The base is built now lets finish the house

Today was my final day of base building and I have to say overall it went well. Missed a couple workouts here and there but I would say about 90% of workouts were completed and most pace times were hit. My swims times are a million times faster than they were before, I'm feeling strong on the bike and will do the 10k tt next week to see how I have improved, and my run workouts just keep getting faster. Next up I will be increasing the intensity and hammering workouts as I start to get ready for Knoxville on May 15th. I have two races between now and then (Queen's Spring Fling and the Downtown 5k). Can't wait to start hammering some hard workouts.

Splash and slip

So its my second race in as many weeks and it feels good to finally throw down. This weekend was Western's Splash and Dash but it turned more into the splash and slip as we got about 4 inches of snow the night before. I wasn't really sure of the best way to warm up for an event that involved so I used Chris's idea of running before then just doing some drills on deck and getting in the water as close to race time as possible. The swim was 1k and I was second out of the water and the only person ahead of me was a relay. I can't really complain about my time, even though I always want to go faster, because last year in the 500m swim I averaged over 2:00/100m and this year I was around 1:30. One thing I still need to work on is counting when I swim, I got out of the pool and started taking my swim cap off only to be told I still have another 100m to go. I quickly dove back in but this threw my rhythm off as well as distracted me mentally. Wasn't sure what to where for this race because the temperature was not to cold but the wind was nippy so I decided to just kick it old school and ran in the speedo with a tri top and arm warmers. It worked well but a lot of people thought I was crazy. This decision gained me quite a bit of time in transition, but I struggled with the new shoes so transitions will be added to the list of things that need to be fine tuned. The run was absolutely terrible!!!! The course consisted of a loop around campus and then an out and back behind the football field x2. The loop around campus wasn't to bad but the out and back behind the football field consisted of knee high snow drifts and large puddles. My shoes weighed probably an extra pound from the water and everyone was slipping and sliding all over the place. Including transition my time was 40 minutes and changed. I would be interested to see what it would have been like without the transition and in better conditions. Unfortunately, I got caught with about a mile to go and once we hit the deep snow I just couldn't hang on and ended up second in the vet guys race. Overall can't really complain when I look at my results from last year, but you always want to go faster. Next race will be the second weekend of April in Kingston. This will be the first race with a bike segment so can't wait for that. Possibly a 5k in between but we will see how the training is coming along. Thanks Rachel for organizing the race it went as smooth as a race can go. Peace Everyone  

This guy is a bamf

Yuki Kawauchi is a straight up bamf. He came third in the Tokyo Marathon as an amateur in a time of 2:08:37 and in 5 of the 6 marathons he has run he wound up finishing in the medical tent. The definition of HTFU and going for the win. you can read about the race here http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2011/02/mekonnen-wins-tokyo-marathon-amateur.html