Xmas Week

Christmas has come and gone, i had a great visit with my family and Carley's family over the break but it was a lot of travel back and forth as well as dealing with the climate change, and a lost bike.
The rest of last week went well, some intervals on the bike on Wednesday and some swimming. Thursday was Christmas and i went for a 14mile run on freshly packed snow before having a great visit with my parents. Friday was a swim and some flexibility and core work and more driving.
Saturday i swam with the squad again long course. Coach Allian really is taking it to them. This was the workout.
1200warmup, 600kick
40x50 on :45 (first and third set of 10 where threshold)
2x800kick, 4x100 on 1:20pull, 4x100on 115 twice through.
then a cool down.
After the swim it was a longer ride it was nice to have my bike back.
Sunday was a little base work with a 3.5hour ride with some big ring slow cadence strength work followed by a 1hour run later in the day.
This week should be a great time with new years. I also have some great training partners in town. Blair and i are going to throw down some swims, as well as Mike Hay is visiting, and Ryan Smith will be back from Dallas later this week so we will have a great group for the next little while. Thats all i got for now. I am missing Texas, but being able to spend time with Carley has taken away some longdistance relationship stress so things are good.

good few days

Good few days, swimming with the old squad up here. Varsity and Club is on a training camp so i have had a few swims 6.7-7.3km sessions. Good ride on Sunday of a few hours and a long run.

Today was a very good day to get back into the groove of some structure. Swim in the morning with a mainset of 20x200m on 3mins @AT pace and heart rate, very solid, followed by a good nap, and a good run on the tready of 11miles in 75mins including 6x4mins at 11.5mph with 1.0-2.0 incline. After the short rest intervals it was 1hour of weights and core work and stretching.

Now it is Quaseo time, there is nothing like spicy hot processed cheese with tortilla chips for a recovery snack.

Tonight Carley and I are going to a Christmas Pajama party with some friends and tomorrow i will be heading to Orillia to visit my parents.

lacking vision

Good thing it isnt cold!!

bike still down

After arriving Wednesday night, i still have no bike. My ears are sore, really sore from listening to Carley yell at some poor man in India working for air Canada's baggage claims. I have never seen Carley get to crazy but i think having me wound up not being able to ride and UN-pack, she would really like me to have my bike to play with.

There are a few pictures of my trip, it was -4 f the other day day so that gives some Texans and the crew from the south a good picture of how cold it is here.

Mondays training was pretty recovery specific after a good weekend of training, and i have a light week planned to get back to Canada.

Tuesday was 3 good workouts in Texas with a Christmas party. One of the workouts was a fun fartlek of 5x6mins with 2mins easy, i did this on a trail, trying to run 5:15-5:30 pace for the intervals high zone 3, with a touch of zone 4 effort. The next workout was a swim session with some 500's aerobic, followed by a light spin and weights and core.

Wednesday- hard threshold swim in the morning, and the rest of the day was a travel day with a quick meeting in the airport with My uncle and Aunt.

Thursday- After arriving in Toronto, just north of orillia i did my first run in snow with a good buddy and a super fast runner Brandon Steele. After that i did some weights and core and then a spin on an exercise bike later in the day it was probably the longest hour of my life.

Friday- A long swim session with Masters and a continued road trip to Sudbury to Carleys house. So at this point i still have no bike and i am trying to arrange for it to get to Sudbury once it arrives in Toronto. It really amazes me on how they can lose a bike on a direct flight.

Saturday- 6k swim with masters, and a 2hour ride on my Schwinn stationary bike, which has become my new friend. I have a lot of names for it, but i would like my bike to arrive so i can at least watch movies and ride the compu trainer while i am here.

Tonight Carley and i just got back from watching Four Christmas's with Vince Vaughn. It was a must see movie.

Anyways i am really hoping my bike comes tonight or tomorrow, because all i can hear is airline music on the speaker from Carley having 4 lines connected with Air Canada trying to get through. The good news is, the box is in Toronto and is scheduled to arrive on a flight to Sudbury any time now. The other pic is of our Gingerbread house which is a yearly tradition Carley and I try to put together. It is pretty cruisey i know but after reading it has 220 calories per 32 servings i will not be eating it all after a long ride like i did last year. However, I must admit our Gingerbread house making skills are getting better yearly, and this is definitely our best house. I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and has better luck than me. Happy Holidays!

great weekend

What a fun weekend. Lots of training, some adidas swag, and some great food with friends.

This weekend was my last weekend in Fort Worth for a while, and i had a visitor from outside of town staying to do some training with us. William Ritter traveled down and had a great time training with Dave and I. Training was fun but very windy, Saturday we got in a good swim, followed by a longer ride with some hills, where Dave cracked his Cervelo pushing too many watts on some of the hills. In the afternoon we watched the beer mile which was a lot of fun, followed by a night out with some of the boys. Sunday was a solid run session followed by a 3.5 hour hilly windy ride again, followed by a trip to Dallas to meet Kate "Super Kewl adidas Rep" at the adidas store. She hooked us up and we are very grateful. Thank you Katie! After that it was back to Dallas for some sushi for Britney's (Saucony Rep) birthday where we sat with some wicked fast runners in town for the White Rock marathon.

This weekend was fun, but today is a much needed recovery day to pack/clean and get ready for a trip to Canada, luckey enough i was able to squeeze a lunch in with my good buddy Chance.

I have a lot to do and i always leave everything to the last second. Thanks again to Colonels bikes, for my super kewl new cycling shoes. I tested them out on Saturday and Sundays ride and they were great. Tomorrow i am meeting up with the legend "Sully" to have them heat formed to my feet for maximum performance. Then it will be road trip time, it should be an interesting trip back.

If i cant post before the holiday, i would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday!

letter from a friend

A good friend and training partner, a super swimmer in NCAA sent me his Ironman Az race report, so i thought i would post it and share is experience. He tried to get back at me on my birthday, but it didnt work. This is what Dave Mcmanic wrote, i hope you enjoy!

IMAZ Race Report

Before Leaving

I was planning on leaving for Tempe on wed. after work. However, I had been having a problem with some unwelcome tenants who had decided to move into my apartment the weekend before. Waking up at 2 AM Monday morning to go to the bathroom, I flipped on the light and found a dead rat who had fallen into the toilet and drowned in the water. Talk about being woken up in a hurry. Anyway, as this one rodent was not the only one who had taken up occupancy in my tiny apartment I decided to spend a few days at my parents house in Southlake while I waited for the apartment complex to bring in an exterminator.

I left without a hitch wed after work and made it to Midland, TX where I spent the night and continued the rest of the way Thursday.

Friday

Friday morning I woke up and went down to the race site to register. No major problems. After registering I took a drive along the bike course to see what I was getting myself into. I spent the rest of the day getting my stuff together and packing it in the bags. I also made a couple trips to pick up some last minute things. I went to the banquet that evening and sat with a guy from Canada named Bernard and his daughter. He was a cool guy and after chatting he told me he was doing his 18th ironman.

Saturday

I woke up early and went and took a swim. While swimming is my background, and I have done several open water 5K swims, I had never done one in a wetsuit. So this was a good chance to try out the wetsuit Yates gave me. I must say that I don’t like swimming in the wetsuit because I can’t feel my body position in the water. However, with a water temp of 63F I was certainly glad I had one. By the time I got back to the hotel, Mark, my best friend from high school had just arrived from San Francisco. The rest of the day we hung out and watched a movie and got a good dinner. It was to bed early for me as I had the alarm set for 4:45 AM the next morning. Mark stayed up and waited on my other friends who were driving in from LA.

In the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom and I see my friends from LA have arrived. They had brought a blow up mattress and an electric pump to blow it up with, however they did not want to wake me up and were attempting to blow it up in the hallway (keep in mind it is about 1 AM). I tell them to bring it into the room and blow it up inside so we aren’t kicked out of the hotel.

Race Day
Alarm went off and got to race site without any problems. I got all of my gear ready and dropped off the special needs bags. Otherwise I just relaxed and chatted with a few other competitors. Finally got the wetsuit on and to the start line.

Swim

I treaded water and pushed myself to the front of the pack since I knew I would be in the top of the swim. When the gun went off I went hard for the first several minutes before I got some separation for the 2,500 people behind me. After a while I settled in on someone’s hip and drafted off of him for the rest of the swim.

Bike

I got out on the bike with no major problems. Transition was a little long but whatever. I started my nutrition plan and just sat down for a long time in the saddle. There was a bit of a head wind going out on the bike but not too bad. I made it to the turn around where there was an aid station. This one was probably my favorite aid station because of the cute girls in santa hats and short green skirts. Each loop I debated on faking a medical injury just to hang out with them. My biggest fear on the bike was getting a flight and luckily I made it through with out that. My friends were there and drove out to different points of the bike course to see me go by and were definitely loud, just what I like. By the third loop I knew I was well behind my goal pace and wasn’t having a great day. But, I just continued on and figured there was a lot of race left to make up some time.

Run

I knew starting the run that there was no way I would be able to make my goal time. This got me bummed for a few minutes, but then I thought, today I am going to be an ironman. I knew I could walk 26.2 miles and still be able to finish well under the 17 hour cut off. This gave me a little motivation for the first half of the run loop. Also, during this point the top 3 pro males went flying past me all within about 20-30 seconds of each other. Raelert, the eventual winner, was in third when he past but you could tell was moving significantly faster than the two guys ahead of him. The first loop went by and I was able to run most of it, except for the aid stations and started out on the second loop. My friends were awesome the entire time and were moving around to different parts of the course to cheer. At one point they were running alongside me while I was crossing a bridge. Two of them were falling behind me, while the third looks back at them and says, “He’s raced like 130 miles so far and you’re going to let him drop you?” Definitely cheered me up and made me laugh. I finished the rest of the run/walk and met some nice people along the way. Of course with a mile left I start to pick up the pace and ran down the finishing line listening to Mike Reilly say, “David McManic from Fort Worth, TX, you are an ironman.” Definitely was cool. Immediately after the finish two girls pulled me to the side and ushered me out of the way to the food tent. I know we talked but have no idea about what. Hopefully I was witty.

Post Race

After I had a little time to recover my friends and I decide the perfect post race meal would be at the hooters down the street. I don’t really remember much of the meal probably because I fell asleep while sitting at the table. We went back to the hotel and I got a good shower and good nights sleep.


All in all it was a great experience and hopefully I will get a chance to do another one. I must thank Brent, Brian, and Yates who did a lot of training with me. Also, my friends for coming out and watching the race.

more of doing nothing

This past week has sort of been flying by. Training has been pretty low key so i don't have too much to discuss in those regards. This past weekend was pretty good for training, Saturday was a easy swim in the morning followed by a cycling session doing some TT's and some power tests. I was lucky to have a pretty good friend out pacing me and doing some work in making sure that i kept myself honest. The data from the TT was all over the place but that Power Meter was sent back and the new one should arrive tomorrow thanks to my wonderful sponsors at Colonels Bikes.
Sunday was a Little more work with a 3.25 hour ride in some crazy windy conditions with a 1hour run and a few other festivities involving core/strength and watching the cowboys lose.
This week has been super busy as i am spending most of the week training/packing and attending some last minute Christmas Parties as well as a rumored beer mile but i haven't committed to that.
Key Workouts so far this week, if you want to call them key have been a long run with 50mins tempo zone 3 restrictions so mid 160's averaged between 550-6mins with my nifty garmin. I am happy with those paces considering i was really holding myself back. It was over 13 miles in the 90minutes with a warm up and cool down so a good start to the week. A few swims, nothing special one of the swims was 10x150m at race pace on short rest. Another key interval session on the bike but nothing special. The rest of the week will have some good volume before i head back to the cold weather. I have had some neck problems lately that was a case of sleeping wrong but luckily Dr. Roberson saw me yesterday for a few adjustments and my great massage therapist Tim i will be seeing tomorrow, so hopefully i wont have any pain.
I have been seeing some great results in the weight room with my strength to weight ratio so i am hoping this will help me out a little come race season.
Other than that not too much to chat about. I should have some pictures from this upcoming weekends festivites but i will try to get away with drinking diet cokes and see if anyone notices while we are out.
Carley and i will be attending a few christmas parties when i am back so i will probably be eating salad for January and Februrary before the first training camp begins to make sure i dont look like Jan Ulrich pre camp days when arrive.
Have a wonderful week and be safe but aim high!

the last month

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last month. Its been the first day that i haven't had company over the last 4 weeks. After Iron Star Triathlon i took a bit of a break from things as Carley was down for a while, and my father was down for my birthday and thanksgiving. I had a great visit with Carley even though i was a bit sick and run down from my trip to Houston, she got me a pretty kewl 405 watch and i have been using it lately to down load my workouts. So the past month i have really focused on getting out of shape but working a little more on strength, and working on my golf game.
I had a great Thanksgiving with my Family and a great birthday even though it was a little out of hand. I don't have too much to report on training other than a few field tests and and out of shape birthday 10k swim as well as a 10k Turkey Trot that i was used to help pace a Friend. Its amazing how much a 10k can hurt after not doing to much, going out in the first mile in a 458 didn't help on the hurt scale.

Here are the 5 reasons i need to get back to some solid training and better eating.

1. I did the mirror test that James Cotter mentioned on his blog, and i failed.

2. Someone on the trail the other day yelled " hey Poulsen its 75 how many layers do you have on?" i replied " i am wearing shorts and a tee you ahol$!"

3. The waitress @ 8.0s brought me a Michelob Ultra and lime after not even ordering anything yet. Some how i had a hard time explaining to Scott and my Dad that i have never been to 8.0's and the waitress had me confused with someone else.

4. My Dad Said to me " are you sure your going to eat all of that?" * usually they are telling me to eat more.

5. I started to wear a tee shirt and shorts on deck while stretching before swimming, because Mcmanic called me the Nutty Professor!

Here are a few of the workouts and tests i have done this week. I am a hurting unit in the weight category but training isn't too bad.

Field Test 4mile Run with Mcmanic.

It was below zero and after a warmup we ran 4mile TT with a big cooldown. Kind of a hard run with tights and a jacket and all of the hat and gloves gear. Oh well it was fun averaging below 530 pace and 179avg hrt. (not good, but not bad for this time of year. ) i would have liked to see 520 at least but it was hard warming up when it was so cold and windy. Mcmanic agreed with his frost bite and sore legs so we chalked it up.

After 12x100m on 130 holding race pace threshold.

mostly 09's and 10's. i think i had 1@1:11 but other than that 10's or faster. This was better than i thought it would be after not doing allot. Alister has had me doing some strength and drill work since racing last so i cant complain for now.

Another session this am was a zone 2 base run, keeping my hrt at 140 i did a 90min easy run, i felt like death but averaged 715pace. I am hoping the weather will get better as i will be doing some power field tests on the bike on Saturday and a long base ride on Sunday.

another session i have done this week was a trainer workout, a nifty high cadence workout at 300-350watts. doing 10x30seconds at 100rpm, 5x1min @100+ with some recovery, also some single leg spinning work.

So other than a few swims a ride a few runs and some weights not much has gone on this week, and i will report on the rest of the power tests after the weekend. As for right now i am working and figuring out how i am going to kill all the lady bugs in my house. I have a feeling Carley saw one of them and didnt want to kill it and now i have its whole family living there.

Be Safe and practice healthy holiday habits as i have read the average American gains 8lbs from thanksgiving to newyears so luckily i am Canadian.