Life Getting in the Way.

Well I did it again. What, you ask? I did not listen to my body nor did I notice the signs of some serious over training. I pushed myself too hard. But how could I be over training? I am basically only riding on the weekends and getting in a few workouts during the week and a commute or two.

But the signs are there. Can they be lying? Am I just getting old? The sign that is most telling for me is total lack of motivation to go swim/ride/run. When you have to make yourself go ride it is a sign for sure. Of course, it took me over three weeks of making myself workout to realize that I am over trained.

My training volume/intensity is low, but one must not forget real life can get in the way of training. Those 10 - 12 hour days at work start to add up. The stress of those special projects and technical issues creep into your body until it is too late. The normal duties of a husband/father. And why in the hell am I still promoting events? Preparation for God's Country and Bone Bender have also done me in.

Something has to give. Either I quit work, stop promoting, resign as president of Cow Town, stop hosting rides, stop traveling to events, retire from racing or get a divorce.

Old School Training.

I have decided to go "old school" , burn the training log and just workout for fun. Life has been so busy with work, studying, race promotion, team stuff and training that I think I just make myself tired and stressed out. I ask myself why are you worrying so much. This stuff is suppose to be fun. Back when I started training for triathlons in 1988, I did not keep a log. I did everything for fun and my results were much better. Yea I know I was 20 years younger.....

This past weekend I just rode and ran when I felt like it and had a great time. Counting Thursday's night ride with Randy I got in over 14 hours of training. Rode the heck out of my Mary while the trails were frozen, got in some good runs and ended up with a road ride with Tige yesterday. Today I don't feel much like doing anything, even my normal Yoga workout during lunch, so I am not.

Speaking of old school. The Competitors Radio show, which I highly recommend listening to, has a nice episode with Gary Fisher which talks about the history of mountain biking, floating checks, and some other cool stuff. - Check it out here.

Surf's Up!

I finally got a morning that I could head to the beach. I have been down in South Florida visiting my parents and sister Jackie. My mom has been keeping me busy with a long "mother do" list. And I thought Carolynn's "honey do" list was long....

I hit one of the Boca Raton beaches first - Red Reef Park. As I entered the beach area there was a big sign that said "No Swimming". Apparently the rip currents were really bad due to the hurricanes and tropical storms that are out there. Yesterday 3 swimmers died down in Ft. Lauderdale. I ended up just walking south to watch all the surfers on the south end of the beach. They allow surfing when there are high surf conditions, but not swimming. What's up with that? Well, at least the surfing conditions were great today. There must have be 30+ surfers out there having a blast. One came by yelling "Surf Up!" It was fun to watch them all. Some were actually really good.

I decided to head North to one of my favorite beaches to do some running and maybe swim. Spanish River Park is a nice park that offers a good location to train and is the site of the annual FAU Triathlon. I spent many days at this beach when I was going to Florida Atlantic University. Good memories for sure. The waves were not as big here so I decided to go for a swim in spite the rip current warnings. What a blast! It was so much fun battling the surf and I was getting one heck of a workout. I got caught in one rip current, but kept my cool and swam along the shoreline until I was out of it. Just when I decided that I better return to shore I got hit hard by a large wave. As luck would have it another wave hit me again just as I surfaced. I was tumbling along the ocean floor and thought I would never come up. I almost started to panic, but knew that I just had to ride it out. I was really glad when I came up and I quickly made my way to the shore.

My next stop was Deerfield Beach. This place has changed a lot during the last 10 years. Now this was the place to be, as the beach here was packed with 100's of surfers, volleyball players and packed full of sun worshipers. I spent about an hour there enjoying the sites. That was until a older man walked by in a G String. When I saw that I knew it was time to head home.

VO2 Max Testing

Dave Wathen and I headed to Performance Plus Rehabilitation Center last night to get a current fitness assessment before we begin our serious training for cyclocross. My friend Dr. Allyn Smith was kind enough make us both suffer to the point that I questioned why I do this..

The last time my VO2 Max was tested was about 6 years ago when I volunteered my body for a scientific experiment at University of Kansas . I guess I forgot how much fun (not) this testing was. At least this time I did not have to have a muscle biopsy. That was painful.

I got some good data last night and will use it along with my training plan from my new coach Mark Studnicki. It is time to get serious about cross!

Here is Dave having some fun:

Final Ironman 70.3 Prep

I just have under 3 weeks to go for my second big objective of the year - The Ironman 70.3 Kansas. Training has been going well. My swim form is good and most importantly my running has been going extremely well. Betsy from Back and Bodyworks gave me the Evolution Running dvd and it has really helped. Now I just need to work on my brick workouts and get in some open water swims.

Finally got the old Triathlon rig built up yesterday and took her out on a little spin. She felt so good that I ended up doing nearly 3 hours. Lower back is paying for it this morning :-( For my triathlons this season I am going to be on my Javelin Assisi which I built up as TT rig. I have tried more triathlon specific bikes with steeper seat tube angles, but with all the climbing around here I feel a road bike works best.

Although my recent race result at the Robidoux Roundup does not reflect it, my training has been going well. I should not of even raced considering that I has just completed the 2008 Bike Week and put in about 20 extra miles of running. But I wanted to visit with the team and ride the new trails up in St. Joseph.

These final three weeks are very important. I have a very bad tendency to over train and not give myself enough time to recover between workouts. I have to remember that all the hard work is done and all I have to do now is focus on efficient workouts and getting plenty of rest.

Training is Over - Time to Race.

Time sure does fly when you are having fun.... That is, if you call suffering like a fat pig fun. The first phase of my training plan is over. It's time to hit some early season races and test the old form. Unfortunately, I already know the results as my training has not gone as well as I had hoped for. I'm still 10 lbs overweight and my form basically sucks. My long distance rides haven't been anywhere close to where they need to be for a 100 mile race. I tried my best to get out when the weather was o.k., and I even got to know my basement really well by spending countless hours on the old trainer.

My original plan was to attend the Froze Toes Road Race with some of my teammates (sorry Shad), but decided to put in one more week of training and not embarrass myself. Next week the Spring Fling Criterium series starts, the Perry Road Races and Heartland's Truman's Big Love. I really don't think the Big Love is going to happen due to the muddy conditions at Landahl so I'll plan to check out the Spring Flings or Roger's Perry Road Races.

A Walk In The Woods

For President's Day we all had the day off and decided to take a long hike up on the Smithville Lake MTB/Hiking trails.

A sign was posted alerting riders/hikers to stay off the trail if they are wet. Apparently deer can not read because there were hundreds of deer tracks all along the trail.

Along the way Carolynn, Christopher and I cleared hundreds of fallen branches.

Everyone be sure to thank Christopher for picking up all these nasty thorny branches. I wanted to leave them but he would not let me :-)

Racing against Floyd.

Check out this Landis to race NUE series.

I'm going to put my Hole shot face on and stuff em in the first corner :-) Just like Mark says "Neutralize him in the single track"

Training is going well for my first 100 mile mountain bike race. The Cohutta 100 is planned for April 19th. My base miles are adding up and I am feeling very healthy and most importantly motivated to do well. Still undecided if I'm racing my Anthem 1 or my Single Speed. Weather is crappy here in Kansas City, but I still plan to put in some heavy training this weekend. Temps are fore casted very cold (10 degrees on Saturday) which will keep the trails frozen. Hopefully Landahl did not get a lot of snow and Saturday's planned ride will be a go. Sunday we are heading out to Clinton for a 1:00pm ride.