TRI MY PRESCRIPTION

IM Canada and My Upcoming Marathon

2011-08-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend Ron Crenshaw and I are heading to Penticton, Canada. This trip has 2 purposes as I've said before I'm volunteering for the race and signing up to race next year. It's funny though because I've been planning this since I finished last years race,less than satisfied. So now all of sudden, out of the blue, I'm a little nervous. When you sign up for your first Ironman you're nervous,and you should be. This will be my 4th Ironman.So why am I worried? I have no delusions about my abilities or lack thereof. But I do have goals and so far I have not lived up to my own expectations. As every year passes I lose another step, work harder, to just maintain. So with every opportunity to compete comes to possibility to fail. Now I'm not looking for a pep talk or anything like that. Just the opposite this is the pep talk. The possibility to fail is part of every endeavor. I think the nervousness is my sub conscience telling my conscious mind that I care about this race. Brilliant,right? Not really! I'm spending $600 and a year of my life preparing for this race, so I must care. I was discussing this with the Hobbit and I suggested that perhaps it's just my ego. But he quickly pointed out that if it was just my ego I would have quit this endurance stuff a long time ago because I've been beat by the old, the fat, the blind and even by a guy with one leg. So why this tinge of nervousness? No clue! That's the problem. By signing up for another Ironman I'm committing to a year of unknowns. Unknowns are always scarier than the known quantities. But down the rabbit hole I go. I'll keep you posted as I discover the questions and try to figure out the answers.
And on the other unknown coming up in 4 weeks to be exact, The Skagit Flats Marathon.

Long time, no write

2011-07-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

Not that my life has been boring or anything, quite the contrary. A lot has happened since my last post. I just don't seem to make the time to write on here anymore,until now. I just got a confirmation email from the guy in charge of the finish line for Ironman Canada. I will be a catcher at this years race from 4-8:30. This should be pretty fun. Of course I have ulterior motives for volunteering, cuts in the sign up line. But I also believe in giving back. These races would never be as good as they are without the army of people that volunteer. The folks that were out at Yellow Lake last year basically spent their entire shift standing around in the rain/ hail/cold/wind. I just had to ride through there. And for that 7-10 mile stretch I was miserable. They, on the other hand were cheering and smiling and doing everything they could to help motivate me. At the time I couldn't do much more than kind of grunt and nod at them, but I did appreciate their efforts. Since I have worked on the bike course before at CDA I wanted to do something different. I have always loved watching the finishers come in, even if you do not know them. You can see the emotions come pouring out of people. The pride,excitement and relief of completing an Ironman is incompatible. So I think it will be pretty cool to see and share that with the finishers up close.
Next week I head back to Indiana for my 30 year class reunion. 30 years(fuck me!) it should be fun. I just can't believe I'm that old. The pisser is that I'm training for a fall marathon and next weeks long run is 15 miles. 15 miles is already hard but doing it in Indiana with 90 something % humidity is really going to be hard. I've lived away from the humidity for so long that it just knocks the crap out of me. But we will get it done, probably with a bit of a hangover.
Another big milestone has just come to pass. On July 5th Jayne and I celebrated 10 years together. When I say celebrated I mean we looked at each other and said holy crap that went fast. It has been the best 10 years of my life. Her and I have done some pretty cool stuff together and continue to look forward to doing things together. If you know me then you know what a dick I can be, so do I. So I feel very fortunate that Jayne is gracious enough to put up with me. I wouldn't!
Well let's call that a post, a bit random but so what.

Ironman Canada

2010-09-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that both Jayne and Tony(the Hobbit) did great. Jayne set a PR by over 20 minutes and actually beat the Hobbit in the run. The Hobbit actually beat Jayne on the bike, he was sick of seeing her butt I guess. I digress.

Let me just say I love Canada! I was really looking forward to this race. I felt like I was pretty fit. I thought I had thought of all possible scenarios and planned for them. I did make 1 pre race mistake in that I left my arm warmers at home, I payed for that. Race morning started at 0230, which was about an hour earlier than I wanted to wake up. We stayed in Osoyoos which is about 50 min. south of Pentictin so we had to get up a little earlier to make the drive into town. We won't stay there next time, to much driving back and forth. All the other race day morning rituals went as planned. I actually wasn't to nervous and was able to eat a whole bowl of oatmeal. We arrived with plenty of time to spare. Dropped of the special needs bags and right to body marking. My friend Vicki did Canada a few years ago and told me to be prepared to do our own body marking because their system was a big cluster. She was right and we did our own. We actually had about 10 people line up around us to use our marker. The rest of the prep went fine except I lost Jayne and Tony and never found them. As I had planned I got right to the front of the swim start and right in the middle. My thinking is that I will go hard for the 1st 200, those that are faster will blow by me or over me. And those slower folks will stay behind me. This strategy worked pretty well. I could/should have gone a little harder at the beginning. For the most part though my swim went great. I swam very straight always within 5-10 feet of the buoys. I did get punched in the mouth once, but that was all. Tony actually had his goggles knocked off at about 1 mile and went the rest of the way without. The swim finish is weird. Instead of a nice sandy bottom, like the start, the bottom is covered in rocks for 50-75 feet yet the water was only 2 foot deep. I was actually grabbing the rocks and pulling myself along the bottom. When I was finally able to stand up I asked a guy next to me what our time was he said 1:11, I was thrilled. It was really 1:12:41 a PR for me by about 5 minutes so I was happy. Into the change tent and mass chaos. There were no chairs so I had to change standing up. The temperature that morning was a brisk ~55 so I did not want to swim in my bike gear and start out wet and cold on the bike so I had to dry off and completely change. This cost me 10 minutes which was fine, I was warm and dry. The bike started great because just as I mounted my bike I saw Jayne right next to me. This was great for 2 reasons, 1. I got to see her and wish her well and 2. She didn't kick my ass to bad in the swim. So off we go tearing through town. I felt great! But here is were things started to work against me. About 3 days before we left for Canada my bike computer quit displaying cadence. I tried a 1000 adjustments but couldn't get to work. I think a wire is broken. At any rate all of my training was done using cadence. So now I was flying blind. Oh well after all the miles I put in preparing for this race I should know what 95 RPM's feels like, right. As we head out of town I feel great I'm passing people constantly. Then comes the days 1st surprise we turned left on Mclean Creek rd. I thought we went straight, I thought I knew the course. I rode it a few years ago, wrong!! Up Mclean Creek we go this got the HR up a little. Everything was still going well I was eating and drinking and felt great. I cruised all the way to Osoyoos not to hard but felt like I was right were I needed to be just before Richter, but I needed to pee. Richter was fine, until I got to the aid station and got to pee. 2 porta pots and 2800 riders, I did get to stand in line with Laura, another Spokane person, total pee time ~10 min. ridiculous. Back on the bike an up and over Richter. Here is were my day turned to shit. As I started down the backside of Richter I knew I was not completely over my downhill anxiety. I was on the brakes and getting passed by everyone. This was demoralizing. As we started the rollers the wind started blowing, hard! At one point on flat ground I was going 9 mph. Next pee break another 10 min. Then the out and back. This was, I thought, the only part of the course I did not know. I was under the impression that this was a fairly flat benign part of the course. Wrong!! I made 2 big mistakes on this section. 1st came while trying to eat a GU in a big gear going down a small hill which then turned rapidly into a fairly steep uphill. Instead of dropping the GU and shifting gears I muscled my way up the hill. I knew at the top that I had made a huge mistake. But because I'm an idiot I made a similar mistake about 5 minutes later with another smaller yet taxing hill. When I got to special needs I took a little time to pound a protein drink and a V8 splash and took my PBJ and took off. Now it gets miserable. Just before I made the turn onto the Yellow Lake road it started raining and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. This is when I missed my arm warmers. As I headed up to Yellow Lake the wind was whipping the rain was pouring and it was COLD. About 1/2 way up I even got a little hale. Now comes the part I've been dreading ever since I realized that I'm now a pussy on downhills. The long sweeping turns back to HWY 97. And just to make it interesting lets do it on wet roads. I was making my way down getting passed by everyone except one guy he too was a pussy. About 1/2 way down I was reminded why I was a pussy when a guy that had just screamed passed me got a speed wobble going into a big sweeping left hander and as I watch he smacked the concrete barrier that separated him from the edge of the earth. He was fortunate in that he was able turn enough to match the angle of the curve and side wide the barrier. He then did a Fosberry flop over the barrier with his bike. I stop to make sure the guy is ok he bounced up, missing 1 lens from his glasses, and proclaims to be "good". Not sure about good, but lucky for sure. The weird thing for me now is that I'm coming to the realization that my race is fucked. I'm about an 1 hour behind were I felt I would. I'm finally starting to let the bike run a little more. By the time I hit 97 I was going full on even down the hills. The sun came back out I warmed up and I started eating everything I had. The problem I discovered later was that I had to much stuff left at the end. I started the bike with 3x 20oz bottles of gatorade and an aero bottle of water. I finished the ride with 2 full bottles of gatorade and I only refilled the aero bottle once during the ride. I also only ate 3 Gu's and 1 cliff bar and 3/4 pkt of shot roks and Lara bar. Basically I completely blew my nutrition plan on the bike. No wonder I posted my worst IM bike split ever. So now I'm an 1 hour behind and about 2000 calories in the hole. Sounds like a good time to run a marathon. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this turns out. But just to make it fun when we get to ~12 miles lets cover to bottom of the toe next to the little piggy with a giant blister. I've never had a blister anywhere on my foot running, and now I've got one on the bottom of a toe with 14 miles to run. My pace had already slowed from a blistering, pun intended, 9:03/mi pace to 10:30 pace. Now with the blister and the hardest part of the course I was screaming along right at 12 min pace. At ~14 miles I saw Tony, Janine, then Jayne going the other direction, I was about 2 miles ahead of them. The Hobbit was walking, Janine was running well and so was Jayne. I thought shit they are all going to catch me. Tony said his knee hurt so I thought I could hold him off but Janine looked strong and so did Jayne. But Jayne has not been able to run that much so I thought she might fade as the race wore on. But I was worried about Janine, not that I could do much about it, just keep plugging along in 1st gear. The folks watching us torture ourselves were great. Everyone trying to encourage you but there were two people in particular that really did help me. 1st was that old man that looked like Alfred Hitchcock he said "Bryan, do you think you can look a little deeper inside yourself" That tells you how slow I was going at that point, he had time to say all of that. But it helped some how. I focused on that until my next psudocoach got my attention. This guy was on Main street in a tent and he simply said "relax your shoulders Bryan". Wow! that really helped. I didn't even realize I wasn't. As I neared the end of this journey my pace picked up as it always does. My last mile was a scorching 10:30 and with 1km to go I saw Janine coming the other direction I was about 500 meters ahead of her. I picked it up a little more, at least it felt like it. And finished as strong as I could. The run through the finish shoot of an Ironman is unlike anything else. For 5-10 seconds you're a rock star, even if you suck.
Bottom line I'm very disappointed in my performance. The pisser is that you can't just do another one right away to fix your mistakes. It will probably be 2 years before I get a chance to vindicate myself, in my own mind. Nobody else gives a shit. Most of the world says you finished that's more than most. But I want more. I at least want my race to reflect my capabilities. This was 45 min. slower than my last CDA IM in 08 and only 20 min faster than my 1st CDA IM in 07. And I know I'm in much better shape now. The only area in which I knew I was weaker was in my ability to descend on the bike, and that did hurt me. But not an hour maybe 10 minutes tops. The nutrition mistake was huge. Hell I didn't even figure that out until Tues. when I had to unload my bike and thought why is this so heavy, 2 full bottles that's why.
Not sure what's next.
Congrats to all of my friends that raced as well. Kathi Best and Jeff Blackwell, going to Kona. Erica, Craig, Matt, Laura, Martin and Janine solid races as well.
Special thanks to Mrs. Hobbit for being our gopher and pit crew, one day she too will be an Ironman. Next time you see the Hobbit ask him about Lumby.
It was 10 years ago that Jayne beat her cancer. This race was to be, in part, a celebration of that for her. She did so good. I have never been prouder of anybody ever. She is one tough chick, and I love her.

100 mile ride

2010-06-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

I got my bike back last week. It is not totally fixed yet, but is rideable. My new fork is being made by Serotta and should be in the next couple of weeks. Steve is letting me use a loaner fork. For my first week back on the bike in basically 4 weeks it has been great. Total miles for the week was 158 miles. With 101.5 mile on Saturday. We went over and rode the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. The beauty of this ride 1st and for most the beauty. It's also flat as a pancake. You may wonder why I'm riding on a flat ride when Ironman Canada is anything but flat. Well the answer is twofold. 1st I suck on the flats it is my biggest weakness.The first ~27 miles of Canada if fairly flat as is the last 10 or so. The other good thing for me on this flat course is it was 5:35 of non stop pedalling. There is no coasting down any hills because there aren't any. So I spin at ~ 90-95 rpm non stop. I think the average was 18.7 mph, I would like to get that up to about 21. Maybe not this year but in the next year or so that is the goal.
Tony and Jayne were able to ride together for the whole ride. I was off the front a little so I was by myself but that's ok, Ironman is a solo sport. It is great having them to push me though. Jayne is riding great and this was Tony's 1st century in his whole life. The both did a kick ass job. Tony's wife Laura, who just quit smoking about 3 months ago, rode ~60 miles and did a fantastic job. She has come far so fast. I guess Tony, The Hobbit, was whinning non stop though because all he got to see for about 4 hours was Jayne's ass. And according to Jayne,if she hadn't felt sorry for him he would have stared at it for the whole ride. She took pity on an old Hobbit.

What the Fork

2010-05-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I may not be as big a pussy as I thought. After a few months of riding my bike and never really feeling comfortable on it I decided to take it in and get it looked at. And what do you know my front fork is AFU. With the front wheel mounted and viewed from the front it is apparent,even to an idiot like me, that the wheel is not in the center of the fork. So it was not my imagination that made me feel like the bike was not stable, that there was a weird vibration. The bad news of this story is that the bike shop that I originally took the bike to after my crash was not the shop that discovered this problem. Even though they had the bike for about 2 weeks. They replaced a completely trashed front wheel. Yet obviously did not bother to fully check out the fork it was attached to when I did cart wheels on the damn thing at nearly 40 mph. I'm not a bike mechanic, that's why I pay someone else to look over my bike, to do the tune ups and replace parts etc. And in doing so I trust them, basically with my life, to do a good and thorough job. Not just sell me a wheel that I'm sure they marked up 100%. I won't do business that shop again. Which is really their loss, it where I bought that bike for a little over $4000 and tires and shorts and god knows what else. Bottom line I was a good customer and they let me down not just with bad customer service, that was never a problem, but poor quality control.
Back to the good news part of this story which I'm fairly excited about. The shop that discovered the problem is new, the owner, is not new. He used to own Two Wheel Transit and now has a new shop in Brown's Addition called simply Steve's on Cannon. As anyone who has ever dealt with Steve knows the guy knows bikes. I'm glad he's back in business.
As for the shop that let me down let's just say I won't be headed up north to get my bike serviced ever again.

Lilac Century Surprise

2010-04-27T06:06:00.001-07:00

Jayne, Tony and I rode in the Lilac Century Surprise today. This is a charity ride for the local rotary club. It has various distances you can ride 100 mi,66,50,25 and 15 I think. It's very popular and riders of all ages and abilities participate. This was my longest ride so far this year. Previous long was 48 miles. What make this ride so tough is it is hilly.I'd love to be able to say exactly how hilly but we have a little disparity between my Garmin and Jayne's. Mine says we did ~2600 ft of climbing Jayne's say ~4000 ft. Felt more like 4000. I fell a little beat up but I rode pretty hard for the first 45 miles or so. I really freaked out coming down Charles hill. So much so that I was taking to myself, out loud, trying to calm myself down. I was only going 32 mph felt like 132. I'll be glad when I get over this pussy phase I'm going through. All in all it was a great ride and a great workout. This is the last last on my "recovery" week so a day off tomorrow then hit it hard on Tues.

Training has begun

2010-04-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm back to training my shoulder is holding up fine. I have however discovered another problem. I seem to have turned into a pussy. Some may say I've always been a pussy, not to my face. But at any rate the problem seems to be a fear of a repeat crash. I've never had a problem going downhill fast. But now I seem to reach for brakes in situations that I would not have before the crash. Yesterday "The Hobbit" and I rode the Charles Hill loop. When we were going down Coolie Height, a hill I've gone down many many times without using my brakes, I was on the brakes the whole time. I was even telling myself to relax, just ride. But the whole time I was on the verge of panic. I know that with time this feeling will abate but right now it kind of takes the fun out of riding, at least downhill. The problem with that is around here most of our rides are hilly. Not to mention the race I'm training for has several thousand feet of climbing and decending. This is a side effect I think of getting old. When your young and dumb you have no fear. When you get old, things break, they take longer to heal and they leave a scar on your memory that is a constant reminder of what could happen. I liked it better when I didn't think it could happen to me.

Short and Sweet

2010-01-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

Yea I know it's been 4 months since my last post. I also know that so much has happened in that 4 months that there is no way I'm going to recap all of it and do it justice. So instead I'm going to do it as one giant sentence all in 1 breath kind of like an auctioneer. So here we go in chronological order, since my last post. I signed up for IM Canada 2010, started my new job as Clinical Coordinator for pharmacy,turned 46,went to the Galapagos for the 2nd time, had surgery on my left shoulder,Happy birthday Jayne,Happy Thanksgiving, started rehab on my shoulder(ouch),back to work,Merry Christmas,ran outside,rode bike on trainer,ran on treadmill, saw Avatar,Happy New Year. So now that we are all caught up I will try to get back in the habit of posting things on here. As this new year begins Jayne and I have alot going on. Our friend Casey has begun destroying our basement in preparation for a makeover. He ripped the old basalt rock off of the fireplace which we will replace with something. Have not made any final decisions yet. We are also going to rip out the carpet and Casey is going to stain the concrete, that's what he does for a living. We are also beginning our training for IM Canada on August 29th. My training right now consists of some very slow running and some time on the trainer, I won't be able to swim until probably April, doc say May,but we will see. This IM will be fun because not only are Jayne and I doing but we talked the Hobbit in to signing up as well. He has just begun going to Masters swim a couple of time a week. That will be his greatest challenge of his prep for IM as he has never been a swimmer. Well that and 100 mile bike rides. He will have to stop and find a spruce tree to crap under about every 30-40 miles. Somethings wrong with him, seriously.
Anyway Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all have a great and productive year!

Great Ski Day and Blowing a Front Tire Blows

2009-08-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

So I want to tell these 2 stories in order as to preserve the chronology and to illustrate how quickly things can change. So Friday was a beautiful day here in Spokane, clear skies and temps in the upper 70's. Jayne and Tony and I splash the Nautique about 9 am. We basically have the whole lake to ourselves. There was no wind so water was like glass, perfect. This is going to be the 1st time for all of us skiing in the slalom course for the year. So none of us is expecting to do much. Jayne started us off with some solid skiing for her. She working on skiing more aggressively and getting around those outside balls. Next up is Tony, better known on here as "the Hobbit". He starts at 32 mph and 15 off and runs his 1st pass, then his 2nd. Wow! Not that this is anything great but for 1st run of the year not bad. He runs 2 more and decide we should bump the speed to 34. His streak continues as he runs back to back 34 passes. Now its my turn, I too start at 32 and run 4 in a row, then bump up to 34 and run back to back passes. Tony and I ecstatic, we are both thinking hell if I don't ski again this year I would be happy with what we just did. The 2nd round went about the same for Jayne. Tony though decided to go out at 34 and struggle a little but not bad. So now that Tony was skiing more like we thought we both would ski I was less than excited but what the hell. So I go out at 34 and bada bing bada boom I ski just like I know what I'm doing. I put together 2 nearly perfect passes. At one point I had gotten behind a little but was able to remain patient and pull hard and I caught back up. We left the lake with a renewed excitement for skiing and were talking about when our next day on the water would take place....... Saturday was going to be a busy day. I was going to ride up Mt. Spokane with a group of Tri-Fusion teammates and Jayne was going ride Mt.Spokane on her MTB. So she dropped me off at 0830 and went on to her ride. Our group got on the road about 0900 for the grind to the top of Mt. Spokane. This is about a 45 mile total. Of coarse that means ~ 22.5 miles of climbing then 22.5 miles of descending. I'm not exactly sure how much climbing there is but my Garmin had it at ~4800 ft. training peaks puts it at 5900 ft. At any rate it was a lot of up. My goal for the ride was to keep my cadence above 90 as long as a could but to cap my HR at 150. At the beginning of the ride this kept me off the front of the group a little until we got to the base of the hill. Josh "the Machine" Hadaway then pulled a train of about 5 guys by me like I was parked. I was tempted to go with them until I noticed my HR had climbed to 161. I decided to stay with my plan, I need the aerobic work way more than I need to get anaerobic. So I fell off the back and just plugged along. It was an absolutely perfect day for a climb, not to hot. Shortly after I started up Summit road I was starting to fantasize about my protein bar in my back pocket, so I stopped and ate it. Greg and Natelie caught up to me about the time I finished the bar so I rode the rest of the way with them. It was nice riding with them during those last couple of miles. Once on top we joined the group and took a picture and waited for the last couple of people. Dave had missed the turn up to the summit but made it about 15 minutes later. After standing on top in the slight breeze we were all getting pretty cold. Now for the fun part. I love descending. My bike is so smooth and responsive it's like driving a Mercedes on a twisty mtn road. The very top section is pretty bumpy and narrow and the road surface is less than predictable. But once we got off of Summit road we were able to let em run a little faster. But there are some pretty tight turns so you really have to get on the breaks. Greg and I were off the front a little and running a real sweet line. We were on a straight away preparing for what looks to be a pretty tight left hand turn. I was on both breaks trying not to overload either one. When all of a sudden the handlebars are being yanked out of my hands and down I go. On my way down I had time to yell "FUCK" and that was about it. Boom crash bang head back elbow head back hands and knees, STOP! I wasn't sure how far the next rider was behind me so I was hoping they were not going to pile into me. I think it was Nate and he was able to stop. Everyone was great!!! They did everything right. They assessed my injuries quickly and got me and my bike out of the middle of the road. Then began a comedy of errors so to speak. A few guys on motorcycles came by and stopped and we decided to have Greg ride down with them to get his truck. After he left with them, I thought my car is just a few miles down the road because Jayne was riding her MTB bike. So we then sent a couple of guys with my keys to go get my car. But about 2 minutes after they left someone noticed that I had another key sticking out of the back of my jersey. And sure enough it was was the key to the Tahoe. So the guys that already left could get in the Tahoe with the remote but could not start the car. So we send someone else with that key. A few minutes later a ranger drives by and waves.....A few minutes after that he comes back and asks what happened and do we need any help. We thank him and he is on his way only to return about five minutes later with a lawn chair for me to sit in, that was nice of him. In the meantime we were finally able to reach Jayne on her cell. She had already left where she was parked and was headed back to where she had dropped me off. So now Greg was on his way back up with his truck. Matt, Craig and Dave were riding down to find a car that was no longer there and Jayne was in that car and driving back up the mtn. She rescued me and off the the ER we go. Long story, short, seperated AC joint. More commonly know as a seperated shoulder. Lots of bumps and bruises and some good road rash. Bike has bent handlebars and dinged up seat but so far that's all I've found. The real bummer for me, other than the pain, is that we are headed to Pentictin to watch IM Canada this next weekend. On Saturday I was going to ride the course with Heather Wurtele and Tony and Jayne. As I sit here right now I don't think that is going to happen. But we will see how fast I heal. I'll keep you posted. Enjoy the pics.
So remember when I was talking about how happy I was with my skiing. Turns out that just may be my only ski of the year.

The Scenic Challenge

2009-08-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday's race was my first triathlon this year. It was also going to be my longest run since the marathon back in May. So I really did not have any performance goals other than that I wanted to feel like I did my best for where my fitness is right now. This race has a wave start separated by 10 minutes and I was in the 2nd wave. So as I stood on the beach watching the 1st wave swim away. I set a new goal for myself, catch someone in the 1st wave. I remember when I did this race 11 years ago that I got passed by a couple of guys in the wave behind me, so I wanted a little revenge. When my wave started I went out pretty hard,for me. I was just trying to stay on Ron Crenshaw's feet. At about 3/4 of the way to the 1st turn I noticed that Ron had veered a little wide going into the turn as I was beside him. I took the shortest route and was headed for the next buoy. About 1/2 way to the 2nd turn I realized my 1st goal and passed someone wearing a neon green swim cap, color of the 1st wave. Then something weird happened. I passed a couple more green caps, then a few more. Then I was bitch-slapped back to reality when I was passed by a gray swim cap. He/she was in the 3rd wave. This turned out not to be an anomaly as I then got passed by a few other gray caps. I chugged along swimming a very straight line as smooth as I could and was soon standing up and running up the beach.
T1 was a complete disaster from a time standpoint. I have to wear socks, I hate blisters. Getting socks onto semi-dry feet is one of those things that the harder you try the harder it gets. Nearly 4 minutes later I roll out on what is sure to be a great bike ride. My goal was push hard for the whole ride. Since my run was going to be slow anyway I might as well try to push as hard as I could. I passed a lot of people on the way to Higgins Point. When we hit the big hill my legs felt good so kept left and continued to pass riders up the whole hill. I let it rip on the downs and kept my cadence up on the flats and continued to move through the "young" people. Did I mention that the 1 st wave was people 39 and younger. I does help the ego to pass a 25 yo guy on a hill. When we hit the final downhill I let the Serotta fly. I got right on the center line and let her rip, top speed 49.5 mph. Once we were back on flat ground I kept the cadence up picking off as many people as I could. T2 went better than T1 and as I took off on the run I was able to see Roger coming in for the win. You really need to read his race report, it's a good read.
As I said this was to be my longest run since the marathon in May. It was also my 1st brick run of the year. If you have never run right after riding your bike you need to. Until you get used to it, it's like running on a couple of canned hams. Jayne was all over the place taking pictures. I saw her at the beginning of the run. About 1.5 miles later I look up and there she is again. This really blew me away not that she was taking pictures, all of you that know her know that she is always taking pictures. But how in the hell did she cover the 1.5 miles fast than I did, I knew she could not have drove we parked to far away, she did not bring a bike, WTF. Turns out that she sprinted through the neighborhood, it was probably still a mile. The run went well no pain in my foot, but my run fitness was definitely not there. I just kept plugging along, I was still passing some of those 20 somethings though. However I did get passed a few times as well but mainly by team people. As I got back towards the finish line I saw Jessi and once she saw me, I was not in "uniform" she was screaming at the top of her lungs, totally pumped me up. As her voice began to fade I could then hear Jayne screaming, again this totally got me fired up. At the same time this guy tried to pass me, so I picked it up a little to get back in front of him. Apparently he did not like that so he passed me back and I was trapped behind him and next to 2 other runners. This pissed me off, as soon as I got and enough room I blew by that guy like he was standing still and finished strong.
Overall I was pretty happy with my race. I have made progress on the bike and the swim and I know that as I'm able to run more that fitness will return.
Speaking of running tonight is the 2nd race in our tri-clubs series Hot Summer Nights.

Hot Summer Nights 5K

2009-08-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight was the 1st race of a series of 4 being put on by the triathlon club that I'm a member of, Tri-Fusion . The series is called Hot Summer Nights, and is each Tuesday in August. This was the 1st fast run I've done since before the marathon back in May. I also worked last night and only got about 5 hrs of sleep today. So my expectations were not that high. I hoped I could run 7 min/mi. The course is good in that there are some small hills, enough to get the HR up for sure, but not real steep or long. Otherwise there was minimal traffic and quite few people for the clubs 1st running race. So my 1st mile was in 6:48. I paid for that a little in the 2nd mile 7:37 and was then able to settle back down and # 3 was 7:07. Overall time 22:09 which is 7:07/mi. I'll take for my 1st real "hard " rune for a while. I think I got 4th in my age group.
This Saturday I'll be racing over in CDA doing the Scenic Challenge. This will be my 2nd time doing this race the 1st time was back in 1998. It will interesting to see how much,or little I've improved. The course is a little different than it was back then, but similar. this is an Olympic distance race so 1.5 k swim, 24 k bike and 10 run. I'll let you know how it goes.

Bike time

2009-07-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

The last 10 days or so have being very good as far as bike riding goes. Not only has the Tour de France been very fun to watch. This year there is cool thing you can do with MAPMYRIDE.COM. You can upload the gps info from your rides and they have some sort of Voodoo they do to prorate and compare your ride to that days stage. Everyday that you submit a ride you have the chance to win prizes. Some based on performance and other based on a random drawing. So far I have not won a damn thing but I have been riding quite a bit. I have submitted 8 rides out of 17 so far. I know that sounds shitty now that I type it. But it is what it is.There is also a GC as in the Tour and right now I'm 484 out of 15323. Anyway I have riden about 250 miles since the 10th. This past weekend was really good. 45 mile flat out and back in which I was able to negative split by about 20 min. Then the next day 58 mile ride with Jayne which had about 4 k of climbing in it. Today begins my week off and I will build on what I've done. We are riding in the Loreen Miller 100 miler on Sunday, it supposed to be 101 degrees, so that will be a big day. Today I'm going to do a ~20 mile TT as is the TDF, they are doing 40 k actually.

Another Great Quote

2009-07-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

I just came accross this quote from David Goggins. If you don't know who he is Google him before you go to his site. He is a humble and modest guy and his site does not do him or his accomplishments justice. Anyway the quote is something that I think is at the heart of all endurance sports. "I don't train my body on runs, I train my mind and hope my body can keep up". If You have read Matt Fitzgeralds book Brain Training for Runners, this sentence pretty much sums it up.

Fair Swim, Good Ride

2009-07-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I participated in the Steve Omi Memorial Swim. This is a well attended as well as well intended event. The race raises money for scholarships for graduating seniors planning to swim at the collegiate level. The race is a 1 mile open water swim on lake CDA. This was my 1st open water swim of the year also my 1st wetsuit swim of the year. I have had 1 other swim this that was 1 mile but it was in a pool with several stops at the wall. So needless to say I took it easy. But who are we kidding I always take it easy when swimming. I finished in 31:47 in 112 place out of 226. To put in perspective for those of you that may not follow swimming. The kid that won is 13 and finished in 19:42. The little shit could have almost lapped me.
After the swim Ron and Virginia(Tri-Fusion team members) and I rode the CDA olympic course. Ron and I stuck with Virginia to the base of the big climb but at this point it was everyman for themselves. This is a tough course with a lot of climbing. My gps said I climbed 1656 ft, Training Peaks says it was 1903 ft. and mapmyride.com has it at ~950 ft. All I know is that it was tough climbing with a fast decent. All in all it was a good training day.

Find fault with this logic, I dare you!

2009-07-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
-Adrian Rogers

A good week

2009-07-05T03:02:00.000-07:00

As the 1st week of July comes to an end it's hard to believe we have already put half of this year in the books. Time seems to flow faster and faster the older I get.
Last weekend as most of you know I played in Hoopfest. For those who don't know this is the largest 3 on 3 basketball tournament in the world. This year I think there were 6700 teams breaking the previous record. I played on a team with some guys from my triathlon club. So needless to say we are all in good shape. However swimming,biking and running does not really prepare you for all of the start and stop in a hlf court basketball game. We did manage to win our first 2 games though. Basically our stradgedy was to run them to death. This worked well until game 3 win we came up against a team that could move the ball better than we could run. We got stomped pretty good. Our next game pitted us agianst the team we beat in our first game, and they wanted revenge. Thnaks to some good outside shooting and several made free throws they were able to hold us off. Oh well, it was fun.
The good thing that came out of the basketball was that I was running around like a crazy person and had no foot pain. So after I recovered from the b-ball I went for my first run in about a month. It was not good but my foot felt fine. So I'm going to start real slow and start base building. I'm really starting to ride quite a bit. Pat and I climbed Mt. Spokane this week and Jayne and I got in a ride as well. It's nice to not always ride alone. With the Tour starting this week it's easy to be motivated to get on the bike.Also got out on the lake skied a little this week. We still don't have our course in the water yet but that's ok, I'm not in shape for that yet anyway, but soon. I'm taking my boat over to the Hobbit's next weekend for his daughter's Re-wedding. Don't ask me it's some girl thing. I always thought the renewing vows thing was something you did if you both lived to be 80 or something. These kids have been married about 3 years...wtf.Oh well, free food.

a NON Triathlon related post

2009-06-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

This is nothing more than a shameless plug for my son's band Drawing Two. One of our local radio stations has built a webpage for local musicians to upload their music to. This is a cool way for bands to get heard. It's also an opportunity to download some good NEW music. It cost the same as iTunes 99 cents per song. The band with the most downloads gets to open for a concert the radio station is promoting. So go HERE and check them out, if you like it buy it.

IM CDA

2009-06-20T03:26:00.001-07:00

it's that time of year again for IM CDA. This year though we will be sitting on the side lines cheering on our friends. For anybody that has been around an Ironman event you know how contagous it all is. How the excitement is everywhere. The inspiring stories of obstacles overcome and countless hours spent in preparation just suck you in. You can't help but want to DO something. This week I was able to go over to CDA and ride the bike course with Kevin Purcell a coach from San Diego. We had chatted a few times here in the blogosphere but had never actually met so it was great to get to put a face with the web page. He is up here coaching I think 5 different athletes that are doing the race. He was here to race last year but double flatted and was not able to continue so he wanted to ride the course. So after a little phone tag we were off for a windy 56 mile ride. We headed out towards Higgins Point and I was sort of playing tour guide and at the same time getting to know Kevin. The whole while he is making mental notes to pass on to his athletes. We slightly modified the course to avoid a little of the midday traffic through town. As we headed north on 4th street the sun was shining and we were cruising, then came the hills. Me being me, not to smart, I'm cranking up these hills like I've been training for months, instead of like this going to be first ride farther than 40 miles of the year. For the 1st 35 miles this was no problem. By the time we hit ~ 45 miles I was hurting. It's about this part of the course where there are several miles of relativly flat terrain that is just a grind. This is not my strength. I have not had much success with high cadence steady cranking. This was kind of timely because Kevin had just been talking to Gordo about this very issue. As a matter of fact he just published an article about it on xtri.com. After reading this article it's clear, not that it wasn't before, I have alot of work to do.
As for the race on Sunday I'll be there cheering on my friends and planning on my next IM, Canada 2010.

Plantar Fasciitis

2009-06-06T05:45:00.000-07:00

As you can tell I have not had much to say lately. Well I have had things to say but have been to busy doing everything but training to to take the time to write anything.Jayne sparked a fire under my ass this past week and we have been working in the yard, alot. This is the problem with over an acre of yard, not to mention the other 4 acres. It has all kind of taken the back burner for a while but we are getting it dialed in. At any rate the training has morphed into swim and bike only. My left foot is still pretty painful to the touch. I'm 98% sure that it's plantar fasciitis but need an x-ray to rule out a bone spur and maybe an MRI to rule out the other possible but very unlikely causes of my pain. So I need to talk a few people and see what I can get done. So for now I'm swimming 2-3 days a week and biking the same. The 1st real race I care about isn't until Aug. so I have some time to turn it around and the biking and swimming should keep me fit.

Back to the Drawing Board

2009-05-22T03:02:00.000-07:00

What can I, other than I didn't qualify. I had a terrible day, plain and simple. I struggled from early on in the race, with my foot. By the time that settled down I had already run a few miles mile an inconsistant gait. But it wasn't a pain issue as much as it was just a stuggle. My effort felt high eventhough my pace was not. I was right on pace throught the 1st 13.1, at which point I had to pee. This put me back just a little I made it up within the next mile. That increased effort combined with the very slight hill after crossing the river really zapped me. When I crossed Argonne I new I was in trouble. My pace had fallin off and my legs were just not responding. I had also some moderate GI stuff going on through out the race but it was just uncomfortable. But by the time I turned on Upriver I was in pain. I was nearly doubled over a few times with some "diarhea" type cramps that I thought may lead to a Spokane river ass washing. By the time I reached Green street I was at a mear shuffle pace. I was in complete survival mode. Which I did, survive, I mean. To say that I'm dissappointed is a gross understatement.
Unfortunatly The "Hobbit" also had a crappy day. We both about 25 mins slower than predicted. The thing is we both understand that the Marathon is not like any other race, at least at our level. It can and will humble you, did me.
As for the inaugral running of the Windemere Marathon....it was Just ok. For their 1st try I guess it was a good effort. There is one thing that I just don't understand though. How in the world do you screw up the mile markers on a 26 mile point to point race. There is only 1 of each number..... but they did.

A Few Thoughts

2009-05-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

So the marathon is in 3 days. Wish me luck!! At this point it doesn't really matter if I'm ready or not, it's here. I'll just have to give it my best shot. My foot is pretty sore, but I think it will be fine for the race. Afterwards though I will need some time to let the thing heal.
Last week was Bloomsday. I had a less than stellar performance 54:43 to be exact. That is about 3:20 slower than last year. And I can only attribute about 1 min to my starting position in the yellow section. From back there the amount of zigging and zagging does slow you up and probably does take its toll but no excuses. I just was not as fast this year. I have been consistanly slower in all races this year.
Ben Greenfield had an interesting post on his page asking the question "Why do you do Triathlon" his article was thought provoking and the comments posted were interesting. This was what I came up with.

To me life is all about experiences. The anticipation leading upto an experience and the memories of experiences past. Triathlon offers physical and mental challenges that are unique yet also transend all other aspects of life. Like Al, I'm often humbled by these endurance activities. kind of like standing at the edge of the ocean or at the foot of a mountain. The precipice of an Ironman, while overwhelming, can put things into perspective.There is order even in the most chaotic but there is no easy way, ever, at anything.

So Cool I had to steal it.

2009-04-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

Long, long run

2009-04-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday the Hobbit and I were set to do the dreaded 20 mile run. I really hate this run. Mainly because up to this point I have never had a 20 mile run that did not leave me feeling like I had been hit by a bus. This run was a little different. Again we ran the race course but this time we moved a little closer to where the race will actually start in Post Falls. We did make a slight miscalculation though, which became evident when we reached Liberty Lake. That was where we started from a few weeks back when we ran a little over 16 miles. The problem we had this time was when we got to Liberty Lake we had already run a little over 6 miles....oops, that would be my fault. The Hobbit then started whining about how this was going to be 22 miles....cry,cry,cry, whine, whine. And when I stopped to pee, for the second time, the little girl took off without me. And not only did he go on without me, he hiked up his skirt and picked up the pace too. So the rest of my run I was alone with my thoughts. It was just about the perfect day for running about 50 degrees and overcast. For the most part I had the whole trail to myself. There were 2 races here in Spokane that day so most runners were running one those races. I needed a long run more than I needed a race,which is why I wasn't racing. I felt pretty good during the entire run. I was even encouraged by my ability to accelerate to cross Argonne, a busy road, for those of you that don't know Spokane. That was about mile 16 or so and I remember thinking at the time that mile 16 of the Portland marathon I was in no shape to accelerate. I did finally catch Tony at mile 21. The big pussy was walking!!! and had been since mile 20. He then started running with me again. But now that he was all rested and recovered he wanted to talk. I had to tell him to shut the f**k up. At that point it took every bit of brain power I had left just to keep all my shit going in the same direction. The cool part though was we ran the last 1-1.5 miles at about 8:30 pace, which meant I sped up. Another good thing to come out of that run was that I ran a negative split, which I've been able to do on all of my long runs this year. So when it was all said and done it ended up being 22.77 miles in 3:12 and change. And all and all I felt pretty good. I went home ate and then helped Jayne's dad run the sawmill for a few hours.
Monday was a total rest day except for painting my house, I was a little worried about climbing ladders and tired legs but it went ok.
Tuesday Pat and I road our bikes. When I hit the first hill, my legs quickly reminded me about my long run. So we just cruised and chatted it's always great to ride with Pat.
Today the Hobbit and I ran most of the Bloomsday course nice and slow and still felt pretty spanked on the hills. Tomorrow I plan on a tempo run with 7 miles at 7:43 pace. That will hurt, I'll let you know.

5 WEEKS OUT

2009-04-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

With just under 5 weeks until the race every workout counts now. So even though this is a work week Sunday morning was a long run, 16 miles to be exact. Long runs after working all night are tough and hopefully they will make me tougher. It was touch and go for the 1 st couple of miles until I got warmed up. Then I settled in to a pretty comfortable pace ~8:25-40 or so. I ran an out and back from the hospital which puts me on the actual race course for most of the run. Of course on the out part I'm running the course backwards. So at the turn around I was trying to motivate myself by reminding me that this IS the course. On race day when you are right here you will be at about mile 19, "lets practice that strong finish"!!!! I think it helped because for the 2nd week in a row I was able to negative split my long run. This weeks negative split was not as profound as last weeks but I'll still take it as moral victory.
After my run Jayne and I watched the movie Seven Pounds before I went to bed. What a great movie I highly recommend it. Guaranteed to provoke a whole host of emotions/feelings. This coming from the guy described as the man with 1 feeling.
This next week will be my biggest week for training with the dreaded 20 mile run on Sunday. I hope that won't be to big of a jump but I need to get it under my belt.

Up and Moving

2009-04-10T01:55:00.000-07:00

My Achilles and I have kissed and made up. Last week was an ok week on volume, I was able to run 30 mile for the week but 15 of those were on Sun. The other 15 came from a 7 mile easy run and an 8 miler that was made up of 3x1 mile intervals. I ran this with the Hobbit on the Centennial trail. Our goal was to hold 7 min/mi. pace. It went more like 6:45, 6:48, 6:55. The other 5 miles was run ~ 8:30.
Our long run, as I mentioned, was a 15 miler. Well actually I ran 15. The Hobbit was suffering from the sandy gina on Sunday. Whining and crying about how tired he was, he turned around at 7 miles. And later when we/I stood in the lake to "ice" my legs he cried little Hobbit tears and got out after about 30 seconds. Even after 2 real girls, I mean 18-19 yo girls, came and stood in the water. He was not able to nut up and stand in the cold water. No worries, he knows he totally pussed out, and he would admit it. We ran, for the 1st time, but not the last, on the Columbia Plateau Trail . We started/stopped at Fish Lake and ran to Turnbull. This is a trail we will run a lot more this year. This is a converted railroad grade. The 1st 3.75 miles was paved then it turned gravel, but good gravel. Along the paved part it was very cool. Due to all of the runoff this year there were small rivers running along each side of the trail. But the most spectacular sight was a ~10-15 foot waterfall that came cascading down the basalt, very cool. The geology along this section is really cool too. Basalt columns 20-30 ft high in places lined both sides of the trail. I can't imagine all the work that went into building this back when they were laying the track. We also ran passed several small lakes. When we entered Turnbull we both were hoping to see some Elk. There is a huge herd there. Looking forward to running there again.