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“The sky is falling…hold back the day.” -Devil Driver

I love when I hear myself giving advice I should be taking. It echos in my head and I find myself trying to rebute the ideas I am expounding. It makes me want to hit myself with a shovel.

So many of my athletes are falling into the Crapuary trap. Its months till the first races yet some people are slaying themselves and putting themselves in a hole while thinking they are building a mountain. Post holidays and with the recent off season rest, motivations are high. We are a pool of gasoline and with a spark of motivation we can burn ourselfs up pretty fast. I keep telling people to relax, be patient and let it come. Our fitness is thin this early on, and we often can’t do what we wish we could do…just yet.

I myself have a bad habit. I am on a list called “pros” on twitter that someone made. When I check it I see what a dozen or so pros are up to. On any given day one of em is up to something epic. I might ignore 11 who aren’t training rediculously that day and focus on the one guy that is going huge. Then I beat myself up over it. If Ironman has taught me anything its that you must only focus on you, not your compitition. Your training, your race. Anything else is a the path to disaster.

Yet I am not immune. I went to Texas and put in work. Serious work. But that was a reach. Reaching is fine. But when you rech you must also be respectful. Disrespect is a path to disaster. I came back from Texas and didn’t want to take a recovery week. I fought hard against recovery and then last night my body gave me an ulitmatium: take some recovery or else. The “or else” is sickness and injury. My coach emailed me and said shut it down for a bit. He is right. I know because I am a coach and have told people this 3 times this week!

I got guilt about not training all the time. Or some other weird wiring problem that makes me want to train more and harder when I am cooked. So I am suggesting the following exersise: focus not on what I didn’t do, but what I did and what I will do between now and ironman. Because when you do that you realize how much you already did and you also realize that you need to be healthy and rested to do all that needs to be done.

(Pic: ahh, winter running, snow on rudy project glasses.)

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 Check out some funny ass videos of me, and the Holistic Guru. Plus a bonus pic of christine getting metal through her face!

www.zentriathlon.com

The wickedly awesome training camp that I help host in Spain is sold out and full. In fact we had been sold out several months ago but an injury took out to athletes and a pregrancy another (cograts ELF!) so we had a few spots open but those are full now too.

We will be opening reg for 2011 in March of 2010, with an early bird special (early reg discount) so don’t be left behind in the cold, snow and ice when you could be riding with us in lovely sunny Southern Spain.

For more information go to www.stronglikebulltraining.com

Of course you should follow the camp here and on twitter j_hirsch for updates of the sickest training anywhere with 4 pros and 4 Kona vets and a host of hard and fast age groupers. Its going to be a cracker of a winter!

“Rise above the earth and sky and fall…prepare to die. ” The Sword (Texans)

So I finished up a calander week here and here is the summary:

Sunday: 5:30 ride with 45 minute brick run.

Monday: am run 1:50. Pm run 40. Swim 60 min.

Tuesday: 60 min run / 5 hour ride

Wed: 60 min swim / 4 hour ride / 1 hour run.

Thursday: 5:45 ride / 30 min yoga

Friday: 60 min swim / 75 min run / 30 minutes core / 3 hour ride

Saturday: 6+ hour ride and my first century of the year. Brett did this in a single speed.

Total: 39.75 hours of training. Whoa.

I am really happy with how things went. Since I hit it and got in almost 40 hours I can’t complain since for me that’s the upper limit of what I can do in terms of training anyways. It was a bit of a press to train enough to be able to train here.

Of course this training is for more harder training to come in Spain. And that training is for bike races which are training for harder training for my final training before my first tri races which are training events for my final push of training before my ironman.

A huge step this week, but only one of many. I would be discouraged if I saw it as how much I have to do, but am seeing it more of a process, and its a process I love to see unfold. So I am finishing up stoked and excited, motivated and happy, and ready for the next steps.

I made this path by walking; having done it many years in a row now, and its the perfect one for me, as it should be, since its of my own creation. Can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait- let’s do dis!

(Pic: Big/long training days alone, here in the lone star state, where everything is big.)

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“Were gonna take what’s ours to have.” Pentera

I am getting nicely tired. I missed a day of blogging and now I can’t recall what I did 2 days ago. I think it was an sbr day. Good swim 3400 followed by 4 hours of riding with wind then an 1 hour run in Lick Park which is a great run spot.

Yesterday was a 5:40 ride and 20 minutes of yoga. I was so tired during part of that ride I thought I has Buddist prayer flags on a house, then realized it was laundry. I think I will call that Texas prayer flags henceforth.

I noticed something else about Texas. No place on earth do people love themselves more. To Texans, Texas means better. For example I rode by “Santa Land: A True Texas Style Christmass.” As if Texas needed to be part of the holiday to make it better. Even the potta-potty needs to be Texan. Look at the pic below. A regular potta-potty is ok, but a Tex-Can, well that’s a Texas one so it must be better.

Every Texan I trained with here enforced that. One had on shorts. Shorts are go for running but shorts with a Texas flag, well, by Texasology that’s just better. Brett saved his Texas bike kit for the big ride. You were your normal bike kit for normal days but you were your Texas one for important days, obviously.

Even the hot sauce is “Texan” in that it has a Texas flag on it. I can hear two Texans saying to each other: “do you want hot sauce?” “Sure as long as it has Texas in it.”

Ok off to get a tattoo, a tattoo of Texas obviously, since, a tattoo of Texas would be better.

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“I got a mouth for a war.” – Pentera (a Texas band)

First off: some amazing other sites connected to the Zen Tri Base and Nutrition Camp.

Endurance freak Rich Roll who used the camp to start his training for Epic 5, which is five ironmans in 5 days.check him out at www.richroll.com he also has a nice camp review.

The second site that has TONS of Zen Tri Camp stuff including videos, and what not is www.zentriathlon.com the host.

Lastly, Christine is dropping knowledge and funny stuff at www.liveandeatbetter.com

Ok, now onto the days events…..

Day 6 of the Texas trip came and it was the first that was all my own. I love camps but they make me yearn for solo training. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe its that I like going exactly my pace and too slow or too fast puts me in a funk. But I think its mostly that I love the time to myself. To let my thoughts wonder and to just enjoy they place. Humans tend to focus on humans and can be a bit distracting when you love the idea of focusing on cotton fields and flood gauge signs.

I started my morning off with a 10k run. Brett’s place has a great 5k trail so I do it as an out and back. No cars, no people, trees, lake, and a griffin. Yes, griffin, yes a mystical bird.

Then I did the 70 mile loop. This time it was 70s and serious wind. At one point I was pushing over 200 watts downhill and going 10 mph. I tried to recall Brett’s zen training “I see you wind” but then I realized YOU CANT SEE WIND. Crap. All that zen training for nothing. I was really trapped inside my own head because I couldn’t play music because the wind was so loud I couldn’t hear it. This is one of the times when I loved training with power because I knew I was working so instead of getting frustrated I just saw it as bonus training.

Of course wind is unidirectional and at a turn I picked up a tail wind. This is when I dislike a power meter. At 22mph it was telling me to work harder. Which I did. After 5 hours of that I was back and rewarded with some recoverite and some Mexican food. Yummy. One note about base training. 6 hours of training burning 500 calories per hour + 2000 calories for daily living means you can eat 4000 calories and still run a 1000 cal debt which equals 2lbs of weight lose per week. That’s math I can get down with.

(Foto: me in cotton fields with my sleeves rolled up to get a more even tan. )

“I am shedding my skin.” – Tool

I have never trained for real in Texas. Training is THE way to see a place. The interactions I have with a place while training is the most intense. You see the brids and animals, the trees, the sky and you feel the wind, the weather, the hills.

On the camp adgenda was 70 miles through the Texas countryside. I can see why Brett who lives here loves this place. I saw crazy scary-cool oak trees, storks, cranes, hawks, cows, cows with BIG ASS horns, and woods, lots and lots of woods.

We road at a proper base pace and the time flew by. 5+ hours later and it was done, almost without thinking that it was “work” or whatever. I decided the brick the run since it was so nice and I wasn’t sure if I would find time later.

By the end I had a nice 6+ hour day and best the part is I have sunburn! Freakin’ sunburn!!! Lovin me some Texas right now.

We also had another awesome meal. Kale + brown rice + black eyed peas + tempe. I am watching myself lean out, its amazing. Most cool however is that I am having 1/3 my normal caffine intake and not tired. Its amazing how much more enegry I have when I am eating properly and how improperly I eat when left to my own devices and I think my diet is “pretty good.”

(Pic: trees and good peeps make me happy happy joy joy)

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