Feeling ready

Lets hope that this taper week goes better than last!

Lifetime Fitness - some days you have it, some days you don't

I've seen better days than yesterday's race, but that is how it goes.  It was probably the most important race of my summer but I managed to mess it up pretty badly.  I planned my taper for last week and this coming week.  While I was pretty pissed about it yesterday, I am trying to stay optimistic as I have another big race in 7 days.  The last thing I need is a lack of confidence next week.  

The morning started out nice and early, as my alarm went off at 4 am.  After a quick breakfast, I left Waconia with my parents at 4:30.  The drive went quicker than expected, and I was in the transition area by 5:15.  A race official went by our rack and told us that the elite amateurs would not be able to wear wetsuits!  This was not good news since it means I will lose even more time on the swim.  Fortunately the guy had no idea what he was talking about and we were allowed to wear wetsuits.  I did a 15 min bike warmup, some strides, and got out of transition before they closed it at 6:30.  The pro men started at 7:00 am followed shortly after by the pro women and corporate challenge relay.  The next wave was the elite amateur field, consisting of about 50 men from all over the country, and it was fun to have a running beach start.  My first step in the water was rough as I stepped on a sharp rock and sliced my foot.  We quickly caught some guys in the wave ahead of us, and it was very annoying that we started so close behind them.  I got out of the water alot slower than I expected, just behind Eric and Hauck, but the swim was probably a little long.

Onto the bike, I didn't know what to expect.  I have heard that the course is technically challenging and slow.  But it seemed to be going well right off the bat.  Most of the guys in the race aren't from MN so it was hard to know how well I was doing.  I didn't really know if I was biking well (speedometer was broken) and kept expecting to catch Dennis Dane and Eric on the bike.  It never happened, and in fact, I got torched on the bike.  It really couldn't have gone much worse, and with my first week of taper, I expected to see big results on the bike.  In retrospect, I probably didn't train very smart two weeks ago.  By next weekend, I'm hoping the bike comes around as I've focused most on that all year.  

By the run, I was just trying to do damage control, but it didn't go very well.  the 10k consists of two loops around lake nakomis and a little out and back section.  I managed to catch a few guys, but I was out of any race up front by this point.  The last two miles I slowed and finally finished.  All around, it was an upsetting day on the race course.  And it would have been a good day to bring my A game since there were 10 different states represented in the top 20!  An unbelievable field in our own backyard.  My good buddy Sam Hauck had a phenomenal race, snagging the 5th spot today.  Top 5 get a free trip to the US Open triathlon in Texas this fall.  Dennis Dane was right on his tail, taking 6th place, and Eric was 10th.  I was somewhere in the 'teens...

I'll have to redeem myself next weekend.

Big Week

I am racing the Lifetime Fitness triathlon this Saturday in Minneapolis and am hoping I can put together a complete race.  I can't afford to have a sub-par swim, or transitions as it will be a very tight race.  There is alot of out of state talent coming in for the elite amateur race, including Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, as well as guys from the west and east coast states.  I have never done this race but watched it last year.  It was alot of fun and a ton of spectators lined the course.

The pro race will be another exciting one!  The field is completely stacked with world class athletes, including 23 men and 16 women working for the first place 60,000 dollar prize purse.  Guys are here from Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc... and include the 70.3 world champion, an olympic gold medalist, 2 of the 3 representatives from the US triathlon olympic team.  You have to be a touch notch pro to get into this race and it is unfortunate that I will not be able to watch as my wave starts directly after these guys.  Should be a fun weekend.  Now I just gotta make sure I train smart this week.

Swimming Olympic Trials!

I drove down to Omaha on Monday to work with the medical team at the swimming olympic trials this week.  The homecoming was bittersweet, as the power went out last week in a huge storm, and my apartment still has no power.  Unfortunately, all of the meat in my freezer had to be thrown and I am staying at a friends place for a few days.  The atmosphere at Qwest Center is quite an experience; 12,000 fans poured into the stands last night to watch the finals.  They built 2 pools in this facility, the 50 meter competitive pool and another warmup pool adjacent to this.  It is fun to see some of the top guys, like Micheal Phelps and Katie Hoff, and how they handle the pressure.  Phelps looked calm, but I guess that is expected for a guy who basically has to screw up big time to not make the team in all of his events.  But it is interesting seeing what these guys have available for them.  I heard of a few swimmers say they have 3 massages a day for the most part!  They have massage trainers on hand for free massages to all the swimmers which is pretty cool, and the top swimmers probably brought their own masseuse to do this for them.  I think massages are some of the best training/recovery tools that an athlete can use; unfortunately, most do not have the opportunity or money to get one on a regular basis.  But self massage comes in handy, or convincing a friend to tear into your calf and hamstrings for you.  The other interesting thing I saw was that the athletes utilized lactate meters.  While it is not very surprising, it is just another useful tool many swimmers use to monitor their levels after a race and during their cooldown.  I read somewhere that Phelps lactate level after a 200 meter race (cant remember which race) is around 5 mmol while most will be at 10-15 mmol.  His level of clearance is far superior to most and just shows why he can do so many races and recover so quickly.  And I noticed after one of his races, that he warmed down for probably half the time as alot of the other swimmers.  

Another thing that is mind boggling about swimmers is their volume of training.  There was one teenager girl that was in getting some ultrasound; she was telling me about her training and said she is in the pool from 6-8am and 3-5pm.  I have always known about the ridiculous volume of training swimmers do, but just thinking about middle school and high schoolers training 4 hours a day seems absurd.  I could barely get myself to go on 3 mile runs max in high school, and I was lucky to do 5  18-20 min runs a week (which I called 3 miles...).  My focus was to just get it done, and I hated getting out the door.  Granted I had absolutely no idea about training in high school, and it was only until college that I realized most people ran 3-5 times as much as me.  I remember meeting a high schooler once who said he ran 70 miles a week, and I didn't believe him!  I was thinking, I barely run your daily volume in one week!  I guess that is what you get for small town sports.  The other reason I never thought about running more was because I was always getting injured anyways due to my high arches (and probably lack of any base training).  Needless to say, it took me two years of collegiate running until I finally put in consistent training, and my first time over 50 miles a week was the summer before junior year of college.  Cross country in the subsequent fall was my breakout season, after which I basically spent the remaining year and a half of college injured and never got back into consistent training.  I finally realized the importance of consistent training and volume, although it would have been nice to start this in high school!  Better late than never.

All in all, it has been fun being surrounded by so many athletes who have dedicated their lives to training at a high level, day in and day out.