The day after a big race is one of the best days of the year, and one of my favorite feelings. The stern faces of my competitors have now become the soft smiles of my new friends. The Aussies have transformed from battle-ready comrades to pub-crawling revelers. The British have gone from pasty soldiers to bleary-eyed, red-nosed celebrants. Heck, even the Germans say hello in the hotel now. (More on the country profiles later…)


Immediately after the race I wandered around the finish line, receiving and returning accolades from fellow competitors, massages from Chinese PT students, and an assortment of post-race shwag and food from race organizers. Guys I had passed in my age group talked about what had happened (good and bad) during the race. Three young physical therapists took turns laying us face-down on massage tables and pounded out our taught hamstrings and calves. Hundreds of race organizers and their volunteers carried armloads of sponsor-emblazoned towels, medals, and water bottles and sent us home with enough Dextro Energy products and house wares to ward off any upcoming trips to Kmart.


The athletes milled around the recovery tents in varying states of undress, having peeled off the top halves of their soggy and cold national team speed suits and grimy, wet (and sometimes bloodied) running shoes. It’s a pretty funny scene; we all look worn out, red-eyed, soaked to the bone, and strangely happy and serene. The elation of a monumental task completed (both in unison and in competition) is unifying, and the sense of commiseration and camaraderie is both warm and sweet. Sport is great “glue” for people, probably why the Olympics is viewed as such a popular and wonderful event. The ITU World Championships mimics this for the true amateur athlete and the weekend hack, who wants to see how he stacks up against the rest of the world, and then wants to have a beer with the very same guys he’s trying to pummel.


The event was highly organized. The Chinese take organization (and pageantry) very seriously. We had a battalion of buses carting us to and from the race site, and hundreds of volunteers and military marshalling and corralling and running us through security checkpoints. There were TSA-type scanners and searches at every entrance; the Chinese were not letting anything go to chance. We had credentials and wrist bands and scanners and meetings and overhead announcements in a constant stream. We felt like hired guns that had come in for the entertainment of the public, and yet we were treated like total professionals.


I sent a frozen and exhausted Henri back to the hotel on the team bus, and spent the rest of the morning drying out, warming up, and re-hydrating while I watched the Men’s Elite (professional) competition. It would take me several thousand words to describe the speed, efficiency, and drama of the men’s pro race – you can experience the feeling by visiting www.triathlon.org and clicking on the video of the Men’s Elite Series Grand finale. My ego, which had been inaccurately and unreasonably inflated just an hour earlier (did I mention I was Number Five In The World?) was brought crashing back to earth by the display of the Brownlee Brothers of Great Britain (Alistair and Jonathan, the world’s # 1 and 2-ranked triathletes) and the rest of the pro men’s field ripped through a course twice the distance of our race, at approximately twice the speed. I was suddenly glad for the contrived and specified nature of amateur triathlon, with its five-year age groups and gender-specificity, its various distance classifications and even its occasional weight divisions (there is a Clydesdale/Athena division at some races for men over 200 lbs and females over 150 lbs.) Basically, I’ve chosen to compete in a sport that allows me to complete against other men, my age in a very specific set of disciplines at a very specific distance. And I get to go to a “world championship” for that. It’s kind of like saying I’m going to figure out how to compete with the best of the world in woodworking. Seniors Woodworking. Furnishings Category. Hardwoods. But indoor hardwood furnishings woodworking…


While I watched the speedy pros, I noticed a couple of the coveted race banners (which had adorned almost every lamppost and building in Beijing) had been laid down near the finish line to make way for the television camera coverage. I had been coveting both the English and Chinese versions of the World Championships banner since our arrival, and I come from a long line of event paraphernalia thieves – one of my uncles has an Olympic flag at his company headquarters in Chicago, a self-serve gift from the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Games. As I leaned over the race barrier and pretended to watch the Elite Men transition, I used my toes to dislodge the eight-foot nylon banner’s wire fasteners and zip-ties from its steel post. An ITU official wandered over to where I was performing my crime, and I decided to ask her if the banners were going to be for sale at some point. She raised an eyebrow as she noticed my covert operation under foot and said in her Kiwi drawl, “Well, why don’t you just try an’ nick one, Love? Would you like me to turn the other way, then?” I had both banners in my knapsack within 15 seconds. God love the cheeky Kiwis, even if they do pronounce the word “no” with three syllables (“Aye, Nay-yeau…”)


I remembered to retrieve my racing bike and gear, and hopped the team bus back to the Loong Palace Hotel, where I commenced the post-race tradition of Indiscriminant Eating and Drinking. The Palace has a cholesterol-laden version of an American Cheeseburger, with ham, bacon, and a fried egg on top. Tomato Egg-Drop soup, two Chinese beers, and a package of chocolate cookies (the last of which was enjoyed in the bath Henri had drawn for me upon my return, like Kato in the original Pink Panther movies. Then, one of the best all-time naps, interrupted only by a 9pm wake-up call of hunger pains. I joined Rico and Elaine and Doug and Dave in the hotel bar while Henri slept, and we finished the evening off with giant steins of lager and huge bowls of Neapolitan ice cream.


Kind of a self-indulgent afternoon and evening, but then so is racing (and the training leading up to it.) It felt good to set such a goal, qualified for it, trained for it, made the necessary sacrifices, and executed Elliot’s game plan almost to a ‘T.’ Except for that swim…Of course, that’s the thing that will keep me coming back, the areas of improvement (despite the muscular attrition of age) that I think I can overcome and do better next time. That’s why I go back to Nationals. That’s why I’ll try to race Worlds next year in Auckland, New Zealand. I hear the water will be cool enough for wetsuits (yea!) and that the bike course will favor hill-climbers, and that the banners are easy to steal…

TIME TO FACE THE WORLD...

Finally the day is here. Race morning, ITU Triathlon World Championships. Lots of months of preparation, lots of time and money and effort and emotion and pressure, and now it all comes down to an hour and a quarter of redline racing.

Race morning is miserable, 55 degrees, windy, and rainy - a complete change from the smog and heat of the past week. I look out the window and smile to myself; this is exactly what I need, an environmental condition beyond my or anyone's control, a muddy-ing (and leveling) of the playing field. At least half of the field will be put off of their game by rain and cold.

I start the day off by missing my bus to the race. Don't know how one can put so much time and prep into such an important event and then forget the bus schedule, but I did. I think it's sub-conscious self-sabotage, a little something to distract myself from the pressure. Henri and I hitch a ride with a family headed out to the Ming Tomb Reservoir, and I begin the pre-race rituals.

Because of the rain and wind, the check-in to transition is a mess, and people are freaking out at the prospect of racing in such crappy conditions. I watch a guy from my age-group literally start shaking as he talks himself through all the things that are going to go wrong - no wetsuits allowed, wet and slick course, transition equipment will be soaking wet, etc. I check my bike and transition area, drop off my dry gear at the check in, and huddle with 100 of my newest friends in the athlete corralling area, which leads us to the swim start. there are a lot of blue lips and shivering prior to the start. Should have kept a little body fat there, Frenchy.

We line the pontoon and are given last-second instructions: no warming up, enter the water 15 seconds before the horn, no peeing off the pontoon, one hand on the wall, no pushing off. I profile what I assume to be some slower swimmers (Chinese and Hong Kong-ese - I know, total profiling, but accurate) and as the horn sounds I dig in and try to get clear of the scrum. I do, and in the process put myself in immediate trouble; 300 meters in I am on the verge of hyperventilating. I move out to the edge of the pack, take a few breast strokes, and try to settle in behind the middle of our pack of about 100. After the mid-point buoys, I manage to follow the feet of a Spaniard and a Brit, and cruise to the finish ramp, completely behind pace.

Thank God for transitions. One of the things our triathlon club really prides itself in is the ability to blast through the swim-to-bike and bike-to-run transitions, a portion of the race that most use to gather themselves, but offers the opportunity to pick up several places if you push it. I notice that half of the bikes in our rack are gone, and I run my bike to the mount line, jump on at a dead run, and slip my feet into my already clipped in shoes. I later learn that I am 21st out of the water.

The bike is two loops of the reservoir, hilly and curvy and wet and windy: perfect. The first lap is a controlled exercise in maintaining pace and pushing the hills, which I have been training for. I go back and forth with two Aussies and a few Brits, or "GB's" as their supporters yell. On the second lap I go with two GB's and keep them in sight, passing them on the hills and coming back to the them on the flats. On the one flat section at the back of the lake I yell to myself "C'mon, WORK!" and leave them for good in the pouring rain. Skidding into T2, I slip out of my shoes and hit the wet ground and sprint through transition, noticing that there are only nine bikes in the rack, and two GB's in transition.

The run course consists of three laps along the dam, all in front of the kilometer-long grandstand. By the first turnaround I have Mr. Keenan from the UK in my sites, and I use the cheering throng at the start/finish line (which we will pass four times) to keep my pace up. I am running well. Really well. For the first time all year, I am running as fast as I can, and it doesn't hurt. I pick off another Brit, a fellow American, an Aussie, and a Kiwi. By the third and final lap I am flying and looking for whoever is ahead of me. With about 600 to go my left hamstring starts to twinge; 100 meters up I see the electric blue suit of one more GB-er, and I set my sights on bringing the name on his butt into view. With 350 to go it is a Mr. Keene, and he is going to be passed with purpose, and we fly down the finishing chute with our respective supporter imploring us to "Catch him, catch him, catch him. GO USA, GO GB, GO USA, GO GB!" We hit the line within a few meters of each other and collapse in sweaty hugs at the finish. His family is across the barrier screaming madly. Henri stands quietly in the freezing rain, shielding his camera with his hat.

Nothing hurts at all. I allow myself to raise my hands high overhead and thank God for the ability to do such silly and wonderful things with my body. Tim Yount, USAT Team Manager, yells from the stands "Fifth! You ran from 10th to fifth! Go USA!" I also allow myself to feel a little patriotic, and am immediately interviewed by a reporter from USA Triathlon. I have trouble mouthing the words "my kids" and "America" and "Youth Homes" as I answer his questions about how and why and what for, choking up with my exposed and raw emotions. And then I see Henri at the barrier and I burst into tears. Lucky it is still raining.

The hour or two after is other-worldly. Everyone in elated, relieved, happily analytical. At 9:30 am there is a peculiar amount of cheap Chinese beer being consumed by Aussies and Kiwis in the massage tent. I swig a half a can with a Mr. Beese from Oz, and get a hot cup of noodles.

The stats will read: Fifth place, World Triathlon Championships, Men 45-49. 75th of 745 overall. Fifth American overall, second American Master. 13th Masters (40+) overall. 15:03 swim (which ended up being about 900 meters,) 36:30 bike for 22 km, and 18:20 for the 5k run. 1:13:03 finish time, so a long sprint by our standards. 21st-fastest swim, seventh-fastest bike, fifth-fastest run. Fastest combined transitions in both age group and Masters. Bad swim, but resurrected. Solid bike in which I gave to quarter to The Empire. And my best run of the year, maybe ever for a sprint. Super-fast transitions. No barfing on the run (although I did gag a little at the start of the swim.) Nice wind-up and delivery.

Man, I love racing.

LIKE A BUNCH OF CAGED ANIMALS

Our visit to the zoo the day before had perfect metaphors for what a group of triathletes look and feel like on the afternoon before a big race. Stern faces, lots of pacing, frequent and random naps is strange places and positions, and a general pent-up feeling that makes us look like we would really rather be doing something else.

There are race requirements like checking in the bike, and at the international level the uniform check and pre-race body marking. What, you may ask, is body-marking? Well, ITU likes their races to have a certain professional look and feel, so our uniforms are national federation-issued, with our country and last name screened front and back, and our numbers and age group written in big marker on our legs or arms. This helps officials and press identify athletes, and for athletes to know who they are running by (or getting run down by) during the race. It also helps doctors, ambulance drivers, and emergency room attendants identify bodies when necessary. That's only partially a joke.

Henri, Dave, and I went to the Great Wall in the morning, and hiked some of the steepest sections of this massive (6000 km long) yard fence that was designed to keep Mongolians, evil spirits, and unwanted salesmen out. I think this was the highlight of the trip for Henri, and he bounded up to the sentry towers with his Flip Cam, standing out amongst the throngs of mostly Asian tourists. Dave and I tried to limit the amount of damage to our legs by stopping frequently, but we wended up hiking quite a bit.

After checking in the bike for Saturdays date with destiny, we watched the Paratriathlon. This was a race solely dedicated to elite athletes with disabilities, and it was the most inspiring imagery of the week. Athletes with various amputations strapped on prosthetic devices and tore through the course with abandon, while blind racers and their guided were tethered by chords on the swim and run, and rode tandem on the bike. It was yet another wake-up call to the rest of us typical, self-absorbed athletes, who were worried about equipment and lack of training and the rain, and whatever else really didn't matter. Watching the Paratriathletes compete would inspire anyone to quit their whining and just get on with it.

We had a nice dinner in the courtyard of the hotel, packed up last-minute race stuff, and hit bed by about 10. Tomorrow, we take on the world...

PANDA TIME, AND PAGEANTRY

Thursday was a chance to do a little bit of nothing, and go see the Beijing Zoo. My coach, Elliot, is still requiring some movement to keep everything in firing order for Saturday, so I did a quick swim and ride in the hotel's fitness center, and wolfed down another huge buffet/trough feeding with Henri before we took the hour-long taxi ride to the zoo.

Beijing has put great effort toward cultural and architectural improvements in an attempt to draw tourism dollars from across the globe. The zoo is massive, with beautiful grounds and attractions - at least in the popular and new areas. The Giant Panda exhibit was impressive, and the park has a new aquarium with dolphins and belugas that is state-of-the-art. The average animal pens, however, are small and unimaginative, and they underscore the bizarre need for humans to display captured animals. Most of them seem lethargic and very much out of their element (the animals, not the humans) although lemurs and monkeys seem to be able to find the fun in any situation.

As Americans we are jaded with our standards of sanitation, transportation, and even obscure things such as zoo security. The amount and type of barrier used to separate the animals from the humans in the Beijing Zoo would make any American parent want to stand between their kid and the zebras, lions, and crocodiles that are within alarming reach of the public. In a way it was cool to be able to get that close, but those videos you see on America's Dumbest Videos are also cool, from your couch. I watched an old man taunt a male lion, and then a huge female rhinoceros with a plastic toy sword he had grabbed from his grandson. Never have I wished for one of those "camera phone incidents" like I did at that point. I told Henri to get his flip-cam ready, because the lion was about one Mandarin grunt away from making the next day's news. The monkeys, as always, retained a sense of humor no matter what the stupid humans were doing.

Thursday afternoon and evening were filled with the official start of World Championship Week. The US team gathered for press and team pictures, and our 200-strong contingent boarded buses for a police-escorted ride to the Opening Ceremonies and Parade at Changping Stadium. The 60+ national teams from around the world gathered a mile out from the stadium and followed Chinese Dragons and drummers through crowd-filled streets. All of a sudden we felt like celebrities, waving to the crowds who were madly snapping pictures and recording the passing of each colorful team. Television cameras and reporters intercepted athletes in the street, and little kids asked for trinkets and high-fives.

This is a much bigger deal than I remembered.

We filed into the arena and were seated in sections according to country; The Americans, Australians, and British were the largest contingents, the Brazilians and Mexicans the loudest, and the Germans the most aloof. The president of the ITU and the mayor of Beijing both welcomed and opened the event, and we were treated to a very Vegas-like production of live music, video presentations, speeches, athlete's oaths, and celebrity appearances. As the 3000+ athletes mingled on the arena floor, we were served a picnic box of very elaborate (but mostly unidentifiable) food items that most athletes just kind of smelled, tasted, and then winced at. Lots of, uh, candied and pickled and gelatinous items of undeterminable origin, neither meat nor fruit, but possibly something in-between, and all elaborately packaged, and with a small note that read "Edible: To Be Consumed by 21:00 hrs." Which meant it all had a shelf life of about six hours. Luckily, organizers had also contracted the Beijing Pizza Hut to supply buckets and buckets of pasta in little plastic drums. The athletes and their families sat in little circles on the arena floor as the Chinese Wayne Newton crooned butchered versions of American pop from an elaborate neon-bedazzled stage.

By 9pm were back on the busses, having snuck on bags of beer from a local shop for the evening's only libations. Henri and I made friends with a family from Scranton PA, who were there supporting their 17-yr old daughter, who was racing at Worlds for the first time. Her parents were working class folks who had never been farther than California in their lives, and we bonded over our kids' achievements and a couple of cold Yangjings at the back of the bus. There are some amazing people who come to these events. Our other back-of-the-bus partners were a recent cancer-survivor who was racing in her 10th championships and who had "just gotten her hair back in time for the race," and a 21-year-old lower-extremity amputee who was racing at this level for the first time.

For all its neurotic allure, uptight preparation, and myopic obsessive/compulsive types, this sport does draw a certain cross-section of interesting personalities, soulful warriors, and whackos. I met a 65 year old judge, an art historian who is helping rebuild Tuscaloosa, and a long-haired single father from Atlanta who was racing with his 18 year old son, and was intent on finding the best bar and the prettiest girl in Beijing. There are also the obvious assortment of possessed, high-strung over-achievers who absolutely LIVE for this level of competition, and are always the first ones on the bus, in the proper Team USA attire, and walking around with water bottles accurately mixed with electrolyte replacement solution and ph-balanced water. My race buddy Dave Goldberg and I watched them file to bed at 9:15 from the hotel bar while sipping G & T's and talking about kids and marriage and work and anything but triathlon. Don't get me wrong, I will get plenty obsessive about this at the right time, but I can't imagine becoming so self-consuming about the race that you forget to have fun, or go talk to the pandas. Henri has a good outlook on this. He'll soldier through the events and lines and registration stuff, and then patiently ask, "OK, if we're done with that, what are we going to eat, and what are we going to see today?"

Tomorrow, we check in our bikes for Saturday's race, and head to The Great Wall, and attempt to get lost in an entirely different section of the city.

Team USA set to tackle Sprint Olympic Distance World Championships!

Click the image to read the article.

Check out the article in the Ravalli Republic!

Click the image to read the Ravalli Republic article.

DAY TWO: WAKE-UP CALL

So the breakfast buffet at the Loong Palace is great, hundreds of items from all over the world, and a pretty good assortment of "normal" food for the visiting athlete. This will come up later. Literally.

Henri and I took the team bus back out to the Shisaling Reservoir for today's Aquathlon World Championships. Aquathlon is an obscure format of multi-sport racing, of which there are only a few in the U.S., but is hotly contested in eastern Europe and many island nations, and warrants a championship of sorts somewhere, so... Along with the Olympic and Sprint Age Group World Championships, Beijing is hosting a list of World Championships this week including: Elite (professional) Junior (under 19, sprint distance) Under 23 (a short, odd distance for neo-pros) Paralympic (disabled racers including amputees and blind athletes) and the Aquathlon, which consists of a 2.5K run, a 1000 meter swim, and another 2.5K run.

Some of us on the US team were granted entry into the Aquathlon World Championships based on our qualification for the triathlon, and some submitted criteria requirements. It is a short, intense race without the hassle of the bike, about three days out from the main event, so I jumped at the chance to rev my engines early in the race week, and check out two-thirds of the course we will be racing this Saturday. Careful what you wish for...

The rest of the world takes Aquathlon pretty seriously. The entire field of about 400 was split into about six waves, and I went off with all the 40-year-old+ athletes. In triathlon we always start with the swim, but this format called for us to first toe the line as a pack in our running shoes. For the few seconds before the start, I had images of blasting off the line and going out with the lead pack, as I consider running my best of the disciplines. Ten seconds after the gun, I changed plans as about 20 of our group launched into a low five minutes-per mile pace. I decide right then and there that I wasn't an "aquathlete," and that it was a stupid name, and really a dumb, obscure, European sport for people who can't afford bikes.

We ran out of the reservoir stadium and back, and transitioned on the blue-carpeted platform in front of the grandstand, grabbing our goggles and lunging down a boat ramp and into the water. Turns out it is quite difficult to settle into a swimming rhythm with your heart (and breakfast) in your throat, and I struggled to maintain my position of about 30th and followed the toes of a Mr. Anderson from Australia (ITU rules require athletes to wear identifiable national uniforms with your last name on your rear - great way to meet people while enjoying the outdoors.) After cruising out and around Ming's Tomb (the iconic temple in the middle of the reservoir) I exited the water still staring at Mr. Anderson's butt, and quickly transitioned back to my running shoes. I managed to catch one of the Americans ahead of me, and Mr. Stine and I worked at catching a couple more of the masters' category. I pulled away from Todd coming up the spillway and into the stadium, only to pull over and project the morning buffet over a race barrier and have Todd catch me. Must've been the adrenaline. I gathered myself and took off again, finishing the last kilometer quickly, and crossing the line in about 40 minutes, about 50th overall, 12th in my age-group, and second American Master. A 22-yr old kid from Spain won, and our age-group was won by a tall lanky guy from Tahiti. He should learn how to bike so he can move up to a real sport.

It was a great way to re-con the course for Saturday's main event, and to get rid of the usual pre-race jitters, and maybe some unnecessary calories. I think Saturday is going to be even faster, and more competitive. For a gallery of images from the Aquathlon, go to www.usatriathon.org, and click on ITU Aquathlon Championships, and look for the photo gallery.

Henri filmed the race, and then was interviewed himself by another gaggle of starry-eyed Chinese female reporters, who seem to think he is either an elite junior athlete from Norway, or a famous prodigy filmmaker. He is starting to claim both.

We went to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City in the afternoon, and logged another eight miles of walking, trying to get home through a series of electric rickshaws, the metro, and cab drivers who kept dropping us off in the wrong neighborhood. Beijing has 22 million citizens, and they are friendly, helpful, largely middle-class, and equally obsessed with their i-phones as Americans. Traversing the city in race gear, with numbers painted on legs and arms, and accompanied by a tall blond kid is an excellent way to meet new friends. We didn't get back to the hotel till about 9pm, but it was a great day of new experiences.