Saturday, March 6, 2010
Project California
Cervelo just posted their new video on the development and pro testing of their new ultra-light frame. Not for the faint of heart--frameset is retailing at around $9600.
New sponsors for 2010
Excited to report my new sponsors for the 2010 season. This year I'll be racing for Toga/Gotham, Brooks and Rudy Project.
I continue to be coached by Alex Mrosczyk McDonald of Team Timex and Personal Best Multisport.
I continue to be coached by Alex Mrosczyk McDonald of Team Timex and Personal Best Multisport.
Ironman Arizona Race Photos
Finally, some pictures from the race itself.
Swim just seconds after the cannon has gone off.
The human cement mixer, up close.
Swim exit, looking graceful as always.
Biking through the middle of the desert.
And more biking...
Start of the run.
Digging deep at the halfway point.
Finish.
Swim just seconds after the cannon has gone off. 
The human cement mixer, up close.
Swim exit, looking graceful as always.
Biking through the middle of the desert.
And more biking...
Start of the run.
Digging deep at the halfway point.
Finish.Thursday, March 4, 2010
Race Report #10, the Big One: Ironman Arizona
It's been several months since I finished up my 2009 race season with Ironman Arizona and I figured that it was about time to put together a race report. Tie up loose threads and then on with 2010.
It's hard to explain the emotional roller coaster that is Ironman, but I'm going to try because looking back those ups and downs were the most striking thing about my race this year.
Emotion #1, Excitement:
You spend a year preparing for your A Race and days getting setup at the race site. Despite all of that, excitement only seems to settle in just seconds before the canon goes off. So there I was, bobbing around in 62F water along with 2200 other racers. It is 6:59am. The DJ starts pumping up the crowd with some techno. And that's when the excitement bubbles up inside you. Fifteen. Ten. Five. BOOM! The canon goes off and those ten or so seconds of excitement immediately vanish. I'm in the middle of a human cement mixture and it's time to go.
Emotion #2, Confidence:
I came out of the water around 1:10--a little further back than I had hoped--but I felt good. I was pretty warm despite the cold water. My muscles felt loose and relaxed. I jumped on my bike, rolled out of T1, got out of the saddle and just hammered out of town for about 10 minutes. I felt great. I was synch with my bike. My legs were turning over and my disc wheel pulsed with this steady, hypnotic rhythm. I knew that I needed to pace myself but things felt good. This was going to be my day. I was going to crush this bike, get out there and run my heart out and get myself that slot to the World Championships. Confidence.
Emotion #3, Fear:
An Ironman bike is a long, steady ride. But things can change in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. You can flat or crash. You can get a penalty. Hit a pothole and lose your nutrition. And when these things happen, it's hard not to panic.
For the first half of the bike, I cruised along at a great pace. On the way out of town, I was holding about 18mph into a head wind and then on the turn-around kicked it up to about 32mph. Not bad. But, on the second turn-around (heading out of town again), my pace dropped to 15mph. I struggled with strong, strong headwinds and just felt like I was grinding away at about 240W--definitely too hot for me. As I hit the round-about to head back towards town for the second time, I felt wiped. I was only about 60 miles into the ride and things just weren't feeling right. And as I began to realize all of this, panic settled in. "I shouldn't be this empty. I have a whole day ahead of me. What's going on?" In only 20 minutes, the race started to feel like it was getting away from me.
Emotion #4 and #5, Confidence and Fear, again:
I thought back to the many chats I've had with my coach and tried to calm down. Alex always says that easing off and tending to nutritional needs can salvage things pretty quickly. So that's exactly what I did. I settled into a near Granny effort of about 150W and gulped down all my remaining sport drink and threw down a few gels.
Within 10 minutes, I felt about 10 times better. I had mapped out nutritional needs with the same hourly quotas at normal but must have underestimated them...Maybe my low body fat heading into the race was lower than usual or the higher intensity I maintained was making harder for my body to use fat. In any case, I had just needed extra fuel.
With my reserves topped up a bit, I picked up the pace a little bit and cruised towards T2 more or less on schedule.
I started the run off strong and felt great. I held a fairly easy 7:50/mi and did the occasional pick-up to pass other guys in my age group. Around mile 8 I caught a racer in M35-39 and set my pace off of him... Worked out perfectly.
But then at about the halfway point of the marathon, I started to feel a weird twinge in my left quad. I didn't pay too much attention to it and figured it was just late-race fatigue settling in. Over the next two miles, however, both legs started to tweak every so often. Cramps were settling in. Having trained through a relatively cool summer and rainy fall in New York, I hadn't had to do much salt/hydration practice. Well, that was coming back to bite me. I had relied nearly entirely on heavy duty sport drink for my salt. And, in the desert air of Tempe, that was hardly enough.
By mile 15 both legs were starting to lock up with each stride. The cramping in my quads turned into a repeated and painful cycle with each turnover. At each aid station, I grabbed as much fluid and salt as possible but there really wasn't much I could do except for damage control. I felt like I had a shot at qualifying for Worlds, but that all depended on me keeping pace and continuing to pick guys off. As my leg cramps got worse, I started to slow. The only thing taking my mind off the pain in my quads was the fear of my race falling apart.
Emotion #6, Nothing:
At mile 18, I came across 4 guys running 4-a-breast. Looking down at their calves, I realized that they were in my age group. Alex had told me to hold until mile 20 and then start to empty the tank... but at this point, who knew what was going to happen with my quads. "Maybe I should just hang behind these guys for a few miles and then try to go if I have anything left... Or maybe I need to go now. Who knows how many other guys are up ahead of these four." In the end, I decided to drop the hammer a bit and I took off in front of them. I made sure not to look back and to try and look as strong as possible. As I hit a bend in the course, I glanced back. I had opened up about 300m and they were not pursuing.
From this point forward, I just grit my teeth, up-ed my pace and shut down my mind. My legs hurt in a sharping shooting way that I had never before experienced. But, empty-minded, the remaining miles just seemed to roll by.
Emotion #7, Everything all at once:
And then, before I knew it, I came up on the Mile 25 marker and it struck me: my good buddy Pete Curtin had collapsed and later died right at this point in his marathon. The absurdity of what had happened to him hit me right in the gut. I teared up a bit, then dropped the hammer once more and powered in to the finish.
As I approached the line, the noise of the crowd grew louder and louder and I just broke down inside. A very long days of ups and downs.
I came up on the line just as the sun was starting to set. I heard them announce "Cameron Brien, from New York, New York, you are an Ironman." I crossed. Stumbled a bit. Sat down. And then I choked back tears for about 5 minutes while my girlfriend Posie just placed her hand on my shoulder. The rest is history.
My first Ironman had been an emotional day but to actually race this distance--as opposed to simply finish--is so much more intense of an
experience. I didn't end up qualifying but was damn close. And, I PRed the race by a whole 1:22. A really, really wonderful result. But, looking back, I'm most proud of having held it together when things got tough. The hardest part of Ironman racing is digging yourself out of those few, very deep craters that you find yourself in during the course of a very long day.
It's hard to explain the emotional roller coaster that is Ironman, but I'm going to try because looking back those ups and downs were the most striking thing about my race this year.
Emotion #1, Excitement:
You spend a year preparing for your A Race and days getting setup at the race site. Despite all of that, excitement only seems to settle in just seconds before the canon goes off. So there I was, bobbing around in 62F water along with 2200 other racers. It is 6:59am. The DJ starts pumping up the crowd with some techno. And that's when the excitement bubbles up inside you. Fifteen. Ten. Five. BOOM! The canon goes off and those ten or so seconds of excitement immediately vanish. I'm in the middle of a human cement mixture and it's time to go.
Emotion #2, Confidence:
I came out of the water around 1:10--a little further back than I had hoped--but I felt good. I was pretty warm despite the cold water. My muscles felt loose and relaxed. I jumped on my bike, rolled out of T1, got out of the saddle and just hammered out of town for about 10 minutes. I felt great. I was synch with my bike. My legs were turning over and my disc wheel pulsed with this steady, hypnotic rhythm. I knew that I needed to pace myself but things felt good. This was going to be my day. I was going to crush this bike, get out there and run my heart out and get myself that slot to the World Championships. Confidence.
Emotion #3, Fear:
An Ironman bike is a long, steady ride. But things can change in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. You can flat or crash. You can get a penalty. Hit a pothole and lose your nutrition. And when these things happen, it's hard not to panic.
For the first half of the bike, I cruised along at a great pace. On the way out of town, I was holding about 18mph into a head wind and then on the turn-around kicked it up to about 32mph. Not bad. But, on the second turn-around (heading out of town again), my pace dropped to 15mph. I struggled with strong, strong headwinds and just felt like I was grinding away at about 240W--definitely too hot for me. As I hit the round-about to head back towards town for the second time, I felt wiped. I was only about 60 miles into the ride and things just weren't feeling right. And as I began to realize all of this, panic settled in. "I shouldn't be this empty. I have a whole day ahead of me. What's going on?" In only 20 minutes, the race started to feel like it was getting away from me.
Emotion #4 and #5, Confidence and Fear, again:
I thought back to the many chats I've had with my coach and tried to calm down. Alex always says that easing off and tending to nutritional needs can salvage things pretty quickly. So that's exactly what I did. I settled into a near Granny effort of about 150W and gulped down all my remaining sport drink and threw down a few gels.
Within 10 minutes, I felt about 10 times better. I had mapped out nutritional needs with the same hourly quotas at normal but must have underestimated them...Maybe my low body fat heading into the race was lower than usual or the higher intensity I maintained was making harder for my body to use fat. In any case, I had just needed extra fuel.
With my reserves topped up a bit, I picked up the pace a little bit and cruised towards T2 more or less on schedule.
I started the run off strong and felt great. I held a fairly easy 7:50/mi and did the occasional pick-up to pass other guys in my age group. Around mile 8 I caught a racer in M35-39 and set my pace off of him... Worked out perfectly.
But then at about the halfway point of the marathon, I started to feel a weird twinge in my left quad. I didn't pay too much attention to it and figured it was just late-race fatigue settling in. Over the next two miles, however, both legs started to tweak every so often. Cramps were settling in. Having trained through a relatively cool summer and rainy fall in New York, I hadn't had to do much salt/hydration practice. Well, that was coming back to bite me. I had relied nearly entirely on heavy duty sport drink for my salt. And, in the desert air of Tempe, that was hardly enough.
By mile 15 both legs were starting to lock up with each stride. The cramping in my quads turned into a repeated and painful cycle with each turnover. At each aid station, I grabbed as much fluid and salt as possible but there really wasn't much I could do except for damage control. I felt like I had a shot at qualifying for Worlds, but that all depended on me keeping pace and continuing to pick guys off. As my leg cramps got worse, I started to slow. The only thing taking my mind off the pain in my quads was the fear of my race falling apart.
Emotion #6, Nothing:
At mile 18, I came across 4 guys running 4-a-breast. Looking down at their calves, I realized that they were in my age group. Alex had told me to hold until mile 20 and then start to empty the tank... but at this point, who knew what was going to happen with my quads. "Maybe I should just hang behind these guys for a few miles and then try to go if I have anything left... Or maybe I need to go now. Who knows how many other guys are up ahead of these four." In the end, I decided to drop the hammer a bit and I took off in front of them. I made sure not to look back and to try and look as strong as possible. As I hit a bend in the course, I glanced back. I had opened up about 300m and they were not pursuing.
From this point forward, I just grit my teeth, up-ed my pace and shut down my mind. My legs hurt in a sharping shooting way that I had never before experienced. But, empty-minded, the remaining miles just seemed to roll by.
Emotion #7, Everything all at once:
And then, before I knew it, I came up on the Mile 25 marker and it struck me: my good buddy Pete Curtin had collapsed and later died right at this point in his marathon. The absurdity of what had happened to him hit me right in the gut. I teared up a bit, then dropped the hammer once more and powered in to the finish.
As I approached the line, the noise of the crowd grew louder and louder and I just broke down inside. A very long days of ups and downs.
I came up on the line just as the sun was starting to set. I heard them announce "Cameron Brien, from New York, New York, you are an Ironman." I crossed. Stumbled a bit. Sat down. And then I choked back tears for about 5 minutes while my girlfriend Posie just placed her hand on my shoulder. The rest is history.
My first Ironman had been an emotional day but to actually race this distance--as opposed to simply finish--is so much more intense of an
experience. I didn't end up qualifying but was damn close. And, I PRed the race by a whole 1:22. A really, really wonderful result. But, looking back, I'm most proud of having held it together when things got tough. The hardest part of Ironman racing is digging yourself out of those few, very deep craters that you find yourself in during the course of a very long day.
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