Cairo Semi-Finals

As with all major competitions, we have to compete in semi-finals to cut down to 36 athletes for the finals. Yesterday we had three groups with 12 athletes advancing from each group.

Two years ago, under the old format, I would have felt fairly confident with my chances given the group I was in. This year, things still have not clicked with the combined run/shoot and my run is still a few months away from being anywhere near my potential, so making finals is going to be tough in every competition.

When I got up in the morning, I went to check to see if my bag had been delivered to the hotel. Considering we are only about a half mile from the airport and they told me the bag came in the night before, I didn’t think it was an unrealistic expectation. What was I thinking? As I said before, customer service isn’t their thing; and it turned out that it was way too hard to get the bag all the way here in the 12 hours after it arrived. More on my bag saga tomorrow…

We started with swimming. The pool here is probably close to 85 degrees which is really hot for a competition pool. Our pool at the Olympic Training Center is normally close to 80 degrees or 81 if synchronized swimming is training (they need warmer water since they spend 6-7 hours submerged with only mild exertion. Good competition pools are 77-78 degrees. Water temperature is much more sensitive than air temperature. In Colorado, you can spend all day outside in 70 degree weather in shorts and a tee shirt. Jump in a 70 degree pool and you will go hypothermic in a few hours.

The net result of the pool was slow swim times across the board. Between that and the rule change prohibiting speed swim suits (we followed swimming with that rule change), the times were really slow. I swam a 2:08 which I was happy with considering the conditions and that I did not rest for this competition (and traveled 7000 miles). It was about the 6^th fastest swim time in my group.

Next up was fencing. With 25 people in my semi-final, there were only 24 bouts. The fewer the bouts, the more each touch is worth. That can cut either way. If you start out well, there is little time for things to go wrong. However, if you start out slowly, it means there is very little time to recover.

My warm up was very good, but my fence started very slow. Within a couple touches, something felt very off. Around the second or third round, I noticed I was sweating profusely and my stomach started to ache badly. Right away, I began thinking of my trip to Cairo in 2006. I had a great shoot, fence, and swim, and only had to run easy to cruise into the final. Instead, I wound up in an ambulance and was sick for three days due to food poisoning. Despite all my international travel, I still have problems with food in Mexico, South America, and Africa. (Asia and Europe don’t seem to bother me.)

ALERT ALERT ALERT: SHAMELESS SPONSOR PROMOTION!!!!!!

Two weeks ago, we were in Cancun, Mexico for a competition there, and I had no problems with the food. Before leaving, I called my brother Justin who is a doctor and asked if there were antibiotics I should take with me in case of stomach problems. He suggested a different approach: Take pre- and probiotics. And lucky me, both are made by my sponsor Shaklee. Prebiotic is a compound that facilitates growth of healthy bacteria in your gut, and probiotic is the actual bacteria. The theory is that if your gut has enough of the good bacteria, it can thwart the bad bacteria that you ingest while traveling. It worked like a charm. I did not have any problems in Mexico which is saying something considering I get sick over half the time I go. In fact, the last time I was in Cancun was for my honeymoon and Cami had to call a doctor to our room after I passed out from sickness. But thanks to Shaklee, I now have a great defense against food sickness.

So at this point, you might be wondering why I was fighting sickness despite having Shaklee's pre- and probiotic. Simple, all my Shaklee products were in my luggage that was sitting at the airport.

END SHAMELESS SPONSOR PROMOTION

By the third round of fencing, I was making frequent trips to the bathroom (this is a loose term to describe what they call toilets here) between my bouts and growing increasingly concerned that things were going downhill. With my focus on my physical well being, my fence paid the toll and I had a disastrous first half of the event. With nothing else to do, I pushed fluids as much as I could take to stave off dehydration and finish. About an hour in, I started to physically turn a corner and my fence improved as well. On the final stretch, I won 6 of my last 8 bouts; but still turned in a very bad overall score.

I entered the combined event in 17^th place, far from my expectations even being unrested. But the point of the competition was to gain valuable experience, especially in the combined, so I tried to stay focused on the task at hand. By the time we started, my stomach had calmed down a bit; but I was still fairly under the weather.

My main goal was to stay very disciplined in shooting. The first shoot I was a bit shaky and timed out. But after running my first 1000, I had a chance to reflect on my mistakes and think about corrections. The second shoot generated a much more positive result. The third shoot built on my second and was my fastest yet. After passing a couple people on the last 1000m run, I finished in 20^th place. While that’s a pretty far fall from grace from where I was a couple years ago at the height of my training, I made a number of improvements in my combined and can build on that as the World Cup season progresses.

The only US athlete to make the final was Will Brady. He had an excellent overall day with his best ever World Cup fence, a fantastic swim, and a strong combined. I’d say the final is a moderate field overall, and Will has a great chance to put up a big finish if things go his way tomorrow.