April 10th, 2008: Introducing the Zero Gravity Treadmill (AlterG): So there's a bunch of pretty cool things that athletes have access to at the OTC, one of these being the Alter-G in the sports medicine building. This is a treadmill that forms a suction bubble around your waist and allows you to control what percentage of your body weight you run at (all the way down to 20%). It’s great for small injuries or recovery runs because you can get a decent workout in, but your legs don’t have to deal with the stress of carrying your full body weight. It’s more effective than pool running or going on the elliptical machine because you’re not just simulating running – you are running. Mikey O. has been dealing with a nagging foot injury and has gotten on the Alter-G a lot (See pics below). Hopefully he’ll get better ASAP, but in the meantime it’s extremely beneficial to have access to training tools such as the Alter-G. So if you've got a spare $70,000 lying around and you're interested, check out alter-g.com.
After the Carlsbad 5000 my legs were absolutely destroyed. I dedicated Tuesday totally to recovery (besides for a light swim) – I got massaged and stretched in Sports med in the morning, did some “contrast treatment” (alternating sitting in the hot tub and cold tub to promote blood flow to sore areas), had a yoga session, and did quite a bit of foam-rolling and stretching on my own. This recovery day totally paid off and I felt a ton better on Wednesday, and now I’m in the midst of my last hard block of intensity before I race the Pan-Am Champs next weekend. We finished up our training pretty early today. We had a track workout and hard swim, and by then it was only 1:00 PM, so we decided to have a little fun and go shopping. We went to this outdoor mall in Chula Vista. I got a few things at Pac Sun (to suit my new SoCal look), we checked out REI for a while, and had some really good coffee at this local place. Right now we’re about an hour away from having an “Office” party (to celebrate the show's return to NBC after the writers’ strike). Yeah it’s a pretty tough life we live out here in Chula…
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April 7th, 2008: More about Carlsbad: Fast course + fast field = fast times. I haven't run a 5k under 15 minutes in years - not since I was running in a maize and blue jersey my sophomore year of college. It was great having some fast competition to race against. The first mile was a shock for my legs - 4:37, and from that point on it was basically "hang-on for dear life" mode. Jarrod and I got a little shoutout on insidetri.com. The night before the race Alan Webb came down to the OTC to hang out and watch the NCAA final four games. He knows Mikey O. - they went to the same high school, so that was pretty cool. Unfortunately Alan had a bit of an off day and DNF'd in the elite race. The field was incredibly fast, with a 13:30 something winning it. Anyways, my legs were totally fried from the race. Today we had sort of a hard 4500 meter swim, an easy spin, and a run that Sexton and I ultimately cut short due to sore legs. It may have been a bit too hard for the day after a race, so tomorrow my coach has an easier day planned. Jarrod is leaving for the Ishigaki, Japan World Cup tomorrow at 5:30 AM, so it'll just be me, Mikey O, and Sexton until next week when we all leave for our respective races.
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April 6th, 2008: Carlsbad 5k - Here are some quick pictures from the Carlsbad 5k this morning. I'll post more about it tomorrow. The race went okay for me - I took 6th place in 14:57, Jarrod won in 14:32:
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April 2nd, 2008: Here is a quick video from our 20x400 workout this morning on the track. It was a tough one...
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April 1st, 2008: It's been a long, exhausting day. It began at 4:40 AM this morning when I had to wake up to drive Steve Sexton to the airport. Steve flies home every other week to show his face around Berkeley (where he's working on a PhD in economics) for good measure. I got back to the OTC around 6:00 AM and got in about a 50 minute nap before I had to get up again and get ready for our run. We did 6 miles with some hill repeats in the middle. After that I had my standard omelet breakfast and we headed to the pool for a mod plus workout (moderate plus is a term we use to describe a workout that we don't want to admit is hard but it really is...). After that I ate a big lunch and was really itching for a nap, but Jarrod dragged me out on the bike for some steady state intervals. We switched off the lead every minute, and it ended up going pretty well. So it's only 8:45 PM right now but it feels like midnight. I need to get a good night's sleep tonight because we have one of our hardest track workouts of the year tomorrow: 20x400. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's going to be an awesome feeling to get it over with. At 1:00 PM tomorrow we have an appointment with the sports performance lab scientist guy to go over the results from out LT tests. We're hopefully going to get some good information on how to use the data from our tests to get faster. Well, that's it for now, goodnight!
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March 31st, 2008: We're already one quarter into 2008, and I officially get into my racing season in three weeks with the PATCO race in Mazatlan, Mexico. Most of my long, monotonous, and solo workouts are done with and I'm getting into more exciting and intense interval work on the track and on the bike. This Chula Vista camp has been great in that I am pushed hard by the other guys in workouts, and we're doing some very beneficial race simulation work. Anyway, so far in 2008 I have trained for a total of 237.83 hours (yeah I know I spend way too much time analyzing my training log). This breaks down to 240,500 meters in the pool, 92.57 hours on the bike, and 548.3 miles of running. This is the base I hope to carry me through a successful 2008! In other news I finally received the results from the lactate testing that we did last week (check out the post on March 27). The results are extremely promising. All the the boring tempo treadmill/computrainer work I did during the winter has paid off. While these results are exciting for me, I know that it doesn't mean anything unless I can translate this data into good performances. 18 days until Mazatlan...
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March 30th, 2008: It has been a busy, eventful, and somewhat indecisive weekend. On Saturday we went up to Oceanside for the California 70.3 Half Ironman. It was a blast. As part of Jarrod's "entourage" we all got access to the VIP tent, which was great. It was loaded with delicious food, a keg, and it basically had the best view of the finish line. The race itself turned out to be wicked exciting with it coming down to a sprint finish on the men's side between a fellow Wolverine, Andy Potts, and Aussie Craig Alexander. Potts was able to edge him out by a few seconds. On the women's side the field was extremely competitive with 2 former 70.3 World Champions taking 2nd (Mirinda Carfrae) and 5th (Sam McGlone). The race was won by former duathlon World Champ Erika Csomer. After the race we were planning on heading up to Santa Barbara to spend the night at some "tri-diva" house (this is what the race director called it...) and then race a sprint triathlon the following morning. However, once we realized we were about a 4 hour drive away from Santa Barbara and it was going to be really cold on race morning we decided to pull over and discuss some alternative options. Despite having loaded up the car with our bikes and excessive amounts of stuff, we ultimately decided to turn around and head back to Chula. We did get in an open water swim on the way back in La Jolla. I think it worked out for the better - instead of sitting in a car for 5 hours today driving back from Santa Barbara we got in a solid training day that included a hard 12 mile run, easy 3k swim workout, and hill repeats on the bike. Here are some random pics from the 70.3 race.
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March 27th, 2008: These past couple days I've been doing lactate testing in the sports performance lab. I feel like this is sort of a report card for my fitness, so I'm hoping my results will be promising. Check out the video and pictures below:
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March 25th, 2008: Things have continued to go well here in Chula Vista. The weather has been cooperating for the most part, my swimming has really been strong over the past couple weeks, and I'm getting adjusted to running fast track workouts. This Sunday I will be heading up to Santa Barbara with Mike O and Steve Sexton to compete in a sprint triathlon. I want to get a tri under my belt before the Pan-am Championships in Mexico next month. The following week our "Chula crew" will be headed up to Carlsbad to run a fast 5k road race. I'll be aiming for a new PR if things stay on track for me. Yesterday we accompanied Jarrod down to La Jolla to XX Sports Radio where Jarrod was the interviewee. It was a ton of fun - the radio hosts were really cool guys and invited us to stay in the studio during the interview. It was cool to see some guys who have a relatively mainstream radio talk show talk triathlon with Jarrod.
Today and tomorrow I am doing "lactate testing" in the performance lab. This is a somewhat strenuous process to find my body's lactate threshold on the bike and while running. This process involves me doing a several (4-5) tough run or bike intervals, my blood is then taken from my finger after each interval and thrown into some sort of machine, and then the pace is increased and the process is repeated until enough lactic acid is found in my blood for the test to cease. Finding this data will help me to train more efficiently. Sometimes it's not about training harder but training smarter... I completed my bike test today and will commence with my run test tomorrow. Some random photos:
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| March 17th, 2008: Some pictures!
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| March 12th, 2008: Hello all, I’ve been living at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA for the past 2 weeks now and have a ton of things to share, so forgive me if I sound a bit scatter-brained… I kicked off my 2008 season two weeks ago with the Desert Classic Duathlon in Phoenix, AZ. The race did not go well. I finished a disappointing 12th place. The race was however, super competitive, and the tough course didn’t make it a good fit for a fitness-test/1st-race-of-the-season-race. I didn’t hydrate well on the bike, and the moment my feet hit the ground for the second run both of my legs cramped up. I went from being in 9th place and in contention to make a crack at the top 7 (top 7 win prize money) to fading to 12th. But hey, that’s what the first race of the season is for – make your mistakes early so you don’t make them when it matters. I was pretty mad about my performance afterwards, but my coach Tim told me I was only allowed to stay mad for 24 hours then I had to put it behind me and get back into training. And that’s just what I did. I flew from Phoenix to San Diego and then caught the shuttle to the OTC. It’s just gorgeous out here. It hasn’t rained once in the past 2 weeks – everyday it’s been sunny and mid 70s. It’s made for perfect riding, outdoor swimming, and pleasant runs. The cafeteria food is pretty good most of the time, and when it’s not we always have the backup plan of going to Miguels for chips and salsa and Mexican beer. At night you can see the bright lights from Tijuana, Mexico. In fact, on a recent bike ride Alicia, Jordan, and Mike saw three illegal immigrants sneak across the road, and when they rode by Mike saw one of them put his finger over his lips and say “shhhhhhhhhhhhhh” (totally cliché huh?). We’re pretty sure border control picked them up. There are border patrol vehicles everywhere out here. We can’t go for a ride or run without seeing about 20 of them. I was scheduled to race this past weekend in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, but I decided not to go at the last minute due to a nagging ankle injury. I may have some mild tendonitis – I’ve been getting treatment on it nearly every day at sports medicine. Anyway, running the duathlon aggravated it, so I didn’t want to put the stress of another race on it so soon. Also, my training is going so well here that I figured it wasn’t worth it to lose out on a few valuable days. Despite my ankle, my running has still been very strong. We just did our second track workout of the year earlier this week – repeat miles. Jarrod and I started out running just under 5:00 and continued to descend from there. I’ve felt strong on our longer runs, too, and it’s so nice to be running on gravel trails all the time. My coach Tim Crowley is out here for the week. It’s nice having a motivational, semi-authority figure administer our workouts as it gets boring doing everything on our own sometimes. Today was somewhat of a recovery day. We had an easy 10-mile run this morning and then drove to the coast to meet with a stretching/physical therapy specialist. Everyone got a 20-30 minute session with him. After that we went out on a chill, 2 hour bike ride up the coast. There was a lot of traffic but the sights were beautiful, and we rode an out-and-back course all the way up to the start of the California 70.3 race. Then it was back to the OTC for a 30-45 minute weight session. Some recovery day, huh?! I’m pretty exhausted and am about to head to bed. I will try to update more frequently while I’m out here and get some pictures up as well!
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| February 5th, 2008: This past Saturday I competed at the Team Psycho Indoor Time Trial which was held at Fastsplits Multisport. They had an awesome setup there – I’ve never seen anything like it. There were about 8 riders per heat, everyone was hooked up to a computrainer, and each rider was represented as a colored dot (I was the purple dot) that was displayed on two big screen TV’s. You could see exactly where you were in relation to each competitor the whole time. The 15k simulated course was over rolling terrain. I had an awesome ride - won my heat in 22:22.22 and placed third overall. The second place time was 22:22.21, a difference of one hundredth of a second! If only we had been in the same heat… Later that evening I got back on the bike for an easy spin to loosen up the legs. Full ITT Results - http://www.teampsycho.com/2008ITTtime.htm
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| February 2nd, 2008: January has finally come to an end and February represents the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the monotony of winter training. I can finally begin to look forward to my first race of the season in Phoenix on Feb 24th, and from there I will be going straight to San Diego where I will be living at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center for 2 months. Can’t wait! All in all, January was an incredibly consistent month as I hit 18 hours of training week after week. It has been 48 days since I last had a day off, and the results are definitely beginning to show. I’ve decided that I want to use this blog to give everyone out there an in-depth look into my training, so I’m going to start posting more detailed accounts of my workouts. I’ll start with a segment from this past week: My week was front-loaded with tough workouts – I had 10 workouts
scheduled for a 3-day period (Mon-Wed). It included a tough block of hard
running and a weight room session: In other news, I’m planning to go back to my Alma Mater, the University of Michigan, at the end of next week to visit some of my friends. It should be a nice change of scenery and a chance to have some fun before the racing season begins.
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January 15th, 2008: Happy New Year! I've been back in Massachusetts dealing with the New England winter for a little over a month now. My training has been very consistent, and I haven't taken a day off in over 30 days. I've begun to feel a lot stronger in the pool. This is most likely due to consistently hitting over 20K meters/week and battling it out with Jarrod Shoemaker 4 times/week at practice. I've also been on a steady core-strengthening program which I'm really starting to reap the benefits from. Last week I got a little reprieve from the cold as temperatures rose to around 50 degrees. I didn't waste the opportunity and rode outside a few times (a total of around 100 miles). It was nice to get away from the Computrainer/rollers for a little bit. I'm hoping that 2008 will be a breakout year for me. Some of my goals include defending my U23 National Title, getting to race in a few World Cup races, and achieving a top-3 finish at the U23 World Championships in early June. The way my training has been lately, I think I'm on my way to accomplishing these objectives. Long periods without races are the best times to make gains on your competitors, and I feel confident that a long, hard winter of training will set me up for an awesome 2008. On another note, I'd like to welcome a new sponsor, Gold's Gym. Golds is sponsoring me through a free membership, which really helps me out. They're one of the few places around here that have treadmills fast enough for me to get a decent workout on, and I usually do my weight routine there twice a week. I also like the fact that they are willing to support a local athlete and want to see me do well. Thanks!
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December 16th, 2007: After my flight being delayed 6 hours in Denver due to a snow storm hitting Boston, I was finally able to get back home to Lowell, Massachusetts late Thursday night. The long day of travel took a lot out of me, and I ended up sleeping for 14 hours, until 2 PM, on Friday.
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November 16th, 2007: I’m back in Colorado Springs and am enjoying some much-needed time off from training. It’s been a long but successful season and now it’s time for some relaxation and fun. I’ve been sleeping in until about noon all week long – I can’t remember the last time I was able to do that. A couple nights ago the senior national team coach, Cliff, and his significant other Sam McGlone threw an end-of-the-season party complete with pizza and beer. It was a blast and I had a great time hanging out with the triathlete crowd in a non-competitive/training setting. Tomorrow is the Michigan vs. Ohio State football game, and I have plans to watch it with a gymnast who also graduated from Michigan. We haven’t beaten OSU in several years and a win tomorrow would secure us a Big Ten Title! With this time off I’ve also gotten the chance to reflect back on my season, contact some potential sponsors for 2008, and consult my coaches about the best way to approach my training during the winter months. It was a breakout year for me beginning with a podium finish at Collegiate Nationals in April. The year also included a slot at the Under-23 World Championships, which I secured in Honolulu in May, and the best part came in Longmont, Colorado where I won my first national title. I was recently notified that I am a candidate for USAT Rookie of the Year. Despite this success I know that I still have a long way to go. I missed the lead bike group at the World Championships due to a slow transition, and at the Geneva Continental Cup I was dropped on the bike because of my poor cornering skills, (which I've improved on tremendously since then). I've tried to learn from these mistakes and its given me a good idea of what I need to work on. For most of the year I focused on trying to get my swimming and cycling up to the level that my running was at, and this forced me to put running on the back-burner. However, now that I am much stronger on the bike and in the pool, I will be able to shift some emphasis back onto my running this winter, and I hope to see some positive results in early 2008. Working out with Jarrod Shoemaker this winter should definitely get my running to the level it needs to be at in order to get some top finishes.
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November 11th, 2007: A disappointing end to the season. San Francisco, CA - My season came to a disappointing end yesterday. I traveled to California for the ITU San Francisco Continental Cup Triathlon, but due to the oil spill in San Francisco Bay earlier this week it quickly became apparent that the swim portion of the race would be cancelled. Instead, approximately 80 triathletes became duathletes for the day as the new race format would be a 6.6k run, 40k bike, and finally a 10k run. The night before the race I stayed with Jarrod Shoemaker and his wife Alicia in an apartment in the city. On race morning the sky was overcast with rain in the forecast. I did a 15 minute run warmup and plenty of strides. The run course was a 3.3k out-and-back loop. I got off to a fast start and ran near the front. It was my goal to try to stay within the top ten. At the first turn-around the pack started to get spread out and I fell behind the lead group. I ended up running in between 8th-10th place in a group with Peter Mallet, Brian Hague, and Joe Umpenour. We ran into the first transition and headed out onto the technical, bumpy 6-lap bike course. I felt comfortable in the small pack I was in. After about 2 laps the bike pack behind us, led by Brian Fleischman, caught up to us and we merged into one, large 20 man pack. Then things started getting tricky. On the 3rd lap someone hit a bump on the pavement and went flying off their bike into another rider. Ben Collins got a flat tire shortly after that. Another crash occurred on the following lap again due to the unsuspecting bumps on the road. As we were about to start the 5th lap I noticed my back wheel was loosing tire pressure fast. Despite Kevin Collington telling me I didn't have a flat when I asked him, I soon found I was riding on my rim and had to pull over. I was too far away from a wheel stop to get a new rear wheel, so that was it for me. My day was over and my season was over. shortly after that Joe Umpenour had to drop out due to a flat. So it was a tough day for a lot of people. Less than half of the people in my bike pack actually made it into the 2nd transition. I was one of the "lucky" ones who didn't have to exit the race due to a crash. I'll probably take a little time off this week and consult my coaches as we come up with my goals and training plan for the winter.
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| October 20, 2007: This is my first entry into what I hope to be an in-depth look at my training. I am currently living at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO and will be out here until December 13th. The training setup here is absolutely fabulous. My main goal in the coming months is to work on my cycling strength and handling skills. Having the opportunity to workout with so many talented triathletes should definitely be a big help. The mountainous riding around here should also provide an added boost to my fitness. I've been out here for just about a month and am finally starting to feel more comfortable at this altitude. An average week for me includes 20K meters in the pool, around 10 hours on the bike, 30-40 miles of running, and a couple sessions in the weight room. I attend 5 swim sessions per week - they all take place at 7:30 AM (not ideal for someone who likes to sleep in!). After swim practice I've gotten in the habit of eating a quick breakfast and then heading back to bed for a few more hours of sleep. During the weekdays I usually head out for 1.5 - 2.5 hours of hilly riding followed by a medium-distanced run depending on how I'm feeling. After stretching and doing a strength or core/ab session I call it a day. Then it's time for proper recovery. There's an awesome "Recovery Center" here complete with a cold tub, hot tub, and proper post-exercise nutrition. Also, athletes are allowed 1.5 hours of massages per week. After my trip to the recovery center it's dinner time and I load up on carbs, vegetables, and all that other good stuff. So this is generally my daily routine. In future entries I'll provide a more in-depth look at specific training sessions, but for now I just wanted to give you a sense of what life is like out here. |
