Awesome fruit/vegetable juice

From Campbell Soup Company, $4 for V8 Juice.

From somewhere in a remote forest of South America found by a wandering minstrel, $40 and lots of BS:

Just a random thought for busy people looking for a healthy diet.  The V8 VFusion juice tastes great and has no added sugar or high fructose corn syrup.

The Mona Vie stuff is a multi level marketing scam, I feel sorry for all the housewives and retirees driving around with that stupid sticker on the back of their car.  In my opinion, blah blah.

Triangle Orthopedic sprint triathlon at NC State Centennial Campus

I really enjoy the TOA sprint tri because it starts 9 miles away from our house, meaning I get to sleep in AND ride my bike to the start.  One of my athletes drove in from the Outer Banks and we rode to the site together.  It was a bit wet and humid but the road conditions were not bad.

I bought a new Xterra Vortex 3 wetsuit a few weeks ago.  It fit great and was probably faster than my old 8 year old Quintana Roo.  The QR lasted a long time but was really starting to fall apart.  These new suits are light and slick and amazing.  The water was chilly but I continued my streak of fastest swim split at this race with a 9:05, 30 seconds faster than last year.  Started in the 2nd group, and caught one fast young guy from wave 1 who was not wearing a wetsuit and he stuck right next to me for the remainder.  The guy that won the race was right behind.

On the uphill run to transition was am slow.  That is OK because hills out of the water ^&$#.  They both passed me.

On the bike I could not really push hard up the hills but got it cranking on the flats and downhills and split 40 seconds faster than the past 2 years. By myself for all of it - 27:10 for 10.5 miles. Definitely much better than the Azalea Triathlon a few weeks ago where I had no power.

On the run I did all right, ran well on the downhills and a bit slower on the uphills, 19:47 5k which is pretty good for me but 20 seconds slower than last year (but a minute faster than Azalea). 2 guys caught me on the run.

Finished with a 45 minute easy run to make it my long run day.

4th overall, 1st masters (wow).

Saw lots of swimmers, IOSDT members, and training partners/rivals.  Good times. 

Next up is the White Lake half which I am looking forward to.

and on today's agenda

515 - Rise and shine

545-700 - coach Masters practice
700-800 - coach OSB group swim practice
800-830 - swim 1000 meters easy
845-1045 - emails, swim videos
1100-245 - ride with athlete
300-515 - schedules, emails
515-600 - drive to other side of town
600-700 - paddle board during open water swim with athlete
700-745 - drive to this side of town
745-845 - swim Masters practice
900-1030 - birthday dinner
1045 - collapse

repeat at 545 AM the next day.

Tassie wins!

You wouldn't think it from her sweetheart demeanor, but our little Tassie is one hellaciously competitive athlete.  This morning she ran her 3rd consecutive Umstead Coalition 4 mile race.  It is one of a handful around here that allows you to run with your dog.

Tassie and I ran together in 2009; Tassie and Bri ran in 2010.  This was our return year.  The bar was set at 28:52 last season with a strong sub-7 final mile.  Tassie had a better pacer.

This year we took it out a bit too fast - 6:22 for the first mile.  Tassie was fired up.

Turn your head sideways to watch

We climbed the long hill at the 1.5 mile mark still feeling good, but the end of the hill put a hurting on our pace.  13:39 at the 2 mile turnaround.  At this point we had a solid 8th or 9th place overall position and were well ahead of our main competitors, another guy and his fit looking dog.  Tassie gave them a wiggle and kept running.

Mile 3 was solid, we held 7:05 somewhat reluctantly.

Mile 4 we got a bit lazy and complacent and ran in with a 7:40 or so to finish with 28:22.  This is a 30 second PR but the pacing was atrocious.  I have to take the blame for that.  Tassie just wants to run.

All was well, all smiles at the finish.

 Tassie wins!

Update slacker

Life has been moving at warp speed recently.  Track and field coaching is keeping me on my toes, the Masters swim team is growing, and I am doing my best to fit some of my own training into the whole thing while also having fun with Bri and Tassie.

Tonight I watched a number of the high school athletes perform lifetime bests and a couple broke school records, which was a lot of fun.  They have been working hard and the work is starting to pay off. There is a lot less complaining about training in workouts.

Amazingly, the kids who attend the most practices are also improving the most.  Who would have thought it?

In upcoming news, we are hosting our next Powerstroke clinic this Saturday.  We're also planning to run the Umstead 4 miler with Tassie prior to that but the weather is questionable.

Training for White Lake Half is going well, I have been getting good bike mileage in although it is not all super organized.  I leave that to my athletes.

That is all.

swim meet results

We had a fun crew of 14 swimmers from the TAC-OSB Masters swim team at the NC Short Course Masters championships this weekend.  The meet was hosted by Raleigh Area Masters at the Hillsborough Sportsplex, which also hosts a triathlon in a few months. 

Many of us swam in high school or college, but we had a couple guys that only learned to swim as adults and they also turned in some great times - sub 30 50 free which requires technique + speed.  Great to see.

I will let Bri report her times, but it was cool to watch her swim a 28.5 in the 50 free and a 1:02 100.  Those are great times for a triathlete. :P

My swims in order of awesomeness:
50 fly 26.48 (best in 1989 - 25.4)
100 free 53.54 (best in 1989 - 49.6)
50 free - 24.91 - lead off relay (best in 1991 - 23.4)
100 fly - 59.08 - out too slow (best in 1989 - 54.0)
50 back - 30.06 - I might have gone under 30 as a kid, focused on fly from age 13+
200 free - 1:58.17 - out too slow, needs pacing work
500 free - 5:23.4 - last event, just after 200 free relay, beat and tired

We had a blast and while most of us are not as fast as we used to be, we suffer a lot less in training and have an inverse amount of fun.