F1, St. Anthony’s, Mallorca Camp, FGP Dunkerque, WTS Madrid, FGP Les Sables,
and my Future Plans.
After WTS San Diego I stuck around for the F1 super sprint
race on Wednesday. Even though I had recovered well, something happened during
the race that messed me up big time. I don’t know if I was having allergies or if
I was just sick, but my entire body shut down. I ended up dropping out on the
first run because I couldn’t breathe and my heart rate was extremely high. Greg
Welch who was announcing took my HR when I dropped out, and after three minutes
it was still 190!
After that race my body was absolutely destroyed. I was
supposed to race St Anthony’s in Florida the upcoming weekend as well, but
ended up sleeping for literally the next three days.
After a week back in Clermont of extremely easy training and
recovery I was finally back to normal and ready to start my European season. To
start things off we had a 3 week long camp in Mallorca, Spain - a beautiful island
off the coast of actual Spain. One of my squad mates, Mario Mola, is a hero in
Mallorca as it’s where he grew up. With his prestige, “El Jefe” and the
ministry of tourism hooked us up! We lived at a hotel with a buffet breakfast
and dinner, right on the ocean within walking distance of the pool and access
to an amazing track center…. All for FREE!
It was an amazing camp and I had the
best riding I’ve had since being back in Santa Cruz. The only bad thing was
that ever since San Diego I had been having ankle and shin issues and hadn’t
been running. Lots of aqua jogging and elliptical made up the majority of my “running
sessions” but this meant I was swimming and biking better than ever.
From the camp in Mallorca I was supposed to race the French
Grand Prix in Dunkerque but there was a mix up with my team and I ended up not
getting a start. Because of that I stayed with Richard Murray in Mallorca for
an extra week and flew straight to WTS Madrid.
I got to Madrid on Thursday just before race briefing and was feeling alright. The next day I did a
bike ride with Mario and Kyle Jones and we did a five minute build up the
Madrid course hill. We rode hard, and I was having trouble breathing but I just
figured it was because the effort was intense. By the time race day came around
I had been having trouble sleeping and I was very nervous about the race – More
nervous then is normal or healthy. I just went on with my normal pre-race
routine and hit the start line as ready as I could be.
During the swim I had a
clear start and got on good feet right away and tried to conserve as much
energy as possible so I would be ready for the first lap of the bike. I swam on
feet the whole time so that I could just cruise and that plan worked perfectly.
Despite placing myself well, my arms felt odd during the second lap and I was
having issues getting a proper amount of air in which wasn’t allowing me to relax.
When we were running to our bike I had a good transition and was perfectly
positioned, but by the time I got to the top of the hill I was absolutely gasping
for air and was having similar symptoms to the F1 race. But I learned from that
mistake and decided to call it a day right then at the top of the hill. I
realized that was a crappy place to stop because then I would have to walk all
the way back down to transition so I decided to keep riding until I got back to
transition. So I rode back down and then got off my bike. My chest hurt for a
couple days afterwards but I was able to recover much quicker because I stopped
and didn’t push myself over the limit. I’m pretty sure I was having allergy
issues in Madrid and at the F1 race that were causing me to have asthmatic
symptoms and am going to get tested for anything that will hinder me in the
future.
I ended up staying in Madrid with Jarrod Shoemaker, Mario
Mola, and Carol Routier for another week before flying to the FGP Les Sables
race. The whole week I was having breathing issues but still got some okay
training in. At this point I decided to just not run at all to let my ankle and
shin fully recover, which was a good decision. Even though I felt my body was
ready to go I forced myself to not run and it paid off.
By the time I traveled from Madrid to Les Sables my body was
fully recovered and there was no pain in my chest or in my ankle or shin. I love
being near the ocean and being able to breath what I consider to be the
freshest air ever! I ended up running for 20 minutes before the race and felt
like a super hero. I was so happy to be back to normal. I was really excited
about this race too because the swim was a long “750m” swim (12.5 minutes) and
the bike was extremely technical and hilly so that a breakaway was more likely to
stay away. My team mate Raoul exited the water with about 15 seconds on me, but
I had a good transition and bridged up to him after about two minutes on the
bike. When I got to him I was feeling the best I’ve felt in a race since
Sarasota and was ready to rock and roll. At the top of the hill I tightened my
right shoe, then we started going downhill and I bent down to tighten my left
shoe, and so I was just focused on tightening my shoe and staying on Raoul’s wheel.
At this point it was raining and the road was nice and slick. Another factor
was that Raoul and I had about 10-15 seconds on the next small group of
athletes so we were pushing the pace hard. Because of these two things (and
being the first athletes on the course) we came in a bit too hot on one of the
main first turns. When I looked up after tightening my shoe, I saw the turn as
I was able to sneak a peek around Raoul and knew immediately that I was going
down. I tried my best to make the turn but there wasn’t anything I could do. I
ended up sliding about 15-20m on the road, up a curb, into a bush, and stopping
against a light pole underneath the bush (I found out afterwards that Raoul ended
up crashing about 5m in front of me as well). For the next minute as I was
lying under the bush unable to move, there was about 10 more crashes on that
same corner. I had to ride in an ambulance
back to the medical tent and get treatment, which was a first for me, but the
medics got all the gravel, dirt, grass, and sticks out of my body and cleaned
me up nicely.
The day after the race Richard and I had an 11 hour travel
day from Les Sables, France to Banyoles, Spain via car, plane, shuttle, train,
bus, waiting, and walking. We made it just fine, but it was a hectic travel day
after a nasty crash and with everything I own in two bags. I will be based here
in Banyoles until I head home in September.
To quote my friend, squad mate, and huge inspiration, Sarah
Groff: “Better days to come, I swear – these rough patches are all part of the journey!”
… Let the journey continue!
