Chris McDonald Interview

Chris McDonald is a domininant Ironman Champion. He got a late start in triathlon but made up for lost time with major wins at Challenge Wanaka, Ironman Louisville, and Ironman Wisconsin. A podium threat in every race he does, he is setting his sights on Kona this year. Big Sexy on the Big Island. It has a nice ring to it.

JP: First question, where did you get the nickname Big Sexy?

Chris: It all started from getting called Big Fella. Then Brett Sutton gave me the nickname Big Sexy when we were in Leysin in 2008

JP: Being sort of late to the game in triathlon, what did you do to accelerate your development to catch up with the boys who started when they were in the womb?

Chris: I did get a late start for sure . My first tri, I was 24, I really just jumped into the sport head first with a sink or swim attitude. I raced a lot and learned a lot quickly. I also had a great mentor in Scott Molina.

JP: You are a monster on the bike… What do you attribute this to?

Chris: I love to ride my bike! The first couple years of triathlon I did a lot of bike racing which helped . I still race bikes quite a bit in the spring.

JP: Could you suggest a workout for age groupers that you have found particularly helpful?

Chris: As much as it is not nice, I think doing some very focused intervals on the trainer is invaluable.

JP: What did you work on last off season to step your game up?

Chris: To be honest I spent the whole of last off season trying to figure out an injury I had been racing on for 12 months

JP: What is your plan for the back half of the season?

Chris: I will be racing next at Challenge Copenhagen in Denmark, then the next big race is Hawaii.

JP: If you could chose to win something other than a triathlon what would it be and why?

Chris: An arm wrestle against my wife….cause I would like to be the man of the house!

JP: How are things in terms of sponsorship in this frigid witch of an economy?

Chris: Things are not too bad . I have some great sponsors that have looked after me well over the years , I like to have long term relationships with the people and the companies so you can really help each other grow over the long term.

Lightning round:

Favorite Meal? burger and fries

Who do you not want to see on the starting line if you had to pick someone? Anyone who has a reputation for drafting . I HATE! people who cheat.

Favorite American City? Boulder, CO

Win Kona or win 20 Ironmans? Kona hands down!

Hills or Wind? Wind and rolling hills ;) nothing beats a howling cross wind!

JP: Thanks SO MUCH for the time, Mr. Sexy. Last question, can you give three tips for the age groupers out there?

Chris: Consistency is the key! Create a great support structure to help you to your goals and

learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So it begins

I just officially started my Ironman florida build. It is something like 15 weeks long and most likely will be quite hard if my first ride was any indicator.

70 miles with 3k of climbing... the 3k was set up like this. 1 k over 8 miles (fine) and then 2k over 4 miles (cruel). The 2k over 4 miles nearly had me walking. I was spitting up strings of drool all over my aerobars and barely turning the pedals. Imagine a teething baby.

The reason for this lack of composure was I was riding my tt bike with a 52-42 on the front and a 11-23 on the back. For those of you who don't get that gear ratio kind of lingo, it is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The gun fight is the mtn. The knife is my ill equipped steed. I was unprepared and paid dearly.

I got home and mapped the ride and ended up riding 20.7 mph avg. I was over the moon as the effort was comfortable and the conditions were not speedy ie lots of wind and enough climbing to slow way down. My back half riding is getting stronger. I am going to key on that for this build. I need to be very strong where everyone is weak... miles 70-112 of the bike and miles 13-26 of the run. And so it begins.

He's a bad mother. Shut your mouth.

Jens Voigt is probably the biggest baller in all of sports. Maybe in all of the universe, save Fred Bear. However, if you put Fred Bear on a bike, Jens would eat him alive like all the big game failed to do.
His exploits are too many to list but he recently crashed, broke his bike, snatched a junior's bike with toe clips and caught back onto the group. The bike is essentially a tricycle. Take a peak inside his mind....

Sometimes you can hear your body start talking to you ... 'Oh, I can't do it anymore, I can't do it anymore,' and your mind goes 'shutup body and do what I tell you' and your body is almost like ...
revolting against you and saying 'I can't do it, leave me alone, I can't do it, I want to pull over now,' and the mind goes, and the brain goes 'no, no, no, you keep going, you keep going because I want you to do what I tell you to do' and you know, your lungs are burning and you have the little taste of blood in your mouth and your legs are burning, and they don't want to turn around anymore and you know if someone now attacks you will be blown out of the water but you go 'no, I just keep going' and you just keep going and ... you make it happen."

I get paid to hurt other people. How good is that? How good is that?
I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, that's good."

I did it for the Glory

So over the holiday weekend, I found out I am completely not funny. Not only that, I am unoriginal in every way. All my material… shamelessly lifted.
Basically I found this out in the following manner: Caitlin (girlfriend and best thing ever) starts telling a story to a circle of people. Her voice is the combination of a socially awkward deer and a shy prairie dog. She mumbled through the story and naturally no one listened/ laughed… except me…
Then I looked at her…the shifty eyes came out and I started the story over in my startlingly loud and unignorable thing I call my voice. Heads snapped over to me and the crowd reaction was stellar. I did it for the glory and then wouldn’t make eye contact with Cait after. HA. Then I thought about it and this happens constantly. She tells a story/joke and I pounce like a jungle cat. I am a mouthpiece for a very funny low talker… and I think I am ok with that as long as the glory is mine.

Ventura Triathlon

I had a race today. It was an olympic distance triathlon that I am very fond of called the Breath of Life triathlon. It is the southwest regional championship which doesn't mean much other than it turns out a really quality field. Last year I placed 9th and was pretty stoked.

This year, I was rolling in with a good deal more fitness and hoping to improve.

Pre: I drove up to Ventura listening to Kanye sing about how everyone doubts him and how he is so fresh and such a genius. Amazing that so many songs can revolve around this subject but I guess his freshness is sort of like an onion in its layers. Let's just say Kanye doesn't exactly speak to my soul but the beats are cool.

Saw my friend Colleen and said hi. Her boyfriend, who I think had too much McCafe, got excited and ripped the valve off her tire. Neither of them knew how to fix it so I banged it out and then went to get my pre race crap sorted.

My training buddy, Tony, showed up to cheer. Also some homies from MSU, Andrea and Erika got their asses out of bed super early to make me feel really good. Friends are the best.

Swim: Got to the swim start feeling spry. I wanted to race from the gun and not have mental lag time to get into a rhythm. I needed to attack. The reason will come later. I needed to bank time. I Ran into the water and dolphin dove into the lead. Short lived as a collegiate swimmer from Cal apparently had a bottle rocket up his ass. He took off and left one guy in no mans land and three others(myself included) sitting in a pack. Uneventful swim. We traded leads, sited well and swam strong.

T1: slow run in the sand and slow changing process... worst part of the race maybe

Bike: stole the bottle rocket out of the Cal swimmer's ass and attached it to my bike. I took off and caught the top guys really quick. I was staying on top of a big gear and riding hard. I noticed that I picked up a guy who I was towing. I talked to him and we rode legally trading tempos for pretty much the whole ride. We were blitzing everyone. He faded towards the end and I yelled to stay on top of his gear... we needed to bank time for the run... you'll see why. Came into t2 averaging 25.1 mph for 25.5 miles. Awesome.

T2: sucked again... not sure what the deal was in transition but I don't particularly care. I'd rather not train changing my clothes.

Run: We started out in 2nd and 3rd respectively... The reason we needed time was two collegiate runners who have both cracked 30 for a 10k... Not 40... 30! I was running the numbers the night before on what I would have to do to prevent them from dominating and was hoping for a major lead with my bike/swim. I took off and checked my watch at mile 1- 6:05. I kept my foot on the gas but at mile 2.5 I heard the very quick patter of a collegiate runner. Bugger. He went by me quick and I was still holding 6:05's. I hit mile 3 in a bit of pain. I told myself, "cover as much ground as possible as easily as possible and refocus at mile 4 to really suffer." Mile 4 came and I think my pace was around 6:08's avg at that point. I picked it up and the other runner came by me equally as hard. Double bugger. I was running well... (very relative) but just not in their area code. I started to come unglued and hit mile 5 nearly dead. Another runner came through who I had seen shamelessly drafting and had words with on the course. I guess I was served. I was redlined so shifting gears was not an option as down was the only way to go. 6 mile mark and the finish line was no where to be seen. I careened around a corned and plowed into a 60 year old running on the wrong side of the cones. I heard him topple into the bushes and I tried to choke out a sorry between my gasping and spitting, Another .6 later and I was done. I collapsed. Talked to some friends. Puked. Collapse. Rinse. Repeat.

Overall 20:13 swim... 25.1 mph avg for 25.5 miles ... 6:13min/mile pace for 6.6 miles

6th overall out of 1000 vs. last year 9th

Major improvement on the swim, bike and back half of the 10k compared to last year. Good swim. Lethal bike. Mentally strong 10k. shit transitions but overall a GREAT race. Not a whole lot more I could ask for other than god given 30minute 10k speed. Maybe for Christmas.

Til next time loved ones.

Yours contentedly,

JPS

Turn it up a little bit

I have been feeling like old horse droppings lately. My appetite is going crazy and I am eating literally non stop. I find that this generally happens to me during recovery weeks and race weeks when I sort of taper. I go into full repair mode and apparently it takes a ton of energy (read food) to rest. It always screws with my head though because race week feels like I am incredibly unfit. But generally if I am feeling good race week, I am doing something wrong and I don’t race well.
My teammate Michelle was asked by her coach to send her 10 reasons why she will rip it up in a race she just did. She did this and then won outright! Baller.

I think I’ll try but only with 5.
1. I have consistently trained since November with only 2 weeks completely off for major sickness. See Dengue Fever and horrific weeklong food poisoning induced by rotten pork.
2. My biking wattage is higher than it has ever been and I am climbing way faster than last year.
3. I raced out of my mind at Triple T against a quality field.
4. I am swimming with a training buddy (Tony) and we are exceeding times in every workout we do.
5. I am more confident going into this race than any race prior to this…. Well let’s go for 6.
6. I went 1:58 at this race last year (1.5 min or so shortish swim) and I am fitter now.

Stay tuned.

Unleash

Greetings loved ones,

Lately I have been on that fitness high that does not happen very often. The work that was tough early in the year, I am floating through right now... I got a major fitness bump from the Triple T and I am riding the wave of my base fitness right now.

I have punched it up with 400 repeats and some tough bike intervals as well. Yesterday I did 3 hours on the CycleOps POWERBEAM trainer. It measures power, cadence, HR and everything else you would want to quantify. It may be the dopest thing I own.

Anyway, while the Celtics game was on I smashed out some intervals. I set up the workout to do 2 hours of aerobic Ironman type work. I was working at 250-270 watts and keeping the HR low.

I then took a break and ate some stuff to prep for the major interval work starting in the 4th quarter. Depressing game as the Celts let it slip away in the last 6 minutes ...but great intervals.

I did 6x 3 minute efforts with short rest. Hold on to your seat. These watts are staggering for me...

The #s looked like this
1- 337 watts
2- 345 watts
3- 355 watts
4- 360 watts
5- 361 watts
6- 381 watts

The crazy thing is that this felt comfortable despite having majorly fatigued legs after rolling huge training the previous week and doing 400 reps the day before. I am fairly sure that my LT is around 345 watts right now. This is up from about 315 in peak fitness last year. That's outrageous.

I don't talk like this very often as I am usually not sure how I'll go or a little bit bummed with my fitness. But I am not either now so...

I have a race next weekend. Get ready for this because I am about to unleash my demons and tear down this course like something from your nightmares.