Mid Season Push

Well, about half the racing season is finished and things are going pretty good. I'm not quite where I'd like to be at this point, but I'm healthy and still mentally motivated to take on the next couple weeks of intense training. I have one more triathlon planned (Detroit Lakes, August 15) and then it will be all about getting down and dirty to prepare for Du Worlds at the end of September.
I think the one thing that isn't quite where I'd like it to be right now is my run. I came out of the gates this spring running fast, but have plateaued a bit in the middle of the season.....need to find a way to bust out of that groove and move to the next level. Today I had a great 12 mile tempo run up the bluff and through the forest trails in Myrick Park. The toughest part of the run was actually my warm-up due to some intestinal problems. As I upped my pace to a tempo pace at the beginning of Grandad's Bluff my guts decided it's time to go.....NOW. I immediately did a run/waddle off the road and onto a deer trail. Let's just say I wrecked a good pair of socks, but I came out of the deal clean and ready to run. The socks saved me, but being kind of a neat freak, I was still treating my left hand like an ugly step-child for the rest of the run (I even hung my hand out the car window on the ride home until I could wash up just to be safe:) The remainder of the run was easily clicking away 6:30 miles on the flats and hammering up the hills to finish a solid workout. I would like to be running a 35-36 minute 10K off the bike in September, but I just need to keep hammering away the miles, train smart, and hope for the best. Well, I have to get be up at 5AM for a swim workout, so I better sign off. Hope everyone is doing well and I'll talk with you later (promise next time I'll not discuss the details of surviving with just socks in the woods)!

Getting There

Well, the Rochester Triathlon this past weekend was a blast! I had my own cheering section as many friends and family showed up to the race....it always seems like you push just a little harder when someone is there screaming for you. The men's elite race was extremely competitive this year with some of the fastest in the midwest showing up put down the hammer. I didn't have quite as good of a race as I had hoped for, but was able to crack the top 10 (9th place; 2:05 olympic distance). My cycling legs and running legs were off, but surprisingly the swim is really starting to come around.....each swim workout the past couple weeks I seem to be getting a little faster. This little fact has kept me positive this past week in hopes that all 3 disciplines will be spot on for Lifetime Fitness next Saturday. I was also happy to hear my training partner Jeff Fleig decided to sign up for Lifetime too.....a great guy and a great competitor. Even though we are in separate heats, you can bet we will both be picking it up a notch knowing the other is out there hammering on the same course.....I can't think of a better way to start a Saturday!!

Time for a new Speedo?

Well, I went to the pool for a quick swim workout over lunch. I was in a hurry, so I almost did not notice that I could see daylight through the crotch of my trainer shorts. A closer look showed the seam in bottom of my shorts had given way and there was now a 4 inch hole in my trainers. As I hate to miss a workout, my first knee jerk reaction was "ah fuck it, no one will notice". Then common sense settled in and I knew my swimming workout was shot....so I opted to grab an extra pair of running shorts and a t-shirt in my car and got a good weight lifting session in. But as I was walking out to the weight room a sudden revelation came over me.....how long had the hole in my trunks really been there? I usually swim early in the morning and am usually really groggy when getting dressed and shuffling out to the pool. There have honestly been mornings where I double check myself to make sure I even have my trunks on just before exiting the locker room to the pool (so far I've never totally forgotten the trunks). Could the hole have slipped by me during previous swim workouts? The previous day I shared a lane with a water jogger as old as Moses and he spent an aweful lot of time hanging out at the wall just standing there (probably laughing his ass off)......were my boys hanging out during every freaking flip turn (awwwkward)?!?!?! I try to tell myself that the hole wasn't there before or even that the hole wasn't nearly that big and wouldn't have been noticed by anyone during previous workouts. Moral of this story is simple, don't be a cheap ass, buy new trainer shorts before your balls fall out of them! Here endeth the lesson. Big race this weekend in Rochester. Feeling pretty good, but will defintely need a great effort to finish respectably in the deep men's elite field. Good night ya' all!

Smooth Sailing!

Well, I finally got some time to blog as this is a scheduled recovery week. Everything is feeling pretty good right now after finishing off this past week with a super-brick on Saturday and a 16 mile run on Sunday:

Super Brick Workout-

30 minute warm-up

1. 8.5 mile on bike at race pace (25 mph average)
2. Immediately rack bike and transition to running shoes
3. Head out on trail for 2 mile running interval (5:40 / mile pace)
4. Rest 8 minutes and repeat 2 more times!
Great race specific workout!

Looking forward to the first triathlon of the year this Sunday. The water temp is 59F as of yesterday, so not looking forward to having blue balls........but still a great chance to get out and drop the hammer for a couple hours!!

Apple Du

Well, the Apple Du was a huge success. With all the hype of the duathlon world championships being held in the U.S. this year, a lot of talent from all over the U.S. showed up for this race hoping to earn a spot on Team USA and race at Worlds in September. With only the top 3 in each age-group earning a Worlds slot, a lot of talented elite athletes would be going home empty handed. I was happy to be coming into this race healthy and I was REALLY looking forward to duking it out with some world class talent.
It always seems like the hardest part of a race is the beginning. The anticipation build during warm-ups, the 'on-deck' call for my heat, and then walking up to that starting line and getting the 10 second countdown before all hell breaks loose....it's during those 10 seconds when the Five Finger Death Punch tune I had playing in my head gets put on mute, the leaves no longer seem to rustle in the near-by trees, and I swear the guy next to me can hear my heart trying to jump out of my chest. Just when I'm about ready to jump out of my own skin the guns goes off and I have work to do. It's funny, but all the doubts and fears I have beforehand seem to disappear. I'm too busy finding position in the pack and establishing a pace that is going to make me suffer, but not die. That's kind of how the race went yesterday....the hardest part was getting over my nerves beforehand, the easy part was going out and racing hard. I was fortunate enough to lower my previous personal record at this race by 2 minutes and win my age-group to earn a spot at the World Championships in September. It was a big relief to race well with a lot of competition present, but I know I'll need to bring it up one more notch to really get it done at Worlds (French dudes in spandex are surprisingly fast). I had cut down my swim yardage in the past month during the final preparation for this duathlon, so now it's time to get back in the pool regularly and crank the swim back up for the tri season which gets under way in a couple weeks. Keep on keepin' on everyone!

Getting Ready

Well, it's been a while since I've written in here, but that doesn't mean I've backed off the training any. It's been an interesting spring so far with a couple of great breakthrough workouts, a couple good races, a couple bad races, and a couple injuries that have visited and left. Right now, I'm feeling strong going into the Duathlon Worlds qualifier next week in Sartell, MN. After that I plan to try and get back to hitting the pool hard in preparation for the approaching tri season. Hopefully, I can get my schedule updated and enter some of the goals I have for this season.
I'm so excited to be racing for Brone's Elite Tri Team this year....it's a team full of the fastest area triathletes motivated to be the best they can be. There's a mixture of Ironman, Half Ironman, and Olympic distance specialists in triathlon and duathlon. Going to be a great summer!

Ready for some R&R

Well, I'm coming up on the end of my second solid 4 week training block. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a recovery week after today's 12 mile tempo run. Everything feels great except for a bit of a stiff back from all the weights I've been throwing around right now (you would think I was competing for the 'World's Strongest Skinny Man' award by all the heavy dead lift and squat sets I'm doing this block). AND THANK GOD THE TEMPERATURE OUTSIDE HAS RISEN ABOVE zero.......on Wednesday I actually got a nasty nose bleed during a run from a frozen booger (running is so dangerous)!

Prison Break

Last night I did a 10 mile time trial indoors on my trainer to determine my threshold level at this point in the year. This is basically 20 minutes of balls out cycling. It doesn't sound like a long time, but after about 10 minutes everything on my body including my teeth are screaming 'ouch'!!! I averaged 312 watts, so that is a good starting point for the rest of the season.

After the time trial I headed into the Y for a lift session. I don't normally lift on a Saturday night, so I found the clientele there at that time of night is more like a scene from 'Shawshank Redemption'. I think I was the only dude there without a house arrest ankle bracelet on. One guy was kicking the bar, slapping himself, and yelling "All your hate!" to get 'psyched' for a set of dead lifts. After finishing his set, he promply went over to the sitting calf machine where he had way too much weight stacked on. He couldn't raise the weight with his calves more than a couple inches, but by the way he was screaming and the fact that his head and body were swaying back and forth made it look like he had his pecker stuck in the seat of the machine. Wanting to avoid getting shanked, I did my best not to laugh. So that was my Saturday night lifting session at the Y.... next time I'll bring a video recorder for you all!

A Little Inspiration

Last night before I hit the hay, I was surfing the web looking for the NCAA wrestling rankings and I came a across a quote that I really liked. The quote was on the white board of a college wrestling room and it read "TO GET WHAT WE'VE NEVER HAD, WE MUST DO WHAT WE'VE NEVER DONE". This quote could be applied to anything we set out to do in life, but it hit me especially hard as I begin to set goals for the coming racing season. Great achievments take an incredible amount of dedication....some may even look at it as an obsessive dedication. Anyone can work hard once in a while...anyone can get motivated for a month or two, but it's the day in and day out dedication 365 days a year that will get a person to the next level. I'm so inpired by those people that are able to juggle a career, a family, and a social life with the demands of training. These people do not make excuses, instead they make things happen. These people don't talk about what they could have done or who they could have beaten given more time to train, but instead they just go out and do it. To build a house, at some point in time you need to use a hammer....you have to pound through the days when the training is a drag...you have to push a little harder when the body is begging to slow down...and it's then that you will be given the opportunity to earn the thing you've never had.