If you didn’t see the golf news yesterday; Tiger came back from a HUGE deficit, down by 3 holes with 5 to play, to win his round at the Shootout. His win is all over the news here in Tucson. After digging a HUGE hole he went birdie, birdie, birdie, eagle, and birdie to win; the focus he has is scary.
Speaking of digging holes; we are about chest deep right now with 3 days to go. We should definitely be over our heads by the time we get on the plane to come home. The plan is to keep digging until the end of next week and then recover for a week – speed for 2 weeks and taper for 2 weeks. I am constantly reminded of Cecil’s advice – “When you find yourself in a hole – stop digging :)”
Since last Wednesday we have gotten in close to 26 hours of training; 16 hours of cycling, 6 hours of running and 4 hours swimming; only 12 more to go this week - OUCH!!!
Our 2nd annual Tucson training camp is going great with AWESOME weather and fantastic training opportunities. We got here on Monday and did an easy swim just to loosen up.
Tuesday we tackled Mount Lemmon which consisted of a 5h 45m ride followed by a one hour run. I passed on the run as my legs were not up for it; I have been milking the marathon excuse and I think it has run dry with my training partners; time to run today :).
Mount Lemmon is a 26 mile dead end road that climbs from 2000’ to over 8000’ with very little traffic. There is a ski resort and lot of snow at the top but is actually very comfortable to climb. At the end of the road is a town of Summerhaven which has a population of 62. The pie shop is worth the last 4 miles. The climb took 2h 48m and the decent was around 40 minutes but that included a two mile turn around to climb back up for a flat. The descent has really safe, wide, well marked turns where you could easily average over 30 with 0 watts. The steady climb, somewhere between 5-7% grades, really replicates TT efforts and there are a lot of triathletes on the road.
Yesterday was a day of 3’s; 3 hour ride, 3 mile run (Saswata and Tony did 8; again I was milking it :)) and 3000K in the pool.
Today is a lighter day with a one hour tempo run, two hour bike and one hour swim.
This town is REALLY conducive to training and a number of companies hold camps here. The roads are very cyclist friendly and the runs are scenic and numerous. The pool is open for 9 hours a day and costs a $1.50 per person to get in.
The best part, other than the riding, is the food!!! We have been completely spoiled by the fantastic grub.
Tiger, Rides and the Rodeo; so you guessed it, the Rodeo is here and starts this morning. It is a REALLY big deal here and the kids actually get off from school for Rodeo week. I think Tony is going to try it as “cross training”; I know I have issues but hanging around with him makes me feel much better about myself. This guy is SICK and should absolutely crush his 1st IM race in AZ. He put it out there so I am putting it in print per Chris Lieto; “sub 10 baby”:) Unfortunately he is also responsible for the only casualty of the trip. Some poor 11 year old girl at the pool ran to the lifeguard screaming – MY EYES – MY EYES…Tony’s blue Speedo was apparently too much for her…he replied – “WHAT – I am GREEK – this is ethnic profiling!!!” We decided to take him to Tri-sports later today :)
One quick addition to the last blog entry; congrats to David Mariotti and Shawn “Hercules” Francis who also did the ½ last Sunday. David is training for IM AZ and Shawn was scheduled to attend this trip but his brother in law was involved in a very serious motorcycle crash; Gary is doing much better and we wish him a speedy recover.
Shameless plug time; Chris’s nutrition product http://www.baseperformance.com/ is going to be available in a week or so at American Bicycle Company http://www.abcbike.com/ and the Trek Store of Jacksonville. Check it out; this looks really promising. My recover gear shorts http://recovergear.ngen9.com/ made the trip and I have been using them daily; they really help.
That’s all for now! Off to work to pay the bills and buy more speed – I think I heard Jeff say “cha-ching” :).
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