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Year: 2006

  • Ironman Austria: 7 Days to Race!

    Ironman Austria: 7 Days to Race!

    Ironman Austria is only a week away. It’s been an easier path (thankfully) to ironman this year. I think my body is adapting to this type of stress which makes training more interesting. I have discovered that I do not need to do as much training as previously thought. Rather, the multiple years of training,…

  • Compact Cranks on my Bike

    Compact Cranks on my Bike

    Last week my coach and I were discussing a workout whereby I am supposed to cycle up Kings Mountain twice. I told him that my cadence is about 60-70 RPM usually, at which time he tells me about compact cranks. Compact cranks are a crankset that have a smaller bolt pattern to allow smaller chain…

  • Kinesio Tape

    Kinesio Tape

    This week I was having calf problems. They come and go now, but for a while it was a huge challenge as my calves adapted to the Pose Method of running, or running more on the balls of your feet. Although they say it takes 2-3 months to adapt, it took me a good year…

  • Ironman Paranoia

    Ironman Paranoia

    I’m towards the end of training for Ironman Austria and getting psyched for the race, which is only about 3 weeks away. As I reflect on the training period for this Ironman versus New Zealand last year, I notice some distinct differences, and I am reminded of them as I talk with other friends who…

  • Ice Baths: BRRRRRRRR

    Ice Baths: BRRRRRRRR

    After a few weekends of long rides, I am finding that it takes 2 days to recover. I am growing older and my body is changing, and needing more time to recover after long, hard efforts. So I am on a quest to figure out how to recover faster. I now foam roll before and…

  • More on Honu

    More on Honu

    Some more thoughts: Logistics are always a problem at races. This one was no exception. Getting there in the morning was not well thought out. The start was about 6 miles away, on rolling hills, from the hotel. Not good. No way I was going to ride there in the morning. Parking was limited there,…

  • Honu Half Ironman Report 6-3-06

    Honu Half Ironman Report 6-3-06

    Honu went well except for overheating on the run. Had my best half IM swim here, hitting the mat at 40:12. I thought the swim was setup poorly. The sun had risen right on the line of buoys and we were sighting into the sun as we tried to find the buoys. A lot of…

  • Kona Report 6-1-06

    Kona Report 6-1-06

    Kona is having beautiful weather, which is totally not what Yahoo! Weather predicted. I hope for cloud cover on the day of the race to keep the blazing sun off our backs. Previous racers have said that the run is super hot in and around the golf course of the Mauna Lani Resort. I put…

  • Off to Kona this week: Honu Half Ironman

    Off to Kona this week: Honu Half Ironman

    This Wednesday I’m off to Kona to race the Honu Half Ironman. The weather in Kona looks like showers, which either means it’s going to suck or it’s going to be godsend. I am a fair weather training/racing person, but you can’t ignore the fact that the humidity and heat of Kona and the lava…

  • PowerTap WOW

    PowerTap WOW

    The last few weeks I’ve been riding with a Powertap power meter. What an incredible piece of technology! My training has been taken to a new level! Previously, I was using a Computrainer and training based on power, as a measure of progress and application of resistance to the cycling motion of pedalling. It was…

  • Ways to Improve Your Swimming

    Ways to Improve Your Swimming

    Someone asked me what I thought about swimming and why they seemed to swim many times a week for months on end and never seem to improve. So here is what I’ve learned, and what has been told to me. Also some useful resources: 1. I think that swimming early, or doing any sport for…

  • Sport Specific Doldrums

    Sport Specific Doldrums

    This week I backed off cycling training. No matter what I did, I was very low energy and just could not summon enough juice to work out at wattages and intensities in previous weeks. What a frustrating thing. I am now building to my next race in June and feel that backing off now interrupts…

  • Too much of a good thing…

    Too much of a good thing…

    Electrostim is great. You crank it up as far as you can stand and it makes your muscles jump around like crazy. It stimulates your muscles into healing, helps blood flow, and is sometimes used to exercise the muscles. Well…sometimes. Yesterday I have two electrostim pads hooked up to each hamstring. I crank it up…

  • Experimenting with Changing the Order of Workouts

    Experimenting with Changing the Order of Workouts

    My coach is fond of saying that he doesn’t really care what days you do his workouts in his schedule, as long as you do them. He has also experimented greatly with varying the order of workouts to see if there is any difference in the results, and he has seen that there isn’t much…

  • Grasterbating

    Grasterbating

    Today I heard the most funny term – grasterbating. It’s basically doing what your sports medicine doctor does to you, but in the privacy of your own home. In this case, it is the Graston Technique, which uses these scary looking metal tools to scrape away adhesions that form in your muscles. It feels like…

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