Let the Ironman Build Begin!

Evil Genius decided to do her best impression of her Uncle Michael this week. Michael has actually shaved off "the mustache your parents warned you about" while he was on the European tour, but this is still cute.


The girls are loving their swim lessons. It's only a 2 week program, so this is the second week starting today. The instructors are great, they are learning breast stroke and freestyle in addition to the normal kicking and general comfort in the water that is typical of preschool swim lessons. We got a few pics from last week's lessons.

Evil Genius loves her teacher. He's really good!

Bigun Breaststrokes

Bigun looking strong on the side of the pool


This weekend I kind of took it easy on the long workouts. I know today is the first day of the build phase, called "Competitive Season Week 1" in my training plan. I didn't want to really stress out right before starting the new phase. It's still well over 100* here every day it seems, so I loaded Roberta up onto the trainer for a 5 hour ride on saturday. Then Sunday I hit the gym for an hour on the stationary bike (20 miles) followed by a 10 mile run on the treadmill. I'm getting really tired of this heat, and tired of the indoor workouts. Ready to be outside for a while if this heat wave will ever break!

It feels to me like the trainer is not as effective of a workout as the stationary bike. Do you guys get the same feeling? On the trainer the resistance is always the same. I finished 5 hours with very little muscle fatigue but some serious chafing on the butt cheeks. I know it's important to get the time registered on my saddle. But I just don't get the feeling of exhaustion or sweat nearly as much as when I'm on the stationary. When I'm on the stationary at the gym, I use the "Random Hill Climb" program on a resistance level 12 or 13 (out of 20). After an hour I'm drenched in sweat and burn about 500 calories. After 3 hours on there I can barely stand. Which one do you think gives the better workout for Ironman training?

The first week doesn't look too bad. About the same schedule mid-week as before, but the Saturday long day is 4 hours instead of only 3. And instead of that, I'm doing the Lake Logan Oly on saturday with some special friends! It's going to be fantastic. But hopefully it will only take about two and a half hours to complete, and we'll be able to make the four hour drive home on Sunday. So saturday's 4 hour and sunday's 2.5 hour workouts may be combined into one race. that might not be cool.

Be careful out there! I'm very sad today. My old friend Jeff Papenfus from Greenville SC was killed in a mountain bike accident yesterday. He was descending a big hill too fast, tried to corner too fast, and went face first into an embankment. Jeff was a very experienced mountain biker and racer, so this is very sudden and unexpected. I knew Jeff best as a technology guru and big competitor when I had the business, but our offices were very close together and we did a lot at the chamber of commerce together. I hadn't talked to him in several years, but that doesn't mean that I won't miss him. That's the kind of thing that makes you examine your own life insurance policies and make sure your will is up to date. It really can happen to anybody. Watch what you're doing weather on the roads or trails, and be safe. I've got to get a RoadID.