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BELIEVELAND

August 12, 2018 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Very long log below. This weekend was very important to me and a lot happened. I am extremely exhausted from only getting about 20 hours of sleep over the past 4 nights and I am not exaggerating.


I’ll start with Friday. I woke up at 4:30am because I was hungry. So I got food, but couldn’t go back to sleep so I got in my car and hit the road at 5:30am. I was originally planning on leaving at like 7:00am. This was better.

If you know me, you know I don’t fuck with tolls, so I took the toll-less route across Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to get to Cleveland. While going through Indiana , I got to go through Amish people country. And I’ll be completely honest here… I did not think the Amish actually existed until this weekend. I thought they were just a myth or a meme. They were an interesting sight.

So anyway, 9 hours and 40 minutes later I arrived at the park in Cleveland. I checked in and familiarized myself with the whole area. But I was most interested in the beach on Lake Erie where the swim was going to be. Just a few days ago, hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage got dumped into the water by the beach and “high levels” of e. coli were detected. Thankfully, the e. coli washed away by the time of the race so the water was safe. Although, the waves were so huge in the water that there was some guy trying to surf. It did not look swimmable. But I moved on, went back to my car and headed over to my Airbnb.

Imagine House KARL, but smaller, trashier, and in a wack neighborhood. The insides of the windows had metal bars to prevent thieves. That’s where I was staying for the night. But it got the job done and I didn’t have any problems. It was in the Asian district on the east side of Cleveland and I was hungry so I type in “food near me” on my phone and approximately 12 vietnamese/chinese restaurants showed up in a one mile radius. So I went to one and SMASHED some fried rice.

Then, later on Friday evening I met up with Annie Grove! That was a lot of fun. We went to a couple of bars and got beers. Gotta get those pre-race carbs in right?

Had a really hard time sleeping that night. And I was already sleep-deprived from previous nights. So I got out of bed on race day morning feeling like a zombie. I deadass made it to the park 3 minutes before the transition area closed for me to put the rest of gear in. Then, a wild Red Cap Jack appeared! I hung out with him while waiting for our race. For those wondering, YES Red Cap has been running a lot this summer. But now on to the race…

While waiting to get in the water, by complete coincidence I was suddenly standing next to some guy I met at Epic during my first week. Small world. Then the race went off and the water was stage 5 cancer. The waves were still huge and I couldn’t handle it. Even though it was same for everyone, I still felt like I had a more terrible swim in comparison. But eventually I got that done with and moved on.

The bike.
I lost about 10 seconds struggling to get my shoes clipped in. Then some guy almost crashed in to me at the beginning and I gave him a “you hate to see it.” While on the course I chatted with some guy wearing an OSU kit and a had a little banter session with him about Urban Meyer. Then I moved on and chatted with a guy wearing an MSU tri kit for a bit. At the half way point, my average speed was only 22.7 mph. Not good enough. So I called gas and…
Fellas, I have never biked this fast in a race. I ended up with a 24 mph overall average. Not it was time for me to shine. Everything was there for me I just had to take it. But…

I lost literally an entire minute in transition while having trouble getting my running shoes on. But once I did, I was off to the races. However, I kept things conservative bc I had never biked that fast and was unsure of how I would be able to handle it. But everything turned out alright. I kept fairly consistent splits and ended up finishing the 10k run in 35:30. 100% could have gone under 35. The course was so crowded and crammed though with old people walking/shuffling and taking up the entire path that I was deadass throwing ‘bows to get around. I definitely angered those people and they let me know it, but I didn’t care. I had a goal in mind and I wasn’t gonna let these chumps literally get in my way.

While out running, I had no idea what my place was, but I knew I must’ve been doing alright bc I was passing a bunch of people in my age group with Team USA kits on, meaning that they had qualified for the world championships before. So when I crossed the finish line, I had a good feeling about how I did. But I would have to wait to see the results.

I got 20th in my age group (20-24). The top 18 auto qualify for the world championships in Lausanne, Switzerland next year. But there was hope… I would have to wait until later when the “age up” results would be posted. Since worlds is next year, people move up to the next age group (19 y/o move up to 20-24, 24 y/o move up to 25-29, etc.). So while I waited for that, I met up with Annie again and we went to another bar and got more beer and pizza.

After the age up rule, I was now 18th in my age group. I had done JUST enough to qualify for Team USA. I will be headed to the World Triathlon Championships in Switzerland in September of next year.

This is a dream come true and goal that I have had set for a long time now. It’s really going to happen. I am going to be representing this country that I love so dearly on the world stage. #BELIEVELAND


After trying on the Team USA kit for sizing and tentatively accepting my spot, I drove over to Toledo to meetup with Paul and Squanda for big things. We had an absolutely incredible night. One of my most fun nights out. We went to 4 bars and a shot window. Yes, there is a window right on the street in Toledo where you can just walk up and order shots. We stayed out doing big things (too many fun things happened for me to detail here) until 3:30am. Then we got up this morning and ran. I have never felt so horrible on a run.

After that, we smashed some food and then I got in my car and drove 7.5 hours back to Mad Town. My work day tomorrow is going to be miserable tomorrow but I’ll get through it.

What. A. Weekend. Time to get ready for a marathon in 3 weeks….