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I did the Albany Triathlon yesterday (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run). I won the 19 & Under age group, but there was only one other person. My time was 1:18:31.

I was supposed to get a blue ribbon, but they’re all on backorder so, until they can send me the real one, they gave me a “placeholder” ribbon: 6th place in the Mountain Bike category. And it so happens that there were five people in the 19 & Under Mountain Bike category. Hey, I got 6th out of five people! Pretty good, huh?

Edit: I also placed 23rd out of 84 overall.

Edit x2: Here’s a picture of me with my triumpant 6th place ribbon:

I’ve been selected to be part of the Oregon All Stars Team! So, I’ll be going to Vancouver, BC in a month for the All Stars meet.

Are you a Real Man?

I went to the Elite IM swim clinic today, featuring Olympic gold and silver medalist (in the 200 fly) Tom Malchow.

We had two practices, the first one was two hours long and the second one was an hour and a half. Overall we swam about 7500 meters (8200 yards).
The locker room was huge (as was the rest of the building); it had a centrifigal suit dryer, six different colone dispensers and disposable combs. The only problem was that someone decided to put the locker room on a different floor from the pool…

In between the two practcies, Tom gave an hour long talk, we had lunch, and then Alex Nikitin (one of the coaches) gave a talk about the technicalities of swimming IM.

What I learned:

• You can use less energy proportionally by keeping up your speed for a whole length rather than slowing down (momentum keeps you going)
• A good back to breast turn can save you 4 tenths of a second
• In a fly or breast turn, you use less back and arm muscles if you have more momentum going in to the wall
• You should take several fast strokes off the wall to maintain your speed from your pushoff

Also, I got to have a private talk with Tom during lunch. He said he goes to the hospital right across the parking lot from our pool once a week for work!

A dark and dangerous day. There was lots of duct tape and TP, but I survived. I set up hidden sensors outside my room…