Fun Announcement and My First "Podium" Finish!

I am happy to announce (you bloggers get it the most) that I have been selected by Marathon Bar for sponsorship! Thats right I am a sponsored athlete! I was selected because I am active with racing and I can market the bar to other athletes. All I have to do is keep doing what I am doing. The best I can with what Ive got!!! My duties will be to rock Marathon Bar gear at all my races. Mention them in my blog and facebook and provide write ups. I will receive a box soon and I will share what they send me!!

I was scheduled for a softball tournament that got cancelled on Saturday. What to do next? I wonder if there is a 5k or may be there is a 10k? Well my streak of PR's continues. This one though I admit by default since it is the first 10K I have ran without a swim or bike attached. The Run in the Sun 10K is the race I found the day before. Got signed in late and didnt even look at race course at all. AT ALL. Small mistake. LOL. I found out after that this is the longest running 10K in Nevada and supposedly the hardest. Yeah afffter. The first mile is relatively flat and the street we are running on is just going up, up, and up. I was shooting for a negative split and to have the last 2 miles at 5K pace or better. For me that is 8's. Here is how the miles went:

8:38 was shooting for 9:00-9:15

10:12 (up)

10:06 (up and up)

11:06 9 (it was more energy efficient to walk this steep hill)

7:42 (down and down!!)

8:24

7:15 for the 0.2....for a grand total of:

57:52.........VDOT says the best I can do was 50:00. I wanted to get as close as I can to that. They way I started and the way I finished I wonder if I can do that. The hills were ridiculous. Nonetheless, I stuck to my guns and I didnt let my leg fatigue stop me. I finished first in the Clydesdale division. I am not sure if that is podium worthy but I was the fastest out of 4 other guys in my division. If I ran with my age group I would have been 6th out of 10, I think. Not bad considering the hills. Oh and the wife won her category too! We swept the big runners categories! This is the second time she has won the phily division. I am still not sure how I feel about these categories but I figure you better dance with who brought you. Will I ever run as fast as a guy who is 50 pounds lighter than me? Ill keep shooting for that. Here is how my week went:

Monday: Softball, push-ups

Tuesday-Easy 3 mile run, softball

Wednesday: 1000 m swim. 250 meter splits are: 6:25, 6:24, 6:23, 6:33, and total 25:47. I didnt look at the splits until just now and wow consistent. I felt slow. They are slow but how remarkably similar. It was the first swim since Rage. Then why would it be there? Push-ups.

Thursday: 4.2 mile Hill run. This is a run that I repeat often. It is 2 miles up and 2 miles down. My new PR 41:56. I have beat the time the last 3 times I do it by a minute or more. Seems like the speed is coming.

Friday-Push-ups

Saturday-10K

Sunday-Bike/run brick. 12.19 miles at a 16 mph pace (med pace). Transition in 3:56, then a 3 mile run in 29:59. I tried to push the first mile and was there at 8:30ish pace but then couldnt hold it together. I wanted to out too fast and then see if I could hold on with biking legs. I think the more I push that the better my legs transitioning to running will be.

Today (monday)-When I was looking at my schedule this week I thought since I had the day off from work that a long bike ride was in order. But I am pooped. I needed a day off. Then we decided to go fishing in St. George. I am going to be in St. George without my bike? May be I can still ride. We decide to fish at Quail Creek, some 20 miles or so from Sand Hollow. Sand Hollow is where they swim for IM St. George. Hmmmmm....Now I am going to BE on race course. I looked at maps and planned out a bike. I thought I could ride one loop on the 2 loop IMSG. From where we were it would have 60 plus miles. Supposedly EPIC. I would have been the only one riding and I thought it would be too much. Besides I needed a day off and time to spend with family. Lets just say I previewed all those areas. I would definitely consider a race in St George that swim sand hollow. I enjoyed my day without training. Quote:

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

It has been nice to have some success lately. I will keep pounding away and what else I can succeed at.

Elevation training and a fun bike ride...

The training schedule is chalked full of races, I am pumped. One of my most important races is Ragnar relay in Utah. This race begins in Logan, UT and ends in Salt Lake City, UT, including a stop over in Park City. So can someone say elevation? Logan's elevation is 4535 ft. Park city is 7000 ft. Salt Lake Cities elevation is 4330 ft. The closest place I can get some elevation is Mt Charleston. It has an elevation of 770o ft. So its pretty high. A 45 min drive to a trail called bristlcone trail. It is a 6 mile or so loop. It was gorgeous. It was gravel. My lungs burned for the first 2 miles. We were not able to make the whole loop secondary to snow, dangerous path, and the cold. May in Las Vegas is normally very hot. It has been very mild and quite windy (more on that later). Therefore the snow has not fully melted. The wind was freezing. I wasnt dressed for the cold wind. I sucked it up and ran. My legs felt strong. If it wasnt for the lung burning I could have killed it. This run tested all my fitness and it felt great. Our run ended up 7 miles and I did not have an issue. My watch did not seem to be functioning correctly but when I look back i does not seem like bad information. The elevation change on my run was about 920 ft. Can I handle another 150 feet? I think so. After all, my first leg is 7.4 miles and has a net 1156 elevation gain while on gravel. The other legs are easy compared to this leg. A 4.2 mile leg and a 3.0 mile leg. One cool thing is if I do both Utah and Vegas Ragnar I will get the "saints and sinners medal." I am diggin that.

The other races include; San Diego Marathon Relay (Im gonna do the hilly leg), a 5k or 10k or so, Wasatch back (Utah Ragnar), a new race announcement, and then finally Silverman half iron, agian. New announcement: Strawberry Fields Olympic distance triathlon. It will be an ocean swim in Oxnard, CA. Should be a fast one. I welcome that since all I got around here are super hilly races. It will be fun to get loose on a flatter course. Even better my wife is going to do it too. Andi will be stepping up to the Olympic distance as well. Should be a great time.

A few weeks ago there was a request for my performance goals during the Silverman this year. There has been several bloggers who have posted goal setting posts. I like to set multiple goals and when I consult with other racers I try to get them to do the same.

My A goal: Sub 7 hours. 6:59:59 or better. This is quite lofty for me since it will be a 1 hour 10 min PR. Last year I walked soooo much of the run and stopped a few times on the bike because of cramping. So in order to do this I have to keep the same swim. The swim is going to improved regardless of what I do but all it has to do is stay the same. The bike needs to go to 3:30. That would be 45 min faster. No stopping and improve a few miles per hour. Im already doing most of that. Then run a competitive 1/2 marathon. Last year I walked probably 2-3 miles of it total. Can I shave 15-20 min off a 2:50 1/2 when I am capable of a 1:52 (according to VDOT)? That is yes. My best race will be better than 6:59:59.

My B goal: Nail nutrition so I do not have any cramping/nourishment issues. This means that my weight must be down and my eating must be right on as the race gets closer. I will be 30 pounds or so lighter than last year. That should help.

My C goal: Finish happy and healthy and ready to do it again next year. My Marathon experience is the only wrench in my program. Its the only race Ive done that has left me not wanting to do it again. It clouds my Ironman thoughts and I dont know what to do with that. How do you sign up for an IM anyway? I think if i do go for it, it will have to be AZ. My IRON readers please comment giving me advice on how to get in, I heard its hard. Here is how my week went:

Mon: Softball

Tue: Softball plus 3 mile easy run

Wed: Pushed a bike for my buddies state championship volleyball match, hes the head coach.

Thurs: 4 mile run. I was very tired and not feeling great so I went slow.

Fri: Rest

Sat: Bristlecone Trail run.

Sun: Very windy 39 mile bike ride on the ENTIRE river mountain loop trail. My first time. It was epic although very very challenging with the wind. The wind was at least 30-40 mph. The climbs were steep with a headwind. It took every bit of fitness I have. I was quite slow but I grinded it out. I know this time last year I would have crashed and burned. I did well today. Quotes I like 2:

“I just want to see how long I can keep this thing going. The easiest thing is dying. Living is a a pain in the butt.”

Jack Lalanne

“Running has never failed to give me great end results, and that's why I keep coming back for more!”

Sasha Azevedo

Keeping coming back is a pain in the butt!

IronGirl and Vdot

I think I came as close as I can come to a proud father yesterday. My wife, my sister, and a real good friend took a large step forward this weekend when they competed and finished a sprint distance triathlon here in Henderson, NV. I tried to get my wife to guest post but she turned her nose up and poo-pooed that idea. It was a beautiful day for a triathlon and I was a basket case not able to race. They got through it healthy, happy, and as fast as they are trained for. They killed it and it was sure fun to see them perform so well. It seems that we may have a race all of us can do and Karl will make his triathlon debut. That should be a memorable event and I am looking forward to it. Clay? You in? STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVA! Perhaps some pics posted soon. I know I still owe some pics from RAGE I am still working on that.

I am happy to say that my VDOT has improved since last year. Funny that I did nearly a year ago without really looking at it. I didn't want to know. I ran a 7:13 one mile all out. Today I ran a 6:53. A 20 sec improvement over last year. What does that mean? It means that there is a formula to follow to predict certain race times. Of course you have to train at that intensity to get there. My VDOT formula says that I am capable of 24:15 5K, 50:23 10K, 1:52 Half, and a 3:56 full. All I have to do is work at that intensity to get there. If you look further you will find that knowing this pace it will also predict what your intensity is for each workout. It tells you what you should interval at, what you should recover at, what your long run pace should be, and what speed workouts should be on the track. Of course I couldn't take very much credit for all this info my run coach Karl paced me today and handed me a sheet of paper printed from the Mcmillan running site. Wanna increase VO2 max? Wanna work at lactate threshold? This info is what you need to scientifically figure all that out. We feel there is no way to reach a specific goal unless you train specifically. Thanks Karl. Here is how my week has been:

Monday-Softball
Tuesday-Softball plus 3 mile run in the am. A 26:00. Nice felt awesome.
Wednesday- Did a kettle bell workout and core.
Thursday-Pushed the ride I had for blistering wind. Will the wind pleeease stop?
Friday-Rest
Saturday-Irongirl Sherpa. It is way harder than it sounds
Today-VDOT, 800m repeats. With everything in total 5 miles or so on the track. My Right foot is sore. Not used to the track. QUOTE:

"there are no speed limits on the way to excellence."

But is it REALLY a compliment..

I love this stuff. This is what makes life, life. I love things you cannot write or plan for. To me it is the comedy routine that is life. A very good friend had a barbecue. At this barbecue I was acting like the very good young person speaking with his mother who is in her 70's. She turns to me after a lull in the conversation with a strait face and asks me "SOOOO DID YOU HAVE SURGERY?" I smirk and say "weight loss surgery?" She says, "yeah did you have weight loss surgery?" I politely say no and proceed to tell her I decided to be an example for my patients and I got off my ass. She did not comment after that and did not lead on like she thought anything of it. I know it is a compliment because she notices that I have lost a ton of weight but is she suspecting me of cheating? Is it cheating to have surgery? I dont know. I just wanted to address the etiology of the situation. Eat better, eat less, and get off my ass.

Back to training, kinda. This week has somewhat of a productive start to foundation work for Silverman. I seem to do better when I have a schedule to follow. During my lazy week I kept saying "Ok today I am going to write my schedule," and I never got to it. Finally got to it and everything got tighter. My training, me eating, just back to discipline. Here is my week:

Wed: Push-up challenge. Endurance training-None. Ha ha. Had TONS of family stuff.

Thurs: Was asked by the polar bear and my brother to ride the sprint Pumkinman Course. Um yes. There is not one flat or downhill on it. A very challenging ride and with the wind even more "fun." So a 50 minute climb then a 12 min decent. 1 hour 2 min and fun. Thanks guys. That night I did a workout at the gym, general plus core. LIGHT legs in anticipation of my weekend.

Fri: Push-up challenge, endurance-none.

Sat: 2 softball tournaments. 7 games...8 am to 8pm.

Sun: 20 mile bike with my wife. She is progressing at an alarming rate. Fun to ride with her today. Her race is saturday and I so pumped for her triathlon debut at IronGirl Las Vegas.

I pushed a swim on Thursday then pushed the run I had planned for saturday. I left my schedule at work and I am hoping to make them up. Now that I review it, the start is a bit lackluster. LOL. I feel it though. I am a bit sore everywhere. Running will get done this week. Funny.

“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.”

John C. Maxwell quotes (American Entrepreneur, Author and motivational speaker)

true...ssoooo true.

You know what they say...

If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all. In my blog world that means if there is no real training going on then you dont have anything to post about. Between softball, work, and recovery/lazy week I have not done much. No I did not get to my VDOT. However, I have begun my big plan with some small goals in toe. My main race is the half IM silverman again this year but waaaaay faster. In the mean time, get my 5K, 10K pace as far down as I can. I want to run more economically even run hills better and overall GET FASTER. My plan is 8 cycles of 10 days before a 16 week build up to silverman. In each 10 day cycle I will do 1 swim (alternate long with interval), 2 bikes (one long and one hill repeats), 3-4 runs (recovery, 2 speed types, and one long), 2 workouts (one my overall body gym program and the other kettle bells) and core/push-up challenge tossed in as I can. That 10 days includes 2-3 rest days. Low key build phase to then get into race shape.

“The character ethic, which I believe to be the foundation of success, teaches that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.”

Stephen R. Covey

building, building, building....