Week 3

The picture above is from my Saturday morning ride. The weather has been extremely cold here, and rather than fight the elements to get in a marginal workout, I rode my Computrainer and previewed the first 60 miles of the St. George IronMan course. It’s a doozey! There’s one point when I was climbing at an 11% grade for more than a mile. The course appears to be covered with lots of chip seal, and I counted at least four cattle guards up to the top of the climb. I ran out of time before I finished the descent, so I don’t know if there are cattle guards on the way down—very dangerous. One year during the Tour of Gila bike race, someone’s front wheel got caught in the opening between cattle guards and sheered off his front fork while traveling at 30+MPH. He took the total fall on his face and had to be air-lifted by helicopter to the hospital.

For the week, I had 17.5 hours of triathlon practice. I swam 13,600 yards, rode my bike 136 miles—all indoor on the computrainer, ran 24 miles, and spent an hour strength training. I’m enjoying my recovery week now. The big weeks haven’t even come close to starting but my training program seems to be working me over pretty good.

My 2009 BAMF Recommendation

As it approaches the end of the year, I’ve decided to offer my suggestion for the 2009 BAMF award. The BAMF acronym is Bad Ass Mother F#@$&* and denotes someone who’s very tough and accomplishes something significant in the face of great obstacles.

My recommendation goes for Maria Ladd, a local triathlete I’ve met through my Masters swim team. Maria is a high school English teacher. By all appearances she’s your standard high school teacher. She’s quiet and somewhat soft spoken. But, her personal fortitude seems to speak for itself.

Maria just recently completed Ironman Arizona and in so doing, improved her personal best time by 50 minutes. She raced a full schedule this season that included Boulder 5430 long-course—she ran 5 minutes faster than me--and the Elephant Man triathlon and others races I’m not aware of. Her big goal was to qualify for Kona at IronMan Arizona, which is really challenging because the race occurs the third week of November. Having a full-year of racing that ends toward the end of November is really hard because of mental and physical fatigue and inclement weather. Winter struck hard a month before the race, yet she soldiered through and kept her training program. Two weeks before IronMan Arizona, she was running on a public trail with a group and was attacked by an unharnessed dog. The dog left its mark in the middle of her thigh. For many this may have been the nail in the coffin for the season…not for her. She seemed unphased and trained through. On race day, Maria let her legs do the talking and shaved significant time off her prior personal best time. By last year’s IronMan standards, she would have won her age category and got the golden ticket to Kona. Last year she finished in third place and there are only two Kona slots allocated to her age category. This year, with a dramatically faster time, she ended up seventh. The top three positions were completed in times akin to the 35-39 Male age group category.

Not one to wallow in self-pity, Maria was back swimming at Masters three days after Ironman Arizona. The following weekend, she ran the local Thanksgiving 5k Turkey Trot and was the 2nd place overall female finisher. Now that’s BAMF!

Week 2's Results

I finished the week with 16.5 hours of triathlon practice...I was scheduled for 11.5 hours. The days off for Thanksgiving holiday and the constant urging of my road racing buddies made me break my schedule and do an extended ride Thursday morning. In total I swam four times for 13,200 yards, I rode four times for 126 miles, and I ran 4 times for 24 miles. The high-light of my training was Sunday morning when my daughter joined me for my swim...we did a 300 warm up, 18x100 leaving on the 1:50, and warmed down with another 300. It was cool swimming with her and seeing how much she's improved this year. She kept up for the most part, then blew me away with a 300 breast-stroke warm down...I'm all about freestyle.

I pre-rode the first 26 miles of the IronMan St. George course on the computrainer...wow! Talk about rolling terrain. I counted two specific climbs with 6 percent grades. This course is going to be all about managing the gears, watts, cadence, and bike positioning. It's going to be a challenge!

We Have The Technology...We Can Rebuild Him...

This is my training lab


On the computer screen is my computer interfaced training program (Computrainer). I was really excited to get this to help improve my cycling. After a few tests the stark reality set in...I have a long way to go. This program is totally humbling. Ignorance was bliss...I thought I was good...I'm not. I have a long way to go. I plan to spend nights after work and cold winter weekends trying to make my cycling more efficient...and a little stronger. This program tells me which leg is working better (my right...damn skateboarding!), my pedaling efficiency (100 being perfect and 0 being dead, I scored an 80% on the standard road bike, and just under 70% on my tri bike), and my power output over a given distance/time frame (the verdict is still out on these results).

At any rate, I'm up to the challenge, and hopefully the real-time data will help me get faster.

IronMan Arizona 2009

I went to IronMan Arizona this weekend to both volunteer and register for next year's event. I got to watch the swim start. Check out the photos:

Age Groupers lining up for the start moments before the gun goes off.


During the National Anthem


And they're off!


This person's alarm must not have went off because they started well after the rest of the other 2500 participants...Ooops!


And on another note, this came in the mail for me when I came back. Guess I have to get serious about training this time.

Big Man -- Shane

This is Shane, our 220 pound English Mastiff. He's 11 years old and the sweetest man you'll ever meet. He may drool a lot or be gassy, but he's truly a gentle giant. A few years ago, my daughter Grace got a black and white bunny for a pet. When we moved into our current house, we let the bunny roam free with Shane. We were a bit nervous that Shane might consume her in one bite. He didn't and was indifferent to her. Over a few months, the bunny grew comfortable with shane. When the cool of winter hit, we'd wake up to find the bunny nestled in between Shane's legs. They kindled a little relationship together. Here's a couple of pictures of the two last spring:




Things stayed the same for the rest of the winter and all spring. We'd wake up every morning and see the two snuggling together. Then in the summer, someone gave us another bunny. The two bunnies hit it off together and ignored Shane altogether. Shane didn't seem to mind...all he really ever does is sleep anyway. Lazy dog!

Now that it's winter time and the cold has been really affecting Shane's hip joints, I've been having Shane sleep inside. And, every night as I turn the lights off, there's the bunny waiting by the door for Shane to snuggle...poor little lonesome bunny. I think she really takes it personal because she hardly spends any time with Shane anymore. Here's picture of the two:

Self Humiliation Via Yoga.

One of the quickest ways to humiliate myself is to go to a yoga class. I hate yoga! But, it’s one of those necessary evils because it helps me stretch…it’s a preventative maintenance thing. If I let myself to go too long without doing it, I generally pull something. So, I force myself to go once a week. It’s hard, uncomfortable, and humiliating…especially when the class does balance poses. My balance has gone out the window over these last years. I’m the idiot dancing around in the back trying to stand on one leg as everyone seems to be comfortably perched in eagle pose. That’s OK…it’s a small price to pay to keep myself out of the hurt locker.

This morning kicked off the beginning of my 24-week training phase for IronMan St. George. My coach has given me all my workouts until May 1; now it’s up to me to deliver. This morning I swam 3,550 yards at Masters. That was my first workout.

I’m off to Arizona this weekend to volunteer for IronMan Arizona and guarantee myself registration for next year. The event usually sells out before it even goes online, so got to physically be in line to registration. And, preference is given to the event volunteers. Once that is in place, my diabolical 3 full Ironman year will be queued up and ready to usher in my 40th birthday.

This weekend I took the kids to the BYU/UNM game. BYU won. It was a very unexciting game other than the UNM kicker missed three kicks in a row hitting the up-right each time. That’s got to be a record of some kind. Ethan enjoyed the game. Elise and Grace were cold and couldn’t get enough hot cocoa.


I spent the rest of the weekend getting things done for winter, so I can focus on my training. We raked up fifteen 50 gallon bags of leaves, and we’re still not half-way done. There are still a lot of leaves left to fall. For living in the desert our house seems to be rather deciduous. It snowed again Saturday night. I’m thinking this time, it’ll stay cold and the last intervals of warm weather are finally gone. Oh well, that’s winter.