Iron Star Triathlon

On Friday i travelled South to The Woodlands to stay with a great friend from the Czech Republic Mikey Benes. We had a great time for a couple of days before the race catching up and doing a bit of training. Mikey is a very good friend and he opened his door to a few of us to crash at his place.
On Sunday i did everything for a triathlon that you shouldn't do if your looking to have a good race. After having wetsuit problems earlier in the season i decided not to take my suit and what a mistake that was. The temperature had dropped the last couple of weeks in Texas making for a cold morning and a very cold swim.
To make matters worse, we were late getting to the race, because of a wrong turn and small complication of Mikey Making oatmeal at 7pm Saturday night and then waking up in the middle of the night because he forgot the oatmeal was still on.
Needless to say it was a pretty fun start to the race.
The Swim
Due to a cold start i decided not to warm up because i didn't want to stand around for 20minutes till my wave would start. I swam slow and tried to avoid cramping because of how cold it was. I was pretty sure that i was going to get hypothermia and if anyone knows me in the past i am absolutely useless once i start to shiver.
I excited the water around 26minutes which wasn't too bad for this course, and the extreme difficulty to sight the buoys and the ability to get moving.
Bike
The bike was a enjoyable hilly windy course that felt a bit long, and a few people mentioned there bike computers indicated that. The first 30miles i was very cold and felt useless however i started to get moving and averaged close to 24mph which is a bit off due to the distance/time.
Getting off the bike, i knew i was in Second and there was a pro up the road with roughly 9mins on me.
Run
Good enjoyable run, minus getting lost at one of the turnarounds where no one was standing. After a quick detour i was on course and running pretty solid. I caught the leader with .5miles to go, and just kept on going to the line. I finished in 4:14 and change but due to some errors with the starting wave i am not sure if that is correct, i am sure the results will be posted in a few days.
All in all it was a good training race, and a fun weekend. My new Orbea is super fast, Doug and Josh at Colonels did a great job making sure it was dialed in and John Cobb put the icing on the cake with his professional bike fitting.
I would like to congratulate everyone out there in some tough conditions. Mikey and William had great races and i am looking forward to watching them in the future. Good luck to Mikey and Trent in Arizona.
Carley will be here this week so i hopefully i can get some pictures posted of the adventures we have down here this week.

more from saturday

In The Woodlands training for IronStar 1/2 Ironman Tommorow. having too much fun with Camera Features.

more playing with Mikey's Camera

saturday training in The Woodlands

This week has sort of flew by since the last time i posted. It was an excellent turn out at the Meredith Hatch bike Rally and Chuck Burr and the rest of the amazing individuals that donated bikes did a great job. I know chuck has a wear house full of bikes that will be donated to kids at Christmas, so a job well done to everyone for coming out and showing support.

Saturday after a swim and the bike rally it was off for another 2.5hour ride with Mcmanic and nice guy we met from the Moritz Cycling team, i think his name was Erik but if iam wrong i am sorry. Anyway it was great to have some company on the ride. After the ride it was a short nap and then off to the Texas Longhorns vs. Tech game Party .* (what a game!)

Sunday was another great day with a 85mile hard ride with Mcmanic it was 30miles of Cruisey pace then 50miles at a hard intensity which worked out to be 24mph with the wind and hills, just over 2hours for the 50miles. A great run off the bike and some light stretching and a nap and the weekend flew by fast. My position feels great on my New Orbea, i am excited to put it too the test Sunday.

This week has been a fair amount of everything, i am not really resting much until tomorrow when i am in Houston.

A good tempo run, a good swim with 16x50m on 45seconds flipping 34-35's good consistent effort of race pace. Another good bike session with some 4min efforts at 270-300watts to keep the legs sharp for this weekend.

Core and strength has been really something that i will be focusing on during the off season leading into a big race season next year.

Last night at the gym i have been doing some AA type work to get my body back to the routine of strength.

I did some rowing to warmup then, single-leg press, leg extensions, abduction adduction exercises, leg curls, db squats, ropepushdowns, single arm cable curls, db bench press incline and flat, and some shoulder press routines. Each gym session has been different but really lite to get me ready to start strength after the next few races.

My core for the last couple weeks have been a few sessions a week usually pared up with strength or before swim workouts.

4x1minute of each exercise: Back Extensions, V-ups, Crunchs, side crunchs.

Then a few sets of bridge exercises with back on ball, then laying on floor with feet on ball and often trying to elevate one foot and hold balance. Then some bridge work on my elbows lifting legs and then on each side.

I have been doing a lot of neat roll outs on the ball and different exercises involving firing my hamstrings and using my core to iniate movements.

So the long story short is Alister has me working on the strength/core as i am weak.

The picture of the pancake or yam cake i call it is one i made this morning, i didn't eat all of it but i will eat the rest soon, it packs roughly 560cals and 120ish carbs. I will continue to increase my carbs over the next couple of days to make sure my glycogen storage's are adequate as i am not resting much i need to make sure i have fuel for Sunday.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend>