???

Started work on monday and am totaly lost as to what I have been keeping track of...Oh, have I been spooiled the last four months, now the real challenge begins!

There is the noticable difference, the main difference...It's maybe not that I have gotten slower in one week, but there is less time in between workouts so I feel the pain more, and over a six month period, all that pain will either wear me down or make me strong. The past two years it has resulted in the latter, although strong doesn't necessarily mean fast. However, I have sort of a quasi-office job so I am going to attempt to get workouts in at lunch to maximize the time between workouts. Like 95% of the triathletes out there, you have to deal with doing tough workouts late in the evening, getting up eight hours later for another one, and then maybe four hours later for another one...That's the life...This is where technique, stretching, and diet seperate the good from the injured, or the good from the bad!

Week 19 of 20 almost completed, just a long run this afternoon...

tuesday, wednesday

Tuesday: 3, 250 yards in pool/ 2hrs on bike.

Wednesday: 3,100 yards in pool/ 58 min run

tomorrow is brick workout....

weekly totals

Weekly totals from week 18 out of 20:

• 12, 400 yards in pool (~7 miles)
• 7 hrs 35 min cycling (~150-175 miles)
• 4 hrs 15 min running (~35 miles)

catch-up

Okay, it's been a few day so I have to play a little catch up here with the daily training log...

Friday- 8X3min. cycling sprints/ total 1hr 35 min.
3,200 yards in pool

Saturday- Brick workout: 2 hr 30 min on bike (~50-55 miles)/ 55 min run (~7 miles)

Sunday- 1.2 mile swim time trial/ 1 hr 20 min run ( hasn't happened yet, but that's the plan)

Will do weekly totals tonight...

daily training log

today consisted of a 1 hr 30 minute time trial of sorts on the bike in the morning(~35 miles). By"of sorts", i mean that i held back a little bit from the pace I would try and hold during a race, by 10 percent or so. Afternoon brought a 1 hr run invovlving 5 X 4 min sprints with four minute recovery in between each one, i'm guessing i probably ran 8 or 9 miles...

Oh and in the same vein as my previous posting, check out www.chainlove.com. This site has amazing deals on cycling gear! Only one thing goes on sale every day but that one thing, whether it be road bike tires or shoes, or whatever can be up to 80% off...

shoestring

For the shoestring triathlete, the athlete on a budget, person who's 401K is tanking I thought it might be a good idea to share and talk about websites or deals or retailers that I find or that find me in the course of my Internet and/or other wanderings...Some of them may give me something in return, some may not, but you can be sure I have a damn good reason to mention them on this blog!

In that spirit, something found me today in the form of an e-mail. Hotels Combined http://www.hotelscombined.com is a search engine for hotels ( uh..,duh!..). More eloquently put, it is a one stop gateway for finding the best deal on lodging. For those triathletes who travel to races across the country and even internationally, the logistical aspects can, at times be mind boggling, time consuming, paranoia inducing ventures. This website takes a little of the hassle out of finding and acquiring a place to stay. The site is easy to use, has many search options such as hotel brands, amenities, star ratings and shows prices from multiple online vendors. You can also read reviews from independent sources. All pretty standard stuff, however, this company is also one with a conscience as they have pledged to donate money to charities such as the World Wildlife Fund, Make a Wish Foundation, and the Children's Miracle Network for spreading the word about their website. They also are a partner of http://www.Carbonfund.org, and so are "offsetting carbon emissions generated by its business operations by investing in carbon reducing intitiatives such as renewable energy, reforestation, and energy-efficiency products." (hotels combined -website)

So not only will you find low prices on a place to stay but you can also feel good that you are helping to support a company that is socially conscious, and is committed to ethical business practices.

Since the Connecticut Children's Medical Center falls under the umbrella of the Children's Miracle Network, I promised I would write and espouse a few impressions of hotelscombined.com, and there you have it, so please check them out for your next trip or just out of curiosity.

See, I told you, I would always have a damn good reason...

technical difficulties

Yes folks, I have run into the inevitable technical difficulties with the photos I had posted on this blog...I am the process of working it out. Sometimes I feel like a monkey with computers, I just want to hit the side of the CPU a couple of times and have the problem fix itself...

goals for 2009; daily training

Okay, so I was talking about goals, strictly race goals (i.e. race times, etc..). Racing is good validation and recognition for all the hard work that no one ever sees, and good results, for me, validate all the hard work, and having fun comes from the good results that come from the hard work. Having said this, here are a few goals for 2009:

• to stay healthy, and have fun (per above description)
• Race 500 miles and I am working on a mileage ticker or tracker to illustrate my progress throughout the year.
• Times are so subjective that can be affected by weather, competition, etc...However I feel like I want to be in the top three percent of any race I enter. So if a race has 600 entrants, I want to be in the top 20, 1000 entrants in the top 30, 2000 entrants in the top 60 and so forth and so on...

Today:

3200 yards in pool followed by 1 hr run with 40 minutes at 6:30 mile pace(threshold).

race resume

3, 250 yards in the pool; 2 hrs cycling with 1.5 hrs at/or around a threshold level.

I have added my races on the side of this page since the fall of 2006 when I started racing to provide a base of results for my goals in 2009, in conjunction with those linked to the fundraising.

The fundraising goal is my main objective this year. I want to race 450-500 miles and link that to raising 10 dollars for every mile I race, and I think this is achievable. This goal has been clearly laid out and as spring approaches hopefully all the proverbial dominoes and ducks will be in a row regarding this side of my racing efforts.

Unfortunately, there is a dark side to my racing goals, a selfish, vain underbelly, but one in which I've worked hard to preen and nurture. All kidding aside, when one does something they should want to do it well, especially if they give so much of their time and/or effort to this one thing, and I am not exempt from this formula. Having said that, I do have some goals in mind in terms of time and placement in my age group, etc.., etc...

but I have to go cook dinner so I will continue this thought tomorrow,

chow...

sunday and weekly totals

3,400 yards in the pool in the morning, and ~ 20 mile run in the afternoon...

Weekly totals: week 17 (heaviest week)

• 13,000 yards in pool (~7.5 miles)
• 10 hrs 10 minutes cycling (~200 miles)
• 5 hrs 15 min running(~42 miles)

Only three more weeks to go, and then i'll probably do a few off season weeks ( more weight training, technique work), and then start the Half-Ironman program again about half way through...

After completeting about %85 of this plan I feel that I probably could have done more mileage, especially with my schedule being wide open, however, I don't have a race until June and this is my first go-around working with a plan. It was more important to me to improve technique and then relax as much as possible...

I figure the extra rest and extra time I have had these past five months has allowed me to work on infrastructure for the fundraising efforts, and to gauge how I will respond to the training level as prescribed...I know that when spring rolls around, working full time, stepping up to the Ironman training level, and racing in Colorado will be a good challenge so I may as well rest and relax a little now...

friday and saturday

Yesterday, was about 3200 yards in the pool in the morning, hill climb repeats on the bike in the afternoon. There are a couple of climbs right outside boulder where it is possible to gain around 1,000 feet of elevation really quickly, roads where one might even have trouble turning over the easiest gear...Needless to say, these are perfect for pain inducing hill repeats...For me it's the first five minutes of a climb that hurt, once I get into a rhythm, and my legs get used to the effort it becomes, dare I say this, fun, then again i've always loved climbing, and the pain...

Today, was a loooooong day of cycling! Started early this morning on the trainer, then when the sun started to warm things up I headed outside for the final hour and a half. All-in-all, 4 hours 45 minutes cycling, the longest to date in the training plan. 6X 3 min sprints in the middle of an hour of running later in the day on the treadmill. Now, it was nice enough to run outside but sometimes I like to do the sprint workouts on the treadmill so I can control the consistency of speed and heart rate. Also running on the treadmill, you can get used to running above your comfort level for extended periods of time without worrying about hacking up a lung from the cold weather or the unexpected hill(which happens often here in colorado), which, for me, increases my ability to run faster, longer. Outside is good, don't get me wrong, dealing with wind and hills and cold ( and I practice this skill as well), but it doesn't always give you the controlled environment to learn how to pace at a faster rate for longer. Also, I am able to get a good read on my heart rate at different levels so that when I do run outside I can gauge where I am in terms of speed and power.

fundraising update

I am really excited about this fundraising effort so far and how it has gone! To date, we have raised $531 for Connecticut Children's Medical Center and are 11% of the way to the goal of $5,000 over the course of 2009! Thank you to everyone donating and/or spreading the word, and please continue to check back in as the year progresses!

Brendan

brick

Today was the brick workout. 2 hrs on bike followed by 45 minute run at high aerobic intensity...

credit

It has come to my attention that I should give credit where credit is due for my strides with triathlon training. Although my body is doing all the actual work this resource has helped me focus my daily workouts, and given me some great advice on securing a smart training regimen.

It is no secret, and no unorthodox method, I am simply using a plan from Triathlete magazine's Essential week-by-week-training guide ( Warner Books, copyright 2006; $19.95) written or put together by Matt Fitzgerald, with data compiled from many sources. You can pick this book up in any reputable book store, I'm sure, or online. Due to my overreaching, ambitious enthusiasm, I go straight to level 10 but there are many different levels and plans for each length of race from sprint distance to full Ironman. This book also has off-season weight training and stretching programs as well. I would love to have a coach and a physical therapist and a massage therapist and all that but for the shoe string triathlete this book gives me enough guidance to get by...

You know what the real secret is and it really isn't that big of a secret? Having your days and nights completely tuned to your training. No stress from a real job, that is, like 9-5 or whatever. Your training is your work, and you complete all the workouts as prescribed and then you go home and have plenty of time to recover, eat, sleep, do whatever you need to do. No boss telling you to do this or do that, no overtime, no "we need you to come in this weekend", etc, etc... Recovery time is the key, and I don't know many people that will tell you otherwise. You'll never get faster if you can't recover, i mean, you're body will become used to a certain level of stress if you stress it, but for signficant progression in speed, power and efficiency there is no substitute for recovery time, period, and i'm living proof. Lately ( last 5 months) I can swim, run and bike faster and more powerfully, and efficiently because right now I have the time to leave myself 14-20 hours in between my last workout of the day and the first one of the next day. Now I have also devoted an inordinate amount of time to technique drills in each discipline, sometime devoting the entire workout to focusing on efficiency, which comes from good technique (one of the things my "coach/physical therapist/nutritionist/psychologist" has taught me). Maybe I won't bike faster, but i'll learn how to pedal with more power using less energy and my legs will be stronger for the run and effectully being able to run faster.

So in, summary, quit your job, focus solely on triathlon and you will become a better, faster triathlete. I must put a couple of asterisks next to this advice; The first being natural athletic talent, which is hard to quantify, and so could be given to everyone in differing doses, and could affect performance level. Secondly, is even harder to quantify and that is one's mental make-up. Everyone, anyone can do the same set of workouts, have the same lifestyle, but still, people are unique. Depending on the race and distance, what's inside a person's brain that makes one person push oneself longer, harder, smarter in some cases than another? Is it the collective life experiences of that individual which are unlike anyone else's, unique? Contrary to what may be believed out there, triathletes are not robots. Anyone can train themselves to the fullest possible limit of their potential at any one time, but could it be that what is inside one's soul could be the defining characteristic of seperating out the many layers of athletic beings that swim, bike, run the earth?

wednesday

3100 yards in pool immediately follwed by 1 hr long run with 40 minutes at threshold pace(~6:30 mile).

Tuesday

3,250 yards in pool, then 2hours on bike trainer, luckily a european soccer game game on so I had something decent to entertain me, although Liverpool ended up routing Real Madrid 4-0!

Manchester United versus Inter Milan tomorrow, should be a good game, plan on doing workouts early, get them out of the way...

This is my little cousin Jeremy and me. He is currently back in full health it seems, getting ready for baseball season! Obviously not a yankees fan, but I love him anyway... Jeremy is my motivation for this effort to give back in thanks to the Connecticut Children's Medical Center for having an integral role in saving Jeremy from a staff infection. I would also like to thank all the people who helped me get the proverbial ball rolling and also to all the people donating and/or spreading the word, not only about this specific effort but also simply about all the great work Connecticut Children's does for so many other families.

I currently live in Colorado, so in the future hope to expand this fundraising effort to encompass more hospitals under the umbrella of The Children's Miracle Network of which Connecticut Children's Medical Center is a part of. So please check out some of the links on the left side of this page if you haven't already and here's hoping Jer stays healthy!

Recovery week

Today was a good day...fast mile in the pool, (thank you masters swim class next to me providing waves, keeping me honest). Followed a couple of hours later by 1 hr 10 min run.

I am realizing there is a method to the madness because an hour long run does not even seem like anything these days! A couple of years ago I would have had to prepare for days and maybe rewrite my will before heading out on a run over 45 minutes...

weekly totals:

• 9,600 yards swimming
• 5hrs 45 min cycling
• 3hrs 20 min running
• Total hrs~13

Rejoice

Rejoice, faithful spam, I mean, blog recievers!! Brendan's hiatus due to a mildly to severely annoying head cold rendering his typing fingers listless is starting to lift, and unfortunately our fearless leader is not that coordinated with his toes, otherwise there would have been a steady stream of continuous blogging, you can be sure!

Anyways, let me recap what you may have missed...Sleep, swim, sleep, run, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, swim, eat, sleep, bike, etc, etc...Throw in a walk the dog every so often, and a trip to the library and you've got my week...

That's all i've got the energy for now but we should be up and blogging at full speed again soon....

weekend

i've fallen behind by a few days but here is the catch-up:

Saturday: 4 hrs on bike; 44 min run with some sprints a couple of hours later.

Sunday: 1.5 mile swim with 300 yd warm up, 300 cool down; 2hr 20 min run in afternoon.

Weekly totals:

• 12, 500 yards in pool
• 9 hrs on bike
• 4hrs 35 mins running

Now, unfortunately I am sick from descending the canyon I climbed on saturday soaking in sweat, the wind chilling me to the bone, so I must go rest...