goin to Moab

Got in a solid workout last night - hard trainer ride then straight out the door into a short tempo followed by some easier running. Felt quite fresh, it's a bit of a down week in training and I'm starting to feel it.
Threw a different seat on the tri bike for the ride and it was a huggge improvement. The LA-Z-Boy I had on there before is terrible I've now decided. It came with the bike and I never thought to change it even though it was hurtin. That extra comforts gotta add at least 2mph to by bike!
Amy's racing the 1650y at the CO State Champs today. I'll check that out and count her laps. If it looks like she's going to swim faster than my 21:12 pb then I'll make to not flip the lap count down for a lap. After that we're going to jump in our Slipstream and break out to Moab, Utah. Okay, so we'll really be taking Amy's VW Golf.
We're going to meet up with our friends Taylor and Martha out there for a weekend o' training. No MTB'ing though, just bringing the tri bike.

$2 well spent

Not much training to speak of, got in some good swims and a windy MTB ride at Green Mtn today.
Watched PBS' Bush's war the last two nights and whew was it exhilarating - 4.5 hours of clammy hands and eyes wide open. It really honestly was, what a show.
I'll have to confess that Frontline is my favorite show on TV,
The Secret History of the Credit Card
The Persuaders (check the interview with Clotaire Rapaille - devious brilliance)
are probably my favorite episodes.
And now we can add Bush's War to the list. It rolled so quickly that I had to put the Lime flavored Tostitos down. Crunching down and missing a word wasn't worth the epic taste.
Watching Frontline makes you realize what TV can be and what other channels are not. There's usually a large bridge between print and television, print is much more full and in depth while TV only lightly touches upon a subject. Somehow this show comes close to the printed word.
It's unfortunate that the shows' portrayal of decision making in the White House was a bit too similar to Kurt Eichenwald's description of Enron's top ranks in Conspiracy of Fools. Lots of chest thumping and not enough thinking.
Perhaps a more apt name for the show is "Cheney-Rumsfeld's War" as they appear to be the driving force in promoting our entry into Iraq. I felt a bit bad for Mr. President during the show, I wouldn't want to be the ref of the fight that was taking place in the White House. Maybe that's why the show was so good, it was always a fight between Condi, Powell, Cheney, Rummy, and Tenet. Everyone loves a good battle and you do too so watch the show.
Good to know that the $2 of my tax money that goes to PBS is well spent.

Hefeweizen Power

The team ran a hard 5 mile effort today at Highline Canal. I haven't run there in awhile and we were supposed to do the run at the crit loop but we decided getting on a soft surface with mile markers would be better.
Jason Finch and Adrian joined Amy and I for some drinks last night so I knew I'd be ready to run since I always run well after a downing a few. Got the Paulaner Hefeweizen which is now our standard house beer. The German wheat beers got a special taste that only a few American ones have. Also had the Breckenridge Pale Ale, a solid beer, slightly less hoppy than the IPA's I oft have which was made it smoother at the end of the bottle. And then onto the Cuervo so I was nice and ready to run when morning rolled round. I'm so lame at boozin now that 4 drinks seems like a decent Sat night.
Rolled through the run nicely, it was supposed to be race pace but it's hard for me to go race pace if it ain't a race. Started at 5:25 a mile and brought it down a couple ticks a mile throughout to finish at 26:40 for 5 miles, 5:20 pace. I'm plenty happy with this, it's plenty fast enough to run with the fast tri guys. Just need to move the swim and bike forward so I'm actually there to run with them. Ran the whole tempo with Pete, Josh took off and seemed to be 20 seconds ahead the whole run, kind of like last weeks race. Got in 12 miles for the run with a good warm up and down.
I'd like to ski tomorrow but got some meetings and my legs will likely be dead. Skiing with dead legs is the pits. Maybe Tuesday I can get to Vail for some last thrills before spring is really here.

dude, where's my legs

I had a HURTIN workout on Thursday. Once we started getting into it my legs were not there and felt terrible. I hadn't felt very fresh riding Lookout and felt even worse on Thursday. Once I realized how bad I felt I just took it relatively easy and got 2hrs of riding/running in. I know the point where it's good to push through a bad feeling body and when it's best to let it recover and I needed to recover.
Swam today to get my weekly swim total to just under 25k, let's see...that's...1,000 flipturns if you swam straight through.
Ran easy today and our team will be doing a hard run tomorrow.
Getting pumped up for St. Anthony's in about a month. I'm trying to get Pete Mallett to come along since the race he was going to do that weekend in Puerto Rico was canceled. I've been trying to build up how many women he can hit on down there and I may be getting through to him. It will be my 2nd time to St. A's. Raced it last year as my first pro race, got 17th out of about 30 pros. Maybe a top ten is in the cards for this year.

Lookout Mtn over and over and...

Coach laid it on yesterday - ride Lookout Mtn. 5 times. I've never done it more than once. 1st one was a warmup, 26min. Then the next, 24min still feeling good. At this point I was feeling fresh and thought I could keep taking time off with each trip up. We started the 3rd one right behind a young guy in full Chipotle cycling team gear and it was on. I couldn't make a go of it but Pete and Josh were off the front to battle with him (turned out to be a guy on the Junior Chipotle team). I hit that one in just under 22min. My best up Lookout is 19:33 so this was a good ride. I thought I could actually do 5 of them at this point, the legs were holding up fine. Next one was at 24min and it wasn't an easy 24min. I was hittin the hurt big time and called it a day once I got down. 5 would have put me way over and I would have been a DNS for todays workout. Oh yeah, I forgot to say. I couldn't fix the rear wheel of my road bike (9speed) in time for the workout so I had to take the tri bike (10speed). Made the climbing a bit less fun, how much less I don't know, maybe it doesn't even make a difference. I gotta say though, somehow I feel that you don't lose anything on descents on a tri setup. The tightness of the frame can whip you through some fast downhill switchbacks. 6,000 feet of quality climbing on the day, perhaps a record for me.

Runnin' of the Green 7k

Ran the Runnin' of the Green 7k today. Warmed up with Josh and Pete. We hunted down a bathroom and were all at REI, 1 mile away, with 10min to race time. Tempoed towards start, found it perfectly, and got right on the front line for the gun. I ran relaxed early on as is my style. Hit 5:25, up'ed it a bit for a 5:29 (10:54) next mile with mucho uphill. Then I got rolling. 5th place was about 20ft ahead of me and I started moving to get by him (it turned out to be Pete Remien). I don't know if he heard me but he started rolling big time as well. I hit that mile in 4:55 (15:50) and he was still out front! Kept working and passed him at 3.5 miles. Was feeling strong and was trying to move up to catch Josh and Pat Sullivan who were ahead of me but with a sizeable gap. Maintained my speed but they were holding on. Hit mile 4 with a 5:07 (20:57). From there it was 59 seconds to the finish even though it was supposed to be .35 miles. I'd like to claim such speed but... Finished in 21:55 and with that short finish this comes out to 5:02 pace, was more like 5:16 though. Good opening run for me, especially with my lack of runs as of late and especially through the swim winter season. I felt strong and smooth on the course, felt like a runner. Good to know I can concentrate on my bike and swim and that the run is still in the tank. I already feel like my run is plenty good enough to go into St. Anythony's with.
Here's the results:

4201	Payton	Batliner	1	1/269	1/1392	20:51.2	4:48	20:53
4189	Nelson	Laux	2	2/269	2/1392	21:08.5	4:52	21:10
4074	Patrick	Sullivan	3	3/269	3/1392	21:28.7	4:57	21:30
873	Joshua	Merrick	4	4/269	4/1392	21:34.7	4:58	21:36
884	Jordan	Jones	5	5/269	5/1392	21:53.4	5:02	21:55
2665	Peter	Remien	6	6/269	6/1392	21:55.6	5:03	21:57
3028	Peter	Vail	7	1/482	7/1392	22:20.1	5:09	22:22
3197	Brice	Young	8	7/269	8/1392	22:25.4	5:10	22:26
245	Oscar	Ponce	9	2/482	9/1392	22:28.7	5:11	22:30
3350	Peter	Mallett	10	8/269	10/1392	22:32.7	5:11	22:34

Full Results

to the track

Coach wanted a 2mile time trial on the track to see where we're at in our run training. I wasn't expecting much since I haven't been doing too many intense runs, which is how I like it this time of the year. I haven't been on the track since July and a legit mondo one in even longer. Did a trainer ride this morning so was loose for my warmup. Got to the track after a few miles and busloads of high schoolers were piling out for a track meet. Cripes! Jumped straight on and right into it. Hit the mile in 5:20 and dropped it down slightly to 5:10 to hit the 2 mile in 10:30. Had to run around all these kids warming up but it didn't make a difference. I'm happy as long as I can still break 10 at sea level.

Training Update - It's been awhile

I haven't updated my training since 70.3 World Champs, many a painful training hour has gone by since then.
The biggest change is that I joined Riptide Multisports professional triathlon group. They're coached by Sean Wendt and right now I'm currently training with Matt Balzer, Pete Mallett, Tate Behning, Josh Merrick, and Cyrus Severance. 4 of 5 of those guys are pro triathletes so keeping up daily is certainly a task to be reckoned with. I had a great experience with Steve Pye, Andrea Watkins and the Practical Coaching group last year but the opportunity to train daily with a group was something I couldn't pass up. If I'm going to improve at tris I need to train with people who can beat be on any given interval.
I started with the group in December and hit the water hard. If you go through my old training logs you'll see I swam 10k yards a week max. With Riptide I got above 25k some weeks in December and then settled into around 20k in Jan and Feb. It was tough getting comfortable with that load and I felt horrible running and biking for awhile, partly since I wasn't doing those disciplines very much. Starting around the end of Feb I started running and getting on the trainer more and after a few weeks of that I really started feeling good again.
After 70.3 Worlds in my short post race celebration (I hit the booze with way too much intensity and was KO'ed and in bed by 10) I remember talking to Jeff Cuddeback and he told me I needed to swim til I couldn't and that the running would always be there when I got back into it again. He was right, after just a few longer runs and workouts I felt completely back to my normal running form. Same with the bike, last week I rode Lookout Mtn with the guys and hit a whopping (for me at least) 19:33 for the climb, 1:20 off my best for the beast. It helped to have Josh ahead of me and Pete by my side but it was still a big improvement.
All the while my swimming has been improving exponentially. I swam 21:12 for 1650 and 5:57 in the pool in January at the Riptide Invite swim meet. Since then I've gotten down to a 1:04 avg for my team goal 100y sets and 1:59 for a broken 200y (200y with 15 second breaks at each 50y). Hopefully with all that and more improvement I'll actually be able to get out of the water with people this summer. I got smoked out of the water last year.
This Sunday I'm going to run the Running of the Green 7k in downtown Denver. It'll be a good fitness check.

bikeBounce.com initialized

Our new bike brokerage site is now up and running. We've been running it as an offshoot to our ski business at milehighathletic.com but it outgrew it's home there so now has it's own house. Amy created the site, her first website venture and it came out nice and clean. I like what she did.