Ironman Canada...

One word...Awesome. Hopefully will get some pics posted within the next couple days or so. What a blast!! We were able to watch the pros finish (literally sat a few feet from the finish line). Jordan Rapp and Tereza Macel destroyed their respective fields! My pick, Luke Bell, was looking really strong heading out on the run with Rapp a few minutes ahead but something happened as he limped in to the finish somewhere around 20th overall. What a great event. So stoked for next year!! Going to get some sleep as I have to be up early to register in the am. Take care,

-T

Penticton, BC...

Well, we made it! That is one long drive up to Penticton. Very scenic however. I'm excited as all heck to be back here in Pecticton...it has been over 15 years since I was here for Ironman. Meg and I rolled in just after lunch and quickly registered for our volunteer slots tomorrow. We will be assisting athletes with return of the gear bags between 5 and 8pm. We hope to head over to the race after lunch and catch the pros heading out on the run and then of course the first few across. I plan on cheering like crazy!! Luke Bell is my pick...he is well overdue for a win and no Kona this year for him.

After checking in for Volunteer we ate some lunch and headed up 97 to our bed and breakfast. Check out the view from our deck!!


Well, we are off to dinner now. I'll try and get some good pics tomorrow from the event to post. Good luck to all the athletes competing tomorrow...in Canada and Louisville!

-T

Italian food and training...

"Yes sir. Oh, it's my turn. Ok, I'll take the half and half. Lasagna and eggplant parm. A mirror pond would be great." I'm sitting at dinner with some co workers. Sounds like a good dinner order right? I thought so as well, until I realized that I still had a 45 minute run to do tonight. Oh well, it's just food right? But then the soup came, then some salad, and finally a full plate of pasta...plus two beers. Oh man, this might be a tough run.

So I check into my hotel and make my way to the room. I quickly change into my running clothes without thinking twice. This way I can't second guess my decision. I grab my IPOD and head to the gym for my hampster run. I'm feeling pretty good about 15 minutes in yet my stomach is so full I can't even think about drinking water. Another 10 minutes of solid effort and I'm starting to hurt. I feel like I have a baby in my stomach and I'm starting to burp up dinner. Internal thinking, "Trevor this isn't good. You should really stop." Other side (voice) of my brain (the voice that talks the rational side into such things as Ironman), "Don't listen to this Trevor, keep running. You have to get your miles in. Ironman is 3 months away." What's a guy to do? Well of course I keep running...

I make it to about 30 minutes and finally have to shut the treadmill off. No more. I feel like I'm going to puke. I decide 30 min is close enough and head back to the room. To summarize:
1)Large portions of italian food and beer are not good pre run components.
2)Listening to the voices in my head doesn't work. I always end up listening to the crazy one.

Off to bed now, got to make up a few miles in the morning :)

-T

Just about lights out...

I'm up a little late tonight. I was ready for bed and then realized I hadn't packed a few items for tomorrow's visit. On a positive note I have most everything already packed for our adventure up to Ironman Canada!! So stoked. So freaking stoked! Anyways, Canada gets me thinking about Hawaaii. So here our my Kona predictions...and yes they will change as the date gets closer...

Chris McCormack - anyone that has run a 2:42 at Kona and has also won before is a clear favorite

Crowie - He will be there on the run. If someone can't run sub 2:45 they will not beat Crowie.

Stadler - He led the race half way through the run until blowing up (he blames this on bike fit and has since had his re done). You know he will have a lead off the bike, but can he run? His best run split in Kona is 2:52, which wins in a normal Stadler year where he dominates on the bike.

Chris Lieto - my dark horse and the guy I'm routing for. He had a poor performance overall last year. But this is a guy that has led the race into the run previously (two years prior actually). He is looking as fit as ever and has been working on his run with...Josh Cox and Ryan Hall. I mean, holy shit. That would be like Maaca working on his bike with Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador (although I guess that pairing probably wouldn't work!).

On top of these guys there are plenty of true dark horses and up and commers that I'll mention later. For now, I'm finally feeling the effects of sleepy time. Thanks for reading...

-T

Maseratis...

It was one of those runs. My legs were feeling light, pavement felt more like bark dust, the miles were ticking away...everything was just perfect. It was late morning, but could have been 2am for all I cared. When I have a workout, especially a run workout, like this...I'm in heaven. It's hard to explain, maybe it's runner's high...I dunno, but it feels good! And then it happens...an old couple almost hits me with their car. Remember, I am RUNNING. And they almost hit me. Unbelievable.

I was almost an hour into an 80 minute run on Sunday. Focus on the run Trevor. One of the things I'm working on for Ironman is my mental focus. Whether it is on a 6 - 7 hour ride or some 800s on the track, I'm trying to learn to harness the power of the mind. They say Mind over Matter for a reason right? :) I'm rambling. I've now regained focus. My stride still feels great, the sun is out and I'm now coming up to about 2 miles to go. I've been working on finising my long runs hard this summer. I try to finish each long run at half marathon pace. So, once I hit two miles to go I bring up the effort. I make the turn into my neighborhood and look at my watch...

Let's just say I was happy with the effort :) Back at the house for a quick change. We then take off to the pool to get in a swim workout. On the way there I happened to spot one of the most beautiful cars made. A Maserati...IN EUGENE!?! Crazy right?

You will have to excuse the picture. It was taken from my phone while driving (officer, I swear I won't do it again!). Anyways, just thought it was cool. The pool was awesome as long course was still going. I banged out 4200 meters and then soaked in some hot tub time with Meg. Life is good! I'm feeling very good with my training as of today. This week is a recovery week and it couldn't have come at a better time. I'm feeling very strong and ready to race Hagg in a little less than two weeks, but also happy to let the body recover a little from a heavy volume block of base work. More volume and intensity to come so I need to be as rested as possible. That being said, I think it's time to turn off the lights! Thanks for reading...

-T

Saturday

The alarm clock on my watch would not stop beeping at me. I'm pretty sure I yelled at it to stop. Meg doesn't seem to remember. It was 6:20am yesterday (Saturday) morning. I had just finished a tough week at work and with training and was exhausted. All I wanted was some more sleep. I got up to brush my teeth and looked at myself in the mirror..."what the hell am I doing?" Slowly but surely, I was waking up however and after a lot of coffee and some breakfast I had my bike loaded and kissed the bride-to-be on my way out for another solo century ride.

What I am doing is training for Ironman Arizona. Today we are roughly three months away from toeing the line in Tempe. Yesterday was one of those days when a 5+ hour bike ride followed by a transition run sounded absolutely terrible. Yet, I've learned you have to take baby steps. It's much like running the marathon. You can't focus on the 24 miles left to go, but instead you focus on your next 5k or 10k, etc.

So, I head out. I have a bottle filled with carbo pro and electrolytes plus another bottle of water. I have a GU and a Cliff bar in case I get really hungry. I'm trying to train my buddy to work on just the carbo pro and electrolytes for the majority of the 112 mile bike - put realize after a few 5+ hour rides I will probably need to incorporate some more food. I will have GU present and will probably have some cut up power bars in a bento box or something. Anyways, like I said...I was off.

I'm about 30 min into the ride and see a guy setting up what appears to be a finish line on McKenzie View rd. He is with OBRA the Oregon bicycle race assoc. We wave at each other and I don't think about it again for a while. About 20 minutes later I'm riding along fairly quickly in my aero position and almost run over a few Wild Turkeys!! I'm blaming this on my buddy Brian as he constantly has wild turkey encounters where he rides! Brian, they have migrated south Bro!! My legs are feeling real heavy, but after making it over the first big climb of the day and heading into the turn around town to refill the bottles I was feeling good.

I'm now on my way back and climbing the same hill as before from the opposite direction. A few hundred yards from the top I see what appears to be an aid station. I pedal closer. Sure enough, there a bunch of water bottles ready to handed out and a few people to offer words of encouragement. I just get a few thumbs up and crest the hill ahead. As I'm now rolling into Marcola I'm making pretty good time. I notice a Subaru on my hip. He won't pass me even though the road is clear. He stays on my hip for about a minute and then finally pulls up next to me and says, "My leaders are about to catch you. There are two of them." I say thanks and he pulls ahead. I think to myself...ok I'm going to kick it up a notch and give these boys a target to shoot for. I start pounding out a 26mph + pace. About two minutes later I feel a train coming up on me. I can feel the two bikes coming by me and think to myself WTF?? These guys must be doing close to 35mph on flat road? I then take a look at them and notice they are on Tandems! It was some kind of tandem bike race that was going on and these two teams were destroying their field. I yelled, "great job guys!" as they rode away...probably couldn't hear as they were going so darn fast :)

The ride finished relatively uneventfully except for this guy that I passed who then decided to give it the old college try and re pass me a few minutes later. I hate this because the guy dug so deep to re pass me that now he can't stay in front of me. So after about 30 seconds of sitting on his wheel I bury him. I mean, kick it into over drive and make sure that he won't even think about trying another stunt like that for the remainder of the ride, bury him. There is a little hill about 1/2 mile after I re passed him that I attacked. I was 80 miles into the ride but just attacked this little hill. I looked back at the top and he was just starting. I guess I won my own little race yesterday :)

When I got back to the house Meg was excited to try out her new orthotics so she joined me for my transition run. Great success for her, no pain...we are keeping our fingers crossed. We had some lunch and headed out to some of the farms up the road to look at flowers, goats, and buy some veggies. That's where these pics are from. It was a great day, today promises to be much the same with a long run momentarily and a swim workout followed by lounging in the sun at home. Thanks for reading!

-T

Coffee

What a wonderful thing coffee is! I'm trying to throw down as much as possible before heading out for another long, solo ride. BBQ'd some buffalo burgers last night and they were money! Hopefully they will help add some energy for the ride today. Last century for a little while. Alright, IPOD is charged...I'm outta here!!

-T

I'm going to lose it...

So...what is wrong with people these days? Everyone just seems so unhappy. I know times are tough, but at some point common decency must take over. I had a guy yesterday who was honking and waving his arms at me because I was letting a few cars in a long line of traffic merge into our lane. What did this possibly cost the guy behind? He must have missed the light and probably the next one right Trevor? No, nothing happened. Except 2 cars that would have had to wait another light or two to get into traffic were let in. I mean come on! This is probably the same idiot that honks and throws stuff at me while I'm out training on my bike.

Ok, had to get that off my chest. Up late tonight catching up on some work project. Oh well. Got in some decent workouts last two days and am feeling pretty strong as of now. I'm excited to race Hagg Lake in a little over two weeks. It will be a good test to see where my fitness and speed are at this point. As I said I'm feeling pretty strong, just a little worn down as the last few weeks have been pretty heavy in volume. Luckily next week is a recovery week (and our trip to Canada!!) so that will help re energize the body before two 4 week blocks of heavy build in preparation for the big dance. As Bill Bowerman would say, I'm working on getting the hay to the barn. And with that, I'm off to bed for some much needed sleep...

-T

Summer time...

Man, I just absolutely love summer! It is very nice to be able to ride at night without having to worry about extra clothing, darkness, or worse yet...what tv show to watch as you ride indoors. Unfortunately, I know those indoor sessions are coming...and fast. The one bad thing about IMAZ is that Oct and Nov can be very hit or miss as far as weather goes. Oh well...I think it will be worth it :)

Training went well last week. I was happy with my hours and mileage. I would like to know why there are so many angry drivers out there right now?? Is it the economy? Fear of summer ending? More stupid, impatient drivers seem to be on the road these days. It is extremely scary when you are on a bicycle and the idiot is behind a few thousand pounds of metal. Slow down people. McDonalds will stay open for you. Your six pack in the fridge will stay cool. And your tv will still transport you to a more enjoyable life. But for heavens sake, leave the guy on the bike alone.

-T

Shotgun Creek...

What a great weekend! Been a little while since I have posted. Sorry for that! This weekend started with a wonderful BBQ dinner Friday night and then an early visit to bed as I was getting up early for a long solo ride. I was tired of doing the same old rides so thought I would do a new ride. I had seen a turn off to Shotgun Creek Rd. and Recreation area out off of Marcola rd. before, but knew nothing about the ride. I asked one of my buddies about it Friday, but he hadn't done the ride before and just said "I heard it was REALLY hard."

Ok, perfect. I mean I'm training for IM so tough is good right? I loaded it into map my ride before going to bed and it didn't look that bad. About 3500 to 4000 feet made the bulk of what appeared to be the difficult part of the ride. Well, up early and off around 7:30am or so. The plan was for a solo century as I normally do my long rides with friends. I made it to the turn off in great time and was eager to start climbing. I was on my TT bike as my road bike is up in Portland.

Instantly the road service turned to crap. Don't know if it was chip seal or what, but it's maintained by BLM and was extremely bumpy. I'm thinking to myself, "oh well there is nobody out there so what if the road sucks. This climb will be epic." And then the climb started. After a few sections of what I would guess where 20% grade I was getting pretty discouraged. At multiple points I was worried about not only making it to the top but also descending on the road surface on my TT. I thought about walking up one of the hills it was so steep, but was actually worried I wouldn't be able to walk in my cycling shoes any easier.

I get to the top finally and there are only two ways to go. Right or back down from where I came. I decided to go right. I mean it was kind of like a horror movie at this point! Go back down the hallway where the killer just chased you from or go down the unknown dark hallway? After about a mile of descending the grade was again so steep that I was worried my brakes were going to fry. Overheat basically. Half way down my bike computer gave out on me. Great. I decide to finally screw the brakes and just go as fast as possible so I can get out of this hell hole. Not 30 seconds later Bambi decides to walk across the road - just missed her! I tried to stop to take a picture for the post, but she decided not to hang out. Finally I notice ahead that the road service was about to change. Sure enough, I came to an actual road and rode another 10 to 15 minutes into Brownsville to refuel. I came back another way to complete the century ride and as I passed the turn off to Shotgun Creek I made sure to flip it off!

Luckily the ride ended without incident after this. Ended up being about 5.5 hours with all the slow climbing and what. Later that night we went over to a friends house for a pizza party (he built his own outdoor oven recently) and were hanging out with a friend that is doing IMAZ as well and turns out has actually done Shotgun Creek. When I mentioned I had done it that day he said, "Oh man." My response, "yeah, have you done that ride Morgan?" "Yeah, did it once. There were times I was worried I wasn't going to be able to continue to move forward it was so steep!" Shotgun Creek - you suck! Especially on a TT bike. But, I'm happy for finishing it and stronger for doing it! Luckily the pizza was awesome, had a few beers and now can laugh about it all.

Sunday was much more relaxed as I did a 70 min run followed by a short swim workout with Meg. Currently relaxing and working my legs with the stick. Tomorrow is an off day and I'm stoked about that. I tried to snap a picture at the top of Shotgun Creek, but my damn camera wasn't working on my phone. More pics next time...I swear! Thanks for reading,

-T