Finals tomorrow!!!

Sorry for the late blog posting. It has been a hectic last couple days around here, and I realized I was behind on my updates.

Thursday was the women’s semi-finals, yesterday was men’s. As I have said on this blog before, semis are hard. Partly what makes them hard is that the result of a semi-final is simply you fail to advance or you don’t fail to advance. Because everyone starts over in the final, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying not to fail in semis and then bombing out.

Semi-finals at World Championships are, for obvious reasons, the hardest in the sport. Of a pool of 35 athletes per group, only 12 can advance to the 36 man final. The men’s field is so deep right now that even the best athletes are vulnerable and can get taken out in semis. Yesterday I advanced to finals, but in my group alone, a former world champion, former world silver medalist, and a former #1 in the world all failed to advance. In fact, the last two slots in our group were taken by me and Andree Mosiev of Russia, the defending Olympic Gold Medalist. So like I said, semis are rough.

Today I had off and tomorrow is finals. As the last qualifying event for the Olympics (not to mention a World title on the line) people are seriously geared up for this competition. I spent the day trying to rid myself of the soreness of yesterday’s competition and watching the women’s final. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 local time, we start off with the 36 man final. Historically worlds has not been a great competition for me, but hopefully I can end that tomorrow with a strong showing. Because I did not rest for the competition, I don’t have particularly high expectations and just want to put together an overall strong day.

For up to the minute results, please visit cardsys.hu or pentathlon.org.

First post from Worlds

World Championships start on Thursday in Budapest. Pentathlon is considered a national sport here, and the Hungarians are eager to put on a good show. Unlike in America, everyone here seems to be familiar with the sport and excited about the upcoming competition.

I arrived here on Sunday after taking a Saturday night flight out of the US. While this is the last chance for people to qualify for the Olympics, it is serving as more of a practice competition for those of us who have already qualified. Because of this, I have been training extremely hard for the last few weeks and have only given myself a short period of rest to prepare for Worlds. Given that we are less than three months until Beijing, now is not the time to be slacking off in training. So right up until the morning I left, training went on as normal.

The venues here are fantastic. Everything is within a half mile of our hotel and all facilities are located in one location. Because most of the facilities are set up as temps, the construction workers are still building them today, only two days before women’s semi-finals. To get everything in one location, the Hungarians have built a 25 meter pool adjacent to the riding venue. This will allow people to see the swim, ride, and run without leaving their seats. We have heard that all 10,000 seats will be filled during the finals.

I have two more days to rest and adjust to the jetlag before competing. Getting over here 4 days ahead of time was a good call because I am extremely tired today and would probably not compete well. Hopefully I can fully recover during the next couple days and be at 100% by the time men’s semi-finals hit. It will take a good day just to make the final here so being adjusted to the time and rested from the travel is extremely important.

Cami is also here this time and will be guest blogging here for the next week. She has our good camera and our video camera, and together we will try to do our best to share this experience with everyone back at home.

Stay tuned, more from Budapest tomorrow.

Memorial Day

I was recently asked by a reporter if there is anything special my family or I do to celebrate Memorial Day. As many of you know, I am in the Air Force Reserves and both my brothers are in the Air Force as well. I told the reporter that I am almost always at a competition in Europe on Memorial Day so there we don’t really have any specific traditions associated with this holiday. But that gave me an idea for this blog. While I am again traveling abroad on Memorial Day (this blog is being written on a flight from Frankfurt to Budapest), I wanted to commemorate three former pentathletes and honor their military service.

General George Patton (US Army)

Perhaps the most famous pentathlete from any country at any time is George Patton. As a young Lieutenant in the army, he competed in the 1912 Olympic Games. When pentathlon was first introduced to the Olympics, it was a requirement that the participant be a military officer. Of course Patton fit the bill and was selected for the Olympic Team. He was a pretty good pentathlete and nearly won a medal. Known for his shooting, it ironically was his shooting that cost him the Silver. At the time, athletes shot five times at a target before changing targets. Patton shot four tens and a miss, giving him a target score of 40 instead of 50. Had he shot the fourth ten, he would have been an Olympic Silver Medalist. Urban legend has it that he shot one shot through the hole of one of the four 10s on the target and the judges called it a miss. But this is probably more myth than reality. In fact, typically a second paper was placed a short distance behind the target to account for the bullets. If an athlete believed they had two shots through the same hole, the back paper was examined. Slight variations in bullet speed and angle would cause two shots to appear on the back paper even if only one showed on the target. In Patton’s case, the judges ruled that he only fired four shots at the target. So what happened to the famous missing shot? While there is an outside chance that he did in fact shoot through the hole of another shot, it is not likely. What probably happened was Patton either forgot to load 5 shots into the gun or simply missed the target.

Major Jim Gregory (US Army)

Like most pentathletes, Jim picked up the sport after swimming in college. Jim started competing when I was a junior and eventually moved to Colorado Springs to train while I was attending the Air Force Academy. As an athlete, he was consistently one of the top in the country, qualifying for several World Championship teams. In 1996, he was an Olympic Team Alternate. Four years later, he was again edged out and was an Olympic Team Alternate. Though Jim wanted to compete, he accepted the role of Olympic Team Manager in 2000 and did an outstanding job getting that team ready and equipped for the Sydney Olympics. His work paid off as the two male US athletes both placed in top 10 and the women won a Silver and 4th. Following the 2000 Olympics, Jim tried out and was selected for army Special Operations. In the last 8 years, Jim has served in numerous hostile environments and been on the front lines of the war on terror as a Special Operations Officer. Today, Jim is cross training into an Army public affairs job that will allow him to spend more time with his wife and kids.

Captain Chad Senior (US Air Force)

Chad may be the best pentathlete in US history. He had rare combination of both extreme talent and a dogged work ethic. A college swimmer and high school running standout, Chad was recruited in 1995 to come to pentathlon. Within a few years, Chad proved to be the fastest run/swim athlete in the world. He struggled with shooting and fencing for a while; but in the 2000 season, things started to click. Chad won the first World Cup and medaled in a couple others. Going into the Olympics, he was ranked #1 in the World Cup Rankings. At the 2000 Olympics, Chad had an incredible day in the first 3 disciplines. His shooting was solid, he had his lifetime best fence, and followed that with his typical outstanding swim. Going into the riding discipline, Chad was leading the competition. As the fastest runner in the sport, Chad was poised to win the first Gold Medal for the US in pentathlon and end our 40 year medal drought. But problems struck near the end of the ride costing Chad a medal. Following the Olympics, Chad went to Army officer training (he had formerly been enlisted), and decided to take another shot at an Olympic Medal. In 2004, he handily qualified for his second Olympic Team, but had a lackluster fence and finished well out of medal contention. Following the 2004 Olympics, Chad decided to try out for the Air Force Pararescue program. He was accepted and in 2005 changed his commission from Army to Air Force. He then started the grueling two year training to become a Combat Rescue Officer (CRO, pronounced crow), the officer version of a Pararescueman. Air Force Pararescue soldiers are the premier soldiers trained and equipped to extract injured pilots from combat zones. Chad recently finished a 3 month stint in Afghanistan and I got to spend about an hour on the phone with him from the Middle East last week. I have always respected Chad’s achievements in pentathlon and he periodically checks in with me and offers me some mentoring as I am heading into big competitions. Chad told me volunteered for a follow on deployment in a war zone and will return to the US at the end of the summer.

Altitude

A lot of people I talk to ask what impact altitude has on my training and performance. The Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs where I train is somewhere around 6300 feet (1900 meters for all you metric fans out there). When you spend a considerable amount of time at altitude, your body physiology starts changing. Your body responds to the hypoxic conditions by turning up the production of red blood cells to increase your oxygen carrying capacity in the reduced oxygen environment. You never really feel good at altitude though, you just get used to the lack of air and your fitness level goes up. Many Olympians come train at the Olympic Training Center specifically to increase their fitness and prepare for sea level events. Michael Phelps and his team are currently out here getting ready for the Olympics.

The big perk of training at altitude comes when you go back down to sea level. Your body is geared up for a reduced oxygen environment, but now you have a lot more oxygen going through your system. Imagine waking up one day and suddenly being able to run faster, have more endurance, and overall feel stronger and that is what going to sea level is like. It feels great to train and compete at sea level, but over time your body realizes you have too many red blood cells and reverts back to a lower count.

So if it feels great to go to sea level, imagine the exact opposite when we come home. This last trip kept me at sea level for four weeks, long enough to substantially reduce my oxygen carrying capacity. This is a well known consequence of spending time at low altitude and we plan for it, but the first week at altitude is never fun. This week has been really rough as I am trying to get back into altitude training and begin my final push toward the Olympics. I am swimming around 4 miles every morning and averaging around 9 miles of running in the afternoon. It has been a struggle to simply finish the workouts, but the hypoxic feeling should be gone by next week. In the mean time, I have to intake a tremendous amount of iron supplements so that my body can produce enough red cells to compensate for the altitude.

In a future blog I will discuss some very advanced training that we have developed to compensate for the altitude without going to sea level. It’s a revolutionary training technique called Supplemental Oxygen Training designed to maximize the benefit of altitude.

Madrid World Cup

Next up, Madrid World Cup. I was excited to go to Spain. I have been to almost every other country in Europe but never to Spain. We were also looking forward to good weather. After two and a half weeks in Europe without seeing the sun, we figured we would get some warm weather in Madrid. We were horribly disappointed when we looked up the weather forecast and discovered it would be overcast and rainy the entire time we were there.

Cami flew over to meet up with me in Madrid. She arrived a few hours before me and found her way to the hotel. The timing worked out very well as she and Mickey and Michael Cintas (my riding coach) went into town for a day of sightseeing before I got there.

The competition was the second day after I arrived. It was held at what appeared to be an extremely large private sports club. The venues were close to each other and it was easy to move from one event to the next. Semi-finals were on Friday and had somewhere around 86 men. I advanced fairly easily through my semi-final group, but others were not so lucky. The number one athlete in the world, Victor Horvath of Hungary, failed to advance from my semi-final. Dennis and Sam advanced in their groups, Niul failed to make it up.

In the final it was a down day for me across the board. Still, it was my third final of the year; and my 26th place finish gave me enough points to bump me up to 9th on the World Cup Ranking List. That is the highest I have ever been on the World Cup list.

After the competition, I decided to cancel my trip to Prague for the last World Cup as well as our planned training camp in Spala Poland before Worlds. I was pretty tired and figured it would be better for me to train at home in Colorado and prep for Worlds and the Olympics. Hopefully that gamble will pay off with a good finish at Worlds next month.