Runner Ross does a first 5k ever!

That's right. I ran a 5k race. I think a 50 mile bike race would have been more to my liking but what the heck, I'm branching out into other sports. I need to take about 4 or 5 minutes off my time to be in contention to win local 5k's in my age group. Yeah right. Maybe 2 minutes. Lets see, to break 20 minutes for a 5K the pace calculator says I would have to run 6:25 miles to break 20 minutes. That almost seems do-able, on paper at least. That's 1:36 a mile faster than I ran with virtually no training. Hummm, maybe, if I ran 4 miles 3 times a week for a month and a half,...and put in some speed work and kept up the cycling. We'll see. "We'll see" is mommy language for NO. I'll shoot for a 7:30 pace. That'll give me a more respectable 23:18. Make me remember this, my goal for the next 5k is: 23:30.

Sharon did a great job. 2nd place in her age group. She's been working lots of overtime and not training like she wishes yet she still ran faster than ANY of her training runs. She is that special type of athlete that can really shine on race day. Racing brings out her best. With a time of 26:12 she completed each of her 3 miles faster than any single mile she's run in training. I think that's incredible. That's 8:26 per mile pace and she's bee hard pressed to break 9 minutes in training.

When we got married we went to do the State Time Trial championship on our tandem. We got 4th which we were disappointed with. She had a great day and I had a bad day. Her max heart rate is about 185. Her lactate threshold is about 165. She rode 55 minutes with an average heart rate of 182!! Talk about getting UP for a race. Then we went to Ohio and spanked all the bike racers in her parents' hometown. They got Sharon riled up when the "warned" us not to go on their hilly ride on a tandem, we'd probably get dropped. It felt like I was on a motorcycle with all that power coming from the back seat. I've got a great wife, just don't piss her off on the bicycle, she's fast when she's pissed. Check out this video. The best bike racers in the world goofing it up.














Sharon's silver medal

Modest and cold

How bout this one

Hey Lisa, How about one like this. Haydn could teach you how seeing as how you're 1000000 miles away.

San An Again

My normal Sunday ride is the group ride either in San Antonio, Florida or Windermere. Both great rides but I have to give the nod to Windermere. It has a hard, very hilly 40 miles then a stop at the store. Out of 120 starters only 15 to 20 usually make it in the front group. The rest short cut the ride and we all meet up at a store. After the store there is a very fast 25 mile run to the finish. Both segments end in a hotly contested sprint. You get steep hills plus a high speed flat segment. You have to be a demigod to win both.

San An ride today was kinda easy. The big finale is up a mile long hill called triple step because.....it has 3 steps with the final ramp the steepest. No attacks there today. It's about 2 miles to the finish line from the top of triple step with a hill in the final mile. It's not steep but it usually weeds out the pure sprinters if there are any remaining after triple step. I moved up with my boys on my wheel to get them into a position to sprint. It was very dangerous with lots of people there that usually aren't because of the tame pace today.

You might be thinking that if it was so tame that I should have done something to spice it up. Well, I've not been back on the bike long enough to put the hurt on such a talented field. When I am I'll let you know.

Theshold training

What is the best training for a 40k time trial? In my opinion, 4 minute intervals. You might be thinking I'm crazy but hear me out. A 40k is about an hour for most people. 50 minutes for some people and 110 minutes for others but basically an hour at just over your lactate/anerobic threshold. There are two types of workouts for that type of effort. Training just below your threshold can raise your threshold but only so much. So 20-30 minute intervals 2 or 3 times in a workout at 90-95% of you threshold. The other workout is 4 minute intervals above your threshold. 105-110% of threshold. Up to an hours worth of those. There are other workouts but those two are the core. An hour effort will/should be largely anerobic, therefor your workouts should contain anerobic efforts and lots of them.

So many triathletes I know just survive the bike with a halfway decent time. I think that in every distance except for the longest like Ironman distance you should go all out on the bike. If you do some bricks, your run won't suffer much or at all.

I did the group ride and won the sprint competition without winning a single sprint. I got 2nd in the first 2 sprints, 3rd in the the 3rd and 3rd in the final. A total of 10 points. Kevin won the first 2 and then sat out the rest with a total of 9 points. I ran Thursday night with Sharon and could feel it a little in my legs. It was the first run of the year for me. I have to get in shape for the 5k with the wife next Friday night. I'm gonna run with Sharon to cheer her on and so I don't have the pressure of trying to set a PR for myself. 1982 was my last 5k when I was on the highschool CC team. PR for 3 miles set in 1982 was 18:30. I can run 1 7 minute mile right now so I don't think a PR is in the cards. I ran a 20 minute 5k in a tri in 1984. That was the last tri I did. I'll probably end up racing a couple of tri's this year if I can keep running.

Good Weekend of (Racing) Riding

Our training rides are always mini races. For example: Saturday morning ride has 6 sprints. These are all out races. I've won "real" races that were easier. It makes training hard easier because the rides are always hard. That's good for training.

Many years ago when I started riding with my grandfather, who was a great racer in his own right, he always ended our training ride with a sprint for a speed limit sign near home. For a couple of years starting when I was 13 or 14, he would train as he normally would but with me glued tightly to his wheel. Even after pulling me around in his slipstream (the rider in back does 10% to 30% less work) he would still dust me in the sprint. No mercy, tough love as I call it now. Then one day I did it, I sprinted( he was in his mid 60's mind you)got along beside him and pulled ahead. I was elated. He then told me that I had to start doing my fair share of the work on the rides, he wasn't going to pull me around all day just so I could beat him in the sprint. The next year he schooled me in sprinting tactics and I became a pretty good sprinter winning my fair share of races. To this day, 30 years later, I'm still a very crafty sprinter, not real fast but crafty enough to mix it up and if it's at the end of a long hard race, count on me for a podium finish.

Sooooo, years ago, I put sprints into our Saturday morning training route for my own good. Now it's bragging rights for a week to win the sprint competition on Saturday.

This week was my first week of "hard" efforts. I tested my legs 8 miles from the first sprint and found myself off the front with 2 other riders. Julie, 2005 womens state road champion and Florida point series winner and Joe, 2005 masters 50+state road race champ. We made it all the way to take the sprint. Then there is a neutral section where we regroup for the next sprint. I didn't go for any more except the last one up hill. It's not so much a sprint as a hill drag race. Surprisingly, I won easily.

Today was the San Antonio ride which is very hilly. About 2500 feet of climbing in 40 miles. Thats 850 vertical meters in 75 kilometers. I was anxious that I'd even be able to stay with the front group but I did. I was even able to lead out one of the local pro riders, Josh Thornton of Team Sierra Nevada, for the first sprint. After the 40 we did another 20 miles(33 k)on the race course of a February road race.

Legs are heavy now and I'm very hungry. Hopefully I'll be able to resist eating something bad for me but I really am craving some spicy fried chicken from Popeyes. "Popeyes chicken is the shiznit!"

Back in Lakeland

Did the Lakeland ride today instead of the ride I've been doing in Tampa. The Tampa ride WAS a tempo ride for the last couple of months but that ended today. I've avoided the Lakeland ride because I didn't want to be tempted to ride too fast too soon. I'm about eady to start easing into hard rides so rather than drive to the Saturday ride I rode from my house.

I still rode tempo today but I allowed myself the pleasure of some hard riding. The Lakeland ride has 6 sprints with points for the first 3 places with a champ at the end of the ride. The sprints are hard contested events with the non sprinters attacking and trying to escape the sprinters. There are a couple of points at which the group waits and there is a spot where you can shortcu if you're dropped so it gives everyone a chance.

On the home front, I took my 11 year old to the Apple store to get an IPod. She's been saving since summer and got some gift cards for Christmas so it was quite satisfying for her to finally get was she's been working for. I hope it's all that she dreams it will be. I will say it's pretty cool. With 30 gigabytes of memory it can hold a lot of songs and videos. My oldest daughter has one and she was showing me some videos she downloaded. The video is amazing and of course the sound is great too. I guess I'll have to get one some day when I have an extra $250 hehe. I guess its about 192nd on the list of things I "need".

I put in floors in our bedroom last Saturday while Sharon was at work. She was going to take a weekend off work to help me but I figured I'd rather do something fun with her instead. I had to hustle to get it all done but I finished about 1/2 hour before he got home. Boy, was she pleased and surprised. I still have to trim it out but it looks pretty good. Half the work involved was hauling all the stuff out and back in again. That gave me some aches and pains for a few days. Kinda put a hamper on my running his week but I gotter dun!