Good lord... I love massage

So I was suppose to have a massage on Tuesday but Lisa my massage lady friend had to reschedule me for Monday afternoon. I usually go for an hour and call it good but Lisa didn't have another appt. right after me so 1 hour turned into almost 2!!!!! Man I was tired when she finished but it was awesome!!!!!!

Today I rolled out if bed to catch the spin at the PTC. Mo was coaching this morning. A lot of 1 legged drills and such. After work I hit the Ship of Fools workout. First thing was a timed 1 mile. I haven't done one of those for a while so I took it easy on the first 1/2. I still ended up with a 6:10 which is all good for me. My hip started bothering me a bit. I think it was from the 10 mile run this past weekend. Maybe just a bit too fast. I'll need to address the hip issue soon with Sellers over at Performance Wellness.

Xmas fun and then some

Christmas day started with a sweet swim down at Barton Springs. http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/bartonsprings.htm
I met Jess there at 9 or so and we did 400x4. That's just about a mile and my pace was actually pretty good. I haven't done an open water swim since Conroe in November. Since it was a holiday it wasn't all that busy so not a lot of obstacles. In and out of there in about an hour. Good times.
Around noon I jumped on my bike and did a 31 mile ride. 360/Bee Caves area. I was all by myself and I totally enjoyed it.
After the ride I headed over to my friends Lance and Kim Obermeyer. They invited me over for Xmas dinner and a little pre run. Little my ass. We did a trail run through City Park and my legs we already freaking tired. The hills killed me. I was never so happy to have a dinner waiting for me once I got back. The total mileage according to the gps that Lance had was 5.25 but it felt like 10. Ugh!!!!!
So I am thinking I did a little tri on Christmas day. Not bad. It's a great way to enjoy a low traffic day and to get ready for CDA training next week.

This morning I did the T3 run. It was the 5 mile loop on the trail 2 times. You had to go faster the second time around. I haven't been running a lot so I figured I'll give the first loop a shot and see what happens. Well I started out with Mo and Kevin..... that was a mistake for me because I felt that we were going to fast on the way out. We started to separate around mile 3 and I caught up with them at the water stop at the end of the first loop. I took off early to see if I could hold the same pace as the loop before without the guys. I wasn't far off but I wasn't keeping up..... that's until Mo passed me at mile 7. He told me to keep up but my plan was to keep him in sight until the water stop at mile 7.75 and then regroup and hang on. We grabbed a quick drink and off we went. He tells me right off that we need to do the last 2.25 miles in 15 minutes. That's a tall order, but I was willing to give it a try. For the last 3 months I have been telling myself that am going to need to push myself more for CDA training than I have in the past. Both mentally and physically. Well...... this was a perfect time to give that a try. I just focused on keeping up and relaxing my shoulders which tend to get tense when it's hammer time. We rounded the first mile and I was not feeling good at all but I just couldn't slow down. Partly because I didn't want to let Mo beat me too bad and partly because I didn't want to be a candyass in my mind. The last hill was hard but Mo told me to pick up my knees and soon we crested the hill. Coming across the bridge on the last 200 meters or so Mo picked it up and I was about 15 off of him and I just wanted to finish strong and I did. 10.24 miles in 1:16. First loop 38:48/ Second loop 37:13. I haven't done that in a long time. Mo got me through it and I thank him for that. Hopefully this is a start of some good CDA training.
After the run I headed home for a 20 minute ice bath. It's been a while since I have had an ice bath and holy shit was it cold. I'll be a better rider tomorrow for it.

Nap time. Gotta bike fit at 4:00 at the shop. First one in over 2 years. This should be fun.

Still FAT but at least I worked out today.

This morning was just another cold morning in Austin, TX. I made it to the PTC just in time to get my bike ready and start the spin class. Pain didn't waste time today getting my HR right up there. It usually takes me a while to get my HR up when I do a morning spin but today that was not the case. Overall a great class. I was just thinking about when I start IM training in 2 weeks. My trainer rides will be around 2 hours at a time. Ahhhhh... the old days when Joe and I would see who could get on the bike first and be the last to get off. Joe always won that battle.
After work today I went for a run on the trail. I did the 5 mile loop starting at the RunTex on LAB. Ran past the trail of lights. It looks nice but it got me to thinking that it's a huge waste of energy. We as a country are in all sorts of economic problems and here we are gasping in our own glory called Christmas Lights. That's pretty freaking sad. Back to the run. The trail was dead so it was nice to be out there in the dark with not many obstacles. I haven't been running all that much so I was slow and took a break after 3 miles. Now I'm pretty sad along with the lights.
Oh well..... gotta get back on the horse somewhere.

Me + the holidays = FAT

I feel like shit. I have been eating and drinking like a madman for the past month and it's starting to show. I have gained about 10 lbs and I can feel it with every step. I have been training but not enough to counteract my daily intake. It's tough to stay focused this time of year because my official training doesn't start for another 2 weeks so my workouts suffer. Speaking of workouts.......
Friday...... I swam at lunch. Good times as always.
Sat...... I did the T3 group ride and it was the best ride to do in a while. We had a head wind on the way out. I just kept telling myself not to go out to fast and you'll be rewarded on the way back. Well it payed off. We hammered the hell out the ride heading back to Austin with the wind at our backs. 40 miles in just under 2 hours.
Sat. night...... My friend Hammer won an auction for a private concert with Shawn Colvin. He's a huge triguy so I knew just about everyone there. Everything was going great until 2 things happen. 1- Mike broke out a bottle of Vodka and the shots flowed. 2- Joe looks at me and just says, "If you want to go outside and fight I'll do it." Party was in full swing now. I lost track of Joe not soon after that.
Sunday... Ouch!
Monday....... I was so dam tired from Sat. night all I did today was yoga this morning when it was 30 degrees. Poor Pain had to coach the swim. At least I was indoors.
I'll try again tomorrow to remove my head from my ass.

2 times the Pain

This morning was much better than the past 3 days. It was actually above 40 degrees. Very nice to get to workout without freezing my butt off at the beginning. So after getting Pain coffee I arrived at the PTC just before 6 this morning. Wednesday's core workouts are my favorite workout of the week. Pain keeps it interesting and there is always someone there to make fun of for a moment or 2.
I dropped into the pool for lunch and it was nice and warm. I love it when the water is warm when it's cold outside. I swam with Blasko today with Pain coaching. I know Blas is faster than me but today he wasn't as far ahead of me as he usually is. The kid is a machine. It was a good swim.

Had better weekends

3 Xmas parties and 2 hangovers later and I thought my weekend would be something to write about. Not so. Early Sunday afternoon my friend Haggs called me to let me know my friend, teammate and athlete Erin passed away while running a marathon in Dallas. She was only 29 and her heart stopped at mile 23. Very sad. She was a great person and so damn nice. I feel for her family and her husband who she just recently married.

Did a spin class after work with Pain. You know it was tough when Pain says to me after it's all said and done, "Wow, that was tough." Great workout!

Cold and painful

I went for a 5 mile run this morning before work and I froze my ass off. It was 35 degrees when I started. That's just wrong. I live in Austin for a reason and that reason is not to be cold. What made it worse was that my quads were killing me from Pain's core workout yesterday. Holy shit they hurt.
After work today I made my way to the PTC for a spin class. My legs killed me the entire time but I wasn't going to bow out early. I am trying to get the cutting out early stuff out of me. I believe it will make me stronger in the long run.

Gotta coach in the morning @ 6. It looks like another heat wave is coming through. Forecast is for 37 degrees. Yippee!

Here comes the PAIN!!!!

This morning was core class at the PTC.

Wait a minute...... check out what I woke up to this morning @ 5:45 a.m.! Not very motivating to see snow/sleet on the X before training. But Pain needed coffee and I wasn't about to let her down. So off into the "frozen tundra" they call Austin, TX I went to retrieve coffee and make it to core on time.

Core this morning was crazy. Last week we had 30 people. This week we had 35+. You could barely move. Pain kept everyone in line and it went pretty fast but not a lot of downtime/rest so I am feeling it now. My quads are sore as all hell. The run tomorrow morning should be a joy. It looks like 37 degrees. Fun Fun Fun!!!!!

At lunch I went to Courtyard for the lunchtime swim with Suzanne. It was freaking cold!!! The water was warm but the air temp was about 45 and the wind was blowing so whenever I stopped the wind would hit me and I'd freeze. Needless to say I tried to keep moving as much as possible and now my shoulders are sore and tired.

After work I coached a track workout. It was cold but I was prepared and I was toasty warm almost this entire time. My athletes didn't bitch as much as I thought they would, which was surprising. But by the attendance it looked as though the "not so positive people" stayed home. Lapuente and I had a great discussion about running form as we worked on hers. The girl has the determination but now has to rework her running form and rebuild it. Easier said than done. I am sure we can get her there. Guice needs to work on her arms, which she did and by then end of the workout she looked a lot better.

Phelps I am not.

So I was at the PTC this morning for some yoga. Nothing new to report there.

At the swim today I stayed in the T1 lane. Let me explain lanes. There are 2 different workouts prepared before I get there, T1 and T2. T2 is just a long version of T1. T1 usually stays around 2500 meters and T2 gets up to about 3400. Since I have not been swimming like I usually do I decided to stick to T1 until I get back into swim shape. I could probably do the distance of T2 but with the distance comes the faster swimmers and I just can't keep up right now. So I jumped in a T1 lane with this kid named Michael. This kid makes me laugh. He's about 25, doesn't say a word, is going to school to be a personal trainer and works at Whatterburger. A personal trainer in training that works at WB.... now that just makes me laugh. He's a good kid and he can give it back just as I can dish it out. Well..... he almost killed me today. We split the lane and we kept each other honest. Meaning that he pushed the pace so we didn't fall off the pace. We didn't want to disappoint Pain. At one point we had 3x100 on at 2:00 minute interval. We were finishing at about 1:35 and my HR was about 180. He looks at me and says, "Keep up old man." I would have laughed but I could barely breath. Thank the lord I can crush him on the bike. :)

Speaking of the bike, morning spin with Pain so that means a stop at Starbucks @ 5:30 a.m. is in order.

Low key weekend

This weekend was pretty lame. I am pretty sure I put 3 more lbs on. Good lord I feel soooo out of shape. Saturday I hit the PTC for a 2 hour trainer ride since it was a bit chilly outside. I can afford to do this now since I am actually not in training mode right now. When I am training for a race doing an indoor ride on the weekends is almost out of the question. Needless to say I lost motivation to do the entire 2 hours and I lasted 1.5 hours.
This morning I was a bike escort for a marathon here in Austin. Basically I was on my bike for 4 hours and I went as slow as I possibly could. I can't consider it training because my heart rate barely made it over 100. I don't know if I'll do it next year but I had to give it a try at least once.

Back to 2 a days.

During most of the summer I had to workout twice a day. My schedule is crazy between work, coaching and training so almost everyday I would do 2 workouts between swim, bike, run and core. Today I woke up early enough to catch Pain at the PTC for a morning spin. After work I ran a hill workout and it was awesome!!!!! Cold and dark or in other words fast and dangerous. :)

I am keeping a more detailed training log on BeginnerTriathlete.com
Their training log is awesome and it's FREE! I have used it for a while. I will try and post a link to it on my blog spot. You can track my workouts there in more detail. My username is USS Dunphy. You'll have to create a login but it's pretty easy to do that.

Why December 3rd is my favorite day

Every year my mom sends me a present in the mail for my birthday. Like clockwork it arrived a day before the big day. As always it's delicious.

My mom kicks ass.

I love simple rides on Saturday's

So here I am drinking coffee and listening to old Hank Williams Jr. This is a good morning but I will bitch about Starbucks a bit. I don't really drink coffee. I get one after my rides on Sat. as a little gift to myself but every week I regret it because I can't drink the entire coffee. I get the smallest one they have but it's still too much and now I'm all jacked up on the caffeine. What am I going to do? Stop being a candyass and suck it up? Stop drinking the coffee? Add bourbon to it?

Today's ride was seriously small. I think my athletes are taking the off season a little too serious. Besides Pain and myself there were only 3 other riders in our group. We usually have at least 20. Seriously people.... get off yer ass and get out there. You'll be thanking me by the time IMCDA training starts. The ride was an easy 34 miles in the SW Hood. No major hills but enough work to get a sweat going. I love riding with Pain. She keeps me in check. I am really hoping that by the 3rd month of IMCDA training I'll be able to keep up with her on the bike. I have a meeting with her tomorrow to discuss my training for IMCDA. Between my day job, coaching and training my schedule looks a little crazy. I am hoping Pain will stay on my ass throughout training this year. She has a lot on her plate but she motivates me like no one else so hopefully it will all work out.

Ahhhhhhh... coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Oh yeah...... Beer Mile later on today. I'll take some pics and post them tomorrow.

One last thing. the new album from Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy sucks!!!! Nothing like the old GNR. I was really disappointed.

Yoga is goooood.

I hit up Yoga again yesterday. I kind of enjoy it but some of the poses leave me looking like a poser.

It’s been a few days since my last update. I really haven’t done a tom of training so you didn’t miss much of that. So here are some of the highlights of the past week or so.

Wednesday: My morning core class with Pain was awesome!!!!!! I sometimes wish it was 2 hours instead of 1.

Thursday: I ran after work for 4 miles.

Friday/ Saturday and Sunday: This was the start of my weekend in Smithville, TX. There is a place called Rock Hill Ranch out there. It’s about a 45 minute drive from Austin. There was a race on Saturday that I was doing and it was a 12 mile trail run. Now…. Trail racing it totally different than road racing. I am a much better trail runner than I am a road runner. Trail running is much more technical with quick turns, uneven surfaces and sharp down hills to go along with sharp uphills. Oh….. did I mention it’s all in the middle of the woods? It started in a small park and went immediately into the woods. The trail is marked with orange tape and some signage. One tough part about this race was that the trail also had pink tape marking it because there was another race out there this weekend. We never go lost but it was close a couple of times.
The race itself went well for me. I went out strong and held it until the end. I placed 3rd overall in a time of 1 hour 33 minutes. I fell only once but I am still wicked sore from the fall. Not as young as I used to be. I beat Fish by 2 minutes which is what I wanted to do. I knew Jamie and Cpt. Jim would mop me up but I figured I could hang with Fish and I did. But I also knew that Fish has a 50 mile trail run coming up in 2 weeks so I figured I would use that to my advantage.
So back to Friday…… I loaded up my pop up camper and headed out to Smithville. Once I got there I was met by Cpt. Jim and Brad. They had brought out the J&A’s pop up so we just put mine next to it and made J&A city. Their pop up was smaller than mine and they had 5 people staying in it. Cpt. Jim had the small bed and asked if could roll with me and I was more than happy to help out. I ended up taking in Cpt. Jim and Drew for the weekend and that was totally cool with me. I did a lot of hanging out with Chock-O (real name Garvis and Jack’s brother) this weekend. Well…. More drinking with Chock-O than anything else. Good times!!!!
After the race on Saturday I stuck around to help set up for the duathlon the next day. High 5 events put on the race on Saturday and I was announcing on Sunday so I helped with set up of the du. All went well and we were off to dinner. After dinner we headed back to the ranch. Once there I noticed my friend Suzanne was nowhere to be found. I knew that she and her friend John had gone for a ride on the trails @ 4:30 but it was now 6:30 and it was totally dark out. I knew they didn’t prep for night riding so we mounted up a search party and headed into the woods to track them down. I was happy to hear that there we just coming out of the woods when we started in. They missed the turn around point and had to walk out because riding in the dark would have been too dangerous. Plus it was Chock-O and I in my X after a few beers and that was only spelling bad news.
Sunday went great and I was very happy to get some sleep on my own bed last night. It was a long weekend.

Motivation and why I shouldn't bitch about it.

So I have no motivation to do anything except to eat and sleep. Any type of working out is like pulling teeth. I shouldn't bitch about this since the is my off season but I have been going at it for about a year now and taking a break it just mentally tough for me. I feel as a if I am getting crazy fat and out of shape. For of those who don't know triathletes, we are some vein people. I have gotten worse over the years and any time I'm out of shape I feel like shit.
I should be enjoying this time of year since the holidays are coming up. This is when I am suppose to be able to eat whatever I want and relax. I am worried that I'll go into CDA (Ironman CDA) out of shape. I did this last year and suffered.

I ran this evening by doing a track workout with a group called the Ship of Fools. We did most of the run in the dark and that maybe why I'm feeling like crap. I don't mind running in the dark but that should be in the morning and not after work. After the main set I just didn't want to run anymore. Ugh.... my life is soooooo bad. Yeah right.

It's official..... I now do Yoga.

This morning was the first Monday morning yoga brought to me by T3. We started a yoga class at the PTC this morning starting @ 6:15. Someone forgot to tell mother nature to turn up the damn heat. It was 41 this morning. Not easy to stretch that early when it's that cold. But I have to say that it was fun. Pain swears it will help with flexibility so I'm down for that.

Tomorrow is another early morning. I just figured out that I now wake up @ 5:30 a.m. every morning to either train or coach. I think I may have a problem.

Tidbits....
I am thinking about changing my cell phone carrier. Sprint sucks!!!
I finally joined the rest of the world and downloaded Itunes and downloaded some songs. What gets me is that I can't download them to my standard MP3 player. Now I have to go by a freaking Ipod. Son of a bitch!!!!!

Weekend training an such

Saturday morning was very windy. I'm talking 35mph winds. Riding a bike outside was not in my best interest. So we opened up the PTC for anyone that wanted to hook their bike up to a trainer for a few hours. I lasted 2 hours, which is about all I am good for when it comes to sitting. After the ride Mo and I reworked the bike rack issue and it came out a lot better. Not exactly what I wanted but Mo was happy with it.
Yesterday I went to a new restaurant in the hood. With a place named Texican Cafe I should have known that it would suck. I had the worst steak in my life there and the service was horrible. I seriously don't recommend it.

This morning I awoke to temps in the mid 30's. Nothing like doing a long run in the cold. Seriously..... it's way morning fun that when it is 90 degrees outside at 7:00 a.m. It was another small group this morning. Just 4 of us ran the Scenic loop. A solid 10 miles of hills on the first half and then sorta flat on the back half. I took it very easy today and really enjoyed myself.
The rest of the day will be cleaning and prepping for the week. I am also playing Stelmach in fantasy football this week and even though I think he'll beat me I am really hoping for some luck to come my way.

Again... not too much on the table as far as training goes. I did a run hill workout this evening. The main set was 3 1/2 mile repeats. I did them in 3:25, 3:25 and 3:19. 3 was about all I had in me today. Coming off of Ironstar last Sunday is going to take a little bit of time. Hopefully not to much time, I have one last race for the year. It's going to be a 12 mile trail race in the woods of Smithville, TX in 9 days. It's more for fun but I bought trail running shoes a year ago and have yet to use them so I would like to try and get my money's worth.
Mo (my other coach @ T3) and I looked over the bike rack that he built the other day. It needs some help so we're going to fix it up on Saturday after the bike ride. I'll get a before and after photo to show you the progress.
Kitch sent me the pics of the deer that he and Coolio tagged on Wednesday. I thought that they were joking about the sizes but I guess they weren't. The buck dressed out at 200lbs. Dammit!!!!! Last year we saw 1 freaking deer all damn week and this year Coolio shoots a 200 lb buck on the 3rd day. Ugh!!!!!

Gotta coach at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. The one big difference about training and coaching is that I can sleep in if I want to when training. Sleeping in while coaching is not an option. Oh well.... I know it will pay off down the line.

Believe it or not... today was a slow day.

This morning started the same way that all my Wednesday's start. I wake up at 5:30 stroll over to Starbucks and get a grande coffee with room for cream for my coach. Then I make my way down the street to the PTC (PTC is Performance Training Center. It's where all my indoor training takes place and it also houses the coaching office.) and hand the coffee over to Pain. Pain is one of my 2 coaches. Her name is Chrissie and she delivers the pain so I just call her Pain now.Starting @ 6:00 I take a 1 hour core class that Pain teaches. It's freaking tough. I swear she stays up late at night watching those Chuck Norris infomercials just to find insane stuff for us to do. But I really don't complain about it because it makes me a better athlete and I kinda like bringing her coffee. It says, "Morning Pain, here's some free coffee now please kick the shit out of me."At lunch I headed over to Performance Wellness for some medical care. PW is the office of my chiropractor Chris Sellers and his crew of voodo healers. Chris and company have kept me going for over 2 years now and without them I would be in a wheelchair. I have been having neck and shoulder issues lately so they have been working on that for me.After work I headed to the track to coach a running speed workout. It was a smaller group than usual since this is technically the off season for triathletes. Coaching in the dark is a bit tough.A couple of tidbits:-- I found out Monday that I have Orthostatic Hypertension. My blood pressure is so low that when I stand up it takes a few seconds for the blood to get to my head after siting for a while. Makes me crazy dizzy. Nothing serious but it's fun to watch me get off the bike sometimes.-- This is usually the week that I go home and go hunting with the boys up in Maine. I didn't go this year because I just didn't have the time or the $$$. Well... I received an email from the head cheeze up @ hunting camp and they have already taken 2 deer this year. I am happy for the guys but I sure wanted to be there for it. I'll be back for '09.

How does my hair look???

http://www.austindistancechallenge.com/videos/speaker/1935/79950-logan-on-the-tri-training

You never get it right the first time.

Since this is my first attempt to blog something I figured I'd give you a little background. After a few moments of thinking I came to this conclusion. Screw that and let's start fresh.

Today I didn't do a damn thing training wise. This is officially the off season for me as I will start training for my next Ironman in January. I did go to the PTC and do some coaching stuff both this morning and after work today.

Mo built this bike rack for all the bikes at the PTC and it's not doing it's job. The thought was great but the execution of the bike rack is not all that good. I'm going to offer my skills in order to help him rebuild it so that it holds the bikes. This might be my weekend project. We'll see what he has to say.

So there you go.... my first official blog. I hope this thing has spell check.