girl shorts, kimchi, yellow mountain, and ATX

It is already June. Crazy.No, I have not been injured....just not blogging. Instead of giving a play by play of the last 3 months, I will just do it in rapid-fire succession:

Moololaba World Cup, big training block, back-to-back Continental Cups in Asia, Lifetime Fitness Series-Capital of Texas, and finally back to training.

There is 3 months for ya! What follows below is a slightly longer version of the past few weeks.

Here is a pretty picture of the Moo'ba beach...I have not so pretty remembrances of the actual race
After Mooloaba WC and the disappointment with the result there, I came back to Texas to put the disappointment behind me and get in some hard work. The positive thing from the race in Mooloolaba was that it exposed some big holes in my fitness and training. It has to be one of the hardest courses on the ITU circuit, and with the best field in years, there was nowhere to hide.
I needed some points to get into later season World Cups, so I looked at my options for ITU races. I can't stand Mexico, so Asia was the only other choice. The first race was in Seoul..... It was pretty similar to the ITU WCS course last year: cold swim, technical bike, and a run on the footpath. I had a great swim and came out in about 8-9th position and after a good transition made the initial "front pack" of 6. For Asia, this race was stacked. Tim Don, Reto Hug, Sapunov, Gaag, and 60 others made it a full field. The bike pace was on from the first pedal stroke, and it never let up. It was by far one of the hardest bike rides I have ever done. I can only imagine how hard the WCS bike was last year....

It made me feel a little better when I was riding next to Reto on the lap 6 and he was slobbering on himself gasping for breath trying to close a gap. I started to fade a bit towards the end of the bike, and when I got to the run, my stomach was toast. I struggled through 5k's or so of cramps, and pulled the plug. I do not like dnf'ing, but I was trying to play it smart as I felt horrible, and had another race in 6 days. On to China.

This time around was in Huangshan, China in the Anhui province. The "Yellow Mountain" is a popular destination choice for Chinese tourists. The scenery was nice and there were lots of green mountains and small villages. I have raced in China quite a bit and edible/race-week approved food is sometimes tough to find.....but not on this trip. Enter Breadman. I am convinced Breadman saved my life, or at least my stomach. Delicious naan-style bread made in a trash-can barrel right in front of you. Can street food get any better? Couple that with oreos and coke and you have a 3 course meal!

This is the lake....the water was cool and clean (The mountains don't look yellow to me, though)Traffic Chaos. They don't obey the traffic lights, honk incessantly, and often drive on the wrong side of the road, but stand in the middle of the intersection and you somehow will not get run over. Probably.The week between Seoul and China was tough. I felt terrible all week, and was wondering how the race would play out. For every session I was tired and the legs ached. I tried to push it towards the back of my mind and relax. There was a great group of guys racing in China and it was nice to chill and commiserate with the other internationals. I shared a room with Jens Toft fromDenmark. Legend.That guy puts out more watts than his car (which incidentally is a smart car, so that is probably true). The Aussie boys are always a good laugh and then there is Dickie Nicholls. He probably deserves his own post......

Race day came I was nervously confident. Jimmy Seears and I swam next to each other for the first 300m and then had a had a bit if a shocker when we exited the water on lap one in pack 3! Hit the panic button and swim for your life! We clawed our way back up and barely latched on to the end of the first pack running up to T1. Crisis averted. We all worked really well on the bike and had a 1:15 lead on the chasers. Onto the run I felt solid and ran just off the back on the lead group of 6. I tried to bridge the 10s gap or so several times, but just couldnt and was stuck in no-man's land. In the end, I got outsprinted and finished up 8th.

To add to the insult of being outsprinted, the Chinese gentleman that beat me was wearing biking gloves. Not kidding. I was less that 30s out of 3rd so we were all pretty tightly bunched. So close. I am happy with how things went, and I also feel that my running is coming back around and heading in the right direction! As coach says, "no amount of training will give you as much confidence as a good result."

I came back to the US, recovered for a few days and then hopped into the Capital of Texas Triathlon. It was a great fun to do a low-pressure non-drafting race, and even with getting mis-directed in the swim, it was a great day to race in front of the fam and friends in Austin. I finished 16th.....still have to work on my time-trialling if I want to do any of more of that stuff!

Next up in Monroe Continental Cup just outside of Seattle, Washington in 2 weeks. My head is down and I am ready to go race hard. Happy training yall!

Cheers,
B

the horizon

In the crazy world of ITU racing, it can be very difficult to nail down a set racing schedule. You often don't know what races you can get into until the last minute. Or, after you have a good result, the door suddenly swings open to races that you thought were previously not possible. It can make planning a season quite difficult!

Up Next: Lauren and I are heading to Clermont, Florida next week for the USA Sprint National Championships. It is quite a big field and will be a great race to see where the legs are. It is hard to hide when 70 guys are on the line. It will also be Lauren's first race of the year and her first pro race, so this race will be super exciting for the both of us. She has been training really hard and it will be a great experience for us to do our first race together.

After Clermont, I will have 3 weeks until I head to Australia for the Mooloolaba World Cup on March 25th. I just found out I got a start, so instead of a mini-training camp over spring break, I will be heading down under to mix it up with the big boys and race. Pretty excited to say the least!

Happy Racing.....the season has started!!!!!

Cheers,

B

link to the interview

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

la paz videos

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.

cheers,

b

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!

cheers,

b

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

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......

Some pics from Pacific Grove....courtesy of Derkacs Photography

Cheers,

B