Central America and Caribbean Champion !!

Hi All

Training is coming around after a couple of months dealing with a virus that left me pretty weak. Im now back on track to get my season going and my next 3 races will be the Life Time Fitness Cap Tex Triathlon on May 27th, the ITU Dallas on June 1st and the New York City Triathlon on July 14th.

I also want to let you all know that for now on at my ITU races I will be racing for Puerto Rico. In 2011 my wife and I came to the Island and felt in love with it. I became a legal resident back then and we decided to live here. My wife Pieri is from Argentina and doesn't speak english well and we looked for a place where we could both excel at our jobs. Puerto Rico is that place since its a US territory, we speak spanish here and the weather allows me to do my job all year around. I have found a nice set up close to the ocean for open water swims and the mountains for my long rides. We are both very happy here and I would like to thank everyone here that has helped us out these past couple of months. Living here reminds me of when I was kid growing up in Cuba, where the culture, the food and the weather are very similar.
Because Puerto Rico is a US Commonwealth, puerto ricans are US citizens and I will be allowed to officially race for its Olympic Committee once I fulfill the requirement of living here for a certain amount of time and the  Olympic Committee board approves my request. I hope to make history for the Island in 3 years when I become the first Puerto Rican to go to the Olympics in Triathlon and hopefully that will open the doors to many young triathletes here with the same dream.

Back to this past weekend's race in the Dominican Republic, this was my first of a few ITU races that I will be competing  at this year since I will be focusing more on the non-drafting events.  I won the race after exiting the swim with a small pack of 8 and after we finished the bike we had over 2 minutes on the chase pack. I paced myself the first few miles on the run since it was pretty hot and humid and broke away with two laps two go. This race was this year's Central America and Caribbean Championships and for the first time ever I won that title for Puerto Rico. Im back on my training routine  getting ready for the Texas' double next week.

photos courtesy of www.SantoDomingoCorre.com

Happenings!!!

Its already March and the winter its about to end, that means that Triathlon season its about to begin. My next race will be in two weeks at the San Juan 70.3, now that I live here is my hometown race and Im very happy to have an event of this magnitude close to home. After that I will be racing at the Nautica South Beach in Miami ( my other home ) and at the St. Anthonys Triathlon both in April.

I recently got my new bike from Orbea "the new Ordu" and this machine is FAST, light and awesome looking. I will be riding it with the new Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 gruppo and wheels, my SRM 7 and ISM Saddle.

Three weeks ago I went to El Salvador for a "Meet Runners" conference,  La prensa Grafica Salvador's National Newspaper hosted this event for the first time in the Country and Coach Javier Pineda and myself were the speakers of the event. We had about 200 athletes that attended the event and I had a blast. I met a great group of athletes and we are already planning on getting back there soon.

 I want to thank Javier Pineda, Cristian Muller and every one over there for making this possible and Ill see you all soon.

With the Pineda's Family

Off Season

Hi all

I finally get a break to update you on what Ive been up to these past couple of weeks. First of all I moved to Puerto Rico, where I will be living and training most of the year, I live south of San Juan very close to the mountains, very good for riding if you like long climbs and the weather here its awesome for this time of the year. Im getting ready to start the 2013 season with two 70.3 events one in Panama in February and another one here in San Juan in March before I start with some of the non drafting 5150's and some ITU's through out the season.

This is part of my everyday ride

I hope you like Bamboos as much as I do

Other than training Ive been getting to know the local community and sharing some of my life and sport experiences, two weeks ago thanks to my friend Pedro Umpierre  who got me in touch with the bilingual public school of San Juan I was able to go for a morning and speak to about 50-60 kids about triathlon and then I got to eat a meal in their awesome Cafeteria. Hopefully I can keep doing more of this in the near future.

Last week I traveled to Mayaguez about 2 hours west from here  for a pre race press conference, the Puerto Rican National Championships will be held there this Saturday and the race director has invited me to participate. This will be my first race here and its in a very nice course parallel to the Mayaguez beach.

 I would like to announce my new two sponsors, NormaTec ( http://www.normatecsports.com ) and CompuTrainer ( http://www.racermateinc.com ).
Read about the science and the benefits of using a NormaTec after a workout without having to go anywhere, right from your bedroom. NormaTec Scince

I chose the Compu trainer because it can not only improve your cycling but it also makes it more enjoyable than your regular trainer. Once you connect  your CompuTrainer to your computer you can ride many of the Ironman bike Courses or make your own course and watch it on the screen.  You can watch your pedal stroke with the spinscan and do intervals with wattage.  Read more about it here http://www.racermateinc.com/computrainer.asp

Just found something awesome to bite ;-)

We have a new addition to the family his name is Oreo and we rescued him from the streets, when we got him he was in pretty bad shape very skinny and with cuts and bruises all over his body. He is 6 months old, very friendly and an awesome company to have.  If in the future you are looking for a friend for life go to the local Humane Society and adopt one of this, you will be saving a life and getting a very good friend

Adios from Puerto Rico and Happy Holidays !!!!!

End of the Season

Hi all

Ive been very busy the last couple of weeks, after my last race I moved out of Costa Rica. I had a wonderful 3 years there and I want to thank everyone who helped us out,  specially my coach Roberto and friend Leo. Im now in Puerto Rico and Ill be here for a while that way I can stay closer to my family and also to many of the races that I want to do next year. The winter here will be similar to the one in Miami, meaning there wont be any winter since this is in the middle of the caribbean and the temperature stays about the same all year long perfect for training.

This by far has been the most successful season of my career, back in February I got my first podium of the season in Barbados an ITU continental cup that earn me the points necessary to get into the San Diego WCS/ Olympic Trials.



 

In March I raced once again at the REV 3 Costa Rica a non drafting olympic distance race where I finished 2nd for the second year in a row, I was very pleased with that results since I was fully focusing on ITU and I was able to get myself back in the podium. Cameron Dye had a great race and I won it.

We all knew that in San Diego the US team for the olympic was going to be selected and the only chance I had was to finish in the top 9,  my best finish prior to this race at a World Triathlon Series was a 13th plc at the 2010 Hamburg so I literally needed the race of my life. My coach and I worked hard to get me ready for this race and I was able to perform at my best that day earning my first trip to the Olympic Games finishing  2nd American and 9th overall. This by far has been the best day of my athletic career.

After that race I had the most overwhelming weeks of my life, doing interviews meeting with friends and getting ready for the London Games. Before London I wanted to stay sharp racing and we decided to race at the ITU Dallas Continental Cup finishing in 2nd and at the Edmonton World Cup finishing 5th. The big race was in August and I had the best preparation of my career, my fitness was very good and I was excited to get there and race my best, unfortunately the night before the race I ate something that Im allergic to, getting me sick and having a bad day, but overall it was one of the best experiences of my life and for sure I will be back in Rio in 2016.

One of my last races of the season was the Guatape World Cup in Colombia, a race that has a very hilly bike course and that is located at 7000ft high making it one of the toughest in the ITU circuit and I finished 3rd, I had never podium in a World Cup before so it was very special being able to accomplish that this season as well.



So for now Im taking a couple of weeks off to rest and get ready for next season. I want to thank once again my great sponsors for providing me with the best support of this 2012 season!!!!

My first World Cup Podium!!!

Hi all

Just got back from Colombia where I competed at the Guatape World Cup, in the mountains near Medellin. This race is one of the hardest races in the ITU circuit due to the location of the town at 7000ft above sea level. The swim is in a lake and the bike has 8 long hills and a cobblestones section right inside the town, the run has some short and steep hills as well. This was my first race since the olympics and I was looking forward to go hard.

Since I was the lowest ranked athlete at this event I got to choose my pontoon first and picked all the way right (closest one to the screen) that meant that I had a bit more to swim but since I was at one of the corners I didn't have to fight that much in the first 300 yards. Some of the guys false started and I don't think  they even got penalized for that.  I had a good swim coming out of the water in the front pack on a non wetsuit swim.

Once we got to the hilly bike Chacon (my training partner from Costa Rica) and I decided to push hard every time we went uphill. This course was perfect for a break away and we both tried a couple of times but the rest of the field wasn't allowing us to get away bringing us back every time. For this type of course I had the best bike set up possible with my Orbea Orca Gold, the Dura Ace Carbon C35 wheels and having the DI2 electronic gruppo on was great, my shifting was always fast and accurate.  By the end of the bike ride the pack was reduce to  just 10 athletes.

Once we got to the run I put on my Brooks Mach 14 flats  and a group of 4 of us got quickly away from the rest of the field, Chacon from Costa Rica , Sarmiento and Grajales from Mexico and myself. 

Leo Chacon was the first one to dropped back as he's been batteling a cold all week long and told me later on that wasn't feeling good during the race. I was struggling a bit too, I started cramping right around the 2nd mile of the run and I could not push as hard as I wanted to.

Grajales pulled away with about 1km to go and I was left with Sarmiento fighting for the last two podium spots. Coming into town I kept the pace high to see if I could pulled away from Sarmiento but I had no luck and he did a good job of just sitting in behind me and wait for the sprint. Once we got to the last couple of yards there was a sharp right turn and we started the all out sprint. With the momentum from the turn and wanting to get the best line possible to the middle of the finishing shute I got into Sarmientos' way who was approaching me faster and did not hesitate to push me loosing my balance and went from sprinting to just trying to stay on my feet so that I wouldn't fall. I didn't expect him to do that and I tough that he was going to make the pass on the inside if I went wide. I know that it wasn't intentional and that this is part of racing, he came up to me right after the finish and  apologize. I tried to appeal with the ITU jury but lost the appeal, case close and move on.

Here is the award ceremony:

Overall Im happy that I finally got my first ITU World Cup podium. Something that Ive been very close in the past but never got it done, I know that from now on there will be a couple of those more in the future.

all the photos are from arnold lin/ ITU

Next stop will be on Saturday in Buffalo for Pro Nationals !!!

The next 4

Hi all

Well in the next 5 weeks ill be racing 4 times, next weekend at the Guatape World Cup in Colombia, this race is at 6200 ft high and it kicks up all the way to 7000ft during the bike. Last year I placed 9th there and it was one of the toughest races Ive done. Next I will be traveling to Buffalo, New York for Pro Nationals and I get the week off after that. On September 29th I will be going to San Diego for the first annual F1 Triathlon, in this races you do two back to back mini sprint triathlons, so that should be a fast and fun one and on October 7th I will be racing at the Cancun World Cup in Mexico. These past 3 weeks training went very well, I got most of my Olympics fitness back since I took some time off after London. After this Ill be heading home to Puerto Rico.

Ill keep you posted on how these races go.

Ciao

Back to Work

Hi All

First of all I would like to thank everyone out there who supported and helped me throughout my triathlon career to get me to the Olympics. Making it to the the games was a huge milestone in my life and one of the best experiences, Im now even hungrier to get to the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. But for now I have to get back to training and focus on the last couple of races in my calendar. Im back in Costa Rica for the next 2 months and then I head back home for the winter. My training for the next couple of weeks will be similar to what I was doing before, 6 swim sessions of 4 - 4.5km, 4 bike sessions  of 2 - 3hrs and 5-6 run sessions anywhere from 30 min to 1.10hrs.

For the swim our hard days are tuesdays and fridays, tuesday we do a threshold set of  300/400 repeats for a total of 1600-1800 main set and on friday some speed set of 100's or below for about  1200.

For the bike the hard days are during the weekends, on saturday we do our long ride of 3hrs  and on sundays an interval session simulating a race, I use my SRM 7 to keep track of my wattage and see my improvement over the time. Depending on the course profile of the upcoming race we choose where to do our intervals either on the flats or on the hills.

 Photos: Samuel Wells/competitor

For the run our hard days are on tuesdays, fridays and sundays. Fridays we hit the track or trails for some race pace intervals (mile repeats/ km repeats ect) and on sundays for some off the bike running. On tuesdays of every 2nd week we do some hill repeats, we pick a short hill less than 150 meters long and we go up as fast as we can having the decent as our rest.

We also do 2-3 strength sessions of 20-30 minutes each, I usually do 2 at the gym and one at home with my TRX. For the past 2.5 years Ive been able to be very consistent with my training and I have only gotten injured a few times and that have been the key of my success. Im now working on converting my consistency of training to racing, I had many ups and downs and for the next couple of seasons I want more ups than downs.

I also changed my supplements, I tried Living Fuel last year and felt in love with their products, they have some of the healthiest products in the market.

What happened in London

hi all,

Just got back to costa rica, its been a long 2 weeks with ups and down in between. Below Im posting an interview I did for Triathlete.com after my race in London. You can read what happened to me. Overall with the exception of my actual result in the race it was the best experience of my life. Soon I will post some photos.  Now I got to get a a siesta in since I'm very jet lag.

Manny Huerta

Triathlete.com: What are your thoughts looking back at the race?

Huerta: It was the toughest race in my career. I woke up that night before the race and I was very excited, very happy that I was feeling good and ready to race. I had some dinner that night that I had some food allergies, and I believe I ate something that got me very sick.

In the middle of the night I woke up wanting to throw up and my stomach just felt very bad. My girlfriend woke up and asked me what was going on. I told her I think I ate something that has some of my food allergies. I couldn’t get back to sleep until a couple of hours later. By the time I woke up, I didn’t feel like eating any breakfast. It was a matter of knowing I needed something to get me through the race. In the past I had a little bit of the allergy and had been able to deal with it in a workout, but by the time I got to the race I was actually feeling worse. My stomach was cramping and I kept telling myself, ‘I’ll be alright.’ I started the race and I had no power, from the minute I dove in I knew that my mentality went from trying to be competitive to just hanging on. I had literally the worst swim of my entire life. On the bike I couldn’t even pull through, I was just hanging on to those guys’ wheels and I kept throwing up on the bike. I threw up my breakfast, I threw up dinner, any time I drank a little I would throw it up all over again. I felt like dropping out the whole time. I knew I was having a horrible time, but the crowd, there were so many people out there, I had my family, my friends and so many people around the world, so there was no way I could just drop out. This was a very special race for me and I didn’t want to have a DNF next to my name at the Olympic Games for the rest of my life, so I just kept going. To be honest, if it would have been any other race, I would have dropped out after the swim.

I’m looking back to everything I did and all the way until that night. I had dinner and the damage was done. It came up in the night. Something I ate got me very sick, there was nothing I could have taken [the morning of the race] to make me better in such a short notice. After the race, I felt so horrible. I knew I was running very slowly but I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t go any faster. I know I’m so much faster than that because I’ve done it in the past. It was such a bad feeling. People were so excited here for me and I was having a little nightmare. That was the longest 10K of my life.

Today I feel like my stomach, like I did 200 crunches. I’m so sore in my whole stomach area and my voice, my throat hurts, it’s burning. After that I was taken to the medical tent because I kept throwing up. By then it was just acid from my stomach. They gave me some medicine, the medical staff, but I threw that up again so they decided to put it on the IV, because that was the only way that my body wouldn’t just send it out. I got a couple of IVs. I was in there for a couple hours. They were going to take me into the local hospital, but after a while of laying down, I was doing better so I went back to the room to see my girlfriend for the first time. She knew seeing me so far back that something was wrong, so I’m so disappointed and I feel like I let so many people down that were cheering for me and they wanted me to do a better job.

I know that realistically my chances for a medal were very little. You saw yesterday, the Brownlees running almost 29 flat, and that’s something I’ve never done in my life, but I came here with the idea of being competitive. I wanted to hurt myself the best I ever hurt myself, I wanted to be very sore today, and to know that I ran the best I could, but my body didn’t let me to do that. As an athlete, I’m very competitive. I really wanted this, my coach and I and USAT did everything we could to get me to where I was and to get me ready for this race. To be ready to have my career-best performance, and this was something that was out of [my] hands. I wasn’t expecting to get sick all of a sudden four hours before the race. Even when I was getting sick I stayed positive, telling myself that it was just my stomach and I could deal with it. I didn’t want to have to much drama going in, but I dove in and I had nothing. Same thing on the bike, some of the guys came up to me and asked me, ‘Were you here for Sunday’s group ride,’ and if they only knew how I was feeling I don’t think they would have spoken to me. And I’m very, very sorry if I let people down, but I couldn’t do anything better. If I could take the race back, if I could do it all over again I would because this is what I like to do, what I love to do. But you only get one chance and that’s it, you have to make the best of it on that moment. Now that it’s my first Olympic Games and I get to appreciate even more what an Olympic medal is, what it takes because I realize how hard it is to get here, how hard it is to work towards getting a medal. I realize even more how everything has to click the perfect way for you to succeed and get that medal at this type of races. ‘

Triathlete.com: What did you eat the night before the race?

Huerta: I had dinner at the hotel (Hilton London Paddington Hotel), that’s where I had been having dinner. No one else got sick, so I don’t think it was a food poison thing. In the past I had some allergy problems. I can’t eat almonds, red beans, I can’t eat broccoli or coconut and some of the other vegetables and that’s why I always try and keep it consistent. I eat the same breakfast everyday. I always have three pieces of toast with some jam and some peanut putter or cream cheese and two cups of coffee. I tried to eat it before the race and my body didn’t even want to. One of the salads that I ate was an olive salad that had cheese and had some peppers with something else, I can’t really remember. When I looked it up, I didn’t see anything that was a red flag so I went ahead and I ate it and felt fine and I had some potatoes and some bread, so I kept it as close to what I’m used to eating every day. It just happened there was something in that salad that was very bad for me. I had some chicken and that salad with peppers and cheese and olives and something else I don’t remember. I think it was the peppers or something.

Triathlete.com: Will you continue to pursue Olympic-style racing?

Huerta: Yeah, there is business undone here. I didn’t want my story to finish on that. I didn’t want to come here on a field trip, I wanted to do the best I could and in the back of my mind want to stay around in the sport. I’m 28 so I think I have another shot at this and I also want to do some U.S. races, so I don’t know. Right now my head is just in so many things, and I just want to get out there and hurt myself training again.

My Training leading up to London

Check this video from competitor in my preparation to London while in Costa Rica

Also here is the link for some great photos as well : http://triathlon.competitor.com/2012/08/photos/photos-manny-huerta-prepares-for-the-olympics-in-costa-rica_58749


Part 2

Part 3

enjoy

London Arrival!!

Hi All

I arrived to England a couple of days ago for the opening ceremony in London and I'm now in Guildford about 90 minutes away for our USA Triathlon training camp. The training facilities here are better than back in the metro London area and I will be here until 3 days before my race.

The first day day we had the team processing where we got our uniforms and Olympic clothing it was pretty amazing all the stuff we got. This was the opening ceremony outfit

This is the closing ceremony outfit.

I also had a press conference we some of the biggest Newspapers of the US.

The opening Ceremony was awesome I got to see most of Team USA and I got super pumped for my race, this is an experience that I will always remember for the rest of my life.

 Ill try to keep you posted on how things go here in guildford and after the race.

ciao

Miami Herald's Sundays Front Page!!!!

You Can Read this article here: Miami Heralds Article

Thank You All!!!!

Hi In this post I wanted to thank Ludus Tours for taking care of my family and helping me bring them to London to watch me at my dream race. If you haven't made your traveling plans to London yet please check them out at www.ludustours.com

 I also wanted to thank all the South Florida Community that helped me out with the fundraisers to buy them the airplane tickets. Having my family there is definitely a huge asset and I'm very happy for that. Thank you so much !!!

 Here is photo from my girlfriend and I at the Crater of the Irazu Volcano here in Costa Rica