Well, I didn’t run the local 10k that was here this weekend, but my fianceé is tougher than I am and ran despite the adverse conditions:

It was in the low 40s with a constant rain cooking, and was reasonably windy. Basically, it had all the elements of a miserable day. I stood there wearing three layers and I was still cold. As we speak, Trimama is probably outside in that weather riding 100 miles in similar weather so be sure to send her some warm thoughts while you’re in your cozy, climate controlled environment in front of your computer.

Anyway, to further solidify my position as a fair weather athlete, I haven’t done anything but swim since Friday and I don’t really have any intention of doing anything but swim until we get nicer weather again. I only have one pair of running shoes left and I don’t want to have to let them sit for days while they dry out. And I just refuse to put my bike on the trainer again for a ride, so I guess I’ll just relax. :) It is still only April… at least for one more day it is. There is still plenty of time for suffering.

On the weight front, I had four straight days weighing in at 160. So it’s taken a little over a month since my max weigh in this off-season, but I’ve managed to lose six pounds since then without really watching what I eat too much. I’ll be at race weight by September 10th. I haven’t even done any “hard” training yet.

And what is one of my posts that doesn’t talk about bikes. I cancelled my order for those Hed Stingers. They were supposed to get in last week mid-week, but as of Friday they still hadn’t gotten there yet. During that time, I was given an offer that I couldn’t refuse (or that I think I can’t refuse). Pictures to come later. I’m still waiting for my updated decals for my new bike to come in. It’s been over a week?! Sheesh. How long can it take to ship stickers? :P

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything training related, I think? At least anything about where I’m at. So in Bolderesque fashion, here’s some data and pretty graphs for you all.

Yesterday’s “long” run (I’m still ramping up my run mileage after my various bouts of lower leg issues). Just over 10 miles and at something like 8:45ish pace (?).

And today’s ride, cut a mile short on the graph so I could cool down. 29.1 miles at 19.7 MPH. I am SO loving the new ride!! :)

No swimming data. I don’t wear my HRM or anything in the pool. All I can really tell you is that I swim Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and I get out after 3,000 meters (the pool is setup for long course now :( ).

My paces are pretty good for this early in the season, although my heart rates are high so maybe I’m just working harder and am not really in any better shape than last season? In any case, the work is getting done. The foundation is being laid for the bigger stuff coming up in the next few months. I’m looking forward to the season ahead! (Although I only say that because it was nice out today… I’m such a fair weather athlete. :) )

See you out there!

Ok, I get it. I give up. Mother Nature, I do not like cold weather. You can stop torturing me with it already. I suppose I was spoiled with those couple of weeks that we had in mid-April where the temperature approached 80 degrees consistently. But yesterday it was in the 40s and 50s, and today we might get close to 60. I’ve already stored away all my “winter” gear and the thought of having to don a base layer of any sorts has me feeling so blah about working out.

Lets see… where are we. I’m sorry if my recent post have been so bike-centric lately, but I’ve been so geeked out on bike stuff lately it isn’t even funny. I did find homes for my old trusty P3 and my sadly missed 909 wheelset, but the owner of the wheelset will be at Wisconsin this year so I may just have a chance to say “Hello” to those darlings later this fall. I guess while we’re on the topic, there is an issue with my current bike in that the saddle sits at a slight angle relative to the top tube on my new bike. There isn’t a way to adjust this either. I’m thinking that the seat post in the frame is slightly off and that’s causing the problem. I can ride it, but it is noticably off center. I have full faith in my LBS that they’ll get the issue straightened out one way or another though. Ahh, the joys of a lifetime warranty.

Ok, my last bit of bike nerdiness, I promise. :) I’ve decided against the Renn disc/H3C combo wheelset. I’ve ridden a H3 before on the front of my P3 and it’s a little too twitchy for me. I like the stability in crosswinds of a deep-dish, spoked rim. Not to mention that the OCD part of me didn’t really like the fact that I was riding a wheelset with two different brand wheels. :P Call me a poser or whatever - I like to match. So it looks like this will be what I’ll be riding on moving forward:

For the rear and front respectively. They’re almost half the price of a pair of Zipp’s retail and I really do like them. Hed is a local Minnesota company which appeases my sense of supporting local businesses. That and the fact that the pair match manufacturer wise and the decals are the “right” colors (right, Wil?) make me all happy like that. Hopefully, they’ll be here next week!

What else… my back is feeling normal again. It still hurt a little bit on my ride last Suinday, but seems to have gotten better since then. Flatman started me down the path wondering if I had kidney stones (wouldn’t that suck), but the pain was never really that bad. Plus, I don’t have any of the other symptoms that come with it. Hopefully my long run today won’t cause me any more undue pain. After all, that’s how the whole back pain thing started out last week.

There is a local 10k that I might run this weekend. I don’t know if I’ll do it though. I’d rather run long than have to run hard and 10k races hurt! There is also this organized century ride thing happening this weekend as well. I haven’t signed up for it and I think it may be too late to? Although I guess if worse comes to worse, I can always go out and do the ride and not use any of their support. I feel a little weird doing that, though. Even if they don’t shut down any roads for the ride or anything. We’ll see.

Hope you all have had a great start of the week!

Yeah… nice of me to decide that on Friday when the week is almost over, eh? I really haven’t done much training wise this week. I think I’m up to 5:15 for the week and three of those hours are in the pool where I need them the least. I did a nine mile run on Monday which felt really good during the run, but I had terrible back pain that night and the day after. I don’t know what exactly it was from but I was in too much pain to do anything the next couple of days.

Yesterday and today it’s been raining on and off and it’s cold again (in the 50s) which leaves me feeling all sorts of blah and not wanting to workout. This weekend, it looks like it’ll be nice out though. Especially Sunday! Maybe I’ll finally be able to take the bike out for a proper ride then.

Speaking of which, it’s probably a good thing that it did rain last night. I rode the new bike (still unnamed at this point, Flatman) on the trainer which I was bummed about doing for its first “voyage”. But the bike had its chain fall off once (front derraileur: fixed!), the platform for the pads on my aerobars were loose (fixed!), and my back started minorly bugging me after 45 minutes so I ended up just getting off early. So I guess it was better that way after all.

My Zipp 909 wheelset is now officially sold. My frameset hits eBay in about two minutes. Just in case anyone is still interested. :) So long Zipps! It was really nice having you along for the ride!

It’s finished. The anticipation is over. The two 51 cm P3Cs that the LBS is getting in both already have 20% deposits on them from other customers so they’re as good as sold. So I ended up with the bike that I really convinced myself was the better buy for me without having the sexiness of the black and red carbon weave to tempt me to spend more money than I needed to. So without further ado…

Right from the LBS:

And built up:

I’m waiting for QR to ship me some decals which I prefer a little better (I’ve got to stick with the whole red, white, and black theme now) so the frame should look like:

And I’ll probably end up with these to go with it:

For those in the market for new gear, I have these available for purchase. :) They hit eBay tomorrow so hit me up today and I’ll give you a deal if I can avoid paying eBay commission:

Ok, enough with the pictures. It’s kind of crappy out today with a mix of rain so I don’t know if I’ll get the bike outside today for a ride. I did ride it for about five minutes yesterday just to ensure that it all worked. I don’t know if it’s the titanium or the jump in wheel sizes from 650c to 700c (or maybe a combination of both), but the ride is considerably smoother. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it out for a longer ride this weekend for a more comprehensive review.

I crunched the numbers, sent emails back and forth with Bolder, the LBS, and even got a reply from one of the guys at Cervelo. And I ended up with:

But it’s not going to work. Using the geometry measurements on Cervelo’s website, the bike should fit but it just doesn’t. I should have guessed based on the feedback that Bolder gave me about his and from what I’ve read about the bike. But the OCD in me wanted to believe in the official numbers posted that things would work.

For those that are interested, I took some pictures so you can see where the fit is causing me problems. I lined the bikes up side by side such that the bottom brackets were aligned:

The following is a picture of the seat posts in the forward 78 degree position. You can see that the clamp area of the seat post on the P3 is further forward than that of the P3C:

And another picture at the steerer tube. You can see that the tube of the P3C is physically more forward on the P3C than it is on the P3:

So effectively, the bike is just slightly longer in both directions. I’m already slid all the way forward on the rails of my current saddle on the P3 so there’s no room for adjustment there. And I’m already on a 90mm stem and would need shorter than a 70mm stem to make things work which just isn’t right.

The LBS doesn’t have a 51 in stock, nor will they be getting one anytime soon so I may just end up on the Tiphoon after all, which I’m totally fine with. It is cheaper at close out prices for what’s a more expensive retail priced frame. And I was pretty torn between the two anyway - the P3C does have sex appeal, but the Tiphoon gives you all those wonderful benefts of titanium. More importantly, the fact that the Tiphoon fits makes the decision a no brainer.

So… it’s back to the bike shop for me again today. I think I’ve been there almost everday in the past week! That has to be some kind of record, even for me. :)

EDIT: Ugh. A 51 P3C is coming on the 28th. Just when I thought that the decision had been made for me, now I have to pick all over again. Bleh.

Happy Easter everyone! Today is probably the only holiday in the calendar that I feel is “worthy” of celebrating. I tend not to be a big holiday sort of person (BTW, it was my birthday last Friday… so, see? I don’t even really care to celebrate my own existence :) ), but I suppose if there is one that I should celebrate, this is it.

In training news, I’m at 13 hours for the week so far (with today still to go) and have 150 miles this week already logged on the bike. That’s a 2006 record thus far! Last year at this time, I was below 10 hours and only averaging in the low 17 MPH range on the bike, where I’m in the low 19 MPH range now. So I’m quite happy to be where I’m at.

As for the bike, a new contender enters the mix:

It’s been weighing on me that the Tiphoon, while titanium, is probably actually less aero than what I have already. I posted over at SlowTwitch about sizing help from going from a P3 to a Tiphoon, and who else than one of the Cervelo owners chimes in on the thread to give some insight. I’m potentially moving away from one of his products and he still takes the time to help out? That’s class, I tell you. Since I’ve been happy with my P3, why not more seriously consider their new baby. Plus, its colors are to die for. Oh why can’t my LBS be open on Easter?

Anyone want to buy me a Zipp 999 wheelset as a belated birthday gift?! ;)

With the onset of Spring and nicer weather, my motivation to get out and do some longer training workouts has been increasing. Considering that it’s still only the middle of April, I’m fairly happy with where I’m at considering the long break that I had over the winter. I keep telling myself that I’m going to train during the winter months one of these years, but I wonder if that mental recovery that I get from having to do any kind of training does me more good than physically keeping up? I think that could steer me for a mental breakdown and make for a mentally long season. Maybe more on that in another post…

Swimming: My swimming is in pretty good shape for this early in the season. I’m holding intervals that I remember doing late in the season last year. And I’m actually able to concentrate doing some of these longer distance sets (well, long meaning anything over 100 yards - hey… I was a sprinter back in the day!). It’s nice being able to swim next to those age group club kids (man when did kids get so fast!) instead of just watching their bubbles as they pull away from me in the water. I’m trying at this point to go three times a week and swim 3,000 yards/meters (depending if they have the pool setup for SCY or LCM). I’ll try and up that to 1:30 and maybe around 5,000 in a few months.

Biking: This always seems to be the sport to come back most quickly of the three. It’s gotten up into the 70s a couple times in the past two weeks which is totally AWESOME! I’m loving being back out on the roads. Last week, I only managed two rides and around 55 miles total. I had some… well… rather unpleasant chaffing issues midweek that we won’t get into. But that’s all passed and I did a 43 mile ride on Monday as the season’s first official “long” ride (”long” according to Gordo being over 2 hours in time). I averaged 19.2 over the course of that ride which I was really happy to see. In honor of Bolder, I’ll post my geeky graphs. It hasn’t been nearly colorful enough around here lately, anyway.

Half of my four rides outside have been with the tri club here. It’s a great group of folks. Trimama rewarded us with a guest appearance on yesterday’s ride with MN Tridaddy. I forgot again to bring a camera, so no pictures to share. Sorry.

Running: My lower leg ailments have moved from ITB, to shin splints, to Achilles tendonitis, and now back to shin splints. Of the three, I’ll take shin splints as it’s by far the least painful and annoying injury. I’m still keeping my weekly mileage down low. I’m trying maybe 3-4 runs a week and maybe doing a total of 15-20 miles a week or so? I did just over 8 miles on Tuesday and man has my endurance gone to crap. I did hold just under 9 minute miles, but I was hardly in any shape at the end for that to be the half way mark of my long run. Ugh. Definitely some work still yet to do in that department.

Weight/Diet/Nutrition: It’s gone to crap. I know that I said I was cutting back to 1500 a day until I hit my goal weight. That lasted about a week. So I’m going back to my normal high volume self in hopes that I’ll be working out so much that I don’t have time to eat. When I do, I’ll try and only eat half a pizza instead of the whole thing.

That’s about it. Sorry to bore you all with the mundane details, but I haven’t done it in a while so thought it was appropriate. I suppose in more interesting news, what do you guys think of this:

With maybe a set of these:

I do still like:

But close out prices on the Tiphoon are making me think it might be time for something new? At least this post is “colorful”. :)

What do you all think?

We have a new member of the Ironman club. Ironbenny came, saw, and conquered the Ironman Arizona course yesterday. Hats off to Ironbenny for a job well done!

Reading Nytro’s updates of the race yesterday brought back all sorts of nostalgia to me. All the pre-race nervousness that is in the air on race morning, those hot grueling miles of the bike leg, the harsh reality of having to run a marathon after a 114.4 mile warmup, and all the ups and downs you go through during the day. For spectators and athletes alike, I really think there are few things in this world as special as the experience of an Ironman. And that’s why despite all the training and all the pain, so many people come back and do the race again. It’s a feeling like no other.

We’re a mass of unique individuals, each coming from our own unique backgrounds. We were born in different states, or perhaps different countries. Some of us had picture perfect childhoods, while others had childhoods that they’d much rather forget. Some of you have spouses, or maybe a kid or two, or maybe even grandkids, while others may still be single and finishing up school. But despite all the differences that we have, this whole notion of Ironman in its own unique way binds us all together. Whether you’re a Kona qualifier or just struggling to make that 17 hour cutoff, you have likely spent long hours training for this one day and sacrificed a great deal just to make it to that start line. And for just one day, we’re all kindred spirits of sorts.

I’ve never met Benny before, but yesterday I know exactly how he must have felt at different parts of the day. From the absolute high and thrill that you’re participating in this 140.2 mile race that you never thought you’d be able to compelte, to that place of utter exhaustion, pain, suffering, and self-doubt where you ask yourself, “Is this really worth it? Isn’t this supposed to be fun?” While reading Nytro’s updates, I could feel those emotions deep within my soul.

For those that have been there before, you know what I’m talking about. For those of you training for your first one or even thinking that maybe someday… maybe… it could happen, we still live through you. We love hearing about your first experiences with a long ride or that long brick that you’ve never done before because it instantly brings us back to that point in our own lives. Yes, this sport brings out something that’s truly unique in this world and still is something that I’ve yet to experience anywhere else. I felt like yesterday I was out there, on that course, cheering Benny along. And today I’m all fired up to experience that roller coaster of emotions that he surely felt for himself.

Indeed, it’s going to be a great day to train. See you all out there…

After a handful of botched attempts and posting these past couple of weeks, I’ll see what I can to do make sure that this post doesn’t end up in the “Drafts” folder graveyard with other posts that will likely never see the front page. I have posts labelled “Thoughts From The Future” and “No Power” and I have no idea what they’re about or why I labelled them as such. Bleh.

Well, we’ve moved into “Spring” here in the land just south of Antarctica which means that either it’s sunny and windy (at the moment of posting, 22 MPH winds gusting to 26 MPH to be exact), which sort of ruins the sunny aspect of things. Looking out your window give you that “Yay! It’s gorgeous outside!” but stepping outside, you soon realize that what looks like a pleasant summer day still feels quite nippy. And for the days here where it isn’t windy, it’s most surely cloudy and raining. I’m still waiting for those 2-3 weeks of constant rain that we seem to get here every Spring. :(

As such, my bike has yet to see any real pavement yet this year. I’ve been debating giving my bike and body the “shock and awe” treatment of taking it outside for the first time either for the 100 mile bike ride (my longest ride this year has been about 20 miles on the trainer :P) with the tri-club later this month, or at my first race at the end of next month. I really don’t know if I can mentally take the trainer any more though, so the bike will likely seem pavement before either of those dates, though.

But I did manage a “long” (well, 6.5 miles is long when you’re used to running 3-4) run last Saturday, and it was nice enough to do it in shorts! And thankfully, my time off doing any longer running hasn’t affected my pace in a negative way. On the contrary, Saturday’s run was done at sub-8 pace?! I don’t know if it was the excitement of running long without Achilles pain or being able to run ouside in shorts. Perhaps a little of both? But ohhhh the joy of not having to put on tights/pants to go outside for a run. I suppose Spring isn’t all bad here in the Twin Cities. :)