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?

Sleep Has Arrived...

Finally, after over a week without a goods nights sleep. Last night I actually got 7 hours of sleep. Granted, it was not continuos, but it's a start. I think that my body was just so worn out that it finally gave in to sleep.

Training has been going pretty good. My swim is feeling really weak right now, but I'll get there. I did my first swim, bike, run session of the year yesterday. It felt really good. 30min swim, 21 miles on the bike, and about a 5 mile run. Nothing really hard or really long, but it was a solid endurance session without causing too much stress on the body to effect the rest of the weeks sessions.

The next few weeks are going to be hard. I am hitting peak training hours, and I have a couple of short races coming up. I am really torn on what to do over Memorial Day weekend. I really want to head off and go back packing with my wife dogs, but it is also the last weekend to get in really big hours before Ironman Zurich. So, do I leave the bike behind and celebrate my 30th on the hiking trail? I can take my running shoes and get in some killer trail runs. Or do I stick to my plan and stay home so I can hit the bike hard?

What to do, What to do...

Sleep Please

The long hours are really starting to catch me. The training is going well, and my body is holding out pretty good, but I haven't been able to sleep worth a shit for about a week now. I am just stumbling through my mornings, missing morning workouts because I can only sleep for like 4 hours a night. I really need sleep. The long hours are going to lead to an injury if I can't get some good rest. I lay down to sleep and my body just won't shut down. I start to notice every little sore spot and muscle twitch and just can't seem to relax. Is it pre-Ironman anxiety, or am I just losing it?

This Weeks Training Tip
Do not attempt to break in a new saddle on you first century ride of the year. Bad. Bad. Bad Idea.