California...Internships, Races, and Lots to Tell~
Well, I've been in California now for a little less than two full weeks. And, as a disclaimer, this update is long. I highly suggest grabbing you favorite beverage or snack before sitting down to digest this one (I prefer good Wisconsin beers or coffee myself!).
During those two weeks, I've gotten to live in two different places, start an internship that rocks, compete at a local and very popular race, do more than a little biking, and hang out with my summer roomies from Australia.
When I first got out to California, I stayed with Brad Culp and his girl friend, Jaime. These are the same two I stayed with back in March during spring break. For some reason, they have yet to tell me to stop showing up on their doorstep. The only downside to living with them for the first week I was out here is that they are located in La Jolla, which is a good 1:45 bike ride to the Zoot offices up in Vista, CA. That meant that for the first four days of work I was riding a total of nearly 4 hours a day plus a short, but quick, 30min run off the bike at the end of the day. Not the most conducive training for an ITU guy like myself, but, make do with what you have! Brad and Jaime took off over the weekend, so I had a chance to get caught up on sleep after a long week of traveling from Colorado and starting up the internship at Zoot. Kind of nice actually.
On Monday of last week we migrated me up to Cardiff, yet another beach town in California, where the house of Zoot CEO Brian is located. A pretty sweet deal for a college kind over the summer in California. The house is very large and in an upscale, luxury community; however, the house is completely unfurnished aside from a mattress in each bedroom (no bed frame, just a mattress on the floor...I have no lights in my bedroom even) and some patio furniture which is moved inside or outside depending on where you want to sit at that moment. Beyond that, there is nothing in the house. It's a little weird, but I'm not there aside from sleeping, eating dinner with the two roomies, or changing into different clothing so it really isn't that big of deal. Plus, with such a huge backyard to mess around in with basketball hoops and a mini soccer pitch, who needs furniture? And, there is a huge grill...that pretty much completed my summer.
Speaking of roomies...I am living with Luke Bell and his wife Lucy. Luke is a long-course triathlete, so he does distances like Ironman and Half Ironman racing. He's a full-time Professional Triathlete in the sense that he trains, watches TV, sleeps, and repeats. He's a super cool dude though, even if I do get a little confused by his thick Aussie accent sometimes. His wife Lucy is a physical therapist and a great cook as well! On Wednesday night she put together a little barbie (BBQ) for us and some of their locally living Aussie friends. It was a great time.
I've gotten quite a few questions about my internship with Zoot, so I'll try to answer most of them here. The internship is very educational so far. For me and for the people in charge. They have been bringing me in on a number of different meetings relating to the release of the Fall 2008 apparel line plus the development--starting with concept up to packaging and point of sale--for a whole new product. More on that in a later update :) I am also getting a true crash course in marketing while refreshing my website and Photoshop skills as I was tasked with doing some website updates and, low-and-behold, creating an interactive Facebook page for Zoot. So, I get to spend most of my time at a computer screen, on, of all things, Facebook and Blogspot. It's not exactly what I had expected, but it hasn't been bad either. I teach the old ones at Zoot (30's...so not that old I guess) how Facebook and Blogs work and they teach me how to run a corporate marketing campaign from start to finish.
As I mentioned before, my training hasn't been going as well as planned. There is the hassle of figuring out routes for running and cycling that allow you do the prescribed workout without hitting a traffic light every 50ft, and then managing running and swimming workouts around the work day which includes a 1hr ride on the bike each way (a somewhat hilly one for half of it too).
Given that I was a little leery about the race that I took part in this morning, the San Diego International Triathlon. I had a nearly free entry courtesy of Zoot, so I thought I would give it a shot and use it for a fitness gauge, and at the same time I was hoping for no more bad-luck incidents (heat, flat tires, wrong directions on the course from volunteers). Though, I did spend all of Saturday (8+ hours) working at the expo which Zoot helped put on, and not having a car, that meant I got to ride 2hrs each way to get there; however, I am training through this race.
Anyways, the race went pretty well. Luke, Lucy and I got over to the course at 5:30 as the start time was 6:40, so we were all up at 4:30am...yuck.
The swim was short, which was odd...at only 1k, so that meant right when you would normally start to get tired on the swim or just plain sick of it, it was over. The fact that we swam in the marina meant there were no waves, but it was still salt water, and I am still not a big fan of that as you tend to chafe the rest of the race. I came out of the swim right around the middle of the pack. It felt okay, though it wasn't quite where I wanted it to be.
Transition was really long, though us Pros ended up with the best real estate around. We had to run probably 10m maximum with our bikes both on the way in and on the way out. I had a very smooth T1 and the bike that followed went very well too. It was all uphill on the way out, and a good chunk of the climb was pretty steep. About my only complaint about the bike was that there were no officials, so that meant a group of 5 or 6 Pros at the front drafted the whole course. That tends to piss you off to see happening. Either way, I picked a number of guys off on the bike to move into 9th place coming into T2 which went the best I have ever had it go. I know I work for Zoot, but honestly, the shoes they have are the best there are for transitions, and they feel great. I had no problem slipping them on and going for it.
The run was a little less than what I would have liked it to be. I got caught pretty quickly by a team member f mine, Haven Barnes. I had hoped to stick on his shoulder for a ways, and as he told me later, so did he. But, I just didn't have any other gears. There was no pick-up or "pop" in my run. I had no problem cruising along, but I couldn't cover anything fast when Haven went by, and right near the end when two other guys went past together I didn't have kick to speak of that would let me stop them from going right on by. I did pass one guy though, which put me in 10th place.
Not too bad considering that I didn't let up leading into this and trained right through it. My next one will be another local one containing an international Pro field (like this one) called the Carlsbad Triathlon. I will follow that with a Half Ironman, the Vineman 70.3 Triathlon in northern California.
I'll send out another update after the Carlsbad triathlon. As always, check out the website at www.kamnetz.com . Until then, stay in touch, and enjoy the summer and this coming Holiday weekend!