The Coach Buzz ...

This last weekend I ran the Madison Quarter Marathon as a part of my short course focus, which will last through the first half of the season. I won and ran well, but still have a little ways to go before I switch to Ironman focused work in July. Throughout the next 6 weeks I will keep on, keeping on, with the local events. They are turning out to not only be great for my fitness, but a lot of fun as well. The next two weeks will include 2 time trials of 10miles on the bike, a 5k run road race and a local sprint triathlon on June 7th. As a side note, Madison has the World's Largest Bratfest, which is held every Memorial Day weekend. For those of you that don't know what a brat is...it is like a suped-up hotdog....bigger and better. They are best served with sauerkraut, relish, ketchup, mustard and of course with a cold beer. This year, they set a wold record again after selling over 208,000 brats! GOtta love Wisconsin. That's it for now, maybe next time I will talk about w

Some of you may know the name Steve Larsen and some of you may not. I had the chance to meet him at Ironman Coeur d'Alene last year for the first time, after hearing a lot about him and his career. Steve was a Professional Triathlete, Entrepenuer, husband and father of 5. He was one of the best athletes in our sport a true symbol of how to balance life. Steve passed away on tuesday from unknown reasons during a track session. My deepest condolences go out to his family. There is a memorial fund set up here, if you are interested in donating. http://xtri.com/features_display.aspx?riIDReport=5633&CAT=24&xref=xx

MEMPHIS I made the trip down to Memphis in my mini with good friends; Brian, Justin and Laura...we also met up with Laura's other half, Denny, once down there. Brian and I drove from Madison to St. Louis, where we picked up Justin and Laura, who flew in from Colorado. The drive isn't too bad, but when you have 2 bikes in boxes, 2 bikes out of boxes, luggage, food and 4 athletes who can't sit still, the drive is long enough. The event was a bit different this year, in that the pro races started at 1030am, after the age group race had finished. Besides a rockin' north wind, it was nice to have the 1700 age groupers + spectators, cheering you on! I had a decent non-wetsuit swim and came out in a touch over 20minutes....not bad considering there was some chop in the water. The fastest guys swam just over 16minutes, so I have some work to do if I am going to be competitive in the water without a wetsuit, over the short distances. The ride was TOUGH, but uneventful. I held ba

TRAINING YOUR STRENGTH I was recently talking to a friend of mine about athletes that look to other successful athletes and convince themselves that they need to do what that person did in order to be successful. This can work sometimes, but what happens if you have a tremendous swimming and cycling ability and you are looking at someone who is 10kg's lighter and pure runner? No matter what you do, u will never become that type of runner, nor will you ever have your best race trying to be. But on the flip side, they will never have your swimming and cycling ability...so what do you do? What we have to do is evaluate ourselves and identify our own strengths....then train them and race them. Pick courses that suit you, choose a race strategy that plays off of those strengths and race in a way where you have a chance to use them. In addition, if you are a woman that is 60kg's, or a man that it 80kg's...it does you no good to try to become an athlete that is 10kg's+ lighter