Military World Championships (continued)

Somewhere around 3:00 AM on Sunday, 15 June, I woke with terrible back and hamstring pain. They didn’t just hurt, but also had a terrible burning sensation. I’m surprised the pain didn’t wake me sooner. After my back injury in 1997, I’ve had trouble sleeping pain free on most beds. At home, I have a king sized, deluxe Tempurpedic, which is adjustable and has a massager and heating blanket. Even with that, I rarely have a great night (day) of sleep. I didn’t have trouble in California, but I took two-hour naps during the day and slept less at night. Three nights in Estonia really did a number on me. None of my little tricks helped make me comfortable.

At 3:30 I had to take action. My biggest race this year was 6 hours 46 minutes away. It’s only dark from 1 to 3 AM, so I went for a walk, taking short breaks to stretch. After a couple hours working on it with little success, I went to get the doc. As a matter of principal, I do not take meds for anything but extreme necessity. I can handle pain without a word of complaint, but I’m not fast enough to compete against top pros at all. Competing when I’m so tight that I can’t bend over far enough to touch my knees really had me worried. I’ve never been that tight.

I took a muscle relaxer and something for the pain as the doc, massage therapist and a team mate started working on me. I’m glad Dr. Bales (AF Team Mate/Surgeon) wasn’t there to work on me. He always asks to cut me open. Although he promises to sew me shut, it doesn’t seem that appealing. After six hours of work, I was barely able to sit and reach all the way to the middle of my shins. I was glad they were able to help so much and thankful my team helped me get my gear to the transition area and alleviate my high level of stress. I don’t mind showing up at last minute for a race as long as it isn’t a national or especially a world championship.

As I got ready, I added the week’s training numbers. I hadn’t swam since the previous Sunday at a sprint in California in which Team USA had free entry. We took the top four spots. I was 2nd to our top guy. I biked twice for 32 miles. My run was way down at about 21 for the previous 7 days. International travel is hard on training. The numbers were similar on the way home. I didn’t want to do a bunch of training before the race, but preferred to do more and get some quality. Spending the final week without swimming had me worried. It’s very important to success in ITU. Throw in my super tight hamstrings and back and my usual worry free approach was a high anxiety affair.

I was ready to race in time to see the masters men start. McCoy’s cap ripped, so he found another green cap, but a brighter shade, which helped identify him. He was in good position as they came out of the water for the 2nd loop. That’s about all I got to see of his race. With the four waves and a two loop swim, it was a bit of a crazy start, but I lined up at the back of the USA corral and started patiently behind an extremely fast field of swimmers. Back home, I’m one of the faster swimmers when I bring my A game. Here, my very best would still have me behind more than 75% of the swimmers.

I found feet to follow, but was too tight to get good extension or roll. My usually weak kick, which is more like a twitch, strained my back, but I did my best. As I ran onto the beach after lap 1, I looked back to see how many athletes I was leading. I can process numbers pretty quickly and was determined to get an accurate count. As it turns out, counting was pretty easy. It went like this … there’s one. Look closer behind me and scan behind that swimmer. OK, so I’m next to last. This sucks! After all these years waiting for a wet-suit swim at MWTC, which really improves my rank, I have an atrocious swim. I really motored the second lap, closing in on the leaders (ha ha), passing three to finish 82nd of 86 with a time of 22:57. The fastest swim time was 16:25!

After seriously contemplating a DNS, I was glad to be out of the water. I would finish, regardless of how long it took. I was willing to take all day. I ran hard to my bike, but knew drafting was going to be tough on this course since I was almost on my own. I saw a Swedish guy I’ve raced with since 2003 at MWTC. We are pretty comparable on the bike and run, but he’s always followed me out of the water. He’s been trying to work on his swim and turned pro this year (racing half Iron), so like our plan last year, we were going to work together on the bike together. I’ve always beat him out of the water by quite a bit and came in thinking this year would be no different, but I was wrong. I took a moment to eat a gel in T1 and headed out onto the three-loop bike course that was well over 40K. T1 time: 1:01, which was :28 slower than the fastest T1. I didn’t even pretend to care.

Once on the bike, I could feel the strain on my hams as we immediately tackled a 10% grade hill. My Swedish team mate (I’m their adopted team mate since I’m Swedish too), made up the few seconds as I caught the top Canadian triathlete (they use real military members like the US, but it would have been cool to see Whitfield race). Having two guys I could communicate with and trust to work with me, with one of them being a strong cyclist (Sweden), seemed like the perfect way to get myself back into this race. Well, I could have Armstrong’s US Postal TDF Time Trial Team pulling me and I wouldn’t get “into” this race, but you know what I mean. After my first pull heading into the next hill, my Swedish friend and Canadian guy attacked. Lucky for me, they caught a small group a bit ahead. They took them a moment to recover before deciding to pass.

I caught the group and rested a moment just as they locked onto the wheels of my two companions descending a hill. That group began to fall apart at the next hill. I worked my way through dropped cyclists and pulled through, then peeled off. Again, I was attacked by Canada and Sweden. I was irritated they’d do that, but amused that they’d attack a nobody at the back end of the race instead of using me to help them catch more riders. My run isn’t the stuff of legend, so it’s certainly not feared in Canada and Sweden. Back home, I’ve only been outsplit once this year in the 2nd run or 1st in triathlon (by Jason Jablonski … who hasn’t). I’ve outsplit some fast guys, but at this race, I’d likely be somewhere in the middle. So the senseless bike battle continued. I’d get dropped and have to spend about a mile catching back up. I wasn’t going to let them get rid of me.

Starting lap 2, they put in a vicious attack on the first hill, right after I pulled. They saw a gap and started trading places to increase their advantage and catch the next group. The group was small, but caused them to slow in a couple places while working their way through. After spending everything I had, I was able to reel them in a half lap later. Three USA guys were in the pack, which I thought could help me. One was struggling after a pull and I helped him back into the line. I was hurting too, so I wasn’t able to watch out for him any more. Two of them fell out quickly. The third lasted for a few miles. My legs recovered and I decided I wasn’t going to do my share any more. I’d skip a pull each time to rest up for the next attack. As expected, they kept attacking, but my plan helped me stay on their wheels. With a half lap to go, they realized they weren’t getting rid of me and settled down. We biked around 26.75 to 27 miles, but I don’t have an accurate number. I mention that because my time was 1:06:50.6, which was 68th fastest. Oddly enough, it put me in 68th place. The fastest bike time was 58:35.4 (amazing speed and team work to do that on a long hilly course).

My T2 wasn’t the unmotivated effort of T1, but I had trouble lugging my bike as my back and hamstrings tried to lock up. T2 took :39 as I kept an eye on Canada and Sweden. I was going to make them pay. I know they’re big words for a small fish in a big pond. Don’t make me angry. You won’t like to race me when I’m angry. My legs were fried from the attacks. An XC run on tired legs played to my strength. As expected, Sweden was running strong. I needed a couple laps to recover while red lining. Starting lap two he had put about :10 more on the :09 he had starting the run. My legs were coming back and he was too. Canada had been dropped early and my race was about catching Sweden. Early in lap 4, I made the pass. Normally I’d extend a hand or offer an encouraging word, but I wasn’t in the mood after his bike tactics. To help me make the pass stick, I keyed on another runner and decided to run him down. In the end, I was only able to pass three people on the run. Physically I passed a lot more than that, but they were women or runners a lap ahead of me. I didn’t get a measure on the run course, so I don’t know how accurate it was. It had challenging terrain with plenty of turns and scattered with people. My time was 36:23, which was good for 45th (43rd was the middle I expected). Only three runners were able to break 32 and just nine were under 33 minutes, so it was a pretty tough course. .

Bottom line for the race was 2:07:50, good for 65th place. Compare that to a two-time Olympian (4th or 6th in 2004) with a time of 1:49:25 and you can see just how big the gap in speed is. I will say that he had a phenomenal group to ride with. Germany swept the podium, but had several other teams/riders willing to work together to turn it into a runner’s race. That kind of team work probably shaved off several minutes in several ways, but it still blows my mind how fast these guys are. I was the only US athlete, male or female to have a slower swim time than at Armed Forces. All other 16 athletes from the US swam much faster. If I swam like they did, then I would have gone under 21:00, which I’ve done in the pool and in accurate open water swims in the past year. That would equate to biking a couple minutes faster as part of a 21-person group. Being part of that group would mean plenty of rest and no chasing attackers. My legs wouldn’t have been fried and I could have run a minute faster. All said and done, that would mean I could have shaved five minutes and 13 places. Gotta love the “what ifs.”

The US Elite Men’s team placed 13th. They score the top three from each team. Since I was 3rd on my team, I was a scoring member for the first time. I’ve been last in my previous three attempts. My run time was the fastest of the US, which is also pretty cool. Mike McCoy was 4th in the master’s division, after falling a few seconds behind bronze on the run. He did bring home gold as part of the top masters team, which scores 2 men and one woman. Following the race, we had several hours to get cleaned up and recover before awards and closing ceremony. In the past, it’s been immdeiately after the race, causing many to pass out from standing at the position of attention in the hot summer sun for over an hour. I don't know about you, but after the hardest race of the year, I don't like to immediately get cleaned up, put on a suit and stand motionless in the hot sun. There's no stretching, scratching, drinking, or adjusting in any fashion, etc. Troops stand motionless and silent, end of story. This time we’d also have shade and cool air to keep us comfortable. Following awards was another great dinner and a post race party. I was having trouble getting around and pretty tired, so I turned in early.

The next day was culture day in Tallinn, Estonia. We toured the city on bus first, then our tour guides took us on foot through the city for shopping, food, sight seeing, etc. It was a really cool experience. Following our tour, we had a final athlete dinner and party before heading to our room for a short night of sleep before a long trip back. At the airport I got to hang out with the podium-sweeping men’s team and female champion from the German team. They’re so nice and encouraging, saying that I could be that fast if I trained full time like they did. It’s much appreciated, but if I had that kind of potential, then I would train full time. Three of us were heading into Chicago, but they had double booked our seats. I missed home terribly and wasn’t giving up my seat and encouraged McCoy and the other US guy to keep their seat. A flight attendant came back to find us in matching uniforms and holding our ground. Upon hearing that we were US Troops coming back from representing the US in the Military World Triathlon Championships, she moved us up to business class. We had seats that reclined all the way back, thick blankets, remote tv/movies, all sorts of free food and beverages, a buffet and a bathroom with windows. It was a pretty comfy way to make an international trip.

Now I’m home and writing this the week after Ironman, so I feel like the season is over. I’m sure I’ll find some challenges to keep me from getting too lazy. On the other hand, it’s nice to relax after having so much pressure to peak three months early.

Looking back at the German team and several others, I'm puzzled about their athletes' inclusion into their military. Their national federation puts their top ten members into the military for the purpose of competing. That's their job. When they're no longer more competitive than another athlete for their country, they're removed from the military. What purpose does that serve a military? Our athletes are in the military first and try to earn those spots. If they succeed, then great. If they don't, then they still serve in his/her job. In the process, they become fitter along with all of those who try to get a spot on the team or WCAP. We become a resource and motivation for other troops who want to compete for a spot or just want to get in better shape. It breeds fitness and competition that runs completely through the ranks. That is an important difference that the other militaries failed to match. It also helps develop a fitter fighting force for the US. Not all of us will be racers and some are terribly unfit, but for the most part, these programs are well worth the cost and I'm honored to be recognized as one of the top athltetes in the US Armed Forces. That's why I always proudly wear my colors to the races in which I compete.