Roxanne

"...you don't have to wear that dress tonight"

I cannot express enough gratitude to East Ridge Bicycles and Litespeed. Drool away, folks. Drool away.

Rev3, Recovery and Roxanne

The Rev3 triathlon in Knoxville, TN is a world class Olympic and half iron distance race held virtually in my back yard. I've never had such a luxury of driving only an hour and a half to a race of this caliber. Additionally, I had a support system that rivaled that of the Griswold Family Christmas, which made for an even more amazing race experience. Thank you all so much for your support.

Race morning began with a balmy 45 degree air temperature. Good thing I brought my Saucony run pants and warm up jacket! Rev3 does an amazing job of making everyone feel like a rock star, and the professional field literally had the royal carpet rolled out for us as our transition area was carpeted...no, not shag. After a fun five minutes of wading in 69 degree water sans wetsuit, the pro wave took off and I had a good swim. I came out of the water about 40 seconds down from the fastest swimmers in the world, so my feelings were not hurt as a former short course butterfly swimmer. Onto the very challenging bike course I held my own and rode strong. Nothing too terribly exciting happened, which is a good thing. I couldn't help but sing to myself the University of Alabama fight song as I rode through the University of Tennessee campus, though...my Quintana Roo CD0.1 (known to you now as Lolita) handled the technical, hilly and challenging bike course like Mario Andretti. Too bad I didn't have a Formula 1 engine in my belly.

The run course was also very fun and challenging, and I was able to run strong to finish 15th professional amongst a star-studded line up.

Recovery:

For the most part, all of us swim, bike, run and workout a lot. For the most part, all of us neglect the equally important aspect of training, which is recovery. Recovery is training. When we beat our bodies up, we must allow it to heal or we cannot become better as athletes. In order to recover, there are a couple very simple, easy but utterly paramount tools we must incorporate into our training routines; massage therapy and body balance/chiropractic care. Two Chattanoogans who literally keep me upright and training/racing as hard as I can are Christian Stegall and Dr Robert Haug. Christian is a massage therapist in town who specializes in athletic therapy and overall muscular health through massage. Dr Bob from Riverview Chiropractic keeps my body balanced through applied kinesiology and muscle balance. Email, call, text message, or send a courier pigeon my way and I will send you their information.

Roxanne:

I am extremely fortunate to live in the same town as cycling and triathlon powerhouse companies, Litespeed and Quintana Roo. You all have been introduced to Lolita, but now I proudly present Roxanne; she is a size ML Litespeed C1 frame equipped with a complete SRAM Red build. I will post pics as soon as I can fun my USB cable to connect my camera to my computer. She's 'purdy.' I cannot express enough gratitude to East Ridge Bicycles and the folks at QR and Litespeed. I've been to bike shops all around the world, and East Ridge Bicycles is second to none. Chuck Norris even thinks so.

St. Anthony's Triathlon

So, the Winchesters loaded up the fun, 'ol fashion, four wheel sleigh and pointed it south for about 580 miles. My mom, dad, one brother and I took off for a nice road trip/race/mini vacation, and it was a wonderful weekend.

The drive down was uneventful, which is nice, and we were all eager to get to Florida. We arrive on Friday before the race, and we all take a quick nap before heading down the race site for a warm up (I was the only one racing, but I use 'we' because if it were not for my family, I wouldn't be there!). I shook the legs out with a little spin and jog, followed by saying hello to the Quintana Roo and ISM (thank you for the photo!) guys. Afterwards, we joined a great friend, athlete, and coach Marc Bonnet-Eymard and a few others for a nice dinner. I had some wine, and I think I'm on to something for pre race relaxation. Normally, I'm wound up tighter than a (euphemism of choice here), but just a little red wine seemed to help me pump my cerebral brakes.

Wash, rinse, repeat for Saturday, and next thing I know, it's race morning. I get in a nice warm up, and decided to walk to the swim start as opposed to swimming across the marina like most other pros do. In retrospect, I maybe should have gotten in a better swim warm up. The cannon blows, and we're off. I settle into a decent rhythm, but never really got to motoring. I hop on Lolita, and I'm ready to ride. Things were going well up until about mile 10, when uber-cyclist David Thompson passes me, and a minute or two later a marshall comes by and asks me to stand down. What does this mean? Well basically, regardless of the distance of the pro in front of you, you must be on the other side of the lane as him. Well, David was a good 30 meters up the road, and in a roughly 20mph crosswind, it was difficult to judge where he was. So, I was penalized for the first time in my career. I couldn't change the outcome, so I put my head down and hammered after coming to a complete stop, waiting 60 secs, then resuming. All in all, the penalty probably cost me over two minutes on the bike. I rode hard, which took a little wind out of my running sails, but I ran as hard as I could, passing a few guys to finish 18th Pro. I hate to say "would've, should've or could've," but I know that penalty cost me close to three minutes.

Coach Tim and I have been putting a move on training since St. A's, and next stop is Rev3 in Knoxville, TN this weekend. Hopefully, I won't have such a look of pain aboard Lolita this weekend, as pictured above.

Until next time,