M2M Race Report - my first cancelled race

I just love writing my post race race report. It gives me an opportunity to immediately collect my post race thoughts, walk myself through the race experience and express my thoughts/feelings about my performance, so that I can look back and learn from the race.

Well, sadly there is no race report to write about M2M. 

Let me take you back a few days.

On Friday evening, we had our typical pre-race team pizza party after packet pick-up at Carolina Triathlon. For all of our Trimarni key races, we provide pizza and a course discussion/execution talk to our athletes. We sat outside and stayed relatively comfortable since the sun was setting around 6:30pm.

Although we knew there was a great chance for rain on Sunday, we provided our athletes with practical course execution information to ensure a great performance by everyone who was racing.

Earlier that day (Friday), Julie, Justine and I (a few of our out-of-towners) did a tune-up swim (~2200) followed by a 20 mile EZ spin covering the run course (13 miles + extra miles to get back home).

Happy smiles post swim workout.


About to ride the run course. 

Both days were absolutely beautiful and very, very warm. PERFECT summer training. 

On Saturday morning, Justine and I went for a 90 minute spin and covered a lot of hills while opening up our legs with a few intervals and testing out our race bike set-ups. I followed the bike with a 10 min run on the treadmill.

After a typical pre-race day of fueling, resting and getting mentally ready for our race, it was early to bed around 8:45pm for a 4:30am wake-up call.

I first woke up around 3am to pouring rain and some thunder and lightening. Then, when the alarm went off, it was raining lightly. By 5:15am, it was pouring rain again.

After loading up the car in the pouring rain, it was time to head off to the race start.

At 5:30am, we headed out to Seneca with our race gear (swim and bike - our run gear was at T2 in Traveler's Rest) and hoped for the rain to stop. While we all wanted to race, I knew that the difficulty of the bike course would make it an easy call to cancel the race in the case of bad weather. The radar did not give us hope that we would have a rain free morning but we hoped it would clear up enough to proceed with the race.

After we racked our bikes and set up our transition area (with plastic bags holding our gear), we huddled under the pavilion to stay dry as the rain slowly let up. Although any break in the rain was quickly followed by another opening of the clouds in the sky.

By 7:15am, after the final radar was checked, the race director cancelled the race due to the unsafe riding conditions. While this was a smart call at the time, due to the weather, it kinda felt like we all were trapped inside a cage, ready to explode with energy.  As the triathlon community came together to keep everyone in good spirits, Karel and I huddled with our athletes and discussed plan B.

No race, no problem. We will still train!

Since all of our run gear was at T2 (in a large plastic bag), we all drove to T2 (after a quick stop at our house to drop off bikes) for a run workout. We had our athletes run the first 6 miles of the run course. After the 1.5 mile loop around Furman, we ran back to T2 for a total of about 10 miles. We didn't give our athletes a cap on intensity and I'd say that everyone ran a bit harder than they would for a conversational run. But still, everyone was talking and laughing.  It was a great way to burn off some unused, built-up energy and to allow our athletes an opportunity to work on mental strength, as a group. While we were all so bummed to not race this weekend, running together was a great way to remind us that we all do this for fun and sometimes, things don't go as planned. Racing is unpredictable. 

Lesson learned: When you can't change a situation, change how you react to the situation. 

-------------------------------------

As the saying goes, life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. For athletes, this is oh-so-true.

For the athlete who loves to plan out details, a cancelled race is something that you just can't plan for. With so many frustrations and mixed feelings, it's easy to complain about what could have been or what you would have done differently.

Hearing the news of a cancelled race can be difficult and some athletes handle it better than others. Shock, denial, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining. Yes, these are all things that happen when you are grieving but dealing with a cancelled race can bring on the same emotions. While the initial period of feeling letdown is completely normal (and you can justify your feelings of not getting to do what you trained to do with your body), you eventually have to deal with the situation and move on. Accept what happened, regardless of how emotionally attached you were to the race and take action to change your feelings. Be proud of the work that you put in and see the achievement of getting yourself to the start line as the real success.

While we all know that life isn't fair, consider all of the races that you have had a great performance when the weather was perfect or when you had a great performance and the weather was horrible. In the moment, it's easy to assume that you would have raced a certain way or the results would have been a certain way but that is what could have been. 

Would of, should have, could have......you can never predict the future. If you were able to get yourself ready for the race that was cancelled, there is a great chance that you will be able to get yourself ready for another race. There's always something to learn from these "bummer" situations. 

Perhaps a cancelled race allowed you to go through the nerves and emotions of racing without having to actually race. Or, perhaps you had a chance to work on your pre-race rituals, like eating, sleeping and warming up. Or, maybe you had the opportunity to work on patience and the what-if scenarios that may happen on race day. Or, we hope you can use the cancelled race scenario to help another athlete, friend or child overcome his/her own personal setback.

The neat thing about racing is that there is always something to learn - cancelled race or a race that you started and finished. Whenever something unfortunate happens in life, think back to the lessons that you learned from your race experiences and apply to your life events to help you cope and move on.

For example, when I was training for my first marathon, I waited to register and the race closed. So, I selected a race 4 weeks later. I ended up qualifying for the Boston Marathon at my first marathon. Maybe that 4 extra weeks helped me accumulate a few more workouts to prepare for the race. Another story features my athlete Justine (who traveled here from Delaware to race M2M) and she was suppose to do IM Maryland in 2015. The race was cancelled and postponed for 2 weeks later. She maintained a positive attitude and stayed healthy during those 2 weeks and went on to qualify for Kona. Sometimes, a cancelled race puts life into perspective. I mean, at the end of the day, it was only a race and there will always be another race. The current situation may not always be as horrible as it appears to be in the moment or right after the fact.

Regardless of how you feel immediately after the race, it's important to not get distracted from where you want to be in x-months or what you want to accomplish with your body. Sure, you may have been super attached to your race or you were looking forward to the experience of racing but a setback, like a cancelled race, should not destroy your short and long term goals. Hang in there. Life will keep moving forward and you should keep moving with it. 

Here are a few of my tips to help you move on from a bad race: Let it Go: Moving on from a bad race

M2M expert night wrap-up: The role of sport nutrition in a healthy diet

I couldn't be more excited to support and promote our local half ironman distance triathlon, here in Greenville, SC. Mountains to Mainstreet (M2M) is not just a triathlon event but a full festival weekend of events, with a 1K, 5K and half marathon on Saturday, followed by the half ironman distance triathlon (and relay/aquabike) on Sunday.

For a limited time, you can use the discount code tri35 to receive a $35 off discount code for the event. We hope to see you there and we can't wait for you to enjoy our gem of a triathlon playground, here in beautiful Greenville, SC.

For more info about the event:
Mountains to Mainstreet

In conjunction with the event, the M2M team is bringing together the triathlon community with a series of educational talks on all things triathlon - nutrition, swim, bike, run, injuries, race preparation, etc. I just love our triathlon/cycling/running community here in Greenville and I could not be more proud and excited to be a triathlete, living here in Greenville, SC. 

Earlier this week, I spoke alongside two other experts in the community for the first community expert night. I was joined by Dr. Kyle Cassas, Orthopedic Sports Medicine Doctor with the Steadman Hawkins group and Scott Kaylor, Physical Therapist at ATI sports therapy. It was an honor to speak alongside these experienced and knowledgeable experts and I feel we each brought something beneficial to the triathlon community as it relates to helping endurance triathletes safely and effectively prepare for an upcoming triathlon event. 

My talk focused on the importance of sport nutrition and daily nutrition planning for athletes but specifically, I educated the group on the role of sport nutrition in a healthy athlete diet. I thought it would be beneficial to share some of the nuggets of information that I provided the group, to ensure that you don't miss out on the health and performance benefits of proper fueling and eating in your endurance sport lifestyle. 

• It doesn’t matter what type of education that you have or your fitness level, proper nutrition is critical for optimizing performance and for keeping the body functioning well.
  
• For almost every athlete, there’s going to be a point your athletic development when your daily diet will no longer give you all the energy that you need to prepare for your upcoming athletic event. You may even get sick, injured or burnout if you don't adjust your current style of eating. In order to help your body safely continue to adapt to training stress, you will eventually have to take in some type of supplemental form of energy during your workout in order to meet the training demands that you place on your body.
  
  
• Nutrition advice is very conflicting and confusing but it's critical that you understand and accept that sport nutrition products can fit in with a healthy diet.
  
  
• Sport nutrition products are often linked together with sugar loaded foods, like processed foods, candy bars and junk food. Although sport nutrition products do contain sugar, these engineered products are formulated in a way to provide your body with a specific amount of carbohydrates, electrolytes and fluids to be properly digested and absorbed during exercise. In
  other words, these products are just as convenient as they are functional. 
  
  
• The reason why there are so many sport nutrition products on the market is because these products are designed to be used by athletes, dependent on sport, during intense and long workouts in order to help you properly adapt to training stress and to keep your body systems functioning well.
  
  
• Sport nutrition has a specific application, in which these products are designed to be used during intense and long workouts. In other words, if you are eating raisins, a banana and almonds during a long bike training session but eating a sport bar and sipping on an energy drink at work at 3pm in the afternoon, you are missing the application focus of sport nutrition and where it fits in with a healthy diet.
  
  
• Athletes should prioritize a real food diet throughout the day so that sport nutrition can be well tolerated during training.
  
  
• As it relates to the daily diet, your eating should always be well organized and planned. You will constantly feel like you can't "eat right" if your food choices just randomly happen.
  
  
• As a sport dietitian, I always consider an athlete’s unique situation when developing a solid foundation of eating and fueling. Every athlete comes from a different athletic background, with different dietary needs, a learned relationship with food and the body, training regime and body composition needs, that will all impact what type of nutrition guidance will work best in your individual situation.
  
  
• Every athlete can agree that triathlon training and recovery are enhanced by paying close attention to the daily diet. As an endurance triathlete, you need to meet specific daily nutritional needs to support your training. This nutrition planning should not start a few weeks out from your big race but instead, when you start your training after the off-season. As training demands shift during the year, you will need to adjust your eating style, caloric intake and macronutrient distribution, while still maintaining a high nutrient dense diet to support your health and athletic needs.
  
  
• As for finding the best sport nutrition product, I am a big proponent of powder sport drinks because they are easy to adjust to your unique needs and they make fueling and hydration incredibly easy as you can monitor your intake and also meet your fluid, electrolyte, calorie and carbohydrate needs all in one bottle. Because most sport nutrition powders tell you how to mix your drink into water, this is helping you create the perfect osmolality of the drink to be suitable for gastric emptying. To avoid those awful and annoying GI issues on race day, not to mention how scary and unhealthy it is for the body to experience dehydration and bonking, it’s important that whatever you consume on the bike and run for “fuel” that those products are easily digested from the stomach and absorbed from the small intestines. There's not point taking in nutrition/fuel if those products are just sitting in your gut as you are training/racing.
  
  
• The sport of triathlon is fun, challenging, confidence and skill building and above all, it can enrich the life to make a person a better human being. But sadly, there are far too many athletes who are abusing this three-sport lifestyle in an effort to simply lose weight. If you feel like you are using triathlon training as a punishment for eating "too" much, for being “too" fat or for earning something to eat that is “off limit” in the diet, consider if your unhealthy thoughts about food and the body are helping you become a better triathlete, and above all, keeping your body in good health. Since I specialize in working with athletes who suffer from disordered eating and body image issues, I’m sensitive to the fact that many triathletes do justify their extreme triathlon lifestyle with excessive exercise and restricting energy and sport nutrition in the diet, due to body image issues. Far too many age groupers are manipulating training and the diet for “weight control” versus learning how to eat well and use sport nutrition properly in order to adapt well to training and to properly prepare for race day.
  
  
• As a triathlete, it is important to always ask yourself if you are eating "enough", organizing the diet to support your training and timing your nutrition well with your workouts. I am extremely passionate about helping athletes improve nutrition and fueling habits, but I am also dedicated to helping athletes improve healthy living strategies to create athletic excellence while keeping the body in good health.
  
  
• For most athletes, working with a sport dietitian to help you structure the daily diet to meet your unique needs and to learn how to use sport nutrition properly, will be extremely advantageous to your performance and health. Having a trained professional will take the guessing away from what, how much and when to eat, so that you can put your energy into your training, meal planning, work and family life.

Mountain to Mainstreet Festival Expert Panel Event

Trimarni is proud to support the Mountains to Mainstreet 72.3 mile Triathlon festival, located in beautiful Greenville, run by Set Up Events.

In route to the 2nd Mountains to Mainstreet (M2M) event, there will be a series of educational talks, featuring local community experts to help athletes feel prepared for the upcoming festival. This educational series will benefit athletes of all levels.

If you didn't know, the M2M event (on May 19th-21st) includes a 5K run, 13.1 mile run, along with a 72.3 mile triathlon (including a relay and aquabike option).

Speakers for the first educational discussion include:

Kyle Cassas - Orthopedic Sports Medicine Doctor, Steadman Hawkins

Scott Kaylor - Physical Therapist, ATI Sports Therapy

Marni Sumbal, MS, RD, CSSD, LD/N - Board Certified Sport Dietitian and Endurance Triathlon Coach, Trimarni Coaching & Nutrition

If you are in or near the area on Feb 22nd, you can learn more about the event HERE.

I am honored to be part of this expert panel discussion which will cover a variety of endurance training and nutrition topics in order to help athletes maintain great health while training for upcoming triathlon and running events. If you are an athlete, a parent of an athlete, a fitness enthusiast or you just love learning about endurance training, sport nutrition and reducing risk for injury, you will not want to miss this event.

This event is open to the public.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Mountains to Main Street - register now with a $50 discount!

Are you looking for a beautiful, challenging, safe, well-organized half ironman distance (72.3 miles) event where you can race your own effort without feeling overcrowded on the bike course and race in a community that welcomes triathletes/cyclists?

Mark your calendars for May 21, 2017 and join us at Mountains To Mainstreet Triathlon & Festival in Greenville, SC.

Just as the name implies, you will start the race near the mountains in beautiful Lake Keowee and you will finish right off Main Street in our amazing, award-winning Downtown Greenville.

Set UpEvents race managers for Beach 2 Battleship Triathlons and South Carolina Triathlon Series invite you to join Mountains To Mainstreet Triathlon & Festival and would like to offer you a gift of $50 off your registration.

Discount code: B2BM2M50

Act fast...offer expires on 11/15!!

If the Half Ironman distance isn't for you, not to worry!!
You can participate in the Mountains to Main Street Festival by participating in the 

 1K, 5K or Half Marathon event on May 20th!

We are so excited for you to be taken away by our mountain and nature views, enjoy our bike friendly community and explore our beautiful downtown Greenville.
Did I mention that our downtown is very dog friendly???



With our state parks, Swamp Rabbit Trail, awesome downtown (picture above is from downtown Falls Park!), kid-friendly museums and delicious restaurants, Mountains to Main Street is the perfect weekend event for the entire family!

See you there!
REGISTER HERE

For more info, here's Karel's M2M race recap. 

M2M Half Ironman - Race recap

 Karel lost a considerable amount of training last summer when he tore his plantar fascia in late May, which was extremely disappointing as he was gearing up for IM Lake Placid (which he DNF'd after the bike, on purpose) and he was training for his first Kona (and our first time racing the Ironman World Championship together).

After a lot of rehab and therapy, he was able to put in a minimal amount of running to prepare for the IM World Championship and ran surprisingly well without further damage to his foot but there was still some lingering niggles up until this April (11 months after the injury happened).  While he still has to be mindful of his foot with daily exercises, therapy and strength work, we think he may be on the mend (and his running fitness is proving this to be true). 

In the past 4 weeks, Karel has raced twice and has placed overall winner twice (Toughman Half Ironman and Lake James 50).

Under the guidance of coach Matt Dixon with Purple Patch Fitness, Karel has made huge gains in his overall fitness in the past few years but most recently, patience and consistency in training has allowed him to improve his strength, endurance and resilience in all three sports. There's no special diet or special training designed just for Karel but instead, he focuses on quality workouts with proper recovery. We both wish we had more time to train but we are extremely busy with our business so we have to make every workout count (and sometimes we have to miss workouts too, just like everyone else).

M2M (Mountains to Main Street) could not have come at a better time as Karel was running (or swimming, biking and running) with great momentum going into this race. Although M2M wasn't a priority race and there was no special specific build-up for this race, he felt the pressure of this hometown race and wanted to do well.

When we set up our race season (typically late fall before the next year) and select our one or two A races (for Karel, IM Austria and IMMT for me Rev3 Knox and IM Austria), this doesn't mean that we don't race hard for all the other races. The difference between A and B races is not that B races aren't important and we don't give a hard effort but they don't have a specific build as we have specific developmental phases to go through and we want to peak appropriately for our A races. So when we race a "B" race, we simply continue with our training and appropriately adjust a few days before and after the race depending on the season and type of race.

M2M featured a point to point to point course, starting at Lake Keowee for the 1.2 mile lake swim, then transitioning to the bike for 58 very challenging, hilly miles (close to 4000 feet of climbing) to Traveler's Rest, where T2 was located. Then, for 13.1 miles, the run featured a few hilly sections to Furman, a few more hills around Furman lake and then a net decline to the finish in our amazing downtown Greenville/

Check out that finish in the heart of downtown Greenville, right by Falls Park.

Karel and our athlete Drew (who was staying at our house for the weekend for the race) spent a few hours on Saturday driving the 75 minutes to T1 to drop off the bike, only to experience a down pour on their bikes just before arriving to transition. Let's say that their clean bikes got another nice wash.

Karel and Drew then drove the 58 mile bike course to T2 to drop off their run gear (except for their sport nutrition filled flasks for their hydration belt which they would then do on race day morning before heading to the race start).
For dinner, Karel made pasta with marinara sauce and chicken at home.

There's something special about being able to eat at home and sleep in your own bed before a race!

Campy loved being able to sleep in his own bed before his spectating duties on Sunday. 

Karel knew every inch of this course as he had rode the course a few times (starting from our house to Lake Keowee and then back home - why drive when you can just bike there and back???).
There was no getting off course for him.....unlike you know who :)

Karel knew the bike course would be extremely challenging but since he knew every hill, turn, descend and road condition, he was looking forward to executing a smart bike effort while pulling out all his former bike racing tactics.

On Sunday morning, Karel woke up around 4:15am to get his body going before leaving to T2 at 5:45am (to drop off filled run flasks) and then to T1.

Karel had 2 pieces of toast with almond butter and a Bolthouse chocolate drink (about 8 ounces) and of course, a homemade cappuccino (or two).

Karel made a sandwich for the road but race day nerves made him hesitate to eat it so he didn't eat anything else before the 8:30am race start.

Karel and Drew were accompanied by my mom (what a great sherpa!), our athlete/friend Meredith (who was racing the aquabike) and Campy. 

Although the water temp was on the verge of not being wetsuit legal after a week of warm weather, a few days of cooler temps and lots of rain made for a comfortable 73-degree lake and wetsuit legal swim.

Karel warmed up on the dry land and then in the water for a good 10 minutes to get himself comfortable in the water. Although his swimming has improved tremendously in the pool, Karel is still a little uncomfortable in the open water but warming up really helps to ease his nerves. 

Karel started in the first wave (open wave) and did a great job staying on course. He felt stronger in the second half and was able to catch up to a few guys who dropped him in the start of the swim.

 Karel swam 31:12 which he was really happy about.
Karel never stresses about his swim time because the swim starts with the gun time and the swim finish is always where the timing mat is. In this case - at the top of a hill, right before transition. 

Karel had a quick transition before heading off on the bike in 6th place.....to chase down the competition. Thanks to free speed in the transition, he left in 5th place.

Campy, checking out the competition.

The wind was very strong on race day and with a good chunk of the race on the open and long rolling hills of Hwy 11, this made for a really hard ride for the athletes...as if the bike course wasn't already very taxing!

Right from the park, there was ~1.5 mile hill to the main road. He used this to set himself up for a good ride by adjusting his posture, changing up his cadence/gears and settling into a good rhythm. When he got to the main road, that is where his "race" started.

 Karel's plan was to intentionally push hard for the first hour of the bike to catch the guys who swam faster than him. By the time that he got to the main road, he caught the third place guy.

If there is one thing to know about Karel on race day, it's that he can suffer really well.
He's exceptionally good with being uncomfortable....like really, really uncomfortable.

And to his surprise, around 25 minutes into the race, Karel caught up with Drew and Drew told him that there was one guy still ahead - which they both had in sight.

By the time they reached the first aid station in Salem, Karel took the lead for the first time. This was much sooner than he expected or hoped for.

Karel pushed at his threshold for an hour, despite never looking at his power but going all by feel. Karel is able to push watts on race day that he he is never able sustain alone in training. This is just the beauty of race day - it brings out another type of athlete that you never thought you could be.

For the next 36 minutes, our athlete Drew and Karel were riding strong near each other, which was a nice mental boost for them both.
It was very windy and he just put his head down and told himself that if he is suffering he knows everyone else is suffering. That is where he opened up the gap on Drew. And by the time he got to Pumpkintown hwy (off Hwy 11), he was extending his lead.

Karel was really pleased with his Alto Wheels (CT 56 in the front and CT 86 in the rear). The bike was very fast and stable in the windy and hilly conditions. His gear of choice was 54x42 front chainring with 11-26 rear cassette. He managed the terrain well by keeping constant tension on the chain while climbing, thus controlling the heart rate and being able recover and soft pedal (while moving fast) going downhill.

This is a common mistake that athletes make - spinning too light of a gear going up hill (HR goes up, RPE goes up) and not moving anywhere fast and by the time the athlete reaches the top of the hill, they are exhausted and need a while to recover. Keeping a steady cadence with a smooth chain tension will keep the HR in check and lower the RPE.

For the next 18 miles, Karel rode really hard. Karel said openly before the race that he was willing to take risks on race day as he was willing to lose in order to win.
While giving this hard effort on the bike, he stayed present and never let his mind think about how his legs would feel for the run.

Karel stayed fueled with 2 x ~250 calorie bottles (around 26 ounces each) and ~12 ounces of a 100 calorie bottle. He didn't consume any solid food or gels or "gummy bears" (Clif Bloks). 

After turning onto Geer hwy for a steady 3 mile climb back to TR (Traveler's Rest), it was just a few more miles until Karel rode into Trailblazer park...... in first place.
As Karel was approaching the transition, he saw my mom as she wasn't expecting Karel so soon (or in first) and Karel said to my mom with a smile "Hi Susie!" and she was super excited to see him. 

Although Karel had a quick transition, he cramped in his quad when bending over to put on his shoes but anticipating a potential cramp before the run, he quickly drank his It's the Nerve bottle which kinda released the cramp. Karel got extremely worried about the cramp and thought his day may be done but as he walked out of transition and then started jogging (carefully), he slowly felt a little better.

Thankfully, there was a little of a downhill before the first climb which allowed Karel to loosen his leg out and to find his running rhythm. This cramp was purely from the effort his was pushing. This cramp was pretty severe as he couldn't bend his knee or move his leg for a brief moment but thankfully it released itself.
Did I mention that Karel loves to push hard?

Karel's fan club - My mom, our neighbor/friend Tim and his wife Joey (taking the pic along with many of the pics you see in this blog - thanks Joey!) 

Karel ran the first 30 minutes in 6:25 min/mile average on the Swamp Rabbit Trail before making his way to Furman. Karel was not alone on the course as he was joined by his own police escort. 

Karel was in such a zone when arrive to the back entrance to Furman (from the trail) and when the motor cycle stopped for Karel to make his ~1.6 mile run around the Furman lake (including the steep hill in the back of the lake), he almost confused himself as to which way to run around the lake. Even when you know where you are suppose to go, sometimes the mind plays games on you on race day. Luckily, Karel picked the right way around the lake.

As he was nearing the trail again, he could see a few of his competitors starting their run around the lake but Karel wasn't holding anything back as he wanted to give everything he had and leave it all out on the course. 

Karel is a big proponent of form over pace and he is constantly making sure that his form feels good, especially in the early miles of running of the bike. He always tells himself "form, posture, fluency." over any pace.

Once he found his rhythm, he found himself wondering if he should pick up the pace a bit for a little stronger effort but then he came to his senses "this is just fine, you are suffering enough."

When he knows he has reached a good pace or rhythm, he almost feels numb. It's really hard for him to describe but obviously it works for him. 

Karel had his 4 flask Nathan belt and he took a sip from each flask as needed throughout the race and occasionally water for cooling and sipping at the aid stations (which were not every mile). 

One of Karel's biggest worries about this race was the train. With less than 3 miles to go, there are train tracks with the slowest moving train ever that has held up many cyclists and runners along one or the other side of the Swamp Rabbit Trail as the train occasionally passes through on a daily basis. There was no way for the race to stop the train or know the train schedule so this was just one of those worries that Karel had as he was racing. 

Sure enough - TOOT TOOT.

Karel could hear AND see the train. Although it was not moving, it was getting ready to go. Karel frantically asked his police escort "Can you please stop that train" - of course, knowing that he couldn't do anything about it he still wanted to ask as he was desperate.

However, the policeman rolled up to the tracks and stayed on the tracks as Karel ran by.

Sure enough, the train went by about just a few moments after Karel ran by and then came again and stopped our athlete Drew, but only for about 15 seconds. 

After Karel ran by the tracks, he felt a sigh of relief and finally felt like he was on the homestretch without any more distractions.

Although, it was a regular Sunday with lots of people on the trail enjoying their beautiful day outside and then here comes this neon orange wearing triathlete huffing and puffing as if he was in a race.
Oh wait - he was!

Still giving everything he had, there was absolutely no mile that wasn't a best effort on this race day. Near the later miles of the run, Karel was running and not knowing if his next step would be his last. Every part of his body was hurting and he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

Karel wanted this win so bad and he worked so hard for it on this day.
He said he even got a little emotional at the end because this was one of those days where he doesn't know if he will ever be able to repeat this type of effort again, from start to finish.
It just all came together.

With no one else in sight, Karel ran to the finish.

In so much pain.

And finished as the overall winner of the inaugural Mountains to Main Street Triathlon. 

The next athlete arrived 12 minutes later. 

So exhausted. 

And relieved it's all over. 

The moment every athlete longs for after a race.....to rest the legs! 

As the other athletes started to roll in, it was time for everyone to share their war stories of the race. 

What a great crew! Cheers!

Here are Karel's run splits:
Mile 1: 6:25
Mile 2: 6:30
Mile 3: 6:21
Mile 4: 6:25
Mile 5: 6:29
Mile 6: 6:42
Mile 7: 6:30
Mile 8: 6:33
Mile 9: 6:39
Mile 10: 6:32
Mile 11: 6:31
Mile 12: 6:27
Mile 13: 5:51
Total: 1:23:55 (per Garmin)
Average pace: 6:31 min/mile
627 elevation gain
These run splits are super impressive considering that many of Karel's long runs are around 7:40-8:00 min/mile pace! Although he does specific speed work on the track and treadmill as well as hill work, there are some sessions that are designed to be slow and easy. In the past, Karel was always running much faster in training and this only lead to injury so now he is more cautious and saves his best efforts for race day. 

OVERALL MEN RESULTS

This was an extremely special day for Karel, mostly because it was a home town race. We absolutely love our Greenville community and it was such a great treat for Karel and so many other athletes to be able to race for 72.3 miles from Lake Keowee to downtown Greenville. This was not an easy event to put together and we thank all the volunteers, Set up Events Staff, race directors, spectators and everyone else who put together, promoted and helped our with this event.

Congrats to everyone who finished!

Karel and I are excited to both race Mountains to Main Street next year.

Swim with bear.

Ride with the Eagle.

Run with the rabbit. 

(Thank you Kimberly, my mom and Joey for these great pictures!)

Thank you to our sponsors!

Rev3 Knox and M2M half ironman - quick recap

I've always been under the impression that to be a great coach, it's very difficult to coach and be an athlete at the same time. While many great coaches were former athletes, it can often be challenging to develop athletes to reach their goals while you, the coach, are training for your own racing goals.

While I have been an athlete longer than I have been a coach, I am still learning as an athlete and as a coach. As the sport of triathlon changes every year, I also find myself racing differently to adapt to our ever evolving sport.
With this being my 10th season of endurance triathlon racing, I can honestly say that it was only a few years ago that I started to really understand how to "race" in a long distance triathlon.

Ever since Karel got his feet wet in the sport of triathlon just 4 years ago, he has taught me so much about racing. I absolutely love watching Karel race and I feel so lucky to share the behind the scene racing moments with Karel. As a former cat 1 cyclist, Karel is exceptional at suffering through pain but he is also very smart when he races. He is patient with his development, he doesn't race with an ego, he has great sportsmanship, he trains incredible hard, he stays present during his workouts and he loves competition.
Karel applies tactics to every race, adapts quickly under pressure and never chases times, watts, speeds or paces when he races.

What I love so much about our sport (triathlon) is that it's very unpredictable. I love the dynamics of racing in a 3-sport event and how every course race has its challenges. I also love the camaraderie that is shared among all levels of athletes on race day - with every athlete having his/her own reasons for showing up and participating in our awesome multisport event called triathlon.

Although Karel and I are triathlon coaches, we are also athletes. I am not sure if we would be great coaches if we stopped being athletes.
I believe that we are in the prime of our racing years and while this doesn't mean that we put our business second to training, we recognize that we are still learning about the sport and we learn best by putting ourselves through the same situations, scenarios, workouts and experiences as our athletes.

At every race, we learn something.
Boy on boy, did we each learn a lot this past weekend. 

We face adversity, we overcome challenges and we suffer just like everyone else.
Although Karel and I will always live a very active lifestyle, when it comes to training and racing, we just can't simulate race-day scenarios in training. The best way that we can learn, grow and develop as coaches is to be athletes.

Karel and I raced in two different states this past weekend, with Karel staying local to race Mountains to Main Street (M2M - our new local half IM event by Set Up Events) in Greenville, SC and I traveled to Tennessee to race Rev3 Knox.

We were both accompanied by several of our Trimarni athletes as we both proudly support Rev3 and our local events in Greenville.

The M2M course suited Karel thanks to a lake swim (wetsuit legal), challenging bike (58 miles) and slightly hilly (for the first 6 miles) and then net downhill run.
Whereas when we raced Rev3 Knox last year (in the rain) I really loved the type of climbs on the bike course and the rolling hills on the run. Sadly, the run course was changed to eliminate the hilly section but it turned into a two loop run which was just fine as I love loop/out and back courses.

Karel and I each had a goal of placing overall male and female, respectively, at each race. While we didn't know who would show up on race day, a better way to describe this "winning" goal was that we were both willing to take a lot of risks to race as hard as we could on race day.

Karel and I had mentally, physically and nutritionally (ex. dialing in sport nutrition/hydration with every long workout as well as optimal pre-race foods) prepared for our races all season. Although we still have Ironman Austria approaching in 5 weeks (yippee and yikes!) and then Karel will race IMMT, we were both fired up for our early season "key" races.

After racing the Lake James 50 last weekend, we both felt like we were ready and willing to suffer to try to reach our goal. There were no paces, time goals, watts or metrics to chase - our focus was only on the nearest competition and swimming, biking and running as (sustainably) hard as we could possibly go for our races. 

Karel and I both had our challenges on race day - which is to be expected when you willing to lose in order to win.
I hope I can do my best to summarize our race day so bear with me as I try to gather the right words to give two detailed race recaps, each with their own high moments, shortcomings, challenges and obstacles. 

Mountains to Main StreetKarel
1.2 mile swim: 31:12
T1: 59.98
58 mile bike: 2:34:48
T2: 38.02
13.1 mile run: 1:24.03
Total: 4:31.35
Overall winner




Rev3 Knoxville
Marni
1.2 mile swim: 31.11
T1: 2:16
56 mile bike (+6 mile detour): 3:07:57
T2: :58
13.1 mile run: 1:39.07
Total: 5:21.29
2nd overall female