WEEKEND IN THE BLACK HILLS

We spent last weekend in Hot Springs, SD, for my nephew's wedding. My mother, aunt, siblings and various inlaws were there. It was quite fun but I'm only just now getting over the generalized fatigue which results from staying up way too late every night! I had planned to run a 10K in Chadron, Nebraska on Saturday morning with the Dane and my brother-in-law's brother. Got up just fine, gets light a little after 5am there! Drove an hour to the race site and started warming up about 20 minutes prior and had this really intense aching in both thighs. I couldn't even run through it and it was causing my knees to buckle. Weirdest thing. Hobbled back to the vehicle, sat down for 5 minutes and tried to jog around the parking lot but same problem. So, I took off the flats and decided I would watch (not fond of watching races). I stood on a corner with my Mother for about 30 minutes then decided to try and jog the course backwards to see where the Dane and Rich were and, viola, my legs felt quite a bit better. I decided to keep running and finally found them; luckily, there weren't very many running the 10K, most were doing the 5K, they were easy to spot. This course was quite hilly, no flats anywhere. As it turns out, the Dane went off the course and ran extra at the end because there wasn't much sineage out on the course (unfortunately, he was in 5th overall). I don't know what the problem was with my legs but it was fine after a few more hours. Oh well, I did get in a nice moderate hilly run in which was quite pleasant in dry heat and different surroundings. We got up early on Sunday morning to do an easy run through "town" and saw about 20 deer roaming around. Pretty cool. Got back late on Sunday night, had to run through O'hare to catch our connection, not fun in flip-flops but we and our luggage made it. Trying to get back into the swing this week, so far so good. I'll post some pics when I get a chance. The videos are hillarious but I don't know how to post that (probably just as well with this motley crew). Back to reality...

17 WEEKS TO GO

Had a pretty solid week of training this past week. Had five days of cycling, 4 swims, 3 runs and 2 weight sessions. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with running now and will add back the fourth run again since I don't feel any discomfort in the achilles any longer (although I'll keep icing, stretching, eccentrics). We have a bit of an abbreviated week this week as we'll be traveling to South Dakota for my nephew's weddding on Saturday. I haven't been there in quite a while, ?16 yrs. My sister found a 10K for us to run on Saturday morning which will be good but probably slow since most of my runs lately have been around 9 min/mile to stay aerobic in the heat! Well, I'll run as hard as I can and hopefully get a little fitness boost from the effort. We are strongly considering signing up for IM Austria next summer; have to sign up early because this one fills up pretty quickly. That would be a fun trip!

MARKALLENONLINE TRIATHLON CAMP REPORT

I signed up for this camp mostly, I'll admit, for the swim video analysis. I wasn't sure what I would get out of it otherwise but came with an open mind. Not that I know everything at all, but I am pretty familiar with the MAO training system after being involved with it for a little over a year now and having read a lot on the website. I already knew 4-5 of the people also participating which made it more fun. We met up Friday evening for bike fit lecture and actual fittings. I was the "demo" rider during lecture so that went by fast for me; plus Val had already done an excellent job with my fit last year I knew I didn't need any adjustments at this point. Saturday morning's ride started at 5 am for me as I wanted to be sure to get my long ride completed as the camp group was only planning to ride for 2 hours, I had >3 I needed to get in. I didn't sleep well on Friday night so my heart rate was elevated to begin with Saturday morning. No worries, nothing to prove here, I just let the front of the group go and rode on my own; afterall, I had 90 minutes in on my own prior to meeting up with the camp group. We rode South for an hour then turned around and rode back; I was able to hook back up with the front group and got a nice draft the rest of the way back, ahhhhh. Ended up with nearly 70 miles, a bit over scheduled time but rather over than under. After bike, we had swim lecture then a session in the pool. I figured this would be pretty low key but we ended up swimming fairly briskly for about an hour, I was ready for a break. We had another lecture in the afternoon then met up at a local track for run coaching. We were all pretty gassed by this point, especially considering the temp was well into the low 90's with a lot of humidity. We did a warm-up, some drills then some video taping which we viewed after dinner. That was a good session and informative as I haven't been videotaped running since high school! It turned out well, no real significant changes for me to make. Needless to say, I slept like a baby that night!
We had a long run scheduled for Sunday morning. Most of the group ran for an hour, I had 90 minutes on the program so did that. The Dane joined us and ran with the lone German participant which was good for both of them (they're in the same age group too). The run was slow, it was pretty warm even at 7am. I didn't blaze any trails but that's not the goal of the workout. I haven't felt any discomfort in the achilles this whole week so am pretty excited about that!! I did a quick 20-minute weight session after the run then we met back up for breakfast and more lectures. I was getting a lot out of the lectures and people were asking really good questions which Luis answered really well. We then headed back to the pool for swim videotaping. The taping was pretty comprehensive which was really informative. Luis could see a lot of us were making similar mistakes so had us work on some drills which we did Saturday as well. After lunch, we went back into the AC to review all the videos. I didn't have any major glaring issues, just some S-motion of one hand during my underwater pull - a big improvement from the last time I was videotaped 4/06! I had really improved on the things that I've been working on over the past year and hopefully it will pay dividends. We had one more lecture and then we were done. Overall, the camp was an excellent experience. I am planning to work with Luis a bit closer in my bid towards IM Florida in November because I want to get all I can out of the program and my body/potential. I think I will have a good go as long as I stay healthy and I'm doing better now with some TLC of my achilles. Back to reality now but much to look forward to.