Not long ago I was suffering through a brutal winter while training for Ironman. I recall a ride sometime in February when I got to the lake around 16 miles into a ride and stopped to pull my gloves off to eat and drink. I opened a package of shot blocks and put them in my mouth, they were near frozen solid and it felt like chewing on a chunk of rubber. I got them chewed up and reached down for a swig of water, turned the bottle up and....nothing. The bottle was frozen solid! It had to have been under 30 degrees and blowing wind terribly.
Today I took off for a short ride in calm winds and 45 degrees. A few layers and some gloves- I was fairly comfortable. I know there will be days when I will be taken out of my comfort zone, but I also know that after last winter I can handle just about anything. Today was just the beginning of even starting to approach what I consider unsavory temperatures for outdoor training, but with any luck I won't have to endure as many brutal days as I did last year.
This year though, I have a secret weapon. I have the option to hit up a session at The Sport Factory called "The Grind". It's essentially an indoor torture fest on bikes that leads to well, nowhere. It strangely parallels my time with the UGA Rowing team where I spent countless hours on the erg (rowing machine). At "The Grind" a large number of semi-psychotic triathletes such as myself subject themselves to up to 2 hours of pedal mashing on a trainer. I attended my first Grind this past Tuesday night and I was not disappointed....there's nothing quite like doing body squats after working up a decent amount of lactate in your legs. Based on the video below though from a previous grind, I suspect it get's much tougher than what I experienced this week. So here's to a warmer winter and The Grind to get me through those days when frozen water bottles just don't seem like something I want to deal with.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
get off the couch.....
And start training again. That's what I did this week, after a month long hiatus from any real physical activity. In the past 10 days I've gotten together with my coach, Jen Henry of The Sport Factory, and planned out one heck of an exciting tri season.
Monday was my first day and coming off a cold and a month off, I'm definitely feeling a little lethargic out there. At the same time I feel better than I did towards the end of my off season. So what's on tap for this year? No full Ironman, that's for sure! I'll be focusing on a combination of the olympic distance and the half iron distance.
What excites me most about this year is having a coach from start to finish. Last year I blindly threw myself into Ironman training for nearly 5 months before I started working with Jen, and I paid for it dearly in the end. Looking back I did way to much to early, which may have helped me have a great day for Ironman - but left me with nothing left as far as training mojo after that. I felt lucky to have the results I did the last few months of the season. With that being said I'm looking forward to a more metered approach this year.
Here is my planned schedule for this year, the light gray races are the ones I'm still not sure about and depending on how I'm feeling I may or may not do them.
Monday was my first day and coming off a cold and a month off, I'm definitely feeling a little lethargic out there. At the same time I feel better than I did towards the end of my off season. So what's on tap for this year? No full Ironman, that's for sure! I'll be focusing on a combination of the olympic distance and the half iron distance.
What excites me most about this year is having a coach from start to finish. Last year I blindly threw myself into Ironman training for nearly 5 months before I started working with Jen, and I paid for it dearly in the end. Looking back I did way to much to early, which may have helped me have a great day for Ironman - but left me with nothing left as far as training mojo after that. I felt lucky to have the results I did the last few months of the season. With that being said I'm looking forward to a more metered approach this year.
Here is my planned schedule for this year, the light gray races are the ones I'm still not sure about and depending on how I'm feeling I may or may not do them.
Dec 11th Jingle Jog 5k Dunwoody, GA
Dec 18th Virginia Highliands X-mas 5k Atlanta, GA
Jan 9th Lakeview 10k Gainesville, GA
Feb 5th Tybee Island Half Marathon Tybee Island, GA
Feb 19th Tundra Time Trial Hiram, GA
March 27th Powerman Alabama Duathlon (long course Duathlon Nationals) Birmingham, AL
April 17th PT Solutions Cartersville Duathlon Cartersville, GA
April 30th TryCharleston Half Charleston, SC
May 14th Peachtree International Tri PTC, GA
June 12th West Point Lake Lagrange, GA
July 10th Chattanooga Waterfront Chattanooga, TN
July 24th Tri the Mountains (Sprint) Blue Ridge, GA
August 13th Mountain Lakes Tri (Sprint) Guntersville, AL
September 11th 5150 Series race Gainesville, GA
September 25th, 2011 Augusta 70.3 Augusta, GA
October 2nd Lake Lanier Islands Triathlon (sprint) Buford, GA
October 16th Hickery Knob Olympic Hickery Knob SP, SC
November 12th, 2011 Beach2Battleship Half Wilmington, NC
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