New uniforms!

As I am finishing up some of my long rides and runs I am observing more and more soccer and football games forming with kids and parents getting everything out for these games and events.

It has brought back so many memories for me. I can remember getting assigned to my team and receiving my uniform! I would wear that thing first thing in the am with intense anticipation for the game to come later. Armed in my uniform I would watch Saturday morning cartoons (remember when that alone was an event?) and then anxiously pace around the yard with the sporting equipment I would need for my game.

My coach at the time represented such a figure of authority and I would live to impress him at my practices and games. I was absolutely convinced that the World would stop and take notice when the game I played was taking place. We would do feverish battle until halftime when all we hoped was for someone’s mom to have brought “cool” snacks. Capri Suns, twinkies, fruit roll ups, these were the food of the athletes of the day. Who the hell wanted orange slices anyway!?

What I started to realize is I never grew up in this regard. Here I am in excited anticipation for my next event. For me this happens to be IM Wisconsin then Hawaii. I cant wait for the final ride to take place so I can finally clean my bike and put the race wheels on, set out the transition bags, and eagerly set out my nutrition for the race (still not going to use the orange slices).

I want to impress my coach, my family, and of course prove to myself the work I have put in is for something. At the end of the day though, my results are my results. The person holding final judgment is I, just as when I was a kid. Just as today I sit and watch my kids do their sport and my ONLY hope is they have fun. I base my excitement or criticisms based solely on their own reactions. I suspect the people who love us and care about us will still do that even now.

So as you come into your final races for the season or if yours are over and it’s time to review please be as passionate as that little kid waiting with the soccer uniform on for days before the event, but realize just as then, more defines you then that one game.

We are all awesome; we are competitors each of us on our own levels.

Great things all around

I just spent the last week with Simon Thompson. He is an amazing athlete but more importantly an awesome guy. He has become a life coach and was telling me the tremendous satisfaction he gets from helping people balance triathlon with family, jobs, and other pressures and still perform well.

What he was saying rang so true. How many of you have ever been on a workout torn because you felt needed somewhere else therefore you could not really “engage” in your session? We all have. Simon is not a counselor but specializes in helping us put into perspective the things in our life that pull at us the most. VERY interesting. It is also rare to have an athlete still competing at the highest level willing and able to work with you who directly understands the demands of the sport.

I also spoke with Ryan Bolton last week. He has not raced in years, as he has been focusing on his coaching. He was not only an 2000 Olympic athlete, but also coaches Kenyans for running currently. He decided to jump into a half marathon and ran 1:05:08!!!

Wow!

Well done Ryan.

This week I am hosting one of my athletes Kristin Lie from Norway. She hopes to podium at Wisconsin this year, and she is looking pretty fit!

The Pig Gig

I just did Pigman Triathlon. It is an awesome race. It is reasonably priced, very well organized, tons of volunteers and aid stations, and even has an Elite wave that age groupers can do, as well as a time trial start for all others.

I am in the middle of my Ironman training right now as well as playing a bit of catch up with my knee as I had suffered an injury which just started to feel better a couple weeks ago.

Even though I felt a but off it was awesome to race for the main reason I looked up the last time I did the race which was 2000. My swim was about the same my bike was 2:31ish and my run was 1:43 for a 4:43 total time. That was 2000. This year I went sameish on the swim, 2:16 on the bike in a massive rain storm, and 1:32 on the run for a total time of 4:20.

It was fun to compete and remember vividly the last time I was on the course, who I used to look up to, where I was with my fitness, what I felt were good performances for me, etc. All of those things have changed but I can remember I felt I was pretty good back then and very close to my peak performances I would ever achieve. This is exactly what I try to enforce in my athletes.

What you think now is not what you will be thinking later. ANYONE can get faster do better, reach further, and set new goals. Please note in the example it was 9 years ago! You have to be patient I invested in good coaching, and have started to reap the rewards it has brought.

Pigman this years was insane. When we started it was raining and it was getting progressively more and more windier.

I took the swim out very quick knowing David Thompson would be the guy to watch. After a couple minutes I felt I was still in the lead. I saw Thompson start to come around me on the right hand side but about 10 yards away. I was sprinting as hard as I could to try to get on his feet. I worked myself into some bubbles but was not quite on yet. To my left I say a couple more swimmers. When I sighted I noticed David and I were pretty far off course. I decided to head back to course and gave up chase. That was a mistake as from that point on he just got further and further ahead. I was able to stay very comfortable in the chase pack and we came out about 90 seconds behind.

The bike was the single most insane bike ride I have ever done. It was raining so hard I wasn’t sure if the glasses would work so I left them behind. The rain was coming down so hard though and the wind was blowing so hard it HRURT to look forward. I caught an edge a couple times because I couldn’t see where I was going.

I had two riders in front of me that were riding pretty strong. I usually like to average about 300 watts for my half races and I was well over that trying to keep pace. After a few miles I was able to drop into second place but was clearly even matched with that athlete. We were able to maintain a pretty good average trading leads which was mentally helpful as at times I had to go 450 watts just to go 15 mph into the wind and quickly ran out of gears and was going 46 mph with wind at our back!

Coming into T2 I was 3rd, felt solid but no “snap”. Did the best I could to run solid but it simply was not happening that day. That is Ok too as I have to keep building up fitness on my knee.

Camps down under

Thinking forward to 2010 is a hard thing to do when 2009 is not finished. Unfortunately most of us have to as we are forced to do early registration on so many of our races.

One of the things I like to do is a camp with athletes in Feb-March time of year. Most of us cannot train all year outside and it is a nice thing to get out of the bad weather and off the trainer.

This year I have been talking t Ben Gathercole. Ben was the Australian Coach of the year for Olympic distance TWICE. He and I are looking to put a camp together in the February time frame in Australia!

Check back for more details as we draw closer and finalize details.

Southern Living

I have spent the last week at my parent’s house in North Georgia. The riding here has been awesome. Here is a picture of the top of my climb today, on this descent I hit 50mph feathering brakes! Some of the kids I run into in the gas stations look at me in my outfits as if I were from another planet! It has been so funny.

This would be such an awesome place for a TBC camp.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Simon Thompson

For those of you who havent met Simon yet, here is a brief interview:

Tooth-less

Was going to do a race report until BREAKING NEWS occurred today. My daughter lost her first front tooth. Does a race report stand up to news like this? No way! J