If you’re a Colorado local then you might have turned on Channel Nine news at noon on Friday and decided that I am a damn liar.

I didn’t appear on live news like it was originally planned. There was a major explosion in the Denver area and that took precedent over me. I did do a taped interview with Channel Nine and Channel Seven which were both aired at some point over the weekend (though I’m not sure when).

I also did three radio interviews (two local; one national) on Friday. I was scheduled to do an additional interview on Sirius, but I was bumped by Michael Vick which was one of the more surreal moments of my day (and life).

The entire day was a completely new experience and I was pretty wiped out by the end of it, but I was really psyched that I had the oppurtunity to do more than race for one of my sponsors.

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I also raced the EAS Boulder Peak triathlon this weekend. Good times

I always have a bit of anxiety with these high profile short course races, but a couple of my long course amigos were racing alongside me so that gave me a little more to work with.

The water was above 72 so the elites were racing without wetsuits and I have ZERO issues with that since marginally warms waters have a tendency to blow me up like no other.

We had a pretty big elite field with almost 35 guys. Given the caliber of athleticism in Boulder this was going to be a fast and hard race. I was sure that the swim would include an aggressive start so I was merely hoping to get towed out for 2-400 meters where I had hopes of finding a group to swim tempo with.

The race director gave the final warning at 30 seconds and all I remember from that moment to the firing of the gun was the silence. Everyone: the spectators, the athletes… …it was like a golf tournament. Pretty cool actually.

The race kicked off like I thought, but I found myself gapped from the two main groups ahead of me. I actually moved ahead of the guys around me and solo TTed for nearly 1000 meters to the swim finish. I came out about 4 minutes from the lead guys, but about 60+ seconds from the second pack. I’m going to need to get my swim starts down as I likely wasted time and energy missing that train.

Nevertheless, I was off onto the 42K bike course. I felt nice and smooth and fortunately I was not dealing with a 190+ heart rate that I often see after T1 in short course races. I paced myself nicely to the base of Olde Stage and summitted the climb within my comfort zone. The rest of the ride was uneventful and I hopped off the bike with hopes of running down a few people on the three loop circuit.

Well that did not happen; at least not by will anyways. I did manage to run a few people down, but that was only a result of the fact that their meltdowns were even great than mine. It was around 100 degrees (our race started at 9:00 after the AG race) on an exposed, windless and dusty run course. No matter what I tried I just couldn’t pick the pace up. I was totally tapped out as I saw an immensely elevated heart rate, but without the pace to match it. So I just stayed relaxed and finished the day as best I could. I ended up around 20th in the professional race which was fine by me on the day.

So 2:07 and the 20th place is ground zero for the years to come. I’m hoping to make this race a staple over the years as long as Boulder is a place I call home. Plenty of room to grow there!

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Yesterday I finally did a ride I had hoped to do for over two years now. I rode to the top of Mount Evans (14,200 feet) via the highest paved road in North America. However, in hopes of making the ride truly epic we made sure to ride eight hours and climb over 12,500 feet along the way.

Chris McDonald (www.trimacca.com) , Marilyn MacDonald (www.marilynmacdonald) and I rolled from their summer home in Nederland around 7:00 yesterday morning and made our way up a long, long, long climb. I have never been above 13,000 feet on foot (or bike) so I was really looking forward to getting to the top.

All three of us stayed together the entire day with the exception of a few miles and we all walked away with a new experience at day’s end.

Around 10,000 feet (when the air was getting quite thin) Chris commented that he felt ( and I agreed) that very few of the professional triathletes living and training in BoCO would (or have done) the ride we were currently doing.

I responded: “Dude, most people haven’t even ridden up Sunshine Canyon, let alone Mt Evans.”

Training works best with routine, but the willingness to train can be fueled by adventure. Don’t let pace and power compromise your need to have fun fromt time to time. I might not be able to justify the physiological gains from a ride like that, but it will be one of the few days I will remember when this is all said and done.

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The Ironman Canada preps are continuing to go well.

All the best,

Justin

Sorry I could not post this earlier, but……

I will be appearing on Channel Nine (Denver, CO) during the 12:00-12:30 newscast today, Friday July 20th.

-Justin

A friend of mine sent me an email a few days ago.

In this email he asked as to whether or not I thought it was possible to make enough improvement over the course of three years to qualify for Kona in 2010.

My first IM in May 2001 was 12:55. My second in November 2003 was 9:20. In addition to his first question, he asked what it took for me to make that progression in the course of 2.5 years.

I responded with the following email.

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Justin writes:

Yo-

I’m not quite sure how to answer this question. I can give you the rundown on how I improved, but that might not be the answer as it relates to what will make you improve.

Some basic factors for Long course improvement (In my opinion) would include:

1. Bike Volume. It will need to be quite solid at some point in your life (and you need a good relationship with your bike). Long course athletes typically always make a big jump from this. I like to see all intensities addressed at some point each season; not limited to easy/steady. I prefer fartlek training based on terrain that can address all systems until you are in a specific race prep.

2. Proper run biomechanics coupled with frequent running. I also suggest being a sucker for soft surfaces. I run on soft surfaces all the time with the exception of some sessions specifically designed for eccentric overload (and these run a risk).

3. Adequate technique in the water that allows for conditioning. IOW, stroke can always be worked on; but it initially needs to be_good_enough for fitness improvements. I believe in drills and technique, but training/conditioning is specific to the muscles trained (there is general conditioning carryover from BRing, but not on site at the muscles).

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My IM in 2001 was mostly just an adventure for me. I likely trained about 8-12 hours/week, but I generally considered it as exercise/working out since it wasn’t many more hours from my days of lifting and cardio w/os. I did about 3-4 rides over 2 hours (total) and I didn’t run over 90 minutes from Feb-May (race was in May). I also swam about 2000-4000 yds/week at most and I don’t think I swam more than once in May leading up to the race (needed the taper:)

My point is that I might have finished the event a little more quickly had I understood what the hell I was supposed to do. 12:55 may or may not have been an adequate assessment of my fitness at the time, but it was a starting point in any case.

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I made some good improvements from may 01 to may 02 and it primarily came from riding my bike.

I simply enjoyed riding 3-5 hours 2-4x/week (usually 10-12 hours/week with the occasional 15).

I didn’t have major intentions of improving in my first couple years in triathlon (I just really liked to ride and the swimming and running were part of the gig).

It wasn’t until a couple seasons had passed that I started to do what I ‘needed’ instea of what I wanted (and even that wasn’t always addressed adequately because I lacked a consistently objective source).

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I don’t know how much of my progression can be attributed to what makes-me-me, but I personally believe that the major gains came from my consistent willingness to train as well as my need for social interactions (my friends didn’t train and I enjoyed their company. that meant time away from training). I always trained, but I never burned myself out.

I’m also not sure I can assume my path of improvement will work equally with anyone who plugs in the formula.

Frankly I’m sure could have done things “better” (or worse!) and if I were to help someone I would guide them differently that I guided myself. Nevertheless, adventures of self-discovery do have their place.

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In the end I would tell you this:

If you want to qualify for Hawaii in 2010 then you have to make sure that you_really_enjoy triathlon.

I’m not really talking about balance in your life (that’s another discussion).

I’m talking about what you find to be fun within thise sport.. That does not mean you have to be indifferent to your results. It just means that the process of attaining results is what brings you joy (and not relying on the results themselves to make you happy).

If you can focus on doing fun events and training in the next three years then I imagine you will find yourself with the best level of improvement when Sept 2010 comes around. I don’t know that it will be enough for Kona or not, but I imagine it will be your best given the time you have put in leading to that date.

You can work with a three year plan, but keep the focus within the year, month, week, and day.

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I will post some follow up as it comes.

-Justin

I didn’t know what giardia was until last Wednesday. The nice folks at the Boulder Med Center kindly informed me of the parasite that was hanging around and totally wrecking my system every 2-3 days.

I suppose that most onlookers would have encouraged me to go to the doctor as soon as I felt ill the second time (as opposed to the fourth). The problem was that I was having good training sessions once I recovered from every shalacking. That made me question actually having an illness (much like folks questioning if they are really overtrained). Given the diversity of GI problems in the population I thought that perhaps mine came from anxiety, dehydration, nerves; whatever.

Well all those justifications were clearly incorrect and I’m currently finishing off a prescription of meds to kill the sucker. I cannot guarantee the source, but I would imagine I received giardia from open water swim training in the Boulder Reservoir as I got sick for the first time shortly after swimming there.

Kind of amazing to think that I trained_and_raced with a parasite in me. No wonder everyone kept commently that I was thinning out. No nutrients were getting to me!

My training has been a bit up and down this week. I imagine that the meds, the illness, and the training-I-did-while-ill has buried me a bit.

7.5 weeks to IMC and I feel relatively confident about my fitness. Even with these setbacks it has been easy to make adjustments since I’m not spreading myself thin with races. That allows more time for patient progression.

no thoughts today, just updates.

cheers,

justin