Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Week 1 down

Feeling tired but holding together well. It feels good to resume tough training. Although going from peak form to rebuilding means that I'm frustratingly slower on the track and am not flying in the pool. Details to come.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Aaaand more training...

I had a 3 hour ride planned for Thursday but got a text that morning from TC telling me to just ride on the trainer for 75 minutes because it was supposed to rain all day. I was ecstatic that I didn't have to will myself out of bed at 7AM, so I slept in until late. Jarrod and I monitored the weather radar all morning, trying to see if there was a block of time where the rain would let up. Mainly, I was procrastinating getting on the trainer. Alicia did her ride, then Jarrod got started on his workout, and I sat around for a while pretending to pay attention to the weather. I finally decided to go get my bike from the basement and start setting it up. As I was doing so, I noticed that the rain stopped. I looked at the radar and it seemed that the rain might hold off for a couple hours. I debated for a while what to do (more procrastinating) and finally decided to take the risk and go outside. I ended up riding for 2.5 hours with not a drop of rain (except for dripping trees). After that I headed out for a short brick run and as I was finishing up it started to pour again. So it actually worked out pretty well. I hit the one block of time where training outside was doable. The message here: procrastination = better training :)

Friday's training went down like this: 9 mile run through the neighborhoods with middle 3 miles tempo, 30 minute core routine, and 5k at swimming with some mega-fast all-out balls-to-the-wall 50s. Friday was the first day all week where I didn't feel terrible. I'm still sore and tired - but on a more moderate level. We got in a good 4k at swimming this morning, and later today I have some hill repeats on the bike followed by some fast running. I also have to write an 8 page paper for this online class I'm taking, so I'll get started on that tonight as well; that'll be workout #4. So that's what I've been up to: training, watching the tour, eating and sleeping. I apologize for being so boring lately.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Day 3: Already Sore & Tired

It's only the first week of my mid-year base phase, but I'm already feeling pretty fatigued after a couple hard days. Yesterday I had a tough track workout that included 200's, K's, and then more 200's with not a whole lot of rest. After that I went for a 2 hour endurance ride and did a core workout in the evening. Today started with some TT interval work on my BMC TT bike. I had a massage in Concord and then went straight into a 10 mile run, and it absolutely poured for the last 5 miles. I hit some puddles that were ankle-deep and it was totally miserable! Finally, we had a tough swim practice tonight. Main set was a "T-30" (swim as hard as you can for 30 minutes with the goal of amassing as many meters as possible). Now I'm completely beat. We had Chinese food for dinner. It was money.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain all day, which does not bode well for the 3-hour ride I have planned. I have plans to do it with TC and Alicia at 8AM, but it will most likely be dependent on the weather.

Jarrod on the 6 O'Clock news!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Coach Rich's craziness

Q. What do the terms 'fast', 'comfortable fast', 'work', 'race', 'race-pace', 'hammer', 'charge', 'sprint', 'strong', and 'hard' all have in common?

A. They all mean the same thing!

They're just different ways of saying that the next interval is going to hurt, and Rich loves to utilize all these terms, which are only a small portion of "hurt" words in Rich's vast swimming vocabulary. Today was my first long swim practice in operation "Get fit again" and I was victim to several of the aforementioned phrases. Grand total was 5k meters and our last set was 4x200 swimming the first 100 "strong" and then "dropping the hammer" on the final 100. Unfortunately my hammer was not very heavy, but I gave it everything I had. I have over a month to rebuild my aerobic base, so I'm not too worried about not being on my A-game tonight. Now I need to go get some sleep so I can get dominated on the track tomorrow at 9 AM...

Getting back at it

I've had a boring past couple days at home. I kind of feel like I'm getting sick but I'm not really sure, and I don't want to go back to Maynard and hang around Jarrod if I am, in fact, sick. Getting an Olympian ill less than a month before the Olympics is not something I want to be responsible for. So I've slowly started getting back into training. Yesterday I did a 2+ hour ride and went for a 7.5 mile run @ 6:30 pace. Tonight I have a hard swim planned assuming I feel up to it. And tomorrow TC has a hard day planned with an endurance ride and a long track workout.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Last Few Days of Laziness

After taking three days off of doing absolutely nothing, I resumed training this past Wednesday. I'm not really doing anything intense or high in volume, just active recovery for the rest of the week, then it's back to work on Monday. It's been so hot and humid here that even doing an easy run or bike can turn strenuous. Today I rode for 90 mins on a heavily shaded route through Chelmsford, Westford, and Groton. I hammered the downhills just to get the nice breeze. Later on I'll probably go for an easy swim at Minuteman before I partake in some "off-training" activities this evening with some friends...

A huge thanks to Team Psycho for hooking me up with 6 free cases of Harpoon! You know you've made it when you're getting paid in beer!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Some Pics


We were drenched in champagne after the podium ceremony... Warm champagne has never tasted so good.


On the podium in Geneva. Our coaches were thrilled as their athletes had taken half of the 6 available podium spots (Jarrod 2nd, Me 3rd, Alicia 3rd) (July 12)


As a Team we won the Silver Medal at the World University Games in Erdeck, Turkey (June 29)


Collington, Sexton, and me with the USAT coaches in Hamburg after we all just nailed top-20 finishes (July 6)


The unofficial medal ceremony: At the world university games awards ceremony, the USA men were originally given the GOLD medals for team finish. We stood atop the podium while our flag was raised and got a giant trophy, flowers, and gold medals. However, the Swiss later pointed out to us that the Turkish officials had not added the scores correctly, and they should be the winners. We added the scores ourselves and could tell that they were right, so at dinner we went over and exchanaged our gold medals for the silvers that were rightfully ours. It was all in good spirits and the Swiss were much appreciative. A bunch of us traded our USAT polos for Swiss Team shirts (which were way cooler).


I'm Back!

I apologize to my loyal blog readers for not updating my web site. My laptop needed a new hard drive and I lost all my data and programs, and without Dreamweaver I am currently unable to update. I will be keeping this blog temporarily until I can find a solution to my emanswim.com problems.

To quickly summarize the past month and a half:

June 08: U23 Worlds - DNF Hypothermia
June 29: World University Games - 28th
July 06: Hamburg World Cup - 15th
July 12: Geneva Continental Cup - 3rd

I finally seemed to have found my groove after a couple poor performances. I was thrilled with my performance in Hamburg. I had a fast run (32:09 10k), and my 15th place finish was the best ever American debut in a World Cup (Potts was 19th in 2003). Next, this past weekend I had another good race in Geneva, taking a personal-best 3rd place finish. The race was a sufferfest with high heat (90 degrees) and humidity. Lots of guys dropped out during the run, and I also lapped many people (run course was 6 laps). Geneva was my 3rd race in 3 weeks, and I'm pretty wiped out from all the racing and traveling. This was the first time I ever raced 3 weekends in a row, and my feet are covered in blisters and I have some extreme soreness in my right calf. I am currently taking a few days off from training and then will go back into a base phase for about a month as I begin to focus on big races in September-November. Through some of Team Psycho's hook-ups I've been allocated 6 cases of Harpoon beer, and I will be sure to take full advantage of this in my down time.