The Friday Review!!! March 4th, 2011

Good Morning Everyone!  Happy Friday!

I hope everyone had a good week this week!  I think the weather was nice for most of us, and with spring rearing its two heads (lovely weather and allergy season for all of you that suffer), I think the 2011 triathlon season is in order :)  I was up late last night on the phone, so I skipped my swim workout this morning (again), but never fear!  I put everything in the car so when I head home, I can stop by LA Fitness and get some laps in before the weekend.  Now onto some good (and unfortunately bad) stuff that has/is going on this week.

Brazil Critical Mass Incident  (news from Everyman Triathlon)

We will start with the bad news first.  Last weekend, there was a critical mass ride going on in Brazil this past weekend.  Apparently there was a motorist in a WV that had been following the group for a number of minutes and wanted to pass through the cycling group that was going in the same direction as him.  The driver got more and more irate as he could not pass the hundreds of riders filling up the street.  Finally he decided to run a red light and DRIVE THROUGH THE ENTIRE CRITICAL MASS GROUP!

25 people were injured, 30 bikes were totalled.  More than 11 of those people went to the hospital, and two were seriously injured.  The driver of the car sped off and fled the scene.  He did not return home, and furthermore abandoned his car.  I don't know if he turned himself in, or if someone found him, but the police apprehended him the middle of the week.  Here are the links of what transpired via video.

Brazil Critical Mass Incident
(you will have to sign in as a user for this video it has been flagged with footage that may be considered inappropriate for some viewers)


Ironman New Zealand/Earthquake/Scammers/!

Kind of like Jimmy Buffett's famous line, "It's five o'clock somewhere," It is always summer somewhere in the world.  And it seems to be coming towards the end of the tri season in the southern hemisphere (kind of our September in the Northern Hemisphere).  Ironman New Zealand is race number 2 of 4  down under (not counting Brazil because it is much closer to the Equator) and there are some big names showing up for the event.  Cameron Brown will be attempting to WIN THIS EVENT FOR THE 10th TIME.  I mean, he has already won the damn thing 9 times, I don't know if I would show up if I was trying to compete ;) "What Cameron is competing again this year, well damn it, I guess I am not winning..." Under the new points system that the WTC instituted for 2011 and going forward, some pros are lined up at the event trying to get a head start on the 2011 season.  While Macca and Rinny need to just show up and participate in an Iron-distance event this year, the rest of the pro field has their work cut our for them.  I attempted to get a pro-athlete list before the race (which begins at 12:00pm EST TODAY!!!)  I will have some sort of results posted for you guys over the weekend.

Most of you by now have heard about the horrific earthquake that occurred on February 22nd in Christchurch, New Zealand.  Some of these survivors of the event are participating in this weekend's Ironman in about an hour and a half.  After going through months of training and prepping for this race, their lives have been upturned with something that is beyond their control to handle.  However, they are coping, picking up the pieces, moving forward, and finding a way to compete in the event this weekend.  The WTC will be issuing special race numbers to them for the event, and hopefully there will be some extra cheering from the crowds when they complete the race this year.

GO KEEGAN!!!
Race Coverage for Ironman New Zealand

Where to donate to assist the people of Christchurch

Tri Season Beginning in GA!  (news via Georgia Triathlete)

SEE ME 2011 has come and gone and now our first triathlon in GA of the season (outdoors) in Savannah.  I am so happy about this.  For those of you who read and don't compete, you can maybe liken this to college football fans.  They pretty much mourn not being able to do anything from mid January through August, and then are so excited when fall comes.  Same goes here.    I think the race is kinda pricey myself, but I am sure there will be a field there nonetheless. 

New Bike!

So I have kinda been holding out on you guys and gals. Well, Wes knew, but I was trying to keep it quiet till the first race of the season.  Then my training buddy had to go out and get a Trek 7.0 Speed Concept.  So I could not keep it quiet any longer.  Yes I did honestly get my parts for my bike (pictures are in my older posts) and those are going on the Roadie on Sunday.  However, this year will be my 7th season in the sport, so I decided to treat myself.  Here she is!

Ain't she a beaut?

I still need to name her... any ideas???

Training and Misc (e.g. What in the heck I have been up to!) 

I am about 25% of the way done with my static pages for my blog.  I just read the fine print on how I am gonna get this Charity fundraiser thing to work.  I think it will be a bit tricky, however I think I can pull it off.  I am proud of myself, I have worked out every day this week without fail, and when I hit up my swim this afternoon, 5 days in a row!  Plus I have riding plans with some of my friends over the weekend, including during the rain.  Gotta do it!  Only other thing that is planned is the Sham Rock Fest in Atlanta for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday.  Oh and Studying.  Advanced accounting is such a bear right now.

Bib # 8668



Probably butchering this phrase, but it looks like a numerical palindrome :)  15 days and change.  I am ready.  To finish that is.  I just want to be able to cover the distance running.  I don't care what my time is, although I would love to finish sub two hours.  We shall see.

I hope all of you have a great weekend!

The Friday Review!!! February 25th, 2011

Happy Friday Everyone!!!

Results from Rev3 Costa Rica

Here is where you can get all of the results from the Rev3 Costa Rica Race!

Leonardo Chacon (Men's) coming in a time of 1:53:25
Kelly Williamson (Women's) coming in at a time of 2:10:35

Some of my favorites I follow
Matt Reed - 8th (Pro) finished in 2:02.23, I don't know what his average run pace is, but he was 12/13 in the men's field with a run pace of 6:08/mi.  Also there were only 3 men in the pro field that exceeded a  6:00/mi pace.
Kate Major - 2nd (Pro) finished in 2:12.42.  Looks like it was a case of Kelly being better on the swim and the run just enough to out race Kate with her small advantage on the bike. 

I hope to see both of my favorites in the other Rev3 Events this year.  It was kind of interesting to see the pro field in the Olympic distance race this year, but I am attributing that to the fact this was more of a warm up race for the season. 

The next Rev3 Series race is in Knoxville on May 15th, 2011 (Olympic and Half Iron distance).  I completed the inaugural race last year at it was awesome!  It is also a great alternative to the Ironman 5150/70.3 events!  I know some of you are anti-Ironman sanctioned events, while others are just looking for a great alternative race series and this is a bandwagon you should definitely be on (Shameless free plug :).

Let's see... what else happened this week?  Oh yes, the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand!  There is a podcast that some of you might listen to, IM Talk, and if you don't you should definitely check them out.  They are also on Facebook if you want to friend them as well.  They talk about everything, and you get a greater world picture on triathlon since it is coming from a non-US perspective.  Bevin and John, the podcasts' creators are doing well although they have sustained property damage to their homes.  Here is a link if you would like to donate to the people of Christchurch for this disaster (Multiple sites listed here).


Lastly, before I go on about myself for a few minutes, I thought one of the bigger news events this week was Macca announcing to leave Ironman for awhile to focus on the 2012 London Olympics and the Australian Olympic Team. Good for him.  He knows what he wants, and he is gonna leave IM to go and to it.  Congratulations.  I only did a quick skim over a few articles, and I don't remember whether or not he said he would be open to coming back after the Olympics.  I will still enjoy his racing, whatever format he is racing in.

Ok.  So this week I missed a couple workouts because of my Final Exam, but other than that I did OK.  I finally got my road bike fitted on Tuesday, and the most drastic change was that he moved my seat height up about 2.5 inches, he moved my seat forward about a centimeter, and he flipped my headset upside down to give me a more aggressive profile.  He also suggested I get a new set of drop bars (smaller) that will fit the new group set I purchased last week.  I am still waiting for that to come in as of today, however Monday was a Federal Holiday so no post running on Monday.  Bill at All3Sports was very helpful, although they were a bit short handed, they had a lot of employees down at the Rev3 Costa Rica race (they are a major sponsor for the event).  Other than that I have class tomorrow morning for 4 hours, then the Southeast Multisport Expo (that runs from 1:30-7:30p for all of you who live in the Atlanta area).  After that I have a couples shower to go to with my roommate, the couple are really good friends of ours, and the groom to be is one of my fraternity brothers.  Outside of studying, I once again will take full advantage of this beautiful early spring weekend to swim, bike, and run closer to my goals this year.  I think I have about 23 days till the Publix Half Marathon, and I have about 78 days till the Peachtree International Triathlon. 

Have a great weekend!

No Prinicipal Richards, its ok! I have a "Hall Pass!"

Sooo, I was gonna tell a real quick story about the skinny on what transpired this past weekend (and I wanted to somehow get the new "Hall Pass" movie into my title as well :).

Friday I was supposed to get my bike fitting for my road bike.  That got cancelled because All3Sports was gonna have a number of their employees down in Costa Rica for the Rev3 Tri Olympic and Half Rev races this past weekend.  So there went that for the weekend.  Then my buddy Mitchel who works for LifeTime Fitness told me that he had scheduled a metabolic test and a VO2 Max test for 1pm on Saturday.  He tells me this Friday afternoon, and then proceeds to give me a laundry list of things I can/can not do between Friday evening and Saturday @ 1pm.  One of these things was that I was not allowed to work out.

I get a "Hall Pass!"

The Friday evening not working out kinda pissed me off because I slept in Friday morning and was planning on doing a brick in the evening to make up for it.  So there goes two workouts.  Then I had two workouts planned for Saturday, one being in the morning, and he then tells me that I cannot do the morning workout either.  Oh and I have to go to bed early, and I cannot drink the night before either, and I have to have my last meal by 9pm and can only have a small snack for breakfast. 

Saturday morning comes and around 10am I get a text from Mitchel.  I had already made other plans for the morning and was currently out and about, and he says, "Just found out that the equipment is not working, so I have to cancel the tests, sorry bud."  Well crap!

I did get my rest of the workouts in though through the weekend, and I did find time to go out on Satuday night, and I also tackled some studying for a final exam I have this coming Thursday night (Federal Tax Accounting). 

In other news, my road bike parts should be here sometime this week.  I purchased them last thu from a guy in Washington State, and he shipped them out Friday.  It was an ebay auction, however, he ended it early since I made him an offer rather than bidding on the item.  I got a 2010 Shimano 105 groupset, and then he threw in some Mavic Kysium's for an additional $175, plus the tubes and tires.  Total out the door with all of that was $520.  Pretty good considering the average retail price of that 2010 groupset alone is around $650-700.

Here are some pics.  I did have a pic of the wheels, but I lost it, so I will get that to you when I receive the items in the mail. 

I will have a post on my rescheduled bike fit and other things in the Friday review, since I am now going to go into hiding until after my exam on Thursday night!  Have a great week!

Listening to the body...

So I have a history of not listening to my body.  This has led to numerous injuries some including ITB Syndrome, Plantar Fasciitis, Osgood's Schlatter, and more. With respect to this year it has been trying to stage a revolt on the scale of Egypt with President Mubarak.  I was sick for the better part of the month with a sinus infection I could not shake, I had food poisoning, and this past week my ITB band and my calves have been kind of messed up from running (precursors to former leg injuries I do not wish to repeat), and the doctor told me I am overweight and need to lose weight.  It I am usually never sick and the only time I have had sustained injuries is when I did something stupid with respect to training.  Weight has been due to my lazy ass ONCE AGAIN this off season combined with my food intake.  Crap, crap and more crap. 

Those of you who are linked to me on facebook saw my post this morning about how Bloomberg News reported McDonald's January same store sales were up 5.3% beating estimates.  I commented on I ate so many times at McDonald's in January (more than I think I ever have in my life), that I probably helped them beat analysts estimates (a funny business joke, but not funny when it comes to nutrition). 

I think I came to this epiphany last night when I was running my Chastain Extended Loop.  as I approached about 1 mile on the run, my calves really started to hurt.  I was running uphill at the time, so I thought nothing of it.  As I crested the hill to go down hill for the next half mile, my calves were locking up.  I had to eventually quit when I hit this particular intersection that would let me cut back to my car.  I walked/jogged back to my car in considerable pain.  I also had problems driving home in my car, because i have a stick shift.  I went home and stretched and put on the compression calf sleeves.  sleeves helped some.  Today I am going to stretch and roll the calves out before I go on the run to see what happens.  I wonder if it was the 2nd day soreness from Saturday's run.  I know that I did not run very long on Saturday, but I am still recovering my mileage from my lost January, where I was pretty much beginning anyways. 

I am behind the 8 ball for the Half Marathon, but I am going to take it in stride.  If I can complete a Half Ironman with virtually no training, then getting the training that I am going to get over the next 6 full weeks will be a huge step up from that.  Also the half mary is not an A race for me, it was just something for me to work up to so I know I would be ahead of the curve when it came to my Ironman training.  If I was putting in good mileage for the half mary towards the end of March, I would be in good shape coming up to the summer and for Ironman.

I've got a training plan for February.  I have been sticking to it, even if the workouts were not on the exact days that I am used to.  I am working on a nutrition plan, and hope to have that finalized in the next couple of weeks.  In the next two weeks or so I will decide how I want to tackle the main part of my season, and how to break it down with regards to building up my base, tackling a few races I have put in my season, AND Ironman specific training.  I have also been toying with the idea of joining a group or getting "informal" coaching.  I say informal coaching because I cannot afford to have the coaching I want to have (i.e. $100+ a month for personalized service). 

On that note I have been bike shopping again... More like bike Internet shopping.  Things I cannot afford :(  But I am going to try really hard to upgrade parts to my bike this year.  Main items on the list include (and will finish off this bike permanently), new wheel set, new group set, and new handlebars/aero clip-ons.  I would also like to get a bike fit for all of this.  I have a coupon for all3sports to get fit on the bike, but I want to wait until I get all the parts (except maybe the wheels) so that when I get fitted, everything will be ready to go.  I am going to go ahead and take measurements this weekend so I have something to take into the bike shop, even though they are going to measure me again and tool around with the bike.  I did get my ISM saddle, and I have not yet put it on the bike, but I am excited that I got it. 

I kinda feel like the purchase list is going to get longer this year.  Most everything I own that is triathlon related was purchased (with the exception of clothing) in 2005.  Helmet, Bike Shoes, Bike and 90% of components, etc.  Why did I have to choose such an expensive sport??? I mean a drug habit would be cheaper than all of this ;)  That is a running joke (no pun intended) I use quite frequently, some people laugh, some don't.  I guess if I joined a club of some sort I could get some discounts, but it is going to take more than that to help me out :)  I am not asking for a full ride sponsorship or a brand new bike to be purchased for me (although that would be nice), but somethings gotta give.  If I convert this to a real world experience (because triathlon is a hobby, not the real world,  unless you are a pro, hope I don't offend) it would be like having to repair your transmission, your car insurance is due and you found out that you owe taxes to the state AND federal government. 

The other issue is getting hassled by bike shops.  They never want to install parts that you purchased yourself, they only want to install parts that you purchased through them.  Something about liability or some crap.  Hey, if I buy some parts of the Net or through another 3rd party and I give them to you, and one or all of the parts are actual crap, then that is my damn fault for buying them.  I am PAYING for you to install the parts I purchased.  You are still making money by charging me labor for the install, why are you trying to screw me for not wanting to pay double for parts at your shop when I can get them for 50% off somewhere else???  Sorry I will get off of my bike box.

Speaking of which, if you live in the Atlanta area and need a full size hard case bike box with wheels and a handle for pulling while you are traveling, I will rent you mine for $25.00.  I paid $450 for mine plus shipping to my house and I have only used it once, and I have rented it to a friend one time.  Otherwise it just sits around collecting dust until my next traveling event or I have to move a body :)

This week I am getting the swim and bike back into my workouts, but still mostly run focused.  So that this point for the next few weeks (and because school is still crazy) I will have a couple swims and a couple of bike rides/spin classes a week to get back into the swing of things.  By the end of February I will have gotten my feet week and some miles under my bike and I will kick it up a notch in March.  April will be a great month because I have three weeks off from school, and then I will be MIA socially May-2nd week of August because of Grad school + training.  Then I will be done with school and can peak in August and September with my training, taper October, and BAM!  Race day will be upon me!

So I have gotten way off track on this post.... where was I?  Oh yes listening to my body!  Well I just need to spend more time listening to it and less time in my head ignoring it and telling my body what I think it should do regardless of its state. 

Have any of you forgotten to listen to your body?  What happened?

Have a great week!

My Orbea - Or more like what my Orbea would be if I had money :)

So one of my friends Dee Dee posted on her Facebook page the other day, a bike that she outfitted through Orbea.  It lets you customize certain features and then not only tells you how much it will cost, but it will allow to you share it with friends and purchase it if you wish.  She went all out and her price tag ended up being just under $11,000.  I was a bit more modest just because I wanted to see how much one would cost if I was to go out and buy one right now.  Just for funsies.

Here is Dee Dee's link.

Here is my link.

You should go try it as well!  Always fun to do even if you are not in the market, or if you are just doing some window shopping like myself ;)