Race Report

Well... I was planning on updating this weekend with my race report about Collegiate Nationals in Lubbock, but I think I'd rather write a 2-week late Galveston report. Two weeks ago the Austin Tri-Cyclist guys and I made the trip to Galveston and made a good appearence in all 3 races. Adam in the sprint distance, Rita/Corey, Shawn, and Missy in the quarter distance, myself in the half, and Don providing good support and encouragement from the sideline. All-in-all I was very happy with the turnout as far as weather and results went, I was within 10 seconds of my goal time (4:30:10) and was able to look back on it without any regret of what I should have/could have done differently. Adam stayed near the front of his race, Rita/Corey won their relay division, Shawn had possibly his best race to date, and Missy led her race up until getting out-sprinted with less than 200 meters to go.
Now here's what happened in lovely Lubbock: The atmosphere was stressful but exciting the whole time I was there. I get antsy in the 24 hours leading up to the race and riding with the TxSt team up there, I had no control of our itinerary, which didn't help me. We got there late Friday, did packet pick-up, checked into our hotel, ate dinner, made our last-minute grocery run, and started getting our bikes/gear ready for the Saturday race.
Race Morning: Here's where everything falls apart. We get to the race site, have ~30 min to get our stuff set-up, visit the porta-potty, air up our tires, visit the porta-potty, get body marked/pick up timing chips, visit the porta-potty, grab our swim stuff, and get out of transition. I wasted no time running through the routine but the whole thing seemed very cluttered and thrown together so everyone was running late but they still closed transition early and gave penalties to everyone still inside... Bad way to start a race. Sprint goes off at 7, Nationals racers stand around in the 40 degree weather until our 8:30 race-start. I was first wave, toed the line at our 15-minute late start, already freezing and shivering. Air-horn goes off, mad dash to the water, and instantly the energetic, competitive mood shifts. The water was 56 degrees and any attempt at warming up failed. I couldn't breath so I moved to the side, waited for the pack to pass, jumped on the back and tried to stay on the feet. I held in until the 1/2 way mark and at that point lost the race and focused on just finishing the swim. I don't do well in cold weather. After what seemed like a couple hours I got to the swim-finish buoy and started running out of the water. Immediately a volunteer, unaware to me, tried(?) to help me get my wetsuit off. I ran past her and as I passed she grabbed the zipper string, yanking me to the side and backwards, kinking my back... I'm still waiting for something to go right. I have a fast T1 despite not having time to unpack/layout my stuff before the start, and head out on the bike. In Buffalo Springs, coming out of transition, the first thing you do is climb up a long steep hill. With frozen, numb hands and feet it's tough getting your feet in the shoes, it probably looked like I'd never done it before. I struggled in every pedal stroke up the hill, and riding down the backside I feel my bike floating uncontrollably all over the road at 30+mph... No air in the back tire. Still shivering and fighting to get deep breaths there was no way my race was going on. It's embarassing having to walk back through the crowds of people to transition. Bundled up with every piece of clothing I had with me, my incredible parents got me to the car and to my hotel where I stood in a hot shower until I could think clearly again. That was my 2nd DNF ever, and first DNF (and last!) in a serious race. To me it's not ok to DNF just because a couple things go wrong. A race slower than normal is not justification for quitting. I was able to walk away knowing I went as far as I physically could, and happy that I at least started when I knew I probably shouldn't have. The best advice I recieved before the race was to just stay home, but with nothing to lose i gave it a shot. You gotta have bad races to have good races and some people can't be thanked enough for getting me through both.
http://www.brandonmarsh.com/

March Post

I've decided to write a new post every time I swim, so once a month I'll have something new up here haha... but really.
All the exciting stuff that happened I've forgotten by the time I actually get around to updating. Training's been very good with the exception of a week or so of weak running. I was feeling confident and strong on the bike yesterday until James Bonney came around me and brought me back to reality.
Galveston is about 1.5 weeks away and Collegiate Nationals is about 3.5 weeks away, and a stomach bug has pulled the reins on training a little bit. As of now I don't plan on taking a day off until I start a 4 day taper for galveston, then try to figure out how to recover, train back to par, and taper for nationals. Not sure how that'll go...
Hope everyone who still has a spring break had a good one, until next month...

I hate when I do a workout in the morning and the weather is crappy then as soon as I finish and plant myself on the couch with a weeks worth of caffeine and carbs the weather turns to perfect. Just thought I'd share that, seems to happen to me alot.
this weekend consisted of alot of running, and absolutely zero cycling, so far. Friday was a fairly steady 8 mile run. Saturday I had every intention of getting my long run out of the way and riding long today (sunday). My legs weren't feelin it saturday so I made it 5 miles and headed to work. Today was a 15 mile run that I paced terribly, pushed too hard too early, but all-in-all went well except now I have a painfully tight hamstring. My only ride since wednesday is gonna be about 20-25 minutes to try and loosen up the legs later this afternoon. The plan is to get back on track starting tomorrow.
And here's where I try and sell you on a product I like: FLUID! A couple weeks ago I got a new sponsorship with Fluid recovery, and the stuff works. There're only two flavors right now, "berry treasure" being the better of the two. Nothing but good things to say about it so go give it a try.

Knees and nutrition part II

The update from the knee doc is medial tearing where the patella tendon attaches to the tibia, which is good news! Or... could be worse. So I celebrated by running 14 miles, or to be more specific I ran 12.5, cratered horribly, then did the suffering-shuffle the last 1.5. I'm blaming that one on me for not eating breakfast before the run. So now I just have to do some maintainence and use an anti-inflammatory cream (NSAIC?) for a few weeks. Saturday was too miserable to ride, I started and decided I just didn't want to suffer that early on in training, say what you want about how much of a cold-weather wimp I am, as long as I get to be warm while you do so. Congratulations to everyone who raced this weekend, especially Darragh who ran a 2:40.
More later.

Knees and nutrition

This week seems to be starting out well so far. I like to keep Saturdays the end of my week and Sundays the beginning, keeps me sane. Yesterday was only a 40 mile ride, but it was absurdly windy and I was dumb and did the ride solo... Nooooobody to draft. I did come up on people every now and then and grabbed their wheel for a couple seconds of relief though. Today I started the 10 mile run with the intention of quitting after 2 miles, based on my previous runs in the past week due to alot of pain from a slightly torn patella tendon. The run went well though and the pain was ignorable(word?). I was going to get another 5 in since I missed the long run last week when I was sick, Coach Logan advised against it and said to stick to the schedule. The plan is to get a couple hours in at work then an easy hour or two on the bike then call it a day. If anyone's up for a couple steady-paced 7-mile runs this week I could use the motivation!
As for my new nutritional break-through, my sister made me cookies made out of coconut, banana, oatmeal, and chocolate chips, with no oil, butter, dairy, or flour. Along with a cup of coffee and a couple glasses of water/nuun, it is the best thing in the world before any workout.

Brought to you by nyquil

I have the flu, and from what it sounds like so do most people in central Texas right now. The weekend went well with a 57(?) mile ride followed by a solid workday saturday. Shawn Ullman gets yet another shout out for getting all of us in the VIP room at Aces lounge for the ACDC cover band show, which from what I remember was great. I got up at 7 on sunday to run... and wasn't feeling it, so I slept until 10. Still feeling sluggish I gave up the idea of running and tried to ride. An hour in I realized I wasn't hung over, I was sick. I went home to lay down and couldn't get up for a couple hours. I had a 100 degree fever and barely made it to the end of the Super Bowl (great game!). So monday/today I've been achey, energyless, nauseous, and chilly. On top of that I've been trying to finish my paper over "Federal Food Regulation and Safety" while alternating between dayquil, nyquil, and alka-seltzer. I hate school work, cold medicine doesn't make it much easier.

FYF

The annual Frost Yer Fanny duathlon was this morning and I was pretty impressed with not only the ATC turnout, but results too. In the short course race Grant took first OA in a seemingly tough crowd and MDR took 2nd in the womens race. In the sprint race I won the OA, Adam took second, and Ryan chased him down in a close 3rd. The one and only Shawn Ullman made an appearance and crushed the field securing his 8th place finish about 30 seconds behind Jeff Rogers. With a solid 3 weeks of ZERO training Don still had an admirable but still unknown bike split, and was running when I saw him.
Now I'm sitting on the couch doing laundry suffering through a sinus infection I got while standing around waiting for awards. Congratulations to everyone who raced FYF and 3M today, hope everyone has a good week.