The State of Triathlon is Alive and well!!!!!!!!

This weekend was a great indicator of how far triathlon has come and bodes well for the future of all of us addicts!!
This weekend on prime time tv we had The IronGirl Las Vegas Triathlon, this race is a womans only event full of world class female athletes. Great champions such as Miranda Carfrae, Samantha Mcglone, Karen Smyers, Pip Taylor, and many other top notch racers to also include your average age group athlete. This was on NBC on saturday afternoon!!! YES
Then on sunday afternoon on NBC, we had the Hyvee Triathlon in Des Moines, Iowa. This race has the largest single race pay out in the sport. (the winner takes home $200,000). It also included the best Olympic distance athletes in the world. In addition in marked the final spot to be won for the USA Mens Olympic team in Beijing next month. Hunter Kemper secured the final spot on the team fighting back from career threatening injuries to secure his spot on his third olympic team, just edging out Andy Potts.
How exciting to see our sport on tv on the weekend on normal tv stations.
Tell your friends, wife, boyfriend, children, whoever, that it is time to get involved in triathlon right now, you don't know what you have been missing.

I may be getting closer!?

37 days till the BUCKEYES KICK off the season!!!!
Today was the day I have been trying to not look at on the calender for several weeks now.
Not because it is an old girlfriends birthday or anything like that!
The reason is because today was the first "Tempoish" run on my training schedule in almost 8 weeks. I have been really struggling with my running since Ironman Coeur D Alene. If it isn't my Achilles it is just the fact that I feel REALLY slow. So earlier this week I decided I had better get my shit together. I forced myself to do a fartlek type run on tuesday. with the knowledge that today I needed to be able to run some tempo miles today.
As I started out this morning, as usual it was 10000 degrees and humid. What is new? Just making me stronger. What if come race day the temps are like IMAZ this April? Then I will be so much tougher than everyone else out there. (and it is a good chance that it will be 100 degrees come race day in Nov). Anyway as I started out today I didn't feel to bad, as normal it takes about a mile for my Achilles to stop killing me and just go to a dull ache. So by the time I hit 1 1/2 miles into my 10 mile "tempo" run I was starting to believe. I figured if i could keep a even 7:00 pace for the warm up and cool down and get myself into the low 6's for the tempo portion I would have to accept it. Low and behold, tempo pace ended up being 6:19. WAY off from where I would normally be, but in my mind for today acceptable. It is a start in the right direction.
I will say that my swim felt like total shit afterwards, but hey I always swim like shit!!!
Cheers!

Allez! Allez!!!

Ok! I have been watching to much of the Tour, other than watching the Tour and training through some of the worst weeks in Phoenix to do so, not much else has been inspiring enough for me to blog about!
You see my blogging tends to go along with my work out mood. that is if my work outs are going well then I tend to blog more, and if my work outs are sucking then I am not motivated to blog!!
So based on my blogging the last several weeks in is apparent that my mind has not been just right. I have several toughts on why, but no excuses. The truth is that my achilles injury has really concerned me, but it is time to just suck it up and put it out of my mind. The other problem has been that there is too much time in between my last Ironman and my next. I know that sounds crazy, but I had been getting used to racing more frequently.
Well the inspiration to blog came very unexpectedly today. I awoke with a hotter than hell 7 mile run, that I actually was able to get some of the miles back down to around 6;20pace. Still a long way from where I want to be , but looking up a little. Then I jumped on the bike for a hot,windy , and fairly uneventful 2hr ride. That is until about half way through the ride I am out in the desert in a fairly rural area when I notice a taxi go flying past me, then about 50yards ahead of me he pulls off the road into the dirt and jumps out of his cab. I thinking what the hell, is this guy lost and looking for directions? Just as I get close to him, he runs over to the side of the road stands like a statue with his arm out. He is holding out an ICE cold bottle of water for me to grabas I pass him! I grabityellout a thank you, he jumps back in his taxi and off he goes!!!
How damn random can you get??? It made my ride though, I laughed about it the entire way home and told Mary when I got home and she just about wet her pants laughing!!!
So here is to the AAA taxi driver that has been watching the Tour also!!!
Thanks Dude!!!!!!!!!!

No Excuses!

So I wake up this morning somewhat excited , but a little concerned about my run that lay ahead of me!
You see, I am at the last day of my recovery period after Ironman Coeur D Alene, and I have been really itching to get out there and start running long again. The problem is my achilles is not getting better, so even though my energy levels, my legs, and my mind all are ready to hammer, it still hurts like hell after I do so.
I am not one to make excuses of why I can't work out, I actually find excuses for why I should workout, but the concern of the unknown keeps digging at me, should I take two weeks off from running? If I do and that doesn't help then I am two weeks behind in my training for my next Ironman, but if I keep training and it doesn't get better or actually gets worse then I am really screwed. See I don't have a true prolonged rest period scheduled until December of 2009. Lots of important races in between now and then.
So anyway, It kills me when I hear people with all their bullshit excuses of why they can't or won't exercise. So here I am with this beautiful summer morning in Phoenix out for my run, thinking about all this stuff with every step I take, and I turn down one of the streets on my saturday morning route, and on the other side of the street passes 1,2,3,4 kids on bikes, followed by a lady running with two German Sheppards, and I think to myself, shit if anyone has a good reason for not doing their workout it is her. I am sure it would be much more convenient for her to stay home on a hot, humid saturday morning, then to get 4 very young kids, and two hyper dogs together so she can go do her run around the neighborhood. In addition, seeing that we live in a large Mormon community, she likely has another 4 or 5 kids that she left at home! HA!!
So I guess the moral of this story is; quit making excuses and just get out there!!! You will be so much happier that you did!!!!

The Ironman Gods want me back!!!!!!!!!!

Thats right. I am supposed to be in a 3 week active recovery period after my 2nd Ironman of the season. The problem is, the Ironman gods don't want me to rest!!
I know this because, if I sleep in and don't at least go do two (easy) workouts each morning I wake up the next morning with a head ache. Just like those days years ago when I finally cut cafine out of my diet. I guess I just replaced that drug with another one, and even though i knew that I have an addiction to working out and pumping up my endorphines, I hadn't realized that it actually caused my body to revolt if I tried to skip out on a workout.
I also know that the gods are trying to trick me to come back to soon, because all of a sudden my legs aren't cashed 24/7. Hell I was able to jump into a spin class yesterday with Claudia, it happened to be one of my favorite classes, (Anerobic threshold intervals), this means you get to go as hard as you can for basically an hour!! Ok, well that may not be what the entire class was to do, the word interval indicates taking a break before going like hell again, but with the gods talking to me and my fresh legs I decided to see if I could stay above my threshold (174ish) for the entire class. Well Claudia, who is from Mexico and has a very strong accent (so you basically can't understand anything she is saying with the music blarring) brought out her tunes, which are always old school tunes that I love, I knew it was gonna be an awesome workout. I rocked the class and everyone thought i was a total freak (I love this) It started with AC/DC, and ended with Quiet Riot (bang your Head), she pulled that one out of her ass, what a great tune.
I burned 757 calories and keep my avg heart rate for the class (including the warm up of 5 minutes) at 167bpm. It felt so damn good!!!!!!!!
I know the Ironman Gods where pleased with themselves!!!!!!!
This weekend the most beautiful women in the world, (Mary) and myself are taking 3 days away from the 115 degree weather, (we have already had 13 days over 110 degrees this summer, and it is only July 3rd) and are heading north to Sedona and then on to Flagstaff , where the temps are only high of 80. This will mark only the 2nd time in 4 years we have taken any type of vacation that didn't include traveling to a race of some sort. Even though we are not "In training"
we will still run everyday at 7000ft of elevation (oopps, I forgot to tell Mary about that part)
and we will feel a little guilty, but we will get over it. Ha!!! Ha!!! Ironman Gods!
Everyone have a awesome celebration of this great country this weekend. Also take a minute to throw a little positive vibe towards my buddy Kyle Alcorn whose is racing i Eugene Oregon this weekend at the olympic trials. If he finished top three at the finals of the 3000m Steeple Chase on saturday he is heading to his first Olympics!!!!!!!! GO KYLE!!!!!!!
Happy 4th everyone.