Well the Aggies ‘fell short’ last week against Memphis. Aggie fans (or those who picked them to win in their bracket) should not be bummed out, nor should they be kicking themselves over that loss. I read some article from a link on texags.com about the game and the journalist really nailed it when he pointed out the athletic upperhand that Memphis had. Both teams fought hard, but that slight advantage of quickness kept costing us. In fact, I was surprised to see it come to down to the final few seconds because it seemed like Memphis could make a run at any point. The home crowd was our advantage.

So the season ended ‘early’ and trips to Atlanta have been cancelled. I often tell some of my triathlon peers to ‘never been disappointed with improvement.’ Falling short of your dreams should not cloud the goals that an athlete or a team has achieved. You have to set your sights high, but there is only so much you can actually achieve. Obviously a team wants to win every game, but only B Knight has done that. He pointed this out in an interview I saw with him and said (abouting winnine every game); “by those standards I’ve failed every year, but one.” (For the record, I think that his undefeated IU team is one of the most impressive performances in sports history).

Aside from winning every single game the ultimate goal is to win the national championship, but when you come from 0-16 in Big 12 play its going to take time. Gillespie reminds me of what I often hear about Brett Sutton (triathlon coach): “Lots of coaches can make a good athlete great, but Sutto makes average athletes great.”

That’s Gillespie. Law is a good athlete turned great. But TAMU was a piss poor program one year and a favorite for many in the Sweet 16 3 years later. Please hang around Coach G. You don’t owe TAMU anything so I hope the university commits itself to keeping you.

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I finished up a three week cycle of training yesterday and I will be resting up for this weekend’s race; the Lonestar HIM in Galveston, Texas. This will be a good chance to get a glimpse of my early season fitness before I head off to Boulder for another summer. This year is much different from the past as I put training in ‘moderate mode’ throughout January and February (and all that after a light December and hardly anything in November). It feels great to have held back for that long. I feel as though I have another gear to go to as the training in Boulder begins in April. However, I still think I can get a decent result this weekend with what I have done.

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U of H hosted a Sectional Masters Swimming competition (hope I got that right) this weekend and some friends of mine from the Worth of Fort came into town to race.

Swimming became an obvious topic of discussion and I always love to hear the war stories of swimmer kids. This time I was fairly impressed when Nicole told me she swam 15 x 1500 Long course in a workout once. That’s a good week’s worth of volume for me. It just goes to show how marginal the gains are at the top and what athletes do to try to gain an edge.

So is it necessary to do a workout like this? Probably not as it relates to physiological gains, but the psychological gains can be tremendous. Coaches have to take their athletes’ heads into account when designing a training program. Author/Coach Cecil Cowen talks about one coach is his book, Breakthrough Swimming, who prescribed weightlifitng for his sprint swimmers. He wanted his athletes to look in the mirror and see strong arms; strong arms that could outspint anyone. He cared little about what the weight training did for their actual times.

I knew another athlete, an All-State Offensive lineman in high school (Stephenville), that told me he worked his biceps and triceps every day when played. He knew that this sort of training had little functional use, but he said he did it for intimidation. “I wanted the defense to see the most powerful arms in the state. And those arms were guarding our Qback.”

You have to love that.

jd

For those who aren’t in the know… …my parents are professors at Western State College (www.western.edu) in Gunnison, Colorado. They decided to take their spring break on Mustang island in Port Aransas, Texas this past week. Port Aransas is a small fishing/beach/tourist town about halfway down the gulf coast between Houston and Harlingen/Brownsville/So Padre Island. My family has been coming here since the 1970s (before me obviously) and they still have their original condo from then (minus the uber awesome 1970s furnishings). I decided to come down and join my parents for the week since my training plan was lower in volume (but higher in structure). There isn’t a lot of variety for training on the island, but it does have a nice outdoor 25-Meter pool, a beach to run on (packed, not loose sand), a decent track, and one main hwy with a massive shoulder that runs the length of the island for cycling.

However, I did have to be a bit cautious with the Spring Break crowd so I had all my cycling done by 10 or 11 in the morning. I thought I might be hard to see from those monster trucks running around the island. If you ever want to be thoroughly entertained I suggest you head down here for spring break some time and park on the beach. The beach is like one main drag with people cruising up and down all day long (for 5-6 miles). Its something worth seeing once, if not more.

A bunch of my non-tri buddies came down for the weekend from Houston so I spent all day and evening with them yesterday. We spent time on the beach, in the bar, and at the house watching the NCAA tourney. The Aggies actually made it to the Sweet 16. I cannot believe it.

TAMU is to basketball what Rutgers was to football this season. The past four seasons have progressed as such: ZERO wins in the big 12; to 8-8 in Big 12 and bubble team that did not make tourney; to making the tourney, upsetting Syracuse and losing to eventual Final Four finalist, LSU, by 2 points; to making the Sweet 16 and perhaps more. Amazing. They could not pay people to go the games when I went to school (all of three-plus years ago) and now tickets are a pain in the ass to get.

One of the biggest, and well-supported, universities in the nation should have nationally recognized athletic teams in every discipline most years. I’m glad to see that seems to be taking shape. We need work with our XC team (not sure as many folks care like I do), but I imagine that might come in time as well. We just need one kick ass runner and everything could change. I don’t think Whetmore is too worried about it though.

Anyways, I’m heading back to Houston shortly so that I can catch the UNV/Memphis game (winner places us in SA next weekend).

Take it easy,

jd

I finally got a solid week of training behind me in 2007.

As 2006 ended I sat around and debated what I wanted to do in 2007. I was pretty unsatisfied with IMFL, but I wanted to avoid going into a ‘redemption cycle.’ In other words, I didn’t want to compromise my recovery in the offseason, or my preparation early in the next season, to offset my disappointment from the previous season (I think I said that right).

Nevertheless, I found myself getting fired up in December as I recharged my batteries in the mountains surrounding Crested Butte. I was all set to race IMAZ, but as January neared I knew my_mind_was not ready for intensive focus. I still needed more time.

As a result, I decided to work during the months of January and February and put my training in a more moderate role. This was fine and dandy, but as February came around I was having a really hard time dealing with the lower levels of training. Its always a good sign to see motivation rise.

While this was hard, I still had another goal of trying to postpone my harder/longer training weeks in hopes of finding the right form with my new A race of Ironman CdA in June. I came onto good form in April/May last year as a result of having two excellent training partners in Florida throughout the spring. However, it was probably all coming together a little quickly as my A race was in late June.

Soooooooooooo, now its March and the heavier training has begun. My training blocks have a frontend loaded component to them which is followed by more intensive training prior to a short recovery block. A four week cycle might look something like this:

7 days of high volume, lots of steady state intensity and some tempo work
3 days of skills, lower volume; high cadence work, strides, normal swimming
11 days of moderate volume with higher intensity; mostly HIM pacing and/or threshold work
4 days of recovery, test day, easy day, test day

Test days can be long; usually AeT steady state rides and runs at this time of year. I might have a main set of a long ride with 2-4 hours of 150-155 HR. Hard, but appropriate. I also might place a race at the end of one of these blocks.

Anyways, this past week was the first overload week and I was very pleased with the results. My volume bumped up to 30 hours (can be 40 at its highest) and I had not even put in a 20 training week since this season began. Not only did I get in some good volume, but I also managed to handle a great amount of quality. This week’s key workouts included 2 rides with 2.5 hours (in each) of continuous steady state riding (150-155 HR) and a 105 mile ride on Sunday with a wide range of intensities. I also got on my bike every day this week. My run volume was moderate, but it included a Vo2 workout, a 21k steady state run, a 10K race, and two short T runs. Swimming had a couple decent main sets, but it was generally a frequency week. I always think that something has to give a bit during a big week of training and this time it was swim intensity, but not swim volume or frequency.

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Last weekend I participated in the Tom Rodger’s Texas Tri Camp (www.texastricamp and www.endurathon.com) and it was a great success. We had a great group of triathletes attend the camp and they were all highly motivated to learn how to improve. I know I made some great contacts and I will be looking forward to seeing all of them crush their respective races this season.

John Cobb, Coach Joe (Friel), Tom and I also had some brief discussions about some potential winter camps involving the wind tunnel at TAMU. TAMU’s wind tunnel is more affordable than most, but availablity is always an issue so let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can make it happen. I will keep you posted as everything develops.

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I will have some updates added to the website in this coming week, inlcuded a FAQs section to address some of the questions that I frequently get asked about triathlon, training, and myself.

It will also include a race schedule, but here it is for those who are biting their nails in anticipation…

April 1 Lonestar Triathlon; Galveston, TEXAS

May 6 Tri One O One; Brandeton, Florida

June 25 Ironman CdA; CdA, Idaho

July 22 EAS Boulder Peak; Boulder, Colorado (maybe depending on recovery from the IM)

August 12 EAS 5430 Triathlon; Boulder, Colorado

August 18 EAS Pikes Peak Ascent; Colorado Springs, Colorado

October 13 Ironman World Championship; Kona, Hawaii

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Have a great Monday,

JD