It feels so good to sleep in today. Getting up around 4 am for two weeks and putting in 8 hour work days and 4-5 hours training sure takes alot out of me. Im started to feel normal again and thats a good sign, Im bouncing back fast betwwen my two weeks sets. I have a few more day's of easy stuff and then its back to grind. Oh ya I love this stuff.

Well I gave the go ahead for the new Santa Cruz Blur XC . Should be here by May, I hope. I'll be flying when it comes in.

Not much going on. Rest, rest and more rest the next few days. Just trying to rest the body for a few day's and soak up the training I have done the last few weeks. I've been trying a two week training and 4-5 days easy. Its good so far. I like it because it still gives me 3 weekends of torture. Also this week I finally hit 165 lbs, I was very exited about that. Weight training has been great and I'm feeling stronger every week. Pick up a new sponsor last week, Fox Racing Shocks. Cool stuff.

Took Monday off from training but hit it pretty good this morning with a nice early morning run followed by a hard session of lower body weights. I'm starting to feel real strong from all training from the weekend and just feel great mentally from finishing all the riding. Its always nice to set some goals and follow through with them. I am still cautious lately with my training because of my not so stellar year last year and don't want to burn out like that. It really set in the back of my mind all the time and have to get past that. I know I have to keep plugging alone and not to burn so many matches during my training and save it for racing, doesn't mean I'm not going to train my ass, I will train and train hard but not race myself every weekend like last year. I fill I will gain more fitness this way, slow but steady. Right know I have been feeling good and not always wiped out during my workouts and able to finish almost all of them.

Well looks like I will be adding another addition to the bike family. Pretty sweet! The website says a little of 24 lbs. I have to workout the financial part of it but looks good. I might have to sell 1 of the blurs to do this but it would be worth it.

I manage to make it throught he weeeknd. To tired to talk about it. I did manage to get stuck in Fort Hunter Ligget because I lost my drivers license for awhile, but got it back. I eneded up doing 4 laps of the sea otter course and Saturday after an eairler morning run. Then Sunday I parked in King City At the corner of Jolon Rd and Pine Canyon Rd and road to HWY 1 through Hunter Liggett. What an awesom ride. I will be doing more of that ride. I like the 6 mile climb from HWY 1 back to HUnter LIgget. Im tired today but not wasted, kind of strange for me. A hole new level of fitness? Maybe.

Here are the totals for the week.


Actual Time
39:15
Swim Distance
2500m
Bike Distance
395
Run Distance
53

Holy smokes, I think I'm in heaven..

So I get this email, The feeling that are going through my body, I think I'm going to get sick. A good sick.


This is from Santa Cruz Bikes !



Dear Brian,Congratulations!! We have reviewed your sponsorship proposal and decided you qualify for our program. This sponsorship program entitles you to order a complete bike or frame(the model is your choice) and short/jersey. Please contact us at your earliest convenience .Sincerely,Juli

Oh this is going to be a great year. Thanks Santa Cruz Bikes!

So thing are getting interesting. My volume is starting to increase as the fatigue is starting to set in. Last night I snapped at the wife for some lame reason. Well I know why, getting shelled, I'm love'n it. On Saturday I did 200k, Sunday was 120k on the MTB, and this week I have 3-90k bike rides. So far since Saturday that put me at 640k so far. Runing I'm at 58k and very little swimming. I did 3 hours of lower body weights. I got so big stuff planned this weekend. I will tell all this Monday. So get prepared my love, Mr. grumpy is on his way home.

Some thoughts that come to mind when seeing how far one can push themselves. I do notice it gets real tough to finish workouts mentally, and emotionally. Its easy to talk yourself out of workouts. I could see why doing an epic camp would be nice. Just not in the budget for me. Most of the workouts from here on out are just do them and not worry about intensity. If i get to far out there intensity wise I would quit, gets to hard so I have to watch it. I try and keep my heart beat under 145 for all workouts. Although seems at this point almost impossible to get it that high, and keep it there. I'm still trying to watch my diet and not eat the house down every night. But also make sure I get enough calories in not to crash energy wise. Try and healthier stuff but it hard when I'm this tired, I will hit the more carb loaded stuff, pasta, home made almond joy nuggets that I started to make from hole organic ingredients, allot of salads and fruits and vegetables. I'm going through allot of high and lows the last few weeks, but I know I need to keep going because after all this I will gain huge amounts of fitness to Carry me through the year, and that's what its about. Improvement, not only physically but mentally, and that what it takes to get through 24 hour racing is allot of mental breakthroughs.

That's all for know. My fingers are tired and my brain hurts from this thinking....

What a long morning. I get up aroung 1:30 am and can't go back to sleep. So at 2:30 I figure might as well get up and to some training. I did some core work/upper body and a long, long run. I wonder how long before I need a nap. Actually sound good know.

testing, testing, anybody there. I just switch the blog over to the google acount and wanted to se if it works..

Im was a bit smashed yesterday from all the weekend training. I managed a 50 minute run, core and lower weights in the morning but couldn't muster up enough energy for my afternoon workouts. I did manage to eat a ton of food though. I had Chicken and dumbling to start me off w/ 2 totilla's. Then I had and egg sandwitch w/ 2 eggs. I box of pudding. Half a sandwitch w/ potabello mushroom and blue cheese. Hazendauz ice cream bar. Handfull of almonds. This all in a 2 hours span. Im a little full today but man I feel good and ready to go. I figure all that food was around 3000+ calories.

Its been real cold here, even cold for California. Low teens and doesn't get that warm during the day. I have noticed a lot of ponds in my area are even frozen all day. I've never seen that before. Its still not cold enough to keep me away from training. I had a big weekend of training and went good. IM not very powerful right now and don't want to be yet. That will come in time and it;s still to easily to hit the hard stuff. I've been doing a lot of steady stuff and I am starting to feel powerful enough to get in some good climbing soon. In the area I live in there are not to many people that train around here. If I want to train with others or even see anybody train I have to drive 30-60 minutes away. I have to go to Salinas/Monterey or Santa Cruz. SO I have top do all my training as a loner. But that's cool with me, either way It's something you have to do with or without others. So IM almost done with my mountain bike ride on Sunday, IM atop Gloria grade (dirt road that goes over to why 25) just kicking and enjoying the view. I start to hear 2 voices down the mountain, well turns out to be a guy and a girl on there road bikes going the back way to King City. I was in shock. Cool to see someone else out there but shocked.

The Soledad pool if unofficially closed at this time for renovation, although they still allow me to swim when I can, very nice of them. But the turned the heater off a little over a week ago and the water is starting to turn my balls blue. SO yesterday it was 69 degree;s, although feels colder than that. I took my full wetsuit yesterday and was perfect, execpt my hands froze. I did end up doing 4000 meters though so that was good. The life guard who watches over me while I swim ask me isn't the weather cold or colder than it is now, I said yes, but your racing, you really don't notice it. Its different when training I think.

Well after 5 day's of easy training Im starting to fell normal again. I have been sleeping almost 12 hours a day. Feels so good. I will be ready for another 2 weeks block of torture. Not much going on, just eating and sleepimg. I caint wait for my sponsorship from Smith Optics opens up so I can prder some new glasses. I sent alot of proposal for a bike sponsor so see what happens there. I have plans to ride and run my butt of this weekend, if I don't freez to deat. There calling for high teens to lower 20's tommorrow morning. Looks like 2 layers of base cloths, long sleeve jersey, wind jacket and a jacket to keep me nice and warm.

What was I thinking!

So last night was a 2 hour run I did. The cool thing about it is I took a totally new route I never ran before. I get about 20 minutes into my run next to the mountains and decide to head strait up the mountain. Alot of walking because it was so steep. So Im going alone and find a old dirt road and just keep going, and going. So know I found my self on top of Soledad overlooking the hole town, it was so cool. SO I decide to keep going and explore some more. I get back into a few canyons with not a sole insight. All I could think of at this point was hope I dont get stuck back here because nobody even knows where Im at. So I made a mental note to tell wife next time I decide to go to no mans land. Unded up being the best run in a long time. A little over 2 houtrs of just me and back fourty.

Getting up at 3:00 am. Well that didn't work. I was going to try this for a week and see how it woud go. It was hard enough to get up at 3:30. Well I gave it a shot. I will go back to my normal routine.Its hard with working full time and trying not to kill myself in the process. I don't think I could pull that of unless I started to work part time and that's not going to happen, need the money $$$. I did get up early this morning and rode 1.5 hours in the gale force winds. I didn't get very far. I was even in the small chain ring on flat ground, thats how hard the wind blew. Also went to the gym and did my lower body workout. I do have to say this hole base training is harder than I thought. But building the my engine to become bigger is what I need to do to have some good results come race time, then that what I shall do. Lots of riding, run, swim, weights, repeat, repeat, and repeat again over and over and over.

I do find myself on the loner side of things alot. I wonder what it would be like to go out on a friday night and stay up late, or go watch a late night movie? hhhmmm? I sure the wife wouldn't mind that one day. As endurance althetes were do sacrafice alot of things. Normal friends. Not a hole lot of time with the family and friends.. Friends????? Watching T.V. Spending time with the wife. Theres a hole bunch of stuff I could come up with.But if one wants to obtain ultimate fitness and be the fastest you dont get that from doing nothing. You train and you train hard.

Cold Sweats

So on Monday night I wake up about 12:30 am and Im just sweating like I just ran a half marathon. The bed is all wet, Im burning up. The thermostat say's 58 deg. in the house. This is a good sign that Im working out to hard and need to get my heart rate down more during the workouts. This should only happen when racing and doing speed/tempo work. So I have to be careful. Im been putting in some good weeks and the weight workouts are going good. I've been increasing the amounts everyweek and deosn't feel to overtaxing. I cant wait intel the race season start, Im so lloking forward to it.

I have a 24 MTB race in MAy, June, and September. I get all exited thinking about it.

Base training has been good, kind of cold some day's but the rain has stayed away. It doesn't get any better than this for winter. Temperatures are in the low30 and 65's for the high. I will start to increase my long rides and run for the next few months. My long rides will be on saturday or Sunday. I will start with a 5 hour ride and increase it 1 hour each week. So on the third week it will 7 hours in length. Well thats it for know.

The last three years have been a major change for me in my diet and what I eat. I read this book on Trans fat that change my life and what I would eat. I feel better, dont get heart anymore, and even look heathier. It amazes me how stuff like this isd allowed to be put in our food. The stuff with kill you. My understanding is that it origanaly was made back during world war II to help food last longer without spoiling. And it amazes me that the FDA has let this tuff exist in our foods nowing how unhealthy it was, and this was known for aty least 30 years ago. Thanks FDA, ( freeking bone heads ). Just this year the hole city of Knew York city has ban Trans FAt, and there is a hole state that has banned this stuuf. Know Universal studios has banned it also, this is real cool. I remeber when I first started to cut this stuff out, I went throught the pantry to throw everything out that had it in it and was shocked at how much of the food had it in it. My cubbords were empty. I must of had $200.00 worth of crap food. Well its good to know that what I have been doing was write on, everybody thought I was crazy for telling everybody for years, I hope they listen know.


ON another note about food and my switch to an almost all Friut and vegtable diet has been real good. I do noticed its hard to get full sometimes and takes more volume of food to get enough calories but I have never felt better. I dont think I will ever switch to totally vegan, I like cheese and meet to much at this time. I dont go the bathroom as much as before so that mith about all the fruits and veggies makes you poop more is a bunch of crap, now that was funny. Its tuff but I know in the long run it is going to pay off huge in the end.

My base training has been going good so far, Im one month into and I dont want to hit the hard stuff intel Mib Febuary/beganing March once my spring races hit. Its real hard to go easy, real hard. I always have to keep myself in check and say to myself I have a long year, be patient, wich I not that good at. I sure do miss going to Santa Cruz to hammer with the boy's.

I have been getting up at 3:30 to do my workouts before work. I will do core, run or bike then go to the gym intel 6:00 but I seem to always be running out of time and cutting my workouts short. Starting next week I will try and get up at 3:00 am and see how its goes. Not sure how that will work seing Im already on the verge of lack of sleep but I dont know if it will intel I try. So I will start that next week for the 2 week of my three week block.

Base Run Test

Last night was my first aerobic run test for 2007 season. I just finished a thre week block of base, very low intensity work outs. Nothing to hard, just cruzing, trying to keep my workouts about 3 steps below race heart rate.

I wil be doing all my test on a treadmill for runing and the trainer with my power tap pro. I think this will be the best way to keep everything the same. Theres no wind to deal with or the up and downs of the road. I will be able to track what kind of progress i will be making or not making.

So the run test was a warm up 15 minutes then keep my heart rate at an aerobic pace witch for me was 140 beets per minute for 20 minutes then see where Im at for milage.
Test results
Average heart rate: 139
Distanance: 2.5 miles
Time: 20 minutes.

I will repeat this every 3rd or 4th week on my rest, recover week.

I have noticed that most of my workouts last year were way to hard and I never got to recover from them. Just kept hammering myself in the ground. SO this year I am going to start of nice and slow and keep myself out of the demolition mode, at least intel march when my big races start to come up. Try and give this base training thing a try. Six time Ironman champion must know what he's doing. ALso if it can work for Lance it can work for me.

Im back!

I decided to post something today. I need to get back to posting regulaly. I took off 1 month of all training after my last race in November. I've been trying to keep my life more simple these day's, without all the stress and having to write or train or log any off my workouts or what has been going on. I've been training now for a few weeks and feel real good and rested. I have some big stuff comming next year and looking forward to a great 2007.

I do have some good news in that I am now officially sponsors by smith optics sunglasses. Pretty cool!

Things have been cold but not like back East so I cant complain. Just suck it up and train.

Im the cookie Monster

So last night after dinner I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies. Oh! so good. I'm proud of my self for not drinking a whole bunch of milk with them. Trying not to drink so much milk lately, I feel better when I dont.

I rode for a couple hours with some tempo work. 3x 15-20 minutes. 45 miles

I need a digital cam!

I look at all these other blogs and they post alot of pics of there daily stuff. Im going to put buying a camera on top of my wish list to get in the off season.

Went for a swim at the pool last night and felt real good. First time since the 24 hour race 10 days ago that I haven't felt WASTED after or during my workout. The swim was a continues 4000 meter swim broken down as 4x300 cruz, 100 fast, 3x300 cruz, 200 fast, 2x300 fast, 100 cruz, 100 cd. I felt really good and push the last half of the sets. I only stopped once for a few seconds to move for the swim team. Then went for a 45 minute run with a 15 minutes of tempo work at 6.5 -7 minute mile.

One day at a time

Some more randome thought about my 24 hour race. It was 2 days before the race I eneded up with a head cold, somehow I manged 12 months without getting sick. So this sucked. I guess its being out of state so you have all kinds of new virisus to battle. Also during the race about hour 10 I got bit by a red fire ant. "Hurt like hell"!. I thought I got stung by a bee intel I took of my helmet. It hurt for about 2 hours but after that everything hurt so it was no big deal.

It's been a little over a week since the 24 hours race. Im still recovering well and feel real great. I can't thank enough my enduring wife who supports me 110 %. And Chuck for giving a helping hand also.

I've ran once since then and was still to sore to do anything longer than 30 minutes. My swimming has been very minimal due to my wrist still swolen and hurting. I've been on the bike three times. This Sunday I tried to ride about 6 hours but do to fatigue I had to be rescued by the wife. It's funny because when I called she said she had been waiting for the phone call, she knows me so well. On Saturday I felt real good and had a 6 hour training day with all three sports so I figuerd Sunday should be so hard. That was a dumb thought, but you never know intel you try. How else you going to know what your body can handle intel you get out there and try. I think thats a big key to an ebdurance althete. You have to push and keep pushing in order to adapt to the overloading of training. And I've alway's fely you have to push real hard in training or how else you going to push hard in racing. I know for me I do alot longer intense tempo riding and alot of speed work, Whether it be 800,1600 meters intervals and 20 minute tempo work. I cant do these to may works in row but fit as many as my body can handle then rest and repeat as often as neccasary. Well more on this later.

Well its time to start thinking about winter training and next years schedual. Im not going to travel out of state so much next year because of the cost. And not race so much next year but focuse on maybe going to Kona Ironman in Octber if I qualify in a couple weeks. Plus I will do a couple 24 hour race more locally, nd some short stuff in between. Well im done writing.

Resting and feling good.

Its always a good feeeling to win or come close to winning. So i've been flying high this past week. Couple more day's and it will be back to work. I still have one more big race to go, "The Ironman", even hurts to think about it. That marathon is a killer. My right arm is still a little tender from the 24 hour race but is getting better real fast. My legs feel great and are recovering fast. Before the race my wife say'd if I win last weekend she would buy me a new par of vans. She reminded me of that today, which I forgot so thank you sweety. So this weekend I get a new par of shoes, yuppie!
I plan on riding about three hours on Saturday to see how well my legs will feel and then make a discision on what to do for next week. If my legs are recovering I will to good training week with alot of swiming and very little running. I dont want to thrash myself for the Ironman, I'll wait intel race day. See y'all later