O'side 70.3

Starting in January i have been training for Ironman St. George that is coming up quick on May 1st. I have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to training, so in preparation for the Ironman I decided to follow a training schedule (for my first time) that will get me to the finishline. Usually i can fart my way through training (doing what ever i feel like for that day) but I figured its not smart to do that with an ironman distance race, especially when I still haven't ridden my road bike AKA"CROSSrocket" over 85 miles... yet : )

Oceanside was perfect for a tuneup race to get things in check for the real deal May 1st. Its funny to look back to last year to see how little i really did compared to this year. Below are last years results:

2009 O'Side Results
swim 46:50
bike 3:39:21
run 2:17:56
6:52:01 overall
div 83 of 112

This year the swim was awesome, i was totally relaxed (maybe a bit too relaxed) but for the first time i didn't get pounded by all the waves that started after me. I was able to hold a steady pace and just watched the other swimmers around me instead of sighting every second for the buoys like i use to. I finished the swim without feeling totally wiped out and i was ready to jump on my bike.

I'm so proud of my crossbike! It has gotten me through so many miles but i'm glad to finally upgrade and i ordered my new sst 1.o road bike from fuji on friday. Last year after mile 35 i was DONE.. but this year i felt the miles fly past me and it was over before i knew it. Being sick in the two weeks leading up to the race my mind was kind of clouded. For my nutrition i spaced and totally didn't take enough calories on my ride. I had one bar, bottle of vitargo, 4 blocks and stoked to find a hidden gu at the bottom of my bento box. I kept on getting dizzy, lesson learned before st george.

Transitioning to the run i kind of had to regroup, catch my breath, then grabbed my stuff and i didn't know if my legs would be there but they were, only my feet had checked out. Usually the balls of my feet take awhile to loosen up but this was the first time that they just got worse. Every time i would try to stretch out my feet they would feel good for a second and then bam they would cramp up even more. Not sure if it was even cramping, but they tingled and killed i really didn't think i could finish the race. While i'm in pain slater and beth were both flying past me which made me "suck it up" and think about other things besides my feet... its all mental right? Finally after an hour of running my feet were bearable and i finished off the run with coach sean running next to me telling me to bring it home!

This year i was stoked to finish almost under six hours and i shaved off 50:61min off my time from last year.

2010 Results
swim 38:27
bike 3:09:30
run 2:07:55
6:01:40
div 43 of 109

SHAVED:
8:23 swim
29:91 bike
10:01 run

Sweet! Now if only i can get as fast as slater i will be stoked. He also dropped a bunch of time off of his race last year and he was able to make top ten in his AG with an overall standing of #45! wow!

Shoot Me

On thursday my friend paul emailed me that ellsworth bikes were looking for some models for a San Diego lifestyle magazine. I guess the photographers models bailed out on him so it gave me the opportunity to use my modeling skills (which i have non of) to ride some awesome bikes with some cool folks in the beautiful town of Ramona. Tony invited us out early on saturday for a tour of ellsworth bikes before the photo soot. They have some pretty sweet rides that i hope to go back and demo real soon!!

Donald (who works for ellsworth) and me
on one of our many ride-by's on the bikes

slate wishing he was doing hill
repeats with us instead of driving the van

Ramona is such a cool little area, it reminded of bakersfield and the keysville classic race course where there is lots of green grass, rolling hills and small rounded rocks everywhere. The only downside of the photoshoot was that it was FREEZING, and super bummed that i have caught a cold, and fighting it with lots o'tea, vitamins etc. After the shoot we headed out to temecula to visit some friends.

The next morning we were off to ride with "Team Walsh" where we met in o'side and then road up to laguna beach and back! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day for riding! We ended doing about 70 miles which i didn't expect and then did a run on the oceanside half ironman run course that's coming up in two weeks.

Awesome weekend and ready for the next!