Yes, I am still alive

I would like to take this time to let everyone know that I am indeed still alive and well. Any rumors of nefarious acts should be treated as false, unless you saw me do it, in which case I will discredit you with the fury of 1000 Lance Armstrongs! 

But in all seriousness folks, I have good news. The road to recovery has been long and frustrating, but I can finally see the light. I have been dealing with a nagging lower leg injury for the past 2 years now that has prevented me from training at full capacity. To make a long story short, I did a little tweaking with my run form and some insoles, and now I am feeling great. Its a wonderful feeling to be able to do some kind of speed work again. 

As we speak, I am planning out my schedule for 2013. It will include the usual local races, in addition to a focus on the Rev3 and 5150 short course race series. Thanks to Shawn and Bike Cycles (I'm still working there a bit by the way), I will be riding a very nice all black 2013 Specialized Shiv Pro with some cool custom features that I rigged up (pictures to come). I am very excited about being back on a Specialized this year, as I really enjoyed my Transition from 2 years ago. I also broke down and got fitted by Jon (him and Shawn are our Specialized certified fit gurus) and I am very pleased with the results. Lesson learned from that experience is to never take your contact points (i.e. saddle, pedals, handlebars) for granted. I preach it every day, but I am still amazed at how big a difference proper insoles and cleat placement can make.

Stay tuned for more as the season draws near. But its still winter time, so for now, take a cue from Mimsy and enjoy a cold one while ya still can... and yes, pants are always optional.

St. Anthony's Tri

After a brief hiatus, I am back online. Really going to try and keep up with this thing.

St. Anthony’s is a race I look forward to every year. It was my first pro race four years ago, and I have done it every year since. The flat fast course suits me well and I always seem to have a good race. Unfortunately, this year, due to rough water conditions, the swim had to be relocated and shortened. I still had a great race, and beat my best bike split on this course by about 1 minute. Though, it sucks when you get passed by guys knowing that you usually have a 2 min lead on them out of the water in a normal swim and only had about 30-40 seconds on them with the abbreviated course.

They had told us at the pro meeting that the course change was a possibility, but that they would still try to maintain a 1.5k swim course for the pro’s. However, on race morning we got the word that the course had been changed to a roughly 1k swim to the north of the transition. I would say that given our times, the 50 meter run in, and the ~200 meter run out of the water to the timing mats, that we maybe did about 800 meters of actual swimming. Following the long run out of the water we had about a half mile long run on the concrete sidewalk to get to transition. I was running at a good clip, and my T2 time was still over 3 minutes! A few athletes cut their feet up pretty bad running on the sidewalk. I had a few pieces of skin missing, but nothing major.

On to the bike course, I almost screwed up real bad in the first few hundred yards. Coming out of transition, there is a nasty stretch of road made entirely of brick pavers (think Paris Roubaix on a tri bike). I only carry one water bottle when I am doing an Olympic distance race, which I mount in between my aerobars. I hit a few rough patches right off the bat and my water bottle bounced out of the cage. I caught it with my left hand just as it rolled off my aerobars! Had I dropped it and not recovered it, not only would I not have my sports drink, but I would have been given a 1 minute penalty. In the pro division they make you serve penalties on course by pulling over and unclipping for the full minute!

So, with disaster averted, I settled into my rhythm and got down to business. I knew I was feeling good when I was keeping up with long time pro Brian Fleischman.

Me and Brian rode around each other the entire way, with a few other guys that eventually pulled away towards the end of the bike. I came out of T2 in 18th place and was feeling fairly good. I knew I had pushed the bike hard, but I still had some spring to my step. Kaleb Van Ort and Brian ended up passing me around mile 2 on the run. I wanted to try to stick Brian, but he had picked up his pace dramatically and I could not match him when he went he passed. Kaleb is a sub-4 min miler who ended up running a 31 min 10k, so I did not feel to bad about letting him go!

Once we reached the turn around, I could see that there were several guys all within striking distance of me. With the aid of a tailwind, I started feeling better and picked up the pace a bit. I wanted to maintain my top 20 position, but I was passed at the 5 mile mark by Sean Jefferson (another crazy fast low 29 min 10k runner). I fought to stay on him as the road turned a bit into a head wind, but my legs started to cramp up on me. I almost caught one more guy towards the finish, but just ran out of room. I finished 21st overall on the day about 6 min back from race winner Filip Osplay from the Czech Republic. He sealed the deal with a race best 30:53 10k. This was not my best finish here from a placing perspective, but I was about 1 min faster on the bike and only 30 seconds off my fastest run split. Also, this was by far the most competitive field I have seen at this race in my four years, and by all accounts, the strongest field ever at this race. Of course, had the swim been the normal distance I would have faired better, but I’m not going to dwell on it.

Next up, New Orleans 5150 in on May 15th. Like St. Anthony’s, this race is part of the 5150 Olympic distance race series this year. The course looks flat and fast just like St. Anthony’s, so I’m very excited.

Did I say I was going to update more often?

Wow, keeping up with this is harder than I thought. Every time I want to write something, I have to create a new password because I forgot the old one. But I'm really going to try from now on.

Well boys and girls, let me tell you what I've been up to. I've been done racing for the season for some time now. I finished up with the season with the Amica Tri series race in Phoenix, AZ back in November. It was a first year event that was putting up some decent money, so I figured I might as well go for it. It was also a great excuse to visit Holli in San Diego afterwards. The race eneded up going well. I finshed 6th overall which saw me going home with a decent little check. That check was quickly spent the following week on my little side trip. The week went by way to fast, and I quickly found myself back in wilmywood. But if the picture below is any indication, my journey left me with a comforting feeling of things to come.Yeah, it was quite nice!

So what have I been up to lately you might ask? Well, due to my deep hatred of laundry and my inability to properly fold a shirt, I'm finding new ways to put together an outfit that is suitable for public consumption. Also, I have let my facial hair roam free for the past month or so and you know what, it 'aint half bad looking. Now I know what your saying "damn Matt, you really let yourself go in the off season, huh". Not so. I will have you all know that I actually got my hair, yes my hair, cut not to long ago over Thanksgiving. "gee Matt, is that cuz your mommy made you go". Oh well you can just go to hell! I mean...she might have had some say in the matter.

In other news, I have also taken up the position of super stoker on a competitive tandem bar hopping team. For those of you not familiar with tandem riding, the stoker person on the back of the bike. So whats a super stoker you might ask? The super stoker is the person on the rear most position on a tandem kids trail-a-bike that is attached to a tandem bicycle.
That's our team ready for battle on the highly competitive tandem bar hopping circuit here in Wilmington. Notice I am wearing my compression socks, so you know I mean business. If it looks like fun now, just wait, it gets even better after 2 am. That's when the real competition starts.

That's all for now. Tune in next time when I will unveil my 2010 schedule as well as some other super special exciting stories from my off season adventures including the Worlds Greatest Talon.

So it's been a while...

Due to lack of internet access over the past month or so, I have not been able to update this page. I reporting to you today thanks to the awesome guest computers at the UNCW library. Unfortunatley, I only have an hour a day on these computers, so I have to make every second count. Forgive me if I am brief.

So, I won the Wilmington Tri for the second time 2 weeks ago. I did not feel to great having just come off a long wedding weekend on the outer banks. Basically it turned into 4 straight days of surfing and partying with no training at all. Luckily though, I felt good enough to pull out the overall victory. The win was all the sweeter due to the fact that my girlfriend, Holli, was able to watch me race. Little did we know that a photog from the Lumina News was snooping around at the finish line at caught us in a rather candid moment shortly after I crossed the line. Needless to say, the photo ended up in the paper that week.

Due to my victory at Wrightsville, I am now poised to take over one of the top spots in the NCTS as I get for the final race in the series at Pinehurst this weekend. It certaintly won't be easy with the likes of Tom Clifford, Eric Bean, Tim Surface, and Richard Armstrong racing, but at this point I have nothing to lose. The way I see it, everyone should be worried about what I'm going to do and we'll see how everything pans out when the dust settles.

Ok, only 4 minutes left on the computer. Going to Phoenix on November 1st for the Amica Championship Race. $20,000 up for grabs in this first year event. Afterwards, I'm flying out to San Diego for a week to see my girl for some good old fashioned r&r.

Bandits Challenge

Just got back from a great weekend of racing and training up in the mountains of North Carolina. On Saturday, I raced the Bandits Challenge Triathlon up in Wilkesboro, NC. This race is often regarded as one of the toughest international distance tri's in the country for its challenging bike course and leg breaking hills on the run. The run in particular has a hill that about 90% of the field end up walking due to how steep it is.

Going into the race, I was not sure how things were going to go. I felt ok, but definitely had some fatigue from the last few weeks of training. Getting in on the swim, I felt smooth, but not very powerful. I still came out of the water first, with my buddy Dave Sokolofsky on my heels and the next closest guy about a minute back. Once I got on the bike though I started to feel a lot better. I managed to lop off 3 minutes from my bike split from last year, and came into t2 only 30 seconds down from Dave. I had worked pretty hard on the bike to try and maintain my lead, so I was a little worried about how my legs would feel once I got off and running. Much to my delight, my legs felt pretty good, and I was able to start turning over a very fast clip. I passed Dave within the first mile and held my lead to the end. I ended up taking the victory by over two and a half minutes and breaking the course record by over a minute. Dave was eventually passed by fellow Wilmington triathlete Tom Clifford, who came in second, while Dave held on for third. Overall, a great day for Wilmington triathlete's, sweeping the top 3 spots at the hilliest triathlon in North Carolina

The day after the race, me, Tom, and a couple guys hung around to ride some mountains for training. We ended up riding the 3 Mountain Madness course in Winston-Salem. Although I was tired and pretty broken down, I still managed to put in three and a half hours of quality mountain riding.

The training we did yesterday combined with the race on Saturday gives me an enormous amount of confidence heading into Nationals in 2 weeks. I was not rested for this weekend, so I'm very excited to see how I feel when I taper down.

Philly Tri, San Francisco, and a little Lifeguard Competition

So as you may have noticed, I have been slacking on my updates lately. It's been a very chaotic last three weeks. After two tri's and a lifeguard competition later, and I am finally getting back to neutral.

It all started with the Philadelphia Triathlon back on June 27th. This would be my first race back since my accident, and would give me an idea of where my fitness was going into the later half of the season. I was mainly just concerned about how I would feel on the swim, considering the separated shoulder was one of the more severe injuries I sustained. Ironically though, my swim felt great. I was able stay right on the heels on the lead pack of swimmers with relative ease. I had a decent T1, and was quickly out on the bike. The bike course in Philly is quite interesting. It had plenty of dead flat sections along the river, but four decent climbs equally separated throughout the two loop course. I struggled to find my rhythm on the first lap, and not to far in, lost contact with the leaders. I was a little disappointed, but thought it would be better to ride my own race rather than blow up towards the end of the bike. Coming into T2, I had a bit more company. A few guys had caught me towards the end of the bike. Heading out on the run, I felt strong, but was a bit demoralized to see that I had lost two minutes on the group I came out of the water with. I just tried to keep plugging away, and eventually came within striking distance of a few guys, but ran out of room. I ended up 11th place overall, which for getting hit by a car, did not seem all that bad. Nothing to really celebrate about, but still a decent result all things considered. Plus, there was no time to celebrate. After how good I felt on the swim, I figured I should definitely do the San Francisco ITU Pan Am Cup in two weeks.

Upon arriving home, I immediately started laying out plans for San Francisco. It was very short notice, but I was able to get some deals on a flight out of Charlotte and a place to stay. One thing I did not plan on was having my car act up on me again. The damn thing has been giving me issues for several months now. Sometimes it starts fine and then other times I stuck trying to crank it for 20 minutes. I had a switch replaced 2 months ago that was supposed to fix the problem, but it just cam right back. I took the car back in a week before San Francisco only to have them tell me that I need another switch replaced. At this point I'm about to go insane, but I had no other choice but to get this thing replaced. The only hitch was that they did not have the part in stock, so they would have to overnight the damn thing so that it arrived before I had to drive to Charlotte. I was planning on leaving at about 1:30 am on Thursday to make my 8:00 am flight out of Charlotte. The part finally came in on Wednesday morning. I dropped my car off and planned on picking it up after work. So I swung by around 6:00 paid the ridicules bill and hoped in my car. Click! NOTHING. The damn thing still would not start!. I was ready to murder everyone at the shop. Just as I'm going to tell them what happened, a guy walks over and says he thinks its the starter that causing all my problems. So he finds a new starter, installs it in about 30 minutes, and damned if you know it, the car started with no hesitation.

Ok, so in the interest of time, I'm going to cut to the chase. The race went well. Had a good swim, but ran past my bike, so I missed the lead pack on the bike leg. Came into t2 30 seconds down on the main pack, but was only able to muster a 38 min 10k. A little disappointing, but overall a decent race.

The lifeguard comp was awesome, as usual. I think I have more fun at these things than any other athletic competition. The events are so unique, and the atmosphere is incredible. I managed some top 3 performances in a few events. Most notably, I was second in the run-swim-run event with my two other teammates finishing 1st and 3rd. We crushed everyone, and were basically able to jog the last 100 meters.

The party that ensued Thursday night did not disappoint either. It doesn't get much better than 250+ lifeguards all getting rowdy. And we aint talking regular drunk, we're talking Myrtle Beach drunk!

Ok, I'm almost done with this damn post. I really need to post more often. So, yesterday I raced the innaugural Amica Triathlon at Lake Wylie. I basically needed to do this race in order to get 5 races in for the NCTS by the end of the season. I managed to pull off the victory by about 3o seconds. I'm basically just trying to race myself back into shape right now, so yesterday was really just a good workout.

Alright, I'm done. If you made it this far, I commend you. Next up on the calendar is Bandits Challenge followed two weeks later by Elite Nationals down in 'bama. August is going to be a painful month.

2009 Kestrels Have Arrived!

So, I just got my new 2009 Kestrels in, and let's just say they are the heat! Or you could just say they're awesome, but I like saying the heat. Ok, on to the reviews. 

The first one to arrive was the Evoke SL. This is Kestrels classic round (or somewhat round) tube, lightweight road racing machine. The Evoke will be my weapon of choice for all draft-legal tri's as well as any road races and crits I decide to do throughout the season. Right out of the box, you can already tell this thing is built for racing. With its oversized down tube and seat tube, the Evoke has the stiffness to transfer all off your power forward. It's also remarkably comfortable too. The first day I took it out, I went for a solid 60-mile solo training ride over some smooth roads and some not so smooth roads. After the ride, I still felt nice a fresh. I didn't experience any lingering back pains or numbness. I'm really thrilled about the Sram Rival component spec as well. This group performs just as good if not better than my old Ultegra group and at a fraction of the cost. Each shift is accentuated by crisp feedback at the lever. I've ridden Sram's top of the line Red group as well, and aside from weight, they are nearly identical in function and performance. I'm really excited to get out and race this thing as soon as possible. 

As I mentioned before, the Evoke will be strictly for draft-legal events due to its reliable handling and agility. For non-drafting events, I have been provided with the Airfoil Pro SL. I just finished assembling the Airfoil yesterday, and all I want to do is ride it. This thing is just begging to be ridden steep and aggressive, just the way I like it. The short head tube allows you to get as low as you could ever possibly need to go. In the past, I have ridden frames where I am slammed down on to the headset with no spacers and still feel like I need to get lower. I like the Airfoil, because you have a very wide range of fit options from super aggressive to relaxed without the need for one of those expensive adjustable angle stems. What was also quite remarkable was the weight. With its deep tube sections, you would think the Airfoil would be a bit on the chunky side. Not the case. My stock 56cm Airfoil without pedals weighed in at just over 17 lbs (17lbs 4oz to be exact). Not bad for an Ultegra build, training wheels, and stock steel railed saddle. Now all I need to do is get fit and I'm good to go. 

That's all for now. I'll try and get some pics of the bikes up later today for a little eye candy. Next up on the war path is the NC State Road Race Champs this coming weekend. Following that is the Philadelphia Insurance Tri, which will be my first tri back since the accident. Training is going remarkably well, and I know I'm going to have a great race.