31 on Day 5 of Taper

I'm 31 today...damn.

A bunch of birthday thoughts, opinions and whatever I feel like...

First off, a guy who's read this blog, and left comments in the past had a bad crash a few weeks ago. Dave, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing well. I didn't have your email, or phone number, and I tried to find a way to contact you to send my best. Hope you're healing up, and I look forward to seeing you back on the bike soon.

Weather for Ironman Coeur d'Alene, as forecasted today...Looks pretty good!

Jun 24
Sunny
72°/51°
10%
From the South 9mph

Zoot announced their new triathlon-specific shoe line to be launched early next year. I helped a little with the look and feedback on them, and they're pretty damn impressive. Check it out...
http://www.xtri.com/features_display.aspx?riIDReport=4112&CAT=24&xref=xx



Been listening a lot to a new band called Peter, Bjorn and John. Check them out if you can.



Here's my controversial opinion for the day...It's my birthday, so I think I can get away with throwing an opinion out there. (Also, what good is a blog if you don't use it to speak your mind.) Read on...

This weekend is the Hy-Vee World Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. $200K to each winner, male and female. Sounds awesome huh? I don't think so. Honestly, in my opinion, this is the biggest waste of money and actually does a disservice to the sport. Let me explain...

1. Money is the biggest draw for this race. Is that how it should be? There is only a finite amount of money, and as long as this is the biggest thing about the race, it will most likely not last very long. This race is being advertised about the prize purse, not the fact that it's a WORLD CUP! Sure, a bigger prize purse is good, but when that's the most impressive thing, or that is the focus, this will not help the sport grow. Yes, the sport needs more prize money events to support it's professionals, but I will answer that shortly.

2. For how much prize money there is, $700K in total, why can't they do 3 or 4 World Cups? Why does it have to be just one? Why not do 3 or 4 events at the normal 200K prize purse? If growth of the sport is the goal, then 3 quality events will do us better than 1 event, which is even limited in field size. How many people in the US are going to be at this race? How many people are going to watch it on TV? Not as many as if there were 3 or 4 races!

3. If the goal is not necessarily to grow the sport, but utilize this race as a way to promote Olympic development for our athletes, then this plan is even worse! This race is open to international athletes, and what are the chances of an American winning the race? Sure, we have a shot at putting an American on top of the podium, but so does Austrailia, New Zealand, and host of other countries! Hy-Vee may very well have just slowed the development of American athletes in the sport, if a foreigner wins the event.

Hy-Vee is a midwestern grocery-store chain. Few things are more American than that, and yet they may be handing over the $200K checks to a Canadian, Aussie, Spainard or Portugese athlete. I don't have a business degree, but I'm not sure that really fits their marketing strategies.

Here's a prediction for you. We will podium 1 American, total, male and female. That's all. I may be wrong, and that sound pessimistic, but let's be realistic here, ITU is TOUGH and there is a lot of chance to it.

4. If Hy-Vee wants to help the sport, they would be better off getting more bang for their buck with 2 or 3 triathlons, and supporting up and coming American Olympic hopefuls. They could sponsor the whole US National Team members, with a large monthly stipend, to help them travel the world and get their ITU and World Cup points to qualify for the Olympics! They could have every US National Team member be a Hy-Vee sponsored athlete, which would allow Hy-Vee to capitalize on the success of MANY ATHLETES, AT MANY RACES AROUND THE US AND WORLD!

The biggest challenge facing up and coming US triathletes, (and I speak from experience), is the cost of travel and competing in events around the world, chasing points to qualify for the Olympic Trials. This is just to get to the Olympic Trials! Without the proper support to help athletes, we will lose great athletes who just needed time to develop and learn.

Maybe I'm alone with these thoughts, but it just seems to me that everyone is all excited about one race, instead of seeing the bigger picture for the sport, and it's development here in the US.

Of course, this may be a perfect example of why ITU racing is not big in the US, especially when compared to Ironman.


In other topics...My training for Day 5 of the taper...

Swim workout this AM, 3500 meters. Felt like crap in the water, fighting it until late. Finally found a rhythm, but it took forever. I can tell I'm getting the typical flat feeling of the taper.

About to go hop on the bike trainer for 60 min workout, and then a short transition run. Hopefully I'll feel better than I did during the swim!


The store is up on my website, but you can only see it if you're on a Mac, for some damn reason. My guys are working on it though.

That's all for now, have to get on the bike. Will be posting a bunch of cool photos tomorrow.

Vance - 2007 NFA