Wednesday, September 27, 2006

One Sided

Ever since my ½ Ironman my training has been fairly one sided; run, run, and more running. Now this whole marathon business has left me in a bit of a catch-22. The good side is that all I have to do is run. I don’t have to find time to get on my bike or back in the pool. The rub is that all this running is taking its toll on the bod. It’s seriously pissed and I don’t think that’s going to change til after Chicago. I guess I’m not helping thing by basically ignoring the cross-training that I should be doing. After wrapping up my tri season I just haven’t had the motivation to keep up the other activities. I know that the variety of tri training is great and it’s partially why I like the sport so much. You could look at it as we might be a little spoiled in that aspect. Even though its time consuming and frustrating at times, triathlon training in itself provides some of the needed variety that other endurance training doesn’t explicitly provide. For the next month or so things will probably remain pretty much one sided, but it will be nice once I find the missing two legs of my stool. I’ll track them down eventually, but for now one is all I got…

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Blog Sabbatical Over

So I know that I have not been a good blog citizen as of late. I’ve got a few things to recap from the last couple of weeks. Starting with my trip down to Madison for the Ironaman and finishing with my trip this weekend to Florida for the Disney World Triathlon. I’ll be back in good form starting today. This does include reading the 300+ posts that you all have been writing. So stay tuned as I ramp back up here to reenter the blog fray.

Walchka is back!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

A Chill

The cool fall weather has set in over the upper Midwest and with comes Ironman Wisconsin. I can’t imagine what state our fearless Iron Wil, TriSaraTops, and Chris are in at this very moment. Hopefully they are close to sleep in prep for putting themselves to the ultimate test tomorrow.

I viewed the transition area this evening when I got into Madison. I was brought to a standstill as I approached the finish line that workers were putting up. A block away I made my way to the Monona Terrace where transition will take placed. I looked down at the thousands of bikes all waiting to be picked up and handed off to their owners when they’ve finished with the swim. I just stood there stared out over the mass of bikes.

So much will unfold tomorrow for thousands of people as they test themselves verses the 140.6 mile course. I’m anxious for all the racers and can’t wait for it all to start. I’m really looking forward to being apart of this huge event. Even more exciting will be to see our own favorite bloggers kick some major booty tomorrow.

They are calling for a bit of rain tomorrow so send all your dry vibes to Madison, Wisconsin. Everyone will really appreciate it! Take care and stay tuned for the aftermath of Ironman Wisconsin.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Everybody Yasso

Waking up early when it’s still dark out is somewhat normal on race day. It’s a little bit harder when you’re waking up early to go do speed work at the local track. This morning I made my second trip to the track to revisit my friend Speedwork. Amazingly I convinced neighbor Kim that it was a good idea that she went along as well.

After my intro last week I decided it was time to really do some speed work and did a set of Yassos or simply put 800 repeats. Today’s workout included 4 repeats with a 400 meter job recovery in between. Now four repeats isn’t a ton, but it’s a good starting point. Each week the number will increase until its time to taper. So my little four repeats went something like this.

1 – 3:26, not to bad a good steady pace
2 – 3:11, maybe a bit fast
3 – 3:11, ok but you’ll have slow down when we pump up the volume
4 – 3:09, yeah too fast. I must have been in a hurry to be done.

Even with my legs still a bit sore from my long run on Monday I managed a pretty good workout. Speed work is just one of those things that sounds good til you’re actually running and then you hate life for the next ½ hour, hour and then it’s all over. It’s a nice feeling to finish as you stop by Jamba Juice on the way to work and then spend the remainder of the day wondering why you’re tired. Oh that’s right, cause you’re crazy, I mean enthusiastic, enough to get up at 5 just so you can feel the burn. Yeah we endurance folk are a weird breed. A great breed with a few quirks. :)

Monday, September 04, 2006

Reintroductions

Over the last few days I’ve been reintroduced to a few old friends. On Thursday it went sometime like this.

Mike I’d like you to meet Speed-work, Speed-work this is Mike.

Me: Ah yes we first met a couple of years ago.

Speed-work: Yes where you have been?

Me: Well I’ve been a little busy and I tried this new sport out.

Anyway Thursday morning I dragged a couple of teammates to a local track at the ass crack of dawn to do some speed-work. Now it was a pretty light workout because we onl did 4X400, but it was a good little workout to get back into thick of things. This week will be the all fun Yassos as I gear up for Chicago.

My other reintroduction was with the old long distance run on the weekend or on a Monday with the holiday. I know for some 14 miles isn’t that much, but it’s been a long time since I’ve ran over ten. I headed out to the Lakes in Minneapolis to run with the flocks of people who were making the rounds. We’ve had rain the last couple of days so people came out in droves. My legs left pretty good til the last 3 miles or so when they started to get a little heavy. I still managed a pretty good pace and finished off the 14 miles is just under 2 hours for a 8:35 /mil pace. I may have been running a bit too fast and I’m sure I’ll be slowing down a bit as a crank up the mileage over the next few weeks. I’ll have to jump a couple of miles each week, but it should put in a good stop to get the 20 miler in before we ship off to Chi-Town.

I’m sorry the video that I posted last week was a little short at the end and cut me off in mid sentence. There was however a few people who got it right and I’ll be sending out your browning points. I did say “No” in the first part and at the end I was trying to say “It’s gonna suck.” So congrats to those who guessed right, or close enough, to earn your brownie points…