While I had to kill myself to make that happen, I made it through the bike with a time-trial ride over the last 3 laps.
We then moved into the run. I was feeling the heat at this point and took the transition from bike to run a bit slower than I would have liked but knew I needed to put down more fluids and decided a few seconds in T2 was worth the extra hydration. It was odd coming though there and seeing all the lapped racers packing up their stuff though, I will admit that.
As I headed out onto the run I realized that it was going to be a very lonely one. The packs that had ridden together on the bike leg were just far enough ahead of me that I never could quite see them around the turns in the dirt, yes dirt, road. On the first lap of the run I felt pretty awful for the first 2K before finding my rhythm and pumping it after people. I started to really feel the heat once again at around the 7K mark on the run. It hit me pretty hard and I slugged up the rest of the one hill on the course. From there, it was all downhill. By this point a number of people that had managed to make the bike leg dropped out due to the heat. Tim O'Donnell (one of the possible 2008 Olympic Contenders) was among those dropping from the race. A few people were taken out via medical personal in ambulances. My last scary moment of the run was with 800m to go when I all of a sudden began to cramp...there was no stopping now though. I pushed through (I can still feel it a bit in that leg like a dull burning now, 5 hours later) and managed to hit the finish line in 34th or 35th place (again, no results yet so I can't tell for sure) and 6th or 7th in the U23 division as the youngest athlete at the race.
All in all it was a better experience than Geneva was, though I am still far from where I would like to be. I could blame it on the altitude or the heat or anything else, but to be honest I just need more time in the pool still and some good old fashioned technique work on the bike to better hit those corners.
What that means is my next big race is November 10th in San Fran (I am no longer doing Clearwater 70.3 Worlds anymore as I want to focus on the Olympic Distance), but I will most likely throw in some non-drafting races here and there for high effort workouts and transition practice. I will also be doing any cycling race I can find in the area to improve those handling skills. I'll keep you all updated here via e-mail on on my blog at http://www.sponsorhouse.com/Members/kamnetz/Home.aspx and http://kamnetz.googlepages.com/ as well.
I send out an e-mail tomorrow with the official finishing place for you all to see.
Rock-on!
--
Aaron R. Kamnetz
USA Triathlon Collegiate Commissioner
MWCTC Director and Webmaster
Coach, Monona Swim & Dive Club
Co-Head Swim Coach, UW TRI Team
Asst. Coach, McFarland High Track & CC
College Republicans Executive Board
>>> Kona Endurance Supplements <<<
http://www.dbmnutrition.com/index.html
http://www.sponsorhouse.com/Members/kamnetz/Home.aspx
Mailing Address:
45 N. Randall Ave. #510
Madison, WI 53715
(608) 438-7872
Kam...@gmail.com
www.mwctc.org
www.uwtriathlon.com
www.gusports.com
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages