The Rookie

Today is my last day.  The alarm went off way too early for the second day in a row.  A quick breakfast and I was off to the half-marathon.  It was a 45 min drive to the north end of Tucson.  I got to the race sight at the last minute, as is my style.  I changed in the car and ran to the start –about a half a mile.  As I was running up, the wheel chair race was sent off.  They started 5 minutes before the runners.  So, you can see how great my timing is.  I rolled up to the back of the start chute.  I was about a thousand people away from the start line.  I had enough time to make one stupid comment to some random runner, as is my style also, before the race was sent off.  I weaved through the crowd for a 7+ min first mile.  The course was pretty packed through mile 3 or 4.  The course was a series of roughly about 2 mile hills – up 2 miles, then down 2 miles.  I was shooting for running right at 1:30 which is a steady effort, not an all out race pace.

For the last two days, my right calf has been a little sore/tight.  This morning it was really evident on the down hills.  I was having trouble moving smoothly down the hill because of fatigue and that calf.  But, on the up hills I felt really good.  I’ve heard coaches and athletes talk about a deep fitness.  That is what I felt for the first time during a run.  Going up the hills I could really tell that my body has become more efficient over the last couple of months with my focus on the run.  On one of the up hill sections I put in acceleration and really took off up the hill only to recover once over the top.  I hit the turn around at 44:45 – perfect.  On the way back I was having more trouble on the down hills than before.  So, I just ran up the hills nice and fast.  I crossed the line at 1:29:30.  I even split the run almost to the second with very little increase in effort on the return trip. 

I’m on the plane now and have been hobbling around the airport because of some sore calves.  I really enjoyed my time away training, but I can’t wait to get back to Melanie, my wife…and my dogs…and Lawrence too, I guess.

Totals:

9 days

2 races

Climbed two mountains

Lost in the desert with no water: once

Flats: 1

Ran into one cactus: dang!

Swim: 10600 Meters – 4 hours 10 minutes

Bike: 431 Miles – 22 hours 49 minutes

Run: 63 miles – 7 hours 46 minutes

Total time training: 34 hours 45 min

I’d ridden 300 miles since Sunday as of this morning.  Today’s plan was a long ride with a short transition run.  Since I was at 300 miles, I wanted to ride 100 today to make it an even 400 for the week – a little more for the whole trip. 

I talked to a guy who was planning to ride 5 hours today in preparation for Ironman Arizona.  He wanted to get started early.  I met him just before 7 at his house.  We had just started riding and hadn’t even got out of the neighborhood when his free-hub started spinning in both directions.  He didn’t have a spare wheel, so I drove back to my hotel to start from there.  This means that I rode all 430 miles of my training camp alone.  Not to mention the swimming and running, as well. 

I didn’t want to get caught out on a 5+ hour ride in the desert with no water.  I decided to do the same loop that I had done twice before and add on a trip to Madera Canyon.  What I didn’t realize is that riding to Madera Canyon is a big climb.  It starts of very gentle and by the top of the mountain (where the heck was the canyon?) it is REALLY steep.  On the way towards the mountain it looks perfectly flat.  However, it was about the same grade as climbing Mt. Lemmon.  It looked like I was on a flat road.  It was really frustrating.  I was in the 42X25, my easiest gear, with my heart rate running high, and going 10 miles per hour – ridiculous.  Once I got to the mountain (or canyon, yeah right) the road started to turn up pretty steep.  For a couple of miles I was zig-zagging back and forth across both lanes just to go 5-6 mph with my heart rate through the roof.  But, I made it to the top right at about the 40 mile mark of the 100 total miles.  The descent was a relief and a quick stop on the way back down got my spirits renewed.  I finished up the loop by flying over the really hilly section, again, this time with a good tail wind.  One more stop at Helen’s store kept me hydrated.  I felt really strong all the way home.  Because of the difficulty of the terrain, I would call the intensity of the whole ride upbeat. 

Wouldn’t you know that I rode 420 miles with no flats and get a flat with 10 miles to go.  I rode over so much gravel road, broken glass, and rough pavement and flatted on the smoothest section of road when I was going fast and hit a small rock.  I have never seen so much broken glass in my life.  This is a testament to the Continental Gatorskin tires. 

Off the bike I did a quick 15 min easy run.  While I was running the Navy’s Blue Angels were putting on an air show.  I got some water when I was done and went and sat in the parking lot to watch.  I don’t care who you are, when they come screaming over at a couple hundred feet it is awesome.

The guy I was supposed to ride with this morn told me about a half-marathon in Tucson on Sunday.  I am supposed to do an hour and a half run tomorrow.  I went to the registration 10 minutes before they closed and signed up.  I think it will be a good fit and get me motivated to have a high quality run.  We’ll see…

I wanted to rest up some today so that I could have a good long ride tomorrow.  Another late start to the day - got ont the bike around 10.  I headed out in a different direction riding very easy.  I got hungry really fast and I was not in the mood to eat another Powerbar.  I stopped at a convenience store for a Snickers and a banana.  I ate my king size candy bar and threw my yellow fruit into my jersey pocket.  Out on the road, I pulled the banana out and peeled it back.  NO!  I dropped it.  That was really disappointing. 

Today's focused workout was a 30 min staight swim for distance, meaning swim as far as I can in 30 min.  I went to a different pool that was closer to the hotel.  It was full of little kids - hundreds, no, thousands of 'em.  I slipped into the lane and the lifeguards began yelling and didn't stop until I got out.  I actually think that the kids were getting a kick out of getting in the way.  I didn't really care.  I don't think that they have actually had someone lap swim in that pool before.  Surely, those kids hadn't seen anybody do it before.  By the time I left, I had some new friends who had a lot of questions.  They wanted to know if I had won a championship and why did the lifeguards want them out of the lane while I was swimming.  It was all funny and sad at the same time.  One little boy named E.Z. was imitating everything I was doing.  He was in the next lane over try his best to swim.  He had his face in the water, was kicking, and stretching his arms out in front of him.  I asked if he learned how to swim from swim lessons.  He said he hadn't taken swim lessons.  He was teaching himself to swim by watching me. 

I was tired of running in the heat.  I went over to the Saguaro park again.  I waited until it was getting dark to start my run.  There is a really hill 8 mile loop that goes through the park.  I had to park outside the gate.  This made for a little more that 8 miles.  I felt really good and was cruising right over the hills.  I started feeling a little tired at about the 50 min mark.  I'm actually not sure if I was running fast because of good fitness or because of all of the animal sounds and rustling in the bushes.  It was really fun, whatever the case.

As the week goes on I keep getting a later start to each day.  Today I hit the track to kick things off.  I had fairly low expectations for my speed today but was wanting to run hard.   The workout was 5 x 1200.  I got through it and actually negative split each interval and the whole set.  I won't tell you my times, though.  While I was cooling down, a group of elementary school boys ran over the the jungle gym and climbed up.  The girls were lagging behind with the teacher.  The boys had a "no girls allowed" chant going for quite a while until the teacher forced them to allow the gym to become co-ed.

Today was really hot.  It felt great to get into the pool and do some easy swimming.  I tried my new waterproof digital camera for a little stroke monitoring.  I need to get into a pool that is really clear so that I can see more than one stroke.  This was the milky pool again.

I went out for an easy ride today, ended up feeling really good, and hammering 2/3 of it.  I stopped by the small store down the dirt road again.  I talked with Helen, the 80 year old owner, for a while.  She was full of stories and seemed to really need someone to talk to.  She told me about how her husband was a truck driver.  He used to stop a small shop in Penn. on his route.  The store carried some sort of Mennonite soft cheese that Helen was fond of.  Her husband, Mitch, would always bring her a ball of it.  A couple, once, came into Helen's store and were admiring in a way only a shop owner could.  It turns out that the couple owned that shop in PA and remembered Mitch.  He had a bum leg and limped.  What makes it so incredible is that Helen's store is in the middle of nowhere and then down an unmarked dirt road.  Small world!

Today was something of a recovery day.  I kept the intensity and volume low today.  My day got off to a slow start because I woke up still dehydrated and tired.  I got out to Saguaro park again.  When I went the other day I had to pay 10 bucks to get in the park.  The pass is good for a week.  So, I headed back over there early this afternoon to get in an easy run.  I picked a trail that didn't head straight up a mountain.  It was also nice that the cacti were a little further away from the trail maybe 2 feet instead of 1.  There is a complex network of trails in that part of the park and I didn't take a map with me.  You can guess what happened.  On a record temperature day, in the desert, with no water, in the middle of the day, I get lost.  Luckily an old lady with a bright colored umbrella was out looking at the rocks or sand or something and I was able to run her down.  She put me back on track and probably thought I was an idiot.  That is entirely possible. 

I had scheduled an appointment to get a massage at 2:30.  It was an eastern medicine/yoga kind-of-place.  So, the massage was so-so.  It was a little wierd that as she was massaging me with her eyes closed that her dred locks were touching my back and legs.  But, she was pretty strong.  So, I didn't complain.

My ride was supposed to be somewhat refreshing.  The route I picked had some really rough roads.  The combination of rough roads, an already tender in-between-area (if you know what I mean), riding in the aero position, and easy riding (less pressure on the pedals means more pressure on the seat) made for a serious increase in rawness. 

There are a lot of road side memorials for folks that have been killed in auto accidents.  Today, I had trouble with a little blurred vision.  I passed by one of the memorials and there was a teenage boy pacing back and forth looking at the flowers and cross.  The thought of having someone feel like that because of me made me squeeze a little closer to the edge of the road for the rest of my ride - so sad.

Today was a day full of intensity.  After quite a hunt to find a place to swim, I found the Catalina Pool.  It was only a dollar and a half to get in.  Eric, my coach, had this huge paddle set for me to do - a total of 3000 with the paddles and some other intensity.  The pool was outdoors and the water was cold.  It was a good set up for a hard swim.  The only thing out of place was the milky white water.  When the heat would kick in, bubbly water would come out of the vents - a little strange.  I went to a sandwich shop after the swim and my arms were shaking while I was trying to eat my food. 

The afternoon workout was a brick.  It started with a ride with a total of 30 minutes of LT work and then an hour run with 20 minutes straight tempo.  I was pretty dehydrated and toasted at the end of all this.  I laid in the floor for quite a while after that.  I was averaging 26+ for the LT sections on the bike.  I'm pretty happy to be able to ride that hard after having ridden quite a bit already this week.  The new bike feels rock solid underneath me during the hard efforts.  I love it!

I really was needing a treat after today's pain.  There is a Dairy Queen just a couple blocks down.  I asked for their largest sized blizzard - a georgia mud fudge blizzard to be specific.  It was so huge, I couldn't even finish it.  If you have seen me eat ice cream, you know that it must have been huge.

3-12-07

Today's theme was "up and down again."  For both of today's workouts I climbed a mountain and then went back down.  

In the morning I went over to Saguaro Park East.  I talked with the ranger for a recommendation for a good out and back trail.  In the parking lot at the trail head.  I stripped down to shorts and a visor.  As I started running, an out bound hiker asked if I had enough water; it is obvious that I have none.  I tell him that I will be fine.  He tells me that I am crazy.  I tell him that I know. 

The adage "you learn something new everyday" was very real to me during my run.  I learned that cactus spines have a barb on the end.  So when they implanted in my leg today, it was quite a chore to get them out.  The run was really technical with lots of large rocks and plenty of sand and gravel.  The trail was very closely lined with cacti on both sides.  So, one slip and things could get pretty painful.  And, they did.

Back at the hotel, I stuffed myself with as much fluid and food as I could hold in preparation for a tough ride.  I planned to ride up Mt. Lemmon today.  Depending on where you start, the total trip is around 60 miles.  I parked at a shopping center on on Tanque Verde road - a little over 4 miles from the base of the mountain.  I went by the local tri shop and asked some questions about the route before I headed out.  I was told that there was somewhere to stop on the way up to get water.  Well, it turns out that there isn't any where to get fluids except the top of the mountain. 

I head out and start the climb.  I pass a few people and ask some questions about the coming gradients and where is that water stop.  No one that I pass has ridden the mountain before.  I get pretty far up the mountain, maybe half way, and I am out of water.  I stopped and asked some folks if the building they were standing in front of had any water.  They said no, but offered me their own water.  I filled a bottle and set out again.  My new bike came with a 12X25 cassette.  I normally ride with an 11X23.  I figured that I'll the new, lower gearing out here with me since I'll be doing some climbing on some tired legs.  However, I have a 42 tooth small ring.  A 39 small ring would have been nicer, but I probably would have taken quite a bit longer to ride up if I had had the easier gearing. 

Finally, I reached the top - out of water again.  It took me about 2:35 to get to the top, including a few detours down side roads in the hunt for water.  There is a general store, which was heated, at the top.  I say heated because at the top it was really cold and snow covered a lot of the ground.  I hadn't brought any extra clothes.  Before I headed back down, I filled the front of my jersey and bibs with scrunched up paper towels for insulation.  It actually worked pretty well.  On the descent, which was way too much fun, my feet slowly regained feeling as I dropped back down the ~5000 feet that I had climbed.  I made it back to the car just as the sun was slipping behind the western mountains.  So, during my descent the sun was setting - beautiful.  1:17 back to the bottom.

After the ride, I was pretty tired and hungry.  The first food I saw was a Jack-in-the-Box.  I got their gigantic burger value meal and stuffed my face.  I felt a lot better after that.

Talk about an ass whoopin!  I was beat by 7 minutes in a sprint tri this morning by Chris Lieto.   I've been working on the swim and run over the winter.  Based off of my results in this short race, I am getting slower.  I wasn't too concerned with my performance before the race, but I always like going fast.  As usual, I felt like I was able to push myself on the bike.  I spent the whole swim swimming hard, just not fast.  I should have focused on my form instead of how I was getting lapped by both Chris's - Lieto and Sinkovich from 2XU.  I passed some fast looking guys while I was on the bike.  On the run, the wheels came off.  And, to add insult to injury, I ran off course twice.  Some poor girl followed me off course on the first blunder.  Sorry. 

After hanging around for the awards, I went to lunch at a Italian resuraunt called Oregano's.  I was in the company of some very fast girls from Phoenix and a couple of guys who raced, as well.  Food just seems to taste better after a hard workout.  I had some artichoke lasagne that was delicious. 

I went back to the hotel, showered, and headed out for a 3 hour ride.  I kept the intensity very low; I still have a long week ahead.  I changed the route while I was riding, but didn't think about being able to find water.  After a few fretful miles without any water.  I saw a sign that said "ice cold drinks" and had an arrow pointing down a side road.  I made the turn and didn't see any store.  I flagged down a slow moving car containing two old Mexican ladies.  They were sweet as could be and told me it was a couple of miles down that dirt road.  I was a little worried about adding a couple more miles to my trip, sans water, without the guarantee of finding some fluid.  I told them that that might be a little far, but they told me "It's not too far, but were not on bikes."  They laughed pretty good at that and I was off down the dirt road.  Entering the store, I saw no one.  There was an old mechanical cash register and behind it was a tiny version of Church Lady from Saturday Night Live.  She couldn't have been any more out of place.  Espcially, since the store was in a trailer park full of about 30 Mexican kids.  While I was filling up my bottles outside and savoring the find of this awesome little shop, this kid rides up on an old go-kart and starts making some awesome donuts on the dirt road.  He handled that thing with expertise and he was only 10 years old.

The rest of the ride home was nice and uneventul, save the odd rouge cow staring me down from the about 2 feet from the road.

3-9-07

I’m flying out to Tucson today for a solo training camp.  I’m going to try and put up some big numbers and really use my time out here to make some improvement.  I don’t have any real number goals.  I just want to really stretch what I think are my limits.  So much time alone is going to really be tough.

The first thing to do here is to thank Scott at Premiere Sports Travel for helping with the flights for the trip.  I wouldn’t have been able to head out to Tucson if it weren’t for him.  I’ve never flown first class before.  What a different experience.   The day got off to a rough start and I was running late to the airport.  Had I been flying coach, I would have had to wait in the long line to check my bike.  Instead, I had a special little teller all to myself ahead of all of those suckers flying coach.  That’s a joke, by the way.  I am actually pretty uncomfortable going ahead of everyone in line and being treated differently at the front of the plane.  What’s up with the little hot towels, anyways?

Some awesome news from yesterday – I got my new Cervelo P3C from Inside-Out Sports.  Cid made sure that I got my bike in time to get it dialed in during the coming week.  I spent last night and this morning building it.  I have a few small details left to work on, tonight.  It should be ready for some big miles tomorrow and for the race on Sunday. 

Sunday will be my first race while possessing my Elite License from USAT.  The race is a sprint tri around the U of A campus.  I wouldn’t normally be too nervous over a local sprint, but Michillie Jones (multiple time and current world champion) and Chris Lieto (multiple Ironman champ and 9^th at Kona this year) are going to be racing, as well.  This will be my first direct competition, albeit a small one, against pro athletes.  I look at it as a chance to possibly get a good result. 

I can’t wait to get out on the bike!

3-10-07

I tried to sleep in a little to catch up on a little rest after my trip.  I woke up to a 70 year old lady in a tiny bikini and high heels walking around in front of my window.  She was getting ready to sun bathe and was putting on quite a show!  I went on a short run to get the blood flowing.  I didn't want to train too much today since I'm "racing" tomorrow.  After my run, I need to to get a few more small items to finish building the new Cervelo.  I headed over to TriSports, which is about 2 blocks from my hotel.  This weekend is their grand opening for their new location.  I was able to meet Michellie Jones at the 2XU booth and hang out with Chris, Todd, and Lisa from 2XU.  They had all of their awesome product on display.  TriSports had a lot going on, but I was able to get my hands on some longer cable housing.  One of the mechanics took a few minutes a hacked off the enormous steerer tube that came from the factory.  Back in my room, I redid the housing and wrapped the bars.  After some more food, I went on a short out and back - 30 miles - to check out the bike and my legs.  As I got out of town, I thought something was wrong with me.  I was riding with a tail wind on a flat road.  Heart rate was in the 140s and I was going like 15mph.  I checked the bike over, but the problem was with me.  After I turned around, I realized what was wrong.   I had been on a steady incline for 10 miles - stupid false flat.  Heading down the road I saw a rather large bird dart across.  I stopped and recognized what it was.  I exclaimed out loud, "You are a road runner!"  Only day one and I am talking to a bird.  Back at the hotel, I cooked some spagetti with meat sauce, had a huge spinach salad, and hit the sack.  It's a little hard to sleep alone after being married for over 4 years!

I have been uploading my photos to photobucket.com.  The album name is toofewbikes.  Take a look.