...well, actually, it began about 2 weeks ago on December 9, 2013. What was I thinking when I started this 16 week training program that was over Christmas, New Years (which, basically means nothing to our family and training takes precedence), my 23rd wedding anniversary, and several out of town soccer tournament trips for my daughter? Obviously, I wasn't thinking clearly, but then again, when else am I to train?
The first week went well with 5.9 miles of swimming, 55.29 miles of biking, and 18.7 miles of running in various forms of intervals, bricks, and drills.
We went to Las Vegas for the daughter to attend a College Soccer ID Camp at UNLV on Saturday, so thankfully Friday was an off day from training and we drove up to Las Vegas. Saturday, I managed to coerce a friend into taking me to a local aquatic center to get my 3200 meter swim in and pushed the bike to Sunday, after we drove home.
Daughter did well at the one day ID camp, while I swam, and then went shopping with wifey and ate lunch at Tommy Bahama in a local mall, just south of the airport. Nice mall...I can't remember the name of it, but it was an outside mall with some higher end shops.
I did get a power meter installed on my Cervelo P5-3 just before I left. It was one that Tribe Multisport had and gave me a smoking deal on. It's bolted up to a SRAM Red 53/39 crank. More on that next post, after I've played with it some.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
It begins...
On November 17, 2103, my family and I drug down to Tempe to volunteer at the Ironman Arizona. We were all set up at run station #6 (at mile marker 6 & 19) at 10:30 with not much to do. The captains let us wander around Ironman Village until 12:00, so we did. It paled in comparison to the Oceanside 70.3 village that we went to last March. There was no music playing and a really, almost non-existent vibe, if at all. Kinda like a zombie ghost town. The merchandise was rather ugly with the same logo it seemed for all the Ironman events, just color changes, with the AZ colors being brown and maroon. Who thinks of these colors?
Here is John (left) Shea (middle) and Julie (right) by the Tribe Multisport Van.
We had a blast volunteering and giving water to the pro men and women triathletes as they ran by. Some of the elite age groupers came through our aid station as well. Shea ensured all the water cups were 1/2 full and organized so Julie and myself (and our friend John) could hand them to the athletes as they ran through the aid station. It was pretty cool as we got to see Jordan Rapp, Victor del Corral, Jozsef Major, Trevor Wurtele, Pedro Gomes, Matty Reed, Meredith Kesler, and Sarah Piampiano run through. Notice the perfect water handoff to Sarah Piampiano that I accomplished. Textbook!
The idea was to volunteer, get a wristband and a t-shirt, then get "head of the line" pass of sorts, to register for Ironman 2014.
With all the hoopla, drama, festering internet social bulletin boards and forums, the rumor was that there wouldn't be enough entry slots to accommodate all the volunteers that wished to register for the race. I drug my lazy ass out of bed at 2am, drove down to Tempe Beach Park, met my doctor who had the same idea, and then camped out with a blankie, chair, and a thermos of coffee, to wait until 8 when registration opened up.
After drinking all my coffee in the first 20 minutes, resting uncomfortably in the Tommy Bahama chair ("relax"...really...has Tommy tried to relax at 3 in the morning, freezing one's ass off in his own uncomfortable chair while trying to sleep? I think not), at around 5:30 in the morning, an Ironman representative moved the entire line through the park to line up. I started about number 50, but with some "speedpass" wristband holders (they volunteered at the hard to fill slots), I ended up about 200th in line to register. At 7:47 I paid my $740 and was officially registered for Ironman Arizona in November 2014.
We had a blast volunteering and giving water to the pro men and women triathletes as they ran by. Some of the elite age groupers came through our aid station as well. Shea ensured all the water cups were 1/2 full and organized so Julie and myself (and our friend John) could hand them to the athletes as they ran through the aid station. It was pretty cool as we got to see Jordan Rapp, Victor del Corral, Jozsef Major, Trevor Wurtele, Pedro Gomes, Matty Reed, Meredith Kesler, and Sarah Piampiano run through. Notice the perfect water handoff to Sarah Piampiano that I accomplished. Textbook!
The idea was to volunteer, get a wristband and a t-shirt, then get "head of the line" pass of sorts, to register for Ironman 2014.
With all the hoopla, drama, festering internet social bulletin boards and forums, the rumor was that there wouldn't be enough entry slots to accommodate all the volunteers that wished to register for the race. I drug my lazy ass out of bed at 2am, drove down to Tempe Beach Park, met my doctor who had the same idea, and then camped out with a blankie, chair, and a thermos of coffee, to wait until 8 when registration opened up.
After drinking all my coffee in the first 20 minutes, resting uncomfortably in the Tommy Bahama chair ("relax"...really...has Tommy tried to relax at 3 in the morning, freezing one's ass off in his own uncomfortable chair while trying to sleep? I think not), at around 5:30 in the morning, an Ironman representative moved the entire line through the park to line up. I started about number 50, but with some "speedpass" wristband holders (they volunteered at the hard to fill slots), I ended up about 200th in line to register. At 7:47 I paid my $740 and was officially registered for Ironman Arizona in November 2014.
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