Collegiate Nationals Part III

Despite the very best effort from each and every Golden Bear, Cal could not top the well- balanced team from Annapolis and relinquished the national champion title to the Naval Academy. There were some truly heroic performances from our team members that must be applauded. Robyn Shaffer and Daniella Mehech were both sick within the week leading up to the race, but gutted it out to finish 8th and 9th respectively; Mike Jafari had a break through performance in the 5th wave, maneuvering through the slower athletes to a top 10 finish overall; and our president, Kevin Haas, racing after the epic three day drive in a Penske truck to deliver the team’s bike in Lubbock from Berkeley. Not to mention the fact that our sprint racers in the race before the Olympic had transformed into the best cheerleaders ever! They had painted their bodies and arranged themselves to spell “Go Tri Bears” on their chest and “California” on their back. They positioned themselves on top of the last climb on the course and cheered with the same enthusiasm for all athletes, regardless of school affiliation. Post – race they also had their scarlet letter “branded” to them as the Texas sun tanned the rest of their bodies except where the letter was painted on. I don’t care what the “official” results said, but UC Berkeley definitely showed why we should have won the spirit award. Not to mention the fact that the entire team donned a “Muhammed Alinesque” custom Cal robes during the whole weekend. The special treat of the day was a surprise visit from two great friends: our ex-president Christi Leong and Dwight Upshaw, who drove from Boulder to watch Cal Triathlon race at Nationals. They are truly wonderful people and bleed blue and gold. They, too, stationed themselves at the top of that hill. I could not have been more proud to be a bear! It was a very satisfying runner-up title, (the 5th in the past 6 collegiate nationals with the sole exception being the national championship title last year) knowing that each and every team member left it all out on the race course. The men retained the national title, while the women garnered 4th place.

It truly was a bitter sweet day for me. I was so happy with how the team performed, but I was sad that it was going to be my last race wearing the blue and gold. I have been a member of the Cal Triathlon team since 2004 and it will be the tri team that will forever define my college experience. It has truly been an honor to have you guys in my life. I love all of you guys! Big thanks to each and every one of my teammates for their undying support, love and encouragement. We owe a lot to our wonderful coach, Andy Schmitz, who once again tapped into the full potential of the team, which allowed us to produce at a level that we thought was not possible. From his visualization session to his words of encouragement and motivation, Andy made the team believe we would all race as champions.

Andy and the rest of the team will reload for next year and will hopefully bring back that national title to Berkeley. I also truly hope my good friend, Steve Sexton, will return to collegiate racing and help UC Berkeley make that dream a reality. He truly is a champion and the team surely missed his abilities and leadership in Lubbock. His addition would have made things real interesting for that overall duel with Navy and the team title! I have no doubt that Kenny will vie for the individual male honors and whether it is him or Steve, Cal will keep that title in house. On the women’s side, Daniella and Robyn will be right in the hunt for individual honors and lead a very strong women’s contingent in 2010. Roll on you bears and you stay classy!

Collegiate Nationals Part II

It was now race day. Although training had been going better this past week since my untimely crash at Santa Barbara, I still did not have full range of motion in left arm due to a pinched ulnar nerve. My strength, the swim, was now my greatest limiter for the race. I was just hoping that adrenaline could get me to land in a respectable time. The swim was freezing! 53 degrees with 48 degree air temp. Luckily, I, along with the Cal team, had practice with such conditions - can you say Golden Bearathlon round 2! In fact the cold acted as a natural anesthetic for my elbow.

Once that horn blasted for the start I did not feel the pain in my elbow again until I crossed the finish line. I could not believe how good my stroke felt considering my longest swim in the past three weeks was a little over a half an hour. To my amazement, I actually led the swim to the last buoy before being passed my Nick Vandam from Army. When I got to my bike I realized I was sandwiched by the two armed forces’ athletes that I considered the race favorites: Nick Vandam, who exited the swim 7 seconds in front of me and Derek Oskutis, who exited the water 12 seconds behind me. I had a very fast T1 and mounted my bike first. With the rush from the crowd and my teammates cheering, I knew that this was going to be my best opportunity to make a move in the race. I stopped thinking and just raced – sounds simple, but I overanalyze everything and for once I just put my head down and rode my bike as hard as I could. The bike felt effortless until the turnaround when I realized why it felt so good – it was a tail wind out and a stiff crosswind back into T2. Despite probably going out too hard on the bike, I was able to continue extending my lead to 1:30 going into T2.

I knew it was going to be a painful run once I started, but the crowd and the adrenaline rush got me through the first two miles. It was at the mile two marker that I really started hurting and the rest of the run was done in complete survival mode – it probably looked like I was swimming on land, because I know my form was falling part. In the end I was able to hold off Derek Oskutis by a mere 20 seconds. He is an amazing athlete and had the run been long like the swim, I may have been in trouble.

I learned a lot about myself and my body in the past three weeks than at any other point in my career. I learned the importance of rest and a proper taper(or should I saw a forced taper). I hope that it does not take a bike crash three weeks out from an “A” race to remind me of the importance of rest ever again. Who would have thought after my last post that the crash was the best thing that could have happened to me and was actually a blessing in disguise? The old saying that it is “better to under train than over train” really does hold water!
Here were some write ups from usat and slowtwitch about the race:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/Dahlz_and_Broderick_in_Lubbock_764.html
http://usatriathlon.org/news/article/12048

Collegiate Nationals Part I

So, the day finally came for my last collegiate nationals in a Cal Bear uniform. Over the past weekend, the Cal triathlon team traveled to Lubbock, Texas to race at Collegiate Nationals in the hope of defending their overall team title. I also clung to a glimmer of hope that I would finally win that elusive individual crown, but realistically I just wanted to give it my all, help out the team and, in the process, garner a top 5 placing.

The travel to the race was anything but ordinary, as is usually the case with me. After a smooth trip from SFO to Memphis, (yes, you actually passed Texas to go to Memphis because I booked my flight using miles) the second half of my trip was anything but uneventful. The culprit was a hydraulic system malfunction that delayed our flight for 3 hours. In that span we boarded and un-boarded the plane twice before the problem was finally solved. The unnerving part of the whole ordeal once the hydraulics were fixed was the fact that the airline company needed volunteers to offer up their flight due to the intense storm that created weight restrictions for the plane. It also added a one hour loop to our flight to avoid the weather system. It was not an enjoyable flight with all of the turbulence and the crackling of lightning illuminating the intense clouds that we flew through. Nevertheless, we finally arrived in Lubbock at 2:30am! I would have been stranded at the airport had it not been for one of the triathletes from Auburn, Nate Robinson, who graciously offered me a ride to my hotel and saved my butt. However, the night was still young for everything else to go smoothly. Upon checking into my hotel, my room key refused to work. Seriously? It turned out that the battery in the door card system was out. The guy working the desk had to call a maintenance guy to get a master card to over ride the system. I finally crawled into bed at a little past 4 in the morning, just wondering what I had done to deserve such bad luck. However, despite only 4 hours of sleep I woke up the next morning pretty refreshed and the rest of the pre-race day went by smoothly.

When will I catch a break?

So, I thought I was over my bad luck when I got hit by a car on New Year's Eve. 2009 had to be better, it really could not get too much worse, I mean 5 crashes - come on!!! But no, I am back in the grove of having a very unpleasant blind date with the pavement!
After a dismal showing at my first race at the Stanford triathlon, I rallied and survived the death march of the Golden Bear triathlon winning the overall title. Cal took home the team title as well! So, when I said it was a death march, I was not kidding. The water temp was a balmy 52 and the air temp was a pleasant 44. That water literally took my breath away! I was absolutely petrified going down Wildcat –a super technical decent considering the wet pavement, pine needles and completely numb figures. In fact, I just kept my fingers clutching the brakes the entire decent because the one time I let go, I could barely squeeze them again. As I made the left hand turn onto San Pablo, my teammate Kenny Rakestraw passed me like I was standing still. He was on a tear that day and it was unfortunate that he got a flat tire about a mile out from transition. He decided to then run barefoot into transition and still pulled off a second place finish. He is absolutely a freak! Mad props to him! The run was so muddy that it actually was comical and marginally fun once I warmed up. It felt as if I was trying to walk in the snow in tennis shoes. Nevertheless, I was happy with my second fastest run of the day, which gave me a little confidence going into our Conference championships in Santa Barbara the following week.
So, last week, I was really more happen that I did not crash biking down wildcat canyon than anything. However, I guess I only managed to cheat the bad luck for a week. Miss Pavement was pissed at me that I stood her up in Berkeley and showed me her wrath at the race in Santa Barbara over the past weekend.
The swim felt really easy despite the fact that we were swimming into the current the entire way. This was at least partly due to the fact that my new wetsuit sponsor Xterra sent me a Vendetta a couple days before the race. I thought that my Xterra Vector Pro 2 was flexible, but the Vendetta put that to shame. Coming from a guy with a chronic history of shoulder problems, flexibility is my main focus in choosing a wetsuit. The Vector Pro was the best suit that eliminated almost all shoulder fatigue. The Vendetta has completely eliminated all of that fatigue. It truly is a gem! Not just that but the #40 yamamoto rubber in the Vendetta is also the most buoyant. I normally kick a lot in my races, but there was really no need, the wetsuit just carried me along.
So, with the aid of my new wetsuit I exited the swim in 3rd, swimming in the main pack and completely fresh. I had a quick T1 transition and exited my bike 2nd. I had literally gone 100 yards and was strapping my right shoe down when BAM! … I hit a pothole and my hand slipped off of the bar. My chest was now on my aerobars and I knew I was screwed. Thankfully, I was still cold from the swim and the rush of adrenaline masked all of the pain. I tried to get back on my bike and keep on riding, but my right aerobar was turned in and would not shift. That’s when I told myself that it was not worth continuing to race. I headed back to the transition area. It’s kinda funny watching the horrid looks of people’s faces when you have blood dripping all over you. Most people just stared at me, but my buddy Reto, a very fine professional triathlete and the coach of Stanford, and the Rakestraw family came to my aid and found me some medical support. Thanks for all of your help guys! After the medical team looked at my cuts, they said I needed to go to the hospital to get some x –rays and stitches. So, it was off to the er in an ambulance again! Luckily I had no broken bones, just some bruised ribs(the sucky part it is the same side as the ones I cracked on New Year’s Eve) and stitches in both my elbows, hand and hip. The unfortunate part of all this is that this was my last tune up race before Collegiate Nationals – my last collegiate nationals. I am pretty heartbroken about all of this, but I am going to be at the start line in Lubbock no matter what. I am also trying the new, highly touted tapering method of complete rest, with a mini triathlon as activation the day before and then the race. I will have very fresh legs for Col Nats! The good news was after UCSB messed up on the scoring with the preliminary scores, we were announced the champions the following day. Congrats to my teammate Kenny, the overall WCCTC champion and Daniela, who was runner up. Go Bears!!!

Coffee as a natural pain killer?

I just read this in yahoo news. However, the benefits are not limited to just coffee, as the title implies, but caffeine in general. I guess there is a reason why I love massive amounts of caffeine in the morning - it just numbs the pain of my actual workout and my doctored up concoctions taste pretty good as well.

Coffee Lessens the Pain of Exercise
AP – Viennese coffee is prepared at the Austrian-style Cafe Sabarsky in New York, Wednesday, March 4, 2009. …
LiveScience StaffLiveScience.com livescience Stafflivescience.com – Tue Mar 31, 1:37 pm ET
That cup of coffee that many gym rats, bikers and runners swill before a workout does more than energize them. It kills some of the pain of athletic exertion, a new study suggests. And it works regardless of whether a person already had a coffee habit or not.
Caffeine works on a system in the brain and spinal cord (the adenosine neuromodulatory system) that is heavily involved in pain processing, says University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Robert Motl. And since caffeine blocks adenosine, the biochemical that plays an important role in energy transfer and thus exercise, he speculated that it could reduce pain.
So the researcher, a former competitive cyclist, divided 25 fit, college-aged males into two distinct groups: subjects whose everyday caffeine consumption was extremely low to non-existent, and those with an average caffeine intake of about 400 milligrams a day, the equivalent of three to four cups of coffee.
Unexpected results
After completing an initial exercise test in the lab on a stationary bike to determine maximal oxygen consumption or aerobic power, subjects returned for two monitored high-intensity, 30-minute exercise sessions.
An hour prior to each session, cyclists - who had been instructed not to consume caffeine during the prior 24-hour period - were given a pill. On one occasion, it contained a dose of caffeine measuring 5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (equivalent to two to three cups of coffee); the other time, they received a placebo.
During both exercise periods, subjects' perceptions of quadriceps muscle pain was recorded at regular intervals, along with data on oxygen consumption, heart rate and work rate.
"What we saw is something we didn't expect," Motl said. "Caffeine-naïve individuals and habitual users have the same amount of reduction in pain during exercise after caffeine (consumption)."
The results are detailed in the April edition of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Co-authors included Steven P. Broglio of the University of Illinois and Sigurbjorn A. Arngrimsson of the Center for Sport and Health Sciences, Iceland University of Education.
"Clearly, if you regularly consume caffeine, you have to have more to have that bigger, mental-energy effect," Motl said. "But the tolerance effect is not ubiquitous across all stimuli. Even brain metabolism doesn't show this tolerance-type effect. That is, with individuals who are habitual users versus non-habitual users, if you give them caffeine and do brain imaging, the activation is identical. It's really interesting why some processes show tolerance and others don't."
Regarding the outcome of the current research, he said, it may be that tolerance to caffeine plays no role in the way it diminishes pain during exercise.
Motl said one of the next logical steps for his research team would be to conduct studies with rodents in order to better understand the biological mechanism for caffeine in reducing pain.
"If we can get at the biological mechanism, we can begin to understand why there may or may not be this kind of tolerance."
Will it help you win?
Motl previously has conducted other studies on the relationship between physical activity and caffeine, and considered such variables as exercise intensity, dose of caffeine, anxiety sensitivity and gender. A future research direction might be to determine caffeine's effect on sport performance.
"We've shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably, consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across different people, different characteristics. But does that reduction in pain translate into an improvement in sport performance?" he said.
Meanwhile, the current research could prove encouraging for a range of people, including the average person who wants to become more physically active to realize the health benefits.
"One of the things that may be a practical application, is if you go to the gym and you exercise and it hurts, you may be prone to stop doing that because pain is an aversive stimulus that tells you to withdraw," Motl said. "So if we could give people a little caffeine and reduce the amount of pain they're experiencing, maybe that would help them stick with that exercise."