Macroscopic!

A week or two ago, as I was enjoying some coffee and wasting time walking to class, I got stuck behind a couple of girls. Their camouflaged cutoff shorts and tiny tank tops matched perfectly, and meant that either the army has gotten a lot more lenient on uniform, or they had just joined a sorority (like...omygawd!). I gave up trying to listen to my jams through their gabber, so I decided to listen as they complained that...like...their macro...like....economics test like......was totally like...gay.

I had no real reason to let that irritate me. I spent all of thirty seconds walking behind these newly-bred sheep before finding a different, longer path to class. But for some reason, I found the "macro...like....economics" chirping through my head for ten or fifteen minutes of my ride yesterday. Luckly the idea of "macro" anything became more appealing than thinking of them talk.

In a sort of cool way, triathlon training exposes you to two sides of the world, the microview, and the macro. When you run, I feel like you see your area on a micro level. You learn all of the streets, all of the routes and distances from one place to another. You see things you would have never seen otherwise. The bike gives you a much broader view of the world. You learn what your county, and adjacent counties look like. You learn all the big and small towns, and all of the major roads, as well as minor dirt roads to avoid at all cost. Biking gives you the big picture of what an area really looks like.

See...I can be deep sometimes...just like swimming!

Finally some rest!

This is my favorite time of the season. It's getting cool out, the leaves are changing, and (best of all) I can do WHATEVER I want to do for my workouts. I don't have another race until spring, so it's time to enjoy myself.

I've been feeling under the weather lately, so I didn't mind taking Isaac out for an easy run yesterday. We did somewhere in the 8:30 range, and it was wonderful. The real question is going to be whether or not I am going to want to stay so loose. I enjoy having structure and some intensity to my day...not to mention that tucked somewhere in the back of my head is the need to get more speed on my run. I have about four months before I need to buckle down again for next season, so maybe closer to Christmas, when running outside really blows, I can get on that.

Before I forget

I need to write about TriHawk!

What a weekend that was. FIT represented big time with nearly 30 racers showing up to Coralville lake in Iowa. Most of us trucked it out there in a 3 car/church van caravan on Saturday afternoon. The four hours went by pretty quickly with all the company. We grabbed our packets, some dinner, and a bit of hatred for the swarms of hawkeye fans who were pouring from a train into the mall as we arrived. Things went smoothly, and we checked into our hotel to prep for the race. Unfortunately, Morgan, Todd and I had to wait up for our bikes, which came with one of our community members at midnight.

Race morning, we pulled up at about 6:30 for the 9:00 race, so we had more than enough time to get situated. We scoped out the start of the course, and were astonished that it started up a big ol' hill! And to top it off, the decent from the hill was into a spill way. It was the first time that I've felt like I was riding cyclocross in a race, I fishtailed through the loose gravel at the bottom.

After a brief run, we got into our swim gear (first time without my wet suit since I bought it!!) and took a warm up swim. I had convinced Morgan to line up at the front with me, so we settled into our spots.
"Hey dude, you know we're on the front, inside right? Isn't....like...everyone coming here?!" He was right. Before I had a chance to figure out what happened, I heard the "GO" over the loudspeaker and we were off. Five seconds later my left goggle did the same. I swam with just my right eye for a bit, and was out of the intense chaos within about 100 yards, but I kept trying to fix my goggle. In retrospect, it worked fine, and I never did reseal it. I could have saved an awful lot of time if I had left it alone: Moral of the story...over 9 minute 500...bummer!

I trotted up the beach and into transition. For the first time leaving without socks, I was able to clear transition one in under a minute for the first time. I took the first hill without my feet strapped in tight, and was able to rest a second at the top while I got situated. The bike ended up being the hilliest I have ever ridden. Iowa surprised me! There was never a time where I could get into a rhythm in my aeros. I was happy with a 21.9 average, sadly.

The run started pretty poorly. Again I was able to clear T2 in under a minute, and I shuffled up next to Todd for the first hill. A few kids stationed themselves at the top, and I gave em a big high five. That little bit of motivation got me moving. The run ended up going great, with about a mile and a half on the road, a half mile through a wickedly steep stretch of trail, and the rest back. All the guys were giving battle cries, so the run just flew by!

Overall, Iowa surprised me. The course was grueling and intense, but I felt good after the fact. I ended up 10th overall, and 4th collegiate (Robert took home 2nd!).

Bahaha!

I don't even know why I keep on this!! I haven't updated in well over a month...

Well the new club season is crankin' away. We've had a few team practices and rides and all of that, and turnout is ridiculous! There are actually people at the running workouts! It's been insane. The positive side effect is that I've had some awesome times training lately. The Friday before last was my first legit speed workout since regionals, and having sooooo many people at the track made it easy to push through it. The swims are a ton more fun with people to go with, and we've even got a cross country run in. I've also been meeting up with a few of the guys from the team to put down some good rides and bricks. I feel like I haven't had a ride lately that spanked me, but just going out and having fun makes me enjoy it more.

I have tri hawk(most likely the last race of the season) coming up in two weeks from today. It's a sprint, so we'll have to see how it goes. I have had a few things i need to work on before then: Primarily my eating...which is too much all the time. Besides that, I need to start getting geared up for hard workouts. I haven't had the desire to really throw down lately, and I need to work on that. I think that once things start getting as busy as they are now, the thought of pushing myself to exhaustion is not a good one.

Okay then, I'm off for a long run!

It's been a while...

I always forget that I have this thing sitting around!

Well since that last post a ton has happened. I started my summer anatomy class, as well as work. The two of those have consumed almost ALL of my time. I came to realize that the first few weeks of summer gave me all the time I wanted to train. Since I have gotten a real schedule, training has become far more difficult, but I've managed to get it in.

I also raced our regional championship race: Evergreen Lake International, in Hudson Illinois. It was a unique race if there ever was one. I managed to keep my nerves down pre race, which was definitely a plus compared to Delevan. Going in, I knew the run would be pretty lame, so I just didn't worry about it. I had practiced my bike mounts, and had figured out how to race in my favorite shoes. Most importantly, my swims had been rockin', and so I figured the race would go well. Unfortunately, I had neglected my sighting practice. The swim hurt, and felt like it took forever! (Although it was significantly faster than Lubbock). I was stoked to get on the bike, and after a bit of a shakey transition I was off.

In another (possibly) unfortunate turn of events my computer was not working, so I found I zoned out of how fast or slow I was going most of the time. Instead I just rode, and about 10 miles in I started feeling pretty good. The course had 2 decent hills going each direction, and was otherwise flat, which was a treat compared to my previous two races.

The transition into run went poorly. I had a rough time calming down to get my shoes on and tight. I actually ran my bike completely passed by rack. I also ran almost all the way out of transition without my number belt! The run hurt, but I didn't get the brick wall feeling in my legs until nearly the end, so it could have been worse. At the end, I PRed by nearly 10 minutes (somewhere in the 2:16 range).

Since the race I've been training, though not as much. I'm tossing around the idea of doing the Naperville tri in august again, but it isn't cemented...

A Weak Week in Training

So far, this week has seen the following pathetic training days:
Monday: Short, 45 min tempo to Mom's work for lunch with the Fam. Later, I had a quick core and lift session. It was my dad's birthday, so that was all followed by some pie and ice cream. LOTS of ice cream...
Tuesday: I paid for the Ice Cream. We had a late ride, so I spent the day munching on all kinds of stuff. Come bike ride, I felt as athletic as a pock-marked, dungeons-and-dragons playing middle aged man. One that lives on Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Wednesday: SHORT swim in the morning. Something around 2500, maybe 3000. Probably not though. Later I went on a fartlek workout with Morgan and Brad from the team. I still feel like I have no ability to run around those guys. Miserable.
Thursday: Short ride before the rain, and a lift session. Too bad the ride was almost entirely in the rain. Including the nail through the tire. I have never felt so pathetic changing a tire. First time I'd ever tried the dollar-bill-tire-patch. Worked great!
Friday: Actually a decent hour run. Now I'm working on getting to the pool...Hopefully that happens.

I feel like I don't want to do anything right now. I've had headaches during all of my workouts, and I would rather sleep all day. I actually woke up at 10:00 today (that's three hours of extra sleep)! Hopefully that never happens again.

Delavan Olympic

Wow....what a weekend...

Just got back from the Delavan lake Olympic race, and I placed first overall! It's funny to think that I almost dropped out before it even started.

The race is part of Lake Geneva Extreme Sport's summer series, and their reputation is less than stellar. My family drove me up the night before so we could all drive the course, and look at the course set-up. That might have been a terrible mistake.

After seeing the aweful, almost dangerous course I was in for, my nerves welled up. I did not sleep a wink all night, and my nerves were in overdrive. I got up in the morning sweating and with shaky knees. There was nothing in the world I wanted to do less then that race. If it weren't for my family, I very well may have never left my hotel room.

The Swim: The lake temperature was pretty mild, somewhere around 60, or 65. It felt great in my wetsuit. And the water was clear, unfortunately. If anyone saw the pictures or footage building up to the Beijing games of the city workers clearing algae from the water, that was the very first thing that came to mind. On race morning they had not even bothered to clear the goose crap or beer cans from the shore.

The Bike: Right out of transition, after running over the timing mat for the bike leg, cyclists were required to run their bikes down a quarter mile "construction road" of chopped up concrete and gravel, before mounting on highway 50! At least we had the shoulder... The bike was actually fun; it rode by a big sign that read S.M.I.L.E. (I'm not sure what the acronym was), and an ostrich farm. There were very few straight-aways, and lots of 90 and 120 degree turns into hills. The bike ended with the same run that it started with (although evidently some riders became ballsy, and braved the first ten feet of chopped concrete to get to some foot long grass to ride through, which supposedly shaved about two minutes off of their time).

The Run: "Beautiful cross country run through the grounds of Lake Lawn Lodge!" Ha! It was six laps of Terrible. The cross country parts ran through dirt fields, and sideways across hills that were barely cut. It was not that nice, packed, even grass. It was a grassy construction area. "This run is Bull S***" was a common phrase. My legs were hurting from the bike, and I was in no way used to that sort of terrain, so I just ran the pace my legs would move, and didn't shoot for anything faster.

All in all, it went far better than I hoped. I bit the bullet and just raced, not expecting anything, and I won #1 overall! Shows how much I know...

It's all downhill

WHEW...what a great swim.

I really needed that. Since a week before the Nationals race in Lubbock, TX, my shoulder had been bothering me. I also have been working on breathing on my left side, and so my swimming has felt awful. So, I returned to YouTube and watched some more swimming videos, and decided to try swimming "down hill." What a difference! My hips popped up, I felt balanced, and I really moved through the water.

I think I will pick up a new pair of shorts tomorrow!

Saddle Sore

Wow. It has been way too long since I wrote anything. I signed in here earlier, and read my posts from the last blog I tried to keep up. I started it when I decided to do my very first race last summer. It feels like a lifetime ago when I had to struggle through a 400 m swim, and I was still using cages on my bike!

Within the last year, I've changed more than I can imagine. Of course its hard to comprehend...I am always me, there is no real way to step back for a before and after shot in most circumstances. But joining the Tri club at U of I has been one of the single most definining choices of my life. The amount that I learned about the sport in such a short time is amazing. I made friends, but most importantly, I found myself at a new school, and was able to settle in immediately, which was one of the biggest reasons Va Tech didn't work out.

Fast forward to the now, and I have all new problems I'm working on. I picked up a new saddle, as the rock hard road saddle I was riding on was quickly lowering my chances of having children in the future. I also got my fit looked at. Mike, the owner of my favorite bike shop thought it would be a good idea to raise my seat height just a bit. After ten or so miles of adjusting myself, I was cruising strong. Next up: a new pair of shorts!