I’m currently sitting in West Des Moines, Iowa, awaiting a weekend full of big races. The first is the Hy-vee Elite Cup on Saturday. It is actually a World Cup in terms of ranking points but it gets the special designation of “Elite Cup” because it has such a huge prize purse ($1,000,000). With $200,000 to the winner and a 75 deep payout the field is pretty stacked. Then, on Sunday, the ITU is putting on the ITU Triathlon Team World Championship – a mixed triathlon relay that the ITU hopes will make it into the 2012 Olympics in London. As for me, I’m coming off a big four week altitude training block and fully five weeks of not racing. I’m definitely in racing withdrawal so I can’t wait to toe the line twice in one weekend!
The Hy-vee Triathlon race committee really went all out for this weekend’s races. It’s so easy to focus on my race when things are taken care of as professionally as they are at this race! Every athlete racing in the World Cup has free accommodation for the weekend at hotels near the race site in West Des Moines. I arrived at my hotel and was immediately given some ‘arrival gifts’ from the Hy-Vee Triathlon – a race bag full of everything I could possibly need for the weekend from cereal to sun screen, as well as a few other items (see picture below). A few minutes later a knock at the door signaled the arrival of two full crates of bottled water (48 16oz bottles) and an equal amount of grape Gatorade Propel. That’s enough water/Propel to hydrate a small army. Although it was almost 100 degrees F today, maybe I will drink it.
Free stuff!
As for the race, I think I can do quite well. Training at altitude in Colorado Springs over the past month went fairly well. OK, it went really well. But good training doesn’t always carry over to great race results so I’m just going to head out there on race day and line up in the most competitive field since the Olympics and see where I end up. Hopefully it goes well!
The second race of the weekend, the ITU Triathlon Team World Championship, consists of teams of two men and two women racing in a relay format. Each person on the team has to complete a 250 meter swim, 7K bike, and a 1.8K run before handing off to the next relay team member. Obviously the team who gets their last athlete across the line first is World Champion! There is currently a lot of speculation as to who is going to be fielded from each country. Well, as the self-elected team captain (running unopposed since nobody else is aware of the position) of USA Team III I’m going to release our roster. I know, everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting for this! Here it is:
Mary Beth Ellis (2009 Pan American Champion, 2009 Escape from Alcatraz Champion)
Kevin Collington (kind of a big deal/ridiculously fit/Olympic Training Center napping champion)
Kate Ross (2008 USA Junior National Champion)
Greg Billington (12th 2007 Junior Worlds)
So there it is. We should do pretty well. We definitely won’t get last (I hope).