Here is a link to the recent interview that Slowtwitch did on me:
Travelling Man Barrett Brandon
It was pretty cool to get "slowtwitched." If you haven't read it already, check it out!
Cheers,
B
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
have you ever?
Have you ever had a race delayed for over in hour while sitting in 100F/38C heat?
Have you ever had a race referee blow the horn to start the swim when no one was ready?
Have you ever been at a race where the temperature drop 30 degrees in 10minutes?
Have you ever been riding along in a pack and then been swallowed by a sandstorm?
After being swallowed by the sandstorm, have you ever smacked into your good friend and crashed?
Have you ever seen a foot of rain fall in 30minutes in a race before?
Have you ever had pavement turn into a slip and slide?
Have you ever seen 20 people crash (separately) in a race before?
Have you ever ridden up to your skewers in a moving water?
Have you ever rode into T2 only to see volunteers holding your shoes so they dont float down the river?
Have you ever run through water up to your knees....on a street through the run course!
If you can answer yes to all these questions, you were definitelty at 2011 La Paz Triathlon.
The weather was insane. Lots of people have talked about it, and probably no one can do it justice if you werent there. It was dangerous; it was crazy. I swam in the lead pack of 10 or so. I crashed right as the weather got bad on the bike. I managed to stay upright the rest of the way, and came in with the chase pack. I ran/swam/dolphin-dived to 9th.*
*-There is some discrepency as to whether another athlete in the top 10 cut the course.
More pics and video to come.
Have you ever had a race referee blow the horn to start the swim when no one was ready?
Have you ever been at a race where the temperature drop 30 degrees in 10minutes?
Have you ever been riding along in a pack and then been swallowed by a sandstorm?
After being swallowed by the sandstorm, have you ever smacked into your good friend and crashed?
Have you ever seen a foot of rain fall in 30minutes in a race before?
Have you ever had pavement turn into a slip and slide?
Have you ever seen 20 people crash (separately) in a race before?
Have you ever ridden up to your skewers in a moving water?
Have you ever rode into T2 only to see volunteers holding your shoes so they dont float down the river?
Have you ever run through water up to your knees....on a street through the run course!
If you can answer yes to all these questions, you were definitelty at 2011 La Paz Triathlon.
The weather was insane. Lots of people have talked about it, and probably no one can do it justice if you werent there. It was dangerous; it was crazy. I swam in the lead pack of 10 or so. I crashed right as the weather got bad on the bike. I managed to stay upright the rest of the way, and came in with the chase pack. I ran/swam/dolphin-dived to 9th.*
*-There is some discrepency as to whether another athlete in the top 10 cut the course.
More pics and video to come.
cheers,
b
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
chile chile chile
First race of the year is done and dusted! I cant believe I will have two races done before January 20th....
I had a solid result in Chile considering both the time of year and more importantly how long it took me to get there. A snowstorm (more like snow drizzle) and a very inept Air Canada delayed me over 27hrs to get to Chile. The race was Sunday at 10:45AM and I didnt even arrive at my hotel until 5:30pm on Saturday.
I did a good job of remaining calm and not stressing out over the delay, but my 50hrs in-transit was going to catch up with me evetually...
As I stood on the start line looking into the ocean I could only think of two things: 1)All I want to do is sleep and 2) I should have eaten more yesterday.
Control the controllables.
Gun went off, and so did I. First pack swim, avoided dogs, potholes, and Chileans on the bike, and ran.
Finished 8th.
this pic is more for Harry than me. good on ya, mate!
I had a solid result in Chile considering both the time of year and more importantly how long it took me to get there. A snowstorm (more like snow drizzle) and a very inept Air Canada delayed me over 27hrs to get to Chile. The race was Sunday at 10:45AM and I didnt even arrive at my hotel until 5:30pm on Saturday.
I did a good job of remaining calm and not stressing out over the delay, but my 50hrs in-transit was going to catch up with me evetually...
As I stood on the start line looking into the ocean I could only think of two things: 1)All I want to do is sleep and 2) I should have eaten more yesterday.
Control the controllables.
Gun went off, and so did I. First pack swim, avoided dogs, potholes, and Chileans on the bike, and ran.
Finished 8th.
this pic is more for Harry than me. good on ya, mate!cheers,
b
Friday, January 07, 2011
new year, new goals, new things, new races....
Hey yall!
Just a quick micro blog from the Toronto Airport. I am currently En Route to Chile for the start to the 2011 season. I am racing ITU Vina del Mar (Chile) and ITU La Paz (Argentina) back to back over the next 9 days. It should be quite an adventure! I have had my head down the last 8 weeks and am ready to race...even if it is January 7th!
Olympic Qualification is always a difficult and tricky process, but I am excited for a great 2011 season! I hope all of you enjoyed your "off-season" and had a great holidays!
Cheers,
Barrett
Just a quick micro blog from the Toronto Airport. I am currently En Route to Chile for the start to the 2011 season. I am racing ITU Vina del Mar (Chile) and ITU La Paz (Argentina) back to back over the next 9 days. It should be quite an adventure! I have had my head down the last 8 weeks and am ready to race...even if it is January 7th!
Olympic Qualification is always a difficult and tricky process, but I am excited for a great 2011 season! I hope all of you enjoyed your "off-season" and had a great holidays!
Cheers,
Barrett
Sunday, October 17, 2010
six weeks in a blog
The blog is not dead! And neither am I. It seems like every spare chance to write I have had over the past 6 weeks, I lacked the requisite willpower/brainpower to do so. (not that my writing uses that much brainpower...)
So what has happened over the last 6 weeks? 4 races, lots of flying, jetlagedness, positives, negatives, sickness, more sickness, and the end of my season.
The whole focus of the second half of my season was on Huatulco World Cup and Tongyeong World Cup, which didnt go up to snuff....but more on those in a bit.
Sept 11th, I raced in wonderful Pacific Grove. I love the race and the place. Just like last year, struggled with my wetsuit and missed the front pack. You would think I would learn. Finished the day in 8th and finally felt like my running legs were coming around.
Two weeks later it was off to Alabama for our national championships. It was easily 896 degrees on race day, so I was excited. So excited that I drank and drank and drank and drank until I was like the purple fat kid in Willy Wonka. I thought I was well hydrated. My stomach was wondering why I was trying to drown it. Off the bike and onto the run with all the big boys and the stomach just said no. Lesson learned. Keep it simple and do what you always do. I shuffled to 15th place (13th american), which (for whatever it is worth) was my highest finish at pro nats. still longing for what could have been.....
Which brings us to our last 2 races. the double. Two World Cups, Huatulco (Mexico) and Tongyeong (South Korea), separated by 6 days and 15,000 miles. This was the main focus for my second part of the season. Do well at both, move up a funding level, get magical Olympic points, and finish 2010 with a bang! Instead I finished with a shart.
Two days before Huatulco, my stomach sent a message to my brain that it had stamped return to sender on the food I had just deposited. I sat on my bed all night trying to will the sickness away, but I could not. I stayed in bed the whole next day, and it got bad enough I even thought about coming home. I couldnt eat, just sit and moan. Not fun.
The cramps, nausea, and port-a-loo trips subsided enough on race day that I thought I would try and swim. I ended up a little better than I though and made it to the run before calling it a day. 6 days in later in Tongyeong I made it 500meters into the swim before I realized that I was in even worse shape then the week before. Dizzy, exhausted, and feeling like I may not make it back to the pontoon I stopped after the swim.
So the season did not even end poorly....there was no conclusion at all. It just stopped. So now I am on my "break" and that was a great decision. Immediately after South Korea (maybe 30min) I felt a chest infection coming on. It came on, and rather frustratingly, has been on for the better part of two weeks. Sometimes you look back at what you could have done differently to change the outcome, but this time there was nothing I could have done. I can take at least some solace in that fact.
Not scoring any points in these races has put me in an uphill battle for Olympic Qualification Rankings, but there is still quite a bit of time and plenty of opportunities.
Now I just need to pull a Foster at the beginning of the year, and a Sexton at the end of the year. Or I guess you could just say pull a Gomez......
Cheers,
So what has happened over the last 6 weeks? 4 races, lots of flying, jetlagedness, positives, negatives, sickness, more sickness, and the end of my season.
The whole focus of the second half of my season was on Huatulco World Cup and Tongyeong World Cup, which didnt go up to snuff....but more on those in a bit.
Sept 11th, I raced in wonderful Pacific Grove. I love the race and the place. Just like last year, struggled with my wetsuit and missed the front pack. You would think I would learn. Finished the day in 8th and finally felt like my running legs were coming around.
Two weeks later it was off to Alabama for our national championships. It was easily 896 degrees on race day, so I was excited. So excited that I drank and drank and drank and drank until I was like the purple fat kid in Willy Wonka. I thought I was well hydrated. My stomach was wondering why I was trying to drown it. Off the bike and onto the run with all the big boys and the stomach just said no. Lesson learned. Keep it simple and do what you always do. I shuffled to 15th place (13th american), which (for whatever it is worth) was my highest finish at pro nats. still longing for what could have been.....
Which brings us to our last 2 races. the double. Two World Cups, Huatulco (Mexico) and Tongyeong (South Korea), separated by 6 days and 15,000 miles. This was the main focus for my second part of the season. Do well at both, move up a funding level, get magical Olympic points, and finish 2010 with a bang! Instead I finished with a shart.
Two days before Huatulco, my stomach sent a message to my brain that it had stamped return to sender on the food I had just deposited. I sat on my bed all night trying to will the sickness away, but I could not. I stayed in bed the whole next day, and it got bad enough I even thought about coming home. I couldnt eat, just sit and moan. Not fun.
The cramps, nausea, and port-a-loo trips subsided enough on race day that I thought I would try and swim. I ended up a little better than I though and made it to the run before calling it a day. 6 days in later in Tongyeong I made it 500meters into the swim before I realized that I was in even worse shape then the week before. Dizzy, exhausted, and feeling like I may not make it back to the pontoon I stopped after the swim.
So the season did not even end poorly....there was no conclusion at all. It just stopped. So now I am on my "break" and that was a great decision. Immediately after South Korea (maybe 30min) I felt a chest infection coming on. It came on, and rather frustratingly, has been on for the better part of two weeks. Sometimes you look back at what you could have done differently to change the outcome, but this time there was nothing I could have done. I can take at least some solace in that fact.
Not scoring any points in these races has put me in an uphill battle for Olympic Qualification Rankings, but there is still quite a bit of time and plenty of opportunities.
Now I just need to pull a Foster at the beginning of the year, and a Sexton at the end of the year. Or I guess you could just say pull a Gomez......
Cheers,B
Thursday, September 02, 2010
backwards and forwards
First we will travel back to my last race: Canadian Nationals in Kelowna, Canada. I had the worst swim I have had in years and didnt make the first pack of 10 or so out of the water. Said pack stayed away and built up a huge lead. Going into the race I figured that the first group would stay away (one of the reasons I went to Kelowna!), but didnt figure that I would be in the other group. To add insult to a bad swim, I snapped my rear derailleur cable on the 4th of 6 laps. This means I had two gears (53x12, 39x12) to go up the giant hill each lap. Not fun. Came off the bike frustrated w/ dead legs. Finished 18th.
On the upside, Kelowna is beautiful and I did have a wonderful time in Kelowna with my good friends Todd and Rhonda Preston. They used to live and Nebraska and Todd and I did some super tough training weeks together back in the day. I hadnt seen them in 4yrs so it was great to catch up. I definitely will be heading back to Kelowna next year 1) to have a better race and 2) to see those guys!
And forwards. Coming up in 1.5 weeks is Pacific Grove Triathlon. I love all Tri-Cal events and cant wait to get to PG to race. It is a great venue and a race that I have done well at before. After PG it will be 2 weeks until the next "big one": US Nationals.
Cheers,
B
On the upside, Kelowna is beautiful and I did have a wonderful time in Kelowna with my good friends Todd and Rhonda Preston. They used to live and Nebraska and Todd and I did some super tough training weeks together back in the day. I hadnt seen them in 4yrs so it was great to catch up. I definitely will be heading back to Kelowna next year 1) to have a better race and 2) to see those guys!
And forwards. Coming up in 1.5 weeks is Pacific Grove Triathlon. I love all Tri-Cal events and cant wait to get to PG to race. It is a great venue and a race that I have done well at before. After PG it will be 2 weeks until the next "big one": US Nationals.
Cheers,
B
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
tizzy wc
Tizzy 2010 was a quick trip in and out of Europe for me. I left for Hungary this past Wednesday, raced on Sunday and was back in my bed Monday night. I had another 66% race: where swimming and biking were fine but the run was a bit of a puzzle. Euro racing is unlkike anything else. They are so much harder than any other races.Tactically the race did not play out not in my favor as the entire race came together out of the water. Over 60 guys eventually made the main pack. I managed my efforts on the technical course very well on the bike, and positioned myself well in the pack coming into T2. Even still, I still had another really tough run. It is really tough when how you race/perform is so far removed from how you have trained leading in (and trained all year long).
That is part of the puzzle that is triathlon...
I have about 9 days before I head up to Kelowna, Canada for the next race. It will be a smaller field, but as it is Canadian Nationals there will be some big names up at the pointy end of the race. Time to rest, recover, refocus, and then run fast!
Sexton leading the charge (me 4th back in Red/White)
On far left, fighting for position...sometimes people need a push!
Cheers,
B
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