So, it is Friday afternoon. My last weekend of doughboyland/active rest is this weekend. After that, it’s full tilt tri training (14-20 hrs per week) until another break in mid July after my firist set of races in late June early July. This weekend, only a laid back run on the agenda !
What are you all up to ? Good luck to the boyz and girls heading to Boston. Save some juice for the last 6 miles. Enjoy the crowds as you pass Fenway and don’t look up at the “Citgo 1 mile to go sign”. You can see that sign for 3 miles it seems. Killer !
Dev,
I’ve been doing 10 to 15 hrs during the week and 5 to 7 during the weekends for the last two months. Good luck DOUGHBOY :-))
Goodtime, where do you get all that cosmetic bulk on your legs. Have you been on the same program as Bjorn ? I’m going mountain biking with my 7 year old tonite. He is actually getting to the point where I have to work to keep up…or maybe I’m just being a total doughboy 
doughboy dev
Besides doing a lot of housework, I am doing a long ride tomorrow morning, and running a 1/2 Marathon on Sunday. Looks like the temp is going to be over 70 for the first time this Spring.
Dev, put slicks on it and teach him to ride rollers…
I don’t think the boy’s bike would fit on my rollers…plus my wife would likely freak if he went flying off…he has tried his MTB on my TACX ergotrainer though :-). I think we’ll stick to some single track riding tonite. No doubt, I am sure that I’ll have to buy him a BMX bike in a few years !
Oh yeah…I’m going to watch the Ottawa Senators hopefully beat the Leaf’s tonite and hopefully New Jersey can squeeze another game out of the Flyers. I hate it when Bobby Clark teams win !
Speaking of hockey…do you guys know that the Leaf’s goalie Ed Belfour has done multiple half Ironman in ~ 5 hours back in the early 90’s. Seems like he could easily get a Hawaii celebrity slot.
That’s child abuse! (joke)
I’m plodding through a 5k tomorrow morning, followed by a 25m spin and a short swim. Sunday is a 60mile easy/moderate ride and a PM short run. First race is the Georgia Rock n Roll Man on June 13. Hours lately range from 5 to 17 depending on which side of the bed I get up on. 
A hockey player on a celebrity spot? That’s an oxymoron.
I’ll probably go for a 50-60 mile ride tomorrow. It looks like it will be mild and not too windy, which will be nice. This will be my third outdoor ride this season, and the first one where the weather didn’t suck. Hopefully I’ll avoid the traffic that I ran into last week as well.
Sunday I’ll go for a long run(13-15 miles).
I’m (finally) almost over this thing I’ve had for two weeks. Awful. I rarely get sick, and I’m a big wuss when I do. So about the only thing I hate about all this training is that it weakens my immune system just enough for me to catch this junk that would normally not be able to touch me. Sore throat, stuffy, cough, ears plugged up, dizzy.
What is this “rest” of which you speak?
Is Matt entertained yet? Would it please my lord that I go on? Very well then.
I’m in the process of printing out and signing up for this season’s events, as well as getting my meager Ironwishes campaign going. Meanwhile, my wonderful wife is maniacally(and I do mean maniacally) planning our August vacation. I’m sure that now that the weather is getting better, it will all go by in a flash, but right now it seems overwhelming. July/August is going to be a monster time period. I’m doing Lake Placid on 7/25, then flying to Hawaii on 8/2. Two weeks in Hawaii, then home again, with an Int’l race the following weekend, and a 1/2 IM two weekends later. Right now it all seems so daunting and far away, but I’m sure that by September I’ll be lamenting that it’s over.
Have a great weekend, and let me know if I should ramble further.
…man, if you are not going to Hawaii, in Oct, at least go in the depth of winter when it is nice in Hawaii and sucks in the North East :-). Mind you, your wife likely deserves a trip to Hawaii after putting up with the buildup and racing in LP :-).
If I get really encouraged I might start my yearly swim program this weekend, that normally starts on April 1st (yes, my swim split is a sad April fool’s joke), but which I have deferred to April 18th this year :-). I figure I don’t ski in the summer so why swim in the winter !
Well, the pretense for the Hawaii trip is a friend’s wedding, and it is Aug. 5th. That’s pretty well set in stone. And you’re right, she absolutely deserves it, just for putting up with me, nevermind the training, the me always being asleep, and the fact that when we went to Tupper Lake last year she hated it, and expects Lake Placid to be no different. But she’s going to give me support(not that I’ll see her at any point, what with the crowds.)
Also, I don’t give her nearly the quantity or quality of vacations she deserves. Which brings me to a question.
Does anybody who does destination races(St. Croix, Lanzarote, Brazil, etc) actually find them to be good vacations for the non-sporting family? When we did Tupper, it seemed like there was really nothing to do other than wait for the race then leave afterwards. Or is that just because it’s the middle of nowhere?
I’d love to try working a big race into a vacation, but not if it isn’t going to seem like a vacation for my wife.
Oh, and don’t feel bad. My swim times are a joke no matter what time of year it is.
Tupper Lake sucks with respect to stuff for non athletic spouses. Don’t take there this year. I’ve done Tupper Lake 10 times and my wife has never come. Would never even consider taking her. LP is another story. Lots for her to do.
Here is a tip for race day. Make sure you know “exactly” where she is going to be watching on course. When you get there, stop, get off your bike, give her a hug and then move one. The crowd will scream, you’ll get pumped up and she’ll feel that standing out there and waiting was worth it. This is what I do now. There was a year, that I missed my wife and son on one loop at LP. There were so many peole shouting out my name (there are over 60 folks from Ottawa racing there, and we typically have several hundred cheering), that I could not hear her. Bad move. I heard about it for a year or so after that !
I can’t help you on destination races. Ever since my son was born, the only races that the family comes to are in driving distance (i.e. 3.5 hours or less). Anything longer and I drive myself or fly ! Personally, I think that Roth would be an excellent race with spouse and no kids. Fly in on Wed, race on Sat and then spend 10 days touring with the wife in Bavaria and Austia !
I just read your latest diary entry.
“Bring up gay marriage, George W., or why you hate the French, and the thread lasts for days, maybe weeks.”
Why don’t you give this title a test run up at the top: “Gay Marriage, George Bush, And Why The French Hate Kirstin’s New Boob Job?”
If you could conceivably weave in a take working in all three subjects, call out Timbut in the take—how I don’t know—and Morrisey, let met tell you, we are looking at a potential views and replies record on Slowtwitch, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 9-11 posts.
I’m doing a mock 1/2 this weekend. Our local favorite race is Saturday, which is a 1/2 marathon, but not your average 1/2 marathon. It starts at “high noon” and is 8.5 miles uphill (the last 1.5 miles is so steep, it doesn’t really matter much if you’re running or walking), then a steep descent and flat finish. So…to gear up for CDA, I’m going to tack on a 1.2m swim and 56m bike beforehand. I’ve never done a 1/2 with a steep run like that, so I will be hurting I’m sure…
I think the key to destination races is to actually spend some time there (or nearby) after the race. Pack up the bike/gear and store it somewhere or ship it home and then vacation for at least a few days afterwards…longer if you can swing it. I’ve done this with non-tri people and they seem to like it. I’m not much fun the day or two before the race, but they get a kick out of watching the race and then I promise I’ll be a lot more fun in the days after, when I can eat, drink, be merry, not worry about sunburn, etc. But…I don’t have kids either. That adds another dimension.
Thanks for the info. I’ll try that. This is totally obnoxious, and illegal, but… I could bring my cell phone on the bike, then call her when I was at mile 45, and she could leave the hotel and come down to the bike course and meet me, and…I’m sure that if people could bring their phones, there would be all kinds of crashes. (I’m sure some people probably bring them anyway.)
Seriously, the biggest concession I made for Lake Placid was submitting to the hotel rape so that she can stay in bed when I leave at 5:30 for the race, and then come down whenever she wants. Having to drive with me from Saranac to Tupper at 5:00 AM and sit around all day was awful for her. She likes to be the supportive spouse and all that, but she really doesn’t like going to races at all. And that’s okay.
There will likely be no cell phone coverage at mile 45. You’ll be somewhere around High Falls Gorge. Good plan surrendering to the rip off hotel prices ! It is Ironman week and nothing is cheap. May as well concede this. In the future, get a hotel along the bike course such as Econo Lodge, Schultes Family Cabins, or furthur out of town, the Jackrabbit Inn. These place are not luxurious, but they are right on the bike course (and for the first two, on the run course).
Thanks for having a look. I hope it didn’t seem to have a negative tone (towards slowtwitchers), as I didn’t mean it to. This is just something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I’ve noticed the same thing in the blog world. You post a story, you get nothing. You post something controversial, you get buried.
I’ll work on that thread.
(Aside: It figures that the one and only time I blog about SlowTwitch, someone actually reads it. ;p)