Ironman Cozumel & 2016 season
Prior to race day I told my wife Gillian that I thought I could go 10 min faster at Ironman Cozumel. Last year I finished 2nd in 8:14. At Ironman World Championships I was happy with my performance (12th place) but I was not 100% happy with my fitness. Six weeks before racing Kona I had purchased my first house. With the move and all house projects, my training wasn't ideal to say the least. Therefore, leading into Ironman Cozumel I was hungry to do well. I had roughly 4 solid weeks of training to get fit before leaving to Cozumel.
I arrived to Cozumel 6 days prior to race day. Unfortunately my wife was sick and not able to make the trip with me. My friend Carolyn who lives on the island picked me up from the airport and had a large goodie basket filled with snacks. This made me feel welcomed and very thankful! Throughout the week I enjoyed getting into a routine of waking up early and starting the day with a quick jog to the pool, followed by a swim, jogging back to the hotel to have a large breakfast surrounded by good friends.
Race day came quick as I was eager to get started. Normally I eat 3 plain bagels but this time I found 3 large rolls from the store and put some Nutella on along with a cup of coffee to wake the body up. As I entered T1the skies opened up for a little and it rained. Thankfully it wasn't too long but long enough to add more humidity. The first quarter of the swim I felt like I was pushing at 90% effort but then, just like that the pace felt comfortable as I was only putting out 70% effort. I think it was a combination of my body loosening up (I wasn't able to get in a long warm up in) and the lead guys in the swim group might have backed down a bit. I exited the water in the front of a group around 8 guys in 48:20. That would be a personal best swim in my BlueSeventy swim skin.
I had a really fast transition and found myself quickly catching some guys in front of me. I quickly went to the front as there was a long line of athletes behind me. Igor and Frederick Van Lierde were still a few minutes in front of me on the bike. The group did break up eventually and I was left with Chris Leiferman, Chris McDonald and a guy from Sweden. The bike was pretty hot because we were always in the sun and had no cloud coverage. The conditions felt normal for Cozumel with the back side gradually getting windier throughout the race. I finished the ride in 4:21:28 for 113+ miles on my Diamondback Serios. A total of 12 minutes faster than last year. I excited T2 and had a fast transition.
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| Photo: Nick Morales |
When I exited T2 I was in 4th position with Michael, Frederik and Igor ahead of me a few minutes. Chris Leiferman quickly joined me as we were running stride by stride talking the whole time. We were together for the first of 3 laps and averaged 6:17 pace for that first loop. On the start of the second lap, Chris ran to the port-a-john and I was running solo. By this time I was running in 3rd as Chris and I caught Igor. At the halfway mark I ended up catching Michael Weiss and moved into 2nd place. Ironically it was the exactly same place where I overtook Michael for 2nd place last year too. I continued to push however I was struggling to hold a 6:30 pace. The coming back stretch of the run was HOT! Hotter than Kona because there was no wind. On the way out it wasn’t that bad because we had a little breeze. Coming back it felt like I was in an oven! Later I found out that many pros and age groupers had passed out. My friend Carolyn who was working the medical tent said that this was a record for how many people were in the medical tent. This hot heat (oven) slowed all of us down. I continued to push on running 6:50 pace at the end and finished 2nd overall. I ended up running a 2:51 marathon in my Skechers GoRun 4s and was only 1:15 back from Frederik Van Lierde in a time of 8:04:24. After I finished I did a Blazeman roll in memory of my mother and others who have or are battling with ALS. This was a 10 minute personal best for me on a hot day. Frederik broke the course record by 9 minutes. After the race we were talking that we think its possible to break 8 hours on this course but it would have to take the right conditions. Congrats to Chris Leiferman as he rounded out the podium and this was only his second Ironman!
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| Congratulating Frederik for his recording setting win. Photo: Nick Morales |
I was happy too that my fitness did show on the day. At Ironman World Championships Frederik was nearly 9 minutes ahead of me if you count in his 5 minute bike time penalty.
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| Photo: Nick Morales |
I did my first triathlon back in 2010 and this was the best year I’ve ever had. Every single race I competed in I finished anywhere between 1st-5th (outside of Kona). This has helped me build confidence. Going into races I’ve always had the mindset that I am going to do my best, whether its 1st place or last place. I’ve won 1 Ironman and in the last 4 years. I’ve finished 2nd place five times in an Ironman. I’ve finished 3rd place four times in an Ironman. That’s 10 full Ironman podiums in the last 4 years. That being said, I’m hungry to win another Ironman in 2017.
Its been a very busy year for me! I traveled more this year than an other year. I got married this year. I bought my first house this year. Lots of great things and many more great exciting things to come too. I have to sincerely thank my wife Gillian. She’s been with me every step of the way this year and she’s super support while I pursue my dream. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her, my family, my friends and my sponsors.
-Skechers Performance has been helping me chase my dream for the last few years. They make a great affordable light shoe that allows me to run fast.
-Diamondback: Midway through the season they were able to provide me with a fast aero serios triathlon bicycle. I’ve raced it 3 times this year and I’ve had two Ironman podiums and a 12th place finish in Kona on it.
-Knight Composites: The wheels are just awesome! They have put a lot of work into them to make them (handmade in the US) one of the fastest wheels out there. They have a great team!
-Stages: They’ve bent over backwards to make sure I was ready and dialed in for my races. Its rare to have this kind of support from a power meter company. They supplied me with an awesome indoor trainer bike. I can actually ride and watch a movie with my wife without driving her crazy!!
-Castelli: AWESOME clothing! If you want an advantage thats comfortable, I recommend checking out their clothing. They made an awesome kit of me for Kona.
-Rudy Project: I’ve been them from the start. Pretty easy to talk about them since they have some great helmets with stylish sunglasses. Thanks for the support!
-Base Performance: I’ll talk about more below but they’ve provided me with great race nutrition that leaves me feeling strong all day without cramps and without fatigued muscles throughout the race.
-FitPro Go: Along the lines of nutrition. FitPro has provided me with high a quality protein shake for after my workouts. This results in; a faster recovery = I race more! This makes everyone happy! :)
-BlueSeventy: What can I say?! I’m swimming faster than I’ve ever had before and what wetsuit and I using? #AllForTheSwim
-Torhans hydration bottle: They make my bike go even faster with their aero water bottles. Thank you for the free speed! If you like free speed, check them out!
-Cyclologic: The only place where I’ve been bike fitted before. Paraic has helped me out with being fitted for so many years now. Rumor has it that the Trek team heard he was fitting me and now Paraic fits the whole Trek Team ;) You’re welcome Fabian Cancellara & Andy Schleck, etc, etc. haha
Ironman Cozumel was my 7th full Ironman distance of the year. I've been racing like this for 6 years now and I will say that my body feels better than ever before and I'm racing better than ever. I've competed in roughly 45 full ironman events now and I'm still trying to figure out what works best for me. I feel like I'm finally starting to put things together. A few things that have helped me achieve success for 2016:
-I listened to my body and I got to know my body more. I think this is true for all of us but when I say I listen to my body, I take rest days when my body is beat. I am my own coach so I can implement rest days or big training days when I want to. Thankfully I do recover very fast and probably the main reason is genetics.
-I focused on getting good sleep. I try to maximize my sleep here. I don’t use ANY recovery "tools" and I don’t get any massages either. I don’t take any naps because I’m frankly not tired during the day.
-Taper. I don’t do a big taper. This is very individualized. I know of some very successful professionals who hardly do anything the week of the race and it works for them. I’m on the other side of the spectrum and I don’t really like to rest much. I’ve tried a big taper but it leaves me feeling flat. Instead I’m logging in my normal hours and take a couple days easy before the race.
-I started taking new nutrition for 2016. I am on the full line up of BASE nutrition products: Multi-V, fish oil, probiotics, recovery activator, SALT, hydro and aminos. The products are very clean and I recovered even faster by taking theses products. For my race nutrition I use a blend called “Rocketfuel”
-I gained more weight in 2016. Last year I raced around 161-163 pounds. This year I raced around 168-171 pounds. What I gained was muscle. I’ve been taking FitPro Go protein shake after all of my workouts. This protein is lactose free, gluten free, no hormones, no artificial flavors or sweeteners and no carrageenan. In other words its a very clean whey/casein protein.
-I made upgrades to my bike. I put on a TriRig Omega brakes which are very clean, aero and has awesome braking power vs. any other brakes I’ve used. I upgraded my cycling shoes. The ones I was using before were very heavy and not the most aero. I made this switch back in April. Thank you Thomas Gerlach for that tip. I also upgraded my rear derailleur to an oversized Ceramic Speed pulley with one of their UFO chains.
-I've found a great swim group for me here in Sarasota. I swim with the Sarasota YMCA Sharks Masters program. Rick and David provide a great swim masters program that has just the right amount of speed/intensity in each workout without leaving me feeling drained. This has allowed me to continually improve in my swim as well as cycling and running because the workouts compliment my training.
-I just started using Stryd which is a power meter for running. I think the more data you can collect the better because it allows you to analyze it. Then you're able to break it down and see where you can improve.
-I went back to doing all of my riding on the trainer. I had three fastest bike splits in races this year and riding consistently on the trainer has helped me become stronger. I personally don’t think i need to ride outside much for handling skills. In college I used to race crits and most triathlon races are not technical. I recently just got a Wahoo Kickr and started doing some structured workouts post Kona using TrainerRoad. I’m already excited about 2017!
-One thing that I will change up in 2017 is that I will do longer runs. My longest training run in 2016 was 1 hour and 45 minutes.
-One thing that I will change up in 2017 is that I will do longer runs. My longest training run in 2016 was 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Post Ironman Cozumel race: I had a 5 day vacation on the island and I had a blast. I hung out with a lot of friends. This is one of my favorite things about racing and traveling. I get to experience new places, try out new things, explore, meet new friends and share these moments with others. The only downside was that I wasn’t about to share it with my wife Gillian and that was because she was pretty sick leading up to my departure flight.
Below are just some of the many pics that were taking post Ironman. I had fun snorkeling with a bunch of my friends one day and that sparked my interest in trying out scuba diving. Thankfully my friend Cris works for Scuba Mau even took me scuba diving for the first time which was amazing to say the least. I got to experience a Mexican birthday as well as a baby shower too. I probably ate more food than I should of but I was always joined with friends. One day after the race I ended up doing a talk with a number of other athletes to a large swim group of children who live on the island. We all talked to the children, helped them out with their swim stroke and I was even able to bring a number of backpack for the children. MORE Than Sport was able to setup this opportunity up which I was grateful that I could get involved with the community.
Lastly, if you're ever in Cozumel and need to rent a bike. I'd highly recommend: http://www.rentabikecozumel.com
If you're still reading...I wish you some Happy Holidays!
