Planning to take a 6 1/2 day glacier skills course with a summit attempt in the summer of 2011 with 8 of my best buds.
One of my goals is to climb Denali in Alaska at some point in the fairly near future so I figured I better take some baby steps towards that goal. I asked one of my Ironman training partners, Tom, where I should begin and he pointed me to Mt. Rainier. Tom has gone on various climbing expeditions and Rainier was where he got started. He pointed me to the International Mountain Guides website to take a look at the different guided climb options and while I was checking out the website I noticed a familiar name on their list of highly accomplished mountain guides. It was my best friend from grade school Mike Haugen. Mike's family moved away from my hometown after 5th grade and we never heard from each other again until recently. A couple years ago my parents read an article about Mike climbing Mt. Everest and helping to save someone's life on the mountain in the process so I knew that he was an accomplished climber but didn't know he was a guide. After looking through their climb options I decided on their 6 1/2 day Glacier Skills Seminar. This course is an expedition style climb where we'll learn climbing skills on the mountain each day such as crevasse rescue, ice climbing, rope tieing, etc. We'll also make a summit attempt during the course of the 6 days on the mountain. I thought it would be the perfect introduction to mountain climbing.
The next step was to invite some of my best friends from throughout my life to join me. The course only has room for 8 climbers so I thought it was be an awesome experience to get a bunch of my favorite people together to hang out on the mountain with no TV, email, cell phones, etc. If we fill the group then it will be our own private climb and will be more likely to tailer the course to our fitness level and needs. I asked a handful of my buds from high school, college, and beyond and nearly all of them said they were in on the spot. Now that the group was assembled I wanted to see if we could get Mike as our guide so I contacted him via Facebook and we got the ball rolling. I called up the IMG team and they said we'll just need to all sign up for the same seminar date once the dates come out in their newsletter in the middle of this summer. So at this point we are just waiting for the dates to come out to get signed up for Jul/Aug of 2011. I'm excited to catch up with a lot of my best friends that I haven't seen in a while as well as get challenged and learn some mountaineering skills in the process.
Here's the roster for the Rainier trip:
Adam Lindell (Buffalo, NY) - Ran xc & track together @ Marquette
Clarke Rodgers (Charlotte, NC) - Train for triathlons together
Dave Hornak (Charlotte, NC) - Train for triathlons together and is my neighbor
Eric Zack (Burlington, NC) - Ran xc & track together @ Marquette
Matt Dunlavy (Somewhere in Kansas) - Ran xc & track together @ Marquette
Nick Frank (Charlotte, NC)
Pete Hoskow (San Francisco, CA) - Roommates in college and ran xc & track together @ Marquette
Tyler Wichmann (Charlotte, NC) - Train for triathlons together
I started training for triathlons in August of 2004 after signing up for Ironman Wisconsin for September of 2005. Since that first month I've been continually setting tough goals and working hard to achieve them. After three years of training I qualified for my pro card and during the past two years was racing in the pro field with mixed results. Some good races and some terrible races. My notable accomplishments as a triathlete were:
* 2005: Finishing my first Ironman @ IM Wisconsin (11:47)
* 2006: Set a new Half Ironman PR at White Lake going 4:14 with a PB of 4:51
* 2006: Qualified for Kona at Lake Placid (10:01) and was 5th place in my AG
* 2006: Finished in Kona on a tough day for me (10:08)
* 2007: Training ride of 240 miles from Charlotte, NC to Charleston, SC in 11:47
* 2007: Set the M30-34 AG course record at IM Florida (8:49)
* 2007: Qualified for pro card with IM Florida performance
* 2007: Self taught IM swim from 1:03 to 53 mins in 2 years
* 2008: First year racing pro......injured and didn't finish many races
* 2009: Finished 3 day cycling weekend with 105 mi & 18.5k+ ft climbing daily
* 2009: 6th place pro at Eagleman 70.3 (4:02) and 5th place pro at RI 70.3 (4:03)
* 2009: Qualified for and raced at Ironman 70.3 World Championships as a pro
* 2009: Decided to discontinue the triathlon lifestyle to pursue other life goals
I'm proud of all of these accomplishments and the recent decision to drop all of my future triathlon ambitions was not an easy one. After taking my three week end of season break I realized just how much time I have available to me when I'm not in training mode. I've also realized that I'm not really enjoying the process as much as I used to. Since I have a wife and full time job I always feel like I'm rushing from one thing to the other and don't really have time to just hang out and relax. I've put activities that I thoroughly enjoy doing on the backburner because they would tire me out or make me sore for my training. Along with that, most of our vacation time was spent at races and the money spent throughout the years on triathlon are quite impressive when added together. All of these things along with our baby girl coming in March have led me to decide that it's no longer worth it for me to chase my goals with triathlon at the cost of the sum of these things combined. Some people have asked why I can't just do it for fun. Maybe I'll come back to doing it for fun when I'm in my late 40s or early 50s. For now, I've got a list of things that I want to learn and accomplish. Here is my initial list of things that I want to focus my time on over the next 5 years:
* Be the kind of husband and father that I aspire to be
* Hang out with friends more often :: play poker, cornhole, etc.
* Spend vacations with family or friends in badass locations
* Become more handy with tools and building things
* Mountain Biking .... backflip is on my list of ToDos
* Football
* Basketball
* Learn to speak fluent Spanish
* Water skiing and wake boarding in the summer
* Take salsa dancing lessons with Jen ...... for our vacations
* Become a good cook
* Become a certified skydiver
I think that list should keep me occupied from now until I'm around 38 years old. My goal is to get good enough at all of them to be about two notches below expert level.....so somewhere in the low advanced level. I think once you become an expert at something it gets boring.....at least it does for me. That's when I'll move on to my next list for my low to mid 40s. This blog is going to switch directions from being mainly about triathlon to living life after triathlon with the focus on overall happiness and balance.
The 2010 season is going to be broken down into 3 different segments. Early season, middle season, and late season. Early season will last 16 weeks, middle season will be 19 weeks, and late season will be 15 weeks. Before breaking down these segments it's important to know what my key races are going to be for the season:
* 5/16 - Florida 70.3
* 6/13 - Eagleman 70.3
* 7/18 - Racine 70.3
* 9/26 - Augusta 70.3
* 10/30 - Miami 70.3
Early Season (11/16/2009 - 3/7/2010)
* 3 weeks end of season break (unstructured)
* 13 weeks swim/run/strength focus
* Swim volume build to 30K
* Three spin classes for the bike
* Run volume build to 70 mi
* Run a couple of 5Ks and a 1/2 marathon (3/6/2010)
Middle Season (3/8/2010 - 7/18/2010)
* 3 weeks of unstructured workouts (baby girl is due mid March)
* 6 weeks of big bike volume (300+ mi per week) and overall volume at 26+ hrs per week
* Race Florida 70.3 then recover 7-10 days
* 70.3 Specific training for 2 week then race Eagleman 70.3 and recover 7-10 days
* 70.3 Specific training for 3 weeks then race Racine 70.3
Late Season (7/19/2010 - 10/31/2010)
* 1 week recovery from Racine 70.3
* 6 weeks of big bike volume (300+ mi per week) and overall volume at 26+ hrs per week
* 2 weeks of 70.3 Specific training
* Race Augusta 70.3 and recover for 7-10 days
* 3 weeks of 70.3 Specific training
* Race Miami 70.3
* END OF SEASON
During the early season period I plan to work my swim, run, and overall strength. If you miss the main swim pack you are pretty much out of the race so it's going to be priority numero uno for me to close that gap from 3 mins to ??. I'm starting off the winter in a good place and need to keep building upon that momentum. I'm going to leave my bike in maintenance mode over the winter due to lack of light and conditions. Instead I'll put in some big run miles and focus on strength in the weight room.
The middle season will start off with our first baby being born in early to mid March. I've mapped out 3 weeks of uncertainty around that to give Jen and me some time to figure out how to work our schedules. After that I'll be building my bike fitness for 6 weeks to tie everything together. I'll mainly just focus on getting in a lot of time on the bike and will start the 70.3 specific work directly after that. I've chosen to keep my races spread by at least 4 weeks this year because I got strung out on 3 weeks between last year. The 4-5 weeks in between gives enough time to recover from the previous race and still get in 2-3 weeks of 70.3 specific work before the next race.
The late season will start with one week recovery from the middle season races and then back into rebuilding the foundation with a 6 week big bike volume period of lower intensity training at high volumes. After that will be a couple of weeks of 70.3 specific work followed by the Augusta race and some more 70.3 specific work leading into the last race of the season......Miami 70.3.
I think the way I've laid out this season gives me a good mix of building the foundation for years to come as well as being race ready when it's time to race. Of course, this is just a road map for this season and will no doubt change as the season goes along but I find that it's better to have a plan and make adjustments than not have a plan at all.
After looking back on the 2009 season I've got mixed feelings. On one hand I had a couple of races that showed some potential and then I had a couple more that were absolute disasters. In a previous post I discussed how I like to look at each year as a correlation to class rankings like freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior. I'm viewing my 2009 season as my sophomore year as a pro triathlete. It was my 2nd year racing in the pro field but it was really my first year racing healthy. I was able to get in the mix in my first two races and get a feel for what it was like to really race a 70.3 and I thoroughly enjoyed that. I also had two races........Steelhead and Clearwater......that were complete meltdowns. I think this is to be expected of a sophomore. Back in college cross country we never expected freshmen or sophomores to be consistent. We expected that they would show promise and have great races here and there but wouldn't expect them to nail it every time. This is where I'm at right now.
When I try to think about what my strengths and weaknesses are when looking back on the year I'm having a hard time coming up with my strengths because I'm not strong in any discipline compared to the competition. I find myself a few minutes back from the leaders in all three. I think if I improve my swim it will put me in the mix and it will help to improve my motivation on the race course because there will be a carrot out there for me. That being said, I have some time to gain in all three sports. I think I do a very good job with my recon of the competition going into each race. Since the field sizes are much smaller for the pros than AG it's easier to get a feel for who might come out of the water ahead of you, who might be coming by you on the bike, and who you have to watch out for on the run. This recon helped me at both Eagleman and Rhode Island because I knew exactly when I had to make my moves.
Outside of triathlon 2009 was a great year. My relationship with my wife, Jen, is as healthy as ever and we're expecting our first baby in March of 2010. We're very excited for that and the planning has been very enjoyable. We took some time out for ourselves to take a non-triathlon vacation in August for our nine year anniversary and had a blast on our cruise. Jen's business is continuing to grow in a less than stellar economy and my job is looking solid as well. We also merged our coaching initiatives with our friend Steve and we all bring something different to the table which has allowed for better ideas and focus. My family is surviving the tough economic times and will all come out of the other side with a clear perspective. The Charlotte training group continues to get stronger and stronger and I like to think that I contribute to their success by sharing my ideas, gathering them together for rides, and pushing them to new levels. I've also partnered with some new exciting sponsors for 2010 and am really looking forward to working with First Endurance, Bicycle Sport, Charlotte Running Company, SUGOI, and Blue Ocean Somatic Institute.
For 2010 I'm really looking forward to being a dad and bringing my time management skills to a whole new level. I know that Jen and I will be great parents and I've already been doing my homework on tending to an infant. This will open a new chapter in our lives.