I feel a tad bit ill....

Well Today I was supposed to go to the Waterbury Y and get my swim on, but a lovely developing sinus infection had me against the pillow. Tomorrow I might do a pre work run or lift, followed by either pool or bike time, then lots of research, like into the night research, I need to grab a couple of household manuals and piece together my outline and bibliography. Seriously the way this course is setting me up It's not going to be all that difficult to crank out this paper,granted her criteria might be a little stricter.

I had planned to do a mock Borat post, about what my observations are a month past New Zealand, I can only come up with 3

1. the Kiwis are a lot more laid back, than all of us Puritanical New Englanders.
2. If you're a vegan, you might want to vacation elsewhere, or at least look up the vegetarian restaurants because all the little cafes were filled with meat and dairy goods.
3. Litchfield, NZ pop. 1500 cows, 500 sheep, 250 people, 1 alpaca
Litchfield, CT, USA pop. 1500 cows, 500 sheep, 250 people and 1 alpaca in essence no change.
ok had to share that a month late but better late than never.

I sent Catherine an email stating : " I think you're kind of cool." I hope that didn't freak her out, and yes those were my exact words....hopefully "cool" down there means the same as it does up here and isn't slang for cold hard bitch, because she was really awesome... if alot of this doesn't make sense I blame it on the Robitussin, well I'm going to crash and continue to chill.

Chillin' like a villin'
R.D.

To go elite or to go age group, that is the question....

Well I was looking at the results from Last Year's Patriot Half I was an hour and 4 minutes off the overall winner's time. 35 min. of that gap was from the bike split the other 27 coming from the run, and 2 from the swim. Now upon analysis of my training and equipment one must remember, my longest ride pre-Patriot was 48 miles, my monthly long run was 12 miles, and I was swimming 3300yds. 4x a week. Also I did the swim in a $50 surfing wetsuit rode a 23lbs. Road Bike, and had to ...umm...ditch some clif bars and their wonderful overabundance of fiber.... on the run. Anyhoo...the cranium got to working ( on something over than Victorian England.) I train like a beast, I've got better gear, I've steered clear of clif bars for the last 3 months ( shot bloks are a different story, guys at Gu I'm telling you a semi-solid chewable would be great...call um Gu-bers....) Patriot offers an elite, open catagory, which unlike most races you do not need an elite licence to compete in. It qualifies these entrants for the cash prizes, which is a bonus, but the one draw back, if you race as an open competitor you cannot be eligible for prizes for the age group and your time only counts toward the overall. So in essence my poll for this week is do I take a shot at the Patriot Half in the Open Catagoryand potentially a pay day, to see where I rank with New England's elites, or do I continue my reign of terror in the 20-24 Age Group for a bike jersey, nice trophy, and beers from the guys at HEAT? Realistically I have nothing to lose, I'll be competing in my age group at the Griskus, RI 70.3, and the rest of my races. So do I take a gamble or keep the status quo?

Analyzing the data.....

Well this has 3 fold application at this point.

After talking with my professor, I decided to limit my topic to medicine in the house in Victorian England. ( ie what was Dr. Mom responsible for and when did you bring in the high priced quack also what did the Docs know that the women didn't..and vice versa. ) So I will be analyzing Victorian periodicals as well as Doctors manuals of the period to compare and contrast. Needless to say this make research less of a headache.



Part of me is begining to think Eagleman might have been a mistake, but its too late to backout now, I don't want to eat a $200 entry fee., so I will train as best I can and see what happens, I'm not counting on the sole Kona slot in my age group ( but hey miracles do happen.), but maybe I can steal a slot to Clearwater in November. When I signed up in August I forgot how difficult it is to train in April, the weather is bi-polar, my professors seem to think that we really like our old, dusty, outdated library, that and all the family money drama that disappears for a month when the income tax refund check comes in begins to resurface ( granted this year it shouldn't be as bad as in the past, my mom's got 4 deals on the table...low interest rates and low house prices are good for something: Buyers Market Baby!)...oh and I get a year older.....like I said April =lots of STRESS a few more grey hairs, and a birthday cake...well at least I get a cake:)

The last Analysis seems to disprove the theory that Triathlon was the sport of bored runners.
1 of the 7 people who voted on my poll stated that their best discipline was the run.
2 of the 7 myself being one of them, say they were transplated swimmers
2 more claimed the bike as their true love.
and 2 more claimed that they rocked all 3 sports with equally.

This week's poll :
I haven't thought of one. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears.

The neurotic number cruncher.
R.D.

Kicking it Old School.

YesterdayI decided ( probably stupidly) to get in a nice little threshold workout. I dropped my sister off at the movies ten made my way to my Alma Mater, Holy Cross High School in Waterbury. Normally I do my track work in Wolcott, but decided to visit my old stomping grounds, I can say this I don't miss the hill down to the track. The memories of having to sprint up this 10 percent grade in the begining of summer start flooding back, the super studs racing ahead, and me hanging toward the back. I got down to the track and did an easy mile to warm up. The smell was the same burnt ground up tire smell I remembered, the lines were a little more weather worn and the surface was ground down a little more than it was when I last graced its surface almost 5 years ago. Some football player was doing laps, running a mile, walking a half as he conditioned himself for spring training as I made my way to the inside lane after I finished my warm up. The words of my track coach ringing in my head 4x 800m thresholds, use the first one as an easy one then descend the remaining 3 between 5-10 seconds. 60 seconds rest between each, feel like you could have pushed harder at the end of the workout , don't thrash yourself. 9 years ago as a feshman these words seemed like blasphemy by senior year I understood. This workout was a gas gauge, how fast was your "go to pace." A test to see what was possible, after more base, more hills, and a little speed. a test to see if your training plan was working or if you should go back to the drawing board. A test of lactate, before all the high tech toys of Garmins, HR monitors, powertaps, GPS Monkey Calibrated thingambobs, just you 400 meters of rubber and a stop watch, training as ,dare I say, it should be. I did my first 800 going noticeably slow. 4:10, took my minute walking around not to get stiff, cleared the stopwatch and off on to number 2. This is where it would get tricky, in high school I would suddenly blast off and try to catch the faster guys and blow up. Today there were not faster guys, just me and the clock. I took off on Number 2. I finished it in 3:58. 18 seconds, maybe I pushed a little too hard but set my goal for # 3 3:53 Took my minute then it was off again. I kicked it up just a little bit more on this one, running down some older guy who was doing his distance run on the vulcanized surface. 3:38...20 seconds. I took off the long sleeve for the next one, I need to fly, crack 3:30. My minute rest finished and off I went. I did the first lap fairly hard I didn't take a split I was just running by feel. I continued to push trying to pick up the pace on the second loop, building through the turn, cranking down the back strech, building through the final turn and sprinting down the home strech. 3:21. Not a bad one, I felt like I could do another but decided not to push it. I did an easy 800 and stretched before making my way back to the car. It was a good workout no frills, no fuss, the way I like it. Is this the best kind of thing to do to improve a half marathon split, not really , there weren't enough repeats, but a least I know my progress. Right now I know that I can easily sustain 7 min miles so hopefully I can break the 20min. barrier at the Griskus sprint, and maybe have a crack at the overall.

I plan on doing this workout, or some longer varation to track my progress throughout the course of the season. The days of just doing easy base rides and runs are over, I need to get my body to suffer, I need to get faster, I want to feel like I did in high school, tired and sore before the races began but knowing when the time came to race I could drop the hammer, my racing is starting to become more than just a weekend hobby, where I throw on my running shoes, crank out a 5k and then guzzle a little brew at the post race? Will I still keep it fun, yeah, if it's not fun why do it? That's why I sign up for most of my locals every year. The other part of me wants to know just how fast I can go.

Dreaming of the day he goes pro.
R.D.