Let me say this: Milwaukee is an awesome city!  Mandy and I were pleasantly surprised. Mandy commented all weekend how nice everyone was (hotel staff, restaurant staff, race volunteers, etc).  I’m sure there were some complaints from the locals with thousands of triathletes riding very expensive bikes on the city roads with funny looking helmets.  But overall, everyone was very welcoming.  Our hotel was 5 or 6 blocks away from the race site and there were plenty of restaurants all within walking distance from our hotel.  I didn’t have one bad meal while I was there.

This past weekend I raced USAT Age Group Nationals – Olympic Distance (0.9 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, 6.2 mile run) in Milwaukee, WI.  To say the race was a success, is an understatement.  This race has been my key race all year and I really wanted to make a statement against some of the top amateur triathletes in the country at one of the biggest Olympic distance races in the country.  After racing a 2:04 at St Anthony’s in 2012, I really wanted to break the 2 hr barrier.  With a big break through in my biking earlier this year, and finally running consistently without injury, I knew this season would be my best yet. Unfortunately, all my Olympic distance races this year have had shortened swims which set up Nationals to be the perfect place to achieve this mark.

Race week started out pretty rough.  After Loggerhead, I was having some pretty bad stomach pains for a few days.  My mind was all over the place for those couple days after Loggerhead. I’ve had stomach issues after races before but they usually only lasted for the rest of the day and I was feeling normal by the next. Why was a sprint race, that only took an hour, causing me all kinds of issues?  Did I push myself that hard during the race?  Was I going to be recovered by Saturday to race?  Fortunately, I started to feel better on Tuesday and things were back to normal.

With the race on a Saturday, Mandy and I decided to fly out Thursday morning in order to have plenty of time to get situated in Milwaukee, put the bike together, familiarize myself with the course, and just relax. Upon getting to PBI, the Delta agents immediately asked me if my Aerus Biospeed bike case had a bike in it. This is one of the few bike cases that doesn’t scream “bike”.  This has helped bypass the airline bike fees before but the Delta agents at PBI have apparently been trained pretty well as this is the 2nd time I’ve flown Delta out of PBI with a bike, and I got stuck paying their outrageous bike fee ($150) both times.  We and the bike made it to Milwaukee with no issues but upon building the bike back up, I stripped one of the screws where my stem fastens to the fork (yes, I even had a torque wrench with me and I didn’t go over the max torque setting).  I took the bike over to bike support at the expo and fortunately they were able to take care of me.  They had to re-tap the the threads and put in a larger screw in order for the screw to engage.  Looks like I may need a new fork as a long term solution (not sure if  I can get one from Trek or not) but needless to say, a trip to Tri Running Sports & Cycle is in the works.  Later on Thursday, I picked up my packet, talked with some vendors at the expo (I really want a computrainer now), and got a quick ride in on the first part of the bike course.

(I stumbled upon this thread on Slowtwitch and now I’m searching for a hard case to travel with my bike. There are just too many risks you take with using a soft case.  Anyone have any suggestions on a hard case?)

Friday was pretty low key with a quick run, bike, and swim in the morning to get the blood flowing. We then drove the bike course to get a feel of what I was up against and eventually dropped off my bike at transition.  We had dinner at Ryan Braun’s Graffito restaurant, where I had what has become my pre-race ritual (out of superstition and it doesn’t seem to cause me any issues), chicken parmesan. Very good food there and a great view of the water if you sit outside.

The course was very straight forward.  We swam in Lake Michigan but we were protected from the “chop” of the lake.  The swim course was narrow and I thought this would cause problems with all the waves going off but fortunately it wasn’t an issue.  Swim exit was interesting as there was a very steep ramp out of the water with volunteers helping you get out. No matter how strong of a swimmer you were, you needed the volunteer to help you out and up the ramp.  I think there was some misconception on the bike course as someone called it flat as a pancake.  It is not flat as a pancake.  I train daily on terrain that is flat as a pancake and this course is not that.  I would define the course as “wavy” more than anything. There are 3 small climbs on the course.  One is right at the beginning, and the other two are the bridge you go across twice on the highway.  The course has two 180 deg turnaround’s and is relatively flat.  The run is flat and fast…. plain and simple.   If you are thinking about racing next year, I highly recommend it.  It’s a great city and a great course.