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Austin Tri-Cyclist Blog
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Labor Day & Tri-Rock Sale!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Pacing on the Bike
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| Missy Ruthven of ATC Racing finishing the Mopac TT |
Position, power, and pacing are three keys to a solid time trial or triathlon bike leg performance. Obviously, you want to be capable of producing as much power as possible by training hard. We previously talked about position and equipment setup. Now let's talk about pacing. Optimal pacing gets you the most speed for your available energy. To a very close approximation, the best pacing strategy on a flat course is to hold constant power for the whole course. The most common mistake is to start out too hard because you feel good, which you pay for later.
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| 40k TT - a little too hard the first half, but not bad |
So you don't have to have the new Cervelo P5 to see significant gains. You can potentially save more time by pacing properly than you can by upgrading your bike (of course, you could do both!). All you have to do is practice and ride smarter! The most sure-fire way to nail your pacing perfectly is to use a power meter, but with practice you can do quite well without one. We will discuss how to approach both situations.
Pacing with Power
The first step to pacing an upcoming TT or triathlon bike leg is to pick a power goal. For time trials, you should estimate about how long the event will take you to finish, and then look at your past power data to figure out what power you are likely to be able to do for that duration. The Mean Maximal Power chart (or MMP) is very useful for this. At a glance you can see what your best ever power production is for a given duration. For example, suppose you have an upcoming event that will take about 20 minutes. Load up your MMP chart with some of your recent training history. In Golden Cheetah it will look something like this (WKO+ has a similar chart):
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| Click to Zoom |
Triathletes will usually want to set their power goals by doing practice bricks or by extrapolating from past races. A great way to set a power goal is to do a bike ride that simulates race conditions as closely as possible, and then do a short run afterwards to be sure the pace left you fresh enough to run well.
Once you have your goal power, you don't want to follow it blindly on race day. You might be capable of more, or you might have aimed to high. You need to listen to your body to some extent, but you also need to try to defy it sometimes when it tells you to slow down! Since the most common mistakes are to start out too hard and to give up too soon, I like to use the following protocol:
1. For the first half of the event do not ever go above your goal power, but if you feel terrible, you may go under it. This is especially important in the first few minutes. It is okay to surge for 4 or 5 seconds to get up to speed, but then settle down, no matter how amazing you feel. It will pass, I promise.
2. For the second half, never go below your goal power, but if you feel great, start trying to raise it up gradually. This ensures you won't totally miss out on any unexpected fitness or heroics. We are all naturally capable of more than we think, so no matter how bad it hurts, never drop below that goal power in the second half, you can do it.
That is all there is to it. With this general approach you can almost guarantee you nail your bike legs and time trials every time. However, don't skip the section below where we talk about pacing without a power meter, because sometimes mechanical problems will leave you without your power meter, and you should be ready to perform well, and without stress, when that happens.
Pacing by Feel
The challenge with pacing by feel is the incredibly strong tendency to start out too hard. The adrenaline of race day and your fresh anaerobic stores will leave you ready to go 100 watts or more too hard for the first few minutes, for which you will pay dearly later on. Do not go out too hard. Do not go out too hard!
The most important thing you can do is practice. If you have a 40k event coming up, practice 40k TTs a few times. If you have a half iron race coming up, practice a 56-mile bike ride, evenly paced with as few stops as possible, and then run afterward. Pay attention to the wind, your speed, and how you feel to get an idea if you have paced it well. An evenly paced time trial will generally feel very easy for the first few minutes. As you get near the halfway point, things will start to be very hard; you will not believe that you can keep up the effort the whole time. After halfway begins the ultimate suffering that you must fight through and never give up. A well-paced triathlon bike leg will be quite different. Ultimate suffering should be avoided and used on the run instead!
With practice you will get to know what it feels like to pace evenly. You can even borrow a power meter or use the CompuTrainers upstairs at ATC to practice. If you do own a power meter, occasionally practice with the display covered by tape, and then review how you did after the fact. This will leave you capable and confident on race day even if something goes wrong with your power meter.
Pacing the Hills
Hills will disrupt the simple plan of holding even power. The proper approach to maximize speed on hills is to go a little harder on the uphills and a little easier on the downhills. The most common mistake is for people to launch out of the saddle and throw an extra 100 or 200 watts on the uphills. This is too much; instead, raise power by 20 to 50 watts depending on how steep the hill is, and lower it by about that much on the downhills. For longer distance triathlons, consider putting a cap on your power output about equal to your threshold or one-hour power to ensure you don't dip into anaerobic reserves. If you don't have a power meter, just remember to raise your power on the uphills, but don't hammer like a mad man. On the downhills don't give up and coast; keep a little bit of effort on the pedals and shift as necessary to keep moving well. Again, longer distance triathletes may want to consider coasting on any decent downhill to conserve energy for the run to come. Time trialists and short distance triathletes should keep pedaling whenever possible!
Pacing the Wind
Wind follows the same pattern as hills, but to a much lesser degree. The harder the headwind, the higher you should raise the power, and the stronger the tailwind, the more you should reduce your effort. However, the optimum change is very small, only 2 to 4 watts in either direction. This is so small of a difference that it can be hard to put into practice even with a power meter, so you can feel free to just ignore it and pace evenly for the most part. Exceptions include cases where the tailwind on one part of the course will be so strong that you run out of gear. In extreme cases like that, you will want to push much harder into the headwind since you will get a forced rest with the tailwind.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Hotter Than Doo Du Race Report: A Two-Sided Story
Duathlons in the Austin area attract athletes of all stripes – triathletes, cyclists, dedicated runners, first-timers, maybe a retired pro or two. Until race day dawns, you never really know who’s going to show up as the competition.
Jeff Shelton and Ben Munguia, though both ATCers, had never crossed paths before. Both are real runners, the kind of guys that you simultaneously want to feed a quarter pounder with cheese and recruit on your zombie apocalypse team for decoy duty. They’re also remarkably humble, so make no mistake: on both the bike and the run, though especially the latter, you can expect a blistering pace. Read on to find out what happens when you put two uber fast competitors in ATC kits out on the course together for the first time.
Jeff Shelton, “the old man’s perspective”:
If you know me, which you likely don’t, but if you do, then you know I’m a runner. It isn’t because I choose to be a runner, but because it is in my DNA. I’ve always been a runner. According to my parents, my first steps at nine months were more of a jog than a walk, and it seems as if I've been running almost every day for 45 years. Once upon a time way back in the late ‘80s, I wasn't too bad of a runner. I wasn't too good, either, but rather just hoping on a weekly basis to be chosen by the coaches to be on my university's traveling cross country squad.
I give you this worthless background so you’ll understand when I say I don’t worry too much about running. It sort of just happens. I may have slowed down a tremendous amount, but I'm still a runner, so a duathlon should be easy, right?
So how does this relate to the Hotter Than Doo Du last weekend? Well, the crazy thing is that I love to run, but I’ve been spending a fair amount of time on the bike lately. My running now consists of taking our Weimaraner and Vizsla for their daily 4:30 a.m. exercise whether I want to or not. Let's just say that I'm not run-fit at all. I wouldn't say that I’m bike-fit, either, but relative to my running, I have a higher level of bike fitness.
The thing is that I want to be a good cyclist, but I needed help to understand why I have the weaknesses that I have on the bike. The list of weaknesses is too long, so I'll spare you, but let's just say when it comes to running I'm not too worried to run with others, but on the bike I'm constantly worried about getting dropped. I worry so much that I've been given the onerous nickname "tick" by a few riders. No, not the cool animated TV character from the early ‘90s, "The Tick," but just plain old "tick.” It would take too long to explain, and it is a discussion for another time and place.
Recently I started working with Rothe Training with the caveat that I’m still a runner and I need to do a couple of run workouts in amongst cycling. I want to be as good as I can be on the bike, given the poor genetics I got doled out. So I started working with Rothe Training, and Stefan has worked running into my cycling. I'm improving on the bike, and I'm still able to run.
So, again, how does this relate to the Hotter Than Doo Du? When the opportunity to compete in a duathlon arose I thought that it would be easy to run, bike, and then run again. What I learned was just how wrong I was. I knew that most competitors would be triathletes, with maybe a few runners or cyclists tossed in the melee, but I only recognized one person, who was ultimately the overall winner. He also served me up a big ole piece of humble pie. More about that in a minute.
My race strategy was to just stay with the leaders on the first 5K and on the bike ride just hard enough to stay within one or two seconds of the leaders, then crush the second 5k since I’m a runner. It is what I am and what I do. It all sounded so easy in theory.
The race organizers had the Sprint and Olympic distances start together, so on the first run I wasn’t too shocked to see a couple of teenagers shoot out of the gate. Quickly our herd narrowed down to near single-file, and the race was on. The young kid, who I later learned was Ben Munguia, and I were running along most of the time shoulder-to-shoulder, and I thought to myself, “Okay, he can run pretty well, but I know something he doesn’t know: I’m holding back for the second 5K.” Then I started to laugh because I was thinking about a scene from Princess Bride. I thought of the words of Inigo Montoyo, "I know something that you do not know. I am left handed." Ben and I chatted a little on the run, and before I knew it we were back at T1.
Ben was first out on the bike, but I wasn’t too worried. I just kept him close, all the while telling myself, “I know something he doesn’t know. I’m holding back for the second 5K.” What I didn't know was I was about to get a lesson from the youngster. Ben had a little something in store for me on the second run.
The bike course was four loops and very narrow, and we often had to ride outside of the cones while passing other competitors. I just wanted to be close coming off the bike, because, hey, I'm a runner and I'm going to just drill it on the second run. We returned from the bike, and I was first out of T2, but that would be the last time I was in first. The first 10 steps my legs felt weird. I felt as if I was running in slow motion. I looked at my Garmin, and the feeling was confirmed. I was moving slowly. It wasn't long, and I heard steps from behind, and they were much quicker than my own. Oh no, my strategy had backfired, and soon after leaving T2, Ben cruised by me, and he looked like he felt good. I tried to quicken my turnover, but nothing happened. Then I thought back to my wife, who had suggested that I might want to get in a few brick workouts while preparing. Nah, I told her. "I am a runner, what could possibly go wrong?" I've done one duathlon prior to this a couple of years ago, but I was running at least 60 miles per week then, and the second run just came easy. This time I was struggling on the run and could do nothing as Ben quickly disappeared around the first bend and disappeared.
At the turnaround I determined how much time he'd put on me, but I refused to concede at that point. By then I felt that I finally had my running legs, and I might get lucky since anything can happen. I closed the gap a little, but he must have been feeling good, as I saw him dash towards the finish line and he looked to be flying.
Was I disappointed? Yes. I'd just had my butt handed to me by a better athlete; however, I will say it was a great way to start a Sunday.
Ben Munguia:
The race directors were on the money when they named this duathlon. Without a swim to cool things off from the start, the 7:30 a.m. opening 5k made the rest of the race hotter than du. I'm hoping to have some strong late season races, so I wanted to use this race to get in a solid effort, without taking away from my normal weekend training. I did make sure to avoid the Austin Tri-Cyclist Saturday ride, though, and opted for an easier loop of the dam with a friend.
During my warm-up, I recognized the good-looking Austin Tri Cyclist race kit on a fellow competitor. It was Jeff Shelton, who I'd never actually met, but had seen zipping around Lady Bird Lake enough times to know that the man can run. I did a longer warm-up than normal, which left me drenched, and I struggled to get my race kit past my head. Race kit on, Thunderbird Energetica bar down, and I was ready to roll.
The run course was an out and back along the Brushy Creek trail, and luckily we had a decent amount of shade for the majority of the run. We took it out controlled, but Jeff and I maintained an honest pace to create some separation from the other competitors. Jeff casually chatted away, while I labored up the short climbs, thankful for the distraction and good conversation. Side note to Jeff: Sorry if my responses sounded more like uncomfortable grunts than words. As we came back into transition, Jeff thanked me for the company and said he probably wouldn't be seeing me on the bike since he just took up cycling. I had my doubts, though.
Sure enough, I looked back after lap one of four on the bike and saw Jeff not too far behind looking pretty comfortable. We stayed like this until I decided it was Jeff’s turn to set the pace for the first half of the last lap. Then I started to strategize the best way to gain some time on him going into the run. I didn't want to come off of the bike with him after seeing how comfortable he looked on the opening 5K. Instead, I decided to put in a good effort a mile or so out from T2 to see if I could get some separation. FAIL.
I rolled into T2 a second or two ahead of Jeff, but left T2 a handful of seconds behind. I had laid out a different pair of shoes (race flats) with quick laces for the second run to allow for a quicker transition. At the last minute I decided to stick with the same, more cushioned shoe I wore for the first run to minimize the post-race soreness. The adjustment had me fumbling around in transition to lace up my shoes again, and Jeff took off before me. I closed the gap in the first minute or two of the run and decided to push on and see if I could open things up. Fortunately, I was able to create a little gap. It was tempting to look back to see how much time I had, but I just kept pushing until the turnaround. I made the turn and saw Jeff flying down the hill not too far back. This made me a little nervous, but I knew I only had a little over a mile left. I figured if I kept the pace up, then he would have to run about a five-minute mile for the last mile to catch me. Luckily for me, I held on and finished about a minute ahead for the win.
It was a great local race, and one that I will be sure to do again in the future. The race directors did a fantastic job, and even gave out some great prizes – a rarity these days. Be sure to check out the Hotter Than Doo Du next year if you are looking for a great local race.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Driveway Race Report, Hamburger Face & A Little Soul Searching
by Kat Hunter
If you think race-day involves packing a lot of equipment
now, just wait until you have a baby. Bike stuff, baby stuff, 40 things “just
in case”...the indomitable little brown Prius was stuffed to the gills. August
1 was our first trip to the Driveway since Theo was born, and my first time back racing.
I was so nervous and excited that I could barely string a
sentence together, which meant that one of my rare opportunities to be social as
a new parent was largely a wash. I’d been preparing for my race, the Women’s
123, all week. I’d skipped the usual hard Wednesday group ride to save my legs,
doing openers instead. The morning before the race, I’d gotten another short
opener session in—a ride to the grocery store followed by 2x1min at 280 watts
with a package of Pampers in my backpack.
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| Bike Racer DNA?: Eloise Speed & Theo Mott |
I wasn’t sure how I would perform, physically or mentally. I
went through all the different race scenarios in my head, always with the idea
that I’d go for the win, accompanied by the nagging fear that I’d be spit out
the back. What I never imagined, given the small field size and my familiarity
with the other riders, was that I’d spend a good chunk of my evening in the
Brackenridge ER.
It all started smoothly. I bought an annual license at
Driveway registration when I realized I didn’t have one for 2013 yet. Jack
helped me get my gear together, and I fed Theo in the car with the AC going
full blast. As odd as it was to unzip my race jersey and breastfeed in the
parking lot, it was the only time I’d felt relaxed all day. Motherhood is good at
providing perspective—nothing is as important as a hungry baby, and if you
don’t remain aware of that fact, baby is going to provide a quick and high-volume
reminder.
I warmed up on the course with my ATC Racing teammates Anne
Flanagan, Allison Atkinson, and Marla Briley. The Driveway Ladies Nights, a new
series of women-only races on the first Thursday of each month, are held on the
top loop of the course while the Masters’ race goes on below. Other weeks, the
women’s open race is combined with the Masters 35+. It was the fourth Ladies
Night and the last of the 2013 season.
Jack wanted me to go all out from the gun. After 45 days or
so of riding since Theo’s birth, I was nearly back to my pre-pregnancy power
for short durations, though I wasn’t back to my pre-pregnancy weight.
Fortunately, the race would be completely flat and only 30 to 45 minutes long. But at the start line, nerves got the better
of me, and I was slow to clip in. I
could hear Jack yelling at me to go. Better late than never was my thought, so
I attacked on the first long straight.
I realized quickly that I wasn’t going to stay away on my
own, but still thought I might be able to break up the field a little, maybe
get something going with a handful of other strong riders. At any rate, I’d be
wearing down my teammates’ competition. When
I looked back, the field was strung out from the end of the first straight
section all the way back to the initial turn. This gave me a feeling of
satisfaction, one I’d almost forgotten in my time away from racing.
Kathleen Hattaway, another top sprinter and very likely candidate
for the podium, was the first to catch me, and I had dreams of the two of us
staying away, but they were soon put to rest. Everyone was here.
From that point, I did more sitting in, always migrating against
my will to the middle of the pack, and always jealous of the way skilled crit
racers like Kathleen and Jen seem to effortlessly hold their ground closer to
the front. But my first-race jitters were still with me, and I wasn’t ready to
fight for wheels. I just wanted to settle in and get comfortable with the
course.
I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, though. This Driveway
course was like the first day of the Georgetown Crit two years ago that I’d
fared so poorly in—do or die before the last turn, because if you were going to
be anywhere near the podium you couldn’t be strung out halfway to China on the final
turn when the leaders entered the straightaway. The battle for the win would
happen well before the finish.
My teammate Marla was a superstar. Two years ago, I’d raced
with her during her first crit and Driveway race, and you wouldn’t think she
was the same rider. She made several strong attacks, one time getting away with
three of the main players in a short-lived breakaway. I knew she hated this
course and wasn’t comfortable with a lot of the turns, and yet she was off the
front more than any of us on the team. I
also knew that she was giving everything she had during the attacks, so
whatever qualms I had about moving up at the key moment were going to have to
go.
The race was the kind I like—lots of attacks, a good pace,
no coasting and waiting around for something to happen. I was proud of our
local field for putting on a good show.
I worked my way closer to the front when the official
started shouting out the number of laps to go. Around four laps to go, I went again, and a group of four of us had some separation from the rest of
the field. From there, I’m not sure whether we held onto it until the end, or
it simply happened again, but the same four of us were together just before the
finish.
I’d already given myself a little pat on the back for
getting where I needed to be. I was on Kathleen’s wheel, and Jen was ahead of
her. After taking that last turn over and over again during the course of the
race, I’d scaled down my expectations for glory. I wasn’t as fast through that
section as some of the others were, notably Kathleen and Jen, which meant that
a solo break was no longer a valid strategy. Of course, there wasn’t much more
than a slim-to-none chance of beating them in a short sprint, either, but I
figured I’d give it my best shot.
Throughout the race on that sweeping turn, I’d let a little
gap form between me and the rider ahead, wanting to give myself some wiggle
room in case something went wrong. The
last lap around was no exception, and I let Kathleen pull a little ahead. I
knew that would be a mistake in the final sprint, but I was still very happy
with where I was. I was certain, at least, that I had third in the bag and was
safe from any mayhem. There was nothing but wide, empty road ahead of and
around me. Now, just the finishing straight after the last little bit of the
turn, the chance to see what my sprint was like post-baby. The pace had been
high going into the corner, and still was.
And then the rider behind passed me on the inside as I was
entering the corner. I still had a moment where I thought everything was going
to be okay, even when she slid out in front of me and I hit her back wheel dead
center...
I somehow managed to smash into the pavement with the left
side of my head and face, the top of my left shoulder and bottom of my left
forearm, the front of both knees, and my tailbone. I have no memory of it. On
later inspection, my bike was okay other than for some damage to the front of the
hoods, which seems to suggest that it hit the ground vertically.
My next clear memory was sitting under the registration
tent, people asking me questions. I started to realize that I couldn’t answer
some of them, and that scared me. I couldn’t remember which direction we’d been
riding on the course, or how I’d gotten to where I was. I had that feeling you
get sometimes when you first wake up—I couldn’t tell if the conversations
and events I was remembering were real or part of a dream. They said they were
going to get an ambulance. I hate hospitals, and we’d just that week gotten all
the insurance deductibles and bills sorted out from the birth. Jack was there,
and little Theo in his carseat, and I was about to burst into tears, or maybe I
did. At one point Theo threw up all over Jack, and he left to get a towel, but
I don’t think I noticed.
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| Checking into the hospital |
I started feeling better soon after that, and Jack drove us
to the hospital. It had been long enough with no further problems that they
skipped the CT scan, but they x-rayed my tailbone. Probably just bruising, the
doctor said, and it would be better in three to six weeks. For the abrasion on
my face, his best advice was to stay out of the sun to avoid scarring.
I kept replaying a moment over in my mind. Under the
registration tent, one of the medics had said to another, “And she has a
two-month-old baby...” It sounded like a character judgment, or maybe I’d just
heard what I was already telling myself.
I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. My infant son was in
the emergency room from nine o’clock to midnight because his Mom has this crazy
hobby where at any given moment she can fly through the air and crack her head
on the pavement.
I could say it wasn’t my fault, but that would be a lie.
One, in cycling you are your brother’s keeper—you can’t rely on other riders to
do the right thing; you have to prevent them from doing the wrong thing. Maybe
if I hadn’t let a gap open up. Maybe if I’d taken the turn faster. Two, that
kamikaze move is going to happen sooner or later, no matter how careful you
are. It was stupid of me to think that I wasn’t taking a big risk. There seem
to be two mindsets in cycling: the people who don’t care that they’re going to
crash, and the people who persist in believing that it’ll happen to everyone
else but not to them. I’ve always been one of the latter.
Over the next couple of days, my face swelled and oozed, my
head ached, the pain in my back slowly improved, and my mood soured.
Housebound, I began to ponder the deep philosophical questions that I don’t
usually have time for. For starters, what was I doing with my life? For a long
time, I’d been treating my workouts like a job, even when I was pregnant. If I
get one thing done during the day, it’s always my workout. Forget my work
projects, the dishes, the unpacked boxes gathering dust in the corner. Years
ago, when I was marathon training and working full-time for a publishing
company, I remember my uncle, who’s an art professor and artist, telling me
that if I treated my writing aspirations the way I do my workouts, I’d be
successful with them. I’ve sunk a lot more time into cycling than I ever did in
running, so who knows what sort of novel I could have written by now.
And now I had Theo. I was beginning to understand on a more
personal level that parents who quit their sports after having a baby aren’t
necessarily showing weakness or lack of resolve—in many cases it’s a sense of
practicality, or duty, that makes them give up their old goals. I’d been so
proud of getting back to racing so quickly, but I was realizing that a lot of
people wouldn’t see it that way. There are a hundred thousand ways a mother
imagines herself negligent, or a failure—now I could add another one to the
list.
It’ll be a while before Theo tells me what he thinks about
it all. And as for Jack...I married a man who, for better or worse, has always
been very supportive of my obsessions. When
I told him what was bothering me, he said that risk is inevitable, so we might
as well do what we love. The goal of complete safety—in addition to being
impossible—wasn’t worth the price.
I love my son more than anything in the world. Now that I’m
a parent, I do those things that used to always annoy me. I tout his weight like he’s
a prize turkey. I worry about germs and biting insects. I discuss the variable
color palette of diaper contents with other mothers. I can’t help it. But after
much deliberation couchside, I wonder if I can’t help racing, either, if it has
become some piece of me that can’t be put aside, like a tumor that’s made
bedfellows with important bodily organs.
If you criticize a mother, one way or the other, for what
she chooses when it comes to bike racing or any other sport, I’d ask you to
stop and consider one thing: no matter what she decides, whether she continues
or gives it up, she’s sacrificing something important, and more than any other person,
she’s well aware of it.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Real Life of the Pros: ITU Triathlete Colin O’Brady
by Kat Hunter
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| 2013 Osaka ITU Sprint Triathlon Asian Cup |
Lying in a hospital bed in Thailand, his legs atrophied to the point that they were the size of his wrists, 22-year-old Colin O’Brady told his mother that when he was healthy again he would race his first triathlon. She humored him, wanting to believe it was possible, all the while hoping for a more modest goal: that her son would walk again.
A talented athlete and native of Portland, Oregon, O’Brady had been recruited after high school for both Division 1 soccer and swimming. He chose swimming and was a member of Yale’s varsity team for four years, competing in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke. After graduating in 2006, he had no plans to continue the sport seriously. He worked and saved up his money, and the following spring, he began what was meant to be a year-long backpacking trip around the world. The trip ended abruptly on January 14, 2008, on a fire-lit beach on the island of Koh Tao.
O’Brady had joined other tourists in a hotel’s fire games on
the beach, jumping over a 20-foot rope soaked in kerosene and set ablaze. At
the time, the game seemed innocent and simple. But he tripped on the rope,
wrapping it around his legs and splattering the kerosene over the rest of his
body. One second he was skipping rope, and the next he was facedown in the sand
engulfed head to toe in flames. An immediate, instinctive sprint into the ocean
extinguished the flames and perhaps saved his life, but the damage had been
done. Blackened skin hung in ribbons down his bloody legs. He’d suffered second-
and third-degree burns to 22% of his body, primarily his legs and feet.
Koh Tao, a small island off the southwest coast of Thailand,
had only a basic nursing station. Given penicillin and morphine, O’Brady waited
for 12 hours before he could be transported by pickup truck and the morning boat
to nearby Koh Samui, a larger island. The hospital on Koh Samui was similarly ill-equipped
for serious burn injuries, and after about a week, he was transferred to a
larger hospital in Bangkok. There, a month passed before he took a single step,
and doctors told him he might never regain the full range of motion in his
legs. At his bedside, his mother kept him busy talking and thinking about what
he would do when he went home. O’Brady focused on the idea of his first
triathlon, visualizing himself whole again.
The First Step
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| 6 weeks post accident |
After his return to the U.S., O’Brady took a job in Chicago
as a commodities trader. For roughly a year following the accident, he focused
on rehabilitation and learning how to walk again. Scar tissue had formed over
his joints, and the muscles in his legs had all but disappeared after the
extended bedrest. The new, fragile skin couldn’t be exposed to the sun, and any
impact would cause it to break open.
“That first year, from January 2008 to January 2009,
literally walking down the block or even a short five or ten minute jog would
have been a big event,” O’Brady says. “The first year was just getting back to
being able to do normal life things.”
In the winter of 2009, he joined a nearby gym and set his
sights on the Chicago Triathlon that August. His goal was simply to finish the
race as best as he could. He started his post-accident training with casual jogs
and spin classes. Though his soccer and swimming background worked in his
favor, all-out 10ks and 1500-meter open water swims were another can of worms,
and he’d never raced a bike before.
In May, he transitioned to more serious and specific
triathlon workouts, and two months later, on a borrowed time trial bike, he won
overall amateur at a small sprint-distance tri in Racine, Wisconsin. The race,
meant as prep for the Chicago Tri, qualified him for age-group nationals. Taking
advantage of the unforeseen opportunity, he competed in the 2009 age-group
nationals in Tuscaloosa, and his placing there qualified him for a spot on Team
USA to compete at the 2010 world championships in Budapest. A week after racing
in Alabama, he won the overall amateur title at the prestigious Chicago
Triathlon.
The immediate and unexpected success was both satisfaction
and a taste of something more, a new and tempting possibility.
Competing as a Pro
Before the string of wins, O’Brady had been talking to his mentor
Brian Gelber, who runs a large trading firm in Chicago, about other jobs in
trading and finance. But after the Chicago
Tri, Gelber asked O’Brady whether he was considering professional triathlon.
“In the early stage of any pro career, you need someone to
believe in you from the beginning, and Brian was that guy for me,” O’Brady
says.
Encouraging O’Brady to train full-time, Gelber became his
sponsor. Within a month of winning the Chicago Triathlon, O’Brady was moving to
Australia for a six-month training block in the Southern Hemisphere.
Growing up, O’Brady had often dreamed of the Olympic Games. But for O’Brady, like many student athletes
in the U.S., the end of college seemed to signal the end of the road for his
athletic career. In some ways, after so many practices and laps in the pool, it
was a welcome one. Triathlon, with its three different disciplines, made
training fresh and exciting again, and also rekindled his childhood dream of
competing in the Olympics. ITU, or draft-legal, triathlon was the natural
choice of discipline within the sport.
ITU triathlon is another world, a world many amateur
triathletes never see. In the U.S., draft-legal races for amateurs are very rare,
and the ITU series is limited to professionals. The general format of ITU may
be the familiar Olympic distance (1500-meter swim/40K bike/10K run), but in
most other respects, it’s very different from non-drafting triathlon, rewarding
a separate skill set.
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| ITU Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic |
“The amount of time spent swimming in a non-drafting race is
a very small percentage of the whole race,” O’Brady says. “So if you’re a great
swimmer but not so good of a biker, the strong biker has more time to actually
use their strength than the swimmer, for example, whereas in ITU you have to be
a very strong swimmer. With my background, I think that suits me.”
A good swim time is crucial because an athlete must make the
front group on the bike to contend for the win. A speedy transition is also important.
Make a mistake at any time—drop your chain, fumble with your helmet or shoes,
botch a mount or dismount—and those few seconds can mean the difference between
4th and 40th place. Typically, riders
work together in a rotating paceline for the 40K bike, keeping speeds high,
especially when a known threat doesn’t make it out of the water fast enough. From
the bike, the front group starts head to head for the 10K run.
Unlike draft-legal racing, in ITU an athlete doesn’t have
the luxury of following a specific race plan. “It’s more like you have to have
plan A, B, C, D, E,” O’Brady says. “You’re adjusting in real time to what’s
going to happen.”
On the bike, tactics often depend on who’s who in the front
group and how you fared in the swim. If necessary, you have to be ready to do a
5- or 10-minute time trial to get back to the group, and you also need to have
5-second power for turns at the front. “So you’ve got to work a lot of
different energy systems and be just very mentally focused throughout the race,
rather than just going against the clock,” O’Brady says. “To me, both sports
are great. I think that they’re just two separate challenges.”
ITU is an international circuit. Athletes represent their
countries, wearing their national jerseys, and the maximum number at the start
line is 75. With the small number of competitors racing together in every
remote corner of the globe, O’Brady says the ITU scene is a kind of “traveling
circus.” Your competitors are your travel companions and your friends, but at
the end of the day, you also want to beat them.
ITU athletes are ranked by a complicated points system, one
that even the pros don’t always fully understand. There are three levels of the
professional circuit, and to race at each higher level, an athlete must have earned
the correct number of qualifying points at lower levels. In turn, races at the
higher levels are worth more points, which means that the top athletes in the
world focus on the highest of them, the World Triathlon Series. Points carry
over for 12 months, and overall ranking determines an athlete’s eligibility for
the Olympics. Unlike swimming or track and field, in which a time standard
might qualify an athlete for the Olympic trials, in triathlon the Olympic trials
are races in the World Triathlon Series; an athlete must have the points
necessary to be one of the six or so Americans on the start line. It’s a system that rewards consistency above
any one breakthrough performance.
Working one’s way up the ITU ladder can take several
seasons. O’Brady is currently racing a mixture of Continental Cup and World Cup
races, with the goal of primarily racing the World Triathlon Series in 2015 and
2016, and qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Games.
The Pursuit of
Happiness
Three and half years after O’Brady’s headlong dive into
triathlon, Brian Gelber remains his primary sponsor and personal mentor, and
O’Brady says he finds Gelber’s advice invaluable. The psychology of trading and
the psychology of trying to succeed in sport offer a surprising number of
parallels, O’Brady says. In many ways, it’s the same competitive, cutthroat
environment.
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| ITU Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic |
There’s no “clocking out” at the end of the day, however. “Everything
you do outside of the actual swimming, biking, and running still has an impact
on your performance and your job,” O’Brady says. “It’s something that, over the
few years now that I’ve been doing this, that I’ve adjusted to and am used to,
but I remember the very strong difference when I was trading energy futures,
for example, and the market would close at 4 o’clock.
At 4 o’clock, whether I made a ton of money that day, lost a
bunch of money, or nothing happened in the market that day, I couldn’t do
anything until the next morning when it opened up again and the light switched
back on essentially. So the feeling of the exact opposite of that, not only
Monday to Friday but seven days a week having to be very conscious of what you’re
doing the whole time, it’s challenging.”
ITU triathletes have to train as hard as pro athletes from
any other sport, but without the three to nine figure salary. Though athletes
race for their individual country, the level of support varies. USA Triathlon
sponsors only a small selection of the top athletes, and most competitors rely
on personal sponsors to fund living expenses and travel.
 |
| Palembang, Indonesia |
“My first pro season, for example, I flew all the way to
Subic Bay in the Philippines, which is this very obscure place, feeling ready
to race, and got food poisoning,” O’Brady says. “I was throwing up on the start
line and had to withdraw. There goes, with the flight and travel and all that
stuff, probably $2,000. And I didn’t even really race. I did the swim and got
on my bike and rode back to my hotel room.”
But the globetrotting is also part of the attraction for
O’Brady. “I love the lifestyle,” he says. “I’ve been able in my two years as a
pro to race on every continent in the world, other than Antarctica, of course.
And most of those continents several times. You get to see the world, and to me
that’s amazing.”
O’Brady often travels with his girlfriend and manager, Jenna
Besaw, taking advantage of homestays when possible. “From the end of June of
last year through the first of this year, I think we’ve slept in 55 different
beds, be that hotel rooms or different places,” he says.
He credits the larger triathlon community, the people
willing to open up their homes to them, for making his career possible. “With
endurance sports, I think as a pro that’s been one of the greatest things, the
people I’ve met, not only the community of the athletes I’ve raced with, but
even more so the larger community of just people who are interested in the
sport or just do it recreationally that help you out along the way,” he says. “Because
honestly, without that existing, I’m not sure I would be able to make it work.”
O’Brady says he still considers himself to be in the
developmental curve of his professional career in triathlon, and learning to
focus on what works for him versus what works for another athlete has been key.
Though it’s difficult to avoid in an environment where everyone’s looking at
everyone else’s training plan to find the magic ticket for success, trying to
keep up stride for stride in training volume can quickly lead to injury and
overtraining.
“In terms of volume, I think it’s a personal thing,” he
says. “For me, I’ve found that somewhere between 20 and 25 hours a week, I’m
getting maximum effort and building toward my fitness and strength without
pushing myself over that edge. For other people, that number could be higher or
lower. I don’t think that there’s a magic number out there that works for
everyone.”
O’Brady says his philosophy on what’s important in training
and competition, and life in general, has changed since his start in triathlon.
“If you’d have interviewed me three years ago and asked the same question, I
would not have had the same answer,” he says. “I would have said success, at
the elite level of sport or business, requires 100 percent focus, and it is the
same answer, and I do think it requires 100 percent focus, but it’s finding
what that right focus is.”
Striving for happiness as well as accomplishment is key, he
says. For O’Brady, that meant changing the way he treated his personal
relationships. Jenna has been on the road with him for a little over a year,
and he says that’s been a game changer. “I feel healthier, stronger, more
balanced emotionally, than ever, and my recommendation to any pro athlete or
any age grouper or really anybody who’s super focused on pursuing any level of
success in any career, would be to really figure out the balance, really figure
out what makes you stable. For me that is having a super positive relationship
with my girlfriend and my family even though I’m traveling all the time.”
 |
| Colin & Jenna at the start line in Chengdu, China |
Wintering in Austin
Winter training was a success, and O’Brady and Besaw say they’ll be coming back next year. They offered special thanks to Brian Lieb (and his awesome dog, Bode) for sharing his home with them, and to Pure Austin for their support, as well as other current sponsors Gelber Group, Primal Wear, MegaFood, Kiwami, Swiftwick, Athlete’s Lounge, and Upper Echelon.
 |
| Pure Austin Quarry Lake |
Escaping Austin’s notoriously hot summer months, O’Brady is
currently training in Kauai, Hawaii, and racing all over the world. Upcoming
races include the Brazil Continental Cup (Sept. 29), Mexico World Cup (Oct. 6),
and Puerto Rico Continental Cup (Oct. 13). Read more about his adventures on
his website and blog, http://colinobrady.com/.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Mavic CXR60 Review
by Jack Mott
For a little over a year, the new breed of Mavic wheels has been on the market in the form of the CXR 80, a deep wheel with a bunch of unique features that has proved to be an excellent performer. The CXR 80 was the TT wheel of choice for the Garmin-Sharp pro cycling team, and has also been ridden with success in the local bike racing scene, even in crits. However, it's available only as a tubular, and is deeper than some people are comfortable with. Now a medium-depth version of the CXR line is here, the CXR 60, and it comes in clincher too! The key features of the CXR line of wheels include:
New Aerodynamic Shape
Mavic's CXR line takes a unique approach to wheel shape. Unlike the rest of the industry (which somehow simultaneously adopted "U" shaped rims), Mavic uses a combination of custom tires and a "blade" that fills in the space between tire and wheel to have complete control of the entire wheel-tire shape. If Mavic's wind tunnel results are accurate, this gives them a sizeable aero advantage over other wheels.
Downsides to this approach include a reliance on Mavic's custom tire, which may or may not have great rolling resistance to go with its excellent shape. If the rolling resistance is not good, it can more than offset the aerodynamic advantage. This is of particular concern in the tubular versions of the wheel, as the rolling resistance is not very good with that tire. Tom Anhalt has measured the rolling resistance of the Mavic clincher tire and thankfully found it has excellent rolling resistance, details here.
The other downside is dealing with the blades. The CX01 blade snaps into the rim after you install the tire. The process is quite simple, but would be an extra step to deal with when changing flats on training rides. On the other hand, you don't have to use the blades on training rides; you can save them for race day. Additionally, you need to take care that the brake pads are adjusted properly, or they could grab the blade when you apply the brakes. There have been a few reports of blades coming undone during bike races, possibly due to contact with other bikes. They can then get wrapped up in your hub and end your race. The blades might best be saved for time trials and triathlons, where bike-to-bike contact is rare.
While Mavic literature insists that the blades are only compatible with the Mavic tire, during our testing we used it along with the Continental GP4000S and experienced no issues or wear on the sidewall. The aerodynamic fit seems to be excellent as well (click to zoom):
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| CX01 Blade Fit with Mavic Tire |
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| CX01 Blade Fit with GP4000S Tire |
However, given the good rolling resistance of the Mavic clincher tire you may want to stick with it, especially up front.
Exalith Braking Surface
The braking surface on the clincher version of these wheels is a special metal surface that Mavic calls Exalith 2. It has a directional texture, and is designed to work with a specific Mavic Exalith brake pad. The braking power and modulation on this is excellent, especially in the rain due to the texture feature. Our resident Cat 1 cyclist tester said she thought it felt better than her standard aluminum rims. While other racers get stressed out if there is rain in the forecast, you can remain calm and focus properly on your race, a nice advantage. The downside is the necessity of using the Mavic Exalith brake pad, which you may have to swap on and off if you use other wheels for training. In a pinch, other pads will work fine, but the Exalith surface seems to tear them up pretty quickly. You also must take care to orient your front wheel in the proper direction for optimum braking. We did test the braking with the wheel installed the wrong way around, however, and it still worked well.
The tubular version of the wheel uses a more traditional carbon braking surface.
Aero Tuned Hubs
The hubs on these wheels clearly have some aerodynamic thought put into them. The central section is as small as possible, and the flanges are also kept small and covered with smooth aero-shaped caps:
Road testing revealed what we expected. Mavic wheels are very well built! There were no issues or drama under hard cornering or acceleration, and no flexing to cause the rear wheel to rub when pushing sickwatts up steep hills. We tested the wheels in a Cervelo S5 and a Litespeed C1 and found no clearance issues on either. Our resident Cat 1 cyclist Kat Hunter gave them a thumbs up, noting the exceptional braking performance. Meanwhile, our Cat 3/triathlete was able to decimate the local Strava scene in his neighborhood. Testing during windy days showed the wheels to be stable and predictable.
We noticed that the outer width of these wheels is quite wide, a bit wider that our HED Jets, in keeping with the current trend of sizing the wheel to match the width of 23mm tires. However, much of that width is used by the channel that you snap the CX01 blades into. The actual width of the rim from the tire's point of view is actually quite narrow. Rather than shaping the tire to fit the rim via extra wide bead hooks, Mavic uses the blade to provide a seamless tire to wheel transition. This design does make it a bit harder to work your tire onto the wheel. Below you can see the a blade, still snapped in place on the left, and the groove that the blades snap into on the right:
The construction of the clincher wheels is similar to HED Jets, with a carbon fairing attached to an aluminum rim. Mavic also applies a carbon fiber "cap" on top of the metal rim, however. The only exposed metal is the black Exalith braking surface and the black spokes.
Pricing and Availability
The CXR 60 will begin hitting Austin Tri-Cyclist (and other stores probably) in mid August. Pricing info will be in soon. Each wheelset includes a bunch of nice extras:
- BR601 quick releases
- Rim tape
- Wheelbags
- Exalith brake pads
- Valve extenders
- Multifunction adjustment wrench
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