Stinky Spa

I have a confession to make. I did not shower while at the Wildflower triathlon. At least, not until the Sunday morning after the race.

So how did I manage to survive 3 days in the wilderness without becoming a walking dirtclod?

I discovered these eucalyptus infused refreshing wipes that literally melted away the dirt, germs and grime in one simple swipe and left me feeling like a day at the spa. Because I spend lots of days at spas, and I'd know. Used these things morning, noon and evening and they worked great.

They're called Action Wipes. Good stuff. Check 'em out at www.actionwipes.com.

Wildflower

For those of you who care, this used to be called the Jamba Juice Wildflower Triathlon, but Jamba Juice the smoothie company was replaced by Avia the shoe company.

Shoes are not as tasty as smoothies. A cold shoe does not feel good in your mouth on a hot day. Unlike previous year's events, you do not receive free shoes after the race in up to three flavors of your choice.

Nonetheless, in my opinion Avia turned out to be a much improved major sponsor for the race. I mean, c'mon people, shoe folks just know more about sports than do smoothie folks.

This was a big race for me. I really wanted to do well, and my goal was to crack the top 8 overall, which would be really fantastic for a race of this caliber, reputation, field, and size. I tapered for this Half-Ironman race, which I haven't yet done for any races this season. I got consistent massages from Tim at Therapeutic Approach Massage. I carbohydrate loaded, using sweet potatoes, oatmeal, Bumblebars, and any other gluten-low carbohydrate I could get my hands on, so I was eating 85% carbohydrate diet by Friday (the day before race day).

I was a lean, man-sized, well-massaged, breadstick.

My strategy for this race was to swim consistently and with focus, using the new swim techniques I learned from Peter Reid and Chuckie V down in California at Solvang Triathlon camp 4 weeks ago. Chuckie told me I can be first out of the water at Ironman and that is now my new goal. I will achieve this goal by either practicing in my races leading up to Ironman or by growing my toenails longer. Hopefully the former.

My strategy was to ride a much lighter and more aerodynamic bike than I have been riding in my races thus far, and to ride at a consistent power on the highly undulating course (meaning ride the downhills and uphills at similar power or perceived exertion). Ian Dewar, the Specialized guru, was kind enough to allow me to ride a Transition S-Works. I also practiced consistent power output on the Computrainer.

My strategy was to not repeat the mistakes of 2007 and actually allow early jack-rabbit half marathoners to pass me in the first 6-7 miles while I stayed relatively aerobic, rather than attempting to match their pace out of the gate and suffer later in the race. OK, this basically means I didn't want to puke in a trash can like at Troika half ironman.

I came to the Wildflower festival, a massive enclave of tents and triathletes, on Thu night. A huge thanks to Markham Homes for the posh first class flight and spacious leg room, and to Bumblebar, for the highly efficient Toyota Prius that purred like a kitten with the gas pedal floored at breakneck highway speeds of approximately 22 miles per hour. Arriving at camp around midnight, I realized that although the weather is very hot (medical tent capable) during the day, it is very cold (shrinking gonad capable) during the night. I do not like to lie awake at 4am deliberating whether to go outside to empty my screaming bladder or to stay in my warm sleeping bag and stay awake trying to hold back the floodgates.

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes was kind enough to allow me to stay at their campsite and use a sleeping bag. In exchange, I was required to become a monk and castrate myself on the crest of a high hill. No, actually, these folks are awesome and I had the cool opportunity to assist at the FCA booth during the expo on Friday and to pray with other athletes at the Iron Prayer on Friday night. It's very humbling to be reminded how very small we are in the very large scheme of eternity, and before a big race even more meaningful.

Sipped nuun all day long to stay hydrated. They have a really fantastic new product that will hopefully hit retailers like Whole Foods Markets very soon. It's all natural hydration and electrolytes, in yuppie flavors like Goji Berry Green Tea Lemon Ginger. Or something. Anyways, it rocks. I also lived on my chocolate Bumblebars and decaf coffee (yes I wean myself from caffeine beginning 4 days prior to any big race).

I felt great on Saturday morning. Perfectly rested, in part thanks to Millennium Sports Somnidren GH Sleep Aid product. I put one tablespoon under my tongue and I'm literally out of commission within 10 minutes. So sound asleep that I wouldn't even know if I crapped my own pants, just like my little boys at home. I also loaded with Millennium Sports Cordygen VO2 product prior to this race.

Transition set-up was smooth. Warm-up was smooth. I swear, it was just a perfect day leading up to the race. On these type of days, I'm always careful of Murphy's Law, which states that when everything is going right, something really, really, really bad will happen. So based on the smoothness of the morning, I expected a set of deer antlers to pop out of my stomach, or something crazy like that that would leave me unable to wear a wetsuit or ride a bike in the aero position, or run without veering off course to chase the female deer.

The swim was fantastic. I was wearing the new Blue Seventy Helix Wetsuit and it literally felt molded to my body. I started the swim a bit slow, but ended it swimming through most of my age group and came out of the water with a time of 26:54. This is how I usually swim. I should probably come out faster in the future so I can draft on those leaders, rather than letting them open up a gap that I consistently gain on but never close. Something to work on. By the way, I used the Element goggles with the Metallic lenses. The visibility on those are unparalleled. I wore them all the way home on the airplane after the race, and I could see just fine. I don't know why the flight stewardess kept asking me if I also wanted a flotation vest.

OK, back to the race. First transition! Grabbed my super light, unbreakable TN sunglasses, strapped on my helmet and headed out on the bike!

Well folks, all I can say about the Specialized Transition S-Works is that it is the most clean, comfortable, smooth power I have ever experienced in my life while pedaling an object with two wheels. From the minute I ran it out of T1 and took off up Beach Hill, the first steep hill out of transition, I never looked back. As soon as your drop into the forward rotated aero position on this machine, everything feels like a downhill. And that's a lot to say for a very difficult, hilly, Wildflower bike course. I knew the bike was really sailing when, at 25 miles into the 56 mile bike loop, I was already beginning to ride through the *men's* pro field, who started the swim 10 minutes before me. The bike felt so strong and smooth that I kept wanting more gears! I don't care what you say about the whole "engine vs. bike" argument. This bike made the day for me. Period.

I was riding it as a loaner from Specialized, and Ian had dialed in all my geometries earlier that week, so it was set up with the same seat height, reach to the aerobars, seat fore-aft position, and drop as my home bike (A 2007 Specialized Transition Expert). We're hoping that my actual bike, a very comparable Specialized Transition Pro, will arrive in time for Blue Lake Championships on June 14 and Ironman Coeur D' Alene on June 21st. During the bike portion, I used a Zipp 606 Wheelset from WheelSport East, 1 aero bottle of clean water and 1 down tube bottle of 650 calories of Hammer Gel Perpetuum, and 3 GU gels taped to my top tube. I also had a film canister full of Endurolyte tabs, enough for 4 per hour. I have to say, I really missed my comfy Cee Gees aeropads, and the shoulders were a bit sore afterwards from not having those pillows!

Bike split was 2:32:28.

T2 was smooth and perfect. I split myself at 3:03 going into the run. My legs felt very fresh starting off, but I remembered my race strategy and held back. I knew that there were 4 or 5 age-groupers ahead of me, based off what people were telling me coming out of transition. It was torture for me to not run hard and try to chase them down, but I forced myself to stay as aerobic as possible through all the hills up to mile 6 and a half or so. I maintained 50-100 calories of GU gel every 2-3 miles, along with 1 Endurolyte capsule. The run course is extremely hilly and difficult, and I knew it would be key to stick to my plan, like sticky rice. Or apple juice. Or the floor of a movie theater. Or me, after camping for 3 days without a shower.

Finally, 6 and a half miles came around and I took off like a bat out of hell. Or an omelette off a greased pan. Or a baby out of a cervical canal. Or me, out of any Orlando Bloom film. I love my sticky and fast analogies.

I passed three age groupers when I actually started moving on the run. It felt great to "open up", even though it hurt, like a 10 on a scale of 1-10 as I made it through the last 1.5 miles. I pretty much quit eating at mile 9 because I knew I would need as much blood flow as possible to my muscles.

As I flew down Lynch Hill, the final descent, I knew this was going to be a great race. I didn't even look at my watch for my splits on the latter part of this run. I didn't care. I knew it was good. I also knew it was good that I reverse tied my elastic shoelaces so my feet didn't explode out the front of my toebox on that last downhill.

Final results run: 1:31:09. 4th age group, 5th overall.

After the race, I sucked down 8 Recoverease, a steak sandwich, and about 8 pints of gelato in a comedically oversized waffle cone. I think I also ate a small sparrow that was nestled amongst the waffle conage, but it was hard to tell at that point.

I would have to say that one of the best parts about the whole weekend experience was being a part of the massive multi-sport festival that takes place when more than 5000 participants are camped at the edge of Lake San Antonio for one big Woodstock style party. Saturday night after the race, I ended up at the Avia party with world champions Chris McCormack and Sam McGlone, as well as other triathlon legends like Scott Tinley and Kenny Souza. It was great to sit around, eat smores, and rub elbows with the most talented athletes in the sports.

So that's a wrap! Next race is the June 7 ITU World Championships in Vancouver, an even MORE important race than Wildflower, and a very spectacular venue.

MudMan 2008 - Ski/Board --> Downhill Mountain Bike --> Run

Actual name of the event is Leadman, on Silver Mountain. I really thought I had this race in the bag. After a 2nd place finish last year due to slightly inadequate snowboarding and downhill mountain biking skills (some people call it "yard saling") there were some changes that I made this year.

Here were the changes:

A) I am a father

B) I had a tricked out mountain bike demo model with sweet shocks, even better than Pedro's

C) I did not party the night beforehand, unless ginger tea and a hot bath is considered the wild side

My strategy going into the race start was a massive success - I leapt off a snow cliff in front of the entire field and beat everyone in the 100 yard dash to the snowboards and skis.



The rest of the race progressed as follows:

-Watched the field disappear as tiny little specks in the distance while I tried to tighten my snowboard bindings

-Tried to catch up with everyone and rode my snowboard off the course because I went too fast and crashed

-Hiked back onto the course and kept snowboarding

-Crashed again on the uphill into mountain bike transition

-Hiked up into transition

Where's Ben's bike? Oh, it's just like one of the only ones left in transition, pretty easy to find really.

Well, I have a tricked out bike so now I can catch up, right?. Wrong. I swear, the entire 7.5 mile downhill bike was ALL mud. I had no fender or visor. I held my glasses in my teeth once they became too dirty for sane vision. I lost count of the times I slid off course and crashed. I was literally a ball of caked mud and bruises by the time I reached run transition. You could have started a nice little garden on my face with some pumpkin seeds and maybe some nice little tomatoes, the yellow kind that are really tasty.

I took off on the run and glanced at my reflection in a store window as I ran through downtown Kellogg. That's the first time in awhile I've busted up laughing in the middle of a race, because I was like that comic book character in Spiderman that looks like a giant piece of dirt.

Running and flailing and blowing muddy snot out my nose.

I hosed off after the race and drove home. I had been soundly defeated.

But it was a beautiful day and I had my adrenaline fix for the weekend. Life is good.

OFFICIAL RACE VIDEO FROM HELMET CAM: http://www.youtube.com/user/SilverMtnResort

Workout of the Week: The Silver Lining of a Flat Tire

That is a picture of Peter Reid and I riding in Solvang last week. I was just kicking his ass in this picture, and he kept saying, "Slow down Ben, I can't keep up." I felt so bad beating up on the World Champion of Ironman, but then again, he is really the ex-World Champion of Ironman.

Let me pull my tongue out of my cheek and continue.

Every week for the next 10 weeks leading up to Ironman Coeur D' Alene, I will be posting a "Workout of the Week". This is a challenging workout that I'll be assigning, in one form or another, to many of the Ironman athletes that I coach, to grow some hair on the chest, so to speak.

Here is today's. Don't come crying to me afterwards (P.S. It's a pool workout. Do not attempt on a treadmill).

Warm-up: 500m free

Drills: Take an old bicycle tire. Make sure it's uninflated (that's the kicker). Tie it around your feet so that you can't kick. At all. Swim 10x100 with 10 seconds rest after each 100. Figure out what actually makes you swim faster. Is it hip rotation? Downward pressing of the chest? Full hyperextension of the arm upon entry? A little bit of everything?

If you aren't a strong swimmer, do this in a pool that you can stand in, or you may drown. I wish I was kidding.

Then swim 200 meters freestyle, to work on those concepts you hammered home with the drill set.

Then move on to your main set, whatever happens to be assigned for that day.

Enjoy with a sip of chlorine.

Ben

My Legs Hurt

Training Synopsis over the past 6 days at Solvang Triathlon Camp: 24 hours of cycling, 4 hours of running, 3 hours of swimming. That's a 31 hour training week, severely skewed towards long periods of time on a hard bike saddle. I'm pooped. I told Peter Reid it was interesting to experience how my body absorbed a true "pro" training load. Couldn't imagine that volume week after week. Well, I *could* but only if it were a full time job.

Here's my story for this week:

Sophisticated wine snobs were fooled when they sipped Charles Shaw in a blind tasting and ranked it as an award-winning merlot from what must be an expensive and high ranked vineyard.

In reality, Charles Shaw merlot is a cheap (albeit tasty) two dollar grocery store wine, aptly given the title "Two Buck Chuck".

As I sit here in my motel room sipping a glass of that infamous Charles Shaw, I reflect back on the week's activities here in Solvang, California, where I was hired (ironically by a guy named Chuckie) for a week-long stint as an assistant coach and physiologist for a cycling intensive triathlon camp...

Day 1: Arrived in Solvang, a quaint and quirky Dutch town in Northern California, where I immediately noticed that every citizen has white hair, oversized sun-blocking glasses and drives an expensive car with a box of kleenex on the dashboard, much like Fort Lauderdale. They don't look Dutch to me...just old and rich.

Upon arriving at the Meadowlark Inn, a small roadside motel, an easy 6 mile vineyard run was scheduled to shake out the travel legs and meet the rest of the gang - a crowd of 10 triathletes here to be coached by the best of the best: ex-Ironman winner and triathlon bad boy Chuckie V, Ironman World Champion and the fastest Ironman ever (7:51!) Peter Reid...and me (claim to fame is that I have more kids than either of these guys).

Dinner on this evening, and every night the rest of the week, was prepared by a big tall fellow named "Norbert", who is a local 5 star chef to celebrities like Catherine Zeta Jones and the hell if I know any other celebrities in the Santa Barbara area. I'm sure there's dozens. During the week, he prepared meals like crabcakes on a bed of mango cabbage, breaded salmon with rice cakes and crème brulee with fresh raspberries. It's possible I actually gained weight this week, despite nearly double the volume of my heaviest training week ever.

Every night, a coach or visiting lecturer gives a presentation on physiology, nutrition, training, etc., so I was able to pick up quite a few valuable tidbits on this trip. I may seem like I know a bit when I coach or talk about physiology, but trust me, what I know fills a thimble compared to what I yearn to understand (that's yearn, not urine. Thank you spell check).

Day 2: 2500m swim practice with drills and swim coaching from Chuckie V and Peter Reid. I swam and did not coach, as the guys wanted to see me in the pool. Chuckie told me I can be "first out of the water" at Ironman with just a few form tweaks! Let's just say I'm very motivated now to make those form tweaks (specifically longer extension, more complete finish, higher elbow, slightly more "catch-up" style swimming, and growing my feet 8 inches longer).

Big breakfast (primarily baked oatmeal and quiche) then a 100 mile hilly bike ride. I'm riding a borrowed bike from Specialized Bikes and way cool Specialized rep Ian Dewar, who I'm rooming with. I salivated over the $8500 Transition S-Works he has sitting in our motel room (a bike I've been trying to get my hands on for 8 months), but ended up riding an equally cool S-Works road bike. I'll be helping out in his tent down at Wildflower, and will probably ride the S-Works Transition down there. Fast bike with enormous increase in power transfer compared to my current ride (I did test it out a couple times during this week).

Most of the ride is in a 26-28mph paceline. Good stuff, but long day for the first day out! These Northern California roads are hilly with tons of potholes, and my ass hurts. By the end of the week, my butt cheeks had more potholes than the road. The right cheek and left cheek seem equally pocked. At least I'm balanced.

Today, and every day this week, we are followed by a Sag Wagon, full of Clif Bars, Clif Bloks, Mrs. May's trail mix, and a wide variety of "ride foods", which I'm sick of within 2 hours. You can only eat glorified candy for so long. Give me a freakin' banana for crying out loud. Or cheese. I craved cheese a lot this week. Interesting, because on these long slow rides, the body really craves protein and fat - so should we be eating it during Ironman? I do.

Finished the ride and returned to the motel, where a relaxing yoga session was followed by dinner.

Day 3: Morning run coaching with Peter Reid and an aerobic threshold track test, which I plan on implementing with the athletes I coach, since it was a turning point in Peter's athletic success when he was coached by Mark Allen. Peter recommends run drills after a long tiring run for maintaining form. I tried this later on in the week and all I can say is I felt like a high stepping funky chicken with lead legs.

Peter, by the way, is the nicest and coolest pro I've ever come across, with none of the egotistical mannerisms of most of the other pro triathletes. He's actually real and refreshing. A genuinely good guy who doesn't "talk down" to you. He's fast like greased lightning, but in an unassuming and subdued way (like Winnie the Pooh having Rambo like powers). That must have been a wine-influenced analogy. This bottle is disappearing fast.

After our track run, we embarked on an 85 mile bike ride to Jalama Beach, a completely isolated shoreline with not a sunbathing Californian in sight. By far, it was the quietest beach I've seen in California. Eerily quiet. Maybe there's face-eating fungi in the water, who knows.

Day 4: Swim session, easy 60 mile ride that didn't feel easy, nutrition and physiology presentation by me, dinner, bed, I'm getting tired. The days are turning into a segmented blur of training. Swim, eat, pedal, eat, run, eat.

Day 5: Legs hurt. 50 mile ride with 9 mile sustained climb at the end followed by a 9 mile trail run above the Santa Ynez valley. Beautiful scenery. My hands, the main part of my body exposed on these rides, are very sunburnt. Later that night, we had a campfire session where Peter Reid gave out dozens of Ironman training secrets. I'm eating this stuff up.

Speaking of eating this stuff up, you don't *believe* how hungry you get on these camps. I've sustained a 24-7 appetite despite 6000+ calories/day. It's unbelievable. I'm a human garbage disposal. OK, maybe a Cuisinart.

Day 6: Swim session. Chuckie introduces me to a special set of time 150's, 75's and 50's that I plan to use quite a bit. I'm also going to be using more 300's on short recovery in my training and coaching. After breakfast, an undulating 55 mile ride with a steep 4 mile climb in the middle, followed by a 10 mile vineyard run. When I finished the run, I realized my body is slowly shutting down, with deep aches and pains everywhere. Not bad pains. Just "please stop exercising" pains.

I performed a series of blood lactate and VO2 tests on camp athletes all afternoon. Ran a lab straight out of my roadside motel room. Let's just say that after a week of hard and heavy training, some of these guys weren't all too eager to take it up to VO2 max range. Everyone survived, then we moved on to a final dinner and celebration at the Vineyard House, a local restaurant. Everybody seems exhausted, but everybody is still smiling. We Ironman athletes sure are a masochistic gang.

So that's a wrap. You can probably tell I'm a bit tired as I write this.

If you are one of the athletes that I coach, I'll definitely be tweaking a few aspects of my program based on some of the tips and tricks I picked up at camp this week. Look for a more specific letter from me on that later on. Especially exciting is a perspective from Peter Reid for 10 Weeks to an Ironman, and *exactly* what the World Champion did for last 10 Weeks for nutrition and training.

The next camp I'll be coaching is Cal Zaryski's Critical Speed camp for Ironman Coeur D' Alene, right here in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho.. He still has quite a bit of room for more athletes, so visit his website at criticalspeed.com if you want to get a piece of the action. It won't be quite as a high a volume as the Solvang camp, but will include more balanced volumes of swimming, cycling, and running.

I'm going to go sit in an ice bath for a week. My butt cheeks are coming along for the ride as well. Over and out.

Ben

2008 Race #2: Snake River Sprint Triathlon

OK, before you read this race report, you must agree to view the following video one, and video two featuring my adorable brand new baby twins, River and Terran Greenfield!

Now that we've stared at two scowling babies and my stinky crotch, it's down to business. The second race of this season, the Snake River Sprint Triathlon, is similar to the Vancouver UBC - a bit unorthodox due to it's early date. The swim actually takes place on a Friday night, then you are seeded in the next morning's bike/run according to your swim splits. This is because the only body of water in Lewiston, the Snake/Clearwater river is just a bit cold, like suck-your-genitals-up-into-your-body cold.

I am the defending champion of this race, and was confident going in that I could repeat. Lewiston, ID was bitter cold on both Friday and Saturday, making for snowy and chilly race conditions. Nothing like time trialing your bike through a snowstorm! I considered wearing my snowsuit, but was concerned about the puffy legs getting sucked into my chain. ;)

The swim was smooth. Friday night I showed up, signed in, and waited my turn to swim. My 500m was a 6:13, and since I was aiming for a 6:15, I was happy with it. Later this season, once I've laid down my speedwork, I'll be fine to break 6:00, but for an early season race, this was a good time for me. I swam very hard, and was proud of myself for not peeing in the pool, which I will occasionally do when I swim that hard.

The next morning, I headed out to the bike/run portion. Upon arriving at the race, I found out that there were a few swimmers faster than me, including some young girl racing on a team division that swam 5 minutes and change. Humbling. I swear, kids are doping at younger and younger ages.

For this race, pre-race breakfast was a chocolate Bumblebar and a yam. Yum. I slammed a GU gel prior to the bike time trial and used GU sports drink from a CeeGees water bottle during the bike event, mixed at about 200 calories in 6oz, since I didn't want much fluid volume but wanted a dense sugar solution to keep my blood levels elevated. I also load with Millennium Sports Kreaceps and Citruvol for 3 days prior to the race, and took Hammer Gel race caps, Impax enerprime, and Impax Delta E to amp up the volume a bit more. Afterward, of course, I refueled with Wicked Fast Recoverease branched chain amino acids, since I've got a killer bike camp to coach next week (check it out at solvangtriathloncamps.com - I'll be blogging while I'm down there hopefully).

The bike was fast, and I passed everyone but first place, who I rode into transition directly behind. This guy, Michael Berquist, is known for being a very speedy short courser, and I knew it'd be tough to out-run him, so I was a bit apprehensive about not being in front of him on the bike. Since Michael is stationed at Fairchild air base, he was unable to make it to the swim the night before and "phoned in" his swim time (which incidentally was 25 seconds faster than mine), so I was surprised on race morning to see him there (and surprised the race director actually allowed this, since the rules clearly state that if you cannot swim, you are given a slower "default" swim time). Not that it's Michael's fault that the race director let him break the rules, but I did feel a bit strange that I had to drive down the night before, swim in a foreign pool, sleep in a hotel room, and get up the next morning to race, while he stayed home and called in a swim time (unverified by race officials) from his home pool. This seems unfair to me.

Michael outran me by about 20 seconds, and although I beat my last year's time by 2 minutes, I ended up with a 2nd place overall and 1st place division. I was happy with the showing for a quick weekend race, and a big shout out to my sponsors, especially Wheelsport East, who is busting butt to hook me up with a carbon time trial bike for this race season (keeping fingers crossed that it gets here in time for Ironman!). I have to admit that I have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth after this race about the first place guy not actually racing against me in the pool, but life goes on, and there are bigger and better races coming down the pipeline, so stay tuned!

Cheers,
Ben Greenfield

1st Race of 2008 - TriBC

Wow. TriBC is a big race! I'm sitting here on my computer at 1pm, the race "officially" began at 7:30am, and there is still wave after wave of triathletes hitting the pool, like little lemmings in bike shorts.

Lastnight, stayed at Ramada Inn on Granville St. in Vancouver. Justin, my co-worker who I travelled up with, agrees with me that this might be the "red-light" district of Vancouver, evidenced by the plethora of porn-shops, clubs, bars, hookers, and, of course, screaming ambulances, police sirens, and drunken voices keeping us awake into the wee hours of the morning. It was like trying to sleep on the couch of a frat house living room on a Saturday night. Not that I've ever had to do that.

So needless to say, I was a bit groggy on Sunday morning when we packed up the car and headed to University of British Columbia (UBC) for the race. So groggy, in fact, that I left the Zipp 606's leaning against a white pick-up truck in the parking lot of the hotel. 30 minutes later, as I stood in the parking garage of UBC, I realized my mistake. This is a $2000 wheelset. It does not belong to me.

I said some really nice things, like, "Oh Darn" and "Fudge", then hopped back into the car to race back to Ramada with 1 hour to race start, leaving Justin at UBC to go check-in my wheel-less bike. That must have left some head scratching at bike check-in.

Drove 70mph through residential zones back to Granville St. As I pulled onto Granville, a car flashed it's lights at me. I didn't have mine on. I stopped and peeled the dead squirrels, rabbits, and reflective running vests off my windshield, then kept going. ;)

At 7am, breathless, I arrived back at the race, Zipps in hand. Apparently hungover Vancouver prostitutes have no use for an aero wheelset early on Sunday morning.

This is a weird race, because they send you into the 50 meter pool one-by-one, and you trip the timing mat with an ankle chip as you start the swim. You literally zig-zag through the pool, swimming under lane lines, up to the 1500m mark. I tucked in behind some fella in a Blue Seventy Point Zero 3 Speedskin and hung on for dear life, drafting for the entire 30 lengths. I downed a gel while running 300m in bare feet to bike transition. The swim felt easy, because I'm a draft wuss. Official swim time: 24:34

Aside from the unique swim, the rest of the race is pretty orthodox. 40K bike, technical, lots of twists and 180 degree turns. I came out of the pool in 6th and had a very long transition onto the bike (hey - I haven't shaken off the off-season rust quite yet!) With a light sprinkle from the sky, I was nervous about sliding my bike off the road on every corner, but had to ride hard to stay in the running. I managed to avoid crashing and passed 2 dudes. My non-gloved hands were blue when I got off the bike, and not because I ran over a Smurf. That was in the car when I was driving back to the hotel. It was freakin' cold! (mid-40's) Official bike time: 1:02.42

I came off the bike in 4th and proceeded to run my first hard run of the season. I have done zero speedwork so I knew this 10K was going to hurt. You know you're in trouble when you have to start "counting steps" at 1/2 mile to stay focused. The guys in front of me were flying and there were some very fast looking UBC triathletes behind me, so I was kinda uncomfortably sandwiched. My legs died at about 5 miles, but I managed to fight off an up-and-coming UW Husky in the last 20 meters to finish the run in 3rd. Official run time: 36:51

Official age group and overall placing: 1st age, 3rd overall

I hurt. Going to go check out the ITU 2008 World Championships bike course across town, then drive 7 hours back go Spokane!

Over and out,

Ben Greenfield

P.S. For you nutrition junkies out there, pre-race meal: two packets Perpetuum, 6 Impax Enerprime tablets, 2 Impax Delta-E's, 1 Impax Prost-Elan, 3 Millennium Sports Cordygen5, 1 Hammer Gel Race Caps (yeah, I ate my sweet potatoes the night before). During the race: 300 cal HEED on the bike, 1 GU coming out of the swim.

P.P.S. For you tri-junkies out there, Blue Seventy goggles, VO2 max suit on the swim, with long sleeve bike jersey pulled over it on the bike, Giro Transition 2 helmet, Specialized 2007 Transition Elite bike, Zipp 606 wheelset, CeeGees Aero Bottle and Aero Pads, Asics Magic Racer shoes.