Monday, August 25, 2008

Thank God it's College Football Season!

It's been awhile since the last post, and there are a number of reasons...

1. Training! Lots of it, makes for little time.
2. Coaching! Lots of it, makes for little time.
3. Olympics - Watched a bunch of it, including and the triathlons, live, screaming and jumping up and down on my couch when Simon came back!
4. Traveled to Boulder for a week for some TrainingBible business, and training. Hot and dry in Boulder...nice place to visit, but San Diego still gets the nod as the best place to train, (no comparison if the question is asked in the winter!)

It doesn't look like I'll be getting much time back, at least for the weekends, since college football season kicks off this weekend!!! Nebraska, (my alma mater), opens with Western Michigan! Will be watching that game, you can bet! I love college football!

Training is actually going well, as I just completed a big week with a 4-mile race here yesterday in 21:02. Not terribly fast, but believe it or not that's 35 seconds faster than I ran in this same race in 2006, in my Florida prep. So that's a good sign.

Also had one of my better rides last week, and I'm clearly strong as a whole. Weight is good, but not great, should get better in the coming weeks. Excited about things moving forward.

We shall see!

Vance

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Time for a post

So I haven't been good about blogging here, sorry.

Been busy with training, of course, but the volume and time commitment has really increased. The weekend was especially big and busy...

Friday - Big swim workout in the AM, with lots of fast 200's, 100's and 50's. It was my best swim of the year, which is great considering how much work I've been doing in the weight room and with core conditioning. I know I was tired, but was still going fast.

Later it was a 9 mile run easy, with a 2 hour ride to finish the day. On the bike was when the bees struck again. Right to the right temple, a bee stung me as it got stuck between my glasses, helmet and head. OUCH! Hurt like hell. For the entire weekend I looked like a cabbage-patch kid, but just on one half of my face. It was so bad, I refused to get a photo of it.

Saturday - Kevin McCarey's workout, where I got WORKED! His son, Eamon, put a hurting on me. The intervals were tough, and thru the trails around UCSD. After the 10 miles of running total, with nearly 6 miles of it HARD, it was onto the bike with a fellow Nebraska boy, Nolan. We rode the Swami's loop with attacking on the hills. Come the last hour of this 3.5 hour ride, I was struggling.

Sunday - Got up in the AM and it was off to Cardiff, to meet the local running group for a 2 hour plus run. It was a good group, and my fitness has clearly improved through the 3 runs with this group I've done. On this run, I was dropped with about 2 miles to go, and had to do what I could to hold on. Afterwards, it was an easy ride to the Cove for a clinic with some swimmers for the Gatorman, and a swim.

This week's focus is recovery for the first three days, then tests on Thursday and Friday. The weekend will be back to some high volume work, with a trip to Boulder planned next week.

Vance