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When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you’ll be successful.

Note: the original quote was, “When Barb Lindquist with USAT’s Collegiate Recruitment Program contacted me, the dwindling flame within me got a shot of fresh air.” Read the article and you will see the confusion.

• USMS as in US Masters Swimming. Basically if you aren’t competing as a swimmer as an age grouper, high schooler, collegiate or elite, you are probably swimming Masters.
• Speedo as in the brand, not necessarily the brief-style swimsuit.
• One Hour as in swim as far as you can in one hour.
• Postal National Championship as in mail in your results to USMS and see where you and your swim club stack up (hence the “sorta”).

Anyway, like I said, I made my attempt at swimming an hour straight yesterday. While I frequently swim 90 minute workouts, rarely do we do more than a few minutes at a time (and never more than about 15 minutes). From a runner’s perspective, this seems strange, since very little of our training is done in small increments. Since this is how the rest of the swimming world trains, I don’t question and blindly accept it as truth (as every good athlete should).

After a short warm up, I got going at 6:35 am at NAU’s Wall Aquatic Center (which sits at ~7,000 feet and seems to be perpetually set up as Long Course Meters). I was sharing the lane with two other guys that were also doing the one hour swim, and they started just behind me. I knew I could hold 1:30′s, which would come out to 4km, so I thought I should start there and progress. I came through the first couple hundred just under that pace. I felt comfortable so I just let it flow. My first 1km split was 14:20 (1:26 average), which surprised me. I got a little excited and sped up the next 1km with a 14:12 split (1:25.2 average).

The old question “is the glass half full or half empty” rules every endurance athletes psyche during a race or hard effort. I am sure of it. If you are feeling good, the glass is half full; I’m already halfway! If you are feeling bad, or perhaps you are running a 10k on the track (in which case you are doomed before the gun goes off), the glass is almost always half empty; there’s no way I can hang on that much longer! Yesterday was a glass half full kind of day. As I passed the 30 minute mark I pressed a little harder. 3rd split in 14:10 (1:25 average). Right around 2 miles in, ~3200m, I started to feel the burn. My shoulders were getting tired of course, but more than anything, my forearms were hurting. With each length of the pool it was getting harder to keep a good catch going. I was pleasantly surprised to see the 4th split at 13:58 (<1:24 average). From there it was everything I had left. I tried to swim the final 250m in 3:20 (1:20 pace) but came up just a bit short.

I finished up with 4240m which equals 4637 yards. (For my nonswimmer readers: If I had actually swam in a short course yards pool, I probably would have been even further as there would have been more than twice as many turns, which are almost always faster.)

I’m really happy with where I finished up. A one hour Ironman swim is a benchmark for a decent swimmer, and I beat that by almost 400m (3862m). Swimming continues to go in the right direction, which is all I can ask for. I know I won’t be putting the hurt on anyone this season in the swim, but with all the work I have been doing in the pool, I think I will be able to swim well enough that I will be around later in the race to put the hurt on during the run.

Before I continue on with my adventures of 2012, I want to recap 2011 (as I did for 2009 and 2010)…

2011 began with my right hand in a brace. At the end of 2010 I had a bit of a sore knee, so I sought refuge in the pool and on the bike. While on a bike ride I took a wet corner too sharp and crashed. I got some pretty good scrapes on my leg and ended up with a broken bone in my wrist. When people saw the brace on my right hand and asked, “What happened?,” I would reply, “Cross training.”

My parents showed, once again, who the favorite child is and took me to Hawaii. We spent a couple of days in Honolulu, then flying over to Kauai to see my Aunt Pauline. I had a wonderful time with my parents, as I always do, relaxing on the beach and eating some really good meals.

My final track seasons snuck up quickly, making my indoor debut at the Husky Classic. After a tough winter, I really wanted to see where I was at and go for a big PR in the 3k. Instead, I matched the same time I had ran at that meet three years prior, 8:26. At that meet I got to watch Chris Solinsky destroy a fairly solid field in the mile. I wrote a piece in homage of him and all the other members of the FTC crew.

Sharing the lead in the "5k" with Ahmed Osman and Andrew Belus

I took my first trip of the year to Pocatello, ID for the indoor conference champs. There was quite a fiasco in the 5k with us running an extra lap (5200m PR!). The 3k was another lack-luster performance for me and we lost the meet as a team by half a point. That was tough to take, especially since I knew I was capable of so much more.

Back to the Flagstaff trials I went and started logging my signature 100-mile weeks. I ran three consecutive centuries heading into my first outdoor meet at the Stanford Invitational. Finally I set a new PR in the 5k, running 14:37. I fell off a bit the last mile of the race, so I was confident with a little rest I would be able to bring that time down even more.

My next major race was my 25-lap debut, the 10k at the Mt. Sac Invitational. That whole race, meet, trip was an experience and one I won’t soon forget. I set myself up for a great time, hitting halfway in 14:52 and feeling good. 10k on the track is a delicate thing, as I learned that night, and pushing just a little too hard can make the wheels come right off. I struggled the last few kilometers. I rallied best I could the last lap and closed in a 31 second 200, passing another runner in the closing meters to finish in 30:01. That final kick would prove to be worth so much more than a couple seconds.

2011 I was fortunate to meet some amazing people, and Bernard Lagat was one of them. The amount of talent he has is just ridiculous. I asked him about world championship and Olympic races, and heard about some of his training. Thanks to David McNeill and Mo for inviting me over to share a few meals with this legend.

I like to think of myself as a pretty resilient runner. In my long running career, I have only had a few injuries. My 2010 track campaign, however, was canned with a sever case of Plica Syndrome in the knee. And after a steeplechase workout in April of 2011, my track season took a turn for the worse. Within days of the workout I wasn’t running — forced to cross train just a couple weeks before the conference championships. I went into the meet a little banged up, but determined to give it everything I had.

When the meet was all said and done, I had just two points to my name (thanks to a 7th place finish in the 10k) and the biggest blister I have ever seen! In terms of racing, it was probably one of my worst track meets ever. But it was clear that I made an impression on a few of my teammates, and that made it all worth it.

My season looked to be all but finished. There was still a very outside chance that I could qualify for the NCAA Preliminary round in the 10k, but things were not looking good. I was ranked 65th, and only 48 athletes were accepted. In perhaps the greatest miracle of my 24 years, I was given the chance to compete for NAU one more time.

I had booked my ticket to Eugene, OR and enjoyed every minute of that trip. I was well aware of the gravity of the situation — competing in my last track meet ever, in my first track meet ever in Track Town USA. My parents and my Farfar came to watch, which means so much to me now. At the conclusion of those 25 laps at Hayward Field, I effectively became once a runner.

With the end of collegiate athletics, I began a new dream in triathlons. I was now a “bona fide” collegiate recruit, identified by USA Triathlon, and began working with Ian Murray of Triathlon Training Series. Before things got too serious, I had some fun racing in the Tahoe Relays and spending time with friends back in Simi doing stuff like this…

I began my triathlon season at the Breath of Life in Ventura, winning for the second consecutive year. My swimming had improved a lot from 2010, but in ever race I would do in 2011, it was clear that a lot of work still needed to be done in the pool. I headed north for my next race: The San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island.

Once again I have the best supporters. Thank you to Danielle Hunt, Mo and her parents, Peg and Chris, for coming out to cheer me on!

This would be my first chance to earn an elite license by finishing within the top 3. I started the race out with a good swim, the best bike I have ever had, and a solid run to take the victory! I had such a good time that week with Mo and her family (and Danielle Hunt as well!) and capping it off with that win was special.

In July I spent about a week at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I finally got to meet Barb Lindquist, who I owe a lot of my success as a triathlete to, as well as a few other athletes in the same boat with me.

At the end of August I traveled to Burlington, Vermont for the Age Group National Championships. I wanted to make it 3-for-3 on the year and take the W, but came up short. There were certainly some very talented athletes there, ones that I will hopefully have a chance to race again in the future.

Once I returned to Flagstaff for my last year of grad school, I morphed into Coach PD. I couldn’t just go cold turkey from the Lumberjack cross country team and I am very thankful Coach Heins asked me to join the coaching staff for the year. I had a great time traveling with the team to the meets, really enjoying the lack of nerves I am used to from lining up at the start line with a few hundred of the fittest athletes in the NCAA.

At this point I was now officially a pro triathlete, which most people assume means that I make money from the sport. Not yet. I went to the Interbike convention in Las Vegas to sell myself. I learned that I have a lot to learn in this department.

I continued to focus most of my energy on improving my swim. I did a 200-800 swim test to measure my improvement, and came up with 2:10/9:41 (3″/29″ improvements). I still got destroyed in my first pro race at the Myrtle Beach ITU Pan American Cup about a week later. Honestly I was just happy to finish the race and to be able to take away a few valuable lessons for next year.

Tim Freriks, a friend and runner on the cross country team, said this in a local newspaper interview:

LJ: From an athlete’s standpoint, there have been a lot of teammates, mentors and coaches that have influenced you as a player. Out of all of them in the past or present, who has influenced you the most in your career, or as a person?

TF: There are two big ones. One of which was my high school coach. He really influenced the mentality that I have now, working hard and grinding through it. And also Jason Pedersen; he’s a graduate assistant coach for us now. His mentality and work ethic is like second to none. He was running 110 miles a week, he ate right, slept well, [and was a] straight-A student in mechanical engineering, so it was a template I wanted to follow. He did it right and it paid off, so I want to do the same thing.

That made my day.

In November I jumped into a little race down in Phoenix, the AMICA 19.7 sprint. I had taken a bit of time off from the bike, and that was clear in that race. I finished only 26″ out of winning $500, and learned that you can’t fake anything in the professional ranks.

Finally, before 2011 was over, I wrote about my barrier to success. I swam 40,000 yards in a week for the first time, and planned to focus on the swim throughout the winter.

—

On to 2012!

I am writing this post from a Starbucks in New Orleans, LA. My girl friend Mo and I leave on a seven day cruise in the Caribbean in just a few hours. I’m pretty certain there will be limited internet access on the trip, so no tweets or blog posts until we return. I will make sure to take lots of pictures of our trip and share some of the highlights.

Finally, I want to wish all of you a Happy New Year! Enjoy the end of the holiday season.

Happy New Year from New Orleans!

My Farfar was the first to congratulate after I won the Breath of Life triathlon in July

My Farfar passed away on November 23rd. We had a wonderful memorial for him on Saturday. It was quite emotional as you may imagine, but it was nice to share many great stories of him with family and friends.

Now as we look the “other way” towards the summer solstice, things look bleak despite the promise of long, warm summer days. My Farfar won’t be around to share his wisdom and cheer me on from the sidelines of my next triathlon. Still, I will continue to persistently pursue my dreams, knowing that these sad days will pass, and the sun will shine again.

Well it doesn’t. Mixed with all the other things I have on my plate these days, studying for two classes has become quite difficult actually. You may be concerned that I have had to cut down my training time to accommodate. Not to worry, I have my priorities straight.

After my race at Myrtle Beach it became more clear than ever that I can be a great triathlete, if I can swim faster. I like to think of the swim as a barrier to entry. No one ever wins the race with a superior swim, but it can be lost with an inferior one. It won’t matter how fast I bike or run in the draft-legal world if I can’t swim with the pack. Winter ’11-’12 is dedicate to conquering this barrier.

When I am not on the road traveling with the NAU Lumberjack cross country team, I am getting in the pool. I have been trying to get in the pool nine times a week, with doubles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also try to get in with the Masters swim team as often as possible, requiring to swim on my own only three to four times a week. Last week this routine led me to my first 40,000+ yard week ever! (It was actually 36,700 meters, all swam in a long course pool at 7,000 feet)

On the bike the focus right now is to build bike endurance and “bike specific muscles” (in the words of my coach Ian Murray). I just bought a PowerTap, which is a fancy (and pricey) piece of equipment that tells me what my power output is. Power is a much more reliable way to quantify workouts on the bike than using speed or even heart rate. Because the weather has been pretty cold in Flagstaff I have been confined to the trainer mostly. When I get home for winter break however, I plan to put in a lot of hours on the saddle.

I have really let go of my running recently. I have only been averaging about 25 miles a week for the last few weeks. That run volume is extremely low for me and is something I only would have done if I were recovering from an injury in my past days as a single sport athlete. As I said earlier it is all about the swim for me right now, and in order for me to get the quality and quantity I want in the pool, I need to take it easy running for a little bit. The plan is to have some run focused weeks probably in February. I will have extremely good fitness by that point, and hopefully with a few key run workouts I will be ready to run near the front of the pack.

In the future I would love to be in a situation where I need to work on my run again to be competitive at the top. This would mean that I have overcome that barrier to entry and my results are no longer being capped to the back half of the field before I even get on the bike.

Fwankie, wememba: the wace isn’t ova until you cwoss the finish line.

The words in Frank Shorter’s head upon entering the Munich Olympic stadium before winning the 1972 Olympic marathon. They were originally spoken by his former coach at Yale University.

While speaking with a lifeguard at my new home-away-from-home (a little hint of my off-season focus), I heard about a race down in Phoenix — Chandler to be exact — called the AMICA 19.7 Sprint. I decided to look into it, and found out that the entry fee for professional is comped! This pro deal is better than the jelly of the month club! With nothing to lose, I decided to jump in the race to get some free race experience, a good workout, and take a crack at the $10,000 prize purse (1st place won $2k, and it paid through 5th).

My set up for this race was anything but perfect. NAU had a recruit in town, and since Mo was going to the Arizona high school state cross country meet down in Phoenix, I was left to entertain. This also meant I had to drive him down the mountain. I drove a beautiful 2011 Toyota Camry Hybrid rented from school down to Phoenix on Saturday evening. My bike was not going to fit in that car with four passengers, so Mo had to take it down previously. I was able to stay at her wonderful Aunt and Uncle’s house, making things a little easier on me.

Since I wasn’t able to get down to Phoenix until the night before, I missed the pro meeting at 3:00 that afternoon. Luckily the race organizers allowed me to meet with a USAT official at 6 am on race morning. After checking in I put my bike together, took a look at some of the bike course, and finished warming up.

Swim (0.5 mile)

4th in 11:02, 1:05 behind the fastest

The swim was in Firebird Lake, which is known for its boat racing, not its swimming. It was definitely the grossest water I have ever swam in. It tasted saltier than the Pacific, and I’m fairly certain it is supposed to be a fresh water lake. Gross. Anyway, I felt like I got out pretty good and was right in the mix to the first buoy. After that I had some trouble drafting, but was able to get in a good rhythm in some open water. I really didn’t know where I was in the race as we were finishing just as some people doing the Olympic distance event were finishing. After the race I was surprised to see I came out in 4th.

T1

10th in :38, :15 behind the fastest

It was a fairly small transition area, but the elite athletes had our own racks so we had plenty of room. I grabbed my bike and ran pass some age groupers before doing my flying mount. Apparently I haven’t done one of those on my time trial bike in a while, as I didn’t get my trail leg high enough over the seat and almost ate it. Steeplechase failed me. But I recovered nicely and was on my way.

Bike (16.1 miles)

11th in 39:05, 2:18 behind the fastest

The bike course was pancake flat, but included about 10 90 degree turns and about half a dozen 180 degree turns on each lap of the four lap bike course. The air temperature was in the high 50′s and I was COLD the first couple of laps. I didn’t feel like I had much power on the bike. When I really tried to push it, I couldn’t sustain that effort for very long. This is likely because of the two weeks I took off the bike following my race in Myrtle Beach. I spent most of the bike leg going backwards and got into T2 in 10th or so. (I think it is also fair to blame my poor bike split on a lack of race wheels. I need to get some!)

T2

9th in :31, :08 behind the fastest

Coming into T2 a couple of guys got ahead of me and they aggressively fought for position. One of them ended up dropping his bike right in front of the rack and it was a big mess. I was cool as a cucumber and racked my bike, put on my shoes and was onto the run. While putting on my shoes I noticed a little blood on my left big toe. Later I realized that I had stubbed my toe during the bike mount and took some skin off.

Run (3.1 miles)

3rd in 15:19, :16 behind the fastest

My feet were very numb coming off the bike, which was probably due to the cooler temps. It took a couple of miles for them to start to feel normal. My first mile I felt like I was going really hard and my breathing was pretty out of control. Around that time James Burns came by me. I decided to try to stick with him and didn’t let more than a 3m gap open up. With a little less than a mile to go, I remember thinking This isn’t that hard. I can run with this guy. I began to creep up on his shoulder, and he responded by pressing a little more. We ran side by side until a sharp left turn, where he took a better line and opened a gap on me. I couldn’t close that gap, at it lingered all the way to the finish.

During our duel we passed another athlete (Flo Kriegl), but unfortunately there wasn’t anyone else to chase down. We were both rolling pretty well, and it would have been nice to have a string of guys ahead of us to mow down. That’s what I get for not taking care of business on the bike.

I’m pretty sure the run course was a bit less than 5k, but I was still happy with the split considering the training I have been doing.

I ended up finishing 7th in 1:06:38, just 26 seconds out of “the money.” Still, it was a fun race and I was happy with my performance all things considered.

My toe ended up being fine, just a flesh wound. Some paramedics at the course cleaned me up and as far as I know, I didn’t contract anything from the lake through my open wound.

Results

Jason my son ran the Mt SAC 4k youth boys race last month and improved on your SV Rebels record by 10 seconds. He will be attending Royal next year and looked toward your record as motivation! Thanks for the inspiration!

Just received this message via facebook. In my last post I wrote that I worked hard as a collegiate athlete to reach my goals. Every session I found countless ways to motivate myself to keep pushing. I remember during my final cross country season last year, I commonly said to myself, “All-American. All-American. All-American.” I would repeat it over and over and over again until the day’s work was done. It got me through mile repeats at Ft. Tuthill and long progression runs out at Bellemont.

But very rarely, if ever, did I use the power of my own performance over someone else’s for motivation. I set that “record” that this dad told me about probably 10 years ago. 10 years after giving it my all out on the hollowed grounds of the Mt. Sac cross country course, a kid comes along and uses my performance as motivation to be better — better than I was and better than himself. How cool is that?

There seems to be a theme developing here: hard work. I was recently watching a video of a training session with 3x Ironman World Champ Craig Alexander where he said, “The people that win don’t just have the most talent; they work the hardest.” I am coming to the sport of triathlon with very little swim or bike experience, but I am naive enough to think I have what it takes to be great regardless. I have an attitude and mindset in my favor. I will work hard and be inspired by others’ performances, in hopes that my hard work will someday inspire someone else. Try it yourself. It is incredibly powerful.