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Showing posts from July, 2009

Spirit Of Racine Race Report

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If there is one thing that I have realized this year, it's that I race best when I don't think about much of anything race related. I have done this long enough, that I know what i need to do. I just take the fitness I have and use it. The rest takes care of itself. The 2009 Spirit of Racine Half Ironman was no exception. I registered the day before and then stayed with my mom and grandma, about an hour away in Milwaukee. I got grandma's cooking the night before, including way too many mashed potato's!! Well what else am I suppose to do when she shoves the pan in your face and says; "Here, you finish these up. You need them and no one else will eat them!" Then came the apple/walnut bake....I was fueled, there was no doubt about that ;) Race morning, I followed my pattern of not over thinking. I rolled into transition 10 minutes before it closed. Dropped my stuff, got body marked, hit a pit stop and headed up the beach for the point to point swim star

Breakthrough!!!

3:54:04!! Spirit Of Racine Half Ironman race report to come!

If You Listen, It Will Come

Besides playing off of the awesome movie "Field Of Dreams," what am I talking about? I am talking about listening to your body when training! Many of us become so wrapped up in our training plans that we forget about the most important aspect of training and performance. That is, How we are feeling and how the body is working! We feel the need to hit every single yard, minute, heart beat, watt and interval...we become obsessed with going as good, if not better, every time out the door. When we do this, we almost always self destruct and become frustrated. Regardless of which training protocol you are following, what your performance management chart says, what you think you "should" be able to do on a given day, you have to remember that we are not machines. Training is a small piece of the the total amount of stress that we place on our bodies in life. In many ways our bodies do not differentiate between training stress and work stress, or family stress. Th

A New Athlete...

If you have followed my blog over the last 6 months, you would have seen that I have really changed my approach heading into Ironman this year. No more endless 30-40hr training weeks, no more long easy hours on the bike, just training with a purpose, every time I get out the door. I have been racing a lot and going hard very often, all on less than 18hrs of training per week. This approach is partly due to my past training load, my experiences with coaches as of late, as well as needing more time to dedicate toward my growing coaching business. I think that for athletes that are relatively new to the sport; miles logged and consistency in training are the keys to improvement. However, after no more improvement using this approach is seen, it is time to switch things up. I am now just getting into the last 10 weeks of training before Ironman Wisconsin and this last weekend i had my first ride longer than 4hrs and first run longer than 90 minutes since January! Using my same zone gui