So it's been a few weeks since I wrote something. Not sure what has changed, but here's a stab at it:
Rode a 108 miles a few week ago. No problems, but did take a spill early on on a wet corner. I was a bit loop for a while (probably a concussion), plus cracked my stem on the bike, which wasn't noticed until today by OG. That's been replaced now. From the crash I bruised my hip which made running not good for a few weeks. Cracked my helmet too, so nice to have a new bucket to strap on. Sometime recently I got my first Bicycle Heaven kit and am proud to race for BH. Did a cicuit race at TAMU - SA a few weeks ago and did pretty well. Small field, but ended up 3rd (thanks to JT pulling off and letting me take a podium spot). Still, I was happy with my ability to read the race and be where I needed to be and respond when things required. Sometimes it's only a matter of seconds and if you're not on board, well, the show is over. Kudos to Aaron for a great venue and race.
So, the training keeps going and I'm now 8 weeks out from race day. I feel pretty relaxed, but far from comfortable as to where I'm at. Sure, I'm close, but have some good solid final weeks to dial things in as to be expected. Yesterday was very sweet on a couple of levels. I'll start with the more mundane. I rode from Vanderpool to Leakey, then a few miles beyond towards Camp Wood. At 25 miles out did a U-turn and headed back. I rode with training buddy Alissa. It started out misty, but a few light showers came down early on. Later it cleared up and the roads dried. Back in 2005 in preparation for IM Suisse I rode these hills too and was quite strong. Still, as I recall they were tough. This time they didn't seem tough at all. I powered up them at a steady tempo and felt pretty relaxed. HR was never spiking. I believe my training level is superior and by far I'm way lighter, maybe 5 to 8 lbs. That helps. So the climbing was great and no spills, cracked helmets or stems!
The second part is the things some friends will do. I can't thank Alissa and OG enough for their endless support in my training efforts. They have bended and adjusted their training schedules to meet what I have on my plate. Yesterday, Alissa was very fortunate to experience so much beauty and variety that the hill country offers. But, mostly, she spent a good part of her day riding with me in support. Thanks Alissa and Happy Birthday!
So, I'm feeling good about the upcoming race, but have some good challenging weeks remaining. I am thankful for my ever supportive wife, LeNora, and so many good friends and training buddies including but not limited to: Alissa, Orlando, Heather, Jill, Tri-Sition Area, many others, and Mom.
Nothing will change at Ironman France (unless I die). But I plan to have a great race, and spend lots of wonderful time with LeNora, Mom and Pops, Pat, and all the frenchies. I really having nothing to prove, but to enjoy the day, excel at what I do, and be the person I need to be; but mostly, to love my wife!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Well, what a nice week. It's been quite some time since I wrote anything. Today was a great day and this past week has been equally fine. Numerically, it's my longest training week coming in at about 19 hours. Lots of swimming, biking and running. Today I knocked off a fun little century ride. Started a smidge before the group, so ended up with 108 miles. That was followed by 7 x 1 mile repeats. The first 4 were good, but then the fade came on. No worries. It was good. Really, really excited and moved by the support of my closest training buddies, my coach and a couple of others that joined in for the fun. That would be: Alissa, Orlando, Chris, Diana and Raul. Big thank you to all. Coach is supposed to, that's why I pay him, but still, he goes the extra and I can't thank him enough. Diana and Raul were great today and so fun to have them along. Great folks! Alissa and Orlando are training buddies and friends that are hard to define. They continue to always be supportive, motivating, pushing themselves for my benefit, and so on. I saw Alissa dig so deep today to continue the brick run just to support me. I am so moved. Orlando rode and ran so well and is a true friend beyond words.
So, the crux of all this is it's amazing to have friends that get up freaky early in the dark to go riding, then 6+ hours are still there and are running along side. They aren't doing this for any particular race in their immediate future. They did this to help me in my 4th Ironman, which happens in 10 weeks. Thanks for the love friendship of Alissa and Orlando. I am so moved!!!Collapse this post
So, the crux of all this is it's amazing to have friends that get up freaky early in the dark to go riding, then 6+ hours are still there and are running along side. They aren't doing this for any particular race in their immediate future. They did this to help me in my 4th Ironman, which happens in 10 weeks. Thanks for the love friendship of Alissa and Orlando. I am so moved!!!Collapse this post
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Success & Failure
What is success and what is failure? Well, not going to get too crazy on definitions and breaking it all down, but I'd guess it all starts with a goal, benchmark, plan, etc. If you accomplish the goal, reach the benchmark, complete the plan, then that's success. Otherwise, you've failed to achieve the mark. It's great to establish goals that you can't always attain, and so failure occurs. Not a bad thing in my mind.
So, I continue to formulate my goals for Ironman France and so many other things in my world. Some are easy, some are lofty. For Ironman France, I plan to have a great day and enjoy the challenge. I plan to do the best I can and show up ready to have a great result. I plan on seeing my wife and family several times as I come and go and enjoy being there with them and enjoying life. I'll formulate more specific plans on the actual race later, but sub 58 swim is a given.
So this past week I drove up to Little Rock to be with my mother-in-law (I'll call her mom for simplicity). She had to have some medical tests as things seemed a bit concerning. She was a tad nervous and it was good to be there. It took a total of 8.5 hrs to make it to LR. As with any good triathlete, I planned my breaks and executed with great speed. Two stops for a total of 15 minutes. I know I can do better, but it was fair enough. Never went too fast on the road and thus never had to talk to the man.
Mom's results were great, so it's still a bit of an enigma, but the bad stuff has been ruled out. I see no point in getting specific, so don't worry about it. After, we went up to her cousin's house about an hour north of LR. Stayed there the night, then said goodbyes in the morning and headed home. Quite an improvement on the return trip. Sure, it was longer being further away, but reduced my stoppage time to 7 minutes and only one stop. Enjoyed the whole way back in silence. No radio or any other piped in sounds. Just 9.5 hours of quiet. That was good and I recommend it. It's easy to constantly be bombarded with sounds from the radio, TV, other people (I mean really!!), etc. It was such a joy to get home and be with LeNora and the kitties. Plus, I had TWO days with absolutely no training. Wow!
So back to it on Saturday. Got in a 40-40-40. 40 mile warmup, 40K time trial, 40 mile "cool-down." Rough numbers, but the total for the day was right at 104 miles. Feeling good all the way, so nice to get in some solid training. Today I got a pleasant 3500m swim in an hour, then once the sun got up and a bit of warmth, off for a brick. Did 2 hours on the bike, which was to be followed by 6x1 mile repeats. The bike was good, but not great. Couldn't hold the heart rate I was looking for. Seems the legs were still spent from Saturday. End of ride was getting pretty ugly. Really, really didn't want to run, but knew that I had to go. Put shoes on and off I went. Ended up with barely 1 mile. I had nothing. I FAILED. Not a bad thing. I pushed myself to the limit and that will help later on.
So, fun times, lots more to go. Got a 12 mile run tomorrow, so hope a good night's sleep gets me back on track. I'll leave you with a photo from Nice when we visited there in 2009 for our 25th. Au revoir!
phlojo
So, I continue to formulate my goals for Ironman France and so many other things in my world. Some are easy, some are lofty. For Ironman France, I plan to have a great day and enjoy the challenge. I plan to do the best I can and show up ready to have a great result. I plan on seeing my wife and family several times as I come and go and enjoy being there with them and enjoying life. I'll formulate more specific plans on the actual race later, but sub 58 swim is a given.
So this past week I drove up to Little Rock to be with my mother-in-law (I'll call her mom for simplicity). She had to have some medical tests as things seemed a bit concerning. She was a tad nervous and it was good to be there. It took a total of 8.5 hrs to make it to LR. As with any good triathlete, I planned my breaks and executed with great speed. Two stops for a total of 15 minutes. I know I can do better, but it was fair enough. Never went too fast on the road and thus never had to talk to the man.
Mom's results were great, so it's still a bit of an enigma, but the bad stuff has been ruled out. I see no point in getting specific, so don't worry about it. After, we went up to her cousin's house about an hour north of LR. Stayed there the night, then said goodbyes in the morning and headed home. Quite an improvement on the return trip. Sure, it was longer being further away, but reduced my stoppage time to 7 minutes and only one stop. Enjoyed the whole way back in silence. No radio or any other piped in sounds. Just 9.5 hours of quiet. That was good and I recommend it. It's easy to constantly be bombarded with sounds from the radio, TV, other people (I mean really!!), etc. It was such a joy to get home and be with LeNora and the kitties. Plus, I had TWO days with absolutely no training. Wow!
So back to it on Saturday. Got in a 40-40-40. 40 mile warmup, 40K time trial, 40 mile "cool-down." Rough numbers, but the total for the day was right at 104 miles. Feeling good all the way, so nice to get in some solid training. Today I got a pleasant 3500m swim in an hour, then once the sun got up and a bit of warmth, off for a brick. Did 2 hours on the bike, which was to be followed by 6x1 mile repeats. The bike was good, but not great. Couldn't hold the heart rate I was looking for. Seems the legs were still spent from Saturday. End of ride was getting pretty ugly. Really, really didn't want to run, but knew that I had to go. Put shoes on and off I went. Ended up with barely 1 mile. I had nothing. I FAILED. Not a bad thing. I pushed myself to the limit and that will help later on.
So, fun times, lots more to go. Got a 12 mile run tomorrow, so hope a good night's sleep gets me back on track. I'll leave you with a photo from Nice when we visited there in 2009 for our 25th. Au revoir!
phlojo
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Family Time
Well some interesting days ahead, some good and some we'll see.
But to back up a step, had a great weekend last week. Got in a solid brick on Saturday totaling 80 miles on the machine followed by a 4 mile run. The cycling was fun. Started out a smidge chilly, but not bad. No wind to speak of, no mist or rain, and plenty of sunshine. After an hour it was already warming up nicely and no biggie. Rode the 1st loop with Alissa, doing a 53 mile trip over to Helotes, up the backroads to Boerne, then back home. Dropped her off and did some "fun" interval work to round out the enjoyment. The run felt really nice and kept a solid pace. I like it after a longer ride to have happy running legs! Sunday was an early AM swim, 3K, followed by a nice 14 mile run. The run went very well and legs were fine, but with the slightest fade the last couple of miles. Mostly, no pain anywhere, so that's good news for this nearly 51 year old body! Ended the week with some 16+ hrs. of training, but didn't seem like too much. Hope Coach isn't reading this! So again, nice training and progress continues to come.
Had lots of swimming the last couple of weeks and I feel like I'm on the cusp of breaking to a higher level. Sure, I swim freaky fast, but there's room for improvement and I have a lofty goal. I'm striving for a sub 58 IM swim that is. Best so far is 58.5, so I think it's possible with reasonable conditions on race day. Did a test 1500 a couple of days ago in 22:44, so that's on target. Just need to go 2.5x further at that pace. Now some of you (all 2) that are reading this are like "shut up!!" Hey, swimming is my deal. When you trash me on the run, you'll feel better.
Family time? Yep. Heading out early early (like when I usually go to the gym!) tomorrow and driving to Little Rock. LeNora's mom is having some medical testing and it seemed good for one of us to be there. We'll see how things goes and what's next. Don't worry, life is full of medical testing, but we shall see. Hope to drive back on Friday and do a bike race of some sort this weekend. Keeping it loose.
Next weekend I get to go visit my parents and one of my two brothers in Hilton Head, SC. Parents rent a place there to escape the New York mud of March. March is my birthday and upstate NY is usually in a thawing/freezing/thawing period. Makes for mud, frozen mud and more mud. Kind of a messy time. Can't ski or skate anymore and anything outdoors is less than fun. They like to leave that behind and return for beautiful April. I'll hang out with the folks, yick yack, do some training, drink some wine w/ my mom and bro and just enjoy being with family. We are quite spread apart, so getting together once or twice a year is a treat. I'll also get to jump into the Atlantic with my full wetsuit and SwimIt and do some IM open water training.
Well that's it for this little bloggy thing. Thanks for reading, both of you!
Cheers!!
phlojo
But to back up a step, had a great weekend last week. Got in a solid brick on Saturday totaling 80 miles on the machine followed by a 4 mile run. The cycling was fun. Started out a smidge chilly, but not bad. No wind to speak of, no mist or rain, and plenty of sunshine. After an hour it was already warming up nicely and no biggie. Rode the 1st loop with Alissa, doing a 53 mile trip over to Helotes, up the backroads to Boerne, then back home. Dropped her off and did some "fun" interval work to round out the enjoyment. The run felt really nice and kept a solid pace. I like it after a longer ride to have happy running legs! Sunday was an early AM swim, 3K, followed by a nice 14 mile run. The run went very well and legs were fine, but with the slightest fade the last couple of miles. Mostly, no pain anywhere, so that's good news for this nearly 51 year old body! Ended the week with some 16+ hrs. of training, but didn't seem like too much. Hope Coach isn't reading this! So again, nice training and progress continues to come.
Had lots of swimming the last couple of weeks and I feel like I'm on the cusp of breaking to a higher level. Sure, I swim freaky fast, but there's room for improvement and I have a lofty goal. I'm striving for a sub 58 IM swim that is. Best so far is 58.5, so I think it's possible with reasonable conditions on race day. Did a test 1500 a couple of days ago in 22:44, so that's on target. Just need to go 2.5x further at that pace. Now some of you (all 2) that are reading this are like "shut up!!" Hey, swimming is my deal. When you trash me on the run, you'll feel better.
Family time? Yep. Heading out early early (like when I usually go to the gym!) tomorrow and driving to Little Rock. LeNora's mom is having some medical testing and it seemed good for one of us to be there. We'll see how things goes and what's next. Don't worry, life is full of medical testing, but we shall see. Hope to drive back on Friday and do a bike race of some sort this weekend. Keeping it loose.
Next weekend I get to go visit my parents and one of my two brothers in Hilton Head, SC. Parents rent a place there to escape the New York mud of March. March is my birthday and upstate NY is usually in a thawing/freezing/thawing period. Makes for mud, frozen mud and more mud. Kind of a messy time. Can't ski or skate anymore and anything outdoors is less than fun. They like to leave that behind and return for beautiful April. I'll hang out with the folks, yick yack, do some training, drink some wine w/ my mom and bro and just enjoy being with family. We are quite spread apart, so getting together once or twice a year is a treat. I'll also get to jump into the Atlantic with my full wetsuit and SwimIt and do some IM open water training.
Well that's it for this little bloggy thing. Thanks for reading, both of you!
Cheers!!
phlojo
Sunday, February 17, 2013
So, what's this?
Another great weekend, but aren't they all? Firstly and bestly, I'm alive and doing fine. Got some training and racing in, which really is sort of like whatever. But, to post the details....I raced the Calaveras Du on Saturday. Did the long course and had a fun time, albeit it was a bit chilly. Trying to figure out what to wear was the biggest challenge. Did the long course and had a fine race. Only did this race once before, 2009 I believe and the short course at that. Long story hopefully shorter, I got chicked w/ one mile to go. Besides that I was Masters Champ and had a respectable result. Very pleased with 3rd best bike split and for me, some pretty solid running. Mostly, just good times and got to hang with good friends like Brandi and Tiff, and met a few new friends like Laura and TJ. Oh, and Ed Solis is badass too!
So what's this all about? Well, the big goal is Ironman France! Ooooh, vraiment? Well, not that big a deal except it's an Ironman, but you get to pay beaucoup de l'argent (lots of money). The cool thing, and this is way cool, is that my Mom and Dad and at least one of my two brothers will be there. So, I plan to have a great race and do my family proud. But, as I'm want to do, I bounce around in my head and as I write. I don't give a damn what they think. Really? Maybe. Really, I want to have a great race, but they will love me and I will be there son/brother regardless, so to heck with the stupid pressure. We will have a fabulous time and it's all good. For those who want the score, I've done 3 IM's so far. Though the count is silly, the experience is helpful. Each and every race has it's own challenges and fun. Ironman France takes place in Nice and the setting is epic. The swim is in the most beautiful water I have ever seen. LeNora and I were there for our 25th anniversary back in 2009. I swam numerous times and each time was like swimming in heaven. I love to swim and this was swimming on steroids (figuritively, I'm clean).
The bike leg is one loop and it's some insane climbing. I have some work to do to get ready for that. Still, a light me is a big plus. The run is pancake flat. Woo Hoo.
So, it's been a nice weekend. I've had a wonderful day chillin with the lady. If you get nothing from this freakin blog, understand that I love her and she is my reason. That's it.
Oh, and I ran 13.1 miles in training today. I'm happy this body, which will continue to degrade and eventually succomb, is still kicking and being good to me. I'm a happy guy and living a wonderful life. I'm happy to have friends, buddies and such, but mostly my love, LeNora. Did you get that? I don't want to be too subtle there. Anyhoo. Why the heck did you read all this crap? Go do something productive! But, thanks for caring and reading. I may post again....
phlojo
Another great weekend, but aren't they all? Firstly and bestly, I'm alive and doing fine. Got some training and racing in, which really is sort of like whatever. But, to post the details....I raced the Calaveras Du on Saturday. Did the long course and had a fun time, albeit it was a bit chilly. Trying to figure out what to wear was the biggest challenge. Did the long course and had a fine race. Only did this race once before, 2009 I believe and the short course at that. Long story hopefully shorter, I got chicked w/ one mile to go. Besides that I was Masters Champ and had a respectable result. Very pleased with 3rd best bike split and for me, some pretty solid running. Mostly, just good times and got to hang with good friends like Brandi and Tiff, and met a few new friends like Laura and TJ. Oh, and Ed Solis is badass too!
So what's this all about? Well, the big goal is Ironman France! Ooooh, vraiment? Well, not that big a deal except it's an Ironman, but you get to pay beaucoup de l'argent (lots of money). The cool thing, and this is way cool, is that my Mom and Dad and at least one of my two brothers will be there. So, I plan to have a great race and do my family proud. But, as I'm want to do, I bounce around in my head and as I write. I don't give a damn what they think. Really? Maybe. Really, I want to have a great race, but they will love me and I will be there son/brother regardless, so to heck with the stupid pressure. We will have a fabulous time and it's all good. For those who want the score, I've done 3 IM's so far. Though the count is silly, the experience is helpful. Each and every race has it's own challenges and fun. Ironman France takes place in Nice and the setting is epic. The swim is in the most beautiful water I have ever seen. LeNora and I were there for our 25th anniversary back in 2009. I swam numerous times and each time was like swimming in heaven. I love to swim and this was swimming on steroids (figuritively, I'm clean).
The bike leg is one loop and it's some insane climbing. I have some work to do to get ready for that. Still, a light me is a big plus. The run is pancake flat. Woo Hoo.
So, it's been a nice weekend. I've had a wonderful day chillin with the lady. If you get nothing from this freakin blog, understand that I love her and she is my reason. That's it.
Oh, and I ran 13.1 miles in training today. I'm happy this body, which will continue to degrade and eventually succomb, is still kicking and being good to me. I'm a happy guy and living a wonderful life. I'm happy to have friends, buddies and such, but mostly my love, LeNora. Did you get that? I don't want to be too subtle there. Anyhoo. Why the heck did you read all this crap? Go do something productive! But, thanks for caring and reading. I may post again....
phlojo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)