Saturday, September 5, 2009

Made it to Sandhamn....


Beginning of Ferry ride to Sandhamn

Arrived a bit ago to Sandhamn, race start island, via ferry. Got settled in to the hotel and had a pre-race meeting.


Mats Andersson (on left) and Michael Lemmel(on right), race directors, have done an awesome job with making sure things are organized with Ö till Ö.

Picked up our packets with our race singlets and caps. Got our GPS tracking devices, maps and phones that we have to carry. Starting to get "amped" for the race. Gonna be a great and adventorous challenge that is gonna be tough.


Will check back in later....
J

Live Tracking at Ö till Ö

The link to track us live is HERE.
We are Team SOS.

Will blog once I get to the islands this afternoon and get more info on the specifics of the race.

J

Friday, September 4, 2009

Arrived.....


Got into Stockholm around 3:30 yesterday afternoon. Met up with Jonas and we went for a nice little 11K run. Stockholm is a cool place.

After our run, went to dinner with Jonas, Bjorn and few other Swedes to a lebanese place. A lot of good convo about the race and what to expect.

Will check in later once I know race specifics in regards to exact website for tracking etc.

God dag!
J

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Ö till Ö....links and live tracking

Well, in the airport getting ready to board our flight to Amsterdam which will connect us to Stockholm. The flight is 10hr15min, so not too bad. Before Jeff and I left, Jeff wanted to go to the drug store to get some T.E.D hose for the flight to keep the swelling down. Actually, I think he is the poster boy, here are shot of his nice legs :)



In any case, I have a pair of compression socks and decided it was a good idea, so here we both are in the airport, Jeff with "thigh-high" stockings and me with "knee-highs" on....I am sure if anyone saw them, they wouldn't believe us...."Yeah....sure you guys are going to a race. Are you sure you not heading down to the Red light district to make some money at your layover?" Good thing we are both wearing long pants over them.

If you are interested in following us, we will have a GPS tracking device on us the entire race and you can go to HERE and track us live. We are Team SOS. This was last years link, so not sure if this one will work, but give it a whirl.

The race website is HERE.

You can also follow me on twitter by clicking HERE. I will be posting updates before and after the race. There should be some good pics along the way that I will post there as well. We are meeting Jonas Colting, his team won it last year when we land. Should be good times.

Well, will try and post again once we get there. Should be a fun and interesting race. I don't seem to be too worried about too much. This is all unventured "water" (no pun intended) so don't really have too many expectations. Going to be a fun journey!!

Will be in touch,
J

Monday, July 20, 2009

A weekend full of racing

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

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Great weekend of racing and training. Earlier this past week, my legs felt pretty tired. After 14 on Monday, Tempo ride and 8 on the run Tuesday, followed up by 16 on the run in 100 degree dry heat on Wednesday, I wasn't quite for sure if I was going to even line up for Saturday's Boise Twiwlight Crit...especially the way I was feeling. I recovered as much as I could Thursday/Friday and basically laid around on all day Saturday until my race started at 4PM. One thing here in Boise, the hottest part of the day is between 2-4PM...and let me tell you, it was freakin' hot. Race temp at start time was 105 DEGREES!!!!!

Wasn't sure what to expect, my first worry was not getting spit out the back. I haven't done any high HR training over the past 3 months and to make myself worry a bit more, I have only been riding 3 days a week.


(I am on the far right of pic in white kit)

The course was your basic 1K, 4 corner crit. I lined up on the near the front, but on the outside. I wanted to to take the first wide so that I could respond to anything that was happening at "gun shot" just in case a break was able to form. The course was short enough that if the right guys got together, the field could be lapped. The first lap was pretty uneventful. They rang the prime bell for the 2nd lap and I was well positioned towards the front and was able to get through corner 2 with a lot of speed and I attacked. I got away on my own and was able to take the first prime. As I came through, they rang the bell again for another prime as the announcer said, "we gonna see who is thirsty out there." Well, since the peloton didn't chase after me, I figured "well hell, I got this small lead, might as well go for another prime." So I stomped on through the first and second turns, kept it steady and took the 2nd prime. Soooooo....here I am, the race is 45 minutes long, I have just blasted myself 3 laps into the race. I came back to the group to recover for my initial fear of becoming "OTB" (Off The Back). Was able to recover and another prime lap was rang, but this time it was after someone was already up the road.

I figured, what the hell, "I am feeling pretty good and recovered, go chase him down and get another." As I attacked after the 2nd turn, I turned around to see who....Jeff. He has caught my wheel and we reeled the guy back in for Jeff to take the prime. Good stuff. Back to the group once again for a little "R&R." To make a long story short, another prime came up and I attacked on my favorite 2nd corner and rang up another. So all in all, 4 primes between Jeff and I. Not a bad day of racing considering.

The Numbers:
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Temperature: 105
Avg. MPH: 25.1
Avg. HR: 173 bpm

Was able to catch both the Pro men and women's racing that evening. Kristin Armstrong, a fellow Boise resident, World Champion and 2008 Beijing Olympic Gold Medalist, was racing and won.

(Kristin Armstrong is in the all white kit)
The Men's race was very exciting. A sole rider went on his own with I think 8 laps to go and was caught by the Team Type 1's train with 1/2 lap to go. Team Type 1 ended up taking 1st and 2nd on the podium. It was pretty incredible watching the team tactics and then seeing TT1 bring all 6 of their guys up front and reel'em in.



Sunday I headed out for my long ride that I usually do on Saturday, but I rescheduled since I was going to race. It was pretty uneventful and I was feeling quite good. On the way home, I couldn't resist the temptation. The Idaho State Criterium Championships were being held in a small town called Hidden Springs and it happened to only be a few miles off my way back home...sooooooo....I made the little detour and decided I would race one more time this weekend.

I have to tell you, I felt really good after racing yesterday and a nice long ride earlier that day. As the race started, I attacked after the first lap and was able to splinter the pack and a total of 6 of us were able to break away. As the day went on, I was able to grab 3 primes. With about 4 or 5 laps to go, I attacked the group trying to get away and unfortunately got into a little "tangle" with one of the lapped riders. Luckily, I didn't hit the pavement. He hit it pretty hard. I stopped as I was a little "razzled." I ended up just calling it day at that point and riding home.

The Numbers:
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Temperature: 90
Avg. MPH: 25.0
Avg. HR: 131 bpm

All in all, had a great weekend of training and racing. I forgot how much I enjoyed bike racing. One day when I quit this triathlon stuff, I will definitely just bike race. Not sure why my average HR was so depressed on the 2nd day, assume it is the fatigue factor or temp, although was still able to put out the work and honestly felt much stronger the 2nd crit.

Until then...back at it. One more build week on the run before a rest week. Will run 60miles this week.

Racin',
J

PS: On my ride on Sunday, I couldn't pass up taking this picture of place called Banducci's.....a coffee shop and tanning salon in one. What a combo!!!!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Rest and Up Hill Runnin'

"Trust in yourself. Your perceptions are often far more accurate than you are willing to believe."



My training partner...brother...best friend...boss (only at work - haha)...motivation and occassional "pain in my ass" on the run today :-)
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Yesterday was crazy, haven't slept that much in a long time. I guess Saturday's ride/effort was much more "draining" than I thought. I basically slept from around 7PM on Saturday until about 7:45AM on Sunday, got up in bed and watched the tour until about 8:45 and fell back asleep until 11:45AM. I didn't leave the house at all on Sunday, much less left my bed.

Awoke this AM bright and early feeling well rested and hit the pool at 5AM for an early start to get in an extra K or so before the workout started. Got in almost 4500m before I had to dart off to the J-O-B. My swimming is coming around finally, still not quite as fit in the water as I have been, but close. I am really addicted to this "band only" swimming. It is really hard and difficult to maintain a good position in the water. It really exacerrbates any inadequicies that you have in your stroke.

Jeff and I have 2 main run workouts during the week. Our primary run focus is our long run on Wednesdays. We have begun to poker pace on the run for more specificity (If you haven't read the link, it is well worth it). Our second main run comes on Mondays. To specifically train for ö till ö, Jeff had decided we need to do some power running with some down hill portion.

So todays run we had 14 in the "books." We are very lucky here in Boise to have the endless trail system that we have. We took off and the plan was simple...run up 7 and back down 7. As always, photos never do beautiful views justice (Or I should say photos I take) The town that is far off in the picture is Boise. We are 7 miles from the city at about 5300 feet in elevation in the photo.



The Facts
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Total Climbing: 2,590 Feet
Total Miles: 14.5
Total Time: 2:16:00
Avg HR Ascending: 142bpm
Avg HR Descending: 146bpm

The run down hill "zapped" me. After about 3 miles , I was ready to be done. As you know, eccentric leg contractions for that long when you haven't trained them causes the usual added consequence of muscle soreness and pain from micro tears of muscle tissues from the "loading."

Will take things on the easier side tomorrow to prep for my long run on Wednesday. Will work on my poker pacing a bit.

Hittin' the sack early tonight,
J

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Grupetto and ride to Ola


"It never gets easier, you just go faster."
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The ride to Ola was a great one, but tough. Jeff, Casey, Erin, Kate and I took off at 8 this morning and having never done the ride, wasn't sure what to expect. Having driven to McCall once, I knew that we were in for some climbing in the beginning, but didn't really knonw how much.

It was a basic route, 50 miles out and 50 miles back. (You can see route on previous post) The grupetto started off "peppy" and it really didn't change for the rest of the ride.

The Facts
---------
Total Climbing: 5,921 Feet
Total Distance: 101 miles
Total Time: 5:09:02

Legs up for the rest of the day. Recovery day tomorrow and week number 2 of this running block starting Monday. Gonna be a tough week and really gotta plan as much recovery as possible if I don't want to get spit out the back of the peloton next Saturday at the Boise Twighlight Crit.

J

Below is Casey at our 65 miles re-fueling stop. :-)

Friday, July 10, 2009

MAF Test results

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”



This was my last treadmill test in Boulder before IM Canada 2007
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Did a MAF test today, a little disappointing with the amount of running I have done over the past 12 weeks. First 2 miles were at 150 and the last 3 miles were done at 155, my previous benchmark for MAF testing back in 2007.

July 2009
______________________
Mile 1 (150HR) - 7:58
Mile 2 (150HR) - 8:06
Mile 3 (155HR) - 7:58
Mile 4 (155HR) - 7:56
Mile 5 (155HR) - 7:54

I looked at my last MAF test which was done in November 2007 which was right before my fastest open 1/2 marathon and it was quite a bit better. My training schedules were very different in comparison.

November 2007
______________________
Mile 1 (155HR) - 7:10
Mile 2 (155HR) - 7:18
Mile 3 (155HR) - 7:24

Looking at the two, my spread (2009 only 4 seconds compared to 14 seconds in 2007) is much better this year than compared to 2007. I assume it has to do with the amount of base training I have this year versus 2007.

In any case, interesting, but frustrating.

Have 6 in the AM before our 100 miler to a small town north of Boise called Ola. I have never been, but I think there is a fair amount of climbing.



Runnin',
J

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Race schedule.....

"The only limits we have are those we give ourselves"



__________________________________________________________

I know it has been a few months since last checking in. Life has been great, training on a consistent basis and work going well. Things are slowly getting a bit more comfortable, but still have a lot of learning to do.

I finally have a couple of races up on the calendar. Looking forward to racing again. It has been almost 2 years since I was “seriously training” to race. I did a couple of races last year after about 6-8 weeks of training, but well under my previous times.

I start off the summer with a bike race, Boise Twilight Criterium here in Boise on July 18th. I love bike racing and thought I should get my first dip back in with a crit. With the TDF on, I had to get in on a bike race. Plus, it is part of the NRC (National Race Calendar) which is the schedule all of the continental pro teams follow. The first tri of the year is an Olympic distance race here locally. It is called Emmett’s “Most Excellent” Tri . Gonna be a gut buster, will be a nice re-entry to racing.

The second race on the docket is the Utah Half held in Provo, UT. Race is August 15th. My last half ironman was September of 2006, my best half performance to date. Not sure how this race performance will pan out, but hoping to get a “grip” on this run thing and have a descent performance. My goal is to run my fastest half IM run split, we’ll see. I am only biking 3-4 days/week right now, so I am sure my run will depend on how disciplined I will be on race day on the bike.

The next race on the “sched” is a race in Sweden on September 6th called Ö till Ö. Ö till Ö is a unique race. Teams of two race together from island to island (Ö till Ö) and Jeff (my brother) is my teammate. The race takes place on the Stockholm archipeligos which consist of 19 small islands. The swim sections are between 100 and 1400 metres long. We will swim between the islands to get to the next one and then run across to the next swim. There are a total of 38 in and outs. The total distance is 64 kms which is comprised of 10 km of swimming and 38 km are running. There is one 16 km section of biking which will be done on a beach cruiser. Should be fun and interesting. We have begun working on the logistics of the race. We’ll see how it works out.

My run program has been very consistent. I have never ran this consistent since I started triathlon back in 2001. After 9 weeks of slow base training, Jeff and I sat down and ”mapped” out a run program that was going to address my run weakness to give us the best fighting chance at Ö till Ö to do well. We have been gradually building with this week totalling 54 miles of running and the last big week hitting 70 miles.

I have been swimming every morning M-F at Masters. Most squad practices usually are 3500 and on most days, I get in early and try to get the total to 4K. It is finally coming back and getting pretty comfortable in the water again.

Not sure what I am going to do after Ö till Ö. My plan is to finish the year off with a couple more half IM’s in October and November. We’ll see.....

Hope training is going well for everyone.
J

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Still runnin'

"Our greatest joy-and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others."


Pic was from 2 weekends ago while in Las Vegas at my buddies bachelor party, good times.

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Finally starting to get fully settled in. Work is slow, but expected. My learning curve will hopefully be steep. Working with kids is great! I am looking forward to it. I was finally credentialed to work in the operating room which is something I really enjoy doing. Looking forward to that as much as anything.

(Kevin Everett crossing the finish line)
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to be a spectator at the Spring Sprint Triathlon, it was out my back door. Interesting format, they swim in the pool on Friday. Then, on Saturday, the bike and run take place. Everyone is lined up in the order of their swim finish time and then they release you into the transition area based on the split differences between each person. For example, swimmer A swam in 4:32 and swimmer B swan in 4:37. On Saturday, he would leave 5 seconds behind swimmer A and so on. So needless to say, made it quite interesting. I tell ya, not sure if I would want to do this format, it is almost more “balls to the wall” than a traditional sprint. Here you have time to rest and there is no holding back, you only have to bike/run. All in all, it was great fun to spectate a triathlon as always. I always tell myself I should be a spectator more often, tons of fun to watch.

I rode the Boise 70.3 bike course the day after the sprint tri. Tell you what, that is a challenging course. The winds are impressive and can really get to your head if you let them. Tons of head winds, but has some fast sections as well.

My training has been steady and consistent. I am definitely feeling much better on the run, but still slow. I have been able to throw in a few longer runs. My avg HR for my first 9 runs was 158bpm. My HR has dropped to an average of 153 over the last 10 runs with the same perceived exertion.
Run//Time//Avg HR//Distance (miles)
10//45:06 //159//4.9
11//45:37//forgot Strap//5.3
12//45:49//166//5.5
13//1:49:24//161//12.6
14//45:03//144//4.22
15//56:16//137//5.1
16//45:08//150//4.9
17//1:15:00//152//7.66
18//38:48//150//5
19//1:22:04//159//9.43
I have really haven’t picked up my swim training yet, just haven’t gotten myself out of bed in the mornings. Have started biking a few times per week. Mostly trainer rides with something longer on the weekends. No plans for racing yet, we’ll just see. I am sure at some point this summer I will be coerced into racing.
Back at it,
J



Wednesday, April 1, 2009

First 9 Runs in 10 days

("Fist-bump" after a run with Frank Shorter)


"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."

_______________________________________________

So here are my first 9 runs. I am 2 runs down on my goal of 60-45 min runs in 60 days. In a couple of weeks, I will add 2-a-days and catch back up. Half of these runs have been on a treadmill, I hate running in cold weather. I would have ran everyday, but this past weekend I headed to Las Vegas for my buddies bachelor party. Needless to say, I didn't run on Saturday AM. I somehow managed a 30min run on Sunday AM before my flight out.

Note: The mileage and average pace are a little goofy. I am using a Garmin watch and sometimes is seems not to recore the proper miles. At this time, HR and time are most important. Distance and pace will come later.

Run//Time//Avg HR//Distance (miles)//Avg pace ===================================

1//45:46//163//4.81//9:30

2//46:13//162//5.13//9:00

3//45:05//163//4.89//9:13

4//45:03//159//4.89//9:13

5//45:12//151//4.89//9:13

6//32:02//157//3.92//8:10

7//45:01//150//4.55//9:53

8//45:05//146//4.89//9:13

9//45:09//170//5.3//8:31

Runnin',


J

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Catching Up

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self- satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” - John Wooden
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Well, it has been 17 months and 1 week since my last post. A lot has happened since then. I won’t bore you with everything in between (sadly nothing too exciting has happened since then), but just a few things of note. I left my last blog on mission to conquer my running woes and run a few half marathons to see what I could do. I was in the middle of running 31 runs in 31 days and I had planned to continue on for another 30 runs in 30 days. Well, I ran 58 times in 61 days with some great personal results. The 4 days that I didn’t run were 4 days that I took off between my October and November run challenges. I was feeling pretty rocked after October and needed to rest a few days before running everyday again for November.

After completing the challenge, I had two half marathons lined up in early December. The first half-marathon, the Mistletoe Half Marathon in Winston-Salem was on December 1st, 2007. I had been tracking my MAF test and the last one I did right before Mistletoe was 7:10, 7:18, 7:24. A big improvement from October’s MAF test which was 7:37, 7:56, 7:50. So I had this grand idea that for Mistletoe. I was going to test our MAF theory and stick to a heart rate of 155 for the race and see if I averaged out over 13.1 mile a 7:25/mile pace since that is what my latest MAF result was. I knew my time wouldn’t be fast and I was ok with that, I knew was racing down in Charlotte the following weekend in the Thunder Road half marathon. Well, in theory, it sounded good, but realistically, it was a disaster. Looking back at my splits, the only miles that I actually was under 160bpm for an average was the first two miles, not to even think about 155bpm. My real plan was to run the first 10 miles at 155 and then run hard the last 3 miles descending. Even though I wasn’t on my original plan of holding 155 for the first 10, I thought that I was pretty conservative averaging 163bpm through the first 10 running a 7:10 average mile pace. As expected, my result wasn’t anything great, but I almost successfully completed my goal to descend the last 3 miles. I ran 6:39, 6:22, and 6:28 with a finishing time of 1:32:02, a 7:02 pace.
The following weekend, I headed down Charlotte for the Thunder Road Half-Marathon. With the poor results of the previous weekend, I didn’t really have anything to lose. I had put all this time into running and still didn’t have any results. I decided not to worry about a pace or a HR for that matter, however I was still going to keep track with my garmin. The gun was off and I was rolling. I was pretty amped for this race. It was downtown, tons of people and I ran with my ipod during this race to stay as focused on the task at hand. I ran through the first mile, looked down at my watch and was sure that the race was over...I had just ran a 5:58 mile! Well, as I was thinking to myself what I was going to do next, I figured, “hell, you are here to run , so keep on goin’.” I definitely concentrated on slowing down a bit after the first mile and find a pace that was comfortable to hold for as long as I could. Well, long story short, I somehow held on. As you can see from the picture, I was hurting, but it was all worth it. I stopped the clock that day at 1:24:53, a 6:30/mile average pace.

Well that race last race was December 8, 2007. Not much happened athletically after that. I turned to the newest chapter in my life, my job. I started my new job on January 2, 2008. I took at job at PrimeCare, an urgent care in Winston-Salem. Like most new things, I took this job on full force. I worked every shift that I possibly could have and tried to soak up any piece of knowledge that was given to me. Afterall, I was the new guy, but not only the new guy, a new grad. As I began to take on more and more shifts, I began to work out less and less. Before I knew it, my job had taken over and I wasn’t working out at all. It took me about 5 months to realize it. Looking back, I was amazed how much time went by and how cranky I had become to realize that something essential had left my life, my physical well-being.

My best buddy from PA school, Greg (GP), started challenging me in April of 2008 about a race. As we had spoken weekly on the phone, I think he realized that I had not trained once since early December. I must say this was odd as far back as I could remember since I had moved to Winston-Salem in 2000 that I had taken off completely. It seemed in each phone conversation, we HAD to talk about triathlon. I was denying it at the moment, I was copping out saying I was done with triathlon. He would say, “Man, when are you going to start training again?” His continual prying into my brain about my triathlon days got deeper, “Are you ever going to make it back to the sport, have you just given up?” As I was able to fend him off with my nonchalant excuses, he used a different tactic, challenge. At some point, I think he said something along the lines, “Man, it would be sad if I beat you the Lake Logan Triathlon.” Well, to give you a bit of background about Greg, he is a pretty big dude. Former Tight End at Oregon State, I think he was in the 250's during his prime there. Needless to say, he is a Clydesdale. I think he was down to 220, but still, I was thinking, “is he serious, he was going to beat me.” Well, I finally obliged to the challenge. It was on, August 2nd, Lake Logan Triathlon, an Olympic distance race. I was 8 weeks out and on June 1st, I began my daily training. Once I committed, I made an outlandish bet. I figured if we were gonna race, something was going to be on the line. The bet was, if I beat GP by 18 minutes, he would buy me dinner. If I didn’t, I owed him dinner. Well long story short, I lost. I beat him by 12:35 that day, 5:25 off the winning bet time. For excuse purposes :), I ran a 44 minute 10K, pretty slow considering. Had I ran what I have previously, it would have made it for a close race. In the end, it wasn’t about who won or lost, it was about the journey, the friendship and personal challenge to get back in shape. Even though I wasn’t back to the fitness had been previously been in triathlon, it was a start. It was also learning how to balance work and personal life, not an easy task.

Well, September/October rolled along and I found myself slowly creeping back to working more and training less. This time, I realized it much sooner and decided I was going to ride through the winter. I was on fire with riding until about mid February of this year. I had been at Primecare (PC) for about 15 months and I was getting fairly frustrated with our leadership. I didn’t feel like they had me in their best interest. It seemed the leaders at PC were living along the mantra of “working more, paying less.” My interest to look for a new opportunity became greater. First and foremost, I needed to find a job allowed me to train more, which meant to work less. In 2008, I averaged over 55 hours/week, way too much working! There were a few opportunities out there for me to take, but one in particular seemed to put me “back to the good ole days.” My brother had taken a position in Boise, ID. He had been laying the seed for a few months, “it would be nice to have you out here.” Well, in February of 2009, St. Alphonsus offered me a job in Orthopaedics as the first Ortho PA.

I started work on March 23rd and have finally settled in. I think Boise is going to be a great fit for me, tons of outdoor stuff to do and I look forward to cross country skiing in the winter for a different fitness stimulus.

Just as I left the blog 17 months and 1 week ago, I have begun my run challenge – 60 runs in 60 days. I have no race plans for the year yet, we’ll just see how it goes.

Getting it rollin',
John