While I managed to only write a back story behind 10 swims photos, it looks like that got upped to 17 on this round of cycling photos. Once again, the photos are arranged chronologically as opposed to any sort of ranking system.

This photo was taken at the Cinco Ranch Triathlon in August of 2000. Cinco Ranch is a suburb on the west side of the greater Houston area. I’m not sure how big the race was at the time, but it seemed like a huge sprint triathlon in my memory. This was technically my second triathlon ever, but it’s the earliest cycling photo I could find. My first race took place about two weeks earlier in San Angelo, Texas at the Wool Capitol Triathlon (a race won by longtime pro and Texas Legend, Brandon Marsh).

That summer, I had been working at Camp Longhorn for 10 weeks straight (my CLH friends can make note of the 9-year ring I’m wearing on my right hand). I came home and used some of the money I had earned to buy that Jamis frame. It was a steel frame that was crazy heavy, had a threaded fork and a triple crankset. I hadn’t had the bike for more that one day when I was invited to go the San Angelo race that weekend. I had only been running during the summer, no riding or swimming, but went anyway. I was a little more prepared for the Cinco Ranch Race a few weeks later although I still don’t think I did any swim training. In order to encourage me to ride hard during the race I just shifted into the biggest gear I had and figured that would take care of itself.

I think I finished in the top-3 in my age group, but I was still in the M15-19 AG so there may have only been three of us in the race.

Climbing up to Falls Creek, Australia. Boxing Day 2008.

Falls Creek, Australia. Boxing Day 2008.

In the (North American) winter of 2008 I traveled down to train in Australia leading into Challenge Wanaka in January of 2009. Over the Christmas Holiday, Brooke flew down to visit for two weeks. On Boxing Day we did a 200K ride that included the climb to Falls Creek, a ski resort that sits around 5500 feet up in the hills. The first 100K of the ride was an easy group effort through various vineyards. I remember feeling like absolute death for every single one of those K’s. We stopped in Mt Beauty (small town) to eat lunch near the base of the climb. I avoided any real food and just drank a liter of coke or so instead. When we clipped back in we spun over to the base of the climb (climb was about 30K long) and I just decided to go for it from the base. For whatever reason, I came around and felt like a million bucks to the top. Goes to show you how quickly a day can turn around. The first photo is from somewhere on the climb and the second one is from the summit finish at Falls Creek.

Boulder, Colorado January 2010. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr.

This picture was taken by Brooke before a ride I did in early January of 2010. I was getting ready for Challenge Wanaka (IM distance race in Wanka, NZ) and was dealing with proper winter conditions in Boulder. I remember that I was doing three 50K loops (instead of a straight 150K ride) so that I could go back in our house and warm up a bit every ~90 minutes. Most of the folks I would be racing were training in New Zealand during their summer and I kept telling myself “the competition doesn’t care that it’s snowing.” In other words, they weren’t going to back off their training so I better get mine done too.

Three weeks later I finished in 2nd place, my first podium finish.

Approaching Windy Point on Mount Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona. February 2011. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

This photo was taken by my Aunt Sherry while riding up Mount Lemmon at the 2011 Endurance Corner Tucson Camp. That year we had a major winter storm roll into Tucson and the snow levels came down to around 3000 feet. We stuck to our plan of doing our annual ride up Lemmon a couple days later, but it was still very cold and we were not sure how high we could get up based on the snow level, road conditions and the temperature.

I told the campers and coaches to start riding about ten minutes after me and as long as they didn’t see me they could keep riding. My plan was to get as high as safely possible and then call it. This photo was taken about 400 meters before I stopped. Once we reached Windy Point, around 6800 feet, the road was completely snowpacked and was actually closed to outside traffic.

The descent was ridiculously cold. Even though I have ridden in a lot of winter conditions, I will always remember that day as being one of the coldest on the bike while training.

This photo was taken around the halfway point of the bike at Ironman Texas in 2011. This was the first year of the event and it was also the North American Championship that year. Over the years, I probably used special needs more than some of the other pros I raced against. Most of my nutrition would be mixed in four bottles, so I would use two through the halfway point and then refresh them at special needs. This allowed me to just supplement with water on the bike course and not need to rely on calories at the aid stations.

However, the special needs hand offs were always a bit tricky as the bags were never easy to use on the fly. I dealt with this by always holding the bag with my teeth and quickly grabbing the two bottles inside. This photo captured that moment perfectly.

I went on to finish 7th that day, only moving into the top 10 in the last 8 miles of the run.

Endurance Corner Tucson Camp, March 2013. Photo Credit: Jeff Fejfar.

Ah, the Pepto photo. In 2013, there was a bad stomach virus going around the entire city of Tucson and during the annual Tucson camp it made its way through a number of campers and staff. On the penultimate day of camp I got the virus, but I didn’t get it nearly as bad as most people did. The next day we were riding to Kitt Peak and we were short staffed so I still rode, but my energy levels were very low. I actually had to pull over at mile 8 of the climb to stop and rest, and then I bailed on the final four miles of the climb. I descended back to the base and tried to drink several Sprites to get some energy in me before having to ride back to town.

That was a long day.

Lefthand Canyon in Boulder, Colorado, January 2014. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr

This photo was taken in January of 2014 by Brooke. We had been having a pretty solid winter and lots of the roads were snowpacked so I decided to use my cross bike to do a point-to-point ride from Boulder to Brainard Lake (10,000 feet) where Brooke and I were planning to go snow shoeing. With the conditions being what they were I switched to flat pedals with trail (running) shoes as I frequently had to put a foot down when I would lose traction. Even though the speeds were slow because I was going uphill, it was still pretty sketchy the entire way.

Ironman Boulder 2014. Photo Credit: Nick Morales

This photo was taken by Nick Morales during Ironman Boulder in 2014. This is near the famous barn located at Nelson and Highway 36, probably 15-20K into the bike leg. In 2014, the bike was a one loop course that traveled north and east of Boulder. I had almost forgotten that I was actually having some issues at the start of this bike leg. Shortly after starting the ride, I was feeling very ill and I kept throwing up sporadically across the first 40K of the bike. Eventually I came around and resettled and ultimately went on to win the race that day.

I wanted to mention this because I think it can be easy to overlook the adversity that you can face even when a day is ultimately very successful. This is particularly the case with an Ironman or any other event of extended duration. It is never going to be a perfect day and I promise you that whoever has won the race that day has not won because they had no setbacks. They won in spite of them.

Base of Mount Lemmon. February 2015. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

This photo was taken by Aunt Sherry at the base of Mount Lemmon during the 2015 Endurance Corner Tucson Camp. I was waiting on a group to show up and this guy with his puppy just cruised on by. I like this photo as I am in a super serious mood looking for others while this eccentric fella and his pup are just living their best lives.

This photo was taken in 2015 on the first major climb of the Ironman Whistler bike course, Callaghan Rd. We started the race before the rain started, but as we exited the water, it was a torrential downpour. And being in the mountains of the PNW, this was not a warm rain. Temperatures were under 40 degrees at the top of Callaghan and the rain did not let up for most of the ride. The bike course had a lot of climbing so I was able to generate heat when going uphill, but then it was absolutely freezing on every descent.

Earlier that year I had gotten pneumonia and had to withdraw from Ironman Texas in May. I was pretty beat up from the illness and it took a long time to recover. By the time this race came around it felt like most of the season was gone which I believe ended up helping me deal with the miserable conditions because I wanted to finish a race so badly. I ended finishing 3rd that day and was hobbling across the line as my hamstring had tightened up so badly from the cold. In fact, my hamstring continued to get overly tight for years after that day. It never manifested into something I couldn’t manage, but it had never been an issue before that day.

That was, by far, the harshest conditions I ever raced in over twenty years.

Ironman Mont Tremblant 2015. Photo Credit: Korupt Vision

This photo was taken in the final kilometers of the Ironman Tremblant bike course in 2015. Following Ironman Canada (Whistler) in 2015, I decided to race Ironman Mont Tremblant three weeks later. I wasn’t really sure what to expect by racing the two events so closely together. I had a fairly laid back attitude towards the race and it ended up serving me well. As the day progressed I kept moving up and ended up taking 2nd place. Racing to back-to-back podiums at Whistler and Tremblant was a major accomplishment for me personally. It is one of my proudest moments from my career, particularly because Whistler was so cold and Tremblant ended up being very hot. Racing well at either extremes was something I took a lot of pride in.

Ironman Lake Placid 2017. Photo Credit: Quique Nagle.

This was photo was taken by Quique Nagle at Ironman Lake Placid in 2017. This was in the final few miles of the second loop. In the weeks before this race, I wasn’t in the best headspace and had only decided to race about two weeks out. When I got into town, some of my friends had shown up to surprise me and support me on the weekend. I was extraordinarily grateful for them doing that. Brent McMahon absolutely crushed the race that day, breaking the course record. I was fortunate to grab the last spot on the podium and finish in 3rd.

Ironman Cozumel 2017. Photo Credit: Nick Morales.

This photo was taken at Ironman Cozumel in 2017 by Nick Morales. If you look really closely, you will see that I don’t have a bottle on my front end. Shortly before this photo was taken, my front cage bolts went loose and it fell off so I had nowhere to put any bottles I took from the course. The hydration unit on the bike was filled with a calorie-dense mix I had made so it wasn’t really for regularly drinking as each sip was sort of like taking in a gel.

As a result I decided to hammer as hard as I could to the next aid station where I would hop off and remove the spare kit that I had on my rear cage (seen pictured). I got to the aid station, hopped off the bike and went to pull the spare kit out, but my adrenaline was so high that I broke that cage off as well in the process. Not knowing what to do I quickly grabbed two bottles of water, chugged them and got back on the course. The rest of the way I managed to store the bottles in a pocket and in my kit which is what I should have done in the first place, but my problem solving skills were somewhat diminished at the time.

I still had a good ride and came off the bike in 4th or 5th place, but I faded hard on the run with some stomach problems and finished the day in 8th place.

Ironman Texas 2018. Photo Credit: Aaron Palaian.

This photo was taken by Aaron Palaian on the Hardy Toll Road portion of the Ironman Texas bike course in 2018. I didn’t race particularly well that day, but this is an awesome photo. One thing worth mentioning is this: if you look at my left knee you will notice some blood. That’s because I crashed earlier that day… …mounting my bike. As I was coming out of transition I hadn’t pulled my top on completely so it was sort of hindering my elbow. As I mounted the bike and flung my leg over, I knew something wasn’t right. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but I definitely remember that I was 100% certain that “Shit, I’m going to crash.”

And I did.

That was the one and only time I ever crashed while mounting my bike. I did crash while trying to tighten my shoe once at the Lake George Triathlon in 2006, but no one saw it because it was on a hidden bike path.

St Vrain Road in Boulder, Colorado. June 2018. Photo Credit: Jeff Thoren.

This photo was taken by Jeff Thoren during a photo shoot for Ventum in Boulder in 2018. It was two days after Ironman Boulder so I was extremely sore and had some massive cankles that thankfully are cropped out of this photo. The bike we were using was a stock bike for display so we only had one gear to use which was the 54 x 11. We did most of the shoot going downhill as the gear was too big to get up to speed. I also remember the position was set very aggressively so most of the time I was just looking down as I had to crane my neck too much to see straight for long periods of time. Nevertheless, Jeff took some awesome shots and a video from this shoot appeared regularly as a commercial during a lot of Ironman’s race coverage.

Bear Lake Brawl 2020. Photo Credit: Paul Higgins.

This photo was taken by Paul Higgins at the Bear Lake Brawl, probably on the Idaho side of the border (lake is half in Utah, half in Idaho), but I’m not entirely sure. About 2+ weeks prior the Professional Triathlon Organization added a prize purse and pro field to this local event. At the beginning of the summer, I had some real hope that some races might return in the fall of 2020, but as COVID cases increased across the country most major events were cancelled and I assumed that I would not race any triathlons at all in 2020.

My last triathlon had been in August 2019 which was a DNF at Ironman Mont Tremblant. Early in 2020, I had essentially made plans to only race through the end of the year so without Bear Lake I was ostensibly going to end my career with a DNF. The Bear Lake Brawl ended up having some windy, cold, rainy conditions, but I was really happy to have one last opportunity to complete a race.

This ended up being the final triathlon of my career.

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Here are some additional photos I wanted to share:

Ironman Canada 2008. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

Rolling out to Kitt Peak on Ajo Highway outside Tucson, Arizona. March 2010. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

Rolling into Granby, Colorado. August 2010. Photo Credit: Jen Couzens.

Endurance Corner Tucson Camp 2011. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

Head down at Ironman Texas 2011. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr.

Start of the bike at Ironman Florida, 2011. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr.

Ironman Texas 2013. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

Photo Bomb at the Endurance Corner Tucson Camp 2014. Photo Credit: Stephen Kowal.

Endurance Corner Tucson Camp 2014. Photo Credit: Sherry Daerr

Wildflower 2014. Photo Credit: Mark Pietrofesa

Top of Madera Canyon outside Tucson, Arizona. February 2017.

Mico: The World Famous Lab. Houston Texas. April 2017. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr

Memorial Park in Houston, Texas. April 2017. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr

Loveland Pass, June 2017. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr. Arapahoe Basin Ski Resort in the background.

Keebler Pass, heading into Crested Butte, Colorado. June 2017. Photo Credit: Brooke Daerr

Ironman Boulder 2018. Photo Credit: Jeff Thoren

Ironman Boulder 2019. Photo Credit: Justin Diamond.

Boulder, Colorado July 2019. Photo Credit: Justin Diamond.

Sunshine Canyon in Boulder, Colorado. July 2020. Photo Credit: Chris Leiferman