Flip Turns

I Feel Old Lately

2010-11-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

I signed up for the White Rock half marathon about two months ago at that point in my prep for Austin 70.3 when all of the hard training was behind me, taper was underway and I was starting to think about what was next.

I'd had success running a half marathon about 5-6 weeks after Austin in 2008, so I figured that model was worth repeating. So I put my money down, along with several of my friends both locally and those from farther away who would travel to Dallas for the race.

My recovery from Austin hasn't gone quite as well as I'd hoped, and I'm carrying a very sore/strained hamstring into this race that despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to get under control.

Training has been spotty at best. I've logged just 2 swims, and 3 rides since the race on Oct 17. I began running after 5 days off, and ramped up to 5 runs (nothing longer than 6 miles) the following week. I did 4 runs the week after that (11/1-7) and was able to get in a semi long run of 9.5 miles, but it, along with the track session that week left my hamstring in shatters.

I scheduled a Dr. appointment to have the hamstring looked at where I was diagnosed with a strained hamstring tendon at the point where the tendon joins the pelvic bone. Essentially right at the bottom of your butt cheek. Doc didn't have much for me other than a steroid prescription and orders to skip my long run and tempo session the following week. I still haven't started the steroid prescription opting to save it for after the race.

I took about 10 days off where I only logged a couple of light runs but it doesn't seem to have helped things much. I have an appointment with a chiropractor next week to get some thoughts from him on ART, any adjustments that might help, and recommended stretches and exercises. I've noticed that I've developed some pretty serious muscular imbalances that I think he might be able to help me fix in the off season.

So I got back to running on Wed this week in hopes of being able to make the best of my race in a few days. I had a decent run today in the cooler temps, but know I'm about 2-3 12 milers short of being prepared. The hammy was pretty barky about 3 miles in.

As I was running today, I was trying to decide what the right pacing strategy should be for next week given I'm not sure what I'm capable and think the opportunity to go for too much too early is very real. I'm still unsure, but think I'm going to treat it like I would any real hard swim set. Break it down in to manageable mental pieces, play it conservative until I know what kind of hand I'll be playing with, then make the best with what I've got.

Ironman AZ

2010-11-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I made the trip out to Phoenix to spend some time with my brother Todd, and to take in IMAZ. Our friend Ian who we caught up with in Austin last month was racing his last event of his rookie pro season, and it seemed like as good a reason as any to take in the race.

I landed around 8:45a on Saturday and Todd and I went straight to the race expo (about 5 mins from the airport) to attend the volunteer meeting. Todd was a race day volunteer for this race last year, so the plan was for us to volunteer again, get an early shift, and to be done by the time the race kicked off. After the meeting, we checked out the lay of the land, watched the athletes get into the frigid lake (63 degrees) for their practice swims, and hit the WTC tent to waste a bit of money on gear. We ran in to Ian and caught up for a few minutes, and were on our way back to Todd's house to spend the rest of the day with my sis-in-law Shawna and my niece and nephew.

Come race morning, we ended up working the bike special needs bag drop off from 5a-7a (we might have skipped out a little early, but we still worked our tails off). The highlight of the morning was that Todd got to collect Chrissie Wellington's bag from her, and that we caught up with Ian and his parents. We checked in on Ian's night of sleep which was better than the prior night (something about getting stirred out of bed at 4a by a chick dressed in a cheer leader outfit), and coordinated logistics with Mr. and Mrs Mikelson.

You can't tell, but the entire length of the bridge was lined with people looking down onto the swim

Looking down course to the east just prior to the pro start

The reason this race was so extraordinary to watch was because some changes to how pro athletes qualify for the World Champs in Kona make IMAZ situated 11 months in advance of Kona a great way for the ringer pros to show up and secure a lot of points towards next years qualification, which means they can focus on 70.3s for the remainder of the year keeping them fresh for Kona. The men's field was very deep, and the women's wasn't shabby either. There were a number of subplots going on as well. Jordan Rapp's return to IM 8 months after a near fatal car-on-cyclist accident, Chrissie Wellington's return to action after her surprise withdrawal the morning of Kona, and Matty Reed's first full IM to name a few.

The swim start did give you chills. The played Black Sabath's Ironman just prior to the start, and all of the athletes just went nuts screaming and cheering. I must admit it was pretty cool.

After the start, Todd and I hopped in the car to make our way out to the bike course. With a three loop out and back course, this bike course was very spectator friendly, especially if you go somewhere in the middle as opposed to the turnarounds.

We found a nice 90 degree corner on Alma School Rd and McDowell Rd at about mile 7 out of town, and mile 30 back in to town and pitched our lawn chairs. We brought binoculars to look down the road and spot, were using the iPhone to follow the race updates on www.ironman.com, as well as to take bike splits. We asked Ian the day before what type of splits info he'd like to get out on the course from us, so we had our instructions and were busy getting organized when the athletes began coming through.

Looking south down Alma School Rd

Iron Spectating, this is looking north up Alma School Rd.

It was freezing out there on the bike course. In the high 50s but windy as could be. Easily 25 mph winds.

The first time we saw Ian, he went by in 17th place. We could tell he had a great swim from the text updates, and came out of the water real close to the top guys and in a large group, so things were off to a good start. We saw Ian at mile 7, 30, 44, 67, and 81 and by the second time we saw him, he was into 16th where he would stay each of the remaining times he went by. At mile 81, he went by and we told him he was still 16, but that he was only 4 mins down from 10th place. He was actually also 4 mins down on 9th as those guys were riding together. He was in good shape, and Hillary Biscay who was back doing commentary for the IM coverage texted me a time or two to confirm that Ian was good.

There was action in the front of the race as we could see Lieto, Rapp, and Bracht make their move on the second loop and bring in the 3 guys out front. We also saw Chrissie lay low for the first lap, then drop the hammer and begin distancing herself from Leanda Cave and Rachel Joyce.

After we saw him at the beginning of his final bike loop, we hit the car and headed to a spot I had scouted out on the North side of the Mill Ave bridge on the run course where I thought we could see the athletes twice per loop. The two spots were only about a 2 min walk apart, but as best I could tell, the first spot was around mile 3, and the second spot was around mile 7 on the 3 loop run course.

From the bridge, I could actually see them off to the west as they came off of the lake side trail and up a hill. Then they'd disappear for about 75 seconds before turning into our line of view under the freeway where they'd make their way onto the bridge to cross the lake.

The first time we saw Ian on the run, he had moved up to 10th, and we were pumped. After the race, Mrs. M said he came off the bike in 13th, so since we'd seen him last, he'd caught 3 on he bike, and another 3 in T2 and the first 3 miles of the run. We gave him his place, splits down to the next guy, and some words of encouragement. He was in good spirits and gave us a hang loose.

A few of the guys up the road (namely James Bonney and Kevin Everett) didn't look that good, and Ian looked real strong when he went by, so Todd and I knew it was going to get interesting if Ian hung in there.

There were two people running fast behind Ian, but one of them was Chrissie, so other than risk of getting Chicked, Max Longree was the only guy who Todd and I could tell was running very fast and might be a problem.

At mile 8, Ian was still in 10th and in good spirits. The race ahead of him was coming back to him a bit. Lieto looked much different (like he did on the Kona coverage) by mile 7, James Bonney and Kevin Everett still looked vulnerable, and Ian looked strong.

Back on the bridge at mile 12, Ian ws still 10th but had taken about 4 mins out of James Bonney who was only 2 mins up the road. Lieto was more like 4 mins up the road, but went by and continued to show further decline. Ian had been running about the same pace as Matty Reed who never looked comfortable or all that interested each time he went by, so we wondered if Matty could be had as well. We could tell Ian was heading into some pain, but his pace and cadence still looked good.

While we waited for Ian at mile 16, Lieto came through. We were situated right before an aid station and as Lieto approached, I gave him splits and he stopped running and asked me if I had a jacket or blanket. At this point, it was raining, was still windy and was cold. He spent about 60 seconds walking through the aid station looking for something and finally found a thermal blanket. Ian was through in 9th place just a couple of minutes down on Lieto having passed James Bonney between 12 and 16, but Max Longree had run Ian down and was just seconds behind him. Chrissie had also caught Ian and was on his heels. I gave Ian the Lieto news that he was walking and tried to keep him going.

Todd and I decided we needed to start making our way back to the start line, so we left after seeing Ian for the 2nd time on loop two. Parking at this thing is bad, so we knew we needed the time.

As we waited at the finish line, the leaders came in. Timo Bracht posted an impressive time. When Jordan Rapp came by, he had tears coming down his face. Chrissie came through with a mind boggling time of 8:36. Max Longree came by with a lolli-pop in his mouth.

We hoped that Ian had held it together. Lieto wasn't through, Kevin Everett had lost places and things were looking good.

When Ian came around the corner in 8th, Todd and I went nuts. He saw us immediately, gave us the double point and ran to us for a big awkward high five attempt, ran down the shoot and found Mrs. M who got a kiss, then he took it across the line. 25 minute PR, first Pro paycheck in an IM, big gusty race on a huge stage. It was awesome.

Todd and I were so busy with splits and places, that we never got any photos of Ian. However we did run in to old Jr high and HS swimming bud Hillary at the finish line in between her interviewing duties.

What a thoroughly exhausting, yet exhilarating race to watch. It was a ton of fun, and was very inspirational. These pros are such amazing athletes. They make it look so easy. funny thing was that as much fun as I had, the thought of signing up next year never crossed my mind. I think the hurt from Austin is still fresh, so it was easy to see the forest for the trees.

I look forward to going back next year to volunteer and spectate again.

Austin 70.3 Race Report

2010-10-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

Austin 70.3 overall was a fun event for me on a number of fronts. The highlights began on Friday when I was able to reconnect with a family friend who I hadn't seen in 15 years.

I first learned that Ian Mikelson was a triathlete when he made a cameo on Hillary Biscay's blog. Ian's older brother and I swam together (same team as Hillary) in middle school and high school, played water polo together and spent a lot of time together as kids in our formative years. Ian was my brothers age, and while he didn't swim, we saw him all of the time at meets and pretty much every kid I knew did Jr. Lifeguards in the summers, including Ian. Ian was always a short stocky middle linebacker looking guy, so to see him completing what I think he'd describe as a successful first season as a pro is real fun for me and generally amazing. He's got one more big race in IMAZ next month, so we're pulling for him.

I hope some day he gets interviewed by Bob Babbit and Paul Huddle on Competitor Radio so Huddle can ask him his standard "how much you bench" question. He usually gets these endurance beans who aren't sure, but think they could put up 100. They'd be impressed with Ian's numbers!!!

So we caught up with Ian and his mom Gaye, who as swim team moms go, doubled as many of our moms over the years keeping us out of trouble when left to our own devices for hours on end at swim meets. We had a great meal, caught up on the past, talked tri shop for a while. It was a really good time!
I also took the bike out for a short 45 min spin on Fri. I'd had the bike in for a tune up the weekend before and was able to get on it once mid week out on the road, so this ride was to keep the legs loose but to also make sure the bike was dialed in.

Everything seemed fine but I was getting a new sound like popcorn coming from the rear derailleur. I made some subtle adjustments after the ride, took it up and down the street to test it out but while I fixed the rear derailleur, something strange happened to the front and I was no longer able to shift to the big chain ring from the little. Some more tinkering with the front derailleur, another test ride, and I was pleased as it appeared dialed in. More later...

Sat was pretty low key. My dad and I went out to the venue to rack my bike and drop off my T2 bag, got home quick to watch the UT game, and kicked me feet up a bit, packed up my gear, etc. My buddy Tim from Houston was coming up to the house to stay with us for the night and join me in the morning out at the race site to spectate. We had a nice dinner on Sat and hit the sack pretty early.

Sunday morning was the normal pre race routine. Get up early, eat, stretch, hit the road. Tim was able to drop me off at T1 (this race had split transitions about 1.5 miles apart) so I didn't have to mess with the shuttle bus from the parking lot/T2 to T1. I had plenty of time to get my bike situated, chill, stretch, use the pots, etc. It was nice have a friendly face with me all morning, and it was so easy not to have to mess with a morning dry clothes bag, etc.

My wave started 50 minutes after the pros went off, so I was able to catch Ian and the other guys make there way in to T2.

Swim (27:49, 8th out of ~334 in AG)
The swim was alright. I was looking for feet and as we set out, was surprised by the number of guys who seemed to be pushing a solid pace. I settled in with a descent size group. We were about 2-3 wide and there must have been about 12 of us, so I was pretty content. I settled in and was glad to be in the draft. At about the 300 yd mark, I could tell the two guys in front of me were losing the guys at the pointy edge of the group, but their pace was still fine, so I stayed put. At about the 500 yd mark, both of the guys in front of me slowed considerably. I had no choice but to come around, and that was the end of my draft for the rest of the swim. We began catching waves about 7-8 minutes in. I definitely saw 6-7 different colors of swim caps out there, so with 5 min staggers between waves, I had a lot of traffic to deal with. I realized about 2/3 through the swim that I was likely leading a pack as I was getting slight taps on the feet every now and then and it wasn't from people I'd passed. Turns out there were at least 2-3 guys back there who got a great ride. I think I probably would have been better served swimming a little more conservatively as I didn't feel fresh by the end of the swim. But all in all, a good swim. 4 mins off my PR from '08, but that swim was easily 4-5 mins short so this could have been my best swim.

T1
I took a bur in the foot as I made my way to the racks. stopped to pull it out, but other than that, it was pretty much biz as usual in there.

Bike (2:41.14, 20.8 mph, 102 out of ~334 in AG):
I set off on the bike and tried to settle in. The course is a little more hilly at the beginning and the end, but all in all, it is a course with little distinguishing it. I got off really well, was averaging about 21.5 mph through the first 15 miles when I came up to the top of one of the bigger hills that forced me down to the small chain ring. As I crested, I went back to the big ring and threw my chain right over the top of the big chain ring and on to my foot. It was 1-2 revolutions before I realized what had happened, and in those 1-2 cranks I twisted the chain up around the crank. I was able to reach down and pull the chain back on the chain ring without slowing (I was impressed I could pull off - I've seen guys in TT stages of the TdF do this before when they came out of the start house) but the first revolution I made with it back on revealed to me that I'd damaged the chain. This happened earlier in the summer so I knew immediately what happened. One of the links actually gets slightly twisted and as that link passes through the rear derailleur, you get a reaction. For me, it ranged from a small dead spot in the pedal stroke where you weren't putting pressure on the rear cassette, to full on half shifts out of the gear on the rear cassette. Every revolution for 41 miles, I had this irritation. I could move in and out of gear and felt like I could control the severity of the shifting, but the longer I stayed in any one gear, the worse the problem got. I was afraid of any further problems so I stayed in the big ring for the rest of the ride. My pace slowed after the problem developed and it was mentally taxing. Not having the small ring also was annoying as I could have used it 3-4 times.

The only other highlight of the ride was seeing Gordo Byrn three times on the ride. Once when he flew by at mile 30 (I had a 20 min start on his AG), again at mile 32 when he was in the ditch changing a flat front, and again at mile 40 when he blew by again. He was rocking it old school in the Australia speedo. God bless him!

T2
Vaguely remember dropping my bike off, but we found it after the race so I must have put it in the right place

Run (2:21.32 10:49 pace, 172nd out of ~334 AG)
I had high hopes of laying down a good run. My conservative goal was to run a 2:15, but my runs in training had been going so well I had dreams of running under 2:10. As I made my way out on the run course, I felt okay, was running some good low 9 min miles and felt fine. I wasn't hot, HR felt low, all was good. Then the rollers came. I had forgot how this run course is a beat down. Either always up or always down. You need to be strong to run well here and I am not. Put me on a flat, point me in a direction and I can go. Force me up and down and my muscles turn to jelly. As I topped each roller, I could feel some mojo leaving my legs. by the time we hit the off road section, I was starting to slow a bit. I walk/ran up Quadzilla and felt like crap after the hill as I made the round about exit out of the trails. I came good back on the roads and thought I might be okay, but by the end of the first loop, I could tell running up the hills was not going to last much longer. by the second loop, I was walking the hills, running the flats and down, and was shuffling a bit and had slowed considerably. It only got worse, and the walking increased. So the run continues to be my achilles heal.

I was hopeful that the increased run volume in this build up would manifest in a better time and this was a 2 min run PR for me, so I guess you could say it did, but come on man! Get it together. I need to take a blank slate approach to running. So something a little more aggressive. It might result in injury, but I need to challenge myself more in my run training.

So my time was 5:37.17. Though I didn't PR, if you adjust the short swim from my PR in '08, I think this is probably my best race. I am content with how it went. I felt very prepared going in to the race, and I owe that to my coach David. He put together a great plan that got me to the start line healthy, as fit as I've ever been since my college swimming days, and motivated. To think about where I was back in June when we first started putting the program together to where I am now is truly amazing. Thanks bud!

So I'm still jazzed about training. In fact, I had visions of doing a Sprint Tri a week later (tomorrow) but thought better of it this morning when the weather rolled in today, plus I still have a slight hot spot in my hamstring that I didn't fully notice until I went out for a run this morning.

I'm doing the White Rock half marry in 6 weeks, so we'll see if I can pop a half PR there. Beyond that, I'm trying to rope Patrick into doing a June 70.3 with me. We're looking at Kansas and Boise. Onward and upward!

Austin 70.3 Quick Summary

2010-10-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

I hope to have time to do a full racereport this weekend. I should have some good pics to add to the report at that point, but for now I'll just check in with a quick summary.

So I missed a PR by about 3 minutes, and really wanted to crack the 5:30 mark in this race, and I think I was prepared to do so. However the 5:30 mark came and went and I was still about a half mile from the finish line. I think I realized my goal wasn't going to come to fruition about 45 minutes before the race came to an end for me. It is quite odd to know that you have in this case 40 minutes to achieve your goal, and knowing that under normal circumstances (ie a training run) that covering the ground needed to finish in 40 minutes would be a piece of cake, but not being able to will yourself to achieve it. I tried and based on how torn up my legs felt then and now 2 days later, I know I did all I could at that moment. Unfortunately the damage was already done.

The long and short of it is that I had a good swim, though probably burnt one or two matches trying to fight through a group that went out fast but then slowed and around earlier waves of swimmers. I probably went out a little too hot on the bike, had a mechanical issue at mile 15 that twisted my chain and caused ghost shifting in my rear derailluer on every chain revolution for the remaining 41 miles on the bike. Still managed a good bike split (within 1 min of my PR at Florida) though I burnt too many matches on the bike, and I hit the run more fatigued than I had hoped. The speed and rythm were good on the flats and the downhills, but the uphills that I was running in the first loop of the run were taking a lot out of me and I wasn't recovering in between them. so for the 4th out of 4 70.3s, I did some walking, which is something I really wanted to avoid. I still had a run PR of about 2 mins, but I know I can run better, and hoped it would show.

Still, I think this was one of my better races, and is certainly something to build off of. Look for more next weekend.

2010 Kona Prediction Time

2010-10-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to get my 2010 predictions in. Here we are on the eve of the big race, and I've finally sat down to one of my favorite annual traditions, getting my thoughts for the how the race will play out down in my blog.

Lots of things to be excited about in this years race. Real chances for course records, a new comer on the women's side who is sure to factor deep into the race and potentially change the game, and a wide open men's field that will prove to be hard to handicap.

So without further ado, here we go, starting with the women.

I think we all have come to appreciate the brilliance that is Chrissie Wellington. We even have come to recognize her genius while in the midst of her era. No one in their right mind will predict a changing of the guard, so we look to other unknowns in the women's race. Frankly, even though the winner is a foregone conclusion (on par with Tyson over Buster Douglas!) there are a couple of things to be excited about. One is what time Chrissie will post. Her time in Germany earlier this year was and still is mind boggling. The question of if she will go sub 8:40 on the big island is one I'm excited to see unfold. Where she'll place overall is also something to watch. Can she crack the top 15 overall? Another thing to watch out for is what Mirinda Carfrae does on the bike. Will she go sub 5 hrs and narrow her gap to Chrissie coming off the bike this year. Finally, I look forward to seeing Julie Dibbens make the jump to IM. She can swim and bike like no other and could have a gap on Chrissie coming off the bike. She is a ~3:20 marathoner so she'll need one to be a factor for the win by the half way point of the marathon.

(Updated 11:07 CT on race morning) In light of the news that Chrissie has withdrawn due to illness, I wanted to quickly give my thoughts. I think this is a good thing for the big swim/bikers who should come off the bike with big leads and no solid runners with them. Dibbens, Van Vlerken, Griesbauer and Macel along with others should come off with a good lead, and it will be up for the Corbins and Carfae's to bring them back.

In light of the news, I like the podium to be 1. Carfrae, 2. Dibbens, 3. Van Vlerken

Podium: 1. Chrissie, 2. Carfrae, 3. Dibbens
Sleeper: Catriona Morrison - She toed the line last year with a hefty case of swine flu and gutted it out, but didn't make it on to the run. She has loads of talent and is a name you always hear or read the big guns talking about as someone to look out for. Another sleeper for me will be Sam McGlone. She finished 2nd to Chrissie in her first win back in '07 and has had a string of bad luck ever since with injuries and the like. She had a great end to '09 with a strong performance at IMAZ but her '10 hasn't quite been what you'd hope, still she could push to crack the top 3.
Sentimental Favorite: It has to be a tie between Hillary Biscay for the personal connection, and Lindsey Corbin for her outstanding blog and approach on life. She is in good form this year with a win a IMCDA and some strong showings on the 70.3 circuit.

And on to the men. What a field! I see 7 guys who I believe have legit shots at wining the thing. You might as well put Alexander, Lieto, Realert, Potts, Hennings, Van Hoenacker, and Llanos in a hat and draw names. It is hard to pick against Alexander as he is so talented, so steady, and is a machine.

What I think does him in this year is the way the race breaks down. Without the speed suits this year, the swim should be more wide open which means the bike will start out more fragmented, and will likely stay that way with groups getting big gaps. If the guys are smart, they don't do any work in the main group and make Crowie put out in an effort to tax him prior to the run. We'll see, it certainly hasn't worked out that way in the past. There have always been an ample number of guys shooting for a top 10 spot in hopes of getting the spot in next years race, and as a result, guys might be playing it conservative from a competitive perspective. With the change to WTC rules and the top 10 no longer qualifying for next year, the dynamic on the bike should change.

One thing is certain however, the men's race is going to be great.

Podium: 1. Raelert 2. Henning 3. Alexander. I think Raelert gets away on the bike just behind the stud group, and runs them down by mile 15. He probably gets pushed by Henning most of the way, but the gap never closes to less the 2 mins, and he only gives up a couple of minutes to Alexander on the run, but has more than enough of a gap coming off the bike to keep Crowie at bay
Sleeper: Pete Jacobs - Pete will be out of the water quick, will bridge up with Potts early, and has the legs to ride with Lieto, the Germans (Twelsiek, Stadler, and Faris) and the other stud bikers if he chooses to. He may let that group go and fall in with the next group that will include Raelert and maybe Macca, but can't muster enough in the marathon to compete for the win. I think he'll be top 10 for sure.
Sentimental Favorite: Got to be Potts (like this blog post, picking Potts is also an annual event). How about if we also throw in Luke Bell to keep it interesting. After a great '03 placing top 5 while in his early 20s, he'd vanished into obscurity a bit. He seems to be back on form this year and could be a factor.

So there you go. Enjoy the fire works tomorrow. Here is hoping for good bandwidth and plenty of servers to bring us good coverage.

Long Time No Post

2010-10-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

I was gearing up for my annual Kona prediction post, and realized I hadn't posted to the blog in months and that I'd better do that.

Training has been going great in preparation for Austin 70.3 in a little over 2 weeks time. I've managed to hit almost all of my planned sessions, keep the skinny side of the bike down this year and avoid injury, have lost a ton of weight (now weighing in less than I did the day I graduated from college), and feel fit. I'm excited to race!

Check back here in the coming days for my Kona predictions, thoughts before Austin 70.3, and my race report after the race.

Good Week in the Bag

2010-05-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

I just completed a good week of training. My first structured week of training in some time. I've hired a coach (David) which should help take some of the stress out of game planning, get me focused on the little things that you often overlook when time is an issue, and help with motivation.

I'm a long way off where I've been, so we're building this thing up from the ground floor. It is nice not to feel like I'm rushed.

I've also signed up for Longhorn 70.3 in Austin, TX this Oct 17. I've got an Olympic on the calendar in July between now and then, and may add something else if it works with the calendar.

This week, I trained just shy of 8 hours. Here are the stats:

Swim: 6,400 Meters (7,000 yds)
Bike: 60 miles
Run: 11 miles
TSS: 483
Kj: 2,653
weight: 174.2
BMI: 18.2

The summer is upon us in North TX. Temps well into the 90s by mid day. It is a shame our Spring only last about 6 weeks, and are windy as hell. I'll never get used to it.

Happy Memorial Day.

Life

2010-05-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Work has been too stressful, I am too "connected" too often, and I am not taking care of myself. That all changes tomorrow. Baby steps. I will think more about what I eat, I will get out the door at the end of the work day with energy to spare to devote to my training and family. I'll sleep better. With yoga I will improve my flexibility and core strength making me feel better. I'll get back to regular training, and with all of this, quality of life will improve.

Monitor this space for updates...

Train to Train

2010-01-31T18:42:00.000-08:00

Today brought to a conclusion my 6th consecutive week of adding hourly volume, and TSS accumulation on top of the prior week. By no means am I rocking the house - week one was less than an hour of training, and week six had me just crack the 7 hr and 400 TSS barrier. The other milestone I eclipsed was that I trained 6 of the 7 days this week.

I think the plan is that I'll build up to 8 hours and perhaps 450 TSS next week, then start writing down workouts for each week, as opposed to doing what I want when I feel like it.

I've got some weight to drop, but it is coming around. I started logging my diet into the Daily Burn iPhone app, and am learning a lot about my food consumption habits. I naturally eat too many carbs, and not enough protein. I'm going to make a conscious effort to shift my diet in a more balanced direction, and hope I'll fell good in doing so.

I think I'll try to do a little build up for the Lonestar Oly in Galveston at the end of April. Perhaps slip in a local sprint in March weather permitting.

For now, the focus is base training, getting my running legs back, and being consistent.

Trip to London

2009-12-07T15:17:00.001-08:00

I just returned from a short trip to London to hang out with my friend and co-worker Guillermo. The highlight of the trip was a visit to Craven Cottage to take in my favorite EPL side Fulham take on the Black Cats of Sunderland.

The trip was a ton of fun, mostly because I was there with a friend, and felt a slice of what it was like to live in London as opposed to doing the touristy visit I've always done in the past.

Here is some video from the game, and a hand full of photos I selected to post to the blog.

Enjoy, and more later!

This was as the Whites took the pitch for the second half.

A view down the street from Guillermo's front gate

Guillermo and his family as we headed for the park in Chiswick

A cool view atop the bridge over the Chiswick Rail Station near Guillermo's house

At the football grounds, looking at the Johnny Haynes stand from Stevenage Rd

Me on Stevenage Rd with Craven Cottage in the background

Guillermo and I from the Johnny Haynes Stand before the match

Fulham take the pitch, with Clint Dempsey ready to do battle

The Whites ready to go 90 mins

The Cottage from the inside

Just minutes to go as the Whites hang on to their 1-0 lead

It all over, 3 pts for the good guys as security rushes the field

A gritty Clint Dempsey leaves the pitch, no doubt thinking about how he'll dismantle England in So. Africa on June 12th

IMFL or TDF?

2009-11-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

I thought this footage was great for two reasons. One, it exposes the amount of drafting that goes on in IM races. I don't recall seeing packs this size at FL 70.3, but with it rather flat, there were some groups. Two, it is just some sweet footage. I wish I new what the guy was doing. He seemed to be up on the hoods until reaching the aid station, and was getting passed like crazy, then went down on his bars an ate some people up, then as a peleton went by him, was back up on the hoods.

How HR Works

2009-11-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

I just read this from Alan Couzen's blog. There is no mystery here - the harder you work, the more O2 your muscles need, the more your HR beats to deliver the O2 to your muscles.

Here is how you calculate required HR given a certain work rate:

Say you are riding your bike at a certain wattage that requires 3.5 Liters of O2 per minute. What will your HR be?

You need to know a few things about your physiology that most of us don't unless you've had blood work or anaerobic testing done, but if you did know, here is how you'd calculate it.

If you have 12g of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood, this deciliter would carry 160ml of O2 per liter of blood (assumes avg hemoglobin per deciliter and 100% blood saturation).

If your muscles require 3.5 liters of O2, you would need to pump 22 liters of blood per minute (3,500/160).

If you assume a cardiac stroke volume of 150ml, it will take 150 beats per minute to deliver 22 liters of blood to the muscle.

HR to push the certain wattage? 150 bpm.

October Recap

2009-11-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

Well, October is in the books. All in all, a good month.

It started with work life balance getting back in order after working long hours during the month of September as my company was involved in a flurry of transactions revolving around entering into aircraft and engine contracts, as well as securing liquidity to bolster our balance sheet. All in, we bought 22 aircraft, did a multi billion dollar engine deal securing engines for our 787 Dreamliner aircraft we have on order with Boeing (a deal I was on the negotiating team for), sold over $1B worth of forward year air miles to Citi, our affinity program credit card partner, did a EETC debt offering and over $1.6B in sale lease back transactions (a deal I was also involved with), then did two equity offerings and one convertible debt offering.

I put on about 10 lbs between eating all of the catered food at our outside counsel's offices, and not being active while still recovering from the collarbone reconstruction. October would be the month I tried to get things back in order.

I did a fair bit of traveling in the month of Oct which made building into a routine a challenge. I was in Atlanta and Minneapolis recruiting MBAs early in the month, in Ann Arbor in the middle of the month, and had a week of meetings in DC at the end of the month.

I set off to get my running legs back under neath me, and after a few weeks of pain and suffering, dealing with all of the new runner aches and pains (shin splints for me) I feel like I'm getting closer. A run doesn't feel good yet, but we are moving away from the painful realm which is encouraging.

I was able to spend the weekend of Oct 24-25 in Austin visiting my parents and serving as a race day volunteer at Longhorn 70.3. I worked my tail off moving around transition backs for the two transition area race from about 5:30am until my back could take no more around 10am, then enjoyed watching the pros race with the special access my volunteer shirt provided me.

A few reactions after watching the end of the bike, most of the pros run, and their post race social scene:

If you think you want to be a pro male triathlete, then you ought to have about a 28 inch waist, plan on being no taller than about 6 feet tall, and no heavier than about 145-150lbs.
A 1:12 half marathon is a completely different race than a 1:50 minute half marathon.
Not all, but some of the top pros came in and couldn't walk well when they were done. Good to know it isn't just me. (2nd place Brian Fleischman and 3rd place Nicole Hofer were pretty gimpy)
After years of thinking Joanna Zieger was a "big girl" because she was so much bigger than most pro female triathletes, I now realize she is small, and the others are tiny.
Nicole Hofer could give Desiree Ficker (who road the lead bike for the 1st female out on the run course) a run for her money for the hottest pro female triathlete

Long horn was fun to watch, and I look forward to participating next year. Here is hoping for the same ideal conditions next year. October 17th, put it down!

After Austin, I headed to DC for work, but I was able to catch up with my friend and Pro Triathlete Lindsey Jerdonek. I met Lindsey at an industry conference in DC back in April and we've stayed in touch since. Lindsey had just wrapped up her first pro season of racing, so it was interesting to hear about her plans for next year. You can follow Lindsey and her teammate Lauren (9th place at Longhorn 70.3) at their soon to be renamed blog.

The last week of October was my best week of training since my crash. I'll actually be frank and say it was the only week that I could say felt like training and not just random acts of exercise.

I logged 6.5 hours (3hrs of running, 3hrs of biking, and 0.5 hrs of weights) this week, and even did an FTP test on the bike last Tuesday. While the results of the FTP test proved how far I have to go to get back to the level of fitness I had before the crash, it was good to get a marker so I can begin to measure my progress.

Looking ahead to Nov, here is hoping for health, productivity, and drive. I've already logged an hour in the pool this week, and am laying the ground work to give this yoga thing a try. More on that later.

Kona Prediction Time

2009-10-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

Do to work commitments, I missed out on doing my Kona predictions last year, but I enjoy doing it and thought I should to take a few minutes and try again this year. You can see my predictions from two years ago here

The weather is shaping up to be decent. Doesn't look too hot (real feel of 92) and the winds should be okay. These athletes will cover a lot of ground however, and if you know Hawaii at all, you know it doesn't take much to go from one climate to another, so you never know what to expect.

What I'm going to do this year is predict my podium for both the men and women, one sleeper athlete, and my most intriguing athlete also from the men's and women's race. So without further ado, lets get started.

Women

At first glance, you could be fooled into thinking the women's race will be dominated by Chrissie again. She's killed the competition the last two years despite rookie jitters two years ago and the well publicized mechanical out on the Queen K last year, however like Lee Corso says, "not so fast." Chrissie left the confines of Team TBB, set out under the tutelage of tri legend Simon Lessing as her new coach, but has since left Lessing and is self coaching herself at the moment. She crushed it at Roth with a World Record of 8:31, but has had some less dominant performances in some Oly's and 70.3s since.

She'll be pushed by Rebeka Keat, Yvonne Van Vlerken, Sandra Wallenhorst, Lindsay Corbin, and Gina Ferguson, with Keat likely to give her the biggest push.

Still, we'd be out of our mind to go against the Queen. I thought hard about picking Keat or my surprise athlete in the women's field Mirinda Carfrae, but I decided that would be me trying to sensationalize this process by going against the grain. If it was my money on the line, Chrissie would be my girl.

Podium: 1. Wellington, 3. Rebeka Keat, 4. Gina Ferguson
Sleeper Athlete: Mirinda Carfrae
Sentimental Favorite: Lindsay Corbin (because she writes an awesome blog)

You might have noticed I have Keat and Ferguson finishing 3rd and 4th up above. It is because I think Carfrae will take second. This will be her first full IM, but I think she can match the effort of Sam McGlone when she finished second to Chrissie two years ago in her first move up to IM. She's got amazing top end speed, and can run with any of them. She'll sit in with the top men age groupers on the bike, and out split the rest of the field to grab her podium spot.

Mirinda Carfrae

Men:

The men's race will be much more wide open than the women's. I've got 10 guys that I like in this thing so picking my podium I'm sure was flawed with all sorts of strange rationalizations on my part, of which many won't likely come true.

As I was thinking about this post earlier this year, I was all prepared to write a long story about Andy Potts and Rasmus Henning, both who I thought had a great shot at winning this thing this year. However Potts had a terrible bike crash with an age grouper at the Chicago Tri just two months ago, and Henning apparently broke his hand a week and a half ago, and hasn't been able to swim, and won't until the day of the race. Hennings fitness is likely to be fine, and I suspect he'll still be a factor in the race, but the disruption is probably enough to crack his armor, and with this field, you've got to be bullet proof to pull through.

So we are left with the usual suspects - Craig Alexander, Macca, Norman, Eneko Llano, Marino Vanhoenacker, Cam Brown, Chris Lieto as well as some interesting upstarts such as Terenzo Bozzone, Ronnie Schildknect, and Andreas Raelert, which will make for a great race.

I'd like nothing more than to see the Alexander v Macca show down we all anticipated last year, but I just don't think we'll see it for a number of reasons. First, the rest of the field is too good to give away the stage to these guys. Second, I just don't think Macca has it in him suffer like he'll have to to make up the time necessary on the run to run through the field. Not after he's tasted the victory in Kona. He was SO driven to win this thing, that I just think the edge is gone and he hasn't put in the work, nor is willing to take himself to that dark place to do it again. Alexander, on the other hand strikes me as the type who can be a repeat performer. Much more level headed in his approach with a killer instinct, and a world of talent. Just one guys ill-advised opinion, but that is all this post is.

So I think Potts and Henning will be at the front of the swim, will ride well early but fade when the likes of Lieto, Norman, and some of the other big cycling Europeans like Twelseik ride through them. Alexander, Macca, Brown, Lovato and others will stay back in the pack, limit their losses, and it will be the guy who can lay down the 2:42 marathon who will win it.

That is why I like Timo Bracht, Andreas Raelert, Schildknect, and Cam Brown to be there in the end.

So here is how I have it:

Podium: 1. Timo Bracht, 2. Craig Alexander, 3. Eneko Llanos
Sleeper Athlete: Andreas Raelert (I still am holding back on putting Henning in here)
Sentimental Favorite: Andy Potts

Timo's performance at IM Germany just can't be ignored. Had he not skipped a stop in the penalty tent last year after a drafting call, he would have been 5th, and I think he is motivated to finish the deal this time. Llanos is very consistent, and will be there in the end with a solid all around race.

Timo Bracht

I like Raelert because the guy can fly. He's got great speed that we saw as he reeled in Bozzone in Clearwater last year at the 70.3 worlds, but just ran out of real estate. I think he ran a 1:12. He got an Olympic pedigree making the German team in 2000 and 2004 and just seems to be very aggressive in the two races I've seen him in on TV. He's shown he can go long with great races at IMAZ that I can recall off hand where he ran a 2:46 for the win against a good field.

I'll always be a big fan of Andy Potts and was heart broken when I heard of his accident. Apparently he had some heart issues after the crash, so unlike Henning, he probably had to go inactive for a while. Not good in August with this thing in Oct. But any swimmer turned triathlete gets my vote, and after hearing the guy speak at Timberman last year, he is all class.

So there we go. It should be an awesome race. I'll be in the air flying home from Minneapolis for the start, but hope to catch the bike and swim when I return home.

Trying to Get Back into the Swing of Things

2009-10-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly trying to get my athletic life back in order after my biking accident. I took a major step today by getting back out on the bike, but realize I have a long way to go. I think putting something down in this blog may help, so here it goes.

My accident was just over 8 weeks ago, and as far as the collar bone and shoulder go, things are getting back to normal. I have no pain, am able to sleep pretty much however I want to now that I've been able to add sleeping on my right (bad) side into the rotation. I have limited flexibility in the shoulder, but am not far off, and probably need to get back in the pool to get it all back.

I really let myself go while I was out. I aloud myself to eat/drink whatever I wanted to, and was very inactive. As a result, I've dropped a lot of strength and muscle mass, replaced it with fat and then some with my weight up around 4 pounds, and feel generally sluggish.

I started running 2 weeks ago, and felt like I'd never run before in my life. Slow pace, HR off the charts, and all of the running pains I'd cured myself of are now back. Shin splints are debilitating right now.

I had my sights set on getting back into the pool at the beginning of Oct, but the pool my masters team swims in is having the winter roof (bubble) installed this week, so we are at a different pool, at 5:00am (I don't do workouts pre 6:00am), and it costs an extra $15 for the week = I'll wait for the bubble to be installed.

Today, I got out on the bike outside for the first time since my crash. It was a chilly misty afternoon and was quite pleasant out there. I figured if I wanted the roads mostly to myself, I should wait until the Cowboys game started. So I did, and it seemed to work. I rode the same route I was on when I had my accident, which was therapeutic, and the ride actually felt good. I believe after logging 75 mins out there that cycling and swimming will be my road back to greater fitness, not running. Running will just be a byproduct of the improvements.

I must admit, I was nervous as hell when cars came up on me from behind. I did a lot of shoulder checking and wasn't comfortable at all. I'm sure that will pass with time. I kind of appreciate the heightened vigilance. It will keep me safer in the long run.

So my goals in no particular order (both long term and short) are as follows:

swim comfortably
ride without fear
swim hard
train 5 hrs in a week
train 10 hrs in a week
get my body back to a fit 170
feel comfortable running again
race again
PR in a run or tri

I took a minute when I reached the place I broke my collar bone to take a look around, and to try to figure out how I may have ended up in the spot I ended up in. Here is a photo of the corner. I ended up just on the other side of this sign my bike is leaning up against.

So here we are. Baby steps is the key, and so is appreciating the process. If I add an extra hour of training each week, I'll be back to where I want to be in about a month.

Happy trails.

Checking In

2009-08-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

Not much to report these days. Surgery was two weeks ago so I'm still more or less useless. Work has been busy so it has stepped up to fill the void, and I've taken to watching a bit more TV, playing with my kids a bit more, and eating food and drinking good beer more regularly too. I'm developing a gut to prove it.

This coming week is fantasy football draft week. I'm in two leagues this year, one with neighbors and one with work buddies. Looking forward to draft nights, getting my roster set up, and football getting started.

X-Rays of my New Hardware

2009-08-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

These X-Rays were taken of me while I was still under, so I only know by the time stamp on them when they were taken.

This first one was taken at 3:04pm, about 2 hours after I went under. I only count 5-6 screws at this point in the procedure.

This one was taken at 3:27pm, and it looks like the remaining screws are in place 14-15 in total.

And here was the last one stamped 4:36pm, about an hour before I woke up.

I'm Not Working Out These Days, But My Kidneys Are!

2009-08-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

X-Rays of the Fracture

2009-08-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

This is an X-ray that was taken about 30 minutes after my bike crash on Aug 6th.

I'll try to pick up one from radiology over at the hospital when I'm back over there for a Dr. apt on Wed. That one will show off the bionic shoulder I'm now sporting.

To orient you a bit, this is my right shoulder. The bone is broken into 4 pieces, although only 3 are visible here. I've marked the pieces with arrows. The top pointy piece nearly came through the skin as a compound fracture. Then there is a small fragment that runs up and down, and the last piece which has a fracture in it is lowered by the weight of my arm, but runs left to right.

It is a bit confusing to view this 3D image in 2D. Your ribs on your back come up higher than the front, so all of the ribs that appear above the clavicle are in the back. This bone had as much forward protrusion is it did, upward protrusion, but that isn't really evident as you can't see that without the 3rd axis.

Changes

2009-08-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since I last posted. To get everyone up to date, I was on a training ride last Thursday night, and as I was approaching a sharp right hand bend, a truck was approaching from the opposite direction. The truck cut the corner of that bend, came all the way over into my lane of travel, and to avoid getting hit, I dove into the ditch. Within a few feet of coming off the shoulder or the road, I lost control of my bike and was launched over my bars.

My power meter said I was travelling 17.5 mph when the accident happened. I landed on my right elbow and shoulder, and immediately felt my collar bone snap.

I've had 3 major injuries in my life now. A dislocated knee cap, a fractured femur, and now this. I have to say this was very close to as intense at the moment right after the break as the femur fracture was, however the collar bone pain has lingered much longer, and pretty much any time you move, it is terribly painful.

The weird thing about this injury is that the outboard piece of the bone is sagging from the weight of my arm, and it is causing that piece of the bone to put pressure on several nerves that run down my arm. A lot of my pain is from these nerves and is felt in my arm versus the bone itself. I get sensations of ice, then sensations of rubbing alcohol being poured on an open wound. Very strange.

Immediately after the crash, I was able to get my phone out of my pocket and began to call my wife, and my friend David. David came and picked me up and took me to the ER where I met my wife.

Its is a long story and an investigation is pending, but someone did get a license plate and leaving the scene of an accident without exchanging information is a felony. The driver, took one look at me after it happened, then sped off.

So my collar bone is fractured in 4 places, and later this morning, I am going in to have surgery to have a plate installed over the pieces of bone.

The prognosis is that I'll be in the hospital over night, then will be in a sling for 7-10 days. No weight bearing activities for 4-6 weeks, then some therapy to regain range of motion and strength loss.

Thank you very much for all of the emails and text messages that many of you have sent me. It really helps to cheer me up. I'm very lucky to have such great friends.

Thanks also to my wife. She has been nothing short of amazing. She is the most caring, patient, sympathetic, giving, practical, loving, and strong person I've ever known.

I'll check in again when I'm typing with two hands again.

Disco Triathlon

2009-07-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Disco Triathlon is in the bag. This was my 3rd time doing this race, ('05, and '07) and the 3rd time taking on this course out at Lake Ray Roberts in North Denton (the '05 Disco was in Grapevine, but the '07 Texas Man was on the current Disco course).

This course has owned me in the past, and while my goal was to prevent that from happening this time, I'd give myself a "B" in my efforts today. I've come to understand I have a pacing problem. I can't hold back and I absolutely wilt on the run. This course is not the place you want to be wilting on the run. It is undulating the entire time, and is usually very hot.

The swim went as well as possible from a time perspective. I was in a wave with 39 and under men, and while I was the 4th guy out of the water, I was out first for my age group. I paid for it though. I was gunning it from the start and by the time I realized I was trashing myself, I couldn't settle down.

The swim started off right into the sun, so we couldn't see the buoy until we were right on top of it. Other than that, it was a fairly normal swim. I was on my own for a bit, with a guy for a bit, then got dropped by that guy in the last 400 yards or so.

Swim: 19:23, 1st AG (out of 27), 8th overall (out of 273 men and women)

T1 was brutal. I was so tired running up the beach, along a path, and into transition. I thought I was going to pass out. More evidence that I blew my wad in the swim. I took my time trying to settle down in there, put my bike jersey on inside out (on accident) and was off.

T1: 2:45

The bike was alright. I've decided now that this bike course is deceivingly difficult. It never really is flat with many rollers, lots of chip seal roads, and a few chewed up roads that slow you down a bit. No one ended up putting up a blazing time, and I just managed to hold better than 20 mph out there, a little off from my last few efforts. I tried to keep it calm on the bike, and was favoring my right leg injury from the bike crash the week before just a bit choosing to stay in the saddle when there were a couple of climbs and accelerations I'd have preferred to stand up on.

Only 3 guys in my age group passed me on the ride.

We got lucky with the weather today. There was cloud cover for the first half of the ride, and the highs are a good 10 degrees off the mid 100s we had earlier in the week.

Bike: 1:08.47 10th AG, 83rd overall

T2 was quick and easy 1:01

The run was the part of this race I anticipated the most. As I said, I've run terrible on this course in the past. Early on off the bike I could tell that I'd probably already been anaerobic a bit too much earlier in the day, and that it was going to be lactate buildup in my legs that was going to be the limiter on the day, not HR, and probably not heat.

I tried to settle in to a decent pace. The course is out and back, part on paved paths in tree cover, and part out on an open road with no shade. I was really trying to hold back on the out thinking best case, I could negative split the run, but the more likely scenario was that it would be conserving energy to keep me from walking later (a problem every time I run out there)

I believe I was able to average around 8:50 miles on the way out (the way out is a little longer than the way in). On the way back, it was a struggle. I hung in there pretty tough, walked some aid stations, and literally shuffled up the big hill on the paths, and average around 9:35 back home.

I got passed by 4-5 guys in my age group in the last 10 minutes of the run which was disappointing, but tried to hang in there as best I could.

Run: 56:36 18th AG, 122 overall

Time: 2:28:29, 13th AG, 72nd overall

I believe this is the first time I've been under 2:30 in an Olympic race, but the bike was 1.8mi short of an official Oly distance race, and I actually think my 2:32 in Galveston this year on a 450 yard shorter swim, but 5 mi bike, and 0.3 mile longer run is a better time. It was much cooler then, and a much easier course than Lake Ray Roberts, so I think it is a solid effort today.

The family came up to the State Park to watch the race, and got to enjoy a really cool beach on the lake. My kids and the McClain kids had a blast swimming around, though no one brought suits so we had to improvise a bit.

Here are a few photos our friends the McClain's took. Katie (the photographer) is one of Ingrid's girl friends, our kids play together several times each week, and Patrick did the race with me (and did quite well in his 2nd tri ever, and 1st Oly ever)

Truck'n it into the finish shoot

Family photo, Jake and his dong

This has me Fired Up!

2009-07-18T18:57:00.001-07:00

Preseason matches have commenced. Talk of a Peter Crouch signing has me intrigued. This clip is gas on the fire.

I hope this doesn't jinx it!

Ouch Still

2009-07-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

I'm still pretty beat up from the bike crash. I've tried to stick with the training plan, but I've still got some internal bleeding going on in my leg.

When I woke up the day after the crash, my bruise had about tripled in size on my right leg, and I had a matching bruise though not as bad on my left side. My abs and ankle were sore too.

I can run okay on my legs, but cycling still is hard. I am not able to lift my leg very well, especially if the lift includes an internal rotation on the hip. So putting on socks or shorts while standing is nearly impossible, however running isn't bad. Cycling is odd. If I'm pulling up on the pedal, it hurts, so I think I'm sort of free loading on my right side when I ride. I can tell because my power numbers have been off. And after I cycle, I can tell my bruise has changed color with a new dark spot at the point where the joint/muscle underneath the skin is most painful.

The bruise is migrating down my leg and now runs down the inner half of my leg halfway down to my knee. I suppose where gravity takes the blood from either sitting or standing.

I'm going to race this weekend, but don't expect much. I can't get down on the aero bars due to the scrape on my forearm, but hope that a couple of days off the bike might help. I just don't want to throw away $100 that I spent on this entry fee when I'm sure I can get out there and at least use the race as a catered training day.

Here is what the bruise looks like now. It is a little muted in color since I just pulled an ice pack off of it.

Man vs Pavement

2009-07-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

After what my records say is 12,101 miles of mostly event free riding since I got my first road bike in 2002, my number came up today and I put the bike sideways.

I was making a left hand turn at a 3 way intersection (I didn't have a stop sign) and looked over my shoulder heading into the turn and saw a guy on a hog with a chick on the back. I was far enough ahead to where I didn't think he'd try to come around me, and started to make the turn. As I was about a qtr of the way into the turn, I heard him twist the throttle and it sounded like he was speeding up. As I looked over my shoulder, I saw him coming pretty close, and heard him yell something at me. It all startled me a bit and I'm not sure if I touched the breaks, or if it caused me to swerve a bit in the apex of the turn, but as I looked back to the road in front of me, the bike was coming out from under me and I went over on my left side, forearm to pavement. The pavement won - the biker and his chick rode on. Thanks asshole!

The worst of it all was that somewhere in the crash, I took the handle bars or elbow pad to the aero bar to my right leg, right at the hip flexor/groin, about 2 inches from my man business. I have got a deep bruise there, and can't lift my leg at the waist much higher than is necessary to walk. The left hip has very minor road rash, my shorts didn't even rip. It was my forearm that took the brunt of the fall, and it is scraped up with road rash pretty good. About 6 inches starting near the elbow running about 2/3 of the way up to the wrist.

I was 40 minutes into a 3 hr ride, so I'm not happy about the training volume shortfall that resulted from the crash. The bike was not rideable, but should be fine with a new front brake cable, set of bar tape, and a trued front wheel. The front brake cable and bar tape are only a week old having been replaced last weekend. Bad luck there.

I downloaded the ride data to see what my HR did during the crash. I was cruising along on a flat stretch at around 18.0 mph and a 136 HR. As best I can tell, I crashed between 39:00 mins and 39:02 mins and was going 15.8 mph at 135 bpm. My HR peaked at 39:09 at 150 bpm and stayed there until 39:16 before it began to drop. The data stopped recording at 39:19. Pretty interesting.

I'm sure I can't run right now, but wonder how long it will last. I'm icing my leg as I type, and it feels better now than it did before I iced it the first time, but I expect to be very sore tomorrow morning.

I do have a race on the calendar a week from today that I'd really like to do, but we'll just have to play it slow and see how it goes. I'm going to skip my swim planned for tomorrow morning and will see about a light jog tomorrow night. If that goes well, I'll jump back on the schedule come Tuesday. If not, I'll just continue to play it day by day. Next week is supposed to be 12.5 hour week with much of the work front loaded to give me a day of recovery before the race, but that plan appears to be in jeopardy.

Be careful out there.

Check this Out

2009-06-29T18:31:00.001-07:00

Seen While Out on the Bike

2009-06-22T13:39:00.001-07:00

I love running into weird stuff while out on the bike and being able to snap a photo.

My next PDA is definitely going to have a higher resolution camera on it (I've got my eye on the Palm Pre when my current contract expires next January)

Last Tuesday, I got in 25 miles after work. This photo of a Zebra however was the second most unusual thing I saw on this ride. The most unusual thing I saw was over before I could get my phone in camera mode, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Lets just say it was a donkey show, but the natural kind, not of the Tijuana variety. It was both fascinating and gross, but the details aren't fit for much more than a frat house, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Rough Training Weekend

2009-06-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I knew hopping a flight to spend a long 3 day weekend at the beach in South Carolina wasn't conducive to hitting all of my planned workouts this weekend. There would be no masters swim, and running in that swamp is torture.

Sure enough, I didn't really make the most of a tough situation, and fell short of the weekly volume goal.

I managed to get in a 3 hour ride this evening followed by a 25 minute transition run. I weighed myself before and after and lost 5 lbs durng the session despite downing 5.25 20oz bottles of fluid.

Next week is a big week. Hopefully work will cooperate. It is shaping up to be a challenge.

How to Start a Spontaneous Dance Party

2009-06-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

This is classic! Sasquatch Music Fest '09

However, you had better be ready to stick to it for a while. These things don't start in a matter of seconds. You have to work at.

Wednesday's Storm

2009-06-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that my city, Flower Mound was battered and bruised by a massively intense storm on Wednesday evening (around 6:30pm) again at 1am and 5:30am on Thursday morning. Power lines, trees, fences, chimneys, roofs all came down. We persoanlly had pretty severe roof damage.

This couple videod the action while in their car. I luckily left work a tad early that day and got home about 10 minutes before this started, but many of my colleagues had drives home that were just like this.

This is along 1171 a bit east of where I live, but the storm was moving west to east so this had just passed over my house.

When I first heard the tornado sirens, I looked out of one of my windows, and the clouds were low and circling just like the footage at the beginning of this clip.

Here is a snap shot of the radar around that time.

Dolphins Blowing Bubble Rings

2009-06-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

I was totally blown away by this.

Crazy Commies!

2009-06-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Trip to Phoenix

2009-05-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

With my wife and kids headed down to Houston for a girls weekend, I decided to hop a flight Friday afternoon to Phoenix to visit my brother and his family.

To get a jump on the mid day heat, we went to the Botanical Gardens on Saturday morning to check out the Dale Chihuly sculpted glass exhibit which was aesthetically interspersed with the unique desert vegetation. Please excuse the poor quality photos from my cell phone cam.

Me and my nephew, Daniel

not glass, real flowers!

Brother and his family

After the gardens, we stopped by In-N-Out Burger for me to get my fill on one of my favorite fast food joints I frequented as a kid in Southern California. Double-Double, fries, vanilla shake. Mmmmm!

It turned out the Atlanta Braves were in town playing the Diamondback, so Todd and I headed over to the stadium and were treated to a great game. The ballpark was very impressive.

Chase Field

Famous Outfield Pool

Fulham FC to Europa Cup

2009-05-25T19:56:00.001-07:00

I don't believe I've wrote about it here before, but my favorite Premiere League soccer team has just wrapped up one of the most remarkable seasons in the teams long history.

After fighting off relegation from the Premiere League down to the Championship League (the 2nd division in English Federation Soccer) last year by winning their last game of the season, this year they climbed out of the bottom half of the table to 7th to end the season. By finishing 7th, they have qualified for the Europa League Tournament, formerly known as the UEFA Cup. Quite an accomplishment for this smaller budget team.

I began following Fulham about 3 seasons ago because they had one of the best US born soccer players to play well in the EPL, Brian McBride. Last year, the team had at one point 5 American Internationals on the team (Clint Dempsey, Eddie Johnson, Casey Keller, Carlos Bocanegra, and McBride before he got hurt). While Dempsey is the only remaining American (Johnson has been on loan all year) to play for Fulham this year, I have grown fond of many of the non US players and really enjoyed following the club this season.

I was able to catch about a dozen matches this year on FSC, including the deep run in the FA Cup prior to their loss to Man U, and look forward to what I hope will be a strong showing in Europe.

Reagan Dancing with Donald

2009-05-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

Some Photos from Florida 70.3

2009-05-23T06:26:00.000-07:00

Had to pirate these from the race photo site. Site to excel, excel to paint, paint to jpeg. They look a little shabby, like the race.

Florida 70.3 Race Report

2009-05-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

The morning started with a 4:30am wake up, then 30 minutes of trying to put down 800 calories with no appetite. I had a bottle of ensure, yogurt parfait, half a clif bar, a banana, half a cup of coffee, and a bottle of Gatorade endurance. Pretty gross to be putting that all down that early.

By 5:15am I was headed down to the lobby to see about getting a taxi or courtesy car over to the race. The courtesy car picked me up and we were at the race drop off to catch a shuttle bus in to Fort Wilderness where the transition area and race venue were.

The race was on the Disney property, but Disney had no further involvement than that.

I decided to hit the restrooms first, then go in and get my transition area set up. The race started at 6:20 and my wave would go off at 7:21, but transition closed at 6:15, so I had just enough time to get things set up. As I mentioned, my transition spot wasn't ideal. It turns out that the run out of the swim was very long, but it was because we basically ran around the outside of the transition area all the way around and entered very close to where my stuff was located, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After getting squared away, I made my way over to the beach. They weren't letting people into the water, so I had no warm up prior to the race. Instead, I found a patio chair and sat for about 40 minutes until my wave got closer.

The swim started in about knee deep water, and you could run about 20 steps before it got too deep. As the gun went off, I took off and tried to find feet. After 2-3 minutes I came across some and decided to settle in. I figured if they were ahead of me after 2-3 minutes, they were decent swimmers, but once back there, I really felt like we were going slow. I didn't think there was any way I was catching that good of a draft. I stuck with that swimmer for about 2 minutes until we first began to hit slow swimmers from the previous wave, and we got separated while working around a bunch, and I pulled away from that guy and moved on on my own.

The swim was very hectic. There were masses of people in large clumps that were very hard to get around. I found myself having to stop, pop up, pick a line, then shoot a narrow gap until I was clear, then do it again.

It wasn't a wetsuit legal swim, and there were lots of people struggling with that fact I believe. I can't tell you how many people were doing breastroke. There is nothing more dangerous to swimmers behind you than to do a breastroke kick. It is a wide kick, and in murky water, very hard to see coming, and is extremely dangerous for those around and behind you. I must have dodged half a dozen breastroke kicks headed right for my nose that missed by inches. Really scary.

The swim seemed to have been long. I thought so based on feel and time, and I overheard others with the same sentiment post race.

Swim: 31:33, 8th out of 239 AG, 104th overall

T1 was as I mentioned very long. You run about 300 yards from the swim exit to swim entrance. I spent only a few seconds at the racks before I was off to make my way through the length of the transition racks to the exit, again about 200 yards. I clipped in on the bike, and did not make the same mistake I did at Lonestar.

T1 4:34

The bike was a 1 loop bike course. We left the Disney property soon into the ride and didn’t return until the final miles. The course was pretty non descript. I recall seeing some cows and orange groves, and a few new track housing neighborhoods, but I really wasn’t paying an awful lot of attention.

My plan was to stay controlled and I think I was able to do that despite setting a bike PR for myself. The roads where very smooth and fast, and the course had about a 20 miles section of gentle hills in the middle. I only switched out of the big gear one or two times.

My plan was to find someone riding a little slower than I was comfortable riding, and to sit behind them at the legal distance, and make my progress that way. That way I was sure I was staying conservative. I pretty much rode the entire way behind 3 different guys.

It was getting to be hot, but the breeze on the bike masked it pretty well. I did notice salt on my shorts and face from the sweat, and knew it was going to get ugly on the run.

I took down 5 gels, 3x500mg sodium tablets, 3-4 bottles of water, 1 bottle of Pure Sport, and about 2 bottles of Gatorade Endurance. I felt the urge to pee about half way through the ride so I was confident that I was absorbing fluids, and was pretty much on the edge of feeling bloated the entire way.

Bike: 2:40:14 (21.0 mph), 88th out of 239 AG, 693rd overall

T2 went pretty well. This was the first time I saw Ingrid on the day. I had to make the long journey through the racks to my row, got switched over quick, took a swig of water and got my GPS synched, and was on my way.

T2: 2:32

The run was a 3 loop course. It was flat, hot, and much of it was on grass. Not scenic in the least despite being on the Disney property. We were in a pine forest for the first half mile, on back roads the next mile, then on grass next to a canal for 2+ miles before getting back on to roads to finish off the loop. The grass was very difficult to run on, and there wasn’t much shade out there.
First thing I did out on the run was find a port-o-john to relieve the bladder. After that, I tried to settle in to a slow and comfortable pace that I thought I could hold. I tried to ask myself very frequently if there was any way I could run slower, and if the answer was yes, then I slowed down.

My HR however was climbing and climbing and wasn’t stopping when it reached the Z3 spot I hoped it would stop at. After about 25 minutes, I was well into Z4, and was burning up.

At around the 3 mile mark, I broke the seal and had to walk. I would walk/run the rest of the race. By mile 5 I was doing 2 min/1min run/walk, which eventually fell down to 1min/1min. On a couple of occasions I would try to run as long as I could, but never could go more than 3 minutes, and would be wrecked for the next 10 minutes or so barely able to do 1/1 run/walk to recover.

With about 2.2 miles to go, I figured I had 29 minutes to keep my time under 6 hours, the only thing left to salvage the day after all of my other goals were long gone. I bore down and upped my run/walk splits to 90 sec/30 sec to up the overall pace.

With about half mile to go, I had to run carefull as my right calf was twitching as it would near a cramp on certain steps. It nearly seized up within 25 yards of the finish line, but I managed to cross without making a scene.

It was brutally hot out there. Lots of carnage on the course. I saw lots of people walking, people puking, people fainting. I ended up with the worst sun burn I’ve had in a long time despite putting on spf 30 the night before and morning of the race.

Run: 2:38:53 (12:08 pace) 182 out of 239 AG, 1476 overall

Time: 5:57:44, 124 out of 239 AG, 965 overall

After crossing the line, I just felt terrible. My ears were popping, I was woozy, and I had to search hard for some food and drink. I don't feel like going on the WTC rant, but they are terrible race organizers. It was so corporate, not designed for what was best for the athletes, and the post race support was cheap. They ran out of things out on the course and in the post race tent well before the later waves had crossed the line. It was really disappointing. This race was run by NAS until WTC bought all of the NAS races except for IM Canada at the end of 2008, so this may be a bad sign of things to come for these biggest of races in the US under the new management. I'm certain they made a fortune on the merchandising however, so I don't expect any changes.

So overall, not all that great of a race. I’m not disappointed because I pretty much got over the disappointment when the training fell apart back in March and April. It just sort of was what it was. I finished. It wasn’t as slow as my first 70.3, and wasn’t as fast as my last.

I came away from the race with 5 immediate notes on things to focus on for my next 70.3 in Oct. In no particular order, they are:

Increase the running as a percentage of my total tri training, more and longer long runs, more weekly volume, more running off the bike.
Do core work. My abs and low back are really sore after I race, which means I am using them and they aren’t up to the task. Maybe yoga is the answer.
Detail the objectives of each workout further. In base, go slower. Add more specificity to each workout.
Test more. Identify strengths and weakness and adjust training accordingly.
Stick to a diet, and get down to 165 by Oct.

The plan going forward is to take it easy for the rest of the month. I probably won’t train until after Memorial Day weekend. I’ll probably use the WKO+ software to monitor my fitness loss over time, and will start training when it is off 20-25% of the level it was at for the race.

I’m going to do a 6 week strength training block that will start up in a week or two. The purpose will be to add back some muscle, strengthen the tendons, and get myself ready for the Oct 70.3 training block.

I’ll build up the run volume in the month of June and would like to get up to around 100 miles of running a month by July.

I’ll do a 20 week build up to Long Horn, and will do a proper 12 weeks of base work before I start to take the governor off. That means the program will start in the second week of June.

Holy S That Hurt

2009-05-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm convalescing in the room, trying to muster the strength to get out of bed and cleaned up for dinner in 45 minutes.

I'll follow up with a proper report tomorrow perhaps, but I can sum up the race by saying it was the most difficult race I've ever done. The good news was that I found a ride to the race this morning, though it did cost me $18.It eventually would go downhill from there.

The swim was (long) a freaking war out there. I played pinball and dodged slow pokes threatening my face with errant breastroke kicks the whole way (rant on people doing breastroke in triathlons forthcoming). The bike was fast mostly due to the pristine roads and lots of legal drafting, but was surprisingly hilly at times. But the freaking kick in the nuts was that run. Absolute carnage it was so hot. Bodies everywhere, lots of walking, puking, fainting. I obviously walked a lot. There was no choice. The other thing that I underestimated was how much of this run course was on grass. I'd heard some of it was, but I'd guess about 7 of the 13 miles were on grass. Not trails, grass. It made for slower going.

I'm glad it is over, and that I managed to not out split my run with my bike spit. An absolute no-no which I came close to doing. I'm looking forward to a break from training. It is overdue I'm afraid.

Thoughts on Race Eve

2009-05-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting back in the hotel while the family is over at the Magic Kingdom having dinner. I'd planned to go with them, but today's pre race activities were WAY more involved than I ever could have imagined they would be, and I opted to lay low and hang back in the room getting things squared away for tomorrow.

I like to make lists when it comes to packing things up for anything. Every trip I take starts with a list of what to pack. Races definitely have lists on what to bring. I guess in my mind, it removes stress on race morning. This race has had 3 lists due to how complex an undertaking it is. So with all of this preparation, you might find it shocking that with 12 hours until I'll depart for the race site, I still have no idea how I'm going to get there.

The beauty of Disney is that you don't need your own transportation. Buses, shuttles, monorails, water taxis, etc. But no transportation to the race site. The concierge looked at me cross eyed when I asked how I was supposed to get to the race. You'd think they'd know, there are only ~2500 of us in this thing.

I guess I'm going to try to take a taxi. Hopefully I'm not waiting long for it.

The race site was a flipping zoo. This is my first NAS run race, and I've got to tell you, I miss the personal touches and family focus of Keith Jordan's Endorfun sports races. This thing is a freaking money making machine, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't apparent that that was the top priority. I stood in line for 20 minutes to buy a visor, and they had 4 cash registers running full tilt.

I still have no idea if they think the swim will be wetsuit legal or not, but I didn't even bring mine, so it doesn't impact my list. I just wondered whether the other guys in my wave would have them.

The race starts at 6:20am, but I'm in the very last wave, and start at 7:24am. Plenty of time to let it heat up on the run, and based on my last 70.3 in Austin when I was one of the last waves, it means I'll have to swim over about 500 slower athletes and probably ride by another 1000-1200. It will be like riding in the MS 150, passing people pretty much every 7-9 seconds. It makes it very dangerous.

My bike made it to Florida with no set backs. I got it all squared away, took it for a short spin and it is now racked and getting rained on every now and then with the Florida afternoon showers. Awesome!

So let me gripe a little more about transition. It isn't an ideal spot. Long and narrow, and wouldn't you know, my bike is about as far as you could be from the swim entrance and the bike exit. I couldn't even see the water from where I left my bike, and from my best guess, I'll have to run a little over a qtr mile from the water to my bike, then I get to turn around and run about 200 yards with my bike to get out of transition, and another 200 yards or so when I get back in. The good news, I only have about 15 yards to get to the run exit, but who cares, I'll have running shoes on and no bike with me. I expect my S/B transition to take at least 7-10 minutes, and I promise, I'll be moving to keep it from being longer.

The other thing that has me pretty concerned is the heat. When you're in the sun, it is brutal. It seems worst in the mornings when the humidity seems to be highest. I definitely haven't adjusted yet, as I pretty much start sweating profusely the moment I get in the sun, even when standing still. I'm going to have to focus on staying hydrated, settle for a couple of porto-john stops, and perhaps a pee break on the bike just to be sure I'm topping off before the run starts.

I'm trying to pick up a positive before I end this post... Still thinking...Hmm. Maybe this. The run appears to be partially on paved trails through a tall pine forest. Maybe there will be some shade?

After this race, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my Disney vacation with my family. I'm already making lists of what I'm going to eat/drink. We're having dinner tomorrow night at a brew house, so I hope to put down 3-4 pale ales, have some ice cream, a bloody marry on Monday morning. I'm taking a few weeks off after this race, at least 1-2 with zero training, and I'm really looking forward to it.

But first, I'm going to take myself to school tomorrow and teach myself a little more about my limits, my thoughts at dark moments, and how I handle extreme discomfort, all for extreme adulation. And to cross another milestone off of my life to-do list.

Official Florida 70.3 Preview

2009-05-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is a bit more detail on my thoughts going in the Florida 70.3. As I mentioned below, this will be my 3rd 70.3 race, and first of a planned two in 2009.

Just a quick recap to bring us up to the present. I ended my last triathlon season with the Long Horn 70.3 race, where I had successfully executed a 12 week build up, and saw the fruits of that build up on race day. It wasn't perfect, but I exceeded my expectations, had confidence that I could self coach myself to newer highs, and was enthused for the coming off season.

I entered the off season with a run focus, and procured the assistance of Gorilla Multisport's David Gillen to write my workouts and give me guidance. I made some good strides in improving my run, and had several PRs over the course of the 4 months of focus.

On the heels of my last running event of the run focus, I jumped in to tri training upping the bike and swim volume from 1-2 times per week, to normal tri prep levels. I spent 4.5 days at a tri camp in Tucson logging a lot of miles in a short period of time, and within a few weeks, my cycling fitness felt very good for this early in the year.

For the Jan-April period, my training volume was up 65 hours over those same four months the year before. Year to date I have swum 90k yards, biked 1,228 miles, and run 333 miles.

All are stats I should be proud of, and I am. What I'm a little disappointed about is that I failed to execute on the prescribed volume in my most key weeks leading up to this race on Sunday.

It wasn't for lack of motivation, but illness. In early March I came down with a wicked GI infection that knocked me out of commission for 5 days, knocked 6 lbs off of me, and just so happened to occur on the first week of a big 3 week block. That week was lost, so I scaled down weeks 2 and 3 of the block knowing I was going to be a bit weak from the weight loss. I was able to hit the prescribed 11 hours of training the following week (3/16-3/22) however I couldn't bring it up to the prescribed 13.5 the following week coming in at just 10.5.

The second big 3 week training block was slated for 4/6-4/26, and again was derailed by sickness. This time, a respiratory infection, probably worsened by allergies that just go nuts up here in North TX every spring. I was able to hit the 11 hrs prescribed in week 1 (4/6-4/12) which came on the heels of a pretty good race in Galveston the weekend before, and was off to a great start to week 2 of the block until it came on. I went to the Dr. early, got antibiotics, but the cough lingered and fear of bronchitis forced me to keep the volume in check. Rather than hitting 13.5 hrs in week 2, I hit 7.2, and rather than 15 hours in week 3, I mustered 5.5.

Not ideal to say the least.

So the down side to all of this is that I don’t have peak fitness, and don't have a block to taper down off of, and I still have a lingering respiratory infection that hasn’t fully left me. I've had to modify the taper a bit by just keeping the volume consist in the 8-10 hrs range and will hold that clip right up to race day. any more and I'd fatigue, any less and my fitness would drop too low too fast.

The upside however is that I’ve got a pretty big block of fitness under me that has built up over the past 10 months. I also know that fitness being equal, I am a better runner now than I was 7 months ago. The other upside is that I think I can fine tune my race strategy a bit having had two 70.3s under my belt going in to this one.

I’m not really anxious or nervous at all which I attribute to experience from the prior two 70.3s, and just need to always be playing it conservative at every turn out there so I don’t wilt. The opportunity for an epic bonk is very real!

So my thoughts for the race are that I need to play it conservative, NOT GET SWEPT UP IN THE EXCITEMENT OF RACING, and focus on executing my race strategy. That means that I need to chill out as soon as I can on the swim, especially after the beach start which always sends the HR up, and makes for a little more chaos than I'm used to at the start of a swim. On the bike, I know I'm going to feel good out there. I'll have the race wheels on, the aero helmet on, and it is going to feel fast. I need to chill out and go SLOW for the first 20-30 miles or so.

I wouldn't be surprised if I swim a 30 min swim (6 mins slower than PR), bike a 2:50 (7 mins slower than PR), and have 7-10 mins of transition time before I even hit the run. That means I hit the run right around the 3:30 mark. The run is a complete crap shoot still unfortunately. I'm pretty comfortable running sub 10 min miles, but am not confident I won't be forced to walk because I'm a little concerned about the heat and humidity when I get onto the run. It should be approaching the low 90s as the run ends, and I’m sure it will be steamy. We’ve actually had a pretty mild spring thus far so I have not had the opportunity to bake myself a little bit in preparation.

I don't think I'll PR at this race. Part of the reason is because the swim at my PR race was about 5 minutes short. If I can come in around 5:45, I'll take it.

So here are my race goals in no particular order:

Swim smart, stay on course
Don't let my HR sky rocket in transitions
Stay aero, but sit up and stretch at opportune spots (up hills, tailwinds, turns, etc.)
Supplement wisely
Chill out until the 10 mile mark on the run (because I'll be in survival mode at that point any ways)
Minimize the walking on the run course to aid stations only
PR my run split, which is currently 2:21.50 (a whopping 29 mins slower than my stand alone half)
Shoot for 5:45, but don't watch watch. If it happens, it happens.

So there you go. I'll check back in post race.

Florida 70.3 Pre-Preview

2009-05-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

One week from tomorrow I toe the line for my 3rd Half Ironman 70.3 distance race. The race will coincide with a family trip to Disney for a week with all three of my kids, wife, and my mother and father in-law.

The week of preparation and travel begins tomorrow when I drop off my bike at Richardson Bikemart where it will be picked up by the tri bike transport guys to make the journey to Orlando.

I'll stop in again early next week with my thoughts on the race. I can broadly summarize my thoughts by saying that I'm not where I hoped to be heading into this race. My training was so inconsistent in the critical build up weeks, that it will certainly have a negative impact on my outcome. I'm hoping I'm not so under prepared that I end up having a miserable experience out there, but only time will tell. I'm not planning on that being the case, and have chosen to focus on a couple of things this time now that I'm just a hair more experienced than last time I tried one of these things. I'll elaborate on these items I'm going to focus on in my next post.

More later...

Zydeco Friday - Enjoy!

2009-05-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Want to feel rythmless? Watch this. I found it while searching for footage of my all time Zydeco favorite, Boozoo Chavis, who can be seen below.

Boozoo Chavis - Johnnie Billy Goat
by fredozydeco

NZ All Blacks

2009-05-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

The Haka!

Only in TX

2009-05-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

I'm out riding yesterday, trying to get in some miles before the storms rolled in, and I run across this sign while out by the ranches in Bartonville.

It was too much for me to not stop and take a photo. In addition to the red neckness of the sign, please note the vintage farming equipment behind the sign. For some reason, old farming equipment qualifies as yard art out in ranch country.

I had to snap the photo quick for fear that "big Liz" would come out and squat me.

Cuban Fixes News Papers Overnight?

2009-05-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

I've been fascinated with the coming end of the news paper. It is a topic that has been discussed widely in many forums, but especially in "new media" outlets which ironically are the cause of the news paper's demise.

Unfortunately, what papers are doing to cut costs as circulations and add revenue decline is impacting me. Earlier this week, the LA Daily News laid off Tony Jackson, the LA Dodgers beat writer. This means there are only two beat writers (only one print journalist) currently traveling with the team; Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, and Ken Gurnick of MLB.com. As Jon Weisman notes, it wasn't long ago that there were a dozen beat writers travelling with the Dodgers to provide coverage.

I've heard a few suggestions for what to do about the troubles news papers are faced with, but none is better than what Marc Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks nonchalantly conjures up in his most recent blog post. It wasn't luck this guy made a billion in an internet bubble deal, and cashed out before the bubble burst.

Cool Clip on Suffering

2009-05-01T19:54:00.001-07:00

I stole this off of my new friend Lindsey's blog

Today's Ride

2009-04-19T13:26:00.001-07:00

I am feeling well enough now, and got back to training with a 5 mi run yesterday that was uncomfortable, but doable. I backed that up with a long ride today that I'll never forget.

The schedule called for 3 hrs, but I wasn't sure if that was in the cards. The weather still stinks around here. As is typical for a North Texas Spring day, it was windy as hell. We're talking steady winds in the 20 mph range, coming from the North, so it was an arm warmer day. I found myself off the aero bars most of the ride for safety as the gusts just caused too much wobble to feel good about my balance.

As I was heading out north, I rode past some Texas Longhorns and decided to stop for a photo opportunity.

I decided to deviate from my normal route and add a small climb into my ride by hitting Country Club Road to Hilltop Rd. to head up and over the little climb.

Right after I got over the climb, I'm riding along hugging the shoulder and WHAM! I feel like someone has taken a paddle to my left calf. I got hit from behind by a white Buick.

It was a glancing blow, and by some miracle, it didn't knock me down, or even run me into the ditch. I don't know what part of the car I was hit with, but it was either the front wheel or the side paneling, or some of both maybe.

The driver clearly as freaked out as I was sort of slowed before turning into a driveway maybe 50 yards up the road. The driver got out and walked up the driveway. It was a very old lady, probably in her late 70s or 80s. She had the big block sunglasses that have the 90 degree angle wrap around to the side. Behind them I could see her regular glasses were on.

She apologized profusely saying she couldn't see me. I was pretty calm, really because I was in a bit of shock.

After collecting my wits, surveying my leg and bike, I decided I could keep riding. After the adrenaline subsided, some soreness in my calf started to set in. It felt like someone had punched me right in my calf. I have a little bruise, but really, it is just some muscle soreness.

I guess this is what I get for having such big calves that stick out into the middle of the road.

In all seriousness, I was riding safely, it was clear as day, it was a quiet rarely traveled rural residential road, and it still happened. I'm lucky, and so was she.

Be careful.

This brings me to a safety question that in my mind is largely ignored in society. Shouldn't there be more scrutiny on the abilities and faculties of elderly drivers? My grandfather who just passed away was still driving all the way up to his last days in his 90s, and I'll tell you what. I wouldn't have wanted to be within 10 miles of him if he was out there. I hated driving with him when he was in his late 60s, and I can't imagine he got any better over time.

How many times have you seen someone driving erratic, too slow, or unsafe only to recognize as you drove past that it was an elderly driver?

It seems like it is sort of the pink elephant in the room. No one wants to come down or say anything about it out of sympathy, respect, or whatever. Myself included. But it isn't safe, and the number of elderly drivers is going to sky rocket in the coming years as the front end of the boomers start to hit that sweet spot where driving skills begin to erode.

Just a rant, but this lady had no reason not to see me. Turns out that driveway she pulled into was hers, so this all happened less than 100 yards from her house, so you can't say she wasn't familiar with the contour of the road, etc.

I'm just saying people... Be careful...

How Haile Does It

2009-04-17T19:50:00.001-07:00

I've been under the weather with a pretty bad cough and head cold this week. Probably my own fault for cranking up the volume and intensity after my Galveston race a bit too much. I'm on antibiotics, but am pretty sure it is viral, and I'll just have to wait it out.

Anyhow, here is some motivation from Haile Gebrselassie

Good Weekend

2009-04-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

We just got back from Austin this afternoon after spending a few days with my parents.

It was a good trip on several fronts. On the training front, I was able to get a long ride and a hard run in on Friday, and a long run in on Sat.

The weather was wet and on the chilly side this morning, and I didn't bring any warm cycling clothes so I decided to do a ride when I got home today.

Though the weather was no better when we got home, it cleared up right at the end of the day and I was able to go out for a couple of hours. I chased the storms as I headed out NW and got some pretty cool pics.

2009 Lonestar Qtr Iron Triathlon - Gavleston, TX

2009-04-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Let me try to bang out a quick race report.

Overall, a pretty good day for me. The effort level was there, fitness was in check, and the speed wasn't bad. I was a little rusty with the race stuff. Transitions were a little loose, had some goggle problems, and a blunder or two, but I'll learn from them.

Not much to report prior to the gun going off. We were a bit rushed this morning despite leaving the house at 5:15am this morning. We had to get gas, and the drive was almost an hour. but I hit the pier with a couple of minutes to spare ready to go.

My age group was in the first wave with the Pros and Elites. I didn't see any pros with all of the races going on throughout the world this weekend, but there were several collegiate tri team including the Naval Academy team who I believe is the defending NCAA National Champions.

So the gun went off, and the kids all took off with me in tow. I tried to hang with some, but couldn't find a pair of feet to sit on that didn't require me to hammer it, so I ws on my own most of the way. My right goggle was leaking like crazy and I must have swam with it full more that I didn't, and probably cleared it 5 times over the 13 minute swim.

The water was colder that I ever remember it being, and it was dark and overcast at the start. Really wasn't all that pleasant, but it was over quick.

It turned out that all of the guys who dropped me in the swim were elites, and not guys in my AG so I ended up with the top swim time.

Swim (0.6mi): 13:52 - AG place 1st out of 69

T1 was okay. I was pretty beat coming out of the water and took my time trying to get my bearings

As I rolled out of T1 and began to slip into my shoes already clipped into my pedals, I realized I'd put the right shoe in the left pedal, and the left in the right. I had to stop, dismount, unclip them, slip into them, remount, clip in, and go. I probably burned 45-60 seconds futzing with it, and saw several people ride by me while I straightened them out. I'll never make that mistake again.

The ride is a grind. It is pancake flat, and you just have to stay aero and push a big gear hard. There are no breaks to descend, or turns you can sit up through once you get out on the seawall.

There was a slight headwind on the 14 mile stretch towards the SW end of the island, but it wasn't bad.

My back grew a bit tired which tells me I need to spend some time on my core over the next few weeks. You can have the strongest legs in the world, but if your core is weak, they have nothing to push off of on the top end. You can't fire a canon from a canoe!

Bike (28mi): 1:19.42 (21.1 mph) - AG place 11th out of 69

T2 was pretty uneventful. Just a little messing around with my Garmin, but not really any time lost.

The run was a two loop course through Moody Gardens. I got out pretty quick, had a good turnover and was clicking off some decent miles. I fatigued a bit as the run went on and don't think I negative split it, but hung tough, dealt with the demons and the heat that was mounting and did fine.

Run (6.55mi): 54:57 (8:27/mi) - AG place 34 out of 69

Overall: 2:32.07 - 13th in my AG, 79th out of all guys, 117th overall

This is the 4th time I've done this race, and the third time it has been a quarter iron distance race. I PR'd by 11 minutes, and took time out of each discipline, so it was a balanced attack.

My buddies Tim and Darren also did the quarter with me and did real well. They finished within a couple of minutes of each other, didn't get hurt, and still have the fire to get after the next one so it was a success all around for us.

I just got back into town after the drive back up from Galveston, and am sitting back watching the opening night of the MLB season, so life is good. I've had my compression socks on since I got out of the shower, and my legs feel pretty good. My back is sore and I'm tired from the long day, but hope to get a spin in tomorrow.

I have 3 big weeks of training ahead of me as I prepare for Florida 70.3 on May 17th. This three day weekend coming up will help with this week's volume. I can chill out for a few days and use the extra day to get a couple of big rides in. I'll be in Austin so I'm looking forward to a few rides in hill country, and a big Saturday morning run at Town Lake with my wife Ingrid. We haven't run together in years it seems. I can't wait.

Bruno

2009-04-03T12:51:00.001-07:00

Time to lighten things up here a bit. One of my favorite comedic actors, Sacha Baren Cohen presents Bruno, this July!

Family History Revealed

2009-04-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from Los Angeles where I attended the memorial services, and spreading of ashes for my Grandfather.

It was an emotional few days, filled with laughs, tears, and revelations about the past of this unique character that I had never fully appreciated.

I came away from the trip with several stories about my Grandfather told by my Dad, Aunts and Uncles, but one that stood out to me was the story of his time served in the 7th Army, 3rd Infantry Division under Gen. George Patton. You can read a bit about the Division known as the "Blue and White Devils" in that hyper link.

My Grandfather fought as a Captain in an Artillery Unit, but later rose to the rank of a Major, a significant achievement in its own right.

From a letter he wrote to my Grandmother that we uncovered at his house earlier this week, I know that he spent time waiting and training in Ireland and Scotland, before being deployed to the front in Northern Africa. He fought in Algiers and Tunisia before crossing the Mediterranean to fight in Sicily and finally Italy.

My Grandfather was wounded in Italy during the Battle of Cassino, one of the fiercest battles with the Germans in the Italian theatre.

It was in the mountain approaches to Cassino that the division met its toughest opposition and displayed its greatest offensive prowess. Heavily reinforced, the Germans sat on Monte Rotundo, Monte Lungo and Monte la Difensa, ringing Mignano on the north, determined to hold at all costs.

Every foot of the way was heavily mined. Jeeps were replaced by pack mules. Men died who might have lived if they could have been transported over the long and tortuous trails to aid stations. Co. K, 7th, once had 23 casualties from AP mines while climbing a hill to relieve another company. Mules were forever straying off the paths, exploding mines and wounding badly needed men.

My Dad and Uncle shared with me that he was placed as a forward observer when shrapnel from an artillery shell that landed near his position lodged into the back of his leg severing a major nerve running the length of his leg.

As my Dad tells it, his post was so far in advance of the Allied line, and the battle was so back and forth, that he remained out at his post for three days before he could be evacuated by Allied Medics.

During that three day period, he was visited and treated by both US and German medics on foot who would administer morphine, and make note of their treatment on a "scorecard" that would stay on my Grandfather's person.

The wounds themselves were not life threatening, but over three days of waiting to be pulled from the battle field, and only receiving minor treatment on the wound, and more help with dealing with the pain, he lost a significant amount of blood, to the point of unconsciousness.

As my Uncle read during the memorial service, when Allied forces were finally able to secure the area my grandfather lay wounded, he was presumed dead, and was strapped to the back of a mule train that was headed to a graveyard where the fallen US soldiers would be buried.

If not for a slight twitch by my Grandfather that was witnessed by a soldier, he may have been denied proper treatment for too long to make it, or worse yet, buried alive.

He was able to receive medical treatment and make a near full recovery, over time regaining feeling in his foot as the nerve regrew, and was only left with a slight limp.

During the days that he remained wounded on the battle field as the line of advancement ebbed and flowed, he was classified as MIA and was presumed KIA.

A letter was written to my Great Grandmother informing her of the news of his missing status, but luckily, my Grandfather was able to phone my Great Grandmother in advance of her receiving the letter while in a hospital to save her from the grief that letter would place upon her.

For his wounds received in the Battle of Cassino, he was awarded a Purple Heart. This Purple Heart was something I asked my Grandfather a few years ago if he minded me inheriting some day. Though I have not seen the Purple Heart, my dad has it in his possession, and it will be making its way to me in a couple of weeks along with other pins, patches, and medals we were able to retrieve over the last week.

At the memorial service, an Army Honor Guard was there to honor my Grandfather with a three gun salute, the playing of taps by a bugler, and the folding and presenting of the American Flag.

This flag was presented at the ceremony to my Aunt, his oldest child, but was given to me to be displayed in my home.

As my Uncle read during the memorial service, my Grandfather never spoke of the fighting he saw, always instead telling stories of humorous encounters or of ironic happenstance.

One I recall was the time he got back from a march in the hills of N. Africa where he walked through some old Roman ruins during a heavy rain. Back at his camp, as he took his boot off, he realized that embedded in the mud in the arch of his boot was an old Roman coin which he gave to a friend who had been collecting rare coins as they moved throughout Europe and N. Africa.

Hearing these stories and the contents of letters uncovered gave me a glimpse into my Grandfather's past. It is a past filled with amazing stories. Definitely worthy of a novel. This part of his military past is but one of many I enjoyed rehashing with family over the weekend.

Training Volume and Schedule

2009-03-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

I missed my run yesterday at lunch and had to get to it after work. Luckily, one of my former analysts who is training for a half marathon also missed her lunch time run, so we got together across the street after work to get a run in.

As we were running along, she asked me something that I hadn't really consciously thought of before, but perhaps subconsciously had recognized and embraced.

She asked if I ever got tired out from always having a race to train for. This half marathon she was prepping for was her first race she had trained up for in a few years, and although she has an athletic background as a college softball players, doing endurance events like running as an adult with a marriage and career to balance were very new to her.

As I slowly made my way through organizing an answer, I came to the conclusion that in the past, I did tend to get worn down, but that over the past year, things had changed and it was no longer the case.

I used to love racing, and love the sense of satisfaction I would get in observing my body adapt to the stresses I'd put it through. Whether it be watching pounds fall off from hard work, or speed going up, or volume tolerance improving, I loved the adaptation. The sense of satisfaction from doing well in a race was also a bit like a narcotic.

I didn't however like the training. The perceived lack of variety, the plateauing of improvement, and the compounding fatigue would usually get to the point of reaching an unbearable level.

For the first few years that I did running, and then triathlons, I would very rarely be able to successfully develop a training schedule and stick to it. It seemed that life would always get in the way. I'd get sick, or have to travel, or would get stuck in the office on a project. One little blip would rock me and I would get depressed for having come off schedule, and it would take me a few days to recover, then I'd get depressed that I spent a few days recovering and that the ordeal had set me back maybe a week or more, and next thing I know, 2-3 weeks would pass, the event would be on the horizon, and my 10-12 weeks of carefully planned scheduling would amount to 3 weeks of sticking to it, 3 weeks of sputtering along, and 4 weeks of cramming to make up for the detour prior to race day.

I would sometimes still have a satisfying race, and it would be satisfying enough for me to sign up for another race, which would usually entail me repeating the cycle above.

It happened as recently as last year. The first half of my season got off to an okay start. I had a PR at my race in Galveston, and was geared up to go for an Olympic distance PR in Austin on Memorial Day Weekend.

Training had been going okay, better than normal. I was able to minimize the disruptions, and get to the start lines pretty fit.

It turns out that the race was going well, but I literally melted on the run in the heat. After the race, I took the entire month of June off. It wasn't by design, but because I couldn't get things rolling. I took a week to go on vacation in Europe, and when I got back, I had a hell of a time getting things started. As I think back to why, I think the main reason was that I was pissed off about not getting in any training while I was in Europe. I took running clothes and hoped to get a few runs in. Instead, I ate and drank, put on some weight, and gave back all of my spring fitness. Sort of stupid to let disappointment over training not going how I'd have hoped be the thing that kept me from training.

I finally mustered up the courage and motivation to get back to training in early July. It actually happened on July 4th when I met some friends from work to do a lake swim at Lake Grapevine. I was out of shape, and they were all days away from doing IM Lake Placid. The discrepancy between our current places on the training spectrum was so vast, that I think it was the shock I needed. Perhaps a joke about my beer guy had something to do with it as well. I had a 70.3 race on the calendar in just 6 weeks which I clearly would not be ready for, but I decided to sign up for a 70.3 in Oct, and try to throw together a solid 12 week training block.

It was during this 12 week block that I think I turned the corner in terms of scheduling my life and planning my time.

First, I tried to simplify my life as much as possible. I started going to bed earlier, eating a little bit better, I cut down on the TV watching (I still watch allot, but I found that I was watching some things I didn't even enjoy), and I prioritized my days trying to maximize my productivity. Why go to lunch and eat crappy food with the same crowd every day when there is a gym across the street with a treadmill, showers and towels that I can jump on a couple of time each week. Get the workout over with so I can come home from work and spend time with the family. I even started riding my bike to and from work once a week to essentially turn my 70 minutes of daily auto commuting into 140 minutes of bike commuting.

By no means is my life simple, but it is 'simpler' and is a bit more productive.

During these 12 weeks, I got pretty fit and came out of the experience having learned allot about how to motivate myself, how to avoid the common road blocks that had derailed me in the past, and how to get back on the horse if life bucked me off.

I've found that it is a hell of allot easier to stay fit than it is to get fit. So the last 8 months or so have been like a big land slide picking up mass and speed as the weeks have rolled on.

I'm now feeling as fit as I ever had for this time of year. I'm still highly motivated and I've found that the correlation between my motivation and fitness with my overall disposition are strong.

So I don't get tired of always having a race to train for. I used to, and the boredom would usually cause me to fall off "the plan." But I've found I'm much more happy on "the plan" than off of it, so having that goal is now a necessity for me. Approaching fitness and training as a lifestyle as opposed to a hobby was what changed for me. When I made that change, things found a way of falling in line.

Jugar Beisbol 2009 Roster

2009-03-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

I was in Houston yesterday for the 6th annual Rice MBA Fantasy Baseball League draft.

It is always a highlight of the year for me, and for most of the other guys in the league. We've got 12 owners 11 of who are returning for anywhere between their 4th and 6th season this year.

Though we've all moved on to other parts of the country, we still all try to make our way back to Houston during the first weekend of march madness to pick our squads.

Guys fly in from Louisville and Cincinnati while others the out of town TX contingent consists of two of us from the DFW area, and one from Austin. The rest of the guys are Houston locals.

I had the first pick in the draft this year and used it to take CC Sabathia. Not a pick I'm in love with, but our league values pitching highly, and the decision to go pitcher turned out to be a good one as 9 of the first 18 picks were pitchers. If you have the pick of the crop, CC is probably as good as any of the others.

Here is the 2009 Jugar Beisbol squad in the order they were drafted:

1. CC Sabathia - SP
2. John Lackey - SP
3. Lance Berkman - 1B
4. Javier Vazquez - SP
5. Nick Markakis - OF
6. Ricky Nolasco - SP
7. Garrett Atkins - 3B
8. Cory Hart - OF
9. Matt Cain - SP
10. Derek Lowe - SP
11. Kelly Johnson - 2B
12. Matt Wieters - C
13. Jay Bruce - OF
14. Chris Ianetta - C
15. Bronson Arroyo - SP
16. Jonathan Broxton - RP
17. Milton Bradley - OF
18. Christian Guzman - SS
19. Randy Wolf - SP

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my draft. If I could change one thing, I would have taken Ryan Braun in the 3rd round instead of Berkman. I'm not sure that happened. I must have had a brain fart at the time.

I'm also a little disappointed I didn't end up with more Dodgers. I had my eye on several, but they all were drafted too early in my opinion. I tried to make up for it by taking Broxton. Whether Wolf remains on my squad by opening day is an unknown.

Back from the Dead

2009-03-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, a quick update post. I've been through a bit of a rough patch, but think I'm coming out of it now. I can only hope.

I got a terrible bout with food poisoning back on Tuesday night that absolutely decimated me. I quickly dropped about 5-6 pounds, didn't eat much of anything for 5 days, missed a couple of days of work, couldn't train, etc. It was bad. On day 5 (Sunday), I'd had enough of waiting for things to turn, so I went to an urgent care center, got some antibiotics and something to ease the wear on my guts, and within hours started feeling better. I was able to start eating close to normal on Monday, was able to run a bit and now Tuesday, feel normal again, though still a little weak from the weight loss.

So I missed my first race of the season through all of this and am disappointed about that, but luckily I have a race just 2.5 weeks from now.

I'm rejiggering my training plan to adjust for the fact that I missed a big training week last week, and hope to be able to hit the schedule this week. I'm hoping I haven't lost too much other than weight with this thing. We'll see.

Tuscon Tri Camp - Day 4

2009-03-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

This was the most amazing day I've ever had on the bike, hands down!

So as I mentioned, the Mt Lemmon summit bid was hatched the night before at Dinner. Five guys, John, Norm, Manny, Joseph and I decided we'd leave the hotel half an hour ahead of the rest of the group, and ride to the top of the mountain.

the rest of the camp had planned to ride to the base together, climb as far as they could by 10am (about 90 minutes) then turn around and regroup for the ride home back at the bottom.

I had a couple of beers in me and figured I'd give it a go. That night, I was nervous about how I'd do. I was worried about how tired I'd be from the 3 previous days of riding, and how I would handle the altitude. I thought if I could settle in at some pace under lactate threshold (160 bpm for me) and keep it there, I'd be fine. but if the ride was a steep as Gates Pass was for even a little bit, I could not keep the bike upright without going over LT, and then I'd just be a time bomb waiting to bonk. I did not know what to expect.

By 7am we headed out for the 15 mile ride to the north part of Tuscon to the base of the climb.

We stopped at Le Buzz for some double espressos at the base of the hill, took some photos, and headed off to the climb.

Mt Lemmon is a 25 mile climb that starts at 2,500 feet of elevation and tops out around 8,200 feet. The average grade is probably in the 6-7% range. There are actually two peaks you go over that are about 4 miles apart, and in between the two peaks, you are in a bowl and give back about 400 feet of altitude before cresting 8,000 feet again, then you drop in to the village on top of Mt Lemmon.

Here is the map and elevation profile

Because our hotel was on the other side of town, the entire ride was 85 miles and over 10K feet of climbing.

Our plan was that we'd ride to the base together, then everyone was on their own on the climb. If anyone had to quit, they would text message the rest of the group to let us know they'd headed home, otherwise we'd wait for everyone to make it to the top before we headed back down.

As we hit the very first part of the ride, John, who along with Norm were the strongest riders in the group flatted. We were literally only 50 feet into the climb when it happened. Norm stayed behind to help John and the rest of us kept pushing on.

I very quickly settled in to the grade and pressure and got my HR up to a level it would pretty much stay the rest of the way up. I was usually in the high 150s when the hill was steep, and would get little breathers when the grade would relax a bit. I pretty quickly pulled away from Manny and Joseph, and within 10 minutes into the climb, was on my own.

I set up my Garmin to show me 4 displays, HR and Elevation on one view, and Speed and Distance on the other. I found that using elevation to mark my progress was how I choose to proportion the ride.

At 3,000 through 4,000 feet, the grade was steep, the air was still warm, and we had a headwind like you couldn't believe. I was afraid it would be like that for the entire climb, and knew I could not do that for 3 hours.

Luckily the winds died around 4,000 feet. 4,000-6,000 feet wasn't too bad. Just about an hours worth of really hard work. At around 6,000 feet, the topography started to change from desert to unique rock formations, and again lots of wind.

The grade would kick up for as far ahead as you could see, and you'd just slog through it, then right as you were about to break, there would be a nearly flat section, and rarely even a small down hill. I'd take this time to snap photos or take in some nutrition, though because of some lectures Bob had given earlier in the camp, I didn't really eat a lot. Just drank lots of water.

The stretch from 6,700 feet to 7,000 feet was probably some of the toughest. It was very steep, and very windy. This was also when you really bean to notice the air was thin.

At 7,000 feet, the topography changed again and we were in a Pine Forrest like you'd see in the California Sierras. It was truly amazing.

When I got through 7,000 feet and the steep grade subsided a bit, I knew I would make it. the last 1,200 feet of climbing was tough, but the euphoria of the accomplishment overshadowed the pain.

As I hit the first summit and started the 4 mile descent to the next peak, I picked up some serious speed and nearly froze to death. It was probably in the 50s, I was soaking wet, and I was going over 30 mph much of the time. Right at the start of the last climb on the second peak, John, who flatted at the bottom caught up to me. It was the first familiar face I'd seen in over 2 hours. We stayed together for the last little climb and rolled in to the village on top of Mt Lemmon together.

At the top was a cafe know for amazing pies and hot chocolate. John and I got our $5 hot chocolates, picked a table in the sun and began waiting for the rest of the crew. About 10 minutes later, Norm rolled in to town, and Manny followed him another 25-30 minutes later.

We all got Banana Cream pies, scarfed it down, and enjoyed the views and accomplishment.

We got word that Joseph had to turn around around mile 19 and once we knew there was nothing left to wait for, began gearing up for the hour long descent back to the base. We bundled up in all of the clothes we had hauled up to the top, top some last photos, then began the ride down.

The descent was nearly miserable. I was so cold, so windy, and so fast that it was a bit nervous for most of the way. Your hands would get sore from gripping the bars tight, you couldn't drink for fear of taking your hand off the bars, your shoulders got tense, and you couldn't enjoy the views without taking your eyes off the road and risking death. Some of the drop offs where frightening.

Eventually we all made it down safe. I shed all of my clothes a bit before the bottom to keep from over heating when I had to start working again to get to our next meet up spot before pace lining back t the hotel. 85 miles, and 5,678 calories burned on this ride.

The ride was amazing. I still get chills thinking about it. I think the guys I was riding with made it even better. I couldn't have asked to do the climb with a better group of guys. It is definitely a day on the bike that I'll never forget.

Here are some photos:

The Summit Bid Team (L-R) Manny, Norm, John, Greg, Joseph

The first sign that we were headed up

148 HR at 5,359 feet

I rode on the opposite side of the road to get this photo

Snow in AZ?

Bears?

154 HR at 8,009 feet

John, nearly at the top!

Mmmmm, banana cream pie!!!

The summit team - John, Manny, and Norm

Greg, John, and Manny

After we got back to the hotel, we wolfed down or lunches that the group had stuffed in the fridge for us. It was around 3:00pm by now. I took a shower, and within 15 minutes of finishing my lunch was in the car on the way to the pool for a swim.

It was just a drills session over at the U of A pool but it felt good to get in, and swimming in the U of A pool was a treat. so many legends have trained here.

Again, an amazing day. I'll never forget it!!!

Tuscon Tri Camp - Day 3

2009-03-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

The climb out of bed in the morning is getting tougher. Yesterday was such a full day, that they were adding up.

I've found in the past that I can do okay with added stress and volume when I don't have anything else to do but train. I've always felt better on day 2 of the MS150s, and I think doing 8 consecutive years of smashing myself in the pool around the XMAS and New Years time in HS and College has made me tolerable of heavy loads.

So day 3 was a 62 mile ride called The Shootout. Tuscon has one of the most prolific Saturday morning "roadie" group ride. It regularly gets pro cyclist, pro mountain bikers, and pro triathletes. They regularly get over 200+ riders, and they hammer at pro peleton paces. They do a few different courses in the Tuscon area, but our course was the most famous one. It has been regarded as one of the 10 best rides (The Shootout on this route) in the country.

It was slated for 62 miles and 1,800 feet of climbing. Like yesterday, no summit per say, just a good rise. The roads were bumpy as hell and in the pace line, I never saw many of them coming.

After hitting the top of the course around mile 35, it was a pretty quick descent on a nice straight road with better surfaces. I got in a pace line with 4 other guys, and we hammered hard around 24-26 mph for a good hour, dropped one of the guys, but covered some serious distance and pretty much took turns wrecking the others when we got to the front of the line.

So I mentioned the shitty roads in Tuscon. Well at the top of the course at around 36 miles, we peaked then had a good 2-3 miles of a real fast technical downhill and terrible roads. I looked down at some point nearing the bottom of the descent and realized my PowerTap computer had rattled out of its holster and had been launched from my bike.

I was devastated. At that point, I was 3 riders back from the front of the group, had worked hard all day to stay in contact, and was having an impressive day in the saddle.

I had to turn around, head back up the hill looking for the computer having no clue where it popped off. I rode up about 2 miles, was passed on the way up by all of the A riders who were doing that route, and had to call off the search for fear of getting lost on the way back.

So there went a $250 piece of hardware, and more importantly in my eyes, went 2 days of data, and meant I would have no power data for the climb up Mt Lemmon on day 4.

I was pissed, but got over it, and finished off the ride, having added another 4 miles to the schedule.

The rest of the afternoon included a bike skills session where we did things like real tight turns, limbo on the bike, picked up bottles as we rode by while seated on the saddle, bunny hopped, etc. It was actually a very helpful session. It was difficult on the tri bike, but I gained some comfort.

That night, we went out to dinner on the town. We headed to a Mexican restaurant, had some drinks and good times with my new friends. It was hear were a plot was put together to make a summit bid the following morning on Mt Lemmon.

Here are some photos from Day 3:

The first regroup about 13 miles in

John and Seton out front, this was a false flat, but was really a long slight rise

And this was the view to my back over my helmet

PS. I have a new PowerTap computer ordered and on its way. It can't get here soon enough.

Tuscon Tri Camp - Day 2

2009-02-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

Day 2 is in the books. A pretty full day for sure. We started off the morning with a 5:50am wake up call, 6:00am breakfast, and were on the bikes at 7:00am to roll out for our first ride.

This ride was called Colossal Cave and it was a pretty good one. 50.5 miles, with 1,800 ft of climbing, with a summit at just over 3,500 feet. It was a much more gradual climb compared to yesterday's mammoth steepness. In fact, there was no paramount spot where you knew you were over the top, you just all of a sudden realized you were done going up and were flying back down the back side.

Bob Seebohar and Seton Clagget who I spoke of yesterday joined us for our ride. They were very strong cyclists who kept the pace up for most of the day.

Two gripes about the rides around here, and when I do the day 3 review, I'll really hammer on the later. First, all of our rides start out with about 45 minutes of slower riding with lots of stops at lights as we make our way out of the city. Once we are out there, it is great, but getting there pretty much stinks. Second, the rodes here for the most part suck. Lots of pot holes, cracks, bumps, glass, etc. On a tri bike, you really feel all of that stuff so the wear and tear on the hands, shoulders, and taint are gruesome at times.

Here are a few photos from day 2's ride.

The highlight of the ride for me was riding through a giant airplane graveyard. There were thousands of planes. Mostly military, but some commercial. Airplanes go to the desert when they are in permanent or temporary storage because the dry air help to preserve them. There is protocol for maintaining a temp stored aircraft, and less of permanently retired planes, but all of them could probably be pulled from the desert, restored and flown. I took as many pictures as I could from the bike, but seeing it in person was a great experience.

After the ride, we went straight off the bike and on to a 30 minute brick run. Because I'd rolled back in to town with the Bob and a couple of the California based coaches, I ended up doing the run with them. Bad idea, they were flying and I had to hoof it to keep up. I swear, the 50 mile ride was easier than 30 minutes with these guys. When they weren't chatting up a storm, they were giving me critiques on my running form, and I was just trying to survive the pace and the heat. We ran by the Arizona Diamondbacks spring training facility but it was apparent they were away on Thursday.

I was the fourth or fifth person to finish the run, and saw most of the rest of the campers heading out about 20-25 minutes behind me.

I was thinking to myself that I was glad to be finishing early, because for the rest of the day, half of the camp would be doing a swim analysis in the endless pool/flume over at Trisports (the half I was in) in 30 minute appointments scattered throughout the day starting at noon, and running to 3p. the other half would be doing Bike Skills. I was made the sacrificial lamb who had to do the swim at noon. The coaches' logic was that over my swimming career, I would have the most experience with swimming on a full stomach, and since the schedule only showed 60 minutes between the end of the run, and my appointment, they knew it was going to be tight.

What they didn't know was that the ride went long, and I finished 30 minutes before I was supposed to meet for my appointment. I had time to wolf down half of my sandwich, my potato salad, and the next thing I know, I was swimming.

The swim analysis was cool. I'd never swam in a flume before, and seeing myself in the mirrors placed right below me, and ahead at a 45 degree angle provided a new perspective for me. I'd got a DVD of my swim from above and below water, so I'll see if I can figure out how to load it here.

After that, I was pretty much whipped, and headed back to the room to crash.

At 4p, we met again over at Trisports to go over some stretch training. It was led by Bob Seebohar, and it wasn't what you'd think. We did allot of neuromuscular exercises to help train your muscles to fire correctly. It was allot of balance and core work, but we didn't do a single crunch.

After that, we wolfed down a pasta dinner and listened to Bob talk about Recovery Nutrition. Bob had allot of interesting things to say about nutrition that flies in the face of basically everything you have read or heard before. He is very much a believer of less is more, especially if you are trying to improve your body composition. I think we get swept up by all of the marketing hype around training and recovery nutrition to the point that we consume too much product. You can learn allot about him at his site I linked to yesterday.

That concluded our very long day, and I was in bed by 9pm.

Day 3 has an even longer ride on the docket. I realized today that Day 2 was the longest ride of the year for me, and I would reset that mark on day 3, and again on day 4. Oh day 4, don't even want to think about it.

Tuscon Tri Camp - Day 1

2009-02-26T12:36:00.001-08:00

The agenda is pretty tight, so getting on my computer to write a post has been a challenge. I'll try to keep them brief so I can do this pretty regularly.

I'm currently chilling on the bed half way through day two, and I am pretty zonked. The tough part of the day is behind me, so I should be feeling fine soon, but I wanted to write about day one before jumping ahead.

I flew in a day early (Tues night) because flights looked packed, so I had all of Wed morning to my self. Check in was at 11am over at the TriSports store. I have spent a few thousand dollars with TriSports.com over the last couple of years. I bought my bike box from them in '07, and my Zipp 606 wheel set, 3 tubie tires, and some other things last year. It is the best online store. Turns out they are located in Tuscon across the street from our hotel, and they are hosting us for this weekend. We met the owner Seton last night, he rode with us on Day 2 and gave us the nickel tour after dinner last night on day 1. Cool guy, amazing outfit he runs. They are in a 25k sq foot facility complete with a warehouse, show room, endless pool, kids corner, chill lounge, internet cafe, offices for 45 people, a photo shoot room where Triathlete Magazine was there shooting a new Quintana Roo bike that Trisports had on hand, apparently only one of ten in the world. It was amazing. TriSports runs great deals, has good prices, etc so buy from them the next time you need something. I'll be getting my next bike from them through their fly and buy program. They've got every bike you could imagine, except Specialized (which Seton said they turned down last month).

Anyhow, we met at Trisports, had lunch in the multi purpose room, then geared up for our first ride of the camp. The terrain was beautiful once we got out of town. Desert, mountains, cactus.

The ride was called Gates Pass, and while I don't have any ride data at my finger tips that I can load to the site, it was a 38 mile ride with 1,800 feet of climbing, and it peaked out at the top of the pass at just under 3,000 ft.

Believe me when I tell you, the last 5-7 minutes of the climb which lasted for about 30 mins was without a shadow of a doubt the steepest thing I have ever been up. I downloaded my power data last night, and during the last 7 mins of the climb, my HR averaged 177 (my max is 186) it got up to 184 for about 60 seconds at the top, I averaged nearly 300 watts, and I was going 6.6 mph. For once in my life, I wasn't sure I could keep the pedals turning over. And I actually did much better than most all of the other riders.

Here are some photos, although believe me when I say they don't do this thing justice.

This is the top of the pass looking down the side we'd just come up. That void over the edge is where things began.

This is the steepest part at the top that was hell climbing. See the little cars struggling up it?

This photo is from the same spot as the one above, but just shows a little further down the road.

And here is my self portrait at the top

The rest of the ride was pretty tame. Of course it was downhill quite a bit which was nice, but we rode through downtown Tuscon around 4p and that was a bit stressful with the traffic.

As we left the top of the pass, we had a hill to bomb down, and decided to regroup just 2.5 miles down the hill so we weren't strung out all over the place. I averaged 31mph down the 2.5 miles, and didn't pedal once. I actually was on the brakes most of the way. Some of the turns were harry and the roads are very spotty. Nice some time, terrible others. I wasn't looking to get launched off my bike by a bump. Here is a photo of the side of the pass we went down.

Dinner last night was great. Mexican food, Fat Tire beer. Funny thing was that after dinner, we had a presentation by Bob Seebohar who is an elite coach and sports nutritionist. His claims to fame are the coach to Sarah Haskins (2008 USA Triathlon Olympian placing 11th in Beijing) as well as serving as the nutritionist to USA Triathlon in Beijing. He planned all of the meals while the team was together on foreign soil before heading to Beijing, and while there.

Any how, Bob railed on our dinner after we'd already eaten it giving us all a good guilt trip. It really wasn't that bad. He was a very cool guy (rode with us on day 2) and had lots to say. He is very big on training slower, changing the way your body metabolizes energy stores, and switching your energy systems to consume more fat stores (which you have about 180k-200k calories of) during training than glycogen stores (which you have 1.5k-2k of). Common sense stuff, but he had some interesting data on testing he'd done, and some ideas on how to put it in practice.

After the nutrition discussion, we got the nickle tour of TriSports from Seton I spoke of earlier, then it was bed time.

A good day in all. The other campers are all very good people. There is a pretty wide range of abilities but I'm on the top end of the spectrum so it gives me the opportunity to push if I want, or sit back and be more social.

More later.

The Diesel

2009-02-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

This was clearly the highlight of the NBA Allstar Weekend.

Here is the instrumental version of that Nas' song.

Hero (Instrumental) - Nas

Power Test

2009-02-18T12:19:00.000-08:00

I did a Functional Threshold Power (FTP) test on the trainer last night. I was trying to use the test protocol as prescribed in the Coggan and Allen book, Training and Racing With Power. Ironically, I couldn't find the book last night, and had to do the test based on my vague recollection of how it was laid out. It turns out I was close enough, and think the way I did it will give me good results. The key is repeating the test each time to track improvement.

I wanted to get a test in prior to heading of to AZ for 5 days of riding, and at the start of this Half IM build. I've never really tested myself regularly on the bike, so I'm hoping to learn a bit about myself with these tests.

I did a 10 minute warm up building up to what ended up being Zone 2. At 10 minutes, I gave a 10 min max effort interval. The purpose of this interval is to knock some of the freshness out of your legs for the real test to follow. Then I recovered for 15 minutes in Zone 1, then the test came with 20 minutes of max effort.

the 20 minutes felt like they lasted forever. The trainer tends to do that to me. I found myself squirming around a bit from the discomfort of the interval trying to find a place that didn't hurt. I'd do some time down on the aero bars, then pop up for a second onto the hoods, then I'd down shift a bit and do a high cadence span, then up shift and grind it out some. Then I'd stand and push a big gear for a few seconds. Just about anything to pass the time.

I recovered with a 5 min spin.

I'll re-test in a few weeks and hope that we see some improvement.

What's Next, and Thoughts on Training and Families

2009-02-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

Here is how the Spring season is shaping up.

Feb 25-Mar 1: Gorilla Multisport Training Camp in Tuscon, AZ. Lots of riding, some speakers, some swim and bike skills clinics, and more riding. I'm hoping this camp will help to accelerate my riding a bit. It will be a good way to kick off my build to my A race this Spring.

Mar 14: St. Patrick's Sprint Tri in Keller, TX. I have 3 friends doing this race and it will be a first tri for all three of them. I'm more interested in seeing these guys out there than I am doing it myself. Two are work buddies (Jason and Jon). We were all running on the treadmill a week and a half ago and I sort of in passing suggested they try a triathlon some time. That led to 10-15 minutes of questions about how they work, what the distances are, etc. A week later, they signed up. They've been to the pool twice since to make sure they can cover the swim distance, have been peppering me with swim tip questions, and are fired up to give it a try. Jason has a road bike, Jon is going to borrow his brothers after deciding he didn't want to use his mtn bike. The 3rd friend is Patrick who lives a couple of blocks away and has kids who are friends of mine. Patrick is at the beginning of what will be a 10 month effort to get him to the finish line of Longhorn 70.3 in Austin this Oct.

Apr 5: Lonestar Qtr Iron Tri in Galveston, TX. This will be the 4th time I've done this race which makes it the staple in my race portfolio that I never miss. This course serves as a good measuring stick for me. I've improved my time every year I've done it (although the first year swim was the 1.0 mi Oly distance, not 0.6 mi qtr dist), and hope that continues. I've got two Houston friends (Tim and Darren) doing this race and am excited to see them out there, and David will be there with a few of his athletes doing the Half Iron distance. Perhaps my buddy Alberto will be there. He is training for IM Brazil in May, so timing may not work for him. It is fun watching him improve at this race every year. He's turned into a serious contender in the AG.

May 17: Florida 70.3 in Orlando, FL. This is my A race for the Spring. I'll be doing a 14 week build up to it which starts this Monday. The build is a little short relative to what most of the popular training plans call for, but I did a 12 week build up to Longhorn last year and was starting from a much lower fitness level, so I think this should work out alright. In the past, staying to a plan for more than a handful of weeks had been a challenge for me, so last summer 12 seemed like just enough to get ready, and was what I thought was achievable. I've learned that a plan that is not achievable, or is more an ambition than a plan is a waste of time that has negative consequences. During last year's 12 week build to Longhorn, I learned to enjoy the process more and it helped me to sort out my priorities which has instilled positive change that has stuck. 14 is a reasonable increase that is (key word) achievable in my mind, so we'll give it a go. The course in Florida is mostly flat, it will be warm, and I hope to have a good day. The trip will include a visit to Disney with the kids, and we'll be bringing my in-laws along. Lots of distractions, but that can work to your advantage some times if it distracts you from wasting time and energy on frivolous or nervous activities.

After that, I'll take it easy in June before starting a build up for Longhorn, and will build a plan incorporating what I learned last year during the Longhorn build up, as well as what I've learned this Spring.

My wife (Ingrid) has started running again. She has some pretty impressive run results to her name from a few years ago and is just getting back after 4 years of hiatus to have some babies. She's retained the services of David and is starting to build back into it with a half marathon later this Spring as the goal. We've coordinated our schedules so that we can make all of our workouts when we want them as it fits with all of the other activities we have going on. The complexity is impressive, but it will be routine in no time.

I'm very lucky to have a wife who is in to athletics, staying fit and training and racing. At night when we are putting the kids down, sometimes I'll have already changed into my running or cycling clothes so I can get my workout in as soon as they are down. My kids know that when they see me in workout gear that I'm going out to train but they haven't figured out that tight spandex = ride, and short shorts = run. They always try to guess which one I'm doing and sometimes after I tell them they'll ask "why." Ingrid will tell them that Daddy is going to workout because it is important. I have to believe that my kids seeing me be active and working towards a goal will be a good thing in the long run, as long as my goals don't get in the way of their goals or development. It is a fine line, but having an understanding wife who will have dinner after 8 or 9pm most nights without questioning why is a luxury I cherish.

It should be a good year. I'm hoping to learn more, stay healthy, and enjoy the investment in myself.

Cheers!

The Texas Half

2009-02-08T18:25:00.001-08:00

Okay, race report time.

In the days leading up to the race, I came down with a head cold. I've noticed that with my improved fitness over the past year, I've had a good string of avoiding the 2-3 major colds I had traditionally been getting every year that would knock me out of commission. When I have caught a bug, I've been able to shake them off pretty easily.

This cold was sort of lingering, but hadn't knocked me out. It just wouldn't go away. Terrible sore throat, and a real stuffy nose, but it didn't move to my chest.

On race morning, I woke up feeling how I had the prior morning, really sore throat, and lots of head congestion. I spoke with David the day before and we'd decided not to take any meds. I hadn't been taking anything in the days prior, and we figured it didn't make sense to experiment on race morning.

I had a mini bagel with peanut butter, 1 vanilla ensure, a bottle of G2 gatorade, and about half a cup of coffee.

I rode to the race with David and Sarah. Sarah was doing the race with me along with 3 of David's other athletes (Fred, Katie, and Patrick).

It was unseasonably warm that morning. 63 degrees at 6:30am on our way over, with a forecast in the 70s with lots of wind. Not great, but better than 30 for sure. I wore shorts and a short sleeve dri fit.

I hit the porto-john, did some stretching and a light jog and was ready to go.

The course was a loop and change around White Rock Lake. With the wind to start, and against the wind to finish.

I wanted to get out in the 8:40s and sit there for the first 3 miles or so before dropping down under 8:30s, but only managed that for the first mile before my pace crept up. I thought some of it was due to the tail wind, by my HR would suggest that I was working too hard at the beginning. The RPE didn't correlate so I'm lead to believe some of it is elevated HR due to the respiratory infection, but who knows.

Here were the splits (HR):

1. 8:41 (170)
2. 8:26 (175)
3. 8:34 (177)
4. 8:24 (177)
5. 8:25 (176)
6. 8:24 (176)
7. 8:27 (176)
8. 8:37 (175) turned into the wind here
9. 8:27 (175)
10. 8:32 (175)
11. 8:53 (175)
12. 8:55 (174)
13. 9:20 (172)
13.1 8:58 pace (174)

Time was 1:53.39 (175 HR).

Things never really felt right. I could feel my lungs working real hard the whole way. I didn't have a cruise control I could sit in in the first half of the race and just commute and conserve.

Right at the 10 mile marker was where things unraveled. I was uncomfortable as I had been the whole way, but didn't feel as if I was coming undone. I'd just popped my last gel as I was approaching the aid station, and was looking for a lot of water to help wash it down, and because the heat/humidity had me pretty parched at this point. So I find my volunteer and plan to take two waters, but she only had one (the other hand had gatorade in it). No problem, hopefully it is a full cup, but I looked in the water cup she'd given me and it had about an inch of water in it. I had taken 6-7 steps past the station when I realized this, and decided it wasn't enough, and turned around to go back to the table and grab another cup. I walked a bit during this detour, and as soon as I stopped running, my quads immediately locked up something terrible. I couldn't get them going again, and the lactate just continued to build for the last 3 miles.

I was very close to walking a few times, but found that I could keep moving at about 9min miles, and that is what I did.

In looking back at my HRs, I think getting up over 174 so early in the race probably put me out of my aerobic zone too early, and too often, and I couldn't get rid of the lactate fast enough, and I was essentially a ticking time bomb that blew at the 85 min mark. In San Antonio in November, I didn't hit 175 HR mark until mile #9. Infections elevate the HR as does dehydration and I think I was impacted a little by both.

That all said, I think I did pretty well on the day. Had I gone out a little slower, I probably could have got closer to my PR (I missed it by 29 seconds), but I wasn't there to match a PR, and so I went for it from the beginning.

I'm very sore the day after in the quads. Ironically everything else feels fine. Hamstrings, calfs, etc are ready to go, but the quads are completely shot. And the little head cold has blossomed into a full on whopper of a cold, which will shut me down completely for at least another day or two and hopefully no more.

David's other athletes all did well. They are training up for the Lonestar Half Ironman in Galveston and seem to be progressing well.

Sarah's dad got some good pictures out on the course. Unfortunately I was in a world of hurt for many of them and don't look too good in any of them.

Any how, good experience, my running has jumped leaps and bounds this winter, and I'm eager to apply it to tris this Spring.

2009 Fantasy Baseball Draft Order

2009-02-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a short audio file of the release of the draft order for the 2009 Rice MBA Fantasy Baseball League. Click HERE.

Hanging On

2009-02-05T07:02:00.000-08:00

I seem to have come down with a little cold. It hasn't got the best of me yet, and still is only hanging out in the head, but timing isn't great.

I'm taking lots of zinc (which will make you puke on an empty stomach I've found) trying to hold this thing off.

Wish me luck.

Taper has Begun

2009-01-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's 2 hour run with some long sustained hard intervals marked the end of the grind, and the beginning of a taper for me.

The goal race is the Texas Half 2 weeks from last Saturday, and the taper is welcomed. While the running volume hasn't picked up too much over the last few weeks, the intensity certainly has, and my legs are ready to recharge a bit.

I'm interested to see how they respond to a little rest. I've found that getting into my pace zones hasn't been quite as difficult over the last few weeks, and staying in them for sustained periods has become a bit more tolerable. What has lacked is spring in my step, and the ability to feel fast. I think that is going to come with some rest.

One exciting milestone for me is that my next run scheduled for tomorrow will put me over the 100 mile mark for the month of January. My biggest month ever prior to this month was in the high 80s, so I'm proud of that accomplishment.

Last week ended up being about 8 hours of training and 28 miles of running, and this week will be in the 6 hour range with maybe just 18ish miles of running. There is still going to be some intensity, but not as much grind. A couple of swims this week to keep the cardio in check, and a couple of easy bike rides too.

My goal is to improve on my performance at the San Antonio Rock'n Roll Half Marathon I did back in November. I think with a well executed race, I can do that. I have two weeks to come to terms with how much it is going to hurt, but won't need that much time and will be ready to suffer for a little under 2 hours come race day. It's gonna be good and pukey!

Checking In

2009-01-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

Nothing major to report. Just checking in. I'm pretty wiped chilling on the couch with the Mrs tonight. I did an 80 min run at slightly more intensity that normal late last night, did a swim this morning, and a long ride mid day today. Right after my ride, I took my oldest daughter on a short hike down by the lake. Only when the fatigue was settling in did I realize I'd done about 4.5 hours of training in a 24 hour period. Oh well, I'll sleep good tonight.

This morning I drove all the way to the pool (about a 25 minute drive on freeways) only to realize I'd left my swim bag in the laundry room. Luckily, the Sat swim runs from 7-9, so I knew I could get home and back to the pool and still get in over an hour of swimming if I wanted to. My swimming pal Sammy who I'm guessing is about 24 and a Tulane Swimming Alum stuck it out for the full 2 hrs and kept me company to the end of the workout.

This week has been tough. I didn't bounce back from the 15K last Sat like I had hoped. I felt good on Sunday and got in a 2.5 hr ride, then tried to go for a run on Monday but it was too early to be running again. My legs were not cooperating. Coach and I made some changes to the schedule, and I followed up that workout with a spin on Tuesday which felt fair. I tried to run again on Wed and had a very sharp painful knot in my left hamstring that forced me to shorten that workout and was enough to have me concerned.

I got a massage reference from the Gorilla Multisport people on Thursday morning, and by Thursday afternoon was getting worked on by a very knowledgeable and technical massage therapist. I learned a lot about my physical condition just talking to him while he worked on my legs.

I came away from the session a bit fatigued. I've heard a good massage will release some pretty serious toxins from your muscles into your blood stream, and I really could feel it. By Friday morning, my legs were still worn from the session, but the knot was gone, and by Friday afternoon, I'd fully recovered and was ready to do my 80 min run on Friday night, which went as good as could be expected.

I've got a long run tomorrow but the weather should be descent for it.

Does Anyone Else Find This Funny?

2009-01-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Bold N The Cold Race Report

2009-01-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

Bold N The Cold 15K is in the books. The race lived up to its name for sure. We had another seasonably warm day yesterday, but a front came in over night and we woke up to mid 30's weather, and 20+ mph sustained winds out of the NNW. It was around 37 degrees at race start, with a wind chill of about 20 degrees. It was F'ing cold to say the least.

I rode over with David and did my best to stay in the car when I wasn't picking up my race number or hitting a port-o-john.

The race was held in Grapevine just on the South side of Lake Grapevine on a course I've done a number of runs and bikes on, so I was very familiar with the winding course, all of the hills, and the areas where I thought I'd be exposed to the wind coming off of the lake. I wore tights, a long sleeve dry-fit shirt, a wind breaker jacket, hat, and gloves, and didn't shed a bit of it as the race went on.

I probably got off to a bit of a fast start, but it was down hill with the wind for the first mile and it is hard to tell. I settled in at mile 2 and 3 pace wise, but never really got comfortable with the effort.

I was planning on taking in a gel on the course, but the water stops were unpredictable, and the amount of water they were offering in the cups would not have been enough to wash down the gel, so I was a little leery of stomach problems. I pushed on with out it.

Here were my mile splits:

1: 8:07
2: 8:24
3: 8:27
4: 8:18
5: 8:17
6: 8:27
7: 8:23
8: 8:14
9: 8:31
9.3: 7:47 pace

Overall I was 1:17.44 ish (8:20/mile) with a 173 HR. The race had just under 1,000 feet of ascent.

Heart rate was pretty low, but I think the cold weather had a lot to do with that.

The race did give out sweatshirts, and a skull cap (a toque for you Canadians out there) which was generous given the modest $25 entry fee.

Overall, I'm modestly pleased with the effort. I'm not sure what it tells me about myself. An 8:20 pace is about where one would guess you'd be if you are around 8:06 for a 10K, and 8:38 for a half marry. When I plug the time into this pace predictor, it tells me the effort correlates to a 50:46 10K (52 secs off my PR) and a 1:51.35 half marry (1 min 35 secs better than my PR), so who knows.

The conditions were miserable which will be good practice for whatever gets thrown at me at the half marathon I'm running next month. We'll hope for something more pleasant however.

Bold in the Cold 15K Preview

2009-01-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, I'll be running the Bold in the Cold 15K in Grapevine, Texas. The weather is looking to be a bit on the chilly side, but it should be okay.

I'm curious to see where I am. I've got a good bit of miles on my legs over the past few months, but am not sure where my overall fitness is. I'm up a few pounds from my last road race, which could come back to haunt me.

The game plan will be to get out fast in the mid 8's, and to bring it down to the low 8's and hang on. There are going to be hills which will mess with the splits a bit, but I'll focus on the effort and hope it smoothes out.

I'll post the race report over the weekend.

2008 Training Summary

2009-01-01T09:28:00.001-08:00

So 2008 ended up being a pretty good year on the training front given work, little kids, a new baby, and some international travel. the second half was more productive than the first in terms of both quality and volume. Here are some stats.

2008 Hours:
Total: 315 hours
Most in a month: Aug - 55
Least in a month: June - 9

2008 Swimming:
Yards: 130,850
Most in a month: Sept - 30,700
Least in a month: June - 0

2008 Biking:
Miles: 2,479
Most in a month: Aug - 528
Least in a month: Dec - 71

2008 Running:
Miles: 641
Most in a month: Oct - 83.5
Least in a month: June - 15.1

Other Stuff:
Races: 6 (Lonestar Qtr, CapTex Tri Oly, Timberman Sprint, Longhorn 70.3, Four Seasons 10K, San Antonio Rock'n Roll Half Marry)
PRs: 4 (Qtr, 70.3, 10K, Half Marry)

I've been tracking my workouts in a similar format since 2002 when I first got into triathlon, and I can tell this is the 4th biggest swimming year by volume over the 7 years I've been tracking, the 2nd biggest biking year (2005), and the biggest running year (by 5 miles over 2005) since 2002. My biggest training week by volume was Sept 1-7 and was 14.9 hours.

If you look at my volume by month, most months were a little light relative to past years, but August and Sept were huge and moved the year forward quite a bit. No wonder I lost a ton of weight over those 10 weeks or so, and picked up some great fitness and speed that I'm slowly eroding away over the winter months here.

Nov-Dec have been more productive than normal years so I shouldn't be starting in as big of a fitness hole in the Spring as is usually the case. The run focus will surely pay benefits next year too. Finally, I've signed up for a tri training camp in Tuscon Arizona this coming February and should get in 16-20 hours of riding over a 5 day period if I can handle it pushing the biking volume forward big time.

When I was swimming competitively in High School and College, I never logged my workouts with an regularity, so I have no stats to draw back on. That is what the coaches were for. But I know that in High School over our Christmas Holiday break, I'd do nothing but train. My team called it Black Xmas and it was miserable most of the time. I was a walking zombie for 2-3 weeks but my family never travelled over the holidays because I didn't dare miss this training. It would set up your entire season. College winter training was intense too, but we'd cap out the NCAA mandated 20 hours per week max pretty easily which limited volume. Anyhow, I know for a fact that we would swim over 100,000 yards a week during Black Xmas. Considering I swam 132,000 yards in 2008, I know there is a lot more I can be doing at least mentally if not physically to maximize my potential.

There are lots of people putting in much longer hours than I am, so I don't kid myself into thinking this is impressive by any means. I've always been a stat and numbers guy, and this is just a way for me to quantify a part of my life which is how I prefer to view things, and is good for motivation which I am regularly short on.

I'm looking forward to 2009 for many reasons. Here is to a healthy and prosperous new year to all of you. May your goals be lofty, and your accomplishments plentiful.

Happy New Year.

Dinger's All-Time Dodger Team

2008-12-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows I'm a huge Dodger fan. I first went to a game at Chavez Ravine with my Grandfather some time in the mid 80s. He was the Commissioner of Water and Power for the City of LA, and was appointed to that post by Mayor Tom Bradley. With the job came tickets to lots of things. He got tickets to just about every event at the '84 Summer Olympics, and also had great Dodger tickets within reach.

I didn't start following the Dodgers until some point in the early '90s. We'd just moved to LA a few years earlier, and I was old enough to understand how to read box scores in the LA Times, and things just began to snow ball.

On this slow day before Xmas, I've decided to spend some time coming up with my all time Dodger team, but first, my criteria.

This team isn't going to be the best team ever assembled, nor is it going to have the greats like Jackie Robinson or Sandy Koufax. My rules are that these have to be guys on teams that I followed (so starting with the 1993 season), and guys I love for one reason or another. Maybe they were an underdog, maybe I saw them outside of the ballpark in LA one time and they were cordial. Whatever, it is my list and I'm picking.

I'm going to try to fill out a 25 man roster, and I'll give brief descriptions of why these guys made my team. So here we go:

Starting Fielders:

C - Mike Piazza: Is this any surprise. The most prolific catcher in baseball, won the rookie of the year with LA, was dominant, hit the longest HR I've seen in dodger stadium in person, then got dumped by the evil Fox empire. One word, mustache!

1B - Erik Karros: This was tough. Karros spent as much time hurting the team by playing through injuries when he wasn't effective as he did help it. His clout on the team made it impossible for any manager or GM to question him. Every September, we would finally hear about his season long back injury that had hampered his ability, and every March, we'd hear about some new revolutionary offseason core strengthening program he'd been through which would rejuvenate his career. All this being said, he manned first for 11 years, which is 2/3 of my years following the Dodgers. Plus, my mom always had a crush on him. A couple of years from now, James Loney will take this spot over in my mind.

2B - Eric Young: I was always a fan of his ability. He never got his due, but was a good fielder and an above average leadoff guy who would run. I have an affinity for leadoff hitters as you'll see in this list. He was one of our better ones, and the two tour stop with the Dodgers makes him unique.

3B - Adrian Beltre: What could have been, then what was. This guy broke in with the Dodgers at 20 years old, or was it 19? We ended up getting busted for signing him at 15 and falsifying his birth certificate, so I'm not sure how old he is, but he came up from AA young. Outstanding defender, and you could put him down for .260 with 20 bombs unless it was a contract year, in which case it was .334 with 48 bombs on a bumb leg. somehow, we convinced ourselves the bumb leg was causing him to be more patient at the plate allowing him to lay off the slider away in the dirt, but I think a pharmacist in Tijuana might disagree.

SS - Rafael Furcal: I love this guy. always have, always will. It started when we both resided in Atlanta for a number of years. Glad to see him back with us for 3 more. Switch hitter with pop for a little guy, and a fire hose for an arm. Again, a speedy leadoff guy who gets it done when healthy.

RF - Raul Mondesi: Did I say Rafi had a hose for an arm, well then Mondesi had a cannon. He even went so far as a tattoo one onto his arm. Vin Scully once said the Dodgers were lucky he grew up in the Dominican, because if he had grown up in the states, he'd be playing fullback for the Chicago Bears. Worlds of talent, 5 tools, a 30-30 guy in 1999. Good average, big pop, legs, subpar OBP. Vin also said the reason he didn't walk much was because Mondesi once told him no one walks off the island, you've got to hit your way to the bigs. He is now in politics in the Dominican so I've read.

CF - Brett Butler: My biggest man crush has to be on Brett Butler. The everyday guy who was lights out. This guy could bunt! He would say the difference between a sub .300 leadoff hitter and someone over was bunting. He added a dozen extra base hits a year with the bunt. He was a great fielder, good guy, great leadoff man, could run. My two favorite memories were one of him appearing on the home video show taking a whiffle ball off of his 3 year old son's bat to the groin, and that ridiculously long glove he used to snag fly balls in the OF. Cancer forced him to retire too early. He could have played for ever.

LF - Gary Sheffield: Another tough one. Never liked the guy, but he was the most talented guy the Dodgers had in my era. He could hit all of the good pitchers. Motivation and ego were his downfall. If he was mad, or ever got booed, or the game was on the line, he would deliver. Problem was only 10% of at bats fell in that boat. Coming in to replace Piazza was impossible, and he was always pissed Shawn Green made more than him. He never learned that attitude built a fan base more than numbers.

Starting Rotation:

#1 - Ramon Martinez (R): Ramon was a god for several years. I'll never forget his no-hitter, I believe against the Marlins. It was 1995 and I was driving around in Torrance listening to the game on the radio. As the innings wore on, I realized this was happening and had to pull off the road and find a TV. Piazza caught the game and said all they threw were fastballs and changeups, he was that good that day. Ramon was the oldest of the 3 Martinez brothers, all in our organization in the 90s. He is the last Dodger to have a 20 win season, and was always a good guy from what the fans could tell.

#2 - Orel Hershiser (R): The Bulldog had already solidified his place in Dodger lore before I jumped on board, but I did get to enjoy him first hand in 1993-94 as well as his return 2000. The guy was a saint, and I'll always enjoy my signed baseball I won in some swim meet raffle.

#3 - Hideo Nomo (R): Nomomania was almost as big as Fernandomania, and I enjoyed every minute of it. He extended the Dodger rookie of the year streak to 5 years, and contributed a No-hitter in Colorado of all places. His stats really are eye popping. In his first 3 seasons in LA, he was 43-29 with an ERA in the 3s, and 703 K's. Then we traded him to NYM right as the league was figuring him out. He nearly fell out of the league before recreating himself for a second life in baseball and a successful return to the Dodgers in 2002-2004 where he was almost as effective as he was in the 1995-1997 stint. He blazed the way for Asian players to come and be successful in the majors.

#4 - Chan Ho Park (R): Chan Ho had great numbers in LA, and was a more likable guy than Nomo was. He choose to learn the language and assimilate more than Nomo did. He was an enigma when he left our team, but with us, his numbers were great. And who can forget the Chan Ho double leg drop kick during a brawl with the Angels
#5 - Brad Penny (R): This was tough. I thought about Kevin Brown here but couldn't do it. The guy was lights out, but there was his horrible attitude and the obvious juice. I went with another guy I'd put in the hard ass category, but one I like. Penny is probably questionable in many people eyes, but I'm a fan. I like how he looks out there, I like the high socks, the audible grunting as he throws fastballs, and the 95 plus gas. Don't forget the All Star game he started where he was touching 98-99 and was unhittable. Dodgers fans turned blue in the face watching that just waiting for his arm to implode.

Bullpen:

Closer - Eric Gagne (R): Easy. This guy was the face of the Dodgers for 2-3 years. Welcome to the Jungle was his song, and he even had a caricature the Dodgers were throwing on T-shirts. This guy was nearly unhittable for 3 years (except in Allstar games) and pitched almost every night.

Setup - Jonathan Broxton (R): You gotta pick a guy named Bull. Conservatively listed at 6'4 - 240 but he is way bigger. Still he's got the baby face but the imposing relief pitcher look. He was great setting up Saito and hopefully there is more to come from him.

Situational Lefty - Scott Radinsky (L): Radinsky is a favorite of mine. He recovered from Hodgkins disease and was awesome for us. Three seasons with sub 3 ERAs. The best part was that he was the lead singer for a couple of punk bands my brother and I listened to Ten Foot Pole and Pulley. When I lived in Atlanta, I'd go to all 3 of the games when the Dodgers were in town. One season during game 1 or 2, I walked out near the bullpen and asked him if he'd sign my CDs if I brought them to the game the next day. Sure enough, the next day I handed him 3 CDs and a paint pen and he spend the rest of the inning drawing pictures of guys skating on the cover jacket of the CD. Cool guy!

Long man - Jose Lima (R): Lima Time! He sings, he throws, he dances, he wins post season games. He was with us for a short time, but I loved every minute of it.

Pen - Matt Herges (R): Matty Herges was good for us. Very versatile, and he was kind enough to take a picture with my wife and I at Vero Beach one Spring Training. I'll overlook the fact that he showed up in the Mitchell report for now.

Pen - Darren Dreifort (R): Filling this last spot was hard. Conventional wisdom says I should go with another lefty like Odalis Perez or Wilson Alvarez, but the Dodgers have not had many lights out lefty's in the pen that come to mind. Other guys in consideration for this last spot are Jeff Shaw, Mike Fetters, Jim Gott, Ismael Valdez, Pedro Astacio, and Todd Worrell, but I'm just not blwon over by any of these guys. Dreifort is one of those guys that had so much promise, but really under delivered, and yet, I seem to have forgiven him. He was partially misused and never should have been moved to the rotation. His body couldn't handle the load. But when he was right, he was devastating. Tony Gwynn never saw more movement on a fastball than he did from DD's two-seamer. I had the occasion to meet Darren in Torrance at a Dodger outing when he was in his early 20s, and he was a nice enough guy. So Darren gets my 11th pitchers spot.

Bench:

Backup Catcher - Russell Martin: I toyed with the idea of picking real backup catchers to occupy my bench spots, but at the end of the day, decided I wanted a mix of favorites. So apologies to Carlos Hernandez and Tom Prince, my favorite backup catchers, but Russell is getting this spot. Partly because he is a great ball players, and partly because he can serve as a backup 1B and 3B guy for me.

4th OF - Manny Ramirez: Is this fair? Picking a guy who has 187 ABs with the dodgers? It is and here is why. 1) Because no Dodger has ever had a more impactful 187 consecutive ABs, and 2) because it is my list. For the first time since Piaza and Sheffield, we had a guy on our team who I couldn't wait to see come up to the plate, and who could and did change the game entirely. Think about that. Sheffield had a great 2000 season, and a good 2001 season. But that is 7-8 years of hoping for a rally, or stringing together some hits only to be occasionally surprised by a shot. With Manny, I almost expected it. If he is back with us, and I think he will be, it isn't fair to expect it to continue, but I do expect it to be better than anything we've had in our lineup for years.

5th OF - Shawn Green: Shawn was magical for two season 2001 and 2002, then something happened and I'm not sure what. He began reaching for everything on the outside of the plate, trying to pull the ball which regularly resulted in beating the ball into the dirt just in front of his right (lead) foot to the 1B or 2B, often resulting in a DP. He was the poster boy of the organization, and that coupled with his salary really got under the skin of Sheffield. But he was a good ballplayer.

Utility IF - Chad Fonville: The little guy who could. He's listed at 5'6 155lbs, but I think that is generous. He could play a good second base, and I'm assuming he could play some shortstop if needed. He had wheels too. He didn't really put up good numbers and he only had about 500+ ABs with us, but he was fun to watch because he was so short. Honorable mention goes to Cesar Izturis and Alex Cora here. Had they not been pared together on Dodger teams, there offensive ineffectiveness wouldn't have stood out so much, and I might have liked them a bit more.

Corner IF - Olemdo Saenz: Olmedo the Tomato! This guy was clutch in a pinch hit role for us for years. And god for bid if he could play 162 games a year against the Pirates, he'd have put up Bonds type numbers. In 66 plate appearances against the Bucs, his avg/obp/slg was .429/.515/.857 with 7 HR and 22 RBI. He can't field, so I plan to use his bat off the bench and not the glove, but he can play the corners in a pinch

Mr. Everythign - Jolbert Cabrera: Jolbert played every position except catcher for the Dodgers, and he handled the bat well too for a guy off the bench. I've added him to my team so that I'm covered defensively in any possible circumstance that could come up.

I guess I need to pick a skipper and GM for this team too, so I'm going with Joe Torre to manage the egos, and will ask him to hire a pitching coach to handle all use of bullpen issues, as Torre clearly cannot. GM is tough. I think we have to credit Dan Evans with rebuilding the team after Fox tore it apart. He hired folks like Kim Ng and Logan White I believe, who are still with the Dodgers. Then there is Paul Depodesta who never got a fair shake. He made some good decisions and some questionable ones (Jae Seo and Hee Sop Choi). Fred Claire is also an option, but I think I'll have to go with Dan Evans. He signed my media guide at a Spring Training game once, and was cool about it. Come to think of it, I once had Kevin Malone sign a baseball of mine at Spring Training just after Fox hired him, and I distinctly remember thanking him for making the Dodgers "great" again after signing Kevin Brown. Oops. That ball is in my night stand, and I let my kids throw it around the house and stuff. Not much of a keep sake.

So there you have it. My 25 man roster.

2008-12-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

All,

Baby Elise was born yesterday morning at 7:12am. She was 6 lbs 3 oz, and was 18.75 inches long. She is doing well as is mom, and both should be coming home tomorrow.

She's got a head of hair and is already a great eater, so we don't expect her to remain tiny for long.

When they brought her to us from the nursery yesterday, she came in a big stocking with a knit red hat. A nice touch!

My New Daughter

2008-12-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

By this time tomorrow god willing, my wife and I will be tucked away safe in the maternity ward getting settled in, and my baby girl Elise will be all clean, measured, weighed, and in our arms.

All has gone very well with the pregnancy and we can't wait for our little Christmas present to be delivered.

Reagan can't wait to have a baby sister she can dote on, and Jake is looking for anything that moves so he can smash (he is actually quite gentle with babies to our surprise).

It will be a hectic couple of weeks, but this time of year always is and we welcome it.

We have such amazing friends and families and it is overwhelming to be so spoiled by their help, encouragement, and kindness.

I'm not overly spiritual, but realize that what goes on in making a family is far too complex and beautiful for it to be pure luck, so I'll pray that we continue to be blessed on our big day tomorrow, and hope you will do the same.

Photos to come this weekend, hopefully.

Data Live

2008-12-11T18:29:00.001-08:00

My computer is back (4 days early) and all of the data is still there. Amen.

Computer Down

2008-12-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday night, my computer went into hybernation mode and never came out. I called HP and they said this was a known glitch with HP Pavillion laptops and to send it in. All of my data on the computer is going to get whiped out, but luckily I was able to get the Geek Squad guys to back the data up.

Needless to say, putting the computer back the way I want it with my files in theright places, and all of the software I'd loaded back onto it is going to be a major undertaking.

With all of this, I'm running a little silent and will not be back and at it for another couple of weeks.

The funny thing about all of this is that I'm most concerned with loosing my workout data. I'd got WKO+ the way I wanted it, and it was really starting to reveal some interesting things about my training. As long as I can get that back up to par, I can live with the rest.

18 miles at Town Lake

2008-11-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

David loaded me up with 3 consecutive days of running over the holiday weekend, and I made the most of it logging 18 miles out at Town Lake in Austin.

I've said it a half a dozen times over the past year plus on this blog, but Town Lake is hands down my favorite place to run in the world, period.

There are a few other places that come close. Running on the Timberman course in New Hampshire on a crisp late summer morning, maybe with a little fog is hard to beat. Running after work at the Memorial Loop at Memorial Park in Houston with a pare of shades on so you can people watch to your hearts desire is a good way to pass the time too.

But nothing tops Town Lake. You've got musicians, political activists, Asian Buddhists meditating, fast people, slow people, beautiful people (lots), ugly people (not many), pairs rowers, canoers, dancers, swimming dogs, leashed dogs, unleashed dogs, 2 cold water stops about 2 miles apart hosted by Run Tex, the local legit running store. It has it all!

The trails are crushed clay so they are good on the joints, and they dip down to the water line, then up about 20 feet above the water line and back down, so it is flat, but there is enough variability to give yourself a total body workout with no risk of an overuse injury. There are miles of trails, but the most popular sections run from the pedestrian bridge underneath Mopac down to 1st St. It makes for about a 4.2 mile loop. I ran this loop twice this morning.

The leaves were turning with lots of yellows, reds, and oranges. The temps were perfect. It was amazing.

I ran a hard 4.5 mile tempo run on Thanksgiving morning, a 5 mile recovery run on Friday, and a long 8.5 mile run this morning.

A funny thing happened this morning. I was very stiff starting out and my lower legs from the knees down were tight. My workout was 20 mins base pace, the 3x20 mins (15 mins base pace, then 5 mins marathon pace).

As the run went on, my HR in both the three base pace intervals, and the three marathon pace intervals got lower. In the base, it started at 158, then 156, then 154. Each interval also got faster starting at 10:00 pace, then 9:48 pace, then 9:32 pace. In the marathon pace intervals, it started at 162, then 160, then 155 and the speed of the intervals was 9:15, 9:09, and 9:12. A very strange phenomenon. I guess it was me just getting warmed up, and my lungs opening up as the run went on. It obviously felt good and not only did it feel like it was getting easier as I went on, but I guess the data would say, IT WAS getting easier. Weird, but I'll take it.

On Wed and Thursday, I headed over to Barton Springs, the spring fed public pool in Zilker Park to soak my legs in the constant 68 degree water which aided in recovery.

I'm back at home now hoping for some upsets in the top 4 of the BCS, but it isn't looking good.

At least my Owls are giving U of H all it can handle.

San Antonio Rock'n Roll Half Marathon

2008-11-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

The SAT RNR Half Marathon is in the books. I'm back at home on my couch getting caught up the USC game from yesterday just trying to enjoy the rest of the Sunday.

The race went very well for me. I managed to exceed my expectations again which I've been doing a lot of lately for a change.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend some time with my buddies Tim and Darren from Houston. We met up for the race expo on Sat, grabbed lunch and dinner together afterwards, and carpooled to the race together this morning.

The race had over 30,000 people in it, with 20K doing the half marathon, and 10K doing the full. Packet pickup was at the Alamo Dome and as you'd suspect with that many people, was chaos.

Race morning went pretty smooth. We got dropped off real close to the start, got in a few pit stops in the bushes near by, a small jog in, and we just chilled out. It was about 38 degrees, but it didn't feel too bad.

The gun went off, but it took us over 12 minutes to hit the start line. They were good about staggering the corals, so we were able to get up to pace straight away.

The three of us ran together for the first mile, then everyone started doing their own thing. Tim took off, and I slowly pulled away from Darren. By about mile two, I lost sight of Tim, and just settled in to a good clip while trying to force myself to hold back a bit.

The highlight of the race for me came early on as we ran right past the Alamo. There was a 20 piece mariachi band banging away out front, huge crowds, picture perfect back drop. It was awesome. I'm Texan!

The course was nice and fast. Pretty much flat the hole way with only one small rise around the 4 or 5 mile mark as I recall, but benign in the grand scheme of things. The scenery was pretty good, and it was well supported as you'd suspect.

I started off with a couple of low 9 min miles before dropping under the 9 pace for miles 3-5. At mile 5, I took in my first gel, then dropped the pace down below 8:30.

I felt real good at mile 8 and 9 where I clocked my fastest miles, both 8:11. Mile 10 is where I first started to feel some of the pain. My pace crept up to the low 8:20s, and I had to slowly layer in additional effort just to hold it there the rest of the way.

I came through an aid station at about 10.5 miles and caught sight of Tim about 30-40 yards up the road for the first time since the opening minutes of the run. I just held my pace in the low 8:20s and he slowly came back to me. I know he'll read this so he'll get a kick out of this.

I probably fully closed the gap to Tim at about the 12.5 mile mark, but didn't want to pass him for fear that he would drop the hammer, and I'd have no choice but to go with him. I decided I had about a quarter mile of giddy up in my legs, so I wouldn't say hi to him until I felt we were within the last quarter to go. I didn't want to smack it, but probably could have at the expense of the rest of the upcoming training week.

We hit a slight hill right at the very end outside of the Alamo Dome, Tim slowed a bit, and I pulled up beside him and mumbled something like hello to him. I think he said "shit" or something like that.

I wasn't going to drop the hammer on Tim, and he was kind enough not to drop the hammer on me. We rolled across the finish line side by side. It was pretty awesome. A PR for both of us.

Darren PR'd too with a 2:05 and a solid effort.

Here were my mile splits:
mi 1 - 9:11
mi 2 - 9:07
mi 3 - 8:48
mi 4 - 8:54
mi 5 - 8:53
mi 6 - 8:26
mi 7 - 8:24
mi 8 - 8:11
mi 9 - 8:11
mi 10 - 8:22
mi 11 - 8:21
mi 12 - 8:21
mi 13 - 8:21
mi 13.1 - 1:43 (8:03 pace, my watch had the distance at 13.21, probably due to weaving)

Time: 1:53.10 official (1:53.19 on my GPS)
HR: 173 avg

I'm pretty happy with the pacing. The goal was to negative split the run, and while I don't have a half way point split, my last 6 miles were 3 min 32 secs faster than the first 6, so that is good.

My sciatica in my left leg is pretty painful post race. It was nagging and sapped some of my power starting at about the half way point of the run. I'm going to have it looked at pretty soon, just to see if I can start managing the discomfort a bit better. I've had the pain for years, but with the recent focus on running, it is more of a nuisance than it has been.

Other than that, I feel okay, just a little beat up from the hard roads and the fast miles.

The trip was fun, it was good catching up with my friends. We'll have to get some of those other Houston guys out at the next one.

Back in the Water

2008-11-13T06:25:00.000-08:00

My Masters swim team has been swimming at an alternate facility at super early times for the past 3 weeks while the bubble was being installed over the regular pool at Northlake Community College. It was supposed to be a 1 week install job, but they bought a new bubble for this winter and with it came installation troubles.

So I've only been in the water twice since Longhorn on Oct 5th, and only one of those swims was a propper workout.

This morning was the first day that the normal pool was back and business, which meant I was too.

I've got to say, I felt terrible in the water. Slow, weak, and sloppy. But I managed to get in 3,800 yards, and feel like it will come back quick.

When my swimming is going well, it is always a sign that the rest of my training is going well. I'm not sure why, and could probably spin a chicken and egg story if I had the time, but the two always seem to go hand-in-hand.

Here was the workout:

400 swim, 400 pull, 300 kick, 100 swim
5x200 swim even paced for all 5 (30 secs rest)
4x300 swim with fins descend 1-4 (30 sec rest)
400 warm down

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Advice of the week:
I think airline stocks are severly undervalued right now, and see a buying opportunity. The only thing to be weary of are airlines that hedged over the summer in a manner that puts their price floor on their collars $20+ above the prompt month price. They will have liquidity problems in 1Q09.

Florida 70.3

2008-10-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

I just signed up for the Florida 70.3 race on May 17th. I was looking for a big race to get excited about in the Spring, and hope this will be the one.

I realize there will be challenges with getting in the riding necessary to excel at this thing. The weather doesn't typically get enjoyable here for riding until late March, and there isn't enough light in the day for me to do many mid week rides outside until around the middle to end of April, so that is going to be my challenge, but I'll do the best I can.

I'm looking at the possibility of doing a week long camp in a part of the country where the weather is a bit nicer, and will allow me to pack 2-3 times my normal weeks swimming and biking volume over the course of a week to take my riding forward a few levels, and to get me right for something as challenging as a 70.3, but that is all just a thought at this point. Not sure if I'll make it happen.

The Florida trip sounds awesome. We just used hotel points and will be staying at the Swan Hotel on the Disney property. We got two rooms, and are asking my in-laws to come down to help us with the kids. Our newest addition to the family joins us in a little over a month, so Elise will be very little when we are there and having an extra set of hands and someone to stay back at the hotel while we are park hopping with Reagan and maybe Jake will make the weekend more enjoyable for all.

Should be a good time. For now, I'm focussed on the running, and David is guiding me through this phase. We'll keep the swimming and biking on low for now, but will try not to neglect it despite colder weather.

Four Seasons Cool 10K

2008-10-25T19:10:00.001-07:00

This morning I did the Four Seasons Cool 10K in Las Colinas, TX.

My friend and coach David and I headed over there this morning, and the race went well for me. I hadn't done a stand alone 10K road race since I did the Peach Tree Road Race on July 4, 2002, so I didn't really know what to expect, other than it would probably hurt like hell, and it did.

I ran a 49:54 averaging an 8:06 pace and 180 HR for the event. I sort of figured I'd be somewhere in the low 8 minute mile area, but probably thought 8:15 was more likely, so this was a pleasant surprise. Cracking the 50 minute mark was satisfying as well.

David and I were hoping to use the race to get a good benchmark we could use to set up pace and HR zones that will guide my training over the fall and winter. We'll test every month, so this is the first stake in the ground.

I had no idea what the course would be before hand, but it turned out I was very familiar with it and I am glad that I was. About 80% of the course was on my Wednesday night Dallas Athletes group ride. We basically started out with a steep climb, then it is pretty flat until mile marker #1. Then it was down hill for the next 11 minutes dropping about 110 ft. I looked across the street as we headed down and saw cones across the island, and knew I had to climb back up this thing at the end of the race. This climb is hell on a bike when hammering on my group rides with the DA studs, so I knew it would be worse on foot. Once your at the bottom of that hill, it is pretty flat until you hit some sharp rollers at the turn around before you are at the base of the climb at mile 4.1 ready to head back up to the finish.

I've got great graphs of my pace and the elevation, but can't figure out how to import them to my blog. I'll add them later if I can figure it out.

My splits were:
mi 1: 8:02
mi 2: 7:53 (lots of downhill)
mi 3: 8:06
mi 4: 8:12
mi 5: 8:33 (lots of uphill)
mi 6: 8:02
mi 6.2: 1:03 (7:04 pace)

Not much to report. It was weird having the race over so quickly. I paced it pretty well, didn't really die anywhere, ran with some folks for a while, and seemed to pick up more people at the end than there were people passing me.

I feel pretty good this evening. We'll see if I'm stiff or sore tomorrow morning, but I'm not anticipating it being too bad. The weather has been nice this weekend, so I'm looking forward to getting in a good ride tomorrow.

Garmin 405 is on it's Way

2008-10-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

I couldn't make it to XMAS, so my gift is on the way. This will mean good data this fall, and more time to help my kids open and set up their toys on XMAS morning! A win-win!

10/18 SNL

2008-10-19T07:42:00.001-07:00

Not sure if anyone else caught last night's Saturday Night Live, but it was probably the best one they've had in years.

Highlights included cameos from Oliver Stone, Sarah Palin, Alec Baldwin, and Mark Wahlberg, and the host was Josh Brolin, who I didn't realize was the big brother in The Goonies, an all time fav of mine.

Top skits for the night included:

The opener with Tina Fey doing Palin, only to be walked in on by the real Palin
MacGruber skits where MacGruber realizes that his stock portfolio has taken a hit which distracts him from defusing the bomb
A scene with Andy Sandberg and Mark Wahlberg building on last week's hilarious imitation of Wahlberg by Sandberg where he talked in a classic Wahlberg style to animals. This week, Wahlberg was at 30 Rock to get revenge on Sandberg only to be interrupted by people (and a donkey) and recite lines from last week's imitation
A Honkie Tonk bar scene where Brolin is hitting on a seated Amy Poehler only to realize when she stood up to come over that she was extremely pregnant
The weekend update where the real Palin joined Seth and Amy, and Amy did a rap Palin was "supposed" to do that she at the last minute thought better of that included background Eskimo dancers, a guy in a snow machine racing suit playing Palin's husband, and someone in a moose costume - all the while Palin is bobbing her head along with Myers off to the side.

Adele was the musical guest. I'd never heard of her before, but was impressed by her talent. She is from London, and sort of has that Amy Winehouse/Lily Allen style that we're seeing from several UK female vocalists. I figured when I saw her and she looked like a background singer at best, that she'd probably blow me away with her pipes, and she has a good set. Her second song (Cold Shoulder) was better than her first (Chasing Pavement).

This show was probably one "A" list musical guest and host away from an all time classic. All of the memorable skits had little if anything to do with Brolin. This show goes to the writers and cast. It was nice for them to take half a step back from the political topic, and sprinkle in some of the economy as their undertone. It was also nice for the political commentary not to be the typical sledge hammer to face pro-Obama anti McCain stance it has been the last half a dozen episodes or so. I guess having Gov. Palin on the set was enough for them to bring it down a notch.

What's Next

2008-10-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'm two weeks out from Longhorn, and am ready to turn the page. I didn't work out until the following Sunday a week after the race, and have had a light week here just trying to get into the swing of things.

I feel okay when I'm out there. My left hamstring which has bothered me for about 3 years now is still fatigued from the race, but is fine. The taper, and two weeks of hardly any training and I can tell that my fitness has taken a little step back. Nothing I couldn't get back in a couple of weeks, but the HRs are elevated, and although I've only put on a couple of pounds, I've probably dropped a lb or so of lean muscle mass in exchange for fat.

David and I have got things set up on TrainingPeaks.com where he'll be setting my workouts, and I'll be logging my data. My workouts are public (assuming David has no qualms) though I couldn't tell you how to navigate to them. My public username is Dinger.

So we've set up a plan to get us through Feb '09. It will start next weekend were I'll be doing a local 10K to put a stake in the ground and set my training paces and HR zones. Doing a flat out road race will be a new phenomenon and I expect it will hurt, but I'm game.

Once we've got that set up, we've got a couple of weeks of base training. We're going to train through the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marry I'm doing on Nov 16th with some friends from Houston, then one more week of base before we enter into a series of build weeks with some rest-n-test weeks sprinkled in. David's got a 15K Bold-in-the-Cold race on my schedule on Jan 11th, and the run season will culminate with the Cowtown Half Marry at the end of Feb in Ft. Worth, TX.

My goals are to improve my half marathon race pace which I hope will translate over to my triathlon running next season, build up my run volume, stay fitter over the winter than I normally am, and stay healthy.

David's going to keep me in the pool for an hour or two every week, and I'll probably stay on the bike a couple of times a week, particularly while the weather is still nice.

So that is the plan. Looking forward to it.

Official Longhorn 70.3 Race Report

2008-10-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

What a freaking week. Actually, what a freaking last two weeks. I am just now back home and sitting on my couch with my feet up for what seems like the first time in years. I promised a more detailed race report, so here we go.

We'll back up to the week leading up to the race. It was one of the longest weeks of work I've put in, and to be honest, it could have been much worse. I had analysts on my team working well into the morning hours most nights, was eating lunch at strange hours while at my desk putting down whatever I could find. I was missing planned taper workouts right and left. It was the worst possible week leading up to a race you could imagine.

I didn't have a minute to even think about the race, my nutrition plan, logistics for me or my family on race day, nothing until I got on the plane to fly down to Austin on Friday night.

Saturday came and it was packet pickup and bike drop off day. I did a short 20 minute ride around my parents house to make sure the bike was in working order, and to shake the rust off of my legs after not working out in a couple of days.

Packet pickup was at the Sheraton downtown on 11th street and it was a zoo. Lines, cramped quarters, etc. This was the second year of the race, but first as a 70.3 branded race, which means the entrants doubled year over year, so there were some organizational challenges experienced throughout the week that I'm sure Keith and Endorfun Sports will have ironed out by next year. I've got the race survey in my inbox and am waiting for some time to provide meaningful feedback.

I ran into David in line and we met up in the Pro Q&A for a bit. The panel was a good one. Kieran Doe, Richie Cunningham, Tim DeBoom, Bjorn Anderson, Simon Lessing, Bree Wee, Pip Taylor, Michellie Jones, and Lisa Bently. The questions were sort of boring, but the crowd was big.

I left the pickup to make the 20 minute drive east of downtown to the race sight, and while I was dropping of my bike, I noted how freaking hot it was, and that it was 2p, the time I thought I'd be finishing my race the next day. 90 degrees. So much for the low 80s Austin had earlier in the week. I took a big sip of gatorade and figured I'd better step up the hydrating.

I was in wave 12 of 14, so my race morning started off around 5a, not too bad. Parking was a zoo, but I found a good spot on the side of a road an easy walk from transition.

Body marking went smooth and I entered transition and started setting up. David was racked a couple of rows away from me and found me right away. We talked and got settled and it went smooth. A quick trip to the port-o-johns and I was ready to go.

Two weeks ago, we got an email from the race director saying the lake was in the high 80s, so wetsuits weren't likely to be legal, so I didn't even bring mine. By some amount of magical influence (ie icing down the thermometer, or dropping it in the deepest point of the lake) the temps were measured at 78 making it wetsuit legal for age groupers to the satisfaction of the slow swimming masses. There was no way this thing was 78.

So the waves set off in 3 minute increments and eventually I was up. We waded into the water, and the gun was off. For the first minute I was swimming through weeds and recall them wrapping around my neck and shoulders. Some even managed to latch on to my timing chip around my ankle and stay with me well into the first half of the swim.

In these 70.3 races, the competition is very good. You get the most serious of triathletes so I wasn't surprised when there were several swimmers up around me as we made our way to the first buoy. It took only 4 or 5 minutes before we'd caught the waves ahead, and it was chaos the rest of the way. I found a few feet to swim on for a minute or two in the first half of the swim and tried to take advantage when I could.

Before long, I was sighting the finish buoys and was up and running into transition. I looked down at my watch when crossing the first timing mat and saw 23:0x and thought, oops, someone measured this thing a little short. Another nod to the slow swimming masses by the race director. I figured I was going to swim about a 28 or 29 minute swim, so I'd say it was 5 minutes short at my swim pace.

Swim 23:28 (AG - 6th out of 224)

T1 was cake. I took my time, put my shoes on there rather than on the bike because so much of the transition area was dirt.

T1 3:33

Right after mounting my bike, some idiot was trying to get clipped in and was looking down at his pedals and not where he was going. He took a nice 90 degree left hand turn right in front of me and I had to slam my brakes throwing me off my saddle and headed for the ground. I managed to get a foot out of my pedals milliseconds before I was headed over and managed to stay upright, though I drove my chain ring right through the back of my leg opening up a pretty good scrape.

I told the guy he was an idiot, and went on my way.

The bike course was a blast. Rollers, wind, lots of turns. Because it was so variable, you were never doing any climbing or fighting the wind too long. It wasn't too hot that early in the morning and it was a pleasure. My meal plan for the bike was to take a clif shot block every time my stop watch hit a 20 min and a 40 min, and to take a gel when it hit the hours. I sipped water from my aero bottle whenever I felt like it and to wash down my gels and blocks, and tried to sip from my gatorade bottle every 10 minutes. I'd started putting just a few grams of whey protein into my first bottle of gatorade to promote digestion, and it seemed to work well.

The course was packed with riders, and I was overcoming people the entire way. It seemed a little like riding in the MS150 (more on the MS150 in a minute) because you are blowing past riders at a rapid rate all day wondering where the hell they are coming from. I guess that is a result of being the 12th of 14 waves and having such a short wetsuit legal swim.

I found myself riding with a few people for long stretches of the race. I'd pull ahead on flat or downhill sections, they'd pull away on climbs or when I was eating. Having that constant made me feel good. I rode through the first half of the course in 1:26 and was pretty pleased with that pace. I didn't have a computer on my bike, just my polar wrist watch (no HR strap) so I could occasionally look down at my speed, but the recording was intermittent so I knew the odometer wasn't going to be right. When I felt fast, I'd look down and be cruising at around 25 mph, when I felt slow, I'd only see 17 mph, so I knew I was moving well.

I tried to hold back a little on the climbs in an effort to save some legs, but other than that, was just riding comfortably. My cardio felt good the entire way. Legs did too. Back grew sore from being aero the entire way, but there were plenty of opportunities to stretch your back on downhills that had a sharp turn I'd have to break for anyways at the bottom.

Around mile 30, I was riding along up a slight hill when I dropped my chain. I thought about trying to pull it back on while still on the bike like I'd seen David Millar do at the start of the Prologue of a Tour de France a few years ago, but thought better of it. So I hopped off, spent a minute or so pulling it back on, then hopped back on and grinded my gears for a bit while trying to get going again before things were reset. I finished the climb and was cruising again.

During the second half of the ride, I looked around and felt like the scenery was very familiar. I figured the only way it could be was if we were on the same roads the MS150 used to roll into austin, and it turns out they were. Probably a good 7-10 miles toward the end was an overlap.

I ended up splitting a 2:43 which meant I brought the second half back in a 1:17 despite the chain incident. If I've learned anything in triathlon, it is that distances are never right, so who knows if the half way point was in the right spot.

Bike 2:43.04 = 20.6 mph avg (AG - 46th out of 224)

T2 was uneventful as well. I think I ran right past my spot on the bike rack for the 3rd or 4th consecutive race, but no big deal. Socks, socks, shoes, shoes, hat, number belt, go!

T2 2:39

I guess the run is where this thing got interesting. When does it not for me. I had to pee pretty bad, had tried to on the bike but couldn't relax enough to do it, and didn't think pissing all over my bike to save a minute was worth having a pissy bike I'd have to clean up when I got home. So I hit a port-o-john. One word of advice, if you have to pee after sitting in an aero position on a bike seat for 2+ hours, make sure your mouth is closed. You never know.

My plan for the run was to try to get comfortable as soon as I could, and hang on. I had no illusions of feeling golden at the end, so it was just a managed damage control march to the door steps of purgatory.

My HR shot up in the first few miles of the run from the excitement and change in motion. I think this may have led to my stomach shutting down a bit, because I noticed I slowly bloated as the race went on, and don't think I was absorbing as much of the fluid as I was putting down, but other than that, the GI track was good. No pain or cramping like last time.

The course was a 2 loop 6.5 mile track with about 4 miles on a long out and back on asphalt, and a 2.5 mile loop on grass/dirt trails. Let me tell you, this thing was hilly. Ups and down the entire way, including Quadzilla which was on grass/dirt at miles 4.7 and 11.2. The course had over 2,600 feet of elevation gain and loss on it according to my GPS watch.

Eventually I settled in and was ticking off 9:45 miles, was just trying to quiet my mind. Don't think about the heat, the hills, the people, anything. Zone out, hit the aid stations, and snap out of it twice a loop when I ran past my family.

After the first 4mi on asphalt, I was feeling okay, but as we hit the grass, the steep sharp hills started, and my legs started to load up with lactate acid.

I hit Quadzilla and there was an aid station at the bottom. I had no plans of running this thing, so I loaded up on fluids and started the climb up it. My GPS watch had the entire climb half a mile long at a 9.0% grade, with the steepest part 0.3 miles 13.9% grade.

At the top of the hill, there was a timing mat and a guy reading out names. About a second after my name was read, I hear the guy call out Female Pro Bree Wee from Kona Hawaii.

As she approached me from behind, I turned around to her and told her I loved reading her blog (http://breeweehawaii.blogspot.com/). She slowed a bit as she got next to me and gave sort of a sheepish laugh and said something I couldn't make out. I couldn't tell if she was laughing at me, so I asked her if I was coming across as a stalker, and she laughed harder. She said, "no, I'm just having another really bad day, and I'm sure you're tired of reading about my bad days on my blog." I told her to hang in there, and she looked over at me, stuck out her hand and said, "thanks, my name is Bree, what is yours?" We shook hands at the top of Quadzilla, she asked if I was on my last lap, and we talked about the weather a bit. She started to pull away from me, so I said goodbye to her, and she said "bye Greg, it was nice meeting you!" Pretty cool. The next thing I know, she turned the juice back on a bit and was gone.

As the run went on, my legs just started to lock up. At the start of the 2nd loop, I could feel my form going, and my power was gone. I started taking walk breaks on the uphills, which was very frequently. I tried to stick to the plan of running the flats and downs, and walking part of each hill, and all of the aid stations.

I was doing math in my head and knew no matter what, my swim and bike had set me up for a PR, even if I walked the second loop. I really wanted to go under 5:40, and started doing split calcs to make sure I was on track. When I got back on the trails for the last loop, I was hurting. It was hot as hell, and my legs were loaded. I ran down to the bottom of Quadzilla and started my march up it. At the top I had about 1.5 miles to go, and I was doing a run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute run/walk to bring it home. I cycled through about 5-6 times, and on the last few cycles, really had to dig deep.

I crossed the line with one arm in the air, proud of my PR.

Run 2:21.31 = 10:48 avg (AG- 129th out of 224)

Overall 5:34.17 (AG - 76th out of 224)

Usually when I finish, I am in terrible pain. I always leave it all out there. Normally within a few minutes of finishing, I start to feel better. For some reason, after I finished I didn't start feeling better. I actually started feeling worse. I made my way over to the medical tent and sat down for a minute. Someone found me a gatorade, and Ingrid found me and we just sat for a few minutes. My diaphragm started to tighten up and breathing started to become an effort. The volunteers at medical took me to one of the 50+ cots they had laying around in there as soon as one became available and hooked me up to an IV bag of saleen. I started to feel good in a matter of minutes, and the breathing was fine as soon as I lied down. Another bag (this time of electrolytes) and I was in good shape.

Ingrid and I left the kids with my parents that night and went to the post race BBQ that evening at the Hills Cafe in Austin. The food was good, the beer was cold, and the live music was outstanding as it always is in Austin.

I loved the race, and look forward to doing it again next year. I know I need more power to have a good run on that course. I'll probably need to hit the weights, and drop my weight a bit more (I lost 11 lbs in training for this thing, racing at 171lbs) to improve my power to weight ratio.

I've been out of town all week and am just now ready to go for my first run (or workout for that matter) since the race. I'm going to start with the running this week with the help of David, and hope to improve their a bit.

Off I go.

Long Horn 70.3 Mini Report

2008-10-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update on how the race went. I'll try to find time to do a proper race report, though I don't know when I'll get the chance. I've got a full week of travel to Indianapolis and Atlanta this week, but hopefully I can check in early this week.

The race went well. The swim felt good, and was very short. I split a 23:28min swim, and I'd guess it was about 5 mins short.

The bike was a blast. I felt fast and calm the whole way. My cardio was good so I wasn't working my aerobic system too hard, but probably could have chilled a bit on some of the climbs to save a bit for the run. I think I split around 2:43.04 (20.6 mph avg). Pretty good, only one little incident were I dropped my chain on a climb and had to hop off and wrestle with it a bit.

The run course was a bear. It was pretty warm, and this run was up/down the hole way, and the ups were unbelievably difficult. I was running sub 10s most of the time, but did my share of walking the up hills and through most of the aid stations. I think my run was around 2:21.31, but I'm not positive. I took one pee break at the beginning, but other than that, it was just a bunch of hard work.

I pushed the run pretty hard towards the end shooting for a time goal I established after finishing the first loop of the run, and it really did a number on me. The good news was that I made that goal, and had myself at 5:34.20 on my watch, which was a PR by over 34 minutes. The bad news was that I destroyed myself pretty good, and ended up in the medical tent after the race to take on two bags of IV fluid.

I felt good about an hour later, and now am full from the post race BBQ party at Hills Cafe.

I just watched the highlights from the Dodger game last night, and am ready to hit the hay.

More later.

Longhorn Tri

2008-09-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Two weeks from tomorrow, I'll slip into Decker Lake and set off for 70.3 miles of fun in Austin, Texas for the Longhorn 70.3 Half Ironman Distance Triathlon.

Training has been going well, and I'm optimistic I'll have a good day. I put in a solid 10 week build for the race, and am feeling better than I have in the past 18-24 months or so. 10 weeks isn't a lot, but they've been a quality 10 weeks, and given my home and work life, 10 is about as good as I've been able to do in stringing them together in quite some time. Other than this little nagging cold Jake brought home from a birthday party last weekend that he's distributed around the family, I feel good. I'm hoping to shake the cold by middle of next week.

I know very little about the course, but I'd imagine the swim will be compact with lots of catching of earlier waves, not too choppy from winds, but well turned up from the hundreds of people who hit the water ahead of me. The bike is supposed to be "fun" according to David, with some rollers, smooth surfaces, but just a little bit of automobile traffic. I've actually walked a 5k out on the run course, so I am vaguely familiar with it, but am sure I am in for surprirses. About half of each of the two loops is on grass, and the course is famous for a hill called "Quadzilla" which doesn't sound welcoming. This year, they've set timing mats at the bottom and top of "Quadzilla" and will be giving out awards for the top male and female times up the hill.

My only 70.3 time was from Timberman in 2007, and I was a 6:08. I am certain I am more fit this year, and think I handle rollers better than true climbs like there are in NH, so I think the course itself might hand me 5 mins. I've also added aero wheels and an aero helmet to my bike set up, however I don't think I'll be in a wetsuit for this race, but the net of the 3 probably gives me another 5 mins.

I haven't spent too much time thinking about what my time might be. Partly because I really am not sure what I'm capable of, but partly because I don't want to be chasing a goal time that is out of reach, then blowing up on the course. I'll just say that I'd like to go under 6 hrs, and think I can do that.

I'm already looking ahead to what is next. Running has been going well lately, and I've decided to see if I can take my running a big step forward in the fall/winter, and have taken a couple of steps to do that. I have procured an amazing running coach who is going to work with me over the winter, and am going to do a propper run build up and peak for a half marathon in late February.

Who is this amazing running coach? None other than David Gillen, my neighbor, co-worker, and tri buddy who I speak of often here. David is headed out to SF in about a month to do a weekend triathlon clinic, and will become a USAT Certified Triathlon coach upon completion. He is working with his wife Sarah this fall in hopes of guiding her to a Boston Qualifying time at the White Rock Marathon in Dallas this December. David has a wealth of knowledge on endurance sports, and I'm really looking forward to his guidance this winter.

If anyone is interested in talking to David about his coaching, you can access his blog The Gillens here.

Thats all for now. Here is to hoping for healthy legs, and pleasant weather 2 weeks from tomorrow.

Recall on Look Pedals

2008-09-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

I heard a couple of weeks ago about a recall on Look Keo pedals and found this website that had info about the pedals impacted, the manufacture dates in which the faulty pedals were made and some other relevant info.

I took notice because I have Look Keo pedals and purchased them in the window that Look suggested might correlate to the faulty pedals.

I knew I had Look Keo Carbon pedals, but couldn't tell if I had the Chromoly or the TI pair.

Turns out I have the Chromoly, and they have been recalled. You can tell by looking on the bottom of the pedal. There is a little circle with numbers and an arrow in the middle. There are two numbers, one on each side of the arrow. One is a zero. If the other is a 5, they're bad.

My bike store will have replacement spindals in on Wed, so I'll get them replaced next weekend. This weekend, I'm getting a new chain, and having my bike store re-glue my tubulars. They need a little realligning.

Hillary's Victory Speech

2008-09-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

What a Tri Week!!!

2008-09-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

I just finished up my Peak training week earlier today, and my friend Hillary put the cherry on top with her first place finish at IM Wisconsin. I believe this was her 30th or 31st ironman, but it was her first win. Way to go Hill!

So I logged 15.1 hours of training this week. I swam 8,200 yards, biked 129 miles, and ran 24 miles. I felt stronger as the week went on. I did my 3.5 hour long ride today, and was strong the entire way through. My speed is up, my HR is down, and I'm noticing that my speed at a given wattage is going up, which is likely due to dropping some weight.

I'm down to 173 lbs, which is the lightest I've weighed since before I graduated from college I believe. It is amazing how these 8-10 lbs have made running so much easier.

I've got a recovery week coming up here before I enter in to two weeks of build where I can start working on a little more speed. I plan to focus on stretching and eating very clean this week.

Good times!

Photos from NH

2008-08-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

Train ride with the kids

Paddle boat with Reagan

Hiking in Gunstock

Timberman Tri Finish

Riding in to T2

Roasting Marshmellows at Gunstock

Listening to a band at Packet Pickup

The new SRAM Red rear Cassette

The Machine all Primed for Action

A Boat Ride with the Kids

Get out the Door, Please

2008-08-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

Update:

I "got out the door" at 9am and had the best long ride I've had this training cycle. Legs felt good, low back allowed me to stay down on the bar for the entire ride, and I had a fast and comfortable transition run of 2 miles afterwards.

There was some cloud coverage which helped.

Now I'm just sipping endurox recovery watching my girl Hillary stalk Lisbeth Christiansen at IMKY. Could this be her first IM win? Hope so!!!
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It is 8:00am on Sunday and I'm hurting from yesterday/last night.

Yesterday's run ended up being at an effort level that was probably a bit too much. I didn't recover from it as well as I should have.

That effort coupled with a late night out to dinner with friends, and I'm dragging this morning.

It is supposed to be 96 degrees today, and if I don't get out the door in the next hour, I'm going to cook myself. I've got a 50 mile ride, and a 2 mile transition run on the schedule today. It might end up being a long day on the trainer upstairs if I can't get it going soon.

Here is the swim workout from yesterday (in a 25 Meter pool)

1000 swim
5x400 odds swim, evens pull on 6:30
300 warm down

Logging Laps on a Treadmill

2008-08-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I spend about an hour forty on a treadmill getting my long run in. I have a few tricks to make the time pass that I can write about, but in general I was content and could have kept going.

Physically, I felt good. I was running slow, keeping my HR under 145 and my aerobic engine could have gone on for hours. My legs were towards the end of their rope at the end, but that was to be expected given it was my longest run in over a year.

My tricks to keep my mind occupied are the following. I listen to music or podcasts on my ipod. Last night, I listened to the end of a B.S. Report from the Sportsguy, all of Ironman Talk, then about 20 minutes of music on my training playlist. Every 10 minutes I drink some water from my water bottle, and every 15 minutes I check my PDA for emails and text messages. Sometimes I open up a magazine (my gym has some pretty good multisport/endurance/outdoor mags) that is rich with photos and just sort of scan the page for photos, captions, and any writing in font large enough to make out while bouncing along. It works.

While I was in NH a couple of weeks ago, I attended the pro Q&A on Saturday at the race expo. Pros on the panel included Andy Potts, Michael Lovato, Dede Griesbauer, Simon Lessing, Karen Smyers, Chrissie Wellington, Fraser Cartmell and Torenzo Bozzone. The crowd of spectators wasn't as big this year compared to last, so it was easy to get questions asked and answered.

One question I posed to Andy Potts and Dede Griesbauer was how their swimming background and coming to triathlon with an understanding of how to train based on what they'd learned in the pool for all of those years helped their tri training, as well as how it hurt them. The answers were interesting.

For those who don't know, Andy Potts was one of the best US Milers in the pool. I think he even ended up third at an Olympic Trials in the 1500M just missing a spot to Sydney or Atlanta. Dede was also a great swimmer finaling twice at Oly Trials in the 200 Backstroke (my event) finishing as high as 5th at the '92 trials.

Andy's response was that after years and years of following a black line up and down the pool, that he had no problems putting his back wheel up on rollers or a wind trainer and doing a long ride on a trainer. He could also get on a treadmill and do a long or intense run and he would be completely content focusing on critical things like pace, feel, and form and not once wishing he was anywhere besides where he was.

That hit home with me a bit. I've always been more comfortable on a treadmill, trainer, or doing a short cycling course over and over compared to my peers.

In Houston, there is a great 1 mile bike loop at Memorial Park that lots of cyclist ride on. I logged many miles there in prep for my Ironman in '05. I can recall doing a 60 mile ride there on that one mile loop, then getting off the bike and running the loop a couple of times to get a transition run in. It didn't bother me. It was safe (no cars), had bathrooms right there, you didn't have stop lights or interruptions, and I could keep my replacement bottles at my car so they were always close by.

My buddies I was riding with at the time weren't as fond of the loop, and liked to get out on the open road and ride through the rest of the park. It all sort of makes sense now.

Don't get me wrong, my last post was about the most amazing run I had had in ages on a beautiful road along a lake, and my other favorite spots to run are at Town Lake in Austin, and on the running loop (a different loop) at Memorial Park in Houston.

I'm just saying I tend to spend my time thinking about other things, gauging how I feel or how my workout is going, or enjoying my music or podcasts. The setting I'm in is just icing on the cake.

I think swimming for years and years has conditioned me to be content this way. It is at times a solitary sport. There is no one to talk to when you are hurting the most, except in between intervals or sets. You have no choice but to focus on technique, pace (if there is a visible clock), how your feeling relative to the other day, earlier in that workout, etc., and you are maybe doing a little racing/pissing contest with the other people in your swim group. Other than that, there isn't much to focus on, but that list there gives you plenty to think about to get you through the session, and looking forward to coming back again later that day or the next morning.

Let your mind wander the next time conditions force you to run or ride inside. There is plenty to keep you going.

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I'm going to start posting my swim workouts. I've found that my blog is getting lots of hits from people googling swim workouts, or solo swim workouts, so I might as well give the people what they are searching for.

This was in a 25 Meter pool:

300 swim / 200 kick warm up
12x75 IM order (fl/bk/br, bk/br/fr, br/fr/fl, fr/fl/bk repeat 3 times)
4x200 swim on 3:15
800 pull with paddles
200 warm down

An Awesome Run Today

2008-08-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

I had one of those runs today that could have gone on for ever, and I would have been completely content with that.

I drove over to the run course of the Timberman 70.3 this morning and did one loop of the 2 loop half marathon course.

It was about 7:45am, the bank sign said 63 degrees, and it was a light rain with fog on the lake.

I felt good, was clicking off faster miles than my effort would have otherwise suggested, and could have gone on for another hour if I wanted to.

It was funny how easy the course felt when compared to doing it last year after a long swim and bike before getting out on to it. The monster hill that brought me to a walk last year was short and sweet, and was no problem.

I plan to do another run there, about 8 miles, on Thursday morning before we head back to Boston to catch our flight home. I can't wait!