After a long hiatus [and some renewed creative energy], I've decided to resurrect this blog and get back to some regular updates on my
training and racing.
First Order of Business - I
have been selected to represent Maverick Multisport for the 2016 season. This is my first foray with an age group triathlon team
and I am very excited for this opportunity!
Our list of team partners is impressive and I know their top-notch products will elevate my training and
racing this year. I encourage you to check out the
Maverick Multisport website for more information: www.maverickmultisport.com.
Things are looking up for this season and I can’t wait for it to begin. In the coming weeks I will update everyone on what I’ve been up to during my long time away and what my plans are for the upcoming season.
I especially like his reference to a corner stone of Brett Sutton's coaching philosophy - "belief in what you are doing is more important than what you are actually doing."
Too often we get caught up in the numbers, splits, and distances instead of than focusing on establishing our own program that will lead to consistent training. We see what other people are doing and question our own training - leading us to try and do more. This typically leads to burnout, poor training, injury all which disrupts consistent training, which is the foundation for improvement and better race results.
Next time you find yourself comparing your training load to someone else, trust in your own plan....
....and then go out and kick their ass on race day!!
While nothing will replace running outside and enjoying the fresh air and chirping birds...there are times when the weather outside is wet/cold/dark/unsafe/f*cking miserable and a much better run will be had indoors.
Don't get me wrong I'm all for those "character building" runs when you're out by yourself, in a hail storm, with 50+mph winds, running your ass off because "some man" is chasing you, [insert your personal drama here]...
perfect running weather?!
...but wait!! There's a nifty solution to our little problem...it's the TREADMILL [ooh...aah]
...distinguished picture of our new friend silent training buddy
Now, I know what you are thinking. Treadmills are [insert favorite expletive] BORING!!...but wait!! Despite what they say...treadmills can serve a purpose.
No hills? No track? No Garmin? Crap weather? Want to videotape your gait? Want to focus on form/turnover/cadence? Hate to carry your water bottle and wish you had a towel to wipe your forehead? Answer: use a treadmill.
I personally use the treadmill for hill sessions being that it's completely flat where I live. There is endless combinations of speed v. gradient to challenge yourself. Using short intervals of 1-5min with recovery periods built in will help break up the monotony of being on a treadmill for your run.
Even better - you can catch up on an old movie or old episodes of Gossip Girl while banging out some hill repeats. WIN-WIN!!
I've started incorporating yoga into my off-season training schedule. I'm usually the most uncoordinated person in these classes, but have found some significant improvement after just few weeks. There are a number of "regular" poses that instructors include during their sessions and once you master them you can begin to explore the tougher ones with greater confidence. Nevertheless, I'm constantly admiring the ability of the more experienced yoga-goers to contort their bodies into unbelievable positions.
With a eye towards "how will this help my triathlon performance?" I've come up with a few areas that I think are applicable.
Thus far, I've noticed 3 areas:
Strength/Balance--Many of these poses are damn tough and if you don't have the right amount of strength you are forced to do modified versions. Personally, I have a weaker upper body and this is definitely brought to light during certain poses. While a super strong body isn't particularly required for triathlon, stronger shoulders and arms will help in swimming. Poses such warrior 1 and 2, bridge, triangle and chair really focus on your legs and core, especially when held for extended periods of time. Many of your smaller stabilizers muscles also get a great workout.
Flexibility/Stretching--While there may be some debate about flexibility and its direct impact on triathlon, I still think there is something to be said about the deep stretches you get from many of the yoga poses (e.g. downward dog and warrior poses are great for legs and back). Keeping your muscles limber will go a long way to feeling good off the bike.
Breathing--The instructors are always telling you to focus on your breathing. Frankly, during the first few weeks I was so focused on trying to do the poses that I completely ignored this step. Don't get me wrong I did breath, but as I've become more comfortable doing the poses I've tried to focus more on inhaling during certain phases of the movement and exhaling during others. This practice lends itself to a greater ability to control your breathing, which in race situations can be very important. Also, learning how to do the deep diaphragmatic breathing will go a long way in future training.
Hope you guys will give yoga a try, it's definitely something that I think will improve my swim/bike/run for next season. When in doubt try "corpse pose" - it won't disapppoint, I promise!
This is an indoor trainer workout that you can do when you are stuck inside because of the weather. You can adjust the lengths of the individual sets to create a workout that fits your time schedule. An added bonus is that this workout includes some drill work, which you normally would not be able to do on the road.
10-15min w/u--getting progressively faster
10min as 20sec one leg drill, 40sec spin
focus on smooth, even pedal stroke
harder option--increase the time spent doing one-leg
My girlfriend and I ran the 35th Annual Turkey Trot in Virginia Beach last week. It's hosted by our local running club the Tidewater Striders and they had a record number of participants this year. Getting in a run with my girlfriend before stuffing my face with all the Thanksgiving food was a great way to start the holiday!
Here are some pics from the event:
Kerry kicking my butt coming down the finishing area!
It's that time again...to begin laying the groundwork for next season by setting your goals.
To get you started I have stolen borrowed some talking points from a past Joe Friel blog post. He suggest answering the following questions:
Did I meet my 2012 goals?
Did I follow my training plan (you had one, didn’t you)?
Did I address my limiters?
Was I able to stick to my training schedule?
Was I satisfied with my race results?
Be open and honest in your self-evaluation so that you can begin formulating a foundation for improvement.
While you may know right offhand which areas your want to work on, there are some other ways to pinpoint them. Often your race results will give you lots of insight into your limiters and areas that need special focus. If you track your splits in a race, they can show you whether you went out too fast and faded and how close you were to that coveted negative split.
In triathlon you can even compare your times across each discipline to age group, gender and overall results. Seeing how you stack up against the field can go a long way in showing you the areas that need improvement. Personally, I know from reviewing my results that my run has been a definite limiter and is something I plan to spend a lot of time improving this upcoming year.
Once you get an idea of what you need to work on start developing a plan of action and be as specific as possible in how you can achieve that goal. Using my weakness (the run) as an example - I'm not merely planning to run more to get better results. I've started working on a plan that includes SPECIFIC markers. In a future post I will discuss some of the specific areas that I plan to focus on for next year....stayed tuned.
As we approach the new year, I'd love to hear your feedback on this process.
With this in mind, I've decided to start a "Workout of the Week" post for this blog. Each week (I'm thinking Sundays) I plan to post a swim/bike/run/strength&core workout that you can incorporate into your weekly training.
Hopefully, they can add a change of pace to your normal training schedule and help improve your overall fitness. If anyone has suggestions for these workouts, please send them to me and I'll make sure to post them for others.
I plan to post the first workout this coming Sunday so stayed tuned.
With the Richmond Marathon in my rearview mirror, I have pretty much wrapped up my racing for the year. I may do a few smaller local running races (e.g. Turkey Trot, Surfin' Santa) over the next few weeks, but I'm not specifically training for anything.
I've done a good amount of racing this year and my training load increased significantly from years past. Needless to say I'm looking forward to a little unstructured down time.
So...in place of all my time spent training, I plan to spend some time...
eating one of these...
some of these...
a slice (or three) of this...
and this!
Please leave a comment below with your favorite "cheat meals" so I can make sure to get them a try. Now its time for me to get to work...
For those of you that don't know me very well I'm a bit of an "Early Adopter." A Will Dunpfy of Modern Family if you will. [side note: you must check this show out]
I've written this post to drop a bomb on the internet community. And remember, you heard it here first:
There is this *NEW* website that will change the internet and social media as you know it...[wait for it]
...it's called "Facebook."
It took me awhile to get past the name, but once I did I started to see all the wonderful possibilities. For starters, with Facebook I can:
tell everyone exactly where I am at all times
post pictures of what I'm eating
make people jealous of all the fabulous places I'm visiting
document crazy shenanigans on my "timeline" [get this - it starts with my birth and is updated on a regular basis by friends and family - how genius!]
I know what you are thinking...this sounds too good to be true. Well its not!
Don't be left out...sign up now for your very own Facebook account so that you too can have more friends than you ever dreamed possible.
PS: If by chance this Facebook thing doesn't catch on there's always MySpace.
Found this sweet video of Martyn Ashton stunt riding on a £10,000 Pinarello Dogma 2, as used by the cycling's Team Sky. He is unbelievable!!
The thing that always gets me about these type of guys [girls are generally too smart to try this stuff]is how many times they must crash and burn before they are able to pull off all those crazy tricks....talk about a steep learning curve!
Three time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond posted this open letter on
his Facebook page.
Can anyone help me out? I know this sounds kind of lame but I am not well
versed in social marketing. I would like to send a message to everyone that
really loves cycling. I do not use Twitter and do not have an organized way of
getting some of my own “rage” out. I want to tell the world of cycling to please
join me in telling Pat McQuaid to f##k off and resign. I have never seen such an
abuse of power in cycling’s history- resign Pat if you love cycling. Resign even
if you hate the sport.
Pat McQuaid, you know damn well what has been going on in cycling, and if you
want to deny it, then even more reasons why those who love cycling need to
demand that you resign.
I have a file with what I believe is well-documented proof that will
exonerate Paul.
Pat in my opinion you and Hein are the corrupt part of the sport. I do not
want to include everyone at the UCI because I believe that there are many, maybe
most that work at the UCI that are dedicated to cycling, they do it out of the
love of the sport, but you and your buddy Hein have destroyed the sport.
Pat, I thought you loved cycling? At one time you did and if you did love
cycling please dig deep inside and remember that part of your life – allow
cycling to grow and flourish – please! It is time to walk away. Walk away if you
love cycling.
As a reminder I just want to point out that recently you accused me of being
the cause of USADA’s investigation against Lance Armstrong. Why would you be
inclined to go straight to me as the “cause”? Why shoot the messenger every
time?
Every time you do this I get more and more entrenched. I was in your country
over the last two weeks and I asked someone that knows you if you were someone
that could be rehabilitated. His answer was very quick and it was not good for
you. No was the answer, no, no , no!
The problem for sport is not drugs but corruption. You are the epitome of the
word corruption.
You can read all about Webster’s definition of corruption. If you want I can
re-post my attorney’s response to your letter where you threaten to sue me for
calling the UCI corrupt. FYI I want to officially reiterate to you and Hein that
in my opinion the two of your represent the essence of corruption.
I would encourage anyone that loves cycling to donate and support Paul in his
fight against the Pat and Hein and the UCI. Skip lunch and donate the amount
that you would have spent towards that Sunday buffet towards changing the sport
of cycling.
I donated money for Paul’s defense, and I am willing to donate a lot more,
but I would like to use it to lobby for dramatic change in cycling. The sport
does not need Pat McQuaid or Hein Verbruggen – if this sport is going to change
it is now. Not next year, not down the road, now! Now or never!
People that really care about
cycling have the power to change cycling – change it now by voicing your thought
and donating money towards Paul
Kimmage’s defense, (Paul, I want to encourage you to not spend the money
that has been donated to your defense fund on defending yourself in Switzerland.
In my case, a USA citizen, I could care less if I lost the UCI’s bogus lawsuit.
Use the money to lobby for real change).
If people really want to clean the sport of cycling up all you have to do is
put your money where your mouth is.
Don’t buy a USA Cycling license. Give up racing for a year, just long enough
to put the UCI and USA cycling out of business. We can then start from scratch
and let the real lovers in cycling direct where and how the sport of cycling
will go.
November 10, 2012 8:00am Weather: ~43deg at start, warming to ~60 by my finish Race Kit: red shorts, knee high white compression socks, shoes-orange Kinvara 2s, Final Kick navy blue race singlet (on back "Stay Calm & Rock On"), white headband, bib #281 [slightly off center to my right...noticed this about 3miles into the race...how annoying] Breakfast: oatmeal with raisins/cinnamon/honey, sweet potato with honey, sipped on Nuun, half of a Biestmilch tablet 30-minutes before the start Bathroom visits: [too much?!...ok, ok]
...let that awesome image soak in....got it?! Okay...now the details of my very first marathon...
Minutes before race start
Dropped my bag off and realized I had to pee again (2nd time in about 20minutes). DJ played some inspirational music as a bunch of runners [me included] hopped over the metal barriers to get up to the front of the corral ignoring desperate pleas of the race director. Few dynamic stretches while secretly wishing DJ would play "Call Me Maybe"...no such luck. Gun shot...dropped to the ground [we were in Richmond - can you blame me]
Miles 1-6
Felt like this...
I'm to the left of the screen, just out of view...
[I spoke with the camera man after the race,
he assured me it wouldn't happen again...time will tell]
I was happy to get through this section of the race feeling strong because only 4 days before the race I had done a short 6-mile run that included only 3 miles at marathon pace and I couldn't wrap my head around how the hell I was going to run that pace for 24 more miles...10k split was 43:57
Miles 7-13
There were some rolling hills along this section, nothing too bad though. This section includes a very pretty stretch along the James River that helped me stay in my happy place. I just tried to focus on staying in control, being conservative and hitting my splits. Legs were still feeling good, a few little aches started to crop up, but nothing that affected my pace.
This was my head space...
This kept interrupting that head space...
Kept thinking I had to go [again] but just kept pushing on, feeling eventually went away.
13.1 mile split – 1:32:38
Miles 14-21
This was a nice stretch for me. It included the most significant downhill and uphill section of the race and I felt strong going into the final 5-miles of the race. There were some good areas with bigger crowds and DJs playing good music that kept me rolling.
I kept looking down at my shirt expecting to see this...
Little did I know that I was about to enter an invisible kryptonite cloud...
20 mile split – 2:20:53
Miles 22-25.6
At this point I was about 30 seconds up my 3:05 goal finishing time and everything was going great. I was writing my Boston Marathon qualifying speech (I could be wrong, but I dont think they have such a thing). I knew I had a little ways to go, but my body felt strong and I felt like...BAM...I literally turned a corner [metophorically it was more like a dark alley]...but seriously...I turn onto a new street and almost instantaneously my body starts whispering..."slow down, I'm tired." I'm like..."shut up legs" & "be water: flow" & "embrace the suck"...desparately trying any mantra I can think of. I kept things together through the end of mile 22, pushing hard to maintain my pace. And that's when...
...the wheels rolled off...
[In case you were wondering, I'm in car and the the wheel is the "Boston-qualifying me"]
Those last 4 miles were pretty tough. I kept looking at my Garmin and watching my pace fall further and further behind. I buckled down and regrouped and kept putting one foot in front of the other (albeit slowly).
This is what my legs felt like...
Miles 25.7-26.2
The last 1/2 mile was downhill and you can really let it rip. My quads were screaming, but I pushed hard and finished strong. I was even able to high-five Kerry right before the finish!
Finishing time - 3:08:24 (3:24 off Boston qualifying time)
Overall, I was very happy with my race performance. Most importantly, I finished the race and did so with a smile on my face. I executed my race plan perfectly and everything went very well...that is until mile 22. I'm obviously a little disappointed that I did not meet my goal time, but considering it was my first attempt and that I had an abbreviated build-up period I can't complain to much.
It was a great experience and definitely makes me even hungrier to qualify in the future!
It's definitely on the schedule: me vs. marathon, round 2, date and time TBD
THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR SUPPORTING ME ALONG THE WAY!!
