Prerace Arizona 2008

I used to always joke that Keith Rusin got faster than me because his girlfriend broke up with him. But now the joke is on me. This photo is probably one of my best memories from CO, this was up in Evergreen, CO and my bike home from work. Many of my long runs would finish right around here. My training in CO was kind of sporadic and usually just involved me doing crazy mountain climbs. Once I ended up back in AZ I was reminded of how I used to train, structured and long.

I trained with many professionals this year once I got back in Arizona and learned a lot of good tips about how to train smarter. Patrick Bless had always been telling me these things he claims but when Nils Goerke finally told me them it seemed to click. I did two 7 hour bike rides, one with Patrick and Nils and the other with Ashley Robota and RaceLab. Ashley will be in my thoughts on the bike since that is some determination to come back after that accident, and she cruises on that thing like a young Natasha Badmann.

Being back in AZ is alright for the time being. I definetely enjoyed the crazy mountain pass climbing in CO better, but there are some good friends I have back here which are good company. Well see you out on the course tomorrow. I am still going to go hard like I usually do, but with my new nutrition plan I don't plan on blowing up like I normally do. Hopefully the 6th time is a charm.

February 2nd, Long Ironman Day Number Two

I left my humble abode promptly at 6:20 on the Fuji Maximus (little Patrick Bless). The morning was very cold before the sun came up, but that early in the morning I was able to easily run every intersection. My legs were a little tight on the bike this morning from the week and i am hoping it is just from the marathon and goes away in the weeks to come. My stomach was also killing me from the anchovy pizza i had the night before at Grimaldi's. Left my fathers house at 7:00 with Adam on route to my Uncle Brendans. It was still pretty cold around 7 but by now the sun was making its way up. The ride to my uncles was pretty much a little uphill the entire way out. We took pecos east all the way until power road. At this point we lost the nice clean road of pecos and traded it for bumpy farm roads (since Queen Creek is a dump). Many times I thought we were going to get hit by a car from behind or that two cars would hit trying to avoid us. Once we made it to my uncles we got there in about an hour and forty five minutes. This was a pretty good training pace for us considering it was 36-37 miles. The way back was a lot more downhill then the way out and my uncle showed us a route which did not involve the roads that i thought i was going to die on. The route is pretty good and I think it is going to be my official ironman training course since it isn't as boring as the bee line. Once I got back off the bike I went on a little 8 mile run and that felt good too. Lots of thoughts of Ironman ran through my mind today (especially with Keith Rusin to worry about). Ironman is going to be sweet, should be a good year to finally hit low 10 hours. Long run planned with Gage Total Training should be fun tomorrow as well as Hannah Montana in Disney Digital 3d tonight.

Biked: 80 miles or so (4 hours)
Ran: 8 miles (1 hour)