Hello fellow CTCr's!

We are fully in the swing of summer. I hope all of you are happy, healthy and your training is going well.

Let me begin by welcoming two of our newest members:

Samantha Jenkins and Lisa Riehle – Welcome to the Chico Triathlon Club!!!  We look forward to seeing you out and about!

Recent Races

We had another HUGE triathlon weekend last weekend.

Pacific Crest Endurance in Sunriver, OR saw a big contingent of CTC athletes. We had 9 athletes up there racing between the Long Course and Olympic Distance. Manny Mejia and Eric Ayars were kind enough to share their race reports with the group (which are awesome) and you can find them on the front page of our website.

Michael Daily had a strong performance at Ironman Couer d’Alene and Mike Marvier had a very solid day at the Sacramento International Triathlon.

Congratulations to all the triathletes out there doing their best!  You make us all proud.

You can check out recent race results here - http://www.chicotriathlonclub.com/results/. (thanks to Greg Watkins for compiling)

If we missed anyone, please let me know!

Summer Party

Many thanks go out to Sean and Forough Molina for hosting the annual CTC Summer Party. I understand there were over 70 people there having fun, sharing ideas, stories and getting to know eachother.  And Manny Mejia walked away the winner of the brand new Xterra Wetsuit! Congratulations Manny!

Upcoming events:

CTC Time Trial

As this is week will be the first Thursday of the month, we will NOT be out at the track Thursday night (tonight). We will be hosting the Chico Tri Club "First Thursday TT." We are going to be set up at the start of the 10 mile TT course on River Road (where 5th street turns into Chico River Road) at 5:30. Riders will be leaving at 6:01. This is a great way to test your fitness and see how you are improving.

Graeagle Triathlon

We have a fairly large contingent of athletes rolling up to Graeagle this weekend for some Triathlon action on July 6^th.  Sounds like it should be a great time. If you are interested in registering, please let me know as I have a code to save you a few bucks.

Mark your Calendars:

The Granite Bay Sprint Distance Club Championship - 51 days and counting

This event will be held on August 23rd and is the last club race of the year.  CTC will reimburse up to $70 of the entry fees for the first 35 racers to request it. (Check out the website for details.)

Thanks again to our AWESOME sponsors - Simply Results Physical Therapy, Mom's/The Bear and Jacqueline Losi, Dermatology.  We couldn't do cool stuff like this without them, so please take a moment to visit the folks that support the sport.

If you haven’t signed up yet, get on it! Every athlete finishing the race counts towards points for our club to win the championship!! You don't have to be on the podium to help the club, you just have to finish. :) As of last count we have several available reimbursement spots left.

As athletes in a long season sport like triathlon, we are inevitably going to end up with some sort of ache, pain or injury.  This is a great time to mention that Kristi Ayars (of Simply Results Physical Therapy) invites you to ask questions of her any time, in any format: in person, by phone, or in email, about anything related to training, injury prevention, options in the face of pain or injury, etc. and anything else you might be wondering about.  She has a great wealth of knowledge and resources at her disposal, so if you have a question, please ask!!

Don't forget to check out the group workout schedule here. You can connect up with some local and like-minded folks.

Join the conversations on our yahoo group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/chicotriathlonclub/info

and at our Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/296289680516/

Until next time...Swim, ride, run and have some fun!!

Justin

The Pacific Crest Triathlon Olympic Distance would be my 2^nd triathlon this season and 6^th in my short triathlon career. I looked at the 2013 results/splits and judging by my current fitness, I felt a top 10 overall result would be a great result and my overall goal.

Swim- 1500 meters

Air Temperature- low 50s

Water conditions- 64 degrees (a little chilly IMO, but not over the top)

Gear – Xterra Vortex full sleeve wetsuit.

Goal- 26 minutes

I was in the second wave (1 minute behind the elite first wave) with the rest of the 29 and under triathletes, which included fellow CTCer David Watkins. There were about 120 people in the wave, which is the largest wave I’ve ever swam in. I was in a predicament in that I didn’t want to start too hard (i.e. getting out in the front of the pack, avoiding chaos), but I also didn’t want to get swamped. Since the race was at 4,500ft, I opted for a more conservative start. Unfortunately my 2^nd fear came to fruition and I spent the first 200 meters or so maneuvering around a lot of traffic. I eventually got into a good rhythm and tried to eliminate as much as possible “dead space”. Dead space is defined as intermittent loss of momentum due to sticking my head up, thus lowering my lower body and reducing drag. The most common cause of dead space for me is running into the back of slower swimmers and improper sighting. I really liked the swim course because it was marked with giant red buoys and intermediary yellow buoys for extra sighting support. The course consisted of two diamond shaped laps. The first lap consisted of more dead space then I would have liked, but I was really aggressive the second lap. I exited the water and crossed the first timing mat, looking at my watch, I was very happy to see 25 minutes 47 seconds.  My swim split was good for 50^th best overall.

T1

My T1 transition time was 1:51. Looking back at the top 10 finishers, the average T1 time was 1:30; therefore, I need to do better.

Bike- 28 miles

Air Temperature- high 50s to low 60s

Gear – 2004 Trek 2300 road bike, aero bars, and Giro Advanced 2 aero helmet.

Goal- Average close to 23 mph

Bike Course- rolling hills the first half (3-5% grades) and downhill/flat the second half. Total elevation gain just under 1,000 ft.

The bike course was tough; it was either up or down almost the entire way, so it was hard to change positions, as the climbs were not steep enough to really stand up. The bike was incredibly scenic and made the pain and suffering a little more enjoyable. Since, I was in the 2^nd wave, and the 1^st and 3^rd wave were only separated by two minutes, there were some really good cyclists around me at the beginning of the ride. I had fun passing the big boys on the uphill and smiled at myself when they came zooming by me on the downhill. Since, the last 14 miles were downhill and flat, I didn’t see those big boys again until the run. There was a slight headwind the last 10 or so miles, so I was bummed not to take full advantage of the downhill/flat sections. My TT set up needs a whole lot of work. Besides the fact I don’t have an aero bike, I know my position can improve. Shawn Hughes said I need a “real bike.” Just before I crossed the dismount line I looked at my computer which showed an average speed of 22.5mph. The entrance into T2 wasn’t for another 100 meters and it included a flight of steps. Therefore, technically my official bike speed was closer to 21.5. My bike split was 20^th overall.

T2

My transition time was 2:03 and the average transition times for the top 10 were 1:30. I need to be faster. Maybe I’ll go without socks next time, and maybe not take 5 steps in the wrong direction exiting T2.

Run- 10k

Air Temperature- mid to high 60s (perfect!)

Gear – Nike Air Zoom Streaks w/ socks

Goal- 38 minutes (average 6:07 miles)

Course- Rolling hills, not too difficult

With my background in running, the run is my ace in the hole. One aspect of triathlons I really enjoy is how much mental strength/focus it takes to finish a triathlon. In cross country and track, you can clearly see your competition, and you have a good idea if they are going to come back to you or away from you. In triathlon, I can be down 2 minutes (unbeknownst to me), but can still make up a lot of time.

My first mile was 6 minutes on the nose, but it was net downhill. The second mile had a short steep hill and going up it my quads started to cramp. I had a feeling I would cramp on the run given that I cramped really bad during the Olympic Big Bear Triathlon (very hilly bike at altitude) last year. I hated that experience and didn’t want a repeat, so I backed off the next couple of miles, telling myself I would be more aggressive the second half of the run. Mile two and three were 6:21 miles. I was catching a lot of people, including a lot of the big guys who crushed me on the bike. Mile 4 and 5 were the hilliest miles and my splits showed 6:30 and 6:45. I saw a lot of people stopping and stretching, so I didn’t feel too bad that I was cramping. With one mile to go, I told myself I needed to stop fooling around with this “I’m afraid to cramp attitude”. My last mile was 6:10 for a total time of 39:26 (6:21 avg mile). My run split was good for 9^th overall. I was roughly a minute and a half slower than my goal run time. I feel like I underperformed in the run which can be attributed to my mental approach during the run. I was afraid of cramping, so I backed off too much. In order to reach my full potential, I need to not be afraid to test my limits. Lesson learned.

Overall/Final thoughts:

Finishing time- 2:26:55

Finishing place- 9^th overall and 3^rd in my age group.

Hindsight is 20/20, but my takeaways from my race can be summed up with the following:

Swim- Reduce “dead space”, get out harder and try to draft a slightly faster swimmer, keep my head down to reduce drag

Bike- Don’t go out too hard, improve bike position (i.e. raise seat, lower bars, sell everything but my first born and by a Cervelo P2 ; )

Run- Be more aggressive, since this is my strongest area.

Manny

As everyone within earshot knows by now, this last year has been difficult for me with regards to training. I damaged my ankle on the Pacific Crest Long Course Triathlon last year, and it's been a very slow recovery.

So this year I went back to Pacific Crest again. I'd been training, but still wasn't quite where I'd like to be in terms of both speed and endurance. My main concern was finishing the run without further ankle problems; I had done long training runs without "breaking" anything, but it still felt fragile. With that in mind, I started the race with the goal of just finishing respectably, and at the very least finishing faster than last year when I spent over two hours limping through the run course. I figured 5:30 would be a reasonable goal.

The swim was refreshingly cool, and the temperature was perfect on the bike. My power meter went on the fritz early in the bike course, so I paced myself with heartrate alone and probably underdid it. There's a fair amount of climbing on this course —it goes over Bachelor Pass— but compared to my other half-iron experiences (Auburn "World's Toughest Half" and Wildflower Long Course) it's not bad. I got off the bike at 3:38, and then the real test began.

My goal pace for the run was 8 min/mile, and I must have checked my Garmin every 15 seconds through that whole 13 miles. For the first half of the run, it kept telling me to slow down! By mile 7, I was still on pace and my ankle was not giving me any trouble at all; that's when I began to really believe that I would make my goal. I slowed to 8:30 pace for the last two miles (exhaustion, not ankle trouble) but finished with a grin.

Final time: 5:25:37. That's a new record for me for half-iron distance, and my ankle is just fine.

And now, credit where credit is due: Chico Triathlon Club, and Kristi. It is an amazing privelege to train with this group of incredibly talented athletes. Greg, Sean, Joanne, Manny, Jackie, Jason, Josh, Justin, and all the rest of you: I wouldn't be anywhere near this level of fitness without the hours I've spent trying to just keep up. Thank you. And Kristi, thank you for all the physical therapy and for the training time. I couldn't do it without you.

Oceanside, anyone? I'd be interested in trying a half-iron course that doesn't have a mountain in the middle of it.