17 days and counting

yip, thats it , 17 days to ironman 70.3 florida. That gives me about 7 days to push as hard as possible and then about 10 days of taper.

So my training buddies have all done their first 70.3 of the year, laid down their sweat and their times and now its up to me to beat their asses into the ground.

Jim did a 5:46 at New orleans, Thomas did a 5:40 at galveston, Daryl did a 5:50 at galveston and Lars did a 5:37 at galveston as well. SO its the 5:37 i need to beat to get bragging rights. I think its all going to come down to the wind and the heat on the day, all three courses are flat so its pretty even as far as that is concerned.

So 17 days and all the months of training have come down to these last few days. in the last 8 months i've had a combined total of 2298 miles. (3676km )

swim : 53.4 miles ( 85km )
bike : 1946 miles ( 3113km )
run : 235 miles ( 376km )

i have been averaging about 250/300 miles a month on the bike which i think is my strong part now. the run, i am getting stronger at, i've added a 4.4 mile off road trail run to my weekly running which i've done the last 2 weeks, beats hitting the treadmill and running sideways. i've been told its a great way to strengthen muscles that aren't normally used in triathlon and that way i might avoid injury in the future as my muscles will develop more evenly.

So the race last weekend went great, for those of you that didn't hear, i did my first sprint race of the season. It was called the caveman triathlon, not sure why. Their slogan was "ME SWIM, ME BIKE, ME RUN, ME CAVEMAN " which i thought was noteworthy and made me giggle.

And the race was a success as i got onto the podium in my age group, 3rd in the 30-34 AG. which is traditionally along with the 35-39 a pretty tough group. something else that was good news was the fact that i PR'd the run section. As you all know the run is the toughest part and normally the only part of races that are the same distance so you can gauge yourself against other race times. i knocked the run out in 22:59 which is 9 seconds faster than my PB which i set at the US open last year just before i got my knee injury. i felt this course was a lot hillier so i am sure i am a stringer runner now.

thats all for now, i will keep you updated as we get closer to the race

Oh yeah, thanks rocktape for helping me get onto the podium, that stuff is awesome.

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Awesome first race of the season completed. Sprint race of 275 swim, 12.8 mile bike and 3.1 run. I finished 22nd overall, 4th in my age group (30-34) , time of 1:06, PB in the run for sprint triathlons of 22:29. More to follow later

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Awesome 50 mile bike ride tonight on a super hilly course and 15/20 mph winds completed with my buddie Lars in 2:40. Followed by a nice little 1.8 mile run just to see how it feels to run after such a long bike ride. It was the longest brick i have done, the previous longest being a 40/4 a month or so ago. My legs were really heavy during the run especially going up the mighty windhaven hill. I felt a bit worried after it as the run was pretty tough but after a chat with buddie Lars I felt better as it was just two days ago that I ran 10.2 miles and the legs are still a bit tired from that. So 70.3 is about 35 days away, Disney world awaits fo me and the family. Watch out Tampa bay and Orlando, the Mellets are coming.

I don't know, I'm still hoping for a sub 5 hour race, I mean, slap me silly an call me crazy but thats still me goal. I know it's not going to be easy, but hey thyself why goals are for right, it's so you can push your limits.

Seattle???

So how bad is seattle really. there is a remote chance that we might be moving to seattle in the next few months. my wife and i love dallas, love the weather and everything else it offers. as temps here in dallas are getting into the 80's seattle is still messing around in the 50's. whats up with that. i have a friend that says is beautiful and loves it there. we should note that said friend lives in dallas as well.

my wife goes there on business every now and then and it seems like every time she goes there its raining.

what do you guys think?

Rocktape

so it been an up and down last 10 days. i took a couple days of to try and break some allergies. that worked then over trained the next few days and the allergies came back. so i took the last 2 days off. I will be running my longest distance ever on sunday morning, 10 miles around white rock lake. then tuesday im doing a 56 mile bike ride in the afternoon with a short run after that.

ive gotta get in the pool big time this week, last month i only swam 1.2 miles and my 70.3 is only 40 days away. im not to worries as 40 days is a lot of time. i am what i would call a natural swimmer and the 1.2 miles isnt going to be too much of a big deal. my biggest concern at the moment is im probably going to go too hard on the bike which will compromise my already weak run.

anyway, tomorrows run and tuesday brick will tell me a lot about my chances in the race. weve found an awesome new loop that weve been doing here in dallas, lots of hills and lots of wind. lately on average the wind has been blowing about 25mph and training in it has been great. as my buddie Lars ( from denmark ) always says " train hard, race easy " . So thats what weve been doing, training hard. the windier the better.

Today was great, i had my rocktape tent up at the frisco triathlon club haiti run for relief fun run. i had a bunch of runners come up and talk to me about it and also a few physiotherapists come and show some interest in it.

I will post some pics of it as soon as i get them. the race was a big success and we had about 300 people turn up for the event. Story of the day was a friend of mine that had some lower back pain and some knee pain. we taped her up and she took 1 full minute off her best 5k time. well done shannon. she was super impressed and bought a roll off me afterwards. pink of course.

SIU baby ( thats for training payne )

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I know there is a billion athletes out there that know the feeling of running, swimming or cycling their personal longest distance ever. That's where I am right now. Every Sunday I run further tha the week before. This past Sunday I ran 9 miles in 1:12:58. This coming Sunday I'm running around a big landmark in Dallas, white rock lake, at 9.67 miles it has some challenging hills and I will be running it in the heat of midday, perfect training for my 70.3 on may 16. Thanks again to rocktape kinesiology tape for holding me together.