The Early Bird Gets... Hungry!!

It is currently 3:50am here in Colorado.  Despite being up until 10pm local time (that's midnight for me - WAY later than normal), I've been awake since 3am.  I knew I'd be up early.  Our 5am start didn't phase me on paper.  However, I am now learning that my stomach may be an untold issue.  I can get up early, but breakfast doesn't start until 5am.  *sigh*  #EARLYBIRDPROBLEMS

I expected to write blog entries at night, but at this point, it seems the morning may be more likely. 

What happened yesterday?!

We got out of Hartford and due to the weather, we had a slightly turbulent flight the whole way into Denver.  It didn't bother me, but there certainly were some that disliked being told to stay in their seat.  I tried to do a bit of work, but as soon as I pulled it out, my body shut down.  My body was telling me something!  "You're on 'vacation.'  Stop working!"  Okay!  Okay!  I pulled out my audiobook (Relentless: Good to Great to Unstoppable) and spent the rest of the flight listening to that.  If you haven't checked it out, I suggest you do.  It is GREAT!!

The plane touched down, I eventually got off (In order to get an aisle seat, I was about 4 seats from the back row), I switched from audiobook to my "Pump Up" playlist and I was off. 

I walked into Denver International Airport with Breaking Benjamin blasting in my ear and the excitement of the weekend buzzing in my head.  I was IN THE ZONE!!  My focus narrowed, the world faded out around me, and man did it feel good.  THIS is what I live for!  God that felt good!  And man was I off!  And then I saw this...

AWESOME!!

I picked up my luggage (only one tie strap broke in the bike box, so altogether, not bad), found the Triathlon Research representative, and met the first two other campers; Ben and Kiersten.  ...or was it Christine?  Sorry!  It's Kiersten!  (I just checked the Facebook page)  Kiersten is from the St. Louis area and is looking to move into 70.3s.  Ben is from California, but used to live in southwestern Colorado and is also looking to break into 70.3s.  We were picked up by Mike, Ben and my squad leader and were off to Westminster, just outside of Boulder. 

Due to this weekend being graduation for a number of schools in the area, finding a hotel was a chore and a half for the Triathlon Research team.  I must say though, where we are is great!  We're staying in the Drury Hotel, a brand new building.  Nice digs!

We got dropped off, checked in, unloaded our stuff, and headed to the conference room where everyone was getting dinner and info about our first day tomorrow (now today).  It was great to meet some of the people I've been talking to on the phone as well as the other campers.  There are 45 of us, so we've got a lot of names to mess up.  =P 

The last thing they did was hand out our goodie bags!  It was a TYR acquatics gear bag stuffed with lots of things; Yurbuds, New Balance shoes, a very comfy Castelli long-sleeve jersey, a variety of GU products, a Headsweats visor, water bottle, and other little things.  AWESOME!!

After some info and food, it was already 8pm (10pm by my body).  I went straight back to the room to build my bike.  I cleared out some room, set down the towels (to avoid getting grease anywhere, put in my headphones, and went to town.  Twenty-five minutes later, it was built.  The real test will be today's FTP test.  I can just see my seat stem falling down as I ride or my aerobars starting to droop! 

BAM!  Bike built!  Let's hope she holds up!

What are we doing today??

From what I recall and what is on the schedule, we have breakfast at 5am, we head to Rally Sports (our host locale), bang out our main information gathering, individual form analysis and video for swim, bike, and run (1 hour each) including a bike FTP/lactate thresh test, then lunch, a seminar with Siri, and finally dinner. 

That pretty much sums it up!  Thankfully while I've been sitting here in the dining area to avoid waking up my roommate, they've let me start nibbling on what's out for breakfast.  Food makes an athlete happy!

Enjoy your day and I will check in again tomorrow morning most likely!

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Questions
1.  What is the longest flight you've ever taken?
Boston to Denver was my longest flight.  This came pretty darn close today.

2.  Do you ever find yourself up super early or super late while away from home?
I love going West because I'm always up SUPER early.  

3.  What are you doing for workouts today? 
I may need to live vicariously through some of you this week while we get buried in information.


DREAM.  BELIEVE.  ACHIEVE. 

You Guys Are Just Too Awesome...

Today started out with a rather odd trip to Autozone.  For those who don't know, you can get Check Engine lights checked at Autozone for FREE!  I specifically buy my oil there for that very reason; I use their assistance often enough.  Anyways, I was driving around yesterday when my check engine light came on.  I wasn't able to stop in yesterday, so I headed over first thing today.  I go in and get someone to come out with the computer plug in.  And guess what?  The light's gone!  Where'd it go?  I have no idea.  I honestly thought it would turn back on when I went to leave, but thankfully is hasn't yet.  I'm pretty sure my car is a three year old that enjoys throwing temper tantrums. 

Then I went out to look for new running shoes.  I found a pair of Adidas that fit well, the Adidas Swyft Cushion.  The only thing was, I needed more room in the toe box, so I tried to order a size bigger but the computers were down.  So I went to another store and found a pair of New Balance I thought might work, but I'm holding out hoping that I can get the Adidas.  If they're still not able to order them by tomorrow, I think I'll just pick up the New Balance shoes and maybe see about getting the Adidas as a back up or alternate pair.  Who knows.  Either way, at least I'm back to buying sale and clearance shoes instead of up-marked, high-tech shoes!  haha  More money for food!

Let's see, what's next?  Oh, I had a meeting for Girl Scouts.  Yes, I'm still doing a bit of work for them, but nothing major.  Thankfully it was a beautiful day so we went to Starbucks and sat outside in the sun.

Then I went for a bike ride.  Since I'm going to be working during the day tomorrow and will be on the weekends as well, I figured I'd try to find a way to ride to work.  I google mapped the directions, made some alterations, wrote them down, and headed out.  Eleven point four miles later, I made it to work where I got greeted by "And here's Lance Armstrong himself!"  It's funny how people of different active backgrounds see each other's sports and workouts as incredibly difficult while think nothing of their own.  But overall, the roads were fine and I'm going to be up and out the door by 8AM tomorrow to be to work by 9AM.  Hooray for saving gas!  I just have to figure out a way to stop on my way back and pick up my new running shoes; haven't figured that out quite yet.

I got home after all of this, showered, ate a snack and decided that instead of heading to the gym to swim or out for a run, I should sit down and catch up on all of your blogs.  Three hours later, I don't even think I've made a dent!  haha  It gets more and more intriguing every week with new twists in your lives, new PRs or races, funny motivation stories, stories about your kids, stories about hard times you're going through, and even the simply one-picture posts of something hilarious from your day.  I'm sure you all can tell when I finally sit down to write the Week in Review because you start getting comments on last Friday's blogs and wonder "where the heck has he been for the last week?"  Yes, I live under a rock.  As long as the Earth is considered a rock and you call the Southern hemisphere "up."  Then I live under that very large rock. 

I'm into Monday's blog posts, so I'll finish them all tomorrow after work.   But let me just tell you, you're pure awesomeness puts me to work every week!  And I love it!!

Keep being awesome!

Stay fit.  Stay healthy. 

8 Mile Run, New Balance, and Mapmyrun.com

Today I have a few things I'd like to talk about; today's workout, New Balance, and a site called Mapmyrun.com.

First, today's workout.  I went out and purchased some running socks based on the fact that I've been having blisters lately and had read that you should stay as far away from cotton as you can.  I got some PowerSox.  Then today I headed out hoping to be able to put in a 10k.  I got to the 10k around 53:00 and figured "hey, why not finish off the full hour?"  So I continued on out to a 1 mile mark and came back.  I ran a total of 8 miles in roughly 1:10.  It was incredible.  While I admit that I still had to work through a bit of hip pain through mile 4 and toe pain in the last mile, my feet in general felt GREAT!

Second, as I mentioned before, I found that New Balance has training schedules on their website for a 5k, 10k, half marathon, and marathon for three levels of runners - beginners, intermediate, and advanced.  I've used New Balance shoes for over three years now because they offer various widths for most of their shoes (great for people such as myself who have wider-than-normal feet) and now I love the company even more for giving that extra support of fitness.  I do admit that in looking at their beginner 5k schedule, I think they should have you run at least 30 minutes once or twice (based on the fact that I can run a 5k in 20 minutes, 30 minutes should put most people at over a 5k distance).  But either way, the schedules are there and that's great!

Lastly, I've been talking to a friend from college who has started keeping up with my blog and she informed me of what I think is an amazing site called www.mapmyrun.com.  This site allows you to map out your run to determine the distance, log your daily training, share planned out paths, and such.  There's also a site called www.mapmyride.com for those of you who prefer cycling sites.  I have only used the former site for a couple days, so I'm not sure of many differences, but if you're looking for paths other people have mapped out and made public, obviously the individual sites have their respective advantage.

I'm always happy to make use of and promote fitness items.  So please let me know if you find either of these useful.  I'd be overjoyed to hear that I've led people to something that makes their fitness goals or maintenance easier or more enjoyable in any way.

Ok, time to make some food.  I'm STARVING!!

Ciao!