Peak Workout #1 in the books. Got up at 5 am again for Masters swim. The Lakewood Dawgs are turning me into a half way decent swimmer. Thank you ladies and gents of the Dawgs. After the swim I hit the mtn bike for two climbs up Mt Falcon (my preferred LT climb and fitness testing grounds). I pulled off 23:30 and 24:00 climbs. That’s about a minute and a half quicker than this same workout, the same time last year, and right where I was two weeks out from Beaver Creek a few months ago. Next week will be the true test when I do one climb, all-out for time. Shooting for at least a match of my pre-Beaver Creek time of 22:20. Should be interesting. I may have to skip the swim next week so I have a full tank

Rested up while getting some work done during the afternoon before heading out for the Lakewood Trail Race Series 5 mile run. Legs felt a little tired, but that was to be expected. Warmed up well and off we went. I settled into 3 rd place early on with about a 10 second gap to the leaders. Around mile 3 their pace slowed just enough for me to claw my way back up to them and then I turned up the pace just a notch. Matching my pace on the flats, I waited until the final little climb before the finish to make my move. Away I went, running for my life on the downhill finish I was nearly caught at the line, but managed to hold on for the victory. Pleasantly surprised, I found myself settling for third at that halfway point, before things began turn to my favor. Good lesson learned, to never give up, run your own race and things can change at any given point.

Solid day of training over all. I’m sure I’ll be feeling it a bit tomorrow morning when I get up for one more early masters swim for the week. Damn those Dawgs and their 5:30 am swim practices!

CW

Last weekend was exactly what I needed. Mellow rides and runs in my favorite Colorado mountain town, Crested Butte. Kathy and I headed out of Denver Friday afternoon for Colorado Springs to catch our friend Danielle Kehoe running a cross-country meet at the University down there. I had never been to a college xc meet and it was fun to watch. Then we grabbed some dinner with friends of Kathy’s that live down there before heading up the mountain towards CB. We stopped at a campground along the way and slept in the back of the Element. We had plenty of room and a nice big air mattress and blankets, but the sleep quality still suffered. Neither of us are real big campers.

The next morning we made it to Gunnison and hit up Hartman’s Rocks for a ride. This is were the NORBA classic Rage in the Sage used to be held. Awesome race, and very fun trail system. We rode for about 2 hours, grabbed some lunch and cruised up to CB. We were invited to stay with our friends Cary and Mark who bought a house last summer in Crested Butte. We were both very excited to know that we didn’t have to camp out all weekend.

More riding and running made up the rest of the weekend. Several coffee breaks at out favorite coffee shop, Camp 4 Coffee (some of the best coffee ever, try the Sledgehammer), some window shopping and general relaxing was the theme of the weekend. I guess I wore Kathy out pretty well on the bike rides though. I was riding my cross bike while she was on the ASR-C. The CX bike slows me down a little while making the trails more challenging for me and minimizing the gaps between us on techy trails. She rode wonderfully and really is taking a liking to mtn biking now that she is past the constant falling stage that everyone experiences in the first several outings.

It was the perfect recovery window I needed before heading into my final Peak Phase before Nationals. Now back home, the plan is to hit two hard race-intensity workouts and one moderate endurance workout the next two weeks. The remainder of the sessions will be light to allow for recovery and tapering of volume. I will keep swimming volume high and fairly intense for the next two weeks before tapering that down the week of the race. The final week’s plan is to head out to Utah on Tuesday (driving, solid days worth with stops), ride and run the course fairly hard on Wednesday and then rest up for the Saturday race.

This weeks workouts include a split day on Wednesday with a masters swim and 2×25 minutes LT climbs on the mtn bike in the morning followed up with an evening 5 mile trail race. Thursday will be my mod endurance day with another masters swim, 2-3 hour ride and 45 min transition run. Sunday I’ll hit a local sprint road tri for some speed work and race intensity. The rest of the week will be filled with more swimming and light rides and runs. Giddy-Up!

Here are some pics from the weekend:

Getting ready at Hartman’s Rocks

“Sea of Sage” singletrack at Hartmans

“Dirty Sock” singletrack at Hartman’s

Our favorite coffee spot (it’s everyone’s favorite, as the line is always out the door!)

Pre-ride coffee and brekie on the Camp 4 patio

The CX machine on the “Canal Trail”

Rest break

The top of “Strand Hill” (part of the old CB Xterra course)

Riding through the aspens on Strand Hill

Back at Camp 4 for a chilly early morning pre-run coffee stop

Well the last two plus weeks of training have left me a tired and beat down man. After Wednesdays combo workout I was torched. I managed to make it to the 5:30 am Masters swim Thursday morning, swam fairly well, then got home and crashed for 2 hours. Feeling on the brink of over-doing it, I opted to bring my Race Prep to a close, skipping the final endurance brick and Vo2 intervals for Thursday and Friday. I feel like I have really pushed myself over the last 5 weeks (hopefully to a new higher level of fitness to come) and I’m ready for my recovery phase before heading into the final Peak Phase of my season.

So to kick things off for my slightly earlier than planned recovery phase, I got a nice nap in yesterday, a recovery spin on the road, and 90 minute massage. Very nice. This morning I got up early again and hit Masters one more time, and some weight training, before heading out of town this weekend for a Recovery Camp in Crested Butte. Kathy and I are packing up the new EPC rig (yep, I traded in the MINI for a more practical Honda Element) and making a 4-day road trip through the mountains, stopping a long the way for some tasty rides and runs. Everything will be low-key and a great way to incorporate some good recovery time in before next week’s Peak Workouts.

Should be fun. I’m ready for it!

CW

I am feeling officially spent right now. Two and half weeks into Race Prep and I’m beginning to blow. Last week went pretty well. I hit my second Vo2 interval day solid and then began to struggle a little on my second LT interval day pretty. I had 3 rounds of 25 min LT bike, 15 min LT run and could only muster up two rounds before I had to throw in the towel. I figured I’d be better off to stop as my pace began to drop below my intended effort. Followed this tough three day block (had an endurance combo in between the two interval days) with two low-key recovery days prior to the Fat Tire Off-Road Tri in Ft. Collins on Sunday.

The day before the race ended up to be somewhat chaotic with some traveling and family activities. I was only able to get in a quick pre-ride of the course and I felt that it wasn’t enough to get warmed up for the race. I felt a little stale on race day. Despite the staleness, I pulled off an excellent swim. Second out of the water, on the heels of a good local swimmer. A quick transition got me out of T1 in the lead. Not accustomed to this, I felt I couldn’t get going right away on the bike. Legs were a bit heavy feeling and Ryan Ignatz was able to close my 30 second gap within a few minutes on the bike. The flat, twisty course was not my forte, however I was able to keep within 30 seconds of the speeding Ignatz to T2. Out on the run I started strong up the opening 2 mile climb only to fade a little on the downhill back to the finish getting gapped further by Ignatz and passed by Justin Hurd in the final quarter mile. Certainly not my best race, but solid none-the-less, and the great swim was what I was really looking to accomplish.

Monday and Tuesday were rough. My quads were completely trashed from the fast downhill running from the race. I kept moving and swam, biked and ran easy to help recovery. Today I thought I felt ready to get after it again, but struggled a bit on my planned 3×25 minute LT climbs on the mtn bike followed by a 4 mi trail race at Bear Creek Park. I struggled to make it through 2 climbs and got pretty dehydrated. The trail race was pretty uncomfortable to hang on for 6 min miles and a 5th place finish.

As of now I am officially toast. Tomorrow is a planned endurance day. I know I can get that in at low intensity. Then Friday is my final Vo2 interval day. That should be fun. I’ll have to take inventory on my energy levels prior to that one. After Friday I go into a 4 day recovery period to hopefully adapt to all this stress I’ve been putting myself through. I can tell you I am looking forward to the weekend!!!

CW