George's blog

Winter time!

2009-11-03T13:20:00.001-08:00

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

2009-10-19T19:53:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-27T17:12:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-06-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-06-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-06-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-19T12:55:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-02-22T13:04:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-17T05:46:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T14:51:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

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!

Bikes of my past

2008-12-31T07:16:00.000-08:00

After seeing Brandons list, then Adams list, i decided to follow the trend and make my own list. Here's the list as far back as i can remember-

Mongoose steel frame MTB- full rigid
Royce Union BMX bike- awesome
Mongoose Aluminum hardtail MTB- heavy and horrible
Vitus steel frame tri-bike- first 700c bike, road well but not very fast...squishy.
Fuji Aloha tri bike- Don hooked me up here and i road the wheels off it, kind of liked it.
Fuji Tahoe Pro MTB- First decent mountain bike. Pretty good ride
Specialized Allez elite Road bike- first road bike, nothing special(ized)
Redline SS 29'er- Fun but useless
Cervelo P3C- Unreal.. I don't want a P4
Cervelo Soloist Carbon- Another great cervelo, most fun bike I've ever ridden
Fuji Mt. Fuji Pro MTB- somewhat disappointed, but a fun bike
Orbea Orca (as commuter)- Never late to work on it
Cervelo SLC-SL- R.I.P
Soon to come- another SLC-SL frame

The past 10 or so is within the last 3-4 years... I should slow down with the bikes..

Weather and other boring crap like that...

2008-12-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

This weather is bullshit, but I guess considering it's middle of December I should be a little more thankful. I just wish it'd stay somewhat consistant for more than 24 hours. I do hate that everything seems to drastically slow down as soon as November ends.

It is that time of the year that everything at the shop changes too. New '09 bikes and accesories and I think it's tradition to knock out a couple walls and rearrange the whole inventory but we've gotten that out of the way early. My recovery is still the slow process I was told it would be so it's good I don't actually have the motivation to want to do anything. Saturday evening I did get to spend 4 hours in the Brack ER so they could stick a 12 guage needle into my elbow to dig out a piece of glass that had been bothering me for a month. Aaaand that's about the only exciting thing going on with me besides getting a PowerTap power meter for my P3C! More later....

Things I've learned this week

2008-11-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

After the little accident I had wednesday I haven't been able to do much besides sit down or lay down, which apparently leads to alot of t.v, computer, and thinking. I decided to compile some of the finer points I've learned lately. The first being that riding on the trainer might not be as monotonous and boring as I'd previously seen it to be. The next that the human body really does not like to go from over 30mph to zero too quickly. Then that random Austin citizens can be your best friends, and APD/EMS/Fire have impressively fast response times. The final that I don't ever, ever want to get hit by a car again. I'm not even that bummed about my cracked and splintered SLC-SL that has less than 20 miles on it because I'm still in one piece, nothings broken, and in a few days I'll be back to the way i was on Tuesday, and a bike can be replaced. As always the care and support of everyone kept spirits up and again reminded me that I'm lucky to have all you guys around. Thanks Mom and Dad for keeping calm when I called you from the back of an ambulance, meeting me at the hospital, and taking care of me more than I'd wanted the first couple days of recovery.

Down and Out.

2008-11-12T19:12:00.000-08:00

This is gonna be a tough week... I thought it was going to be great because I got a new bike yesterday (SLC-SL!!) and finished building it last night. Took it out this afternoon for the inaugural ride and was psyched about the upgraded ride quality. I had about a mile to go until the end of the ride and was cruising down congress on my way back to barton springs. At 8th and congress I had a green light, a lady going the opposite direction was was turning left and came to a stop to let me go. last minute i guess she decided to try to make it and gunned it. i was moving about 30-35 mph trying to go the same speed as traffic and just couldn't stop in time. I put a big dent in her car and put my elbow through her windshield, and the first thing i heard after she hit me was the sound of carbon shattering...Not even 20 miles on the first ride and my bike is trash. I layed in the street unable to move and the EMT's scooped me up, put me on a backboard, strapped on a neck brace, and loaded me into the ambulance. In the ambulance they were shining flash lights in my eyes, checking my blood pressure, sticking needles in me, wiping up blood, and covering me with heart-rate moniters. Once I got to the hospital they were picking glass out of my arm, scrubbing the road rash, cleaning the open wounds, x-raying my back, and asking me a bunch of questions i was too drugged up to answer. My parents are awesome and picked me up from the hospital and took me home so they can cater to me and grow gray hairs. I don't think I'll be doing Tour Das Hugel on saturday. Way too sore to move much right now and doctors say it's gonna be worse tomorrow. Fortunately I'm drugged up on a bunch of hydrocodone right now and as soon as i lay down I'll be out for the night. Hopefully everyones having a better week..

Kona

2008-10-12T08:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was ironman world championships in kona, and as always, it was pretty exciting to watch even from a poor connection on my laptop. My prediction for next year is Chrissie Wellington takes the overall.. Congrats to Grant Glauser in finishing! By the number of DNF's and painfully slow bike/run times for the pros and the AG'ers it must have been a tough day.
Now the only big event left for the season is clearwater then a brief hibernation for triathletes.

The winter can never come too soon after seasons like these. Some good races, alot of bad races, and plenty to learn from. It's good to get into a different rythm now that I don't have anything to train for, just maintainance until January. Now if it'd just start to cool off outside so it felt like the off-season.

Longhorn 70.3

2008-10-03T20:16:00.001-07:00

Longhorn is this weekend, and I'm secretly really disappointed that I won't be racing it again this year. The turnout looks intense this year with Bjorn Andersson, Simon Lessing, Tim Deboom, Marky V, and Brandon Marsh. I anticipate the swim/bike to be a heated race and can't wait to see who's gonna take it on the run, which all led me to come up with my own race-day playout, so here's how it's gonna go: marky V first out of the water, Lessing and Brandon close in 2nd and 3rd. Bjorn will be backstroking playfully sporting a baggy swimsuit because he knows what's about to happen on the bike. Mile 15 of the bike marky V and Brandon battle for 2nd while being lead by bjorn. The order into T2 off the bike will be Bjorn, Mark, Brandon, and i don't care after that. Brandon and Mark struggle to gap Bjorn who just drop-kicked Tim Deboom, in turn making Lessing afraid to pass Bjorn. Brandon wins, Mark and Bjorn even-tie for second (first time in 70.3 history!!!), Lessing happily accepts a conscious 3rd, Time Deboom wishes he was conscious or 3rd.
As far as the womans race goes we all know by now Amy Marsh faked a stress fracture to train secretly on her new P4 and will win by a huge margin, hurdling over the out-cold Deboom to cartwheel through the finish line, which in it's entirety is obscenely ridiculous and completely untrue. So that's my completely unbiased version on how the race will play out.
If I were to be serious for a brief moment I'd say that I was fortunate enough to hang out with Mark and Bjorn for a short while today, both of whom seemed nonchalantly confident about their own races and it could be anyones day on sunday.

Off season and ACL weekend

2008-09-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

It's monday night and I've finally recovered from the carnage that is ACL weekend. It was a heavy weekend of drinking that started on wednesday. The professional drinkers carried it out until sunday night. I, a young amatuer, had to throw in the towel after a horrendous saturday. I didn't get much riding in except for my commutes. This week is probably going to be alot of riding and a few good swims. After a couple short runs i'm having mild, not so much pain, but discomfort, where I had the stress fracture in leg. To be on the safe side and with CDA training in mind I'm taking another couple months off from running.
Training aside, the focus for the rest of the year is school, and not drinking beer ever again. But mostly school. Good luck to everyone doing Longhorn next weekend, if anyone who reads this is racing Longhorn..

End of Season Race

2008-09-21T18:58:00.001-07:00

This is the blog where I say everything I've said before then say that this time it's really true. The first being that I'm going to start updating regularly and more frequently and the other that today was the last multisport event of the season for me.
This morning ATC made a strong appearance at the burnet triathlon with 5 guys in the top 10 overall. Conditions were perfect, course was poorly marked but competitive enough to break up any forming groups on the bike and run. Now I'm going to take advantage of my bragging rights (since there was no prize money) about my first overall win in a triathlon, which I unrealistically like to think will stop Don from taunting me about the time he beat me in a sprint a couple years ago. Congrats to him though on his 5th overall finish and to Adams first AG and 8th overall.
For me the rest of the season will probably be focused on cycling and running until CDA training starts in January unless miraculously the Galveston tri is NOT cancelled.

South padre!

2008-07-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

Summer vacation is pretty nice when you actually make a point of sitting and doing nothing. Usually I try to run when I can, and swim if possible, etc.. This year all I can do is hobble and drink, and I don't like trying to hobble much. I got up this morning and tried to swim laps in a cresent shaped pool in water so murky I couldn't see the wall, so now I can't even swim for a week. The rest of the day consisted of breakfast/coffee, floating in the gulf, lunch, then floating in the gulf drinking beer, and now it's drinking beer in the condo, eating dinner, possibly going to check out the weight room, drinking beer and launching water balloons off the balcony, then call it a day so we can start over tomorrow. Hope everyones summer is as relaxing as mine!

P.S- crutches don't work well on the beach

End of season post

2008-07-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

So I'm making this my end-of-the-season recap-of-a-terrible-season post, even though it's july. Buffalo springs 70.3 went very well for me because I was determined to have a good run for once this season and I feel acomplished. It rained most of the day and I'm a wimp when it comes to riding on wet pavement down winding hills, so I spent about 2 1/2 hours riding my brakes and getting passed by everyone. I was having pains on the back of my lower calf that I passed off as tight muscles so I took a week or so off before the race then just ran through the pain during the race and managed a 1:39, and haven't been able to walk since. In the past week (2 1/2 weeks later) I decide to go to the doctor to be told I have a stress fracture in my tibia, so no weight on my right leg for at least a week, then a walking boot for at least a month. I'm hoping to race a couple sprints and maybe an olympic before the season is over and train through the winter for next year...CDA '09!

Almost made it a month!

2008-05-04T07:02:00.001-07:00

It's been almost a month since I've posted, and I'm proud of that. This seems to be my fall-back when I have a few minutes to kill. So life is back to normal, but sadly I'm still having hamstring problems from that one time I did an ironman. Training is back up, school is back down, and I'm still working 40+ hours a week.
There are a couple semi-important races coming up but I'm just trying to have fun and enjoy what I'm doing rather than force myself to get out of bed and despise training the way I did towards the end of Arizona training. It's almost summer which for me doesn't mean alot, but I'm looking forward to being done taking a class taught by a rabid Captain Insano. She really is visious. Off to run now, happy almost summer!

Last day off

2008-04-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

So today (thursday) is my last day off from work. As fun as it was sitting around doing absolutely nothing (besides drinking beer/watching movies) I swung by the shop to give my bike the bath it desperately needs and it was completely hectic. They're backed up about 4 custom bike builds, probably a few other builds, and had more repairs and customers than the 4 people working could handle. It really snowballs because when everyone gets stressed, everyone deals with it differently. Don and Adam just give up trying to stay on top of everything and hang out, usually on slowtwitch.com, and not uncommon for them to be drinking beer. then brad tries hanging on to his end while picking up don and adams, and missy maintains her norm by consistantly working harder than anyone else. Often times I keep on working and hold off the catastrophic crash, but sometimes adam and don make relaxing look way too tempting. It really is one of the most entertaining disasters you can witness. The end result is Brad takes a week or 2 sabatical, lately working at the repair shop at his house, and we eventually get caught up.
On a lighter note, my new bike came in and my lineup now includes an '08 Cervelo soloist-carbon along with my cervelo P3C. Woooo

Still Alive!

2008-04-16T11:02:00.001-07:00

So for those who've never done an ironman before, you wouldn't know that for the 2-3 days following the race it feels like you've been hit by a truck. Walking hurts, sitting hurts, moving hurts, eating hurts, sleeping hurts, showering hurts. I tried taking ibuprofen constantly to try to get ouf of some of the aches and pains of muscle soreness, chafing-scabbing, sunburn, and a totally distorted sleep schedule. I found yesterday that the only way out is drinking beer all day. That didn't help how I felt this morning :-P The back of my neck has a few good sized scabs from where the skin chafed off from rubbing on the wetsuit during the swim, then sunburned from the rest of the day. Probably the worst of the pain because I can't move my neck much since it's so brittle. And the worst catch-22 of all is I'm always hungry, but can't function without a couple cups of coffee, then in too much discomfort to eat so I take a couple ibuprofens which make me naceous and no longer want to eat and I try taking a nap until I wake up again and repeat the cycle. The muscle soreness is still present but not painful and slowing me down anymore. I just can't wait until I can get a good nights sleep at decent hours, a few good/regular meals, and the sunburn/chafe to go away. Being conscious sucks right now but I promise I'm going to swim at least 500 meters this afternoon and be back on the bike tomorrow.

Arizona Airport

2008-04-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

Thank god I made this blog. Again I've stressed everything else there is to do on the internet when there's nothing else to do but sit at a computer. Our checkout time was 1 and our flight is at 7:30 so we're just sitting in the airport for a few hours. Luckily I did an ironman yesterday so I don't have the excess energy that has to be burned off before I can sit still for the next 20 until I get my next whim. Honestly my parents are saints for putting up with me as well as they do. As we've found in the past I don't do so stellar in airports where you simultaneously need to be quiet and behave. The only dumb thing I did so far on our trip back was send my boarding pass in with my items being scanned and worried they wouldn't let me through the metal detector without it, they did. I also got a new book today, which I feel is something to mention since it only happens every couple years or so, and I plan on finishing this one! It's titled "I hope they serve beer in hell" and saw it very fitting as a book I can relate to. Brittany, I'll lend it to you when I finish it. Happy monday and I hope all 3 of you who read this have a great week :)

Recap

2008-04-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Well....shit. The good news is i finished, the bad news is I messed up my right calf at the end of the bike and my time was not between 10-11 hours like i wanted. It was a brutal day, much hotter than expected, and winds so strong I couldn't get up over 14 mph for half the ride. At the turn around on the last loop of the 3 loop course i didn't have enough electrolytes in me and so my body stopped digesting anything, I threw up then blacked out and next thing I know the medic is holding me up telling me I'm out of the race... I said no and got back on my bike :) At the very end of the bike I stood up to climb a small hill up to the finish without realizing my calf was completely cramped up so I get up and push down on it as hard as i could and it felt like every muscle and tendon just shredded. Then I had to run a marathon on it. During the transition from bike to run Dr. Sellers found me and checked it out while i got my helmet and sunglasses on. He gave the ok and I ran my marathon about an hour slower than planned at 4:40 on a very painful leg. During and after the race I swore up and down I'm never doing an ironman again, but now I'm seeing mistakes that could have made the day much faster and less painful. My finishing time was 11:27:16 for a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run, and coming in 263rd place. For a first ironman I'm happy I finished and happier it's over with. And thanks again for all of the texts and phonecalls!

Last pre-race post

2008-04-13T04:09:00.002-07:00

Well... It's race morning. It's 4:15 here and I've been up since 3:30 trying to eat a big enough breakfast, which is grossly difficult this early/nervous. I think the whole pot of coffee will be sufficient. I couldn't turn my phone off last night because then I'd only have 2 alarms this morning instead of the 3 I'm used to but thankfully I didn't get any calls at ridiculous times of the night, so I'll do what I've never done before and thank everyone for not calling me. Today's itinerary is to leave the hotel at 5, park and be at transition by 5:30, air up tires, fill up bottles, make sure i didn't forget something stupid, get my swim stuff together, then talk some last minute shit to some random participants to make sure everyone knows I'm going for the win :-P Then the pro-race goes off at 6:45, us regulars go off at 7. I have no idea when I'll be posting again. I get home late monday night and plan on sleeping for about 16 hours straight, go to my massage wednesday night, then lay in my parents' pool drinking beer for a week or so, open invite to that if anyone cares to join.

IMAZ eve

2008-04-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Alright so thanks for the comments! It's good to know people are actually reading this so I'll just continue to talk about myself :-P Tomorrow is the race, and i gotta be up at 3-3:30 am, or about 19 hours from now. We were supposed to get up at 7 to be at the last open-water practice swim that started at 8, but apparently Hammer and I were the only ones who woke up on time. By the time i realized the swim wasn't going to happen for T3 and i didn't need to be anywhere until 10:30 I'd had too much coffee to go back to sleep. The tension of the race has already kept me from getting much sleep...for the past 2 weeks. Today is bike and transition bags check-in, team dinner, and early to bed. Of the people I'm spending all the time with here I'm the only one who hasn't done a full ironman so I'm the only one stressing over every minor detail. The comments, messages, texts, e-mails, and phone calls from everyone with encouragements about the race has totally helped me hold my focus and stay somewhat relaxed, I know i completely lucked out on having so many people be so supportive of this, so thanks to everyone. Turq just called and needs help with his bike so I'm headed out! peace

IMAZ '08 and first post

2008-04-11T20:05:00.000-07:00

Alright so i made this cool blog primarily because I'm 2 days out from my first ironman and I've over-stressed my interest in facebook, myspace, and slowtwitch. After reading a couple friends' blog i thought it'd be fun to have my own. So I'm here in the hotel room with crappy internet bored out of my mind. Being here in Tempe leading up to the ironman is one of the coolest experiences i can recall. Being here with all the T3'ers competing has relieved huge amounts of stress since alot of them have been through this before. Nothing too exciting at the moment but tomorrow is crunch time getting bikes/gear bags checked in and then sitting around another day waiting to get this over with and stressing over the things i forgot to put in my gear bags. It'd be great to have comments/PM's/whatever just to know people are actually reading this in hopes it's maybe possibly somewhat interesting.