I love MN winters!!!

Here is a quick little chart to help you calculate windchills in your area. Just to give you an idea of what I am dealing with here, it was -15F with 20 MPH winds when I left for work this morning. That puts the windchill right around 42 degrees below freakin' zero. I can handle cold. I have spent many days at a time on winter camping is these conditions, but it's not as much fun when I only get to drive to work in it. My car just starts to feel a little bit warm when I get to work, and I have a forty minute drive!

All Outdoor Activities Cancelled!!!

Stay Warm, Drink Whiskey!!!

Large Base vs. Small Base + Speed

I am looking for some feed back on training. I am admittedly very stubborn and not really good at taking advice if I don't agree with it. But, there comes a time when even I have to admit that I don't know it all. So here is my question. I have been reading a lot about short and olympic course training and it seems there is a good debate about large base and build vs small base and increasing speed for the shorter events. What I need to know is if anyone out there has experience with the smaller base and more speed approach to training for short races.

Right now I am going with the faster approach and mainly focusing on my run, but the season is still a long way off, so there is time for a change if needed.

Here is an example of current training:

Saturday Jan 19th long run: 7 miles @ 8:08 pace
Sunday Jan 20th Off
Monday Jan 21st bike: wu 5min main 2x5min tempo 5min recovery, 5x30sec big gear drills, 30sec rest.
cd 5min easy spin
Tuesday Jan 22nd short run: 3 miles @ 7:28 pace
Wednesday Jan 23rd run/swim brick: Run 3 miles 6:40 pace Swim 1000 yards of Drills.
Thursday Jan 24th easy run: 4-6 miles at 8:00 pace.
Friday Jan 25th Off:

The general plan is to do a long run over the weekend followed by shorter runs of increasing intensity throughout the week, and ending with an easier mid distance run. I will be including 2 bikes and 2 swims starting next week. These will mostly focus on form in the pool and base on the bike.

Can this plan work?

Base Training Sucks!!!

Base training sucks!!! I'm just starting to do some real training now and this base stuff is really boring this year. Why can't I just go fast. Last year I had much more patience for this because I was training for an IM. Now, this year, all I am racing are short course events so long and slow is not fitting in with my mentality right now. I know I need to do it, but it's hard to go slow. I know, I know, have patience, fast workouts are just around the corner. Before I know it I will begging for mercy on the track, on the roads and in the pool. It just seems so far away right.

Kind of Returning.

So, I have not posted in about six months or so. I have been content lurking in the background, reading others blogs and being entertained. This post is just a short update on what's been going on in my life since Ironman Switzerland.

I pretty much shut down my training after Zurich and turned to riding and racing my mountain bike for fun. I didn't really train for it, I would just show up and ride. I crashed a lot and had a lot of fun in the process. The really big news is that we expecting a baby girl in May. We have been spending a lot of time getting the house ready and acquiring many of the things that we will need when she arrives. We have been remodeling the basement bedroom for our boy to move into. He is pretty excited to have the entire basement to himself. He is also a little bit scared of it at the same time. He is 10 now and a little tentative to actually make the move, but he will be really happy to have his own space in a few years.

That's really about all that's going on here. My wife is pregnant and healthy, I am fat and slow, and now the training must begin. I am looking forward to another fun year.

Ironman Zurich

Wow, it has been a long time since I have writen on this page. So much has happened. Where to start? Oh, I finished Ironman Zurich. What an amazing adventure that was. I'll write a more detailed report later, but here is an overview.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, and hang out with the Gear West crew. I got to meet TriJack and hang out with him before and after the race. And, I got to spend some quality time with my wife. It seems that hasn't happened since I started training for this race.

Anyways, here is the race breakdown.

Swim Start:
Efing Nuts!!! 1:11


Bike:
Ride the flats fast, climb the hills slow. Feel like a tour rider climbing Heartbreak hill. 5:45

Run:
Don't really know what to say about the run. After the bike I didn't think I had any legs left. I was very surprised. 4:04

Finish Time: 11:04:53

Injuries...

Well, I made it through my first multi sport race of the year. It hurt. The lack of speed work in the Ironman prep really showed as my legs burned throughout the entire race. It did feel good to try and go fast.

So the race went pretty well for me. I got to meet the Tri-Dummy in person, and chat with some other local bloggers, such as Tac Boy, TriMama, and Iron Jenny. Afterwards, however, pretty much sucked. I had just pulled on some pants and a jacket when I saw my son hoping around on a pogo stick. Next thing I knew I was standing over him and he was on his knees screaming and there was a large pool of blood under him. Great! So, we cleaned him up a little and headed off to the weekend clinic. What a mess. Luckily it was a nice clean cut so the doc could use Dermabond instead of stitches. It will still leave a pretty nice scar but it is better than stitches.

I guess if you have to pick a place to get hurt, a race is a good one. We instantly had athletes, volunteers, and the Gear West owner, Kevin O'Conner helping us out. It was really cool to have that many people jump to the rescue. Kevin even took care of my bike for me so that we could head to the doc and didn't have to worry about loading everything into the car with us. Later in the day Kevin even called my home phone to check up on us to make sure things were OK.

After all the help we got at the race I am proud to call Gear West "my shop". They are truely a class act operation.

So, here are some images of the pogo stick accident post glueing.

Now he will have some battle scars to tell stories about. Chicks dig scars right? Even if it's from a pogo stick?

So, There I Was...

...waiting for work folks to go for a group ride yesterday. I, being the sharp witted person that I am, locked my keys, phone, wallet, and work badge in my trunk. To make the situation worse, I ran into one of the other riders as he was leaving the parking lot to go home. What? "Oh", he says, "I just sent out an email to cancel the ride because it looks like it is going to rain." WTF!!! So now I have to either ride all the way home to get a spare key or I take a chance that my parents are home and head that way. Well the wind is howling out of the west, anyone want to guess which way it is to either destination. Yep, to the west. I struggled to my parents at a massive speed of 17 mph. Which was as fast as I could go in my tired, POed state of mind. Luckily my mom was home and was will to drive me the half an hour to my house and drive me back forty minutes to my car. My mom rules!!!

So, now I have my car back and it is about 7:15 PM. I still have a forty minute drive to the pool to do 4000 yards. Oh no, I was really wondering if I would be able to get through the swim in my mental state. But, to my surprise, I got there at rocked it. One of the best swim sessions I have had all year. But, to add a little insult to my mentally challenging day, I smashed my knee while exiting the pool. I looked down and there is a nice little gash from the pool wall on my knee with a line of blood down my leg. Arrggghhh.

What will the next day bring?