July 26th - "Rest Day"

I'm supposed to rest today, but since I took my car to the shop last night, I don't have a choice but to ride to work this morning. 20 miles, 70mins. I took a new way south from Tualatin - went left on Sagart then right south on 65th to Elligsen. 65th has a few hills in it, but still climbing out of downtown on Barbur and then 65th only got me 1250' of climbing. Felt like a lot more. I pushed the HR too high too, oops. I'm getting a ride home today.

Just read a crazy article in Wired "Pinch My Ride." It's about car thieves stealing "unstealable" cars with transponders. My favorite bit is about the Civic Hybrids, it has a cheat code, like video games, made up of e-brake pulses and ignition turns, and viola! You're in! After you smash the window or use a "jiggle key" (a key with shaved bumps). Crazy huh? It's like playing Contra all over again!

I leave tomorrow afternoon for Santa Rosa. I'm visiting a good friend from college at his families vineyard, Lamborn Family Vineyards. Should be fun. I'm doing that Friday afternoon, then doing race check in/prepare on Saturday before the race Sunday. Water temps were 81 degrees! No wetsuit, that will be a new one for me. Never have I swam an open water swim without a wetsuit. I hope the next time will be in Kona! There are 5 or 6 Ironheads going this year already, I hope to one.

Contra kicked ass! So did RC Pro Am!

July 25th - Rest Day

Today I am focusing on rest. I plan to foam roll the shit out of my legs and back this evening. Legs feel good, stairs aren't painful, but they are tight. I am also a bit tired, I will try to get to sleep early this evening. It's not as bloody hot anymore. It was 96 degrees again in my studio two nights ago, but last night was better! I wonder what is happening to the wine in my place in this heat...?

Oh, I finally made a reservation with Dream Dinners! August 3rd I am going to make dinners with their help. You basically go in and put together meals to take home and freeze. I'll be making SW Grilled Chicken, Mango Curry Chicken, Greek Beef Kabobs, Salmon with creamy lemon & herb sauce, Cashew Chicken and Pasta Primavera. I'll get two dinners of each. Each dinner is 6 servings. If I eat two servings it will be about 600-700 calories, plus any thing else I eat with it. 12 meals, 3 servings each for $220 => ~$6 a meal, helluva deal! Beats Taco Del Mar and bento for dinner everynight. This should be answer to my nutrition issues. Amazing I survived so far on crap...

Yes, I am going to be bored this evening. Should get some things done, like paying my coach, laundry, dishes, etc...

July 24th - Start of Rest Week

I have race coming up this weekend - Vineman 70.3 in Windsor, CA. This is the last race before IM Canada. It will serve as the final test of my IM pacing and nutrition.

Vineman 70.3 Goals:
S: 30mins
B: 2:45
R: 1:53

These are exactly half of my IM goals. While these are not fast for a Half IM, there are for an IM. The effort for these times should feel "easy" and able to sustain the effort for double the distance. Only in the last 5k of the run will I pick things up if I feel good. The danger of racing at half IM speeds is not being able to recover for Canada. I'll have four weeks exactly from this race to recover. I don't want to spend any extra time recovering from Vineman than I have too. Canada is priority.

Today is had an easy swim. It felt okay, not great.
WU: 500m
MS: 5 x 300m on 5min @ 1:32 pace
CD: 300 easy

My recovery ride consisted riding the fixie to have drinks with friends and home. Only on pint though. I am cutting that down in the next five weeks. As well as caffeine, but that battle isn't as easy as beer.

July 23 - Wow, Time to Catch Up

I guess that's what happens when you put in 25 hour training weeks. It doesn't give much time for updating your blog, grocery shopping, laundry, etc, etc.

July 13 - 45 minute run and a three hour Big Gear bike workout.

July 14 - 60 min run and 2 hour recovery ride.

July 15 - 95 mile bike. Spun out "Dirty 30" to St. Helens with a lap around Sauvie Island each way. Had a sweet tailwind coming home. Only five hours total time.

July 16 - 2.5 hour run in Forest Park. This was a good run for me, 18 miles. Didn't get the recover spin in afterwards...

July 17 - 35 mile spin and a swim

July 18 - Easy hour spin home from work, 20m, with a tack workout that afternoon. 4x400, 1x1mile and 2x2mile @ 6:45 pace. I won the mental game today, wanted to quit really bad after first repeat.

July 19 - Spin to work, Solid 16 x 200m swim repeats - these were really good @ 1:27 - 1:30 pace on the 3:20. Followed that up with a 40 minute run after work. Really tough run, really hot.

July 20 - Easy run at lunch, but super hot. Got a free massage from the massage school across the street. I got a creeping dude, hopefully i can get a woman next time. He had good pressure, but terrible technique and transitions. Anyway, afterwork I did BG intervals up Old Germantown Road. 5 min each of aero, seated and standing. I had to adjust a bit since OGR isn't long enough...

July 21 - Hour run @ 1pm --> Bloody Hell it was hot, about 95 already. Guess what? I still needed to ride for two easy hours. I spun out to Sauvie and around. Crazy humid patches out there. The clouds started to roll in a cool things down aside from the humidity. Wasn't looking forward to riding in the same heat for 5 hours the next day.

July 22 - Fortunately, the heat wasn't around today. We actually got rained on a bit, but still humid with the cloudy cover. Spun 40m with fellow Ironheads as KH was doing the infamous DD brick. When they ran for 6m, I did my one and only 45 min interval. Legs were tired and HR depressed. My resting HR these two weeks has been below 50 (within 8 beats of my normal resting HR), but still tired, a deep tired. Doesn't help I haven't slept more than 6 hours a night since Wednesday. Concert, etc... Jurassic 5 was pretty good. Oh, before I rode, I swam. Supposed to be 4000meters, but I didn't have the arms. Went 2000m and stopped, running late for the ride anyway.

July 23 - The culmination of these two weeks is a THREE hour run! Ended up pretty good. I dropped a coke @ mile 4 and Gatorade @ 6 and turned around at 10 miles in to Forest Park. The coke helped, could have used water instead of Gatorade in the end. I carried the bottles in and left them there. My hour recovery ride was on the mountain bike to pick those up. Freakin; 100 degrees when I rode!

Damn! What a two week period. Looking forward to Tuesday and Wednesday total rest days before I drive to Sonoma for Vineman 70.3 race. I'm leaving Thursday sometime. I have an important meeting Thursday morning...thinking I'm skipping the "marketing event" for work that afternoon.

Landis is a freakin' stud! I may not have time to wash clothes or buy food, but with DVR, there is always time to watch TdF!

Tuesday July 11

Scheduled workout:
Swim hour, bike two. The swim is to make up yesterday's that I missed. I hit the swim at lunch. It's the best being able swim outside. Unfortunately it won't last past Labor Day... The bike, well I got stuck at work so I only made it an hour on the trainer before I was bored to death.

I have finally unpacked from last week. My director brought me a World Cup while she was over there. She saw Brazil vs. Japan, pretty sweet.

Morning HR: 47
Yesterday: 44

Remind me to pay for my bike jersey for work and to get some new bibs from the Veloshop - Rockin' the full pink/black kit now! Can't wait for CycleCross season! But first, I need to concentrate on Vineman 70.3 and IM Canada...less than 7 weeks away. Which is why I am in the middle a the first of two 25 hour weeks!

Monday July 10

I spent the entire day at my bosses house working on strategic planning and market analysis slides. I was supposed to swim at lunch leaving only my 2 hour run to do that afternoon. We got busy, so no lunch swim. I did get out in time for a hair cut, well trim. After that I drove up to Leif Erickson to run. I wasn't looking forward to this run since my legs were feeling heavy and I was constantly stretching during the day. LJ, my hair dresser or whatever, said the runs you dread, turn into good ones by the end. She was right. It's also a sign of being tired, and not over trained when you feel shitty in the beginning and good during and even afterwards. Which I did. 2 hours, no HRM cause I forgot it. Felt good to go on perceived effort (PE). Went 14 miles.

Someone please explain the need to wear cologne mountain biking? Not one, but several dudes reeked of cologne as they passed by...Weird.

Sunday July 9

My coach said I needed some legs for this workout. 5 hour ride with 3 - 45 minute intervals (below IM and 2 at IM pace) followed by a 20 minute hill climb! Still reeling from no sleep and poor nutrition over the past week, I was a bit worried and took my time getting ready for this one. Slept in and didn't get started until late morning. I did the intervals at Sauvie Island (6+ times around) and rode up Logie Trail from HWY30 for the climb - brutal! I've never ridden Logie from the north side of Skyline, now I know why! Steep switchbacks at the top after being lulled into thinking it's easy because the first bit is mild. I followed the ride up with a t-run for an hour (6 miles). I picked up my pace for 20 minutes in the middle. Tough but good. Ran into a fellow Ironhead who was riding. He's got Lake Placid IM in a week or so. He'll tear shit up!

Came home and took off immediately to my brothers college graduation party at my parents. He just got back from Europe (Germany and Ireland). Wasn't able to get into a WC game, but drank lots of Guinness at the factory. Bastard didn't find me a T-Mo hat over there...oh well.

Recovery from Travel

I've had a very intense 7 seven days, need to recover. I had planned to ride 3 hours and a hard swim. I ended up just riding down to Oregon City out Redland road to Clackamas River and back into town through Lake O. It's one of my favorite rides. Along the Clackamas I had biker (Harley) cruise up next to me, we chatted about the weather and who was having more fun, then he took off. Pretty random, but it was cool.

Pretty much crashed and still didn't unpack. I wanted to go to the Timbers game, they were playing second tier English team, but nobody could go. Prolly best since, I needed some sleep.

San Diego Trip

July 4th I headed to San Diego for work. There was an educator conference called NECC there. I was able to get in a ride and run before i flew out that night.

1:45 bike down to Oregon City and back Taylor Ferry/Terwilliger followed by a T-run, waterfront loop (4.1miles).

I did see some fireworks from the plane.

July 5th - took off. Took it easy on the Booze Cruise sponsored by my work. The tour round the San Diego Bay was kinda neat, lots of military vessels. Aircraft carriers are freakin' massive!

July 6th - Morning easy run for 45 minutes with some PR people. That afternoon I took a cab to Coronado to swim. The hotel pool sucked. Coronado has a 50m pool, but it wasn't set-up and I had to wait for a hour before the 25yrd pool opened to lap swim. I started swimming, but after 30 minutes it was too warm, not the weather, but the pool, it was like 88 degrees! Besides I had another sponsor dinner to be at. More free food and drink.

July 7th - I had a speed work i needed to get done. I googled the area high schools and found SD High a 1.5 miles away. I was supposed to do 4x1 @ 7/min pace, but I though I needed to go faster, so I did 3x1 mile @ 6:30's. It was hot and muggy, unusual for SD.

Canada Re-Cap

June 30 - July 3

I left for Penticton on Friday with my friend Be. I invited two other friends who are racing IM Canada, but they could not make it. Be went because there is lots of mountain biking. He just raced the Cream Puff (100mile MTB Race) completing 60 miles of it on his new full squish. We loaded up with two road bikes and two mountain bikes and headed north. It's an 8 hour drive. I reserved a camp spot at Lost Moose Lodge. About 6 miles from town, up in the mountains. We arrived about 2am and set-up quickly and slept.

Saturday morning, we woke up late. Had breakfast at the Elite restaurant - fantastic 70's decor, totally original. Headed to the Bike Barn for some chamois creme, IM map, mountain bike trails map and some other stuff. Watched the England/Portugal shootout - poor England. Asked about watching the tour somewhere, they recommended a coffee shop, but they hadn't got cable hooked up yet... So, we went to the lake so I could swim. I swam for 54 minutes in the lake straight. Water was cool, but I was warm pretty quick. Still, it was nice since it is getting hot. After that we headed up to the Three Blind Mice trail just north of town towards Naramata. Hot and dusty! I am not in mountain bike shape. I was pushing my HR too high, so I backed off which meant Be took off ahead and waited several times for me. Just wait till we ride the IM course... We climbed for almost an hour over rocks slabs and boulders. Tough, but fun. On the decent we picked our way through whatever trail headed down, the all ended at the same place. There were a ton of stunt ramps and log rides - didn't attempt any! The last thing I need is to break something. Speaking of which, Be caught his handlebars on a branch sending him to the ground. He rolled out, after hitting his elbow and shoulder hard on the dirt/rock ground. His elbow hurt and was slightly swollen. After making it back to the car, we headed to the ER...$570CDN later, it wasn't broken, just sore. We got some food and headed to camp. Long day tomorrow riding the course.

Sunday morning we are off about 8am to Skaha Beach to park and ride the IM course. We skipped the first 4 miles out of town and the 18 miles out and back for the special needs drop. We headed out along the lake to the first climb at McLean Creek road. McLean Creek climb is short, but steep. Need to remember to just spin up and get back into a rhythm. The descent is short and twisty, no need to hammer this part. Once back on HWY 97 we head to Oliver and Oyosoos. There are about 58 wineries along this road! The stretch Be just tucked my wheel as we rode about 22-23mph the whole way to Oyosoos. Ritcher Pass, the first major climb, is at the 40 mile mark of the race. Ritcher is a good climb. There are three sections, with little downhills been each. I got in a good rhythm on each working about 150bpm in 39x19/21 gearing. The downhill is fast and straight, good times! Then come the rollers, there's seven of them. There is a false flat/roller right as the end of the downhill, too big of gear and it will hurt you, gear down. The rollers are big, except #4 and #7 which I was able to big ring over. The rest are too big to BG over. The valley you are in is beautiful, orchards, vineyards and a river running along the course, very nice. After the rollers it gets flat heading into Crawston and the special needs turn around. We skipped the 18 mile out and back to the special needs. It's downhill out and flase flat back. Now we are at mile 80 of the course heading up to Yellow Lake. When I drove this last year, it seemed like nothing. It's a bit different when you ride it. It's very gradual uphill until you hit some short steep sections. There are three of them before Yellow Lake, the last being the steepest and longest. 39x23 gearing was fine. It didn't feel too hard, but i was tired to begin with and I should be more fresh come race day. It's all downhill from here, well not really. There another climb after Yellow Lake. Not bad, just mentally defeating if you expect it to be all over... The downhill is more work than I anticipated as well. I rarely get caught going downhill, so I intend to push the Yellow Lake climbs and spin the downhills to keep my legs moving. It will be important to keep them moving and not static on the downhills. Great views of the lakes and town on the downhill!

All in all, 90ish miles for the day, just over 5 hours. Finally found somewhere to watch the Tour, but we were there for 4 hours, two just waiting for it to come on. It sucks watching TV with commercials when you can't fast forward through them.

Monday morning rolls around. The plan was for me to swim (1hour) and run (2hours) and then mountain bike that afternoon. I swam and ran while Be drank coffee and read in town. My run was less than desirable. I ran miles 4-11 (15-22) of the marathon course. These were the miles with the hills. The hill at McLean creek road is the worst. Going down the backside was stair stepped while the front is just straight up. It was 85 degrees at 10:30 when I started, over 90 by the end. There is no shade and with my stomach not absorbing anything and getting side aches every drink I took, it was a tough run. I ran/walked the last fifteen minutes. Two little girls were selling 7up/cranberry juice drinks, that was very good! Hopefully they are there during the IM.

Be didn't want to really ride that afternoon, neither did I. I also had to catch a plane to San Diego on Tuesday night, so we packed up and left. We stopped at a winery Illinskillin, it had the best name. There are known for their ice wine, it was good, but only their most expensive version. The cheap version wasn't so good. I got two bottle of a Bordeaux blend, for my dad. I learned awhile ago that when buying wine, you must buy two bottles. It was a good blend. We were in a hurry, so the tasting was quick.

The idiot border patrol thought I had five bikes on the roof and gave me shit about no front license plate. Idiots! He thought I was carrying other peoples shit. Moron, there are two road bikes, two mountain bikes and two people, think about it!!! Long drive home! I'd like to thank the Kronik energy drink for keeping me awake. Is it a good thing when Taurine is the second ingredient behind water in that drink???