I didn’t go to Australia, but I wanted to know what happened at the World Cup today. Here’s a graph that shows it all. There was a big pack on the bike, two small breaks, some people got dropped from the bike then picked up by Chris Foster (he was riding solo after the swim). Kahlefeldt won from the main pack, the first guy in the breakaway was Rudy Wild in 5th. The zero line is Kahlefeldt, everyone else is plotted by their time difference from him at each point of the race.
Bike Stolen, but At Least I Have My Health
I know I should post a race report before I talk about the day after, but this is important. And for the curious folks, I was 3rd at Miami International Triathlon. Full race report to come.
Today was going to be a really good day, but that didn’t pan out. After yesterday’s racing and sailing and general enjoyment of the day, I was pretty motivated to get right back to training. My plan was to get up early, drive to Key Biscayne where I could run, ride my bike, and finish with an ocean swim. After that I as going to check out this little fish shack in the state park that was recommended by my friend Ileana (who’s family I’ve been staying with). That all would have served as a pretty good basis for a blog, but I think what actually happened might make for an even better story (better meaning more entertaining).
I did wake up early. I packed my backpack with clothing, Powerbars and sunscreen for the adventure and put my bike in the trunk of the rental car. Then I drove to Key Biscayne for the run. Unfortunately, the traffic in Miami is terrible, so I was already planning to cu tout the fish shack before I even started my run. I lathered on the sunblock and went exploring on the trail. It was hard to get my legs moving for sure, but the run was really pretty. The wind was blowing and it’s the first day I’ve been able to smell since I came down with a cold over a week ago. It ended up taking me almost 50 minutes to run six miles because on top of being sluggish I kept stopping to look at the scenery and take big breaths of fresh air.
Satisfied with my first workout I ran back to the rental, but when I approached I noticed that the trunk was popped. Adrenaline shot through me, and when I lifted the trunk my fears were realized. My bike was gone. I went to the driver’s door; still locked. I opened it and saw that the glove compartment and center console were open. My Rudy Project glasses were gone. Then I saw the little rear window was shattered and there was glass all over the floor. I knew I needed to call the police, but my backpack was gone too, along with my wallet, my cell phone and any hope that this was some kind of prank.
I flagged down a police officer from the highway and he called another unit. Yesterday alone there were 26 break-ins on Key Biscayne, he told me. I wanted to say, “great job!†but he was being really nice, and it’s the burglars who suck. A detective came, finger printed my car, and another officer called the office and had someone try to locate my phone with the GPS signal. The phone was turned off already. I called my mom and asked if she could contact credit card companies for me to report them stolen, and I listed all the things that were missing from my car:
- Black Beyond Fabrications Blink Time Trial Bike with pink bencollins.org decals and K-Swiss stickers.
- A Zipp 900 clincher disk
- 404 clincher front wheel
- Northwave size 43 triathlon shoes
- A Dura-Ace crankset with SRM
- Shimano Dura-Ace time trial groupo with Vision aerobars
- Profile Design Aero-waterbottle (I just bought that Saturday too!)
- Three Powerbars (banana, cookies and cream, and peanut butter)
- Two bike water bottles
- A TYR backpack with:
- iPhone
- Wallet ($30, drivers license, credit cards, health insurance, and some other membership cards)
- USA Triathlon Team Cycling Kit
- Blue Seventy swim brief and goggles
- Rudy Project Fluo Green Noyz sunglasses with ImpactX Photochromic Grey lenses
- A Garmin Edge 800 with North American maps
What they left:
- A Rudy Project Wingspan Aero-Helmet (pink)
- A half-full bottle of Scape 2x Sunblock (SPF 50)
They took a few prints, but it wasn’t very promising. After everything was finished with the police officers I decided to bag the swim (no suit anyway) and head back home to shower, try to call my parents and figure out how to get through TSA without any identification.
Eventually I get money from the bank (another giant hassle that I won’t get into) and I head back to Ileana’s house where her brother is just heading out the door. I give him the short version and he hands me all the cash from his wallet and says to take it just in case. Then he tells me, “Ben, if you can fix it with money, then it’s not a real problem.†Coming from a guy whose family has seen much worse than some stolen equipment, it put things into perspective. I tried to relax, thinking that if I didn’t I was likely to do something else dumb. By now I’m feeling rushed to get to the airport in time to deal with TSA, so I gather my empty bike box, throw everything into a suitcase, realize I don’t have time for a shower, scarf some leftovers and pile it all into the car. As I’m walking out the door the phone rings and I hear the answering machine go on and it’s Ileana hoping to speak to me. She says, “Ben, I know you’re stressed but you need to drive very carefully to the airport. Is there anything I can do to help?†As I’m talking to her I’m standing in the pantry of her parent’s house scarfing down cookies as a pure stress reaction (and by now I’m completely starving, having not eaten anything yet today). I tell her to call my mom and just let my mom know that there are people in Miami taking care of me and so that my mom knows someone to call in Miami if she doesn’t hear from me. Then I hang up, lock the door, and drive to the airport. Advantage was easy, I filled out an incident report, gave the police report number, described what happened and hand in my key. Right then a manager comes out and asks, “are you Ben? I have someone on the phone for you.†It’s my mom. She’s found a photocopy of my birth certificate, passport and drivers license, and she’s faxing it to Advantage so that I can take it with me to TSA (my mom is awesome). I wait a couple minutes, get the fax, then head to the airport (by now I have barely an hour before my flight).
At the Delta check in the agents see my fax, along with my OTC photo ID and they check me right in. TSA is even easier, I just had to step to the side for a minute while a supervisor came, talk a bit about triathlon (what are the distances? How long does that take? Is that a full triathlon?). They complimented me on my resourcefulness, but my mom totally saved the day. Again.
Now, if you know anyone in Miami, please tell them to be on the lookout for my bike. Spread the word to facebook, twitter. Any help is appreciated. I race again in three weeks, so I need a time trial bike ASAP!
Night Before Miami International Triathlon
Twas the Night Before Miami
and all through the house,
The Cuban food aroma
was like love in a spice.
was like love in a spice.
I’m staying with Ileana Rodriguez’s family in Miami (She’s the paralympic swimmer that broke the 200 breast American record by 36 seconds a couple months ago). They’re awesome, I haven’t stopped laughing the whole trip. I had a cold when I left Colorado, but it’s hard to feel sick when you’re around so many fun people.
Every night we get together for a family dinner, which has been my chance to learn Cuban culture, and her parent’s chance to practice English. Ileana’s mom is an amazing cook. She’s making Cuban food every night, which is basically rice with stuff on it. Not spicy, just flavorful. It’s perfect food before a race.
A race! I race Miami International Triathlon tomorrow morning! It’s gonna be a super fast course, with only a few risers over the causeway, and no turns without purpose. It’ll be interesting to see how bike superstars Andrew Yoder and Chris Lieto manage the bike portion. Those guys are super dialed in on their Treks and typically put a good amount of time on the rest of the folks. Then there’s the run, Chrabot and Docherty are the best runners in the field, and they’re not so shabby on the bike either. As for swimmers, Kyle Leto, Brian Fleischmann and Cam Dye are all here, so there’s no question that the swim will be red hot.
I can’t wait to mix it up with everyone tomorrow.
I have a record in Backstroke?! [UPDATE: and some other stuff?]
A friend of mine just sent me the email below. He copy pasted the header of the results for the boys 15-18 100 yard backstroke at this weekend’s Northwest Age Group Regional Championships. To clarify my surprise, backstroke was definitely not my strength.
Event 12 Â Boys 15-18 100 Yard Backstroke
==================================================================
NWAGR: ! 53.58 Â 3/23/2001 Ben Collins, SSEA-PN
58.59 Â NWAG 2011 NW Section AG
Name       Age Team         Seed   Prelims
==================================================================
=== Preliminaries ===1 Thorderson, Lar  17 Kalispell Aquati   56.59    55.02 qNWAG
26.22 Â Â Â Â 55.02 (28.80)———–
I wonder if I have any other records that I don’t know about.
UPDATE:
I DO I DO!! I got another email today with a record that makes more sense:
Event 114 Boys 13-18 500 Yard Freestyle
===============================================================================
13 NWAGR: 4:49.18 3/19/2004 Clinton W Stipek, TACOMA
14 NWAGR: 4:41.28 3/1/1998 BEN COLLINS, SSEA-PN
15-18 NWAGR: 4:39.19 3/21/2003 Ben E Bruce, KING – PN
5:27.59 13 NWAG 2011 NW Section AG
5:14.09 14 NWAG 2011 NW Section AG
5:05.29 15-18 NWAG 2011 NW Section AG
From 1998? That’s half my life ago!
Clermont USA High Performance Camp
After the race last weekend USAT invited all of the high-performance athletes to participate in a two day cycling skills clinic. Before the clinic I heard a lot of people voicing concerns that our time would not be spent as valuably as if we were just training as normal, but by the end of the first day I think everyone was glad to be part of the camp.
Our instructor, Michael Heitz, is one of those intuitive coaches who can change his queues based on how individual people are responding. The day started off in the classroom discussing the importance of riding defensively, and having a box of tricks to pull out in an instant when needed. What do you do when you cross wheels with someone? How do you get around a corner in the rain? How do you get back upright if your wheels are slipping? Can you get around a corner with your shoulder touching the person next to you? Michael wanted to make sure we knew what to do in all those situations.
We headed out to the parking lot and learned a few drills. We learned to touch the ground while riding, how to hang our butts down by the rear break, how to pedal through turns, and how to ride a slalom course with one hand on the back of the person next to us. Later, we got on a soccer field and practiced bumping tires, then Jarrod showed me how to dismount into T2 by pulling my foot through. In the past I’ve stubbed my toe trying that method, but once I got the hang of it I can see why most of the guys prefer it. You hit the ground more upright and can start running without falling forward onto the handlebars. If you watch the video I posted a few weeks ago, you can see what I mean, when I dismount my first leg to hit the ground is behind me, so my weight goes forward onto my handle bars until my feet catch up to the rest of my body. By pulling that leg forward (between the pedal leg and the bike) you can start with your foot under your body and get your hand right to your saddle after the dismount.
The second day we did more slalom, more bumping, pushing with our shoulders, plus a group ride to work on pace lining. That was all fun, but the best part of the clinic was at the end when we went back to the grass for a game that Michael calls Trash Ball. It goes like this: Two teams, both line up at one end of the field. Michael has a Nerf ball that he tosses into the middle of the field, and we all charge toward it. We have to pick it up off the ground, pass it to our teammates (we weren’t allowed to hold the ball for more than three seconds at a time) and then drop it in the trash bin to score. Sounds simple, but we weren’t allow to unclip, and we could only shove each other with our shoulders (no arm pushing). At the start of the game, only two of us could even reach down far enough to pick up the ball, but by the end we were all sprinting after the ball, leaning against each other to block, grabbing the ball, and gently manhandling our bikes to keep the other team away from the ball so we could score. It was the capstone to what was the most fun I’ve ever had in triathlon training.
USA Triathlon did a great job of organizing the camp, and I really think what we learned will help us in races. Like I said after my 5th crash of last season, I either need to ride less aggressively or get better at riding aggressively. This type of clinic is definitely going to help with the latter. Thanks USAT!
Clermont ITU Pan-American Sprint Triathlon
Saturday I started off my season with a draft-legal sprint race in Clermont Florida. It’s a race that Jarrod Shoemaker helped to organize, and it was a fairly well run event. This is my first time to Clermont, and I’m surprised that it is not the pancake flat expanse of nothingness that I normally associate with Florida. That said, the course was an out-and-back on a completely flat section of state park, so it was really fast.
The swim was a bit unusual in that 75 men were lined up on a very small section of beach, then funneled out into the shallow water for 7.5 minutes of “swimming” where one spectator with a stop watch only recorded about 4 minutes of actual swimming in what should have been a 750 meter course. That’s because the water was about knee deep for the first (and last) 100 meters or so, and never did drop off. At the buoy people were standing and pushing off to change direction (maybe chest deep), and the leaders of the swim were the taller athletes with long legs. I was 10th out of the water, which was a bit frustrating. I spent the whole 4 minutes of swimming catching the dolphin diving giraffes only to take the lead as we stood up to high-knee it back out. Still, 10th out and first American from the water is good enough to make it into a break with a good transition.
I haven’t practiced my transitions since my last race of the year, but Saturday they were spot on. I came out and started rotating with three other men while the crowd yelled “Jarrod’s not with you, push it!” That lasted about half of the first of four laps before the long string of single riders came together like an accordion into a pack of about 40-45 riders – including Shoemaker. Chris Foster came to the front and set a strong pace that mostly kept people from attacking. I still tried, though I was hoping Chris would come with me, but he was content with setting the pace in front. The only chance for a successful break at this race would have been for someone to block while a couple of people with firepower made their move. My attempts failed, and I resigned to sitting near the front, out of danger – and helping set the pace.
Into T2 I made sure I was in the front. It was kind of nice, actually, I seemed to get some respect from other athletes because when I started moving toward the front people just kind of parted ways. In a WCS race, that wouldn’t have happened. I could have sat in front and set the pace for 38k in a WCS race and still had guys from the back of the pack trying to box me out of T2. It took me 23 seconds to switch into my K-Swiss, which made me the fastest man through transition. I took off at my best clip. It was about a kilometer into the race when Jarrod and a few other runners came by me, and it took me deep into the red to try to match their pace. We were flying! I managed to yo-yo off the back for the rest of the first of a two lap run, before I started overtaking some of the guys that were blowing up harder than me. Eventually I was running in a pack of three Mexicans and Manuel Huerta, though when I passed Manny it must have reminded him he was racing because he put in a surge that I couldn’t match. I ran on his heels the rest of the second lap and finished in 13th place with a 5k run split of 14:51.
Now, the leaders came in with runs of 13:50-ish, so we know the course was short, but I didn’t start my Garmin until a little ways into the run, so I don’t have an exact measurement. I do know that for the 2.5 miles that I did record of the run, I averaged right at 5 minute pace – according to the GPS. Assuming my first 1k was faster than the last 4, I was probably running a legitimate 15:20. Extrapolate that to the leaders, and they were running a legitimate sub 14:30 5k (being conservative). Blazing fast. Especially for the first race of the season.
Thirteenth certainly wasn’t my goal for this race, but I’m really happy with where I am at for Mach fitness. Had the swim involved more swimming I think a breakaway would have been a very real scenario with Fleischmann Dye Mejia and a few others. As far as a foot race goes, this race was probably as fast as any – with plenty of college running talent in the mix, as well as a bunch of guys who normally don’t have the gills to be in the mix after T1. I’m just happy the first race is out of the way, time to focus on Miami International in two weeks!
Columbia University Men’s Swimming Kills It!
Columbia Men’s Swimming and Diving took third at Ivy League Championships over the weekend. Harvard and Princeton have had a lock on the top two for the past 30 years, but Columbia took their fair share of events, including the 400 free relay (video below). Harvard had to win the last relay in order to beat Princeton, but Columbia crushed the field. This video makes me miss college swimming (it also makes me glad I was never in the stands listening to our parents – that would have made me WAY more nervous!). Also, my split on the 400 free relay my senior year (with a rolling start) was a 45 something, which would have been almost a second slower than anyone on this team. These guys are fast!
The Ben Collins Highlight Reel
This is a “fun” little highlight video to start off the 2011 triathlon season. Get pumped.
Slowtwitch Interview: A Man With Style!
Slowtwitch says I’m a “Man with style”! Check out the interview I did this week by clicking here.
And yes, the last picture shown in the interview (and the one above) was definitely taken specifically for the interview, including the afro picking I did beforehand.
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Rudy Project in 2011!!
In 2011 I will be wearing Rudy Project helmets and eye wear for the fourth season. I just ordered a bunch of new gear from e-rudy.com that is going to make me look awesome while training, racing, and gazing into my bright future. I got Fluo Pink road and TT helmets, which I’m hoping are not overkill. I’m also banking on USA Triathlon not to mandate that we wear red on our ITU uniforms, or I may look like a Valentines Day present while racing (probably not as effective as a bouquet of roses). For sunglasses, I’m a huge fan of the Noyz and Zyon frames, so it was with a bit of hesitation that I decided to try out the new Gozen and Swifty frames. Fortunately, Matt Chrabot and Sarah Haskins already tried out both of those frames and have assured me that they live up to the high standards I have for Rudy Project eyewear.
Rudy Project is also making Rx lenses for their sunglasses that pop right into your favorite frames. I’m planning to get some ImpactX Photopolorized clear Rx lenses so that I can train in the winter without contacts.
I take a lot of pride in the long-term relationships I’ve developed with my core sponsors since I turned pro in 2008. Rudy Project was one of my first sponsors, and after three years of working together I know I can trust the quality of their products. If you’re in the market for a high quality set of sunglasses with an unbeatable warranty from a friendly company, click on over to e-rudy.com or check them out at a local dealer.