My Copperman

1st out of the water! 7th overall!

Not bad for not training for speed. This year's Copperman was a blast. Spent the night before camping with friends, luckily we didn't get rained on like the weekend before when I was in Minnesota with my brother Dave. Race day was awesome as well. Great weather, great environment, great friends and family watching the race. The Copperman is becoming more of a social event for me than in the past. I seem to know so many people there, I walk through transition and always find someone I know and wants to chat. Its great!

Probably the best part about this years race was that it was Agustin's A race. I've been coaching Agus for this race for a whole year, and was super excited for him on race day. We had a bit of a setback a few weeks before. He injured his leg, and we had to scale back our expectations and goals, but Agus is a true warrior. After hurting his leg there was no stopping him in training, well at least until the pain got too much, and there was no question that he was going to finish this race. He exceeded my expectations, and swim, bike, runned himself to a great finish. Agustin has been with Northwoods Endurance the longest out of all our awesome athlete's, and he's not just a great triathlete, but a great friend as well. Congratulations Agustin! Hope to see you back next year, we'll be training for it either way ;)

I was happy with my race. Like I said before, I have not been training for speed. Everything this year has been focused on the Ironman, so I certainly have been putting my time in, but I was nervous about not doing a lot of interval and speed work leading up to the Copperman. My Minnesota race gave me a lot of confidence that I could compete, but I was unsure of how my performance at the smaller MN race would translate over to a little larger and more competitive crowd at the Copperman. I think it turned out alright :)

The biggest surprise I had was coming 1st out of the water. I actually led the race for awhile, most of the swim and 4 miles on the bike. I knew that I wasn't holding onto the top spot on the bike for long. My bike has a long way to go if I'm going to lead from start to finish someday. Being 1st out of the water had some perks. People actually notice you for one. You're the first person they see, and it was awesome hearing my name with "1st out of the water" attached to it. Northwoods Endurance really represented at the swim this year. Rick came in a close 3rd out of the water. It was great to see him so close, and maybe even a little bit better knowing that I was ahead of him ;)

The bike went well, I thought. I couldn't quite go as fast as I had hoped, but I didn't go slow either. I managed to hang around the top 10 going into T2. I took comfort in knowing that this may have been one of the few times the Copperman has seen the leader coming out of the water stay towards the front of the race. Usually the true swimmers come out first and fade very quickly on the bike. This year we had true triathletes leading the race.

My race strategy was to go hard on the swim, about 85% on the bike, and see what I had on the run. I think I hit that strategy real well. My goal was to push the bike, and trust my endurance and experience to still go fast on the run. I think I put in my best run split ever. 6:44 min/mi was my average pace! Usually I get passed on the run, this year I actually passed more people than who passed me (3:1). I was able to move up in the standings and finish a very respectable 7th, which is 3 spots ahead of last year (10th). Good race overall. Even better when you have such a great support team like Northwoods Endurance. I'm hoping next year all our Northwoods athletes will be sporting some NE apparel so we can really show off.

Now what? well, my only race left for this season is the Ironman! 4 weeks to go!!!

Less Than 2 Months to Go

Here is another grossly overdue post....

What a month its been since I last chimed in. My last post was all about the massive 8 hour workout. Since that time I have been busy busy busy with trying to continue on with a good base phase, and fitting in races on the weekends. Its so hard to NOT enter races! I love racing, and I love participating in our local events. My main race in July was the 2010 Canal Run in Hancock, MI. I had an ambitious goal of running the 10 miles at 7:00 min/mi pace. I came close...ran a 7:18 min/mi pace, or something like that. My final time was 73 minutes and some change. I was a bit disappointed with my result. I was sure that I would be able to run that course in my goal time of 70 minutes. I quickly found out what it truly means to train specifically for a certain type of race.

Long course racing (i.e. Ironman) is all about the LSD, long slow distance. I guess I thought that I could do LSD and get speed as well. (do you like those drug references......endurance training is a drug so it fits). Well, I am fast, but not as fast as I want to be. Overall though it was a fun race. Northwoods Endurance sponsored a team. We all ran great races, and had a blast! NE is truly establishing ourselves in the community which is awesome!

Other highlights of July were a 25k trail run. This was a last second addition to the race schedule. I used it as a long training run for the week. But it actually turned out to be the funnest race that I have done. The course was challenging, large hills, windy trails, warm and humid weather. We got hit with a giant thunderstorm during the race, and I had a blast! The trail turned into one giant mud puddle, and the rain was coming down so hard that it was hard to see clearly at times. It was awesome! I'm hoping for the same next year :)

I scheduled a last second "Olympic" triathlon (I say "olympic" because it was a little short of the true distances) at the end of July. This was mostly for fun reasons, to get out camping with my favorite brother, and also to get him out of town because we were throwing him a surprise party that evening. I did use it as a prep race for my perennial race, The Copperman. I did well in this tune up. I really wanted to see if I could go as fast as I wanted while still doing heavy Ironman training. By now I had added some speed work to my workouts. I didn't want to add too much, but I didn't want to skimp out on doing well in my shorter triathlons. I did well in this one. I set a goal of finishing in the top 10, I came in 6th or 7th (results were confusing...), and felt pretty good about my chances in the Copperman (that post to come).

It was nice to do fast stuff again, but I found myself missing the LSD. There is something to be said about just going out and training at a pace that doesn't hurt, that feels like you can go on forever, and you basically do. This is the year of LSD, next year is the year of Speed. I like my chances at both!

Just Another Day in the Office

Monday was a holiday for most people. For Rick and myself it was just another day at the office. An 8 hour workday to be exact. I even got a little sunburned from it too. :)

Confused??? What if I told you the "office" was a bike, some running shoes and the road. That's right we completed an 8 hour workout; 105 mile bike ride followed by a 70 minute run. And today I feel great!!! We finished a great 4th of July weekend with the biggest workout of the year, probably of our lives (to date) as well.

So what does it take to do an 8 hour workout? Well, a lot of patience, some grit and a lot of Clif bars. A lot of Clif bars....I'm so sick of Clif bars....The day started with a planned Century Ride (i.e. 100 mile bike ride). We took the classic route up to Copper Harbor and back, with a little refresher Copperman bike course mixed in the middle. In classic Ironman fashion the bike was done at a nice easy pace. A good Ironman bike should feel like you are not working hard. It was a little slow at times, but you keep telling yourself that the slowness is going to get you through the day. I felt really good. I didn't start to notice any fatigue in the legs until mile 85, I'm not sure about Rick. This was Rick's first 100 miler this year, and I think he did awesome! This was my second Century ride and I felt very strong. We took it slower than I did on my first one, but I also wasn't able to run for 70 minutes after that ride (though I did manage 30 minutes the first time).

Something I learned during this ride was that I need to figure out how to mix up what I eat. I only had time to grab a bunch of Clif bars, and usually I have something else to mix in like a banana or peanut butter and honey sandwich (one of my favorites!). Even though I had a good variety of bars, they still all end up tasting the same. I had some GU, but I am kind of sick of GU as well...particularly the Espresso flavor, probably because during my Half-Ironman race I took an Espresso GU at a bad time and made my stomach hurt (see previous post about that...). All in all a really good bike. It is such an invigorating feeling when you hit that 100.00 mile mark! I always want to fist pump or something at that point.

We transitioned into the run and I felt really good. I think I can officially say that my body is so used to running after biking that I never feel weird off the bike typical for triathlon. We just started running, and we were what I would be really happy to do during the marathon portion of the Full Ironman. Maybe a little slower than what we really ran. Feeling that good also made me realize that it is going to be way way better if I take my bike slower than I would think I can do. My original goal on the bike was to average 17-18 mph for the whole bike. I don't think that's impossible yet, but as of right now I think what I should do is more like 16 mph. I still have a couple of months, and I very well could get up to 17 mph. Doing 16 mph puts you right around a 7 hour bike, which would still be pretty good, and even better if that means I can do straight 10 min/miles for the whole marathon! So my new plan is to do the bike in 7 hours and if I happen to do it a little faster than 7 hours great, but as long as I feel great on the run.

We finished the run pretty strong. I was definitely glad to stop, but realized that I could have continued at least for a little bit more if I needed to. I think with regular aid stations I could get through at least a half-marathon at this point. We did that whole run on just a couple of gulps of water in the middle. I felt a definite need for some nutrition and Gatorade by the end. It was a great day!!! Maybe the best part is that I feel great the day after! I know that my legs are tired and that any kind of physical activity wouldn't last too long, but I know that I could at least get an easy recovery jog in and feel good about it.

It's amazing that I could even do an 8 hour workout. It hit me at the end of the run....that last year it would have been absolutely impossible to do something like this. Its a real testament to consistent and structured training. For all of you that thought it would be impossible to throw down an Ironman without having done a strong base of marathons, half-ironmans and everything in between, I am well on my way to prove you wrong. Keep this in mind....I have not even run a full marathon yet, and will not until Ironman Race Day (September 25, 2010)!

The Long Awaited, Much Anticipated...

Its been awhile since my last post, hasn't it?? Wow! So much has happened the last two months. I believe when I last left you I was struggling through plantar fasciitis and ditching my marathon ambitions. I spent some time in California which was awesome. A quick summary of what is going on with training.....

The end of April was very lacking in training volume. Not only was I struggling with my foot injuries, but I also spent 2 weeks in CA. I had plans of getting some great training in a great place to train, but one of the weeks was devoted to an Experimental Biology conference I attended, and the other week I happened to get sick and couldn't train at all because of fatigue. It was a great trip either way. I returned from my CA trip and immediately went to run a 5k race in Eagle River, WI. That was the race I had planned on doing the marathon, but decided to stick with the 5k. I did happen to PR the 5k, running a 20:21 or something like that. I say PR, but I think that was my first real 5k (road run) since I was a freshman in high school. I ended up taking 3rd place overall which was cool. Rick also ran and took 8th. Our friend Shannon took 3rd in the women's race as well, so it was a great time!

I came back from the 5k race and immediately started teaching my first full course for the Summer track here at MTU. Let's just say, that is probably the reason I have not posted in forever. I have been SWAMPED with teaching, research and training. Since I had a pretty bad month of April I entered May with extreme determination to hit my planned training volume. I was entering my Base 3 phase which included a big 18hr week (by far the most I've ever trained before in one week). With my class demanding so much time both during the day and in the evening, I had very little time to even breath. I am happy to say that I hit all my weekly volumes, including that 18hr week.

Within that first Base 3 phase I ramped my bike volume up each week and capped it off with my first Century ride of my life. It went really well! I felt strong through the whole thing. I was super excited when I hit the 100 mile mark (final ride ended up being 103 miles). I'm planning another for this upcoming Monday too! At the end of that phase I had a recovery week and then I had my first race week. I completed my first Half-Ironman distance race, and finished in a respectable time of 5:23:08. It was quite a learning experience too. I learned a lot about the importance of bike pacing and the pitfalls of poor nutrition timing. I have a good nutrition game plan, but I did not follow it very well at the end of the bike and in T2. I ended up running slow (10min/mi) the first 6 miles and feeling like I was going to puke. Fortunately I was able to calm the stomach down and finished the second half of the run very strong (8min/mi). It was a good race, and very informative on what I need to work on for the full Ironman.

That was a week and a half ago, and I am back trying to hit the high volume stuff again. This is my second Base 3 phase, and I am doing ok. After the half-iron I have been struggling with the long bikes. I am focusing more on running again. I still have problems with plantar fasciitis, but it has not been as debilitating as before. It seems to always be a little sore and tight, but it hasn't bothered me on the runs yet.

This upcoming 4th of July weekend, I am looking forward to my second Century of the year, and I am prepping for some upcoming running races, 25k trail run and 10 mile road run. Its been tough training through the half-iron race, but I'm sticking with the plan. I've been really proud of how much I've been able to stick with the plan. I've been feeling like I'm getting stronger and stronger each week. The Ironman race seems right around the corner even though its a whole 3 months away. I feel like I'm running out of time, and that I still have a ton of time to get better as well. Next triathlon will be either July 31st in Minnesota, or the Copperman August 7th. I'm looking forward to both as they are shorter races. I don't know how my long distance training has effected my speed in the sprints, but we'll see....

That was a very simplified summary, but at least you are caught up on my life in Ironman training ;)

Keep training!

Big Weekend Leads to Big Problems

This last weekend was a big deal for me. Not only was it big volume (37 miles biking + 5k run Sat., and 18 miles running Sun.), but it felt pretty good. All except a little foot issue that I have been experiencing during my long runs. Sunday was a really good run. Muscularly, cardiovascularly I felt great. I felt like I could have gone 20+ miles if my FOOT wouldn't have bothered me. It wasn't even the foot that I was worried about. Over the past few weeks I have been struggling with pretty intense foot pain post run, and more recently during the runs. My right foot has hurt the most. I've been to my chiropractor who also specializes in sports medicine and foot problems, and he says that its basically extremely tight tissue, built up over years and years of trauma (i.e. training). Well, I guess it never decided to manifest into anything painful until I tried my hand at 15+ miles.

So, this last Sunday I was feeling pretty good, I wanted to test my feet, so I ran 18 miles ;) My right foot felt great! No pain or anything, not even the day after. My left foot...another story. Around mile 13 it started to hurt, I was able to finish. I probably should have stopped when I first felt it, but I'm stubborn and was not about to drop out of another long run while my running buddy finished the run. Well, I finished. Now I am experiencing the worst pain yet....on the positive side, it is only one foot....

Prognosis is that I have pretty severe lateral fasciitis. My chiro is doing more work on my legs and foot. I guess the deep tissue in my calves and lower leg are really bound up, and this translates down the leg into the foot causing tightness and pain. I'm hoping for positive results, and am seriously considering going to regular massage therapy, at least until I get through this Ironman.

I'm not bummed. Its not like I'm having this problem with 2 weeks to go before the big race. It does put a big question mark on the marathon I was hoping to do, but I'm leaving my options open. If I don't see significant improvement in a week to two weeks I won't do the marathon. I certainly won't be doing any long runs until I am confident that I can do them pain free.

Another positive...it doesn't hurt to swim or bike, so I will be seeing a fair share of the road and the lovely black line in the pool a little more than usual.

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body"

Warmer Weather...Time to Get Serious

Warm weather is invading the UP! It's been awesome. Did you know that at this time last year I was only just buying my bike, and then it was a whole month before I took it out on the road. The unseasonably warm weather has been great. I've already been out on 3 rides, but that 3 could easily be 10.

That brings up another issue I've been dealing with. I am struggling to meet my planned weekly volume. Actually last week I did meet the planned hours (12.5 hrs), but that was with a little help of "swim week." This week I was supposed to do 15 hours, and if I complete what I have planned for the next couple of days I will only get 10. Now, if you know me, you know that I am serious about my training right now. I need to get more serious though. Its always hard to continue doing the everyday thing, continue socializing with friends, AND workout the equivalent of 2+ hours a day (and with a recovery day in there, its more on the + than the 2 side).

Here is the kicker....I have yet to regularly work out in the mornings. I don't hate the mornings, I consider myself a morning person, but when it comes to getting up even one hour earlier than I am used to is really difficult, especially when I don't change the time when I go to bed. This is what I mean about getting more serious. I don't think you NEED to do the volume I'm doing to train for an Ironman. I think that keeping the daily volume around 10 hours a week is good enough if you train efficiently and smartly. But I really want to try training at a high volume that you commonly see in elite athletes. The other worry I have about not meeting my planned volume is that I am not always following the periodization plan that I have set up for myself. Basically, I did 12.5 hours last week, this week is supposed to be 15 this week and 16.5 next week. This progression is there for a reason. I am worried that messing around with that progression will ultimately lead to not achieving me peak fitness I would have gotten if I had followed it.

But wait! Don't get worried about me just yet (because I know you are...). I still have time to get back on track. Its obviously been hard, especially since this has been the hardest semester of my life in school, but I only have another month of craziness before....wait....I forgot it doesn't get easier for me :( So, the only thing to do is suck it up, get my butt up in the morning and do the best with the time that I have. Even if I don't get the best training out this year, it has already been leaps and bounds ahead of what I've done in the past. That means that I will be making leaps and bounds in fitness. The Ironman is the goal for this year. I am not trying to qualify for anything this year, and I'm not trying to win any races (well maybe one...). I can live with not being in the theoretical "peak" shape my training plan is designed for. This year is my year of training long, logging big volumes, and trying to improve my overall endurance. I am excited about the future if I am able to make big improvements in these areas. What you need to know is that this Ironman year is only the first stepping block into some big plans I have in the next few years. This is what keeps me going, and what will help me get up in the mornings. That, and the warm weather!

Keep training, stay motivated! The best part of the year is just around the corner!

Swim Week and an Attempt at 20 miles

Time for my weekly update, as promised!

This last week was almost all swimming for me. I ended up doing 8-9 hours in the pool, and somewhere close to 15,000 yds. Almost everyday was a 4000 yd workout, which was close to 1000 more than my previous longest workout. It was fun, but it got a little tiring towards the end of the week. Unfortunately I didn't do as much as I had planned. Life always gets in the way, and this last week was an important week for school, so that cut into some of my workout time. I always advocate that its ok to miss workouts due to life issues.

The toughest workout this week was my long run earlier today. I attempted to do 20 miles in preparation for that marathon I keep hinting at doing. I would have made it too if my IT Band had not flared up. I was reduced to walking for most of the last few miles. I only got in about 16 miles of pure running. I did 16 miles last week...so no improvement. I hate it when my body fails me. I felt very weak and useless as my running partners finished the run with no problems. I'll pick myself up though. Next week I'll take another stab at it and see what happens.

One reason for my failure may have been jumping up to that distance too soon. Its not always advisable to decide to start training for a marathon 1 1/2 months from the actual race. And, of course, its not advisable to start your long run training by running 16 miles one week and jumping up to 20 the next week. 18 miles would probably have been more ideal, but as you know I didn't even make it 18 before crapping out. I'm chalking this one up to experience. The goal of running the marathon is to overcome adversity and pain and become more mentally strong from it. So I'm well on my way to doing that.

On another note, the weather looks to be nice this week. I am hoping to take the bike out a few times this week. Hopefully I can start getting into bike shape again. Adding biking into the plan will help with the IT Band problems as well, I hope. They say that you can get better running fitness by biking (but not vice versa).

That's it for this week. Sorry for the boring post, I will need to think of a way to be more creative. :P

FiveFinger Shoes!!!

Barefoot running is the newest fad, and I'm buying into it. Just got my new fivefinger shoes, and can't wait to take them out for a hike or a run.

For more on barefoot running check out Rick's blog, Northwoods Endurance 2.

Transition

This week was a recovery week for me. I ended up using more as a transition week instead. They are basically the same the thing, but a transition period is one of more unstructured training. I was a bit tired overall on Monday and Tuesday, still recovering from the weekend ski. It was important for me to start feeling completely recovered going into this weekend because I didn't want to come back to hard training too soon.

So far, I'm not sure if I am totally recovered. I still feel tired, but this is mostly because of the workouts I chose to do this week. My wednesday run ended up being a tempo run. It felt great, but I'm still sore in some spots from that. On Thursday I had a pretty rough day at work, and got some negative energy out by jumping in the pool for a 1000 yard time trial. That went pretty well. I wasn't too excited about my time (15:15), but I wasn't unhappy with it either. It was a good marker as to where I am at. Yesterday I ran the Lake Linden 5k course, and went a bit faster than I had planned on doing. There was a nasty cold wind too, and my legs were getting tight in the middle section. But, again, it was still nice to get out and run.

I am thinking about doing the Journey's Marathon...and too start training for that I'm adding long runs to my weekend workouts. Tomorrow is going to be a 2.5 hr run. Jumping into marathon training this late may not be the best thing, but I think its fine with my specific goals for this marathon. I'll divulge those goals later. Thinking about a marathon brings up the question, does one NEED to do a marathon when training for an ironman?? I've heard both sides of the story. If you have any thoughts on this topic, please chime in. I'm very interested as to what you all think.

Great Bear Chase A Success!

Hello all,

I am officially listing myself as an official cross country skier. I just completed my first ski race today. I went all out and did the ski marathon. The race was originally a 50k, but due to warm weather and poor conditions the course was shortened to a 42k. Doesn't matter to me. Today 42k=50k! I am still going to list off a ski marathon as one of my accomplishments! I finished in a time of 3:31:56, not too bad ;)

When I say poor conditions, I also mean some of the worst conditions you will have to ski in. Really it was not fun. I am positive that with better conditions I would still have been able to do the whole 50k in roughly the same time.

Either way, I did it! I don't even care if I was near to last place :P At least I finished, which I know more than a few people decided to drop out half-way through. I was not one of them, and now I can check off another lifetime accomplishment on my list. It won't be the last ski marathon I do, no way. Looking forward to next year!!!

Base Training Update

I'm back with an update on how base training is going. Unfortunately I was not able to live up to my promise of completing all my workouts on the first week of base. This was mostly due to my recovery from my first ever snowboarding experience. Let's just say, whiplash is not fun...

I may not have completed all the workouts, but I was able to complete almost all my planned volume for the week. I ended up getting 10 1/2 hours in for the week out of a planned 11 1/2. I thought it was a pretty good week. The breakthrough workout of the week was definitely the 4 hour ski. Yes, 4 hours! That's the longest I've ever exercised continuously for. And if you think about it, the bike portion of my ironman race will probably take at least 8 hours. I've got a long way to go, but it felt great to hit such a milestone.

The long skiing is, of course, helping me get ready for the 50k ski race I am doing. Update! The race has been shortened to 44k due to course changes caused by weather conditions.... I'm pretty disappointed about not doing a whole 50k, but I'm even more disappointed with the warm weather that's causing all the problems. I tried to do a good ski workout today since I've been out of town and not able to ski all week, and the conditions were super slow and soft. It felt like I was doing a lot more work and still going half as fast. I'm anxious about the weekend, I hope its not too bad. Well, the point of doing the long race was to experience the agony and guts it takes to push to the finish after it starts to hurt. I'm gonna get that alright, I just wish the point at which it starts to hurt didn't have to be within the first 5k...

Training for this 50k (ahem...44k) has got me thinking about how my plan is currently set up. I am not treating this race as an important race in my schedule. Because of this, I technically don't have a taper for this race. My race week volume (this week!) is at a little reduced volume compared to normal, but last week was a normal base 2 week. On the other hand, due to other stresses in my life (aka qualifying exams...) I did not get as much volume as the first week of base. Only 9.5 hours out of a planned 14. And since I'm on track for even less this week, I am starting to wonder if I am actually tapering for this race. This is both good and bad. If I start to taper for this race, I would potentially have a mini peak. This obviously helps my ski race, but it might hinder my future growth and development for this upcoming triathlon season. Now, this mini peak would certainly not ruin my triathlon season, or cause me to overtrain for my ironman. I just wonder how much it really would effect my peak for the ironman. In reality, this is a much better time to peak for a different race than a race in July or August. In the end, I am ok with doing a mini taper for this race. I guess I only bring it up to show you readers that what you do in the early part of your season, could come back to haunt you or help you in your later part of the season where most of your A races will be occurring. Just something to think about.

I'm going to close this post with a promise. I've been pretty bad about keeping you updated about my training. I started this blog with the intention of doing a weekly post so I could relate that weeks training. Not only to let you all know about my progress, but to also include any stories I might have to relate, and to also give you a glimpse at the type of training regimen that one takes to train for an ironman. So, I am promising to post every week from now on, even if its just a few sentences relating how things are going.

Cheers!

Base Begins

A quick update. I am currently at the end of a very long week. 5 exams in 5 days, and I'm thru day 4! Last one tomorrow!!!

Training has been very slim these days. I have been getting in some nice workouts, but the volume is still pretty low. The highlights have been the long skis, 2.5 and 3 hour skis. The goal is to do a 50k ski race in March!

The note of interest, though, is that Base training starts a week from Monday! This means that training is finally going to get serious. This also means that the volume is going to go way up. I'm so glad that my exams will be done (well, mostly done...I still have an oral exam at a TBD date). I'm excited about Base training. I can't wait to get going. I will truly feel like I'm training for an Ironman. The goal starting next week is to complete ALL my workouts as prescribed.

Time to build the pyramid and see how high I can go.

My Many Hats

This is a post every athlete can relate to.

Do you suffer from time management issues? Let me tell you a little about the trouble I am having with managing life. If you don't know already, I am a grad student. Technically that is my job, at least that is how I make my living. Its a lot of fun being a glorified student and basically getting paid to go to school. The downside comes in when you actually realize that it is a job, and you get paid to do research, not go to school. And, ok, the research is actually fun and interesting (at least it should be cause you are going to spend the rest of your life doing it), but that's just it, you get paid to do the research. If you read the unwritten fine print you might find that your job is to do someone else's research and fit the school part in on the side. That's where they get you. Essentially you are getting paid for 20 hours per week, which translates into 40-60 hours per week (depending on how devoted you are to your lab).

Now add in your free time. Wait! Free time? We get free time??

Exactly. You discover that if you want free time you must make it fit into school time. All in all its still doable, and one can get through a PhD program just fine on this type of time management. This is where my problems become more apparent, and of course more fun.

I am currently studying for my Comprehensive Exams (aka Qualifying Exams, aka the last exam(s) I will ever have to take). As you can probably guess, these exams are kind of a big deal. They require hours upon hours of devoted study. Hours upon hours that I struggle to complete. I have basically one week left. Don't get me wrong, I am studying hard. At least its a lot of studying for me. Others might think its not that much, but I have never been a good studier. No, my problem is that I will NOT let the studying take me away from my training. I don't think it should. The training is my release! That is why I love it. I think everyone should have a release because if you don't you would go insane. I'm sure you all would agree with that.

So that's it. I have a lot of stuff to do. Training is a good thing, it keeps me motivated during the day, and refreshes me when I am burnt out from research, studying and just dealing with issues that come up in a regular day. Fortunately/Unfortunately I am a coach as well. I love coaching!!! I could spend all day doing the coaching thing if I could, and some days I actually do. Those days are known as Sundays ;) I say unfortunately because there is more time out of the day that I need to make available. Coaching is not an everyday thing (though it should be), but its at least an every other day thing. So fitting it into my already packed schedule is difficult.

Notice, that I have yet to talk about where I eat and sleep. Well, that is where everything turns grey......Ok, no, I do eat, and I do sleep. I will still take my 30-45min. lunch, and I still take time to eat dinner, though this month the dinner table is usually the desk in my office. Sleep has been an issue. As an athlete in training, sleep is very very important. You should get 8 hours AT LEAST. I've been averaging about 6, sometimes less (4 hours), sometimes more (7 hours), but still too little. It's starting to wear on me. I feel drained all day long, yet amazingly ok for my late afternoon workouts; most days anyway.

Naturally, I am looking forward to the end of these exams. At least the end is in sight, even if its scary to think about it. All of us athletes have to deal with time management. I am no different than the next guy, and maybe even a little better off than another person I know (you know who you are...). I am not a good time manager, but I found that when you have NO free time, time management takes care of itself. I still get everything done, and I still take some time of the day to either catch a nap, or just sit and veg out. This blog is supposed to allow you to follow me in my journey. Welcome to the journey! Its a doozy!

But, don't worry about me. I will still be ahead of you on race day...PhD in tow. :)

Done Deal

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I have officially signed up for the Redman Iron-Distance Triathlon on Sept. 25, 2010. Its a done deal, I HAVE to do it now. If you struggle with motivation or commitment issues with races and/or training, try this. Try signing up as early as you can for the race. By paying for it early you will probably feel, as I do, that you have to do it now. You paid money for it, so you are going to do it. Its as simple as that. I know that when I decided to do my first triathlon, I signed up almost as soon as I decided to do it (which happened to be in June for an early August race...). It gave me the motivation to keep training because I invested in that race, and I wasn't going to half-ass it.

Now look at me, signing up for my first Ironman. The best part about it is that I no longer need to sign up early to motivate myself. After doing the early sign up thing for a couple of years, I just naturally felt motivated to train. That's the best part. I did not have to sign up for this race early (though I will say that for the actual Ironman events, like Madison, if you don't actually go and volunteer, or try and sign up at the first second of open registration, you will not get in...), but I knew that signing up would be the final confirmation, the final absolute certainty that I WILL be doing an Ironman this year. And for all y'all that think I'm crazy...you don't know the half of it :)

Keep it real!

First post of 2010

Its rather sad that this is the first post of 2010 and January is almost over. I apologize for the lack of posts the last month. Its been busy to say the least. Northwoods Endurance has been growing! We have added a few new athletes to the group. Welcome to team Northwoods!

The increase in clients has also given us cause to use online coaching software through TrainingPeaks.com. So far so good, we are now able to dish out plans quicker and easier, yet still maintain the individualized training that is so important to our athletes. Using it as an athlete myself has made it more fun and interactive as well. All in all, things are looking bright for the future.

In my next post I will tell you about the struggle of being a full-time graduate student, coach and still train for an Ironman. Its a must read!

www.NorthwoodsEndurance.com