That light in the distance ain't the sun.. it's the A train.

That's how I've been feeling the last few weeks. Rev3 is about 6 weeks and counting away and I've only done one 50+  mile ride.
running is coming along steadily and I've really felt motivated in the tempo runs I've done over the past few weeks. I've consistently been putting in 20 mile weeks, so while I'm not in Ironman or Marathon Shape yet  a sub 1:50 half marathon split is definitely going to happen and if I have energy after the bike I might be able to break the 1:40 barrier again.
The swim is, as always, my strength. I've been putting 10k yards a week for the last month so I know I'll be in good shape out of the water.

The last two weeks have shed new light on why I have had a love hate relationship with the bike. Two weeks ago on went on a training ride with Alexei , Rinaldi and Neil. I was doing fine on flats and down hills. When we started the climbs my lower back would start flaring up as soon as we hit the inclines, and I was dropped like a bad habit. I had tweaked my bike seat during the winter so I wouldn't be so squashed on my aerobars.

But after hearing comments like , "Dude it looks like you're planking." and losing 5-10 minutes to the group on every climb. Apparently it backfired quite literally.  My back was doing all the work while climbing causing my relatively short rides to be painful ordeals. The thing is even before the tweak my back's always acted up on rides. I've heard the

 Last week after taking some of Rinaldi's comments into account, I moved my seat radically forward and pulled my aerobars back to try to find a more powerful climbing position. Well while my back was taking less stress, my bike handling went the way of the dodo. The Stomper felt like skittish when I hit the brakes and did not want to corner.  So I put my seat back a little bit further almost to the point where it was before I did my original adjustment and I have the areobars back but not to the extreme last week. I'm hoping that I can find the happy medium between bike handling and climbing power.

A friend has offered to take me for a bike fit, while I hate having to get help from others just because I hate feeling indebted to people likewise it will be at least two weeks before I can schedule any time to get it done. But if it can help me unlock my potential and get me to like riding again I'm all for it because I'm starting to get sick of my reputation of leading the swim, getting dropped on the bike, and despite valiant runs being too far back to be a factor.  But for right now I've got to keep making temporary fixes hoping I can stop the bleeding, and get myself into a powerful yet comfortable position before I can see the experts. So that's where I stand right now. I need to bike more but I need to bike comfortably so my other sports won't suffer and I can bike more consistently without having to take 1-3 days to unlock my back.


So here's to hopefully better rides
R.D.

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The Season's taking shape

Well Tuesday night was the Greater Waterbury YMCA Tri Club kick off meeting. Among other events going on that night was a raffle for free entries into the Rev3 Quassy Half and Olympic, The Pat Griskus Sprint and Olympic and the Hopkins Inn Triathlon at Lake Waramaug ( essentially the revival of the Lake Waramaug Tri on the original route.)

Let's cut to the chase my luck at raffles still sucks and I came up empty handed granted I really could have used that entry into Rev3. I was able to register for the Griskus and Waramaug Sprints with a one night only discount. So my season looks like this so far:

June 16 Patriot Half East Freetown, MA

July 11 26th annual Pat Griskus Sprint Middlebury, CT

July 21 1st Annual Hopkins Inn Tri Washington, CT

My hope is to register for Rev3 Half Quassy before entry fills up so hopefully that will be part of next week's pay well spent. As mentioned earlier all New England race directors decided to front stack all of their Olympic distance races before Age group Nationals in Vermont. So I'm not sure if I'll be doing an Oly this year. I've thought about Rev3 Old Orchard Beach but if I'm going that far North I'd rather race a half. If Quassy fills up then I'll definitely do Old Orchard as I want to do at least two halves this season, and if I have the cash and play my cards right, a full iron distance race to finish off the season.

Next year I'm hoping to either go back to Louisville or another WTC sanctioned event to try to punch my ticket to the big dance, but this year is going to be trying to rebuild to the level I used to be at. When I was hungry, when I could eat lightning and crap thunder, when my goal was clear, Big Island, Pro Card, Big Results. While the pro card maybe a stretch ( more of like a stretch, long bike ride and a plethora of performance enhancing drugs...I mean natural and legal supplements.) I'm hoping for some big results to get me moving in the right direction.

Training's been pretty consistent, the run miles are still a little low but I'll be putting up some big numbers in the next few weeks. But so far I have three races. They are pretty fast courses with pretty stacked fields so the training needs to stay consistent and my attitude needs to get back into that "I can do it because I'm hot fire. And I'll school your ass like Macca" mode instead of the "I'm a whiny coward trying to survive." mode. That's going to be the hard part.

R.D.

Welcome back to the freezer

Well today I decided to put tires to pavement. The temps were near 50F and Steph had left early for play practice so I had the afternoon to myself. Since the weather was nice and I had noting better to do I unhooked the Stomper from the trainer and went out to Middlebury. I hadn't ridden outdoors in Winter since 2009 so I dugout my tattered pair of wool socks and threw another pair of cycling socks over the top hoping that they would keep my feet warm as the only cycling shoes that had decent cleats were my tri shoes. I kept the route simple and did two loops of the Griskus Sprint bike loop. I took the first loop pretty tentatively as I focused on bike handling. It wasn't too windy and once I knew where the sand and pot holes were I was able to open it up. The S-curve at mile 3 and the turn on to Tomilson Rd at mile 4 looked like someone had dumped sandbags down, but there was still enough of a path that to fit the bike safely through. The fact there was very little traffic also helped. I did have an issue with the censor on my bike computer shaking loose on the second loop after hitting a pothole, so a mile and a half of the ride wasn't recorded. I was surprised I didn't bump into more riders but there were several runners. I finished the 20.50 ride in a little under an hour and a half averaging about 15mph. Not fast by any means but not bad for my first outdoor ride since August.

I got back to the car and threw on my Newtons and went for a 5k run down the Griskus Sprint Run course. I kept the pace moderate and I could feel that my feet are adjusting to the Newtons. I'm not ready to tackle any 10 milers yet but I have a feeling if I'm able to get through the next two weeks doing short runs between 3-6 miles I'll be able to get back into the high mile high speed runs. This week I've got some tough workouts on tap in the pool and on the trainer

RD

First run in Newtons and other training tales

Well yesterday I took my Newton's out for their first run. It went pretty well but until I fully "break in" the shoes I'm going to have to keep the miles low. I could really feel the lugs when I was going downhill, but not so much on the flats or going up hill. It also allowed me some time to reflect on my stride. My left foot seems to already land on my midfoot, where on my right foot I could still feel the lugs and it tends to pronate a little more. I know that as I get used to the shoes and my mileage increases, my stride will improve and I'm confident that my run splits will get faster this year.

I've also started getting back on the spin bike. My bike leg is what needs the most improvement and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my cycling back to the level it was at in 2008 and 2009. The set that has been the most use to be has been 4x5:00 in big cog on the front with my 15 tooth cog on the back, working on getting my cadence up and building my endurance.

My swimming is back up to about 4000 per practice and the triathletes I'm coaching are improving and building up the yardage . that's more info for another post but so far I'm thinking that 2012 will be a good year.

R.D.

Back to the Pat...

Well I've signed up for the 2012 Patriot Half Iron in Freetown, MA on June 16. This will be the first time I've competed there since 2009, which was probably one of the best years for me competitively. While I was going through it 09 seemed to be an off year but looking at it in hindsight, it was the last year I sort of had some stability in training, work schedule, and life in general. Now things have started to calm down again, and while last year was a little over ambitious and I am trying to focus on getting myself back into hard core competition, and every year that I've done the Patriot good things have usually followed.
This year will be different than when I enter the Pat in 08 and 09. In those years buoyed by strong results in the previous year's tris I went into the Elite/ Open division to try to compete for a check...and promptly got smoked on the bike. 2008 actually went well I carried the #1 bib and set the day's fastest swim split. In 2009 I had a gearing miscue on the bike so I sort of fell out of contention pretty early indeed Speedy Claire was able to cross beating Bobby off her bucket list ( although I asterisk this as she was only doing the aquabike and didn't have to hold me off on the run.) granted I did throw down a pretty nasty run split, which would have put me higher up overall if I threw down my typical 2:45 bike split instead of a 3:00. This year I entered as an age grouper only because the competition has gotten exponentially harder, Karim from the Waterbury Y tri club won the 25-29 AG last year throwing down a 4:35 the best I did here was 4:55 with a short swim and speedy run in 2009. So my goal is to go under 4:45 and hopefully show myself as a serious competitor instead of a survivor like I was last year at Providence and Louisville.So the game plan for Patriot this year is to work the bike and the run. I'll still swim 3x a week but since I know I'll be able to do a sub 30 swim split pretty easily I won't have to throw doen the 5200yard death workouts I did for Ironman. 3000-4000 yards per workout should be plenty, granted they should be a quality 3-4k. My running is coming along and I'm hoping the Newtons will add some ammo to the tool kit. The bike is where I need to put my work but it's hard. Most coaches state that you need to do at least 100 miles a week to show improvement and at last check I still have a 9-5er, rent to pay, a relationship to maintain, so going out for 3x50 milers a week maybe out of the cards especially if i want to keep a job, keep the girlfriend and keep a roof over my head. So I may have to resort to the trainer and Good ol' coach Troy and Chris Carmichael shouting at me to get out of the saddle and try to unleash my inner Lance. So 2012 is starting to shape up after the Waterbury Y tri club kickoff and raffle on Feb 21 I'll have a better idea of what my season will look like.

RD

Two Steps away from being one of the cool kids

A few years back I had posted that the "cool kids" roll into triathlons with their Garmins, Blue Seventy Helix Wetsuits, rolling on their Cervelo P2s, with their Newtons. Well as I look the soles at my rapid wearing Pearl Izumi Syncro Fuels I realize that part of my income tax refund is going to need to go to running shoes. So I'm thinking about biting the bullet and buying Newtons. For years I've been tempted but I've decided not to spluge on them, but after analyzing my gait I think that Newtons maybe a wise move. I normally land on my mid foot with a little bit of heel landing as I fatigue. I've heard good reviews by some of my teammates and training partners at the Waterbury Ymca and I think that it might be time to get one step closer to becoming *gasp* one of the "cool kids." Does this mean I'll be rolling into a transition near you on a cervelo, texting on the newest i-phone trying to synch it to a garmin, while discussing how I'm better than half the people showing up to do battle and that my cerevelo that is factory speced like the other 200 in Transition is superior. Please I don't think I'll ever be that cocky, besides, my first smart phone and carbon frame are still a promotion and multi bonuses away. But if drinking some of the Newton Kool-aid might help me throw down a better run split, then hey I'll sip away.

RD