The following is Mike Collins' personal account of his experience at the Triathlon World Championships in Madeira. Mike is Masters coach at the Irvine NOVA swim team, a top 35-39 competitor, and a regular contributor to SwimInfo.com<\/i><\/p>\n
"I just finished competing at the ITU World Triathlon Olympic Distance
\nChampionships (1.5k Swim-40k Bike-10k Run) in the city of Funchal on the
\nIsland of Madeira off the coast of Portugal on May 8th along with three other Nova Masters Swimmers.<\/p>\n
I had my best performance at the Worlds in three tries with a 5th place
\nfinish in the 35-39 age group. I finished 20th last year in Queenstown,
\nNZ (pretty out of shape by Dec), and 26th in 2002 when the race was in
\nCancun, Mexico (died in the extreme heat and humidity).<\/p>\n
For full results and splits go to: www.triathlon.org<\/p>\n
Now if you care to get more of the details you can read the long report
\nbelow.<\/p>\n
PRE-RACE<\/b>
\n============<\/p>\n
I arrived at the race site on Tuesday which I hoped would be enough time
\nto acclimate to the several hour time difference from California. I had been in Florida a few days before which helped a little in the 8 hour time
\ndifference.<\/p>\n
My bags didn't arrive with me so I couldn't do any running or swimming
\nbecause I only had the clothes I was wearing. My bike wasn't coming
\nuntil Thursday with Christen King.<\/p>\n
The Aquathlon race was Wednesday evening, but I was not competing. I had
\nmissed the online entry deadline and there was no pre-race registration
\nas there had been in the past two years. It was actually a good thing for me, as I was not ready to race yet. I was still screwed up from travel and my body needed a few days to get tuned up for a good race on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Did the usual race check-in, Team USA meeting, massage and chiro visits,
\nand other general preparation stuff that seems to make the days
\ndisappear quickly. Friday I checked my bike into transition, organized
\nall my race gear, and took a hot bath and did lots of stretching (the
\nsecret weapons I rarely get time to do before most races).<\/p>\n
On race day I went down to set-up transition at 7am and then went back
\nto the hotel for breakfast, stretching, and a swim because my race
\nwouldn't go off until 11am. That's a bad start time if it's a hot day,
\nbut it was only going to be in the 60-70's. I love late race starts \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
SWIM<\/b>
\n============
\nI swam the entire course EZ the day before. I stopped several times
\nalong the way to check navigation points on land and pick the points on
\nthe course where I would make attacks if needed and how far from the end
\nI could start pushing for the finish. It would be risky to go too hard
\nat the end of the swim with how long the run to the bike was, but I have
\ntrained to run fast right after swimming fast. <\/p>\n
We started in the water holding onto a floating dock. (The pros got to
\ndive off of it). I started on the far left because I like to breathe to
\nthe right and that allows me to see where everyone is. After two false
\nstarts we finally got a good one. I had a great streamline push-off from
\nthe dock and instantly had a body length lead on those around me. (SEE,
\neven triathletes can benefit from learning to streamline push off!) I
\nkept my head down and swam strong using the bottom to navigate instead
\nof lifting to sight. <\/p>\n
After about 300m I looked over to my right and almost thought there was
\nanother false start because I didn't see anyone. I looked again and
\nslightly back and saw some splashing and realized I had about a 20m lead
\nalready. I just kept my rhythm and jetted toward the turnaround. It was
\na long rectangular course going clockwise. There was some wind so it was
\na bit choppy on the way to the turnaround. I didn't bother looking for
\nthe buoys much because I had my land sights to keep me on track. I took
\nanother look near the turnaround back and to the right and still had a
\ngood gap on the field. Suddenly, just before the turn I felt some taps
\non my feet. One guy had gotten on my feet early in the swim and was
\nenjoying the free ride around the course. I checked at the turnaround
\nand saw it was just one guy though. I just kept my pace on the way back
\nand kept a little gas in the tank for the swim finish because pride
\nwould not let me drag this guy around the course and let him get out
\nfirst. I won the swim with him right on my feet, but we were 55 seconds
\nup on the rest of the field!<\/p>\n
TRANSITION 1<\/b>
\n============
\nThere was an extremely long run to the bike and through to the
\ntransition exit. The guy I just beat out of the water somehow got his
\nwetsuit off right out the water and came sprinting by me before we
\nreached our bikes to get out onto the bike first. <\/p>\n
BIKE<\/b>
\n=============
\nI had heard weeks before the race that the course was quite hilly and
\nthat it would probably be better to use a "road" style bike than a
\ntri-bike. I had been expecting to get a sweet new LeMond Titanium\/Carbon
\ncombo bike from my bike team, Coast Velo, but it never came in. With
\nless than a week to go to leave for my trip I got Hank at Edge
\nCyclesports to build up a Felt F1 Scandium road frame I bought with
\nrandom parts. The bike came out SWEET and light. I was a bit nervous
\nriding a new bike in such an important race, but he did a good job of matching the critical measurements, and after a test ride on a hill I often time, and went up 45 seconds faster, I was convinced it was the right bike to ride. It turned out to be the right choice as the bike worked beautifully and never missed a shift or skipped. Thanks Hank!<\/p>\n
In Maderia we were not allowed to pre-ride the course because it was on a
\nhighway. The only way to preview the course was by bus. The course was
\nout and back. Maderia is basically a big volcanic island, so once you
\nleave the coast you are going up. There was NO FLAT SPOT on the course
\nexcept for the first and last 1\/4 mile in and out of transition. Many
\nwondered if they would even need any aero bars. The course climbed
\nsteeply about 3 miles, dropped back down a bit with a steep short descent,
\nclimbed back up a bit and then descended quite a while to the turnaround
\nand came back the exact same way. The highway cut through several large
\nmountains so we went through many tunnels along the course – 11 to be
\nexact. The longest one was about twice as long as the tunnel on
\nSepulveda under the runway at LAX. It got pretty dark in some of them
\ncompared to the light outside.<\/p>\n
Anyways, back to the race. I left second out onto the bike, but the guy
\nin front was a little slow getting his feet in his shoes, so I bridged
\nthe gap and slipped my feet in without any trouble. I was right on the
\nwheel of the leader as we started to climb. I put it in a comfortable
\ngear and started to spin up the hill while he jumped out the saddle and
\ntook off like a classic Marco Pantani attack at the bottom of a major
\nclimb in the Tour de France. I said myself, "oh well, hopefully he will
\ncome back to me later, because there's not way I can ride that hard this
\nearly on the course." <\/p>\n
I got in a good climbing rhythm and was moving through the back of the
\nfield of the 30-34 and 25-29 age groups. I didn't get caught by another
\nguy in my age group until right at the turn around. A guy from Great
\nBritain came flying and I tried to match him for a bit but he was flying
\ntoo. Powering a huge gear sitting in the saddle, I put my tail back
\nbetween my legs and kept spinning my 39×23 up the grade back toward
\ntown. Just as we reached the summit on the final climb I was caught by
\nanother guy, a USA guy named Tim. He wasn't going much faster so I
\nstayed pretty close to him as we descended the last 3 miles into town.
\nThe ride ended with a steep descent through a tunnel and a hard left turn
\nbefore a short straight into transition. I started taking my feet out of
\nmy shoes with about a mile to go. As we came into transition I noticed
\nTim struggling with his shoes and flew back past him right at the
\ndismount line to transition.<\/p>\n
TRANSITION 2<\/b>
\n==============
\nAnother long run through transition. About 1\/2 a mile long. My rack was
\na bout 2\/3 the way down to run barefoot with my bike. Plenty of room to
\nrack my bike since only two guys were in so far. No problem slipping on
\nmy run shoes (skipped the socks and now am suffering due to a huge
\nblister on the ball of my foot, but it didn't hurt me during the race).<\/p>\n
RUN<\/b>
\n==============
\nCan you say flat and fast? My favorite. The course was 3 loops along the
\nsea boardwalk. It got a bit congested as there were several waves out on
\nthe run at the same time. I was flying through guys as I was on my first
\nlap and some of the younger guys were on their 2nd or third laps. Tim,
\nthe guy who lost a little time going into transition caught me at the
\nfirst turnaround on the first lap and encouraged me to stay with him,
\nwhich was a nice thought but a little over my head. I finished the first
\nlap in 10:35 (31:45 10k pace). Tim was gradually pulling away and I
\nneeded to settle down a bit if I was going to finish standing up (they
\ndon't allow you to crawl over the line). A few guys went by me on the
\nsecond lap but I wasn't sure if they were in my age group because they
\ndidn't mark calves with the age groups at this race. Apparently an
\nAussie went by who was in my age group, but I never saw him. My second
\nlap was 11:10 and felt pretty good, but the wheels started to come off
\non the 3rd lap and I just barely hung on to finish 5th, just 10 seconds
\nahead of 6th.<\/p>\n
RACE WRAP UP<\/b>
\n===============
\nIt was really nice to finally have a really good race at a really
\nimportant race. I don't think I made any mistakes on the day. I raced as
\nhard as I could and definitely left it all out on the course as I was
\nserious seeing stars at the finish.<\/p>\n
Maybe I should thank Emilio De Soto, Dan Empfield and Monty for not
\nshowing up. I probably would have partied a lot more before the race if
\nthey had all been there. But I sure missed you guys after the race.
\nAlthough the Aussies made nice party mate substitutes. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
OTHER NOVA RESULTS
\n===========================<\/p>\n
Dan Neyenhuis placed 4th in 60-64 division. This was a great return to
\nthe World's for him since he had to drop out during the run at the 2003
\nWorlds due to an injury he suffered on the way to the race that morning.
\nHis time was 2:36:48 which was the second fastest time from the USA
\nbehind Robert Plant who finished 3rd in 2:35:07.<\/p>\n
Christen King, competing in the 25-29 age group finished a surprising
\n10th in her first World Championships (She was originally listed as 11th
\nin the preliminary results). This was a far better showing than her 12th
\nplace finish at Nationals which qualified her for the World Championship
\nrace. Christen relied on a strong bike to move through the field after
\nthe swim, and also passed two competitors in the last 400m of the run to
\nmove up from 13th to 11th. Christen finished the race in 2:27:36 with
\nthe 3rd fastest American time.<\/p>\n
Finally, the youngster of the team, Kyle Hughes, competed as one of the
\nTeam USA Junior Elites (16-19), for the first time, and finished as the
\n2nd American in the Sprint Distance Race (750m Swim-20K Bike-5K Run)
\nwith a time of 1:12:03 for 44th overall.<\/p>\n
PRO RACES<\/b>
\n===============
\nThe women's race went off at 1:30pm so there was plenty of time to sleep
\nin and eat breakfast before heading into town to watch it. Sheila
\nTaormina had an amazing day as she swam away from the field and rode
\nmost of the bike course alone before finally sitting up and letting the
\nlead group catch her with just a lap to go on the bike. On the run it
\nlooked like she might be in trouble as Laura Reback and Loretta Harrop
\nwere right there with her and got to ride in the lead group of 8-10
\nriders for the entire bike. <\/p>\n
Harrop put in a surge that dropped Laura, but Sheila stayed right on her feet and then put in a surge of her own on the last lap to take the World Championship title and gain the second USA Olympic Team spot. Harrop held on for second, Reback finished 3rd to medal in two straight World Championships, Barb Lindquist held on tough for 7th, and Julie Swail had a good day although she just missed getting into the lead pack on the bike due to being just a little too far back out of the water. Still, she finished 23rd which should move her up quite a bit in the ITU World Rankings. Susan Willams dropped out and Cook finished pretty far back after riding most of the course alone or with only one other rider.<\/p>\n
The men's race was also very exciting. Fairly new American Andy Potts was
\nsecond out of the water and stayed near the front of the lead pack for
\nthe entire bike leg. Hunter Kemper just made the lead pack and sat on
\nthe back of the 20-30 man pack the entire race. In the run things broke
\nup quickly and it was clear that the medals would go to Dimitri Gaag,
\nBevan Docherty, and Ivan Rana, but who would get what? Docherty and Rana
\ndropped Gagg with about a lap to go and then had a sprint finish at the
\nend with Rana going first, but Docherty didn't give up and took the
\ntitle for NZ. Rana 2nd, Gaag 3rd, Tim Don of GB 4th. Hunter held on for
\n10th and in a very impressive performance Andy Potts out sprinted 3 guys
\nto take 11th and get the 2nd USA Olympic team spot. Doug Friman and
\nBrian Fleishman also finished in the top 25.<\/p>\n
POST RACE<\/b>
\n===============
\nWent to the Aussie party which was at the hotel where I was staying.
\nThat's always a good call. It's really fun to watch those guys get
\ntotally hammered, dance like white-boy freaks and then pass out on the
\nlobby couches. (But they weren't puking in the streets like me in
\nCatalina.)<\/p>\n
NEXT YEAR<\/b>
\n==============
\nWorlds will be in Hawaii next year. There will be two qualifying races.
\nOne in Shreveport this year for 6 spots(using a new lake for the swim),
\nand another qualifier next year in either Rochester NY, or somewhere in
\nAlabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following is Mike Collins' personal account of his experience at the Triathlon World Championships in Madeira. Mike is Masters coach at the Irvine NOVA swim team, a top 35-39<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n