some road rash

Lobsterman Tri 2009

So yesterday I competed in the Lobsterman Triathlon in Freeport, Maine. It was an Olympic distance tri with a 1 mile swim, 24 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run. Over the summer, I did 6 sprint triathlons, about half of the olympic distance, getting better with each race. This race, I was very excited, for I would be racing for my school, Bryant University, and not just for myself. I was competing in the NECTC category, which is the North East Collegiate Triathlon Conference. I signed up early in the summer, and had it in the back of my mind leading up to going back to school in September.

When I got back to school, I locked in, HARD. While everyone else was excited to be back at school, to drink, and to party, I was either training or sleeping. I went in full force on the EAT-SLEEP-TRAIN-RECOVER motto. I was making my own workouts, doing them, and doing them hard, very hard. I would be in bed by 10 at the latest, up at 6 for a two hour ride followed by a one hour brick run, then I would swim and lift in the afternoon. Once classes started, I would do my homework and put ironman videos from youtube on the giant projection screen while I worked. Three nights in a row I watched Ironman 2006 on my laptop as I fell asleep. I learned alot, especially about having a plan, and dealing with things that happened on race day that you cannot control. Up to this point in my young triathlon career, I never have had too many obstacles to overcome while racing, yet being on point with a strong mental plan is what leads to success.

I have learned a great deal from elite and professional triathletes through the internet. Magali Tisseyre, Chris Thomas, and Adrienne Saeger are true motivations through their blogs. as well as Chris McCormack and Jarrad Shoemaker on twitter. Through these triathletes, the best of the best in the world, I am able to see how they feel, how hard they work, and what it takes to be the best. Someday, I want to be the best, but I still got a long way to go. Fortunately for me, I'm only 19, so I've got time. However, I'm training like there's no tomorrow, giving it my all everyday, not worrying about the past, or the future, just what is on hand today.

So at Lobsterman in Maine yesterday, I was ready. I had spent three weeks since my last race preparing for this race. My training was on par, my fitness and health were great. I had a brand new full body Xterra Wetsuit to fight the cold water off the coast of Maine. The collegiate wave was being sent off with the relays only one minute after the Elite wave, and I was pumped to bust out of the start on a great swim.

The elites went off, then my wave was sent, about 36 collegiate triathletes, and we were off. I jumped out to a quick lead of the swim, staying side by side to one other guy, trying to get to the front. I swam over a few elites, and rounded the first buoy, hit the second one, and made a turn for the beach. Thise one other collegiate kid was staying right on top of me, and actually punched me in the nose on one of his strokes toward the end. I contemplated drowing him, but decided to keep racing instead. Karma came his way when for some reason he took another turn to the first buoy, where as I continued to the beach behind the leading Elites. So there we had it, in my first collegiate race, my first olympic race, and I was the first out of the water for my wave. I whipped through T1, and left the transition with the guy who punched me in the nose on the swim, who apparently figured out he took a wrong turn on the end of the swim.

Onto the bike, I was feeling a little winded with numb feet, but I settled in. I downed my aero bottle full of some delicious gatorade and a PowerBar Gel. About ten miles in, I was hammering on a straight away, probably about 10 racers back from the lead, leading the collegiate race, and I reached down to grab my water bottle. I started wobbling, I caught myself, I wobbled again, and then I wobbled too far off the edge of the road. COMPLETE WIPE OUT. Luckily, my bike shoes came unclipped. My shorts were completely ripped down the side, and my elbow was all cut up. Not for a second did I think about stopping. No one was around, and then the good old kid who punched me went by, asking if I was okay. A few more elites sped by, but my bike was still working so I hopped back on and kept going, my right side covered in blood and my two water bottles on the side of the road left in the past. So I try to block out the pain, although I stayed on the aero bars even with the cuts on my elbow, explaining why I now have a red aero bar from the blood. I got back into a rythm, actually passed the collegiate leader back out eventually on an up-hill and took the lead back. I keep thinking about having a plan, and being able to deal with obstacles that come your way. I kept thinking about how sick it would be to fall pretty bad and come back and still win. I kept thinking about the trophy, about how bad I wanted it, about how I wanted to be the best. And I kept pushing. About mile 20, there was a left hand turn down a big hill. Fortunately, there was a large group of fans and volunteers at this corner. Unfortunately, none of them were saying anything. I was probably riding around 28 mph, and they finally told me to go left where I thought maybe I needed to go straight and the left was for the run course. So I started my turn late, and right on the apex of the hill my tires slid right out from under me, and I went down on my left side this time, HARD. I landed on my bad shoulder, twice surgically repaired, and my left hip. Cut up completely again. So I laid on the ground and the volunteers told me to stay there and they called an ambulance. I started tearing up, crying, for the first time in probably a long time. I felt sorry for myself, for what was happening, for the bad luck I was catching. Zoom zoom zoom, everyone flew by. Then after a few minutes of laying there crying with my eyes closed on the side of the ground next to my bike, something happened inside me. I stood up and got back on my bike. I didn't think about anything, nothing at all. I simply got on my bike, clipped back in, and starting climbing the 4 miles of hills that were left. The volunteers all cheered me on and made me feel alot better, but at the same time they should probably do a better job signaling that sharp left turn down the hill.

This time, however, it wasn't as easy on the bike. I had a huge gash and pain through my shoulder, and my hip felt broken. I muscled my way into T2, covered in some serious battle wounds. The pain hit me much worse when I got off the bike to head out on the run. I could have stopped and gotten a DNF, but why would I? I trained too hard, I didn't care how much I was hurting, I was going to finish. I thought of Johnny Blaze, the Blazeman. I thought that if he could do an Ironman with ALS, I can run this 6.2 miles a little banged up. And so that is what I did. I jogged the run, as all of the collegiates and everyone else from the waves behind smoked past me. I saw the leader of the collegiate race on his way to the finish, and Rob Strazniskas, formerly of my home town, zooming to the finish of great races. My asst. swim coach at Bryant even came by me. I just kept jogging though, actually felt worse pain if I tried to walk. People saw my cuts and ripped up shorts as they ran by, and told me way to stay tough. It made me feel better. As I went out on the turn where I did my second fall, I saw another man wipe out on his bike in the same exact spot! I yelled, "Hey man, I did the same thing, you can do it!" and he kept going, and then everyone cheered me on a second time. I felt good, my nutrition was great, I was perfectly hydrated, and my legs had power. If only I didn't crash...TWICE

So I got to the finish line after about 52 mins from that easy run, my hip starting to swell and my shoulder gushing, and I did a Johnny Blazeman roll. I saw Johnny Blais do it in Hawaii in 05, Adrienne Saeger and Matty Reed do it in the REV3 this past June, and Chrissie Wellington do it this year and in 08 at Timberman. I figured, I'd just survived two crashes to finish, he survived ALS to finish an Ironman. I got alot of weird looks from people, thinking I was weird, but they didn't know what was going through my head. They probably don't even know who Blazeman was. They probably don't know that I could have won the collegiate race and had a top 25 finish if I didn't fall a second time...if I didn't fall a first time...I never thought for one second after the first crash that I would get a DNF, and it barely crossed my mind after the 2nd crash. I'm not a quitter, far from, never will be. I was born to win, and that is what I went to Maine to do. Sometimes, as my little brother found out this summer and Tim Steiskal found out at Elite Nationals, you just get bad luck. We all get our fair share, unfortunately I got mine at the time when I was feeling the best. My mom always tells me you learn something new from every race, and I know exactly where shes coming from. I learned that I need to get better bike control while drinking from a bottle, and to not do as sharp a turn. Knowing the course would help quite a bit as well I would have to say. This was the first tri I went to without my dad, and before my first 6 races he gave me a speech about taking it easy on the bike, that it wasn't the Olympics I was racing in, I'm racing for fun. This race, he was in Chicago, and I was in Maine. He never ended up giving me the speech, I ended up falling twice. I missed ya at race day pops, thats for sure.

So, all in all, I'm completely scrapped up, from ankle to neck, both sides, bruised hip, bruised shoulder. I finished the race in 125th place overall, 13th in the collegiate division. I had the 10th fastest swim split in the entire race, fastest in collegiate. I had the 125th fastest bike split overall, including two hard falls and a few minutes doing some soul searching on my back. My 52 minute 10K was to avoid a DNF, something like the 300th overall run split, enough to cross the finish line. Mark my words, some day I will be the first across the finish line. I just need to stay LOCKED IN: eat sleep train recover, with a supreme emphasis on the recovery stage at this stage of the game...So no Dad, in finishing this race, I realized I don't do it for fun, I do it 4 the GLORY.

Lock in,

Brendan