Wye Mountain Loop?

The plan calls for 2.5 hours on the bike tomorrow. Heather, Shannon, and I are thinking about doing the Wye Mountain Loop. I know it's a bit hilly, but many of us are doing Ozark Valley in a few weeks, so this would be a nice warm-up for that. We were planning on rolling by 6:30 AM from Maumelle Park. Who's in or who has a different idea?

-Bird

Just A Thought

As we all embark on a 24-week journey towards Ironman Florida this November it's probably a good idea to keep these thoughts in mind. They come from one of the world's most prolific and well schooled coaches/teachers...Joe Friel.

"Most age-group athletes who train far less than 20 hours weekly have many years of improvement ahead of them depending on the effects of their aging curves. The older you get the fewer mistakes you can make in training if you want to keep the growth curve rising steadily. They must avoid injury, illness and other breakdowns that interrupt training. This is the biggest challenge for self-coached athletes there is. It’s a rare athlete who will limit himself. Most are intent on doing all that is possible. Hard workouts abound.I believe that the key to success in sport is not simply hard workouts but, more importantly, training consistency — practicing your sport day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Uninterrupted. Athletes who focus on excessively hard workouts on the premise that this will quickly produce exceptional performance eventually find themselves overtrained, burned out, injured or sick. There is nothing that produces race results like years of consistent training. This is not to say there is no place for hard workouts. There is. It’s just a matter of how hard and how often."

And so it begins!

If you're on a 24-week training plan for Ironman Florida 2009 your adventure starts this week!

Sobering

Sobering news today about Steve Larsen, a former professional cyclist, an Ironman and mountain bike racer, who died of a heart attack at the age of 39.

Click the link to read the story:

http://www.everymantri.com/everyman_triathlon/2009/05/ironman-and-cyclist-steve-larsen-dies-of-heart-attack-at-the-age-of-39.html#more

Ozark Valley Anyone?

Looking ahead just a little I'm wondering if anyone's interested in doing the Ozark Valley in Fayetteville towards the end of June? It's a modified sprint (1000 yard swim, 19 mile bike, 4 mile run).

The entry fee is $65 until May 31 and goes up to $75 June 1. The race is also a qualifier for the USAT age group nationals.

www.ozarkvalleytriathlon.com

-brick

Post MiM

Congratulations to all those who participated in Sunday's Memphis in May Oly! In all there were 24 triathletes from the central Arkansas area that competed. Of those 5 are doing IMFL this fall: Ernie, Bird, TBras, Trey and Brick. Gary Taylor, who's also signed up for IMFL, didn't race Sunday but was at the event in charge and in full support of all the racers. The CARVE group had quite a spread going. They rented a house on wheels and cordoned off an area to set up a base of operations.

Race conditions were mixed. The wind was high making for a challenging bike leg. Probably the toughest of the three years I've raced in Memphis. I think overall bike times were down as a whole. At a few points the wind gusts moved me on the road.

I didn't really notice the wind on the run but I did appreciate the cooler temperatures. I also appreciated the partial cloud cover.

Below are the results of the IMFL 5 (not to be confused the the LR 9):

18 86 Ernie Lechuga 33 55 27:57 1:30 5 58:08 24.3 1:36 18 41:40 6:43 2:10:49 Llittle Rock AR

39 224 Kevin Birdwell 31 49 26:38 2:23 40 1:09:29 20.3 2:13 31 44:17 7:08 2:24:57 Bryant AR

43 316 Troy Braswell 30 29 23:35 3:08 47 1:11:34 19.7 1:57 55 52:54 8:31 2:33:05 Little Rock AR

43 338 Scott Philbrick 45 61 29:29 2:08 32 1:08:44 20.5 2:17 54 52:09 8:24 2:34:46 Little Rock AR

101 563 Trey Chandler 40 65 27:44 2:47 96 1:17:24 18.2 4:21 110 1:01:07 9:51 2:53:20 Maumelle AR

As a reference the numbers after the name are:

age, swpl, swtime, T1, bkpl, bktime, avgmph, T2, rnpl, runtime, runpace, totaltime.

Congrats to Ernie for a great race! 2:10:49 is excellent and averaging more than 24mph on the bike. Wow!

Also congrats to Bird for setting a PR! 2:24:57. A 7:08 pace on the run is picking 'em up and layin' 'em down. Great job!

TBras, aka the human torpedo, swam a 23:35! That's fantastic especially considering it's his first open water swim in about 2-years. He was also averaging in the 8:15 pace-range until you-know-what reared it's ugly head.

Trey said he had a difficult swim but still managed a 27:44 (that's a great swim for me!).

Despite the windy conditions I still managed 20.5 average on the bike and I felt good about my run at an 8:24 pace. My goal was a sub-50 but ended up being 52:09.

All in all it was a good day and for the majority of us a great way to kick off the season.

IMFL '09 training officially starts next week!

MiM

Memphis in May is this Sunday. Good luck to all those participating: Trey, Troy, Ernie, Gary, Bird & Brick.

Am I missing anyone?

-brick

Tomorrow's Ride (5/9/2009)

Several of us are planning on rolling from the church building at Kanis and Ferndale at 6:30 AM and doing the "Kanis Loop" (I've never done it but supposedly it's 40-45 miles relatively flat). If you're running late for some reason, call someone so we don't leave without you

Party Reinstated

We'll miss the Philbrick's but Kasie and I would be happy to host this at our house. We’ll do another one of these later so the Philbricks can get in on the action. If it's raining, things may get a bit crowded as our house isn't huge, but hopefully the rain will hold off. We’ll provide the meat (plus bread/buns, plates, forks, napkins, and ice). The meat will probably just be grilled chicken and hotdogs but we may be able to round up some pulled pork and chopped beef too (don’t hold your breath). If you don’t like those options, feel free to bring your own and cook it up on our grill. Also, if you guys want something besides meat, (i.e. soft drinks, not-so-soft drinks, side dishes, desserts) then we’ll need some volunteers to bring enough to share. Please leave a comment letting us know if you’re coming and what (if anything) you’re bringing. I think it’s understood, but bring your whole family and/or your significant others. We’ll try to have food cooking by 5:30 and you can stay as long as you want. My house is in Bryant, but I prefer not to post directions to my house online, so if you don’t know how to get here, please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email (Gmail… it’s still on theTri-Carve list). If you don’t know the contact info, you can get in touch with Trey, Shannon, Heather, Scott, or Troy as I’m sure all of them have my contact info.
-Kevin

Party Postponed

With apologize from the outset. The Ironman Florida participants get together was scheduled for this Saturday. It's going to have to be postponed until a later date.

My oldest plays on the CAC Mustangs baseball team and they're going to Fayetteville Saturday to play in the championship game for the state title! Pretty exciting stuff from where I sit.

I'm looking forward to our get together so we can all get to know one another a little better, including all of our families but it can't be this weekend....at least for me.

I'll throw some dates out there soon.

CONGRATS

Congratulations to Dean and Jordan for completing the Arkanthaw this past weekend. According to Dean it was a pretty hilly bike and even worse on the run.

Way to jump-start the season fellas!

Photo is courtesy of Jordan.

Efficient Triathlon

What's a great way to do a triathlon but eliminate the swim? Easy, ride your bike in the rain. Heather, Shannon, Rory, Troy, Bird and myself did just that.

We did the river trail loop twice and then a few of us finished with a 30-minute run.

Riding in the rain is really not that bad. You certainly need to be more careful with the slippery roads and it's more difficult to see with all the water droplets on your glasses. But, once you're wet, you're wet. One thing is certain, you pretty much have the road to yourself.

Make sure you ask Trey how his ride went! Oh, wait, never mind!

BEWARE

I came across this article/warning today. If you take any of these products you might want to click on the link and read this article.

http://www.everymantri.com/everyman_triathlon/2009/05/fda-warns-consumers-to-stop-using-hydroxycut-products-.html

Arkanthaw or Ride

Jordan and Dean (any others?) are doing the Arkanthaw Oly tomorrow a.m. According to a comment Dean left if you haven't already signed up, no worries, you can do so @ 6a at Lake Norrell. The race starts @ 7:30am.

Good luck Jordan and Dean!

For anyone else interested several are meeting at Cook's landing at the crack (6am-ish) and rolling soon after. I'll probably throw the running shoes in the car for some brickwork.