Winter time!

Here's my Longhorn post-race post. If you're looking for something exciting and interesting to read, sorry.
Going into the race I accepted that no matter how good I felt in the training leading up to the race, it was very late in the season for me, and I had that dreaded burnt-out feeling. Option 'A' was I could pace myself in the race, maintain consistency, and hope to hold it all day. OR, I could go with option 'B' and acknowledge the fact that I might fall apart at any point in the race and I should go as hard as I could until I blow up. Option A was smart, logical, and the training I had done was optimal for it. I took option B. Everything went as planned...

The swim went well despite going into the race with a separated shoulder (AC joint, courtesy of Marty). Some pain on the bike lead to doing alot of the ride with one arm in the aerobars, bad arm in my lap. 8:30's on the run, 'nuff said. I finished, I was happy, I'm done for the season.
Winter plans include alot of running due to a long triathlon season of not feeling comfortable on the run, maybe a marathon or something. And I don't ride or swim in cold (sub 60) weather.

Longhorn 70.3

Yeah, it's time to start the annoying race-day count down again. Not really.
It's the end of Monday, race is Sunday, and I'm trying to convince myself I'm not ready so I have my ritualistic pre-race anxiety. Which isn't all that hard to do considering I'm not ready. (So far) My swim training is the same it always is, 8-10 weeks behind. Since school started- 2 months ago- I haven't had nearly enough time on the bike but all my long rides have been solidly reassuring, and the short stuff has all felt pretty good. Run wise I think I'm more prepared than I've been for previous 1/2 IM's. So we'll see. Unless it's cold and raining, then I know exactly how sunday is going to go :) I plan on getting a post-race up here mon/tues.

Aside from triathlon, I'm STILL a student getting my ass kicked by long commutes, early classes, and work overloads of stuff I usually don't understand. Nothing new.

This may seem like "George's complaint blog" but truth is I enjoy doing everything I do. Wether it's then and there, or what I get to walk away with . Let's hope Longhorn is one of those "then and there" experiences!

School, training, and Ironman champions

First things first, this past weekend was Ironman Wisconsin and Austin's own Brandon and Amy Marsh went up to rock the course. Brandon came in 9th pro (10th OA) and Amy WON! I wish I was capable of putting as much hardwork and dedication into training as they did and it was great to see it pay off for them.

Onto my less-eventful ramblings:
Baaaaack to school! Damnit. The past four weeks training hours have been almost entirely replaced by school hours, and I still hate it. The bright side is I'm pretty much done with the basic courses and the workload is alot less busy-work, but alot more real work. And I found out I'm not all that great in biology too. I've been squeezing in training in the evenings lately because of this new schedule and am threatening to start doing 5:45am swim workouts. We're even having a little cold front in Austin and I actually got cold during the long Sunday ride with T3-Suzanne, and I made sure to let her know by complaining a little....

This weekend is the Burnet Triathlon which I heard was full, but whoever's doing it I may see you out there! Also Red Licorice Events' "Dude Girl" triathlon at Pace Bend park is sunday, I won't be there.

My eventful weekend

Saturday morning I was up early for the ATC saturday ride. Feeling good and nothing else going on that weekend I went all out and A-Packed with Grant and Carlos to the point where I was waiting my my legs to explode. I got back to the shop feeling the wasy I usually do after the ride- wobbly, overheated, and immensely dehydrated. Then I got a call from C-May asking if we would get up at 4am the next day and go to San Antonio for the State TTT Championship. That sucked. I said yes, that sucked more. Had a few beers that night, got to sleep not early enough. Up at 3:30 sunday and couldn't wake up. I tried a redbull, that didn't do much so I jumped in the shower... with the redbull, that helped. Threw on the ATC Racing kit, loaded my stuff, and met everyone at Corey's by 5. We parked, did the regular pre-race runthrough, and left for the start-line to avoid pulling a "Darragh" (show up 2-3 minutes late). With no warm-up, atrocious caloric intake, and a complete lack of TTT practice we rolled into the start tent and waited for the gun. The first couple miles we stuck to the premeditated plan of rollout order and rotation until I felt the pace lose momentum and I came off the back to take an out-of-turn pull for our just-got-back-from-honeymmoon-and-haven't-been-on-a-bike-in-2-weeks teammate Adam. Or in his words, when I attacked off the back. Sorry. Grant, Corey and I tried to keep the pace steady and deliver Corey a TTT to avenge his ITT the day before and we all suffered in the process. We rolled across the finish line under 56 minutes with a new skill of TTT'ing, sweaty, cross-eyed and as champions. That's right. The four of us are cat4 State Team Time Trial Champions. It might not sound like an actual accomplishment, but.... it sort of kind of is. And for once we didn't completely sandbag in the 5-category.
So in one weekend I learned warm-up, redbull, aero-helmets = good, and 3:30am, ATC saturday ride, beer, and no warm-up = bad.

Marble Falls

I'm not usually very big about race reports on smaller races, but I think it was a good one.
First and foremost, Marble Falls is a great race and any triathlete who's never done it is missing out. It's smaller (500) but has flawless support.
The first wave was scheduled to go at 7am which makes for an early morning for Austinites commuting the morning of. I was in the first wave (35 & Under) and think it's important to mention I did not realize James Bayles was in my AG. The gun goes off and from the start 2 people got ahead of me in the water. I came out slightly overheated from 85 degree water with 3 others, got ahead of them in transition, passed another on the climb out of transition, and tried to keep the remaining guy (Bayles) in site through the constant hills. That only lasted the first half of the bike. I was 2nd into transition with Terranova and Dietsch quickly closing the 3 minute gap from the wave behind me. I left T2 hoping to get the leader back in sight. The course was mostly flat but had a couple very short, very steep hills. Terranova passed me at the 2-mile mark right before we saw the leader heading back in on the out-and-back. I simultaneously realized it was Bayles and we weren't catching him. At mile ~3 Vince Dietsch flew by me and I held the rest off for the rest of the race. Trowbridge closed about a minute on me so he didn't pass me but beat me overall. I was happy to take 5th behind that respectable crowd and walk away with season-best splits (and an AG win!).

Ironman CDA Race Report

This is almost a week after-the-fact because I wrote a RR, clicked Publish Post and my computer lost everything and gave me the "page expired" screen. Awesome.
Round Two:
We flew into Spokane Thursday morning, did the baggage claim/rental car/hotel check-in routine then headed to the race-site. I was shocked at how green Coeur D'Alene is! I almost felt bad walking on the grass at transition. Got checked in, picked up my race-packet and got an easy run in before dinner. Friday morning I did a practice swim to set expectations for the cold, choppy swim but opted against swimming Saturday due to discouragingly cold weather, wind and rain, and did an easy spin on the bike when it cleared up in the afternoon. Both Friday and Saturday consisted of.... nothing. Low activity, alot of snacking, and early to bed.
I got my first pre-race panic at 1am race morning. A pounding headache woke me up and in my groggy-mind this was going to ruin my whole race. It kept me up for about 30 minutes before the NSAID's kicked in and I woke up again as planned at 4am. Ate breakfast, had half a small cup of crappy coffee, grabbed my stuff and got to the race site 5 minutes before it opened. I ran through the setup routine, got my swim stuff, and hung out with some T3'ers before the start.
Apparently my watch is 1:30 slow because the gun went off at 6:58:something. Threw on my goggles and sprinted into the Tsunami to fight through the masses. The water was a perfect temperature but the waves were unbelievable. If you had a strategy in the water it went out the window and you struggled to the turnaround and body-surfed back in. The worst part of my day was either getting lifted up by a wave and thrown into the turnaround buoy or when I got lifted up by a wave, then dropped back into the trough of the wave, took a stroke, a breath, then looked down to be face-to-face with a scuba diver. I shrieked and flailed like a drowning 6 year-old girl. Good thing nobody saw that! In swim was more chaotic than anything I'd ever done and the conditions worsened it, so a quarter through I decided just to get through it but managed to stay in the main pack.
T1 went smoothly, opted against arm-warmers since the sun was out and the wind died. Idaho is a beautifully scenic area with some ridiculous hills. The ride was a fair balance of good steady climbs, rollers, and some flats to the push the pace inbetween. The second (of 2) lap was miserable because I knew what I was in for.
T2 went better than T1. I remembered to take my aero-helmet off, I got to put dry socks on, and I could almost feel my feet at the start.
The first 2 miles were trying to get into a rythm rather than feeling like I was stomping the ground in every stride. Miles 3-7 were on achey legs, miles 8-12 felt fast, 13-21 were steady, and the end was... well you know. It got miserably cold and some light rain on the run so I was fighting to stay warm enough to keep moving. i was good about nutrition on the bike and just felt full on the run so I ditched my gel flask and relied on handups. I grabbed water at the first aid-station, ran through the next 4-5, then grabbed something at every other stop for the rest of the race alternating between water and gatorade, and a cola at every stop from mile 21-25. After a whole day of nothing but powerbars, gels, gatorade, water/nuun, and carbo-pro I was craving real, dry food. Pretzels on the run have never been better. I ended up 10:44:42- which I'm happy with but going faster wouldn't have been bad.
The swim was a UFC-style 1:07, T1-5:02, the bike was a thought-I-went-faster 5:27:08, T2-2:17, and the run was an I-didn't-break-4-hours 4:03:16.
All-in-all I had a great race and spent the whole time looking forward to my next IM, which I can't say about AZ last year...

12 hours...

The good news is the countdown is over after this post, the bad news is I have to do an Ironman first thing in the morning. It's really not bad news, just a pretty heavy thing to have on your shoulders. The weather here has been perfect for most of the time we've been here. I've been in a sweatshirt mornings and nights and barely getting away with shorts and a t-shirt in the afternoon. I rode briefly this morning and after about 5 minutes I broke out of the uncomfortable cold feeling and could effortlessly ease into a rythm on the bike. The forecast tomorrow is supposed to be 65-69 with possible rain/thunderstorms around 1-2, about when I plan on finishing the bike. The only thing stressing me out is how choppy the water has been...
As always the support from everyone keeps me going, so thanks for that.

Aside from the race, Coeur D'Alene is beautiful. The summers here are alot like the winters in Austin, and low humidity. After the race we're road-tripping to Montana until Thursday, then back to Spokane, Wa. for our Friday morning flight home. I'm already homesick though... Post-race update monday!

7 Days...

Yes... I'm doing the annoying countdown. A week from this very second I won't be on my couch eating breakfast tacos and watching CMT music videos, I'll be riding my bicycle. Hopefully for just a little over 5 hours. After that I'll be running, hopefully for less than 4 hours. I think this is what is referred to as the calm before the storm. This is the first weekend in a very long time that I got breakfast after my morning ride instead of lunch and had a couple hours to kill after my run and before work.

Thursday morning, as in before sunrise, I catch a flight to Spokane, Wa. rent a car and head east to Coeur D'Alene, which I can now spell correctly. This will be my second Ironman, which I think will be harder than my first because I can't use the excuse that it's my first and I "just want to finish" to get out of "expectations". I can't use the term PR but considering my first one, there is alot of room for improvement. It's been a tolling 6-months of training on me and STILL working my way through injuries from before training started made it that much more difficult to try and take in and enjoy the process.

On a more successful note (ha ha) - Team Marsh just had great races this morning at Kansas 70.3. Brandon 5th and Amy 3rd (behind Chrissy Wellington and Pip Taylor). I'd count that off as a good way to start (and finish?) the day. Congratulations

12 Days...

I forgot how fast time goes by the last 2-3 weeks before big races. I've delayed doing the important things I'd planned on doing a week or two ago and it's about to be crunch time. I think the only thing keeping me sane at this point is the training was on, played out ideally, and I feel "ready" for another Ironman. I've been comparing my training this year to my training for IMAZ last year and realized the benefit of quality over quantity. I didn't train myself into the ground this year to the point where I had to take several days off to recover and I avoided having any major burnout periods. I did more of the longer runs and rides by myself this year and the bigger focus on keeping steady will hopefully pay off. Now the only thing left to do is sustain a beneficial taper and stick to the plan on raceday. The 10-day countdown starts soon!

Bi-Monthly Blog update part II

I swam tuesday, so according to a previous post that means it's time to update my blog too. Nothing real exciting but alot of it! After about a month and a half of a hit-or-miss training regimen I' back on track for ironman training with about 4.5 weeks to go. With that being said, I did a crit race today... about a month before an Ironman. Good thing I don't think things through sometimes because it was alot of fun. My race strategy for things like that is go to the front and ride like hell for 30 mins. However, with about 3 laps to go I faded back to mid-pack to catch a draft and get a minute or 2 of recovery, and that's when the crash occured. I was about 2 bike lengths behind and a couple widths to the side so was able to stay out of it and rode into the gravel at 22mph. By the time I got myself back on the course I hammered for 2 laps and realized I wasn't catching the lead group, but had a good injury-free workout nonetheless. But that's the last stupid workout until after CDA. CapTexTri (sprint) is on the schedule though since my pre-race "check-engine" light is on I'm hoping it'll be a good way of getting the final tweak on training.

On another note Turq at Xterra Wetsuits messaged me about sending a transition bag, which I'm assuming is new, so that's definitely a product worth checking out. Maybe a product review or comparison report to my current RSS bag? Check for that one in a week or two.

Race Report

Well... I was planning on updating this weekend with my race report about Collegiate Nationals in Lubbock, but I think I'd rather write a 2-week late Galveston report. Two weeks ago the Austin Tri-Cyclist guys and I made the trip to Galveston and made a good appearence in all 3 races. Adam in the sprint distance, Rita/Corey, Shawn, and Missy in the quarter distance, myself in the half, and Don providing good support and encouragement from the sideline. All-in-all I was very happy with the turnout as far as weather and results went, I was within 10 seconds of my goal time (4:30:10) and was able to look back on it without any regret of what I should have/could have done differently. Adam stayed near the front of his race, Rita/Corey won their relay division, Shawn had possibly his best race to date, and Missy led her race up until getting out-sprinted with less than 200 meters to go.
Now here's what happened in lovely Lubbock: The atmosphere was stressful but exciting the whole time I was there. I get antsy in the 24 hours leading up to the race and riding with the TxSt team up there, I had no control of our itinerary, which didn't help me. We got there late Friday, did packet pick-up, checked into our hotel, ate dinner, made our last-minute grocery run, and started getting our bikes/gear ready for the Saturday race.
Race Morning: Here's where everything falls apart. We get to the race site, have ~30 min to get our stuff set-up, visit the porta-potty, air up our tires, visit the porta-potty, get body marked/pick up timing chips, visit the porta-potty, grab our swim stuff, and get out of transition. I wasted no time running through the routine but the whole thing seemed very cluttered and thrown together so everyone was running late but they still closed transition early and gave penalties to everyone still inside... Bad way to start a race. Sprint goes off at 7, Nationals racers stand around in the 40 degree weather until our 8:30 race-start. I was first wave, toed the line at our 15-minute late start, already freezing and shivering. Air-horn goes off, mad dash to the water, and instantly the energetic, competitive mood shifts. The water was 56 degrees and any attempt at warming up failed. I couldn't breath so I moved to the side, waited for the pack to pass, jumped on the back and tried to stay on the feet. I held in until the 1/2 way mark and at that point lost the race and focused on just finishing the swim. I don't do well in cold weather. After what seemed like a couple hours I got to the swim-finish buoy and started running out of the water. Immediately a volunteer, unaware to me, tried(?) to help me get my wetsuit off. I ran past her and as I passed she grabbed the zipper string, yanking me to the side and backwards, kinking my back... I'm still waiting for something to go right. I have a fast T1 despite not having time to unpack/layout my stuff before the start, and head out on the bike. In Buffalo Springs, coming out of transition, the first thing you do is climb up a long steep hill. With frozen, numb hands and feet it's tough getting your feet in the shoes, it probably looked like I'd never done it before. I struggled in every pedal stroke up the hill, and riding down the backside I feel my bike floating uncontrollably all over the road at 30+mph... No air in the back tire. Still shivering and fighting to get deep breaths there was no way my race was going on. It's embarassing having to walk back through the crowds of people to transition. Bundled up with every piece of clothing I had with me, my incredible parents got me to the car and to my hotel where I stood in a hot shower until I could think clearly again. That was my 2nd DNF ever, and first DNF (and last!) in a serious race. To me it's not ok to DNF just because a couple things go wrong. A race slower than normal is not justification for quitting. I was able to walk away knowing I went as far as I physically could, and happy that I at least started when I knew I probably shouldn't have. The best advice I recieved before the race was to just stay home, but with nothing to lose i gave it a shot. You gotta have bad races to have good races and some people can't be thanked enough for getting me through both.
http://www.brandonmarsh.com/

March Post

I've decided to write a new post every time I swim, so once a month I'll have something new up here haha... but really.
All the exciting stuff that happened I've forgotten by the time I actually get around to updating. Training's been very good with the exception of a week or so of weak running. I was feeling confident and strong on the bike yesterday until James Bonney came around me and brought me back to reality.
Galveston is about 1.5 weeks away and Collegiate Nationals is about 3.5 weeks away, and a stomach bug has pulled the reins on training a little bit. As of now I don't plan on taking a day off until I start a 4 day taper for galveston, then try to figure out how to recover, train back to par, and taper for nationals. Not sure how that'll go...
Hope everyone who still has a spring break had a good one, until next month...

I hate when I do a workout in the morning and the weather is crappy then as soon as I finish and plant myself on the couch with a weeks worth of caffeine and carbs the weather turns to perfect. Just thought I'd share that, seems to happen to me alot.
this weekend consisted of alot of running, and absolutely zero cycling, so far. Friday was a fairly steady 8 mile run. Saturday I had every intention of getting my long run out of the way and riding long today (sunday). My legs weren't feelin it saturday so I made it 5 miles and headed to work. Today was a 15 mile run that I paced terribly, pushed too hard too early, but all-in-all went well except now I have a painfully tight hamstring. My only ride since wednesday is gonna be about 20-25 minutes to try and loosen up the legs later this afternoon. The plan is to get back on track starting tomorrow.
And here's where I try and sell you on a product I like: FLUID! A couple weeks ago I got a new sponsorship with Fluid recovery, and the stuff works. There're only two flavors right now, "berry treasure" being the better of the two. Nothing but good things to say about it so go give it a try.

Knees and nutrition part II

The update from the knee doc is medial tearing where the patella tendon attaches to the tibia, which is good news! Or... could be worse. So I celebrated by running 14 miles, or to be more specific I ran 12.5, cratered horribly, then did the suffering-shuffle the last 1.5. I'm blaming that one on me for not eating breakfast before the run. So now I just have to do some maintainence and use an anti-inflammatory cream (NSAIC?) for a few weeks. Saturday was too miserable to ride, I started and decided I just didn't want to suffer that early on in training, say what you want about how much of a cold-weather wimp I am, as long as I get to be warm while you do so. Congratulations to everyone who raced this weekend, especially Darragh who ran a 2:40.
More later.

Knees and nutrition

This week seems to be starting out well so far. I like to keep Saturdays the end of my week and Sundays the beginning, keeps me sane. Yesterday was only a 40 mile ride, but it was absurdly windy and I was dumb and did the ride solo... Nooooobody to draft. I did come up on people every now and then and grabbed their wheel for a couple seconds of relief though. Today I started the 10 mile run with the intention of quitting after 2 miles, based on my previous runs in the past week due to alot of pain from a slightly torn patella tendon. The run went well though and the pain was ignorable(word?). I was going to get another 5 in since I missed the long run last week when I was sick, Coach Logan advised against it and said to stick to the schedule. The plan is to get a couple hours in at work then an easy hour or two on the bike then call it a day. If anyone's up for a couple steady-paced 7-mile runs this week I could use the motivation!
As for my new nutritional break-through, my sister made me cookies made out of coconut, banana, oatmeal, and chocolate chips, with no oil, butter, dairy, or flour. Along with a cup of coffee and a couple glasses of water/nuun, it is the best thing in the world before any workout.

Brought to you by nyquil

I have the flu, and from what it sounds like so do most people in central Texas right now. The weekend went well with a 57(?) mile ride followed by a solid workday saturday. Shawn Ullman gets yet another shout out for getting all of us in the VIP room at Aces lounge for the ACDC cover band show, which from what I remember was great. I got up at 7 on sunday to run... and wasn't feeling it, so I slept until 10. Still feeling sluggish I gave up the idea of running and tried to ride. An hour in I realized I wasn't hung over, I was sick. I went home to lay down and couldn't get up for a couple hours. I had a 100 degree fever and barely made it to the end of the Super Bowl (great game!). So monday/today I've been achey, energyless, nauseous, and chilly. On top of that I've been trying to finish my paper over "Federal Food Regulation and Safety" while alternating between dayquil, nyquil, and alka-seltzer. I hate school work, cold medicine doesn't make it much easier.

FYF

The annual Frost Yer Fanny duathlon was this morning and I was pretty impressed with not only the ATC turnout, but results too. In the short course race Grant took first OA in a seemingly tough crowd and MDR took 2nd in the womens race. In the sprint race I won the OA, Adam took second, and Ryan chased him down in a close 3rd. The one and only Shawn Ullman made an appearance and crushed the field securing his 8th place finish about 30 seconds behind Jeff Rogers. With a solid 3 weeks of ZERO training Don still had an admirable but still unknown bike split, and was running when I saw him.
Now I'm sitting on the couch doing laundry suffering through a sinus infection I got while standing around waiting for awards. Congratulations to everyone who raced FYF and 3M today, hope everyone has a good week.

A day of firsts

Today was pretty crazy... The presidential inauguration of our first black president, the first day of classes for the semester, and I swam for the first time in a pretty long time. I froze my ass off and am not doing that again until it warms up.
Besides the swim I've been feeling pretty good in workouts. My focus for the season is going to be the run, motivated after struggling through '08. Local celebrity Brandon Marsh is helping me out with some structure up to Lonestar half in April. It's nice having that 1-on-1 coaching that's focused on my capabilities and goals instead of the textbook mass-printouts that I've been working off of. I've been using those as a loose structure and do the fine tuning myself, so it's great having more specific workouts from someone who truly knows their stuff. My long run now is up to around 11 miles which I did sunday, and it hurt. It was a combination of feeling like I was running on sand, struggling to not drag my feet, and staying motivated to not bail out early, but I made it and it's alot more than I could do a month or so ago. It only gets better from here...

'09 season starter

2009 training has officially started for me today, mostly just mentally though. I'm training for Ironman Coeur D'Alene with T3 and today was the inaugural workout. It was just a short run workout up and down a hill a few times but it's what I needed to get my head into it.
It was also reassuring because my knee pain is manageable after the run today. I spent all winter worried that I wouldn't heal as fast as I did and have to start training late. So all's good.
School starts back up soon too, which I'm less excited about. Still haven't heard back after sending in transcripts/apps/etc. but I'm planning on going back to being a full-time student instead of continuing to drag it out.
That's all I've got now, happy new year!