It's absolutely pouring outside right now (good thing I have the day off from training) and with the rain soaking the ground right now it just made me think about how my body also soaking in all of the training that I have put it through over the past few weeks. I have been lucky enough to have the last three weeks almost completely off from work as I am currently transitioning companies. So with all this time off I have been able to go to Lake Placid for not one but TWO training weekends with my Train This teammates as well as another training weekend in Ludlow Vermont with the QT2 triathlon team. All in all with the addition of the Keuka Triathlon at the beginning of the month, I can say that with absolute certainty June has been the best month of 2010..maybe the best month over the past two years. If it wasn't for the first 15 days of April it might pose a threat to June....but nah..June takes the cake so far. But you know what the best thing is? It's that July will be upon us in only a few short days and July means Ironman #1...what will it bring? I am not sure what will happen yet. Am I a bit nervous? Sure..it's my first Ironman distance race ever, 140.6 miles is a long way, but I have the training, the base, the team, the friends, the coach....in short I have a full support team.
Sooooo....moving on. As I sit here watching and listening to the rain pour down I must say that being able to just sit down and type on my computer is quite relaxing. Since last Thursday I have been going strong and the storm that is my life has finally settled. It ended today with a good session at the Chiropractors where a lot of work (and progress!) was done on my legs which have more knots in them then a 4yr olds shoe lace. That was at 10am..(I "slept in" until 7:30 and then dabbled on my computer checking emails and such for a little while before making a nice berry smoothie for breakfast), after the therapy I headed over to Geneva with my bike to have the guys at the shop take a look at her and make sure everything was in tip top condition being that it has been through a lot over the past few weeks. Placid and Vermont back to back has put a substantial amount of miles on it..along with a substantial amount of rain being dumped on it. Anywho, after I had the biked checked out I headed back to Penn Yan to chill out, so right now its about 3pm and I am hanging...finally just relaxing and letting the body heal, but I am hungry so I am going to grab some food real quick and then get back to this post..
Alright I'm back now. While I was grabbing a bite to eat I remembered about a book that I just purchased on my iPad today, and I wanted to share it with you all since its a very funny, light, and quick read. The book is an autobiography by Steve Martin and its called "Born Standing Up", highly entertaining and one that I highly recommend.
Now that I have caught you all up to speed with what my Monday has been like I'll try to summarize the awesome experience that I had this weekend in Vermont with the QT2 Triathlon team.
On Thursday I started the day off early by leaving for Ludlow, VT around 8:30AM. I arrived in town around 2'ish and grabbed some food. I then proceeded to drive aimlessly around Ludlow looking for the address of the place where I was staying, eventually I found it and around 4 some QT2'ers arrived and the training weekend began. Tim and Cait Snow arrived first, since they were headed out for a bike ride before the rest of the team arrived I jumped at the chance to get a ride in as well and I headed out with Tim on what became about a 2 hour ride, filled with downhills, uphills, rain and rainbows. It was a good ride and a good way to start the weekend. Later that night when the rest of the QT2'ers showed up we all ate Subway and got ready for the training ahead.
Friday brought an easy 2 hour bike ride to begin the day, a nice and easy swim in a nearby lake, and then everyone had their "long run". The best part of this day other than the bike being just a nice easy cruise was that I was actually able to run...and run for a whole hour!
Saturday was jam packed with Triathlon awesomeness. To start the day off with a bang we all traveled to a nearby lake which was located in a state park. Luckily Jesse from QT2 "knows people" and the park was opened early especially for us. Once everyone was properly warmed up we all aligned at a particular buoy and started our 1 mile swim time trial in a mass start format. The best part of this was that we had two wonderful helpers, Mikaela and Chrissie (Jesse's wife) in paddle boats who gave us markers to shoot for. Soooo the course was two loops, I started out hard and knew when I saw Cait snow still by my side that their was no way I would hold this longer than the 50 yards we had just gone, hahaha...i settled into a nice pace which was significantly behind the lead group, although I hung on for the entire time in my own group that was in the "in-between" from the lead group and the larger chase group..i even was able to "drag" a good guy named Ted the whole time as he drafted of me the whole way and then proceeded to drop me with 100 yards left..kudos to him for being smart :) I ended up swimming a 23:57 for the 1 mile distance which made me extremely happy and the tone for the rest of the day/weekend. After the swim we all headed back to town to get ready for our long rides and T runs. Since I decided to take a leak right as everyone took off I spend the first 30 minutes chasing the lead group to catch up with them...why I did this I am not quite sure because I basically ride by myself on long rides anyways. But none the less I wanted to start out with the rest of the pack. I ended up riding with Pat Wheeler (a really good guy, a year older than me who is an outstanding triathlete who has qualified for Kona already this year at St. George and who also won the 18-24AG @ Lake Placid last year with a time of 9:45...that's smoking fast! And he is only getting better. Pat is not only an amazing triathlete but he is a QT2 tri coach who really knows his stuff, I bugged him all weekend by picking his brain but I can honestly say that I learned a ton from him and maybe someday I will be able to join him in Hawaii at race with him there!). Since Pat had a shorter ride in tap for the day he turned around at about the 2:30 mark and i continued on. My ride lasted almost 7 hours and took me through some really nice places like Killington Mt. and even a climb in a really beautiful forest area. Pro triathlete and Ironman Lake Placid Champion Cait Snow was riding up ahead of me (which I must say was freaking cool as hell) so I would periodically see her ahead of me on the long straight aways or something where I could see for miles ahead...haha, none the less it was good motivation. I rode solo for the majority of the ride, which is what I like..makes the ride tougher and builds some mental strength. Don't get me wrong I love the social nature of cycling but when its time to put in the work I like to be solitary as on race day drafting is not allowed and no one will be shooting the s*^& during the race. So to wrap this day up I made it back to Ludlow and ended my ride at about 6hrs and 50 minutes. I jumped into my transition run and hammered out 3 miles. The best part of the whole thing was that my leg that has been bothering me held up the whole time (this after a 1 hr run the previous day) and it was good to go the next day...which brings me to the next day, SUnday!
Sunday I was up early again to have my coffee and eat my breakfast. Around 7:30 I had the chance to get an amazing massage on my legs from a group in Boston that is associated with the QT2 Team. It really is pretty awesome when you can just train all weekend, hang with awesome people, put a ton of miles on your bike and legs, and then just grab a massage and do it all over again. So yeah, I had a nice massage on Sunday morning and then got ready to head out with the crew for a recovery ride that just so happened to have a 6.3mile uphill time trial sandwiched into it. I can honestly say that as Pat and I made our way out to the TT course together, the 1 hr easy ride alone was pretty taxing on our tired legs and a time trial up a hill really didn't seem all that appealing. But I mean when you have 20 other people getting ready to hammer up the hill along side you it makes it a heck of a lot easier to get motivated. We ended up drawing numbers and heading off up the hill TT style, 30 seconds apart. I was 4th to go and finished with a respectable 25:11 effort. The funny thing is that I didn't use my garmin for this since I didn't have my power meter or my cadence sensor hooked up to my road bike..so I had no clue how much farther the course was when I was riding. I say that this is funny because I truly thought I had another mile left when I finished the TT...if I had known that I would have spent myself a bit more at the end..but it really doesn't matter. I still taxed my body in a good way and got one hell of a workout...no complaints here, I had an absolute blast. I think the best part of the TT was about 1/2 way when Jesse passed me like a bolt of lighting...and he started 3 places back of me, which is 1min and 30 seconds behind me. However, I kept Jesse in my sights for the rest of the climb which made me feel good, I think he served as sort of a carrot for me to chase. I wish I had started behind him, oh well...next time I'll be stronger :) It was all in good fun though, and just like the rest of the weekend I had an absolute blast. After the TT we all headed back to town and most all jumped into a short transition run to end the day. I was able to run for almost an hour and was extremely excited that my body held up! After that the group met up for one last time before everyone headed home. We all voted for the "most outstanding camper" and Tim Tappley, who is an absolute monster rightfully was voted as the champ. I mean I voted for him so he better have won! The guy absolutely crushed the swim TT with a 21 minute performance (which I was told a huge performance from just 2-3 years prior when the swim was really his weakness). Tim also smoked everyone in the bike TT with a 22:05 performance, winning by over a minute against the rest of us! What is exceptionally impressive about the fact that he had a great TT effort is that he rode for 7 hours plus with Tim Snow the day before. They were so far ahead of me that I literally never saw them...what studs! Hope I can ride with them someday...and not slow them down. I just wanted to add that Tim Tapply is a really great guy who answered many many questions that I had. I picked his brain relentlessly and he was more than happy to humor me. This camp was not only great for the training but great because of all the people I got to meet like Tim....and all the others who I won't name for fear that'd I'd leave them out.
Swim TT Results
Bike TT Results
So in summary I just wanted to thank Jesse and his QT2 team for having me up to Vermont with them. I had an absolute blast and learned a ton. I feel ready for Lake Placid and I can't wait to see all my new QT2 friends up there during race week....and of course on the course during race day! It's going to be one heck of week and one amazing day on July 25th. BRING IT ON!
-Turbo
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