MF'n Triathlon Coaching

Results: ATL Timing I found myself gazing out over the clear, translucent water of Priest Lake. My feet moved to the rhythm of my breathing, and if it weren’t for the tangible impact I felt of them hitting asphalt, I never would have known I was running. The cool air smelled fresh, as if no one yet had moved through what the trees and flowering bushes had worked all night to revive. A long time had passed where I have found the opportunity to escape and explore my surroundings with something other than my eyes. Yet I looked ahead. Bryan Rowe didn’t know he ran just 50 yards ahead of me. At the starting line, I had told him to go on ahead, as I had plans to run my slower goal Ironman pace. However, I realized during our 2-mile warm up that my legs had some spunk in them. The only problem was, for the last 3 months, I’ve been walking a fine line between running too much, too soon, too fast and risking further injury to my knee. An out-and-back course on paved

Sitting on the plane, thinking about what I hoped to do this past weekend at Ironman St. George 70.3, I inevitably thought about everything I had working against me: This race is notorious for terrible weather conditions. The extended forecast predicted a day filled with sunshine, 86 degrees for the high, and mild winds of no more than 4 mph. Yet weather conditions can change in an instant; remember last year’s Boise 70.3? My new Quintana Roo Cdo.1 Race arrived to Fitness Fanatics earlier this week, but because I didn’t have the opportunity to test it out, I decided to forgo the chance to race on a fast, fancy bike. I opted to have Jim put the race wheels on my Seduze instead. Finally, how could I successfully run in a race of such touted difficulty when I haven’t had the chance to run consistently since the last month has required me to rehabilitate my knee? I fully intended to either 1) race the swim and bike legs, and then walk the run, 2) jog the course at a

No better way to start off a race weekend than with an early morning swim in cold lake water. The last time I'd struggled into my wetsuit must have been back in late summer. So Ronnie, Bryan, and me took the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves to the neoprene and feel what swimming with added buoyancy is supposed to feel like. As of yesterday (Thursday), the official temperature provided by Utah State Parks in Sand Hollow Reservoir was 60 degrees. One step off the smooth, red rock into the water made us realize just how unaccustomed we have become to swimming in anything other than the pool. It felt a little colder than 60. We waded out into the water anyway and made for a large rock that turned out to be about 300 yards out in the middle of the reservoir. Tomorrow we'd be swimming around it. I swam up to the rock only to have something grab at my toes. Upon looking down toward my feet, I watched as several mid-sized fish scurry back under the rock. That is the first time I

Determine that a thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way. -- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)  I sit in the living room, bike fastened snuggly in its box, wetsuit tucked in my suitcase, my Garmin packed safely in my carryon. A funny feeling envelops me as I think about what I thought 2 months ago. February and March still lurk in my mind, those months when my knee would not…stop…hurting. It hurt to walk, it hurt to bend down, it hurt to touch. To run? I didn’t. When my hip began to hurt, too, the only answer looked like a long road of recovery with my ass planted firmly in the couch. Yet St. George 70.3 fell just 8 weeks out on the calendar. To have a race of such difficulty, such challenge, such presentiment breathing down my neck: I cratered. The physical therapy I sought wasn’t working. The massage and stretching I used stimulated no healing. The prayers I prayed seemed to fall on deaf ears. I missed the Snake River Half Marathon, but traveled down