7.3 Things I Learned From My First 70.3 by Malia Crouse-Mullen Sunday, September 11th was my first half ironman distance triathlon in Aurora, Colorado at the 11th Annual Harvest Moon. If you had told me last year that I would be racing a 70.3 (as they’re commonly referred to in triathlete circles), I would …
So many of my worlds came together today and made it one I will never forget.I saw lots of friends, made others and watched the best riders in the world climb "my hill"–Lookout Mountain. I've struggled to understand what made it so amazing to see these cyclist zoom by in a few seconds leaving thousands …
One thing I have learned to anticipate and even enjoy about racing in triathlons is the surprise of the unexpected. As I get more experienced in racing I am able to anticipate and mitigate the unexpected, but no matter how much I plan, there is always some unforeseen challenge. The longer the race the more …
Two weeks ago I was talking with a CTS Athlete about how his season of training and competition was going, and after a while it became clear that he’d gone from being very aggressive to being more passive during the past few months of racing mostly criteriums. This is actually something we see quite often, …
I don’t get intimidated easily, but sitting in hotel room overlooking Lake Tahoe, with the entire course of the 2011 Amgen Tour of California laid out before me, I was more than a little bit intimidated. I’ve raced and participated in a lot of very hard endurance events, but the 2011 ATOC Race Experience was …
With the Amgen Tour of California Race Experience coming up very soon, I’ve been spending as much time as possible on the bike recently. This may very well be the biggest endurance challenge I’ve participated in since I retired from professional cycling. La Ruta was hard, but there wasn’t a field of professional riders coming …
Endurance athletes are creatures of habit. We ride, run, hike and traverse the same routes over and over again, sometimes for years on end. For the most part it’s a matter of necessity; we gravitate to the routes that are the safest, quickest, most fun, or simply those that are available. But if you’re finding …
Round 2 in the Xterra Championship series landed us literally in the middle of Texas. The event was held in Cameron Park which is a beautiful 410 acre park right the middle of downtown Waco. Liz and I drove down from Colorado Springsin the trustyElement and covered just over 800 miles in 12 hours to …
Well first stop for the race season has come and gone. Officially started off the 2011 race season with the Xterra West Championships in Las Vegas, NV. I was very excited to not only get the race season started but to compete in my first race as a pro. I got my race kit about …
There’s nothing like a good training week to get my spirits up. Plus, the applications for the CTS Trans Andes Challenge are starting to pile up and I’m starting to get excited about the prospect of another major endurance challenge. For those of you who don’t know, I’m going to follow up my 2010 experience …