Take Two

I am finally back to training. I was supposed to start back Monday 5/10,but I woke up very sick and my knee was still a mess, so I pulled the plug and rested another week. I did start eating better - sorta. I went from 3 terrible meals a day to 1 or 2 bad meals. Its amazing how much better I started to feel once I had a few fruits and veggies! I was starting to get sick off all the bad food anyways!

Fast forward to this Monday 5/17, the knee is better, still not 100% but getting there. I had a little 2k swim planned. Man, it felt like I did 10k. My arms were smashed after my 29 min swim!
I am back in the gym, moving massive amounts of weight. Trying to get my weak triathlete body ready for another round of IM training.


Tuesday was the first ride back. 2.5 hours on the road bike. It was nice to be outside enjoying the day, the off time made me realize how much I love this training and racing stuff!

Quick fact - I rode less then 100 miles outside during the build up to St George.

While the time went by pretty fast, I could the feel the extra 9 pounds that is now attached to my mid section. I am pretty sure people saw this as I rode by....

# 9

This post is to honor a good friend of mine who I will really miss over the next 22 weeks. We became friends in Kona last year, he was so good,cheap and filled my growling stomach.....

The Mcdonalds #9. For those of you who do know what a # 9 entails. I'll fill you in. 5 piece chicken selects (It must be good, its white meat!) a large fry and large soda all for $7.78. Tough to beat!

Here are the marco-nutritents for this sucker. Surprisingly, its actually one of the worst items on the menu :)
Fat 65
Pro 44
Cho 64
Anyways, I had my fair share of the # 9 over the course of last week along with LOTS of donuts, pizza and coffee.
But, the fun is over and its time to get back to work. I'll be treading water in Kailua Bay before I know it.

We have finalized the rest of the racing season and I am really excited to get out there and start racing.
I'll be at
Mooseman Olympic
Ashland Olmpic
Musselman Half
Marlboro Sprint
Kona.

I am looking forward to rebuilding fitness and showing up to the start line Oct 9th, fitter and fast then last year!

St George.

It could’ve been worse! During the days leading up to the race it was WINDY and I mean 45 mph + cross winds and 30 mph plus headwinds. We ended up with about 7-10 mph headwinds on the long windy canyon section. I rode this section at about 220-230 watts averaging anywhere from 14-17mph. Lucky we were able to do this section twice! The ride finished with a nice long descent were I was able to let my stomach settle and rest the legs for what would proven to be a very tough marathon course.
The run was awesome from the super hilly course to the views at the top of the climb it was truly spectacular. It was so hard that it separated the people who knew how to correctly pace and fuel a hard bike and even harder run very quickly, typically most people can fake it for the first 7-10 miles. Jesse and I started the run together and we immediately started catching people who were already in a heap of trouble and we hadn’t hit the hard part yet. I won’t describe the course to much here, check out the profile and the top run times and you’ll see it was no joke. I felt really good until mile 15, at that point I went into a pretty bad place for about 3 miles, I tore into my last gel at mile 18 (Double Latte–50 mg of caffeine) 5 mins later I was in a better place still not great but I was getting it done. Mille 20-22 are mostly uphill, I knew once I was up and over the last climb the course was mostly downhill to the finish…..The last 4.2 miles were all about keeping the best run form and highest cadence I could all the way to the finish.
I ended up 1st in my age group and 4th amateur overall.

Once again it was a great day for all Qt2ers. It just goes to show that a ton of hard work and patience over the long term brings extraordinary results.

A big thank you goes out to Jesse for helping me get to the start line of my 4th IM in 1 piece and with a new level of fitness.
Obviously, none of this would have been possible without the support of my wife, Courtney.

Sorry for the short race report, I have a VERY long “Honey Do” list and 6 days to get it all done before the Kona build begins!.

Oceanside

The race went well. I hit all the numbers so I can't ask for anything more. I swam as hard as I can swim. Biked 15 watts higher then my previous half ironman best. Then I ran as fast as I could go.

Highlights of the trip:

-Delta skycap. Not begin a big traveler I sit with everyone else waiting - paying for food and drink. Not this time. This trip I traveled out with Jesse and he knows how to travel. I could've eaten the whole bowl of dried fruit they put out for the lucky ones who sit in skycap. FYI- their nut mix is awesome too!
-Dropping Matt Reed on the run. Matt caught (ie- lapped) me just before mile 1. He immediately went by and put 10 seconds on me and I was waiting for him to continue pulling away. He stayed right there 10 seconds up the road, until we got to the far turnaround which is just before mile 4 for me and 10 for him. We turn around the cone and all of a sudden I am next to him, we run side by side for a second then all of a sudden it's just me and the "2nd place male" moutain bike guy. We pass Wendy Ingraham on the side of the road and I can hear her ask the person she is with "who is that guy?" I was in the 4th wave so the way back in on the run was empty- everyone was coming at us. It was just me and Reed for the whole way in. Once I opened up a little gap, spectators where going nuts for me taking pictures, giving me splits to 1st and yelling that Matt was still right there. We ran all the way to the turn around like that. Once I made the turn to go back out I ran back by him and said "nice work" he nodded and gave me the point. It was a very cool 6 miles.

The last highlight of the trip was even before I left:
Monday fat loading - large cheese buger and fries from Five Guys then a medium Oreo and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup blizard. Hey, I was still hungry!

Currently I am on day 10 of IM overload training. Which means I am pretty much a mess right now. That would explain the fact that after my swim today it took me 10 minutes to find my locker. I opened almost every since one in that place. I wondered how it would look walking home in my swim shorts. Good thing it's less then a mile!

I am leaving tonight for our IM St George training camp. Looking forward to finishing up the last few long/hard efforts with some good company.

TT Results

Well, the TT went exactly as I thought it would. I started out at 335 watts then bumped them up to 340 once we hit 10 minutes knowing I would only have another 5 minutes or so of suffering and I ended up averaging 343 or 345 on the Computrainer screen, not exactly sure and my SRM died on me before the start so I have no power data. Nothing like shelling out $2,500 and the damn thing doesn't work. I did have my trusty 310xt to gather the HR data. Which once again confirms the training zones we set up a while back.

St George is coming up quick, with Hyannis next weekend and Oceanside in 5 weeks, race season is pretty much here.

But for now its back to work with a big 4 week block of training.

Boston Triathlon Team Indoor Time Trial

I have been looking forward to this race for a few weeks now and its finally here. 6.2 miles completely on the rivet, while trying to ride the predetermined power number as even as I possibly can - not an easy task - and of course the SRM will be downloaded, graphed out and graded on how even I rode the course.

My game plan for Computrainer time trials is to know within 10 watts what I can average for the race distance. Once the gun goes off I'll get the average up and then hold on for dear life. Just like racing out side I will try to keep my max watts to + 50 of the current average. Once I hit the last few minutes all bets are off and its time to let it hang out and see what's let in the tank. I can assure you it won't be much.....

I'll report back tonight how things went.

2009 By The Numbers

I have received a bunch of emails over the past few weeks asking me the volume of training I did last year, and the simple answer "a lot" wasn't good enough, they wanted numbers. So, I figured I'd throw out an update of last years (48 weeks with a week off so only 47 training weeks) averages and totals. All the averages include recovery and race weeks which are about 50% of normal volume.

First the totals

Swim- 601,607- average of 12,533 a week.

Bike - 11,545- average 240 per week

Run- 1812- average 37 miles per week

My biggest running week was 60 miles 5 weeks out from Lake Placid- 7.27 hrs of running or 7:15 average pace.

The biggest bike week was 364 miles 4 weeks out from Lake Placid – 21.13 hrs of biking or just under 17.5 average.

Highest volume week was 32.75 hours (yea, it was a tough week, with 25 hrs of standing at the bike shop)

Lowest volume week besides the off week was 13.5 hrs. Which at that point in the year seemed like a lot.

This comes out to an average of 20.24 hrs per week, including recovery and race weeks.

The nutrition averages are the total year daily averages

Protein - 230 grams

Fat - 76 grams

Carbohydrates- 556 grams

Sleep average is 8.12 hrs, this will be going up in 2010!

The number I am most pleased with is the amount of time I was on my feet the day before Lake Placid, sub 25 minutes. Yup, less then 25 minutes, including dropping off my bike. I tried really hard in Kona to be close to 25 minutes, but with the really long transition, and the nice old man who walked me around, it just slowey slipped away. I ended up with 49:45 for the day.