Cool stuff to look at

I have some pictures to show you, I mean if you're in to that sort of thing. Really though, some good stuff from last year, and this year.

Stuff from my time at Ironman Coeur d'Alene last year (http://deanspace.smugmug.com/gallery/2341195)

A little about my team this year (http://deanspace.smugmug.com/gallery/2341292)

I'm just a wee bit of a photo geek. So with any luck at all there will be some more up here soon. Hope you're all having a great week. Enjoy the pics. -dean

A week in the dumps

A week completely written off in Janurary. All in all not a bad time to be sick. My brain knows this. It's a perfectly logical thing. Five months out and you miss a week. Big freakin' deal. The other side of my self however sees this as a horrible waste of a training week. Mind you this was just a recovery week, so it's actually the best week possible to be off the training grid. I'd rather go a whole week with a little sickness and staying off the road than to push through it, get sicker and then be flat on my back wishing for death.

And so I stayed off. I didn't touch the water, 'cept for showers people. Nor did I ride or run. And it killed me. A part of me felt horrible every day I did nothing. I remember feeling this way last year when we were tapering for a race. The taper is that time in your schedule just before you go race. It's close, so no amount of work will actually improve what you're going to be doing, in fact the work you do can actually be detrimental to the race you've been prepping for. But after months of knowing that you have to be out there, working, training, and moving through that cycle, the idea of sitting down and --- gasp --- resting seems too far away from reality. So much so that it takes a good deal of strength and mental will power to keep you from going out and doing an easy 10K.

Now I know that's stupid. I do. I really do. And for you out there who know me, and don't believe me, I do know that that is stupid. (I might have gone out for an easy 10K during my taper.)

But that's how I feel now. I'm sick and I'm not training... much, and the parts that I'm not getting in weigh on my mind. AND THEY SHOULDN'T. "Dean you're sick. SIT THE HELL DOWN and for the love of god, stop moving." That's really what my body is saying to me. It's probably time I listen. G'night all.

Feel the burn

After seeing it twice now I can say with near certainty that one of the more significant signs of coming out of base training and pushing towards a build phase of training is the intense desire to sleep. My advice to just about everyone on this path is to kiss your personal life good-bye and make sure you have a comfy place to land, because you're going down.

I mean that in the nicest way. You're asking your body to add a few more hours of training to the schedule, and push a little harder as we try to challenge a system already under stress. The amount of recharging, in rest and in food, may/will seem a little irrational at first, but it is completely normal.

Welcome to training. We're going long from here on out. Hugs and kisses to the loved ones. (Click here to see the previous post on this one.) See you on the road. -dean

Charity in Ironman: A chance for extraordinary things

If you haven't guessed already I'm a fan of ironman. The whole thing. As a business they've taken what must have been a drunken challenge bet between a bunch of military rats in Hawaii, to a place where women and men, able and challenged, professional and age-group, can come to test themselves on a professionally run course where everyone moves the same distance. They've taken a swim, a ride, and a foot race and made it a profitable brand in the world. Kudos.

As a race, the distances for each discipline are challenging. The locations that can accommodate the number of people and each race event are not numerous but the ones that are selected are still some of the most beautiful in the world.

The opportunity availed to normal, ordinary, every-day, guy/girl next-door, people to be great and achieve is incredible. The road to an ironman finish, a first place daylight glory filled sweet victory, to a 16h59m59s nail biting cross, to an 18 hour solo cross of the line with no lights, no crowd, no applause, nothing but the drive to finish what you have started, is long. There are no short cuts. And every story, no matter how gifted an athlete begins, is fraught with challenge and no shortage of sweat, blood, and time spent training.

As an event ironman north america (World triathlon corporation (WTC) or North America Sports as they have been rebranded) and their presenting sponsor, Janus, have created another way for ordinary people to achieve. Clarification required. I DO NOT believe that anyone who would consider ironman as a part of their active life to be anywhere near ordinary, just extraordinary.

The Janus Charity Challenge is a fundraising program wherein, any registered participant may raise money for the qualified charity of their choice. In 2006 participants in Ironman Coeur d'Alene raised a record breaking $1.36 million dollars for charity. This was the result of a mere 49 athletes (8 of which were Los Angeles Team in Training Ironteam participants).

Of the top five fundraising efforts there were four people, as one person took both 2nd and 3rd position on the top fundraising list by raising a combined $390K for two different charities.

The top five can be viewed by clicking here with their respective charities

Janus not only provides the infrastructure to support these fundraising efforts, but also provides supplemental funds to the causes:

1st Place Individual : $10,000 donation

2nd Place Individual : $8,000 donation

3rd Place Individual : $6,000 donation

4th Place Individual : $4,000 donation

5th Place Individual : $2,000 donation

The beneficiaries of the next 30 highest fundraisers who raise a minimum of $750.00 will receive an additional contribution of $750.00 from Janus.

The beneficiaries of the next 15 highest fundraisers who raise a minimum of $500.00 will receive an additional contribution of $100.00 from Janus.

Some people out there have a sour taste in their mouth from the way that the race has become a business, how inflated the rates have become, and the expense caused by the merchandising of the brand. On the other hand, the business gives to each community that hosts them, offers the opportunity for people to work for causes they believe in, and brings an event of massive relative scope to people who might otherwise not have had the opportunity to challenge themselves.

It is a multi-discipline race, which can be ten to twelve months of training, for an exhausing 17 hour day, but whose finish grants the victor bragging rights for life. I've finished my first Ironman. I'm coming back for a second. I look forward to seeing all your smiling faces at the finish line. -dean

Just another day in the water

We've just entered a new phase in our training this year with our workouts becoming more specialized. Each discipline will now have shorter more intense sessions to compliment that race like all-day pace of the longer slower workouts. The longer workouts train the body to do the work that we have to as efficiently as possible while the shorter sessions challenge muscles, and the cardio system to support harder work, pushing out the envelope of what we are capable of doing as athletes.

This is where it starts getting fun. All those looking forward to our first 4-hour ride say YAY! (I'm sure it's just water in my ears from last night, but I wasn't the only one cheering was I?...) See you all Saturday.

Work, injury, illness…

“I’ll take things that get in my way for $100 Alex.” Yes, I’d be a much better athlete if I didn’t have to go to work. Maybe. It does get in the way of a great many things, it’s infuriating on some days of the week, but it continues to fund my hobbies. And it keeps me on a schedule of some kind. But it still gets in the way. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Injury. One of the largest jobs that endurance athletes have is staying injury free. What we ask of our bodies is incredible. To take a body, from whatever state it exists, and to apply pressure, increase distance, intensity, and to fight the mind to go longer, harder, and faster, requires time and for many a break from our normal lives to pursue. If for no other reason this is jarring to our physiologies because we (many of us so I use the collective we) spend 90% of our work day in a sedentary state, see above paragraph on work. Each time we push to grow as endurance athletes we open ourselves up to injury. There are things that we can in fact push through, and other things that are warnings of a impending strain, crack, crash, or other doom. Staying injury free allows us to continue training and remaining happy (assuming of course that training without pain makes you happy).

Illness. It happens. Rules for this follow the above paragraph. Avoiding this is the second largest job of an endurance athlete. Know that you’re burning more than most people and in different amounts. Know that you need to load up on vitamins, and nutrient dense foods to replenish the stores that you’re depleting in your body. All the resources you’re using to fuel, and rebuild broken muscle must be replaced. Couple that with working out longer, stress from regular life and work (again see the first paragraph) and the body leaves itself more open to illness. Defend against this at all costs. Know the warning signs and back down when necessary to give yourself time to head things off at the pass. It’s far far better to be down for a day or two than a week or two.

That’s all I got. Did I mention that I hate it when work gets in the way of my training? I did?... Oh, ok… Then that’s all I got.

Good Gear - Xlab flatwing system

Ahh, the x-wing, I mean the xlab flatwing.

When it comes to gear I love things that are adaptable to the situation, whatever that situation may be. In the field, on the road, in a race, very little is more important than being able to have the fuel you’re going to need for the time that you’ll be out on training/racing/enjoying the scenery with you when you need it.

You’ve probably all heard about how much you’re supposed to be consuming as you work, that’s both in calories and fluid. It takes months to figure out how much to bring along and in what proportions, what won’t upset the stomach, and what we’re invariably going to want in hour four of our ride. The question becomes how to carry everything that you’re going to need. Most bike frames have at least one bottle cage mount, and many have two. At best that’s two hours maybe two and a half hours of planned nutrition. If you’re only going out for two hours this is perfect. If you’re training for something longer, say an ironman or other long course, we’re going to need some help.

You could take along a camelback, they’re great for water, but I hate cleaning them out. You could hide bottles on the side of the road, but that takes some planning and gambling. You could stop off and just get some more water at a 7-11 or a gas station, and you probably should. But do you want to do that every two hours? Maybe you do. Not for me to say.

For me, I like to pack it with me. A saddle mounted solution like this one or similar systems offered by manufacturers like profile design and others, offer the ability to add two more bottle cages increasing your range over the long haul. The xlab flatwing system offers a little bit more. With the addition of a threaded nut you can carry your CO2 & delivery unit, and carry a spare tube or two with a set of Velcro straps. I’ve been using this for a season and find that I use one extra bottle cage on the back and use the other side of the wing to hang my spare tube(s).

I’m a fan. ‘nuff said.

One of my favorite rides - Malibu - Latigo Canyon Rd

I say Ironman... Go on, question my sanity. But not before you check out one of my favorite bike workouts.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=613681

As a tool, mapping services like the gmap-pedometer are amongst my favorites.

The Gmap-pedometer site uses google's mapping API, markes off each mile (can be toggled on and off), and mixes in topographical data to allow users to see the changes in elevation over mileage. Web 2.0 adds the ability to use all the mapping features that google maps users have grown to love in addition to being able to edit routes by recording, then double clicking on the map to set way points.

Drawbacks? You can only plot out your waypoints in straight lines. From where I sit, that's it. In a click you can "Clear points and starover" and save the route that you've created.

Oh, by the way, the route features a steady four mile warm-up, and nearly 2000 feet of climbing through the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains over the next twelve miles. The rest of the ride is descents, small rollers, and views of the Pacific to die for. Let me know when you want to go and I'll ride it with you. -dean