Brett Favre is awesome!

The energy is really building now.  The pier is one of the most famous venues of this race, it’s the swim start and home of transition.  Every morning from about 6:30 onward it’s a mass of shaved, lean bodies jumping in and doing their swim workouts.  It’s also a who’s who of the sport from the young stars to the old legends.  Ironman is unique.  There aren’t too many sports where the best in the world hang out and do their sessions where everyone else does.  The other day at the pool Craig Alexander last year’s mens champion was swimming during open lane swim with two other random folks.  You could fashion it to seeing Federer warming up at some public courts in town.  It’s rare in the sports world.

Quick swim with a short set with Mike then onto the bike for a 90 minute ride and another prep set.  Swimming is feeling really good and riding is as well.  Home by noon, some food and a good nap then Finn time on the soccer pitch and in the pool.  Short run this afternoon with some strides and now a couple hours of “the office”, best show on TV.  Bought first season of Friday night lights that we might get stuck into as well.

FOR SALE: Tubular Tire- $29.95 plus shipping and handling
700cc
Excellent Condition
Used for about 100km of riding
One small hole
This tire retails for $130 and is a must have for anyone who likes to ride their bike. Don’t let imitation tires fool you. This is the real thing. It can hold up to 200psi.

This picture is not from Hawaii, it’s a random one i found on my computer.  This is how tough I look when I’m feeling loving and cuddly.

Yesterday I had my first flat tire on tubulars.  In 14 years I guess that is not bad and better to get it out of the way.  It also gave me my first real opportunity to change a tubular.  I’ve had this old spare from a track bike that is super thin and light and very pre-stretched.

Step 1- Rip the old tire off- no problem there- done in about 30 seconds

Step 2- Fit spare tire onto the rim sans glue and remember not to corner with any great ferocity

Step 3- Pump up the tire

Oh, missed a step, need to put valve extender onto new tube.  One problem, I don’t have an extra one and I can’t for the life of me get the one off the flat tire, it’s like someone put it on there with a vice grip.

Mike goes ahead to get into his set which is the wisest thing to do, nothing worse than being the guy with a flat holding up the other guys, i really hate that.  So, i struggle for about 5-10 minutes trying to get the bloody valve extender off and no luck.  Some eager passerbyers stop to help when i ask if any of them have uber strong fingers.  There were even a couple Germans who stopped who were rather large and ripply but they couldn’t do it either.

Just about to hitch a ride back into town and enter Justin and Belinda Granger.  Justin has the idea of the day- use a couple lava rocks to get leverage on the valve extender……voila it worked and i promised him i would mention him in my blog if it did so hats off to you mister granger.

Mission accomplished, fresh tire on and back into the set 20 minutes later, no major loss.  Moral of the story, spare tires are no good without valve extenders.  And when in a pinch lava rocks can solve most problems- there’s energy in those rocks!  It was an expensive ride though.  Take the two new tires I put on before this trip at $130 each and this one at $130 US plus $50 in labor and that’s darn near $500 in tires in less than a week.  So, if the folks at Continental or Vittoria want to sponsor me next year I would be most appreciative.

This morning we swam the course and I felt like ass.  Sometimes just not connected from the waste down but seemed to get going in the back half.  75 minute run this afternoon in the heat.  Felt surprisingly good and HR was still in control at the end.  Acclimation seems to happen more quickly than it did 8 years ago.  The heat feels more friendly than it used to.  A few more days and it should be no issue.  Spent 90 minutes in the pool with Finn after blowing bubbles and jumping in off the side.  Kids are the bees knees.

Rich and Heather are here with their two kids which is just dandy.  Rich’s 6 year old daughter just finished a two year bought with Lukemia so every time we see her it is a treat.  Tough kid and makes you really think about how lucky we are when they are healthy.  I can’t imagine watching your kid go through that at any age.  All the NFL players are wearing pink on account of Breast Cancer month which looks really cool…..pink shoes, pink gloves, pink hats…..fun to see a whole league get into it that much.

One more day in Victoria and we got lucky this time around.  Every key workout in the last two weeks was in the sun.  Yesterday it turned into fall in a hurry and today we had some good cold rain.  Thursday off to the big island and I can’t wait.  In the past i’ve been a bit reserved in excitement about Hawaii.  Mostly because I knew I was likely going to receive a thumping and that ain’t no fun.  This year, i’m heading in with a better perspective I think.  I simply want to go there and see what my best effort can produce.  I think we can often tell ourselves we are not outcome oriented but underneath the bullshit we still want a certain outcome.  I think this is human nature.  This year I feel more at peace with the whole thing, more like a rookie.  I have no real expectation because I have no real result there, so far all attempts have lacked any fireworks.  A solid day with no major detonations and a chance to see what my best effort produces and I’ll give myself a high 5.

The last two weeks I’ve been on the MNTP philosophy.  It’s a method of training developed by a team of coaches years ago.  Like most philosophies it’s not rocket science and with only two real weeks to hit some key workouts I figured my body would do well with a small variation in stimulus.  So far so good.

Surprisingly I find myself quite motivated after Ironman Canada.  But what do you do with only 6 weeks between ironman events.  In my estimation not much.  It’s a tricky time frame, barely enough time to recover, not really enough time to settle back into training.  In my estimation, i think it is a perfect amount of time…..5 weeks too little, 7 weeks too much.  I think it’s possible to pull off two good Ironman races in this time.

2 weeks completely off

2.5 weeks of regular training with key workouts only on the bike and run and increased swim volume as well as 1 week heat acclimation before heading

10 days to acclimate, couple more key sessions, keep swim volume and intensity up.

The only question remaining is how to manage the two weeks between Hawaii and Xterra.

Hit the wall today but three good days will do that.  Still feeling a bit out of whack from the back but it’s coming around.  I always find the first hard run back after an injury time out a bit uncoordinated.  Saw Dr. Guan yesterday for some adjusting and that seems to have put me back in alignment.  He worked on my right ankle for 35 minutes, guys awesome.

Tuesday

Threshold+ swim- 2500m of work

Threshold+ Run- 20 minutes of work

Bike- Easy spin

Wednesday

Belted it with Mike for 3 hours

Observatory- 5:54

Durrants- 4:51

Thompson- ?

Dean Park- ?

Observatory to finish- 5:38—i think the fastest i’ve ever gone up there.

Swim- Easy recovery

Thursday

Threshold swim and belted–felt like having a sleep

Run- 45 mintues with Finn

Well it’s not actually an hour and i’m not sure how much power i have but it was quite delightful.  I joined super Mel for a few hours of super fun mountain biking in the dump.  I’ve heard of the hour of power but never experienced it first hand.  It’s an 8-10 minute loop with a mixed bag of terrain, some quite technical, some fire road.  We went for 4 loops.  It was super fun and I learned that control on the bike when you are going hard is a different ball game.  I think I faired quite well and Mel is a good guage considering she probably outrides alot of guys.  She kicked my butt on the more technical sections i cannot lie.  I was doing well on the third loop until I stuck my foot through my front wheel and broke a spoke.  But my Shimano XTR wheels (deliberate product placement) are bomb proof and i was able to ride the entire fourth loop with a busted spoke and very little wheel warping.  I even managed the ride home no worries.

It ended up being about 35 minutes of power…..infact i’m so powerful that is how fast i can do an hour of power…..in 35 minutes.  As usual, it was one of the most fun workouts all week.

Here is a random picture of Adam Campbell running.  He just finished his first year at law school and said it was pretty intense. Not as intense as an hour of power adam, not nearly as intense my friend.  Who do you think you are anyway, comparing law school to the hour of power.  I’m calling you out man, hour of power or law school?

He is doing the Vancouver marathon next weekend.  Send him happy vibes.  Go Adam

This weekend we did a big group ride up to Parksville and back with Mike Neill and Human Powered Racing.  This is a yearly thing for HPR.  Two days back to back 180km in each direction.  Group ranges from all levels, some making it up in around 5 hours, other up to 7.5.  Pretty epic days for some of the folks.  We stop in Chemainus on the way up for lunch which was an interesting way to break up a ride.

We hammered away with a group of about 5 and made it up in just over 5 hours.  I will admitt my legs were pretty smashed by the end.  Ben Cotter can mash some massive gears!

That night, cheap motel, pizza ordered in, bed by 8:45 then up the next morning for return journey.  An hour into Sundays ride I hit a rather significant hole and snapped my steer tube.  I would say I’m rather lucky to have stayed upright, we were on a slight downhill, probably around 50km/hr.  Lucky the steer tube went and stayed more or less in tact, rather than the stem, handlebars or tacoed wheel.  So my sunday was spent in the back of a pick up truck listening to 60′s rock with some of the awesome support group.  I got some sweet new aps for my iphone.