Many of my clients are often curious about what I do for my own training and as I prepare to qualify for Kona in 2012, I would like to share my journey to achieving this goal. I also plan to discuss topics that come up with my clients, helpful tips, brief reviews of new products, and reviews of seminars or other events that I attend. I am hoping to update this blog once a week, but we'll see. I'll start off with a review of an a seminar I went to this past week. It was an aerodynamics seminar with Mark Cote of Specialized hosted at Landry's Bicycles in Boston, MA. Here is a quick Video about Mark and what he does at Specialized:
Unfortunately I was a about 10-15 minutes late getting to the event due to traffic. It was really great to listen to Mark and he is truly an expert when it comes to aerodynamics. However, I must admit, the majority of this seminar was just Mark talking about how cool the new Specialized Shiv is and the aerodynamics of that bike. And don't get me wrong, it is an awesome new bike, but I was expecting a little more out of this. I was hoping Mark would spend some time talking about what things people can do to make themselves more aerodynamic. Since I was late, it is possible he spent the few minutes talking about this, but my guess is he didn't. He did share some really cool stories about some pro athletes he works with, including how they got Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander on board just before the 2011 Ironman World Championships where Craig took around 13 minutes off his bike split, which is absolutely amazing for a pro to gain that kind of time. On top of this, Mark did talk about how important aerodynamics are and how much of a difference it can make. He did discuss a few other bikes/bike companies and had nothing but good things to say about them, which was pretty cool. He did speak quite highly of Trek and the Speed Concept, which was nice to hear. I did spend a few minutes talking to Mark after the seminar was over and first off, man, what a super nice and educated guy he was! I asked him a few questions about the best ways to store your nutrition aerodynamically (if that makes sense) and he talked about how that is where we will be seeing innovations over the next few years with the new bikes. I did learn a few little things about optimizing your bike setup for nutrition. So if any of my clients are reading this and would like to review what they can do to get a more aero setup before a race and discuss the setup of their nutrition, I may have a few suggestions so please do not hesitate to ask. This was also the first week that I started my strength and conditioning program with Kevin Buckley at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. I was so excited to start this program and the first week didn't disappoint! At first, I felt like I was back in high school going to Boyles, back when Mike Boyle was still quite small and I was training for hockey. Kevin's program did include some new exercises that were very challenging and I really liked. I've still got some work to do to get my form down on a few of them. Nonetheless, being there with fellow NEMSers; Nancy, Brent, Greg, and Chris makes it extra fun! I'm sure I'll talk more about this soon. Overall, my training went pretty well this week. I'm just starting to pick up my training volume again and really get into my off season. Here is what I did: Monday- Swim- 2500 yards in the AM and then a 1hr yoga session in the evening with my fiance Kristen Teusday- First day at DSC- about 1:15 of strength training Wednesday- 40' spin class Thursday- 1:15 at DSC and bagged my run to go to see Mark Cote at the seminar Friday- 45' spin class, 1:15 at DSC. 2500 yard swim in the pm Saturday- Off. Planned to swim but one of my clients forgot his gear so I let him wear my stuff. I had to do my CPR/First Aid Recertification all day so this through my schedule off a bit. Sunday- Long run. 10 miles in 1:14:07. Did a pretty hilly route and it was nice to get a descent long run in. 20' of the Vasa.