So far I have been recovering pretty nicely from my crash.  The bike need some work on the front end (Aerobar extensions, basebar, etc), and the wheels needed to be trued – that is about it.  Is ready to pick up from the shop tonight!  Thanks Brent.

Me – I needed some tegaderm for some of the road rash.  It has been healing pretty well.  Unfortunately, I’ve stayed out of the pool; partially from fear of the stinging, and partially to avoid any potential infection and/or slowing of the healing process.  I plan to swim this sunday.

Since I was without my bike this week, it’s been interesting to train thus far.  Tuesday I did a 1 hour, 40 minute ride on my MTB on the city parkways, followed by a 30 minute run.  I had intended to do a few hard intervals, but my body just couldn’t figure out how to go super hard on the MTB.  It ended up being an effort a little above IM effort, but below HIM effort.  The run went surprisingly well, except every stride made me away of the road rash on my legs!

Yesterday was an easy ride on the trainer using my wife’s bike – wow it’s setup small for me in the AM, and an moderate run last night.  The run went really well other then the road rash sting.  Managed 8.4 miles in 61 minutes – totally surprised me.

Today is another brick  like Tuesday, but I’ll probably try to throw in a couple extended HIM efforts in.

Tomorrow is an easy ride, and my long run – I’m a little nervous for my run because of the road rash, but I’m sure it will be fine.

The cap stone of the week is doing a group ride of the IMWI course with the local tri-Club.  The official agenda for the club is one loop, but I plan to be a border line Gym Glass Hero (more on those in a future post) and do two loops – maybe even bust some heads

Sunday is gonna be a nice swim and LOTS of yard work.

This weekend dealt me one of the most disappointing moments in my athletic career.  To cut to the chase, my teammate and my race at the Triple-T ended with a DNF.  My first ever, and I think his too.  We made it successfully through races 1, 2, and 3 – not as “fast” as when we did it last year -  Matt is in rock star shape, and my preparation wasn’t quite as well as I had intended – but in a better position placement wise.  Going into race four we appeared to be solidly in third, and within range of second if we had a great half.

The morning of the half dawned with me deciding to replace my rear tire after discovering a slow leak in it, and being a bit gun shy due to a leak in the front in Race 2, that didn’t make itself fully apparent until mile 20 of 24 – leaving Matt and I with a single communal spare.  The swim went well with Matt and I getting onto the bike as the first team.  We were passed shortly by the eventual Male Team winning team.  Their pass was a pass, but they definitely did not pass with authority.  Matt and I decided to stay with them and pace off them unless/until they dropped the hammer.

This worked splendidly, Matt doing most of the work, us staying within eyesight of them on the flats, ups, downs, twists and turns.  About 20 miles into the bike, Matt and I crested a small climb on a Fire Road, that dumps you out onto a small county highway, and then onto State Highway 125 and its monstrous “Nile Township Climb”.  A great part of the course for some strong riding due to the rolling terrain and the climb up 125 – as the downhill off the climb leads right into transition.  As we crested the hill I pulled in front to lead us down the descent.  About 15 feet down it, I hit either a divot the size of a basketball in the center of the road, or a large crack type feature on the side; between the speed I was traveling (~34), the angle, and luck, I launched through the air, hit the ground, skidded, tumbled, and generally scraped my body across about 30 feet of pavement, landing in the ditch.

My first reaction was to stand up and see where Matt was and say some choice words about how hard I’d have to work to catch up.  Then I started to asses my situation – I was basically bleeding  from all four limbs, left left shin, my right knee, right forearm, and left elbow.  Plus my back stung badly, and my right shoulder was oozing something fierce.

My bike came out mostly OK – the chain was tangle up something fierce, and my right aerobar extension bolt was snapped.  I wanted to continue, but between all the scrapes and scratches, and the welt that was growing on my knee – I didn’t know if it would be the best idea.  As Matt was working to untangle my chain, and he did a quick assessment of me – he called it for me.

While I knew he was right, accepting it was one of the hardest things I have had to do.  I felt like I was letting myself down, and harder to accept – letting Matt down.
So rather than ending our day with a strong ride, and a suffer fest of a run, it ended with an easy ride back to transition.

Ten hours removed (when I wrote this), I feel compelled to return next year as a solo or as a team to – I don’t know – redeem myself, I guess.  We were flying at the time of the crash – on pace for a 2:50 ride (11 minutes faster than last year) – awesome power 233 AVG/263 NP/19.7 MPH – and for the first time of the weekend, I felt strong.  It’s not that I failed, but that I need to test myself against this course again and see what I have in store for it.

On the bright side, I feel like I’m leaving this race with more then I left – a drive to better my preparation and have several successful races this year.  Hopefully – that drive will find a spot inside to grow and push me, but for now I’ll just settle for the road rash to stop stinging.

This week has been pretty decent training wise.  I missed the Tuesday morning swim, but otherwise everything has been pretty good.

The highlight of the week was my Bike workout Tuesday night and last night’s run!  I did it (the bike workout) with my friend Matt and his wife – we did a 2×20 @ FTP.  I averaged 300 watts, and 292 watts for them – I was quite happy with them.  I was nearly in need of a puke bag after the second interval – it was awesome!  Matt was a rock star though, he crushed me on both intervals.

Last night I did a track workout.  Typically on Wednesday I’ve been doing a 1:15 run with 20 minutes @ T-Pace inserted.  That workout has sort of stalled @ about 6:25ish/mile, so i decided to do some shorter intervals to try and break through – 6×1000’s @ Daniels I Pace (3:41) w/ 600m easy was the prescription.  Long story short, I more or less nailed all 6 of them!

This weekend I am headed to my parents for Mother’s Day and to meet my sister’s boy toy for the first time – so I am planning to do my long ride tomorrow.  Goal is ~5 hours with 4x[5x3 (1')] @ FTP at the top of each hour – then a long run Sunday at my parents.

Additionally – my wife, Mary completed her first Marathon last weekend.  Despite saying she would never do one again, last night she miraculously decided to do another this fall!

Recently WTC (World Triathlon Corporation) – the owner of the Ironman Triathlon Trademark.  Acquired the rights to the American Ironman Circuit (Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, CDA, Lake Placid), they also do Louisville and are the folks who run Kona.

Anyways, they recently slipped the following statment onto the searchable participants database for the newly aquired American Races:

PLEASE NOTE: Ironman 70.3 California, Ford Ironman St. George, Ford Ironman Louisville, Amica Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island and Ironman 70.3 Boise are not available on this live data system.  All events will not be searchable beginning in 2010 and will be periodically posted as text files.

All plain text participants lists for races will be posted here as hard links when they become available.

Personally, I think that blows.  I love to search the participants database and use it to fuel athlinks stalking sessions, furthermore, I fear they may pull the searchable results database.  IMO – bad move also.  They should be bringing their existing portfolio of races into this system, not pulling their new races out of this system.

If you agree – send them some feedback.