What more could a data geek want?

Tonight I was a spectator at track. A week of swimming and spinning and riding on my bike trainer had kept me in shape but my achilles was still a little bit sore.

After a 6.5 month recovery (3 months with no running) from my bike crash at Ironman Canada, I returned to competition today.

My red Cervelo P3 is wonderful. I bought the bike because it is "just right" for me: stiff aluminum, 650 geometry, light and very fast, top quality Dura-Ace and other components.

Work has intervened, so my training and physical therapy have been wedged in recently.  Yet I have managed several 20 milers and a faster 14 miler, as well as good tempo and interval workouts. 

my White, managing editor of Inside Triathlon, whom I have known for some time, just asked me to consider writing for the magazine, starting with a shot at the back page "Fourth Leg" column. She suggests I might write about "how it was." So how was it 15 years ago in tri?

My swim coach (a national masters champ and former star cross country runner) says kicking will help my running. I know my running does not always help my kicking, that's for sure.

I ran 17.5 Sunday in temperatures starting just a few degrees above zero degrees F.  But the temperatures were not an issue.  And neither was the distance. 

-6 F with -17 F wind chill when I got into the car to drive to Rich's at 7 this morning. Broke out the cold weather running gear for the first time in a few years (global warming, you know).

The running path would have been too wet and it was not a night for the track, so we hit the roads.

No sob story or long story here now. Just to say that I crashed badly at Ironman Canada on August 26, 2005.

Right now I am reading Advanced Marathon Training by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas. It is the best marathon book I have read. Lots of science and training guidance.

This plantar fasciitis (heel soreness) is causing me to pursue a different strategy.

At Torino the sport I am drawn most by is speedskating. That's because speedskating was my sport before taking up triathlon.

The water was nine feet below our feet. I was flanked on either side by a line of fellow first-wave wet-suit clad triathletes, all of us perched on the north edge of the long pier jutting out into Lake Michigan. Water surged below us. I thought of the famous movie dialogue, when a pair of guys are trapped and cornered by a posse on a ledge at the edge of a steep rock canyon with nowhere else to go. They overlook raging rapids fifty feet below and are faced with a choice between a hopeless shoot-out and a near-suicidal leap.

I went to Missouri looking for hills. I found them.

The race materials had said previous winners would be in the elite wave. Well, I had placed 4th two years ago and second last year. Did that make me a “previous winner”? Turns out it did. I asked the woman running registration. She checked my number, my cap color (blue) and a list. “Yes, you are in the elite wave.” Gulp. Revise self image! Elite wave! If only the guys in high school guy class could witness this!

If I could have run somewhere nearer my capabilities (~4 hours versus 5:05), Kona would have been mine.