Winter is almost done.....I hope

Well the weekend was suppose to be spent back in Iowa visiting the parents but due to the boy coming down with a nasty cold we decided to stay put here in Chi-town. The flip side of this is it turned out to be a great weekend on the training scale.

This weekend in Chicago the weather was finally decent, Saturday was clear and around 40 followed up on Sunday with a misty cool day but once again around 40.

I had set a goal of finally getting out on my bike while back in Iowa but since that was postponed I decided to make sure I still got out even if it was only throughout town.



I started out Saturday with a great 10.5 mile run through the prairie reserve, the whole run felt awesome and the weather probably contributed to that as well. There were plenty of people out on the path which always makes the run a little more interesting.

Today I finally got out on the new ride after spending quality time with it in the basement attached to the trainer, man it was nice to finally get out. Event though it was pretty chilly I managed to get a quality 20 miles in. I kept the ride pretty much local through the residential areas to minimize the wind factor as it was still a little misty and a crisp cool but the overall goal was achieved.


So after a good weekend of training I am looking forward to the week ahead and hopefully upping the mileage on the run in preparation to the Indy Half only a month away.

Mind Games

I find myself doing a lot of thinking when doing my Tri related workouts as the majority of the time you are by yourself doing something for an extended amount of time. This mindless wandering is good and bad, the good thing is that I can prioritize things about work in my head, brainstorm ideas for something I am working on at home or at work or even just think randomly about things I want to do in life.

On occasion I come up with dumb ideas such as I think I could learn Spanish while swimming if I just got one of those underwater IPod gadgets. I mean really when swimming most of the time I am just trying to keep track of what lap I am on and hell half the time I lose count anyways and just have to stop when I see the person in the lane next to me stop. So why not download the Rosetta Stone stuff and try learning Spanish underwater, huh? I doubt I ever get around to this though....

The bad part is my mind is cruel, no matter how hard I try to get out of my head how far I have gone or how long I have been doing something my mind seems to have an internal clock or something constantly trying to remind me how much farther I have to go. This is also the reason I am not a fan of single mile markers in half-marathons or 10K for that matter, just tell me when I am half way.

So I have gone on a new journey to find a way to play tricks with my head, I am trying to get to the point of where I don't think about distance when riding or running. Swimming I have no way around it as that is how we keep track of the workout, plus the master swim group the competition kicks in since you are working out in more of a group setting.

Unexpected

The one side bar of Triathlon is you work out quite a bit and the addiction part of it is the more you work out the more you find yourself wanting to stretch the next one and look forward to the next one but eventually you hit one of "those days".

Today was one of "those days", I didn't feel really like going for a run, it was a long day at work, I was up to late the night before doing who knows what but after looking outside and seeing that it was a nice 40 degrees and clear I decided to suck it up and get going. The best part of was that once I got running it was something unexpected, the body felt great, the sidewalks were clear, it was dark but it was quite enjoyable to get out and run outside. I actually had one of the more enjoyable runs of the year so far, I guess being stuck on the treadmill for the better part the past four months it doesn't take much to make me happy.

So the end line is I was going to force myself to go out get in a solid four miles and guess what it turned in to a nice enjoyable seven, who knows it was just one of "those days".

The Tri-Beert Bucket List

Well after reading the Iron Kahuna's list of things he would like to do before he kicks the bucket. I have put some thought into this but with more of a tilt towards the athletic side. So here it goes; the list isn't long yet but I am sure it will expand.

1. Half-Ironman, this is on schedule and is currently scheduled for October 2008 with the Longhorn 70.3 in Austin Texas.
2. Full-Ironman, not sure when this will be accomplished but right now the thinking is see how the half goes and if all goes well maybe shoot for Ironman Florida 2009? We will see, this would be quite a commitment time wise.
3. Marathon, this should probably go above number two but hey we aren't prioritizing these yet. This would more than likely be the Chicago Marathon, the 07 debacle I am chalking up to the heat and not the quality of the race.
4. Ragbrai, this is the annual ride across Iowa my home state. I have already recruited my brother-in-law to sign up for this sometime over the next five years and I will hold him to it. The five year time frame also gives me plenty of time to recruit more suckers as this is suppose to be as much of a party as it is an athletic event.

That is the list for now but I am sure it will expand as the ADD will kick in at some point.

The Madness

The Madness has officially began with the start the big time conference tourny's kicking off today. I pronounce today the official first day of the Madness.

I especially love watching some of the small schools that would never make primetime without having a slot in the big tourny up for grabs. Theyplay so differently than the Big Ten and for the most part could probably beat half the teams in the Big Ten.

With the family finally starting to get back to normal health and the weather warming up I think I have to get out and get some long runs and maybe a bike or two outside in this weekend. I have been hoping to get the new ride out on some concrete and off the trainer.

Unexpected Rest Week

Well I have had an unexpected rest week this past week due to the entire family catching some nasty virus. One of the joys of having a 20 month old in daycare is that he tends to contract every possible virus known to man and bring it home to his lovely parents.

This round I thought I was going to get off clean as the wife and boy picked up the virus early in the week and I seemed to have missed this one, well how silly I am. Come Thursday I started feeling a little under the weather and than Friday it hit me like a truck. Needless to say Friday and Saturday were spent entirely on the couch in front of the TV. The one good thing that came out of this is that I was able to catch up on my college basketball scouting going in to March Madness so hopefully it will pay off when it comes to filling out the ol office pool.

Today I am a million times better than yesterday and planning on being back in the pool tomorrow night at masters. Hopefully will be back with a mid range run Tuesday and see where we go from there.

The things I have learned from all this is that I hate being sick more than anything else, I handle being sick way worse than my wife and I do not like missing my workouts due to being sick.

Blogs and Evo Tri

Well I don't think it is any secret, I am as addicted to reading triathlon blogs as I am to the sport itself. Through this addiction I have come across quite a few different blogs and the best thing about them is that they are of all different topics and very different writing styles with one underlying common theme; that being Triathlon.

One of the sidebars of that I have come across from these blogs is this great initiative called EvoTri, the basis of the whole idea is to take your average individual who also takes part in the great sport of Triathlon and see how far they can take themselves in Triathlon with the backing of sponsors like the pros. So with the backing of Vision Quest coaching, BMC bicycles, Zipp wheels, SRAM, 2XU and Cycleops the mission begins.

EvoTri has recently held a contest with a few more to go to fill out its team. They recently added an individual from Louisiana that has a pretty cool story so go on over to the EvoTri and check it out.

From a business perspective this is a great marketing tool for these companies as well. Triathlon is one of the fastest growing sports for individuals age 30 to 50, this is also a demographic that has disposable income to spend on such a sport. Someone made a good point on one of the blogs that I completely agree with, I can't remember where I read it, but the main point was that word of mouth is the best marketing tool available in this sport and a much better tool than saying so and so pro uses this piece of equipment. Triathlete magazine is full of adds and articles about the pros but the reality of it is that the majority of us are not pros and have a hard time relating to them so showing us what they use is a waste and usually out of our budgets. What the sponsos of EvoTri can accomplish by showing what an average individual can accomplish with an there gear is a great marketing tool. Needless to say I am looking forward to there upcoming contests to see who they fill the team out with and what they accomplish throughout the year.

New Wheels

After looking around for quite some time, I decided to upgrade my tri ride to what I believe is the best buy in the business. I looked around quite a bit and settled on a Cervelo P2C, this is a full carbon with complete Dura Ace components.

I was able to sell my old bike, a 3 year old Trek Equinox 7, to an individual in on Craigslist so as I get more involved each year in this crazy sport I thought it was time to upgrade to a true tri beast.

The main differences between the two is first and foremost the frame: carbon vs. aluminum and the fact that the Cervelo is an extremely aero frame, second would be the upgrade from 105's to Dura Ace, and last the difference that I personaly like is the space from the aero bars to the brakes. The last point is probably one of the most notable, for someone not extremely comfortable on the aero bars I love the fact that the distance between the shifters and brakes is to a minimum.

One other notable side bit is that the Cervelo was bought at my local tri shop so it comes with a complete bike fit which should be helpful but only time will tell.

I will be taking possesion of the bad boy Wednesday followed by a run on the Computrainer so let the fun begin.