Blue Lake Olympic

Another race is in the books. I entered Blue Lake Olympic to help as a tune up race for CDA in two weeks. Entering the weekend I was suffering from IT pain in my right knee. It was getting progressively better, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to run full strength. That was ok. I was going to get out there to really swim and bike and practice transitions. So the alarm went off early this morning and we headed out to Blue Lake. I set up transition quickly and was able to spend some time with Meghan before I had to get my wetsuit on and get down to the swim start. However, 7:45 came early enough so I zipped up the wetsuit and headed down to the start.


The elite wave I was in was quite full. I expected there to be some fast swimmers which was good. I wanted to get out and swim relatively hard. The horn went off and I instantly surged towards the front. There was a group of 3 that was working well together and had their sights set on a fast swim time. I made some tactical errors and unfortunately was left behind this group. I made an attempt to bridge up to them early on, but without success. Luckily there was a second pack that had formed. During all this I had swum past another athlete that is normally good for somewhere between 20-22 min swim so I knew I was swimming well. I settled in with the chase group and enjoyed some draft before finally rounding home and getting out of the water. I was 5th or 6th upon exiting the lake. I have no idea on time as I didn't have a watch.


Some minor wetsuit issues in transition and then I was off. We had a long, muddy run to get to the bike mount. Since I have been racing Ironman and half Ironman distances exclusively for some years now, I'm no longer great at getting into my shoes when they are clipped into my bike. I lost 30 seconds fiddling with them once I mounted my bike. Anyway, out onto Marine drive and I was feeling good. The plan was to press the pace and try and come in somewhere around an hour for my split. I felt pretty good for most of the ride. I struggled to find that next gear and constantly found myself looking down to 70.3 pace instead of Oly pace. Honestly I just haven't done a ton of fast pacing so this was definitely a limiter for me today. Anyway, not sure on my spit. I think my garmin said 1:02 or 1:03 but that included my run before the mount. Anyway, feeling pretty good. I think I entered transition in 6th or 7th overall.


And that is pretty much the end of my race. My knee was hurting pretty bad on the run so I pretty much jogged and walked my way in. Not sure what my run split was, again no watch, but if I had to guess it was close to 50 min. This is about 10 minutes slower than I would normally run so I will admit it was a bit discouraging watching everyone pass me and not be able to do anything about it. As I turned into the chute I had figured I would be somewhere between 2:15 - 2:20 due to the run and the slow transitions. I was happy to hear that I was 2:15. Once I see the results I will have a better idea how the swim and bike shapped up. Overall I feel pretty good about the first two sections, but will be taking extra special care of the knee to get it ready for CDA. Had a great time out there today. It was really fun to do an Olympic again. It was great to have my mom there to cheer with Meghan. They hadn't been to an Olympic distance event in some time either and were joking about how much fun it was since everything moved so fast.


Well, that's it. Time to treat this knee and work on some taper for CDA. Thanks for checking in! Be safe out there.


-T

Addictions

First off, one of my addictions is my IPAD. After reviewing my last post after I blogged it, I noticed that none of my paragraphs were actually displayed. My post looked like a giant ramble. My apologies. I will try and figure out how to fix that. Back to the subject line. Addictions. Everyone has them. At least I know I do. On Sunday I thought about my addiction...fitness. I had a solid 5 hour workout Saturday that didn't tax me like it would early in the season. So on Sunday I found myself cruising along 90 minutes into a 2hr + run when someone came past me on his bike. The individual, Jeff I believe was his name, then waited for me to catch up and rode next to me as I ran for the next mile or two. Why do I bring this up? Well here I was pounding out 7:30 pace late in a long run on varied terrain while holding a conversation with some random cyclist. That feeling is so addictive. It is tough to explain. It ended up being a great run and wrapped up my final big volume week leading into IMCDA in just under 3 weeks.

However good the fitness addiction feels though, there is always a dark side. Here it is Monday night a little before 8pm and I'm preparing for bed. Our weekend nights lately consist of reading in bed and turning off the light early so I can get 10 hours of sleep to recharge the battery. This is where I thank my wife. What a year this poor woman has been through with me. Surgeries, MRSA infections, and a horrific bike accident. On top of all that, she still supports my training. To put that training piece into context, most of my big weeks are north of 20 hours of training (my biggest weeks 25-30/week...however these were rare). This is a huge sacrifice she makes for me. This is on top of the countless hours I put into my career and the fact I have my work phone attached to me wherever I go. I truly can't thank her enough. I know when I'm battling through CDA, I will be thinking of her and her commitment to me.

Training has been going well. It has been an interesting build up with such a limited time table. I will be very interested to see how I race in CDA. I'm doing a local Olympic distance this weekend to tune up and knock some of the cobwebs off. This race should be a good indicator of my current fitness as it will happen right before we start to drop down the volume as CDA draws closer each day. I can feel it getting closer. I have been getting butterflies for the past few days. Just randomly. I haven't had that in some time. Such a nice feeling. I guess that is "itch" telling me it's time to scratch!

Thanks for checking in. Train safe and have fun.

-T

Memorial Day Weekend Tune up

As I write this I'm setting at home enjoying a cup of coffee after a great weekend of training. I took Friday off from work as I had a huge weekend planned and I wanted to be able to enjoy Monday with my wife instead of training all day. So what was on tap? A century ride each day. Followed by a run on two of the days. The idea here is that we are really trying to build the bike fitness as we can't push the run miles up too much. So here is how it played out: Friday - Luckily, a teammate and friend of mine was in town and had Friday off as well. He is also coached by Muddy so we had similar weekends ahead of us. We slept in a bit and rolled out of town around 9am. We hit the climbing right away. I was astounded with how great my legs felt. The rest of the ride was either flat or rollers. We stopped at a really cool state park to get some water (which ended up being tough to find!). The park is right along the Willamette river south of town in the country. Lots of green space, etc. Anyway, we made our way back to Portland area and dumped the bikes and took off for our 30 min run. It was supposed to be easy and did feel easy except for the hills. However, at one point Jonathon asked me what we were running. I looked down and said 7:20-30. We both laughed about it...as that pace would not really be considered easy :) Saturday - Big team ride that left from our main sponsor's shop, Athletes Lounge. We had a good range of athletes on this ride: 9:10-9:30 guys up to 11 hour guys and gals. As we rolled out I was definitely curious to see how my legs would react. We rolled out about 90 minutes of flats until we started a 12 mile climb (gradual grade). I was very happy to be climbing with the front of the pack with relative ease. That being said, the pace was not pushed. If it had been I wouldn't have been towards the front. I could now feel the fatigue in my legs. Despite that, I still felt pretty decent. We basically made a giant loop out towards Scappose, Vernonia, Timber, Banks, and then back into town via West Union with a final climb up the backside of Thompson. That final climb hurt, but I felt ok going up it. I didn't try to push the pace, just to relax and stay seated. That day ended with 101 total milage, about 4500 feet of climbing. Sunday - I rode by myself. It started off pretty interesting as I ended up on gravel roads. It was about a 20-30 minute stoppage (well just REALLY slow riding/walking) to get back to main roads. It was pretty frustrating. However, I did make it out finally and was able to resume my ride. I was definitely feeling fatigued on this ride. It was more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge however. And I know that is what Muddy wanted. Obviously there would be physical gains, but the mental gain was just as important, if not more. So I rode along trying to enjoy the beautiful Oregon country side. I ended up with about 4k of climbing so not a ton, but I had to ride mostly flats the second half of the ride to make up for all the slower parts earlier. It all worked out in the end. I hopped off the bike and put on my runners for a quick five mile run. I was happy with how it felt. My legs werre heavy, but I was able to get into a nice rhythm and click off the miles pretty easily. So there you have it. 300 mile weekend with some solid runs on top of two of the rides. I am happy with how the fitness is progressing! Thanks for taking the time to check in!! T

Cycling

Coming up on 5 weeks until CDA. Amazing how fast the time has flown by! This morning I had the pleasure to get in my long ride with a good group of teammates. These guys like to ride early so we were rolling by 6:30am. The nice thing is we were done by 12:15pm! Ended up being another 5 hour day in the saddle, 90 miles in the bank. The ride felt great. I'm getting stronger each week. I'm finally starting to feel like my old self again on the bike. In fact I lead a nice pull for about 10 miles that apparently was done at a pretty fast effort. To me it felt like it should on the flats and rollers, get down and get your heart rate where it needs to be an crank the miles out. We ended up with 4k of climbing so not too bad, but there was a nice climb toward the beginning that I felt pretty good on. So, all in all I'm feeling pretty good about where I am at today. Despite all the forced time off, I feel like I'm starting to enter into that "Ironman Fit" stage. Where you crank out 5-6 hour rides without thinking about it. 2 hour runs become common place. Etc, etc.

That's a good place to be in for me. There was a lot of doubt as to where I would be come the start line of CDA. I know I won't be 100%, but I will be as close as I can get. I'm really enjoying the time back in the saddle as well. It is tough to explain but after going through that wreck, there were definitely moments when I thought about "what if that had been worse and I couldn't ride again?" Or worse yet, didn't want to? Luckily the wreck has just helped to remind me of how much I love this sport and has definitely made me even more aware on the road (if that's even possible). Well, thanks for taking the time to check in.

Be safe out there.

T

Slogging away!

Been a few weeks since I signed in with an update. Not too much going on. Been building the disciplines up in volume and intensity. The last few weeks have been pretty similar: couple swims, bikes and runs during the week (one interval workout for each discipline). Come the weekend it has been an 80-90 mile ride Saturday. Now the new thing for Sunday is I've been focusing on a longer brick. Basically I head up into the hills with my bike and ride for 2-3 hours at low intensity and then run 60-90 minutes off of that. It has been interesting. Since the volume is still relatively new post accident, the first Sunday was BRUTAL. This last weekend was much better. Felt stronger on both days than the preivous week. The climbing is no joke either (5700ft the first week, 3500ft this past week). Come this week though I was ready for some rest. Luckily my coach knows me best and had already scheduled a recovery week this week. Man he is good. I'm already feeling ready for the next 6 weeks. And let me tell you, I'm all in these last 6 weeks! I know it is going to be incredibly hard at times, but I also know it's going to be worth it in the end. I'm fortunate to have one of the best coaches in the business in my corner and the most supportive wife and family I know of. This is the home stretch. CDA and IMC are what I've been working towards for the past 5+ years. I have done both races previously, and have done both with respectable times (10:47 and 10:43)...however I want 48 and 44 minutes faster on each course. CDA will be somewhat of a crap shoot. A lot depends on how much volume I can take without injury or illness with the shorter build up time due to the surgery and crash. Despite this, I know it is possible and I will work my ass off to make it a reality. Thanks as always for checking in. Be safe. -T

Prep time

Well, Ironman Coeur d'Alene is 9 weeks away. That is as of today. I'm sitting on a flight making my way back from Orlando. Training has been pretty good lately. Not sure if I mentioned in the last post but I took my first outdoor ride the other week! It felt so awesome. Just to be back amongst nature, feeling the wing on you, and being able to travel to places on a bike where you just appreciate the scenery better than from a car.speaking of the bike though, that is one area that Muddy and I will be hammering the next 2 months. We have committed to putting in the work to get that top 5% bike split. We will see if we have enough time to do this post accident. Stay tuned for that. Swimming has been going well. My wife and I were lucky enough to receive memberships the other week as they brought her onto the club as an athlete member! Rock star status...confirmed. The MAC is amazing but the coolestart is that my sister coaches the am workouts I go through. So when I bust out of the water this year in the first group I have her to thank! So our ID cards we're still warm as we headed out to state masters swimming championishs to compete. It was weird to be back in the pool racing. We had a hoot though! Meg had an awesome meet! State champ in 200im! I had a mixed bag of a meet. Solid 200 free, 50 and 100fly and off 100, 400, and 800 frees. Luckily I was fast enough to take the crowns in the 400 and 800!! So we have been having some fun along the way which is critical. Can't always be training. Gotta get have fun in there. The next month will be critical for me. I need to stay healthy, nail my workouts and continue the stretching and massage. The next block here will give me a really good idea of where my fitness is heading into our final build. On a health front, I continue to heal. I'm hoping the one fake tooth I have is where we get to stop but we could still potentially lose two more. Will be a few months until we get it figured out. Thanks everyone for checking in. -T

What's Next?

Thank you for all the support the last couple weeks post accident. I will admit, it has tested me. My sister and some friends have nick-named me "Trevor Tough." As they said, "it's a different type of tough." I don't know if I agree. However, I appreciate the sentiment. Update on all that is medical: I lost one tooth as a result of accident. Two other are still in jeopardy as they were pushed back into socket at the ER. We will see if they regenerate or not. If not, they will be pulled and implants put in their place. I have the best in Portland working on my teeth which is wonderful. That said, it will be 3-6 months of waiting, root canals, etc. Couple dozens stitches, never got final count. Some cool scars for sure.

I have tried to stay positive throughout. I won't lie, it's been a challenge at times. I basically couldn't speak for 1.5 weeks. I had so little energy the past few weeks due to recovery that I haven't been able to train much at all. Emotionally it has been a double whammy. Tired to begin with and not able to train on top of it. Similar to having an injury but with more fatigue. When a major part of your life revolves around fitness, you can see how this could be a challenge to wrap my head around. I've tried to stay focused on the big picture. No major injuries. No debilitating issues. Just some messed up teeth and a messed up face to prove that I ride a bike a lot.

Physically: Workouts have been rare. I received a promotion at work the week before the accident. It is awesome but it meant more responsibility and more time. Not a great combo when you are laying bed on pain pills unable to talk. I had to sacrifice some fitness to focus on health and work. Last Sunday I decided to run in the 15k at the annual Shamrock run in Portland. I had already paid the dues and their was a sweet bottle opener to every finisher. Despite not running in two weeks I toed the line. After 1/2 mile my teeth were aching and starting to bleed a bit (the up and down of running had been discouraged but what do those guys know?). After 8 miles we were going downhill and my quads were on fire as a result of no run miles. However I did of course finish. And it didn't kill me. I was slow, but still in the top 20% of the field. More importantly it felt awesome to hurt like all hell again. During the race and the next day. It truly invigorated me.

The future: Oceanside is out. CDA and Canada are definitely a go. Actually I would say I'm more excited to compete than I have been in a while. Why? For a few days after the accident I wondered what it would have been like to never have been able to put together a solid Ironman race. As well as to potentially not be able to compete again (if it had been more serious). It made me so sad to think about the thrill of toeing the line and giving it your all on race day at an Ironman and the reality that it might be gone someday. So, yes...to the dozens if not more that have asked me, I will ride my bike again. In fact I have. Indoors only at this point. I maintain riding a bike is safer than driving a car if ridden defensively. I have ridden dozens of thousands of miles (if not thousands at this point) without injury until now. If it hadn't been for a grate, that is illegal in Oregon (more to follow on that coming soon), I would still be accident free. You can ride safe. Shit will happen. Same when you are driving to work, flying across the country and riding the elevator. Accidents happen. Such is life.

Live in the present. Train smart and safe. I truly appreciate all the support. And, more than ever, I truly appreciate our sport.

T

Down Goes Yates

Every cyclists worst nightmare...well at least it was always mine. Going down on the bike. I had avoided it for all my miles of cycling. I consider myself a very safe cyclist, always aware of my surroundings. I practice ride as if something terrible can happen at any moment and I obey the traffic laws. Yet, unfortunately sometimes the cards don't fall the way you want them despite your best efforts. Saturday was one of those days for me.

I was heading out for a 75 mile ride. I was getting within the final month of my Oceanside prep and I was really looking forward to testing the legs and the new fit on this ride. I was doing the ride solo so I was carrying two bottles with Malto on the frame and a bottle of electrolyte in my torpedo. A couple miles into the ride I had to cross a bridge which includes 1/8 of a mile on a highway and then I take the exit after crossing the bridge to then get out in the country. I have ridden over this bridge a few times. Nothing too crazy about it. Yet Saturday I was decending on the off ramp with good speed when I went over a significant bump in the road. My torpedo bottle ejected (which is VERY unsual. In fact I have never had it happen). I remember wondering whether I should stop or not to retrieve it. Just as I made my decision to stop, I came around a corner on the off ramp and looked to pull over to the side where there was a grassy area. I suddenly saw a storm drain, but it was too late. I didn't know if it was going to be a drain with a grate to it that I could just roll over or not, but I was about to find out.

Unfortunately for me it wasn't. My front wheel immediately sank a few inches and I went superman into the pavement. Now after typing all that, I'm not entirely sure on those details. Those are the events as to the best of my memory but it is kind of blurry. Once I hit the deck with my face I could immediately feel one of my teeth get pushed back into the jaw bone. I knew that wasn't good. I got up and was spewing blood from my face. I grabbed my bike and started to carry it. I felt around in my teeth with my tongue and realized I was missing one tooth for sure. Others appeared out of place. I was surprisingly calm. I used my beanie to help with the beanie and phoned my wife. I don't really remember exactly what I said but I basically told her to get over to where I was ASAP. I hung up the phone and realized that I was still pouring blood. Nobody had stopped despite dozens of cars going by every 60 seconds. Finally someone stopped and offered me something to stop the blood and to call 911. I thanked him for the towell and pointed to the phone on my ear as I was calling 911 right then.

Everything else is pretty non eventful. I did lose the one tooth and will lose two more. I am having the dental work performed by the best crew in Portland this week. In fact, my oral surgeon is the surgeon for the hockey team in town. I figured he would know a thing or two on implants :) Besides that I have a couple dozed stitches in my face. The road rash is healing surprisingly well. Amazingly I suffered no fractures. Not a single one. My face is a mess, but nothing that can't be fixed. Let this be a reminder to take nothing for granted. Always ride safe. Thanks for taking the time to read. Below is a picture I had the ambulance guys take on the way to the ER.

T

Weight

Training is going well. Oceanside is less than 2 months away. As typical for February, I'm still fighting my weight. It feels like every year it is harder to get to race weight. I eat relatively well, especially considering that I don't have a sweet tooth. However, I do enjoy a wonderful Oregon micro brew on a regular basis :) This year has been more difficult than normal for me as I basically didn't exercise for most of the fall. I am doing my best to stay focused on Coeur d'Alene and realize that I won't be at ideal weight for Oceanside. That being said, there is no way I'm giving up! Besides just watching calorie intake, the longer training weeks are and will continue to help.

Beyond that, things are going well. I got a cold the other day, but for the first time in forever, I was able to train through it and it didn't turn into a sinus infection! I have to once again thank the amazing doctors that continue to help me stay healthy. Especially Dr. Pavlovich. He is my sinus savior! I'm looking forward to seeing what my body can actually do this year with some serious training. The last few years I've always had trouble truly ramping up my training due to illness. I'm still trying to stick to the early am workouts and it has been working pretty well. The key for me is getting enough sleep on the weekend to somewhat catch up. Even when going to bed really early during the week, it is still challenging to get more than 7.5 hours when waking up so early. I am really an 8.5 - 9 per night guy, especially with heavy training and my career. So, we will see how it plays out!

Thanks for taking the time to check in!

T

Starting

As of this weekend we are 8 weeks from Oceanside. The ramp up has started. The last two weeks have been challenging. Longer workouts and more speed. The objective of course is to not over cook myself so Muddy and I are being very precise with how we are addressing this. Coeur d'Alene and Canada are the real races this year, Oceanside is an excuse to get to San Diego and Sea World and test the early season fitness. Because the build has started I'm focusing more on hydrating, eating properly, and sleep. Sleep is the toughest thing to get when you have to balance all this. The morning workouts help, but it is a real struggle for me to be out of bed when the alarm clock has a 4 on it. I'm getting better however and I know it will only improve. I'm definitely getting excited about the upcoming season. Meghan and I really love visiting Penticton and Coeur d'Alene. I also am stocked about completing some unfinished business at both races. I will do a run race or two next few months to get the race wits about me before flying south to So Cal. It's going to be a great year. Thanks for checking in! T