I really don't have to much to report but I have a few random things to throw out there so here are my odds and ends.

• I bought a wetsuit, I took the plunge and went to the local bike/Tri shop, tried on a few suits and plunked down my cash on this little beauty of a suit. Sort of a mid range suit which is what I was looking for, a bit hard to spend the cash on it but my dreams of swimming in shrink, freeze and fall off cold water without a wetsuit have now ceased.

• I have been having some what I would call minor mid back muscle tightness late in longer rides and after intense rides, I am wondering about this. I posted a question on the message boards here hoping for some feedback. I am not sure if this is just something I need to work through or if I should look into tweaking my bike fit.

• My FIRST (Furman Institute of Running Science and Technology) half marathon training started this week. I need to add here that I am a bit leery of some of the repeats. Monday I only completed about half of what was called for as I feel like jumping in with both feet might lead to an injury. So I am going to take the interval stuff slow. I have a nice three mile tempo today, looking forward to it believe it or not.

• The 70.3 is four weeks away, I am feeling ready, I have a rough race strategy in my mind and I really can't wait for it to get here. After that I am all about Sprints, Oly's and having a really awesome summer or racing.

• I finally feel like I am not TERRIBLE on the bike, I still have a way to go but I actually feel like I am finally getting into my cozy place called average.

• Oh and I need to get to work!

Have a great rest of the week everyone, thanks for your recent comments and reading.

Well folks I kind of hit a landmark on the group ride last night. The week worked out kind of funny, see I have it in the "marital contract" this summer that I get to do a group ride a week.......You all know what the marital contract is right? If not you need to contact me and I can fill you in on how to be a master negotiator. Anyway....

Back to the ride, I had been going on Tuesday nights but like I said we had a conflict on Tuesday and I was allowed to go to the Wednesday night ride at Wheel and Sprocket. I had heard that is was a bigger ride but I was a bit amazed when people kept coming. Fancy bikes, deep carbon rims, time trial bikes, fancy biking jerseys, chicks that looked like they could "chick" me. I was excited to see how the ride would go.

Well it started out easy with a warm up with the group of about 30 staying together. Hand signals abounded, shouts of "CAR BACK", "SLOWING", "CAR LEFT" and "STOPPING" rang out as we meandered our way out to the country roads at an easy pace.

Then we crossed a road and BOOM it was on, the top group shot off and I knew right away I was not in thier league. And when I found out later that they average about 23 mph I simply thought maybe some day. I settled into a group of about 7 riders that seemed to be clicking along at a pace I could keep. It was fun we chatted a little but mostly it was serious riding. We formed a line and took turns pulling dropping to the back when we got tired. I would drop in the aero bars when I was in front and ride on the hoods when drafting. There is definitely a sense of pushing it on these rides, there is a non verbal feeling out. A guy will get to the front and push the pace. Eventually we dropped a couple and picked up a couple of stragglers that were dropped by the lead dogs, but what was landmark moment you ask.

Well the landmark moment is I averaged over 20mph for the entire 30 mile course. This is the first time I have ever averaged over 20 miles per hour on a longish bike ride. Could I have done it without the aid of the group, no way, but I will take it. My HR was very much threshold the entire ride. I know I will get benefits from these rides. At the end of the ride I saw "Kona Guy" hitting the roads for a little run and I was inspired. So I threw on my running shoes and went for a 2.5 mile loop around the neighborhood, hopefully flushing some of the Lactic Acid out of my legs. What an awesome workout and confidence builder it was. Here is how Garmin saw the ride.

I have to admit group riding is a completely different dynamic. I showed up at my Tuesday night group ride recovering from a migraine I had earlier in the day. But the meds I take knocked it down and I was just feeling sort of beat up. But I knew I needed this ride so I was there, first one in the lot. We got a whopping four people but it was a good ride. Things I learned on the ride.

1. I learned how to ride a rotating pace line, interesting to say the least.

2. I learned the meaning of the term Hammer Fest.

3. I learned I can ride outside of my comfort zone for prolonged periods.

4. I learned that if you see storm clouds on the horizon you turn away from them.

5. I understand that if I had a disc wheel or some of those fancy deep rimmed carbon wheels that they could be a problem in a strong cross wind. I mean I still want them but I can see how it would be an issue, I was really getting tossed around for a while there.

6. I learned that these group rides will likely be "tempo" rides for me, which is good.

All in all it was a good ride, we warmed up, and then we were clipping along in the pace line when we saw the rain on the horizon and we detoured back still trying to get miles in while moving away from the rain. We were heading North when the front came through from the West, wow it was crazy. But there was not a ton of rain so it was more a wind and wet roads issue. But in an effort to beat the rain a couple of guys put the hammer down. We dropped one guy immoderately, and I was laboring to stick with them. But you feel it, you feel them watching you, peeking over thier shoulder, testing you. How could I not push through? They dropped me a bit on a hill, 50 yards or so but once we crested it I went aero and caught back up. Granted I sucked tire for most of the time, and spent a good chunk of time in zone 5a but it was so worth it. I felt invigorated after the ride, confident that I could at least hang with these guys for stretches. There is no question they are stronger then me, but it is not by leaps and bounds and that makes me feel a bit more confident on the bike.

On a side note the running group I am helping get started is really starting to get off the ground. The big local running club which is more located in Appleton wants to pool it's efforts with us. Being that we are trying to start this as  Y program, we wanted to keep it that way the group president was on board with this. It seems like a win win for both of us, so things are coming together a little bit which is very cool. We also are exploring the possibility of becoming a training partner for the local marathon this fall. 20 people a week here we come. That is all for now.   

Well that was a solid week up until Sunday when family commitments forced me to cut my planned 50 mile bike ride down to 25. The most difficult thing about training for this half iron man for me is getting two long workouts in on the weekend, bike and run. I need to figure out a way to make this work, balance is such a challenge.

But the week looked like this

• Total time 9.5 Hours

• Swim 4,500 yards

• Bike 80 Miles

• Run 17 Miles

Two good key workouts were Tuesday Nights ride and Friday afternoons tempo run. I am not getting the results I really want in many of these areas but the workouts went fine and I completed them as I had hoped. Bottom line is I am very much my blog title lately, a person of limited ability but I just keep on trying hard trying to get better. Right now I really don't feel like I am making any big strides towards getting faster however. It can be a bit frustrating at times but all I can do is press on.

As I continue to muddle through my training I am looking at this week as a week I want to spend a bunch of time on the bike. Today is another beautiful Wisconsin spring day with a mix of rain and snow going on with temps in the upper 30's. So I am going to plan on the trainer tonight. My goal is to get 135 miles in on the bike this week with a long ride of around 60 over the weekend. I would like to get four total bike workouts in this week, 3 runs and 2 swims with the swimming taking the lowest priority. So now I am off to schedule the week.

I have decided I am going to run the Fox Cites Half marathon in the fall as an attempt to lay to rest the debacle that was the Oshkosh Half Marathon. To that end I have decided to give the FIRST running program a go as it allows me to keep my multisport training a priority. That will begin to be mixed into my weeks starting on my 38th Birthday May 19th. This however will require me to run a 5k sometime between now and then. I am considering the big local 5k called the Sole Burner, more on that later.  Have a great Monday everyone.

Well the bike group ride turned out to be a good idea. I guess if you want to call it a group, only me and one other guy showed up but when Ken exited his car in his Kona shirt I knew I was in trouble. After our greetings I said so you did Kona huh cool. He responded that he has done it six times and qualified at all of the North American races except Florida and one other that escapes me. I knew I was in trouble.

I told him that I would likely hold him back a bit but he seemed cool about it. We went out for a nice 31 mile ride and averaged 18.2 miles per hour which is a mile or two per hour faster then I normally get out of myself when I ride on my own. Granted I tucked in behind him a few times to recover and catch my breath. But at the end I was feeling good and not to spent for the effort.

He told me this group is a pretty strong group of cyclists. Some he said are just big and strong and all they do is bike. No women come and it tends to be a bit competitive. I am not sure if I can hang with them but I am going to try. I figure I can only get better if I get pushed.

Well that was interesting, it was nice yesterday and I was all geared up for a two hour bike ride after work even if the wind was blowing 30 mph. But then A called and suggested we take the kids downtown and walk them around the Public Enemies movie shoot downtown. Well this is my fatal flaw and why I will never be an Elite Athlete, this kind of stuff just comes first. Hopefully I can make things up over the next couple of days.

My 10 year old niece came along with us and the five of us set off to get a look at the filming of the big production. We were greeted with the sounds of Tommy Gun fire in Downtown Oshkosh and walking around were excited to see the action. However we were very soon frustrated as you could not get any good views of the filming and it seemed like we were destined to mill around and just people watch and get a look or two at some old cars.

So we milled around and people watched for a while and found out the Johnny Depp would likely come out and meet and great people after he was done shooting at 7:00. Well this is late for our kids but as we walked back we found some spots right on the front of the barricades and the girls were completely into meeting Johnny so we stayed. My youngest was not really into it but we entertained him for the 45 minutes or so we waited against the barricade.

Well it was crazy and not really my thing but as you can see there were a bunch of people down there and the excitement had gotten to everyone, We knew Johnny was going to come out so we just waited. As it turn out he came out and I guess spent an hour with the masses of people shaking hands and meeting and greeting. He paid special attention to the kids which won him points in my book. And as you can see we were up close and personal.

I captured the video below with my digital camera. It's kind of cool and you will get a pretty good feel of what the scene was like. I was holding my five year old in one arm against the barricade and filming with my other. You will here me telling Bobby to hold out his hand and say Hi Johnny. You will see Mr. Depp walk up and say "Hello, how are you buddy" to my five year old. As he goes down the line you will see C's green sleeve sticking through the barricade with my Niece right before her. He shakes both of thier hands and let me tell you it made thier week and then some.

[http://www.active.com/video/play.htm?id=1f9fdd92-1e25-4d72-834e-7143a1723647]

Well I guess that is it for today, I better get back to training.

Let's go from the start to the finish of Saturdays event, quickly because more then anything I just want to get this post over with and move on setting my sights on my upcoming A race the High Cliff 70.3.

Saturdays Home Town Half Marathon was less then stellar. I worked all week to rehab the ankle and left for the race feeling uncertain as to how race ready the ankle and foot was. I had not run on it all week and simply was going to warm up and test it out. I arrived at the start finish area about 7am and picked up my chip and went and huddled in the tent out of the snow and 32 degree windy day. I felt ready and I was trying to get my head in the game so to speak, push the doubts to the back of my mind. About 15 minutes before the start I went out and used the porta potty and then ran a little two block out and back warm up. This was not a good warm up as I had some shooting pain around my foot. So I did it again and it seemed to loosen up a bit but this did not help with the doubts.

I had decided I was just going to go out and try to run below my PR of 1:43:56 but do it just trying to run on feel. I had the Garmin but I decided that I was not going to perseverate over splits, but instead just try to run smooth and pay attention to my foot.

The race was well put together, a good group of runners, support out on the route, and nice water stations. I will break the race into three parts. Two five mile segments and the final 5k.

The first five miles went well and I am happy to report the shooting pains in my foot were gone after the warmup never to be heard from again. I settled into a group of people that seemed to be about my pace and I was just keeping to myself, tucking in behind groups when we turned into the wind and just cruising along. I finished the first five miles in almost dead on 40 minutes.

The next five miles I slowly began to fade. One problem I have is a I can't drink while I run so I stopped for a drink and lost my group of neon yellow runners I was trailing and never really found my rhythm again. Most of these five miles were done into the wind and looking back it definitely took it's toll on me. It is somewhere in this five miles where I felt my left quad starting to tire and whine at me. It didn't take me long to realize that it must be compensating for the weakness in my ankle. But I pressed on feeling fairly good and quickly approaching the last 5k. I hit the Ten mile mark at 1:20 and a bit of change.

So I did the simple math knowing if I could just run a sub 24 minute 5k I could likely set a PR on a crappy day with a bum ankle. So I asked my tired mind and body the question, do you have three sub 8 minute miles left in you? The answer on this day was no. Plain and simple I knew it straight away. So I slowed down, I quit. I ran a 27:20 minute final 5k for a final time of 1:47:38. I am not pleased, with it at all. I want to justify it saying I was injured and I could have done better. But the fact is I had right there, right under my nose. All I had to do was kick it the final 5k and I have a good race, but I quit and had a bad one. I chose the easy way out, it was truly a 5k of shame, not matter how I think about it, justify it, look at it, that is how I feel.

But no fear I am coming to terms with it and this post is the point where I put it behind me, plan my week and focus on getting my foot back to 100% and set my sights on my upcoming 70.3 race. And since I have never done a Half Iron distance tri before I am guaranteed a PR, so I have that going for me.

On a side note this Saturday morning marks the first run of a running club I am helping get started at the local YMCA. We have been getting things organized and our plan is to focus the training on the Fox Cities Festival or Races which includes a 5k, Half and Full Marathon. My motivation for starting this group was two fold. First as a big YMCA supporter and a believer of the mission of the Y I thought the Y needed a running club. Second was I wanted to help support Rural Girls Run the World effort. Both are simple ways to share love of fitness with others and help support a more healthy community. So even though I suck, I am still doing some good things.

Have a great day