One week out...

Many thanks to Simply Stu for the pic above (I actually don't even think he knows that I nabbed it, but I was perusing his blog and podcasts and came across this and thought it would be a nice representation of the IMmoo run course and though I would put it up. Thanks Stu!)

I'm one week out from my third Ironman race in as many years and oddly enough when people ask me if I am ready or not, I usually tell them a cop out answer like, "we'll see if the training pays off" or something like that because I don't want to jinx anything. Ironically as well, I'm not really that nervous about it. I guess it's still a far way away and I'm sure I will get a little more tense as the race draws nearer, but so far, not many nerves yet.

Maybe the eerie calmness stems from the fact that I still have LOADS to do before I leave on Wednesday morning. Like for example, today I have a 10 mile run on the training dockett. Normally on a weekend that would be the only thing I have to do and I could be a lazy piece of crap until I did that run and then just relax and eat all day :o) mmmmmm eating :o)

But today, I have to go to the local Fleet Feet at noon today and pickup a new pair of shoes before the run today. I'm gonna try and grab a pair of Brooks Axcioms for the marathon portion of IMmoo. But the Fleet Feet doesn't open until noon, so I have to wait to do that.

The one thing that I did get done beforehand was travel from Rochester to Angola, NY to pickup a pair of Reynolds race wheels from a good friend Doug Bush. They are a pair of tubulars and they look really quick. I still haven't had a chance to put them on the bike because I still have to swap over the cassette and get that all straighted out (still don't know how to do that bike repair) But I will definitely drop some pictures here in the next few days of the chariot looking all dolled up pre-race. (a few folks have been asking for some bike prOn so i'll have to get some shots up there.)

I also want to do a post about goals for the race too (I know I promised that before) so will try to get that one up maybe tomorrow? Who knows. For now, it's off to the shoe store to grab a new par of racers (I know it's like the cardinal sin of marathoning to get a new pair a week before a race, but the last few weeks kinda slipped away from me) I'll at least get a 10 miler in them before the IM, so that will have to suffice. :o) Until later folks, cheers.

Bib #'s are up (finally...) :o)

So folks, I've kept bib #'s for the last 3 or 4 years of racing. They came out this afternoon for Ironman Wisconsin and I must say that I had to go home and check the bib's that are circling my bedroom to see if any were a match.

You can stop holding your breath now...none were a match. I'm bib # 338 for IMmoo this year, so that is the number to track on race day. Ironically Philly VP's is #339 which is one more than mine and I think that is because I registered us online one after another. Most of the 25-29 folks are between 300-400 so those will be the ones that I look for on race day. :o)

There are 166 entrants in the Male 25-29 age group who I have to battle in a few days. We shall see how it all shakes out. Happy tapering folks, cheers.

Just call me Chris Columbus...Dirt Cheap #5 report

So those who know me might be keen on the fact that I have a very, and I mean VERY poor sense of direction. I blame my mom as she once got lost going down a MAJOR road in our little town once when my sister and I were little kids. She would get lost in a paper bag....

Now I am an Eagle Scout, and as my brother in law, Dave would say, "I thought eagle scouts had a good sense of the direction from using compasses so much?!" It's true, I can use a compass, but I get lost easily. Just a matter of fact. In high school cross country we would run in the woods and I was one of the fastest on the team and I swear that I made those poor guys run so many more miles to find the busses. Sorry guys!

And still, it is the case. Just Wednesday this past week I ran in the Dirt Cheap race #5 (just a small trail race series here in Rochester) and as the gun went off, I was feeling okay and we all were joking around a lot. after 2 miles, I started to feel good and to pull away. There's something I really enjoy about bombing thru at top speed thru singletrack that is quasi overgrown in the woods. In the woods I ike to be a front runner and not have anyone in front of me in order to see the terrain beneath my feet.

So two miles out of five are in, I'm feeling good and I was thinking to myself before the race that Ironman training should have really sapped my speed, but I was blazing thru the woods and feeling good. Mile 3 comes and I'm still leading and have about 150 meters on Alan Powers, with Brian Matthews behind. I go a little longer and bounce up a huge hill and go a little longer to realize that there are no more cones and there are trails branching of everywhere...

"I must have gone the wrong way" I think to myself and silently curse. I turn around and about 2 minutes later I finally catch up to the race, I jump back in (I seem to have missed a sharp left into a stream - yes they ran us up a strea for about 200 yards) And yes at the pre-race meeting, the director called me out in front of everyone and said "Now Travis, don't miss the stream, it's a sharp left..." and I totally blew right by it. But I rejoined and kept on going. I was WELL out of the lead at this point....

I go about another mile, pass a few more folks and blow RIGHT by another turn. I realized it at the top of a hill AGAIN. I turned around and just kind of dialed it down to the finish line and cruised in going from a solid lock on 1st overall to 9th with not one, but TWO wrong turns. Oh well, it was a small little $10 trail race, but it would have been nice to get another W under my belt. But still not really the focus for this year.

A thank you goes out to Alan Hatch who said kept things in perspective by "reassuring me" and saying, "it's a good thing that Ironman is REALLY well marked..." Smart ass :o) But hey, I'd rather get lost in a small trail race then IM anyday. Keep running strong folks, and PLEASE go the right way. Cheers.

2 weeks out...

I love to taper...I love to have all of that training sink in and finally benefit you. I love just being able to go out and say, "hey, I ONLY need to do a 2 hour ride and a 4 mile run today". If you haven't noticed, I'm in the middle of the taper for Ironman Wisconsin. I had a good build (had a 17 hour week in there - most I've ever done) and I'm feeling ok about the training that I've put in. I guess time will tell and on race day the results will be posted.

Believe me, I still have my concerns though. The dreams are still there, and yes, they wake me out of a sound sleep about 2-3 times a week (just part of the game I guess.) I think the real reason that they are there is because I have put several really high goals on myself to attain. We'll see what happens. I'll post a good one later about my goals for this race. Luckily the ATHLETE GUIDE has shown up, but the bib #'s still aren't up on the website due to a technical difficulty. They should be soon as we are two weeks out. I leave in 1.5 weeks and still have a butt load of stuff to get done before I go.

Taper city blues (population - me) as I'm just getting more and more anxious to get this race started. I just want to "do what I do" and get out there and play. 2 weeks left. Hope I can make it.... cheers.

The dreams have started again...

So they've started again, and I think that's probably a good thing, but it still makes me wake up in a panic every time I have one. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone that's had a large race (cough, cough, IRONMAN, cough, cough) in the foreseeable future knows what I'm talking about....

Yes, the panic dreams.

You are exiting the swim in an Ironman and running into transition only to find that you are missing a certain piece of equipment that is VITAL to you finishing the race (last night it was the bike shoes and before that my helmet) Or it might even be that you are running towards transition and you realize that you have forgotten to put your uniform underneath your wetsuit, or various other silly things that probably wouldn't likely happen in real life but still cause you to wake up in a cold sweat. Hell, I had one the other day I dreamt that I had completely forgotten to drop off my transition bags and had stolen someone’s backpack en route to running to the transition tent and grabbed whatever I could out of it to help me finish (somehow they had bike shoes in it? I don’t know)

But yes, the dreams have returned. In a way it's good to know that they have returned, as that means that it is getting painfully close to the big dance in Wisconsin. But also, it just sucks to be woken out of a SOUND sleep and have your heart be beating out of your chest in a panic because you think that you were a dumbass and forgot that vital piece of equipment...(ironically most of my dreams have to do with bike equipment - don't know if that is a good/bad thing)

I would be worried if I didn't have the dreams most every week because that would mean that I really didn't care too much about the race and wasn't at all anxious, but I can say with a straight face that I'll be relieved when they are gone. I had them for a SOLID year before IMFL in 2006 and I hated it. It was like clockwork, every week I would wake up at the very minimum, in a panic once a week. I'm happy that getting thru 2 IM's has given me the foresight to only have them occasionally now, but they are still an annoyance.

So here's to crazy dreams, I hope they come for you, but then I hope they leave as quickly as they arrived. And I hope that they are replaced with thoughts of you attaining all of the most out of reach goals that you can think of and I hope that you envision yourself just doing what you do. Those thoughts are the ones that will get me to sleep over the next few weeks. Just do what you love to do. Just do what you do. Just do what you do. Just do.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Cheers folks.

"Dress her in black...."

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention with the last post. I got my bars rewrapped at Berts when I got the new Carbon 1.5X integrated aero bars installed on THE BEAST. Jim Costello asked me what color bar tape I wanted and I told him (in Bold fashion): "Dress her in black... it's game day"

That one was for you Bold. Thanks for the good reads over the years. Cheers mate. You'll be with me in spirit in IM Wisconsin.

Thats all, take care folks. Talk to you soon.

UPGRADEs :o)

So I've made a few upgrades to my equipment and as most of you know I am a huge gear junkie. Especially when it comes to triathlon. So without further delay I'm going to showcase here some tri "bling" that I will be sporting in Ironman Wisconsin next month in September.

Bontrager aero water bottle. Holds 20 ounces and is super aero helping smooth the airflow over the middle section of the bike. H20 bottle cage is carbon and this thing I refer to affectionatively as "the chalupa".It's pretty slim, but it really looks like a soft taco from Taco Bell. :o) Next in line, just got installed about a week ago thanks to the BRAND new sponsor for 2008 Berts Bikes in Buffalo, NY. Jim Costello was so nice to swap out my old aluminum handlebar set and hook me up with these bad boys. It sports an integrated stem, basebar, and aero bars that are FULL carbon. It's sick. I spoke with a few friends and called it silly fast after smoking a 100 mile ride in 4:37 from Buffalo to Rochester and back to Buffalo. I'm taking them around Canandaigua Lake tomorrow to see how the climb. Since they are so light, I'm thinking it will be fast :o)The new bars also dropped my front end by like 3 inches and I feel like I can generate SO much more power being down low, so we'll see how it plays out in Wisconsin. The next upgrade hasn't come yet, but I ordered it today online.

I've officially joined the ceramic revolution and have broken down and gotten a pair of 11 tooth (I know the pic is wrong) FSA ceramic bearing derailler pulleys. They spin smoother and reduce drag and wear much slower than typical steel bearings. I don't know if I will be able to feel the difference, but hell, it's worth a shot.

This is the last upgrade that I made to the bike. It's a 53 tooth carbon aero chainring by FSA. 53 teeth of ramped and pinned aluminum that will smooth the airflow and just look really cool :o) Now, here's something that will definitely up the "dork factor" of my game in Wisconsin.Yes, I've broken down and gotten a pair of Zensah compression calf sleeves because of the nagging tightness in my calfs. (I almost got ART before the Philly Marathon last year and they are still notoriously tight) I took them out today on a 8 mile run and they felt good. They just provide a little support and feel like someone is hugging your calves. Not bad.

So those are the upgrades that I have made. Who knows if they will help at all, but I would feel bad if I didn't at least have all the right equipment to perform at my best. I've trained hard, the engine is hot and ready and I'll see you folks at the starting line in a little less than a month :o) Cheers.

Musselman Race report

So this one is a little late, but better late than never....right?

I had high hopes for Musselman this year, because I've had aforementioned "beef" with the course. To let you all know my true goal was to be in the 4:3X range. I had a rough race for a variety of reasons. First, the weather was crazy, second, I made a ROOKIE mistake by cramming 600 calories down my gullet in the first hour on the bike and it just wasn't m day i guess. The one thing that I wanted to do though was to have a solid run because I have always felt that I've fallen apart on that course.

Swim - my goal was a 28:xx because I thought I could pull a sub 30 out of my butt. The weather and the waves had another thing in mind I guess. there were 2-3 foot waves and one of the middle bouys came loose and drifted causing many people to get a little confused on the swim. Also they sent the pink capped wave out first and in conjunction with the waves, that made it hard to appropriately sight where we were all going. I hit the beach and was happy to be on dry land. I was 32:xx something so a little displeased, but happy to have that portion over.

Bike - there was this new course that they made this year. It's good, got one solid hill in it and a terribbly rough section thru the park in Geneva. I borrowed a pair of Zipp 303's from my buddy Alan and they helped a ton, but since I had drank 600 calories in the first hour and jammed up my stomach, I was bloated and threw up about 2-3 times on the bike. (You know how hard it is to vomit to the side and still control your bike??!!) No fun. My good friend Joe Meyer passed me with about 5 miles to go when it began raining and he was a wave behind me (4 minute deficit). I limped back to T2.

Run - All I wanted was a good run, Joe and I went out together and ran shoulder to shoulder for a few miles. I told Joe of my woes of vomiting on the bike and he told me that one of his shifting cables had popped causing him to ride the course in the small ring up front. Not fun. JOe was yelling and trying to encourage me to HTFU and keep it going on the run, but I was actually feeling a little ok. 5 miles in, I had pulled away from Joe a little and slammed a Gu at the aid station to see what would happen. The gu went in, then imediately out, along with the remaining contents of my stomach... I think I may have hit Joe with a little of it as he ran by. Ewwww. He yelled at me some more and suddenly I felt great. I had nothing in my stomach and had cleared everythign in my system. I began to drop the hammer. There were 8 miles left and I just ran like I wanted to. I ended up ripping off a sub 6 mile and putting in 6 minutes into Joe (thereby beating him by 2 minutes overall with the wave differential) and closing with a 1:24 half marathon (good enough to be in the top 4 half marathon times that day)

Overall I still had a 2minute PR, but it was not how I wanted it to go. I was pleased to have ran a 4:41, and winning my age group (ran down the first place guy in the AG in the last mile) and got a really nice bottle of wine for it :o) This was a rough race and it was definitely a stupid mistake that caused me to vomit everywhere.

Well enough of that, I went up to Placid the next weekend and watched the race in the rain and registered with Joe for IMLP 2009. I saw some amazing results there too! congrats again! and can't wait to go head-to-head with Joe there in 2009. (Last time he raced it, he went a 10:23, I went a 10:27 last year) He's the only guy around my age that's gone faster than me and it willbe a good showdown next summer. I know we both are already looking forward to it! Alright I'm gona ost some good pics in the next one of upgrades I've gotten (think bike Pr0n) so I have to go grab those photos.

Tomorrow is a 6 hour ride followed by a 4 mile run and 2 mile swim, Sunday is a 20 mile run folowed by a 2 mile swim. This will cap out an 18 hr training week. I'm tapering after this! Woo-hoo, see you on the flip side folks. Cheers.