Fall down, get up!

The comeback continued...

After a successful Austin 70.3 and Ironman Arizona at the end of 2016, I made big plans for 2017 and I was sitting well in the Kona Points to get back to the Big Island. I had to rush my recovery from Fabellaectomy surgery on June 28, 2016 to get in my races but all felt good. I raced a full Ironman less than 5 months after an open knee surgery. I knew I was pushing the boundaries of my body but I also had some time for rest and recovery after the race. My surgical (right) knee was a bit sore at the end of Ironman Arizona but nothing out of the ordinary. 19 days after Ironman Airzona I was back doing my strength training routine and I was in my basement doing TRX lunges when I tore the root of my meniscus in my right knee (the same knee I just had surgery on 5 months prior). The two injuries were unrelated other than racing an Ironman less than 5 months post surgery put all my soft tissue at risk and my knee just couldn't take extreme loads. Tearing the meniscal root is not like tearing the meniscus (which is also painful). Tearing the meniscal root involves a complicated surgery where they drill a hole through your tibia to reattach the meniscus. It would also mean I would have to spend 6 weeks on crutches (0% weight bearing) letting the bone and knee heal. I made the trip back to Vail, Colorado to the Steadman Clinic and visited Dr. Matt Provencher again. I tore my meniscal root on December 8. I had an MRI to confirm the injury on December 15. I had surgery in Vail on December 29. Since I was on a tight timeline and the holiday season was among us, I am extremely grateful for the fast-tracking of the surgery.

I spent a few days in Vail for the surgery and recovery at the Howard Head Physical Therapy center. I made the flight home solo and with two nerve block pain machines on me to keep me comfortably numb. Apparently that drilling a tunnel through bone really hurts. I came home to a pretty crazy house with a 3 month old baby and two other children under the age of 4. Ashley was an angels to put up with me during this period where I was basically a 4th kid in the house. They don't make it easy to carry around a baby and while using crutches.

Once off crutches I had to re-learn how to walk and gradually work on my range of motion. I had some major atrophy in my right leg (which until now was always my dominant leg). Most of the atrophy was in my vastus medialis (VM, the big quad muscle on the inside of each leg just above the knee). I could spin on a bike right away but my range of motion was limited and I had to raise my saddle to make complete pedal strokes. It was a long and laborious rehab process but I was able to start running again on April 30, almost exactly 4 months after surgery (just like the doctors planned). This was a short 20 minutes done as 4x(1 min jog, 4 min walk) so it was really only 4 minutes of running.

I had to very slowly build up my running but I did my first race, a local sprint, Hickory Grove Triathlon, on May 23 (3 weeks after I started running). Now it was only a 5k but it was still significant for me because I was back racing. I finished 3rd in that race to a couple of local guys but all I really cared about was being able to race, going fast takes time. 5 weeks after that sprint race I was able to race and win a local Olympic Distance, Copper Creek. I still had a long ways to go as I had only run a total of 132 miles for the entire year (and now the year was half over). Three weeks later (and another 90 miles of running) on July 18, I did my first 70.3 of the year in Racine. The swim was cancelled and it turned into a bike-run, but I was able to run a respectable sub 1:20 after a hard bike and finished 8th in a solid field to snag the last bit of prize money ($500!) The following week was my last ditch effort to make it to Kona as I raced Ironman Lake Placid. I had a great front pack swim and led most of the bike to exit the bike with Brent McMahon and Andy Potts. I needed a second or better to get me into Kona and quickly my lack of run fitness started to show as I was in third place trailing Brent and Andy. The worst part of the run was not actually my fitness but the excessive downhill running at the start of the race. I could tell my knee was not going to hold up for the entire marathon and being in third place would not qualify me for Kona. I decided to pull the plug and drop out of the race after 9 miles of running. This was definitely the right decision for my future but it was hard to see another Kona Qualification pass me by simply because I could not race enough to qualify. The plan had to shift to Ironman Wisconsin. I had originally scheduled another 70.3 in August at Steelhead 70.3 in Michigan, but if I was going to race another Ironman in 7 weeks I was going to need all the training I could get especially on my run volume.

Ironman Wisconsin was on my list of must do events but the timing of the event was always difficult because it is so close to Kona. In 2015 when I was not aiming for a Kona slot there was no pro race and last year there was no pro men's race. 2017 would be the year I tackle IM MOO! My training was very good building up to the race but I was still lacking volume. I did the best I could with the time I had and came into the race fit and ready to perform. I had a great front of the race swim followed by a bike that put me into T2 in third place but one of the top 5 bike performances on that course of all time. I managed to tough out a 2:58 marathon and hold on to a second place finish from a fast charging Patrick McKeon (who set a run course record in 2:43!) as I passed a fading Andrew Starykowicz (who set a bike course record with a 4:24!) who finished 4th. Luke McKenzie was in a total league of his own that day smashing the overall course record by over 14 minutes to take the win. I definitely wanted to win that race and my performance was still the second fastest Ironman Wisconsin time in history, but it happened to be on the day when Luke established a new time standard. I garnered 1600 Kona Qualifying Points for 2018 and a $7500 second place prize check. Things were looking up.

7 weeks after Wisconsin I was ready to tackle another 70.3 for the year in Austin, TX on October 30. My flight was cancelled on Friday afternoon so I ended up traveling on Saturday morning the day before the race which is never ideal and it left me a bit tired. I was still in the best shape of the year and I wanted to prove it. I have twice been second at this race including the previous year. I wanted to win. Race morning was super cold with temps in the high 30's as we exited the water in our wetsuits. I made the mistake of not putting on any gloves or arm warmers in transition and this came back to haunt me. I was so caught up in the speed of transition from the other front pack swimmers that I just grabbed my gloves and arm warmers and stuffed them in my jersey. 10 miles into the bike my hands were frozen and I put on the gloves but it was too late. I was miserable and I could not take corners hard or press my shift levers well enough to race the course. The end result was a bike time SIX FREAKING MINUTES SLOWER than last year. Worse yet, I was so cold off the bike I couldn't unbuckle my helmet or put on my shoes in transition. I had to ask a volunteer to unbuckle my helmet for me. I lost over a minute to the rest of the field in T2 but I still had a sizeable lead after posting the fastest bike split. I was caught on the run about 3 miles in by the eventual winner and a mile and half later by 2,3,5 place finishers. I ran with these guys for a couple of miles but the pace was just too much for me and I had to back off. I finished 4th with a decent run (about 1 minute faster than last year which was my first race back after the fabella surgery!). Overall it hurt to have such a slow bike split and then the worst pro T2 by over a minute. I was 3:17 behind winner, Franz Loschke but I new it was time I gave up by making a poor clothing choice early in the race. I love cold weather racing but I finally found my limit of how much cold I can handle. Lesson learned.

The final race of 2017 was an attempt to learn about proper heat acclimating. I was actually scheduled to race back-to-back 70.3 events with Western Sydney and Cartagena but a hamstring stain the week before Sydney saw me pull out and focus solely on Cartagena. To prepare for a hot humid race in early December while living in Des Moines, IA I was confined to a lot of indoor training with a humidifier and space heater. Acclimation went well, but man it was obviously how much I need to adjust when racing in the heat. Cartagena was a super hot swim with water temps in the upper 80s so I played it really chill on the swim but still came out with the leaders. It took a while to bike into the lead because my T1 was a bit slow as I had to put on my race kit after choosing to swim bare chested in a TYR brief! It was the right choice because I didn't overheat in the swim and ruin my day. Once I was in the lead on the bike I never looked back. I was flying on the way home from the single out and back bike course and hit my fastest 40k of all time in 48 minutes and the bike course record at 2:03:35. I held on to the lead through the first half of the run but was eventually caught by Kevin Collington and in the final few miles by Horst Reichel. It was good result to end my short season. I didn't have the volume this past year to perform up to my potential but I have a great start on next season with a total of 2380 Kona Points out of a needed ~3500 to qualify.

Work Hard!

TJ