The Coach Buzz ...

Mile 90 on Midtown Road This year's Ironman Wisconsin was a race that I was keyed in on since 2014. That was the last time I was able to race here in Madison due to the absence of a Professional Men's field. Each season I would race but wouldn't quite have the heart that I normally would have at Ironman Wisconsin. As you can imagine, this year when it was announced the male pro's would be back, I was ALL IN. The season was focused on this race, 30hr+ weeks all summer long to try to raise the bar going into this event. The result of the training was fantastic and the data geeks would have had a field day with it. My coach, Cliff English, built a massive engine and he gets all of the credit for that!! As we all know though, things don't go exactly as planned and while I did avoid getting my usual cold/flu in peak training, I managed to pick up a sinus infection about 8 days before the race thanks to our lovely Lake Monona on a rough day. I took antibiotics t

IMWI 2010 5th Place Professional I cannot believe it's almost race week and more importantly I cannot believe I get to race an Ironman again in my home town. I raced IMWI 2002 through 2014, then without a men's Professional race, had to skip out on 2015 and 2016. Now that it's back for 2017 and I am grateful to simply be on that starting line once again. Ironman for me represents something different than any other race distance, because it was such a challenge for me to be competitive at and because it is so different than any other race distance out there. There is no faking the distance, there is no Tour d'France mentality of "create a gap" that others miscalculate. The race is more like the boxing the match from a few weeks ago, or the US Open 2nd Round match from last night with Nadal. What is the condition of your body late in the game; round 10, 2hrs into a match or 8hrs into the race while at mile 20 of the run. Of course we all have bad days,