Michael Stone is my Hero :)

If Michael's story doesn't motivate you, I'm not quite sure what will! This guy is AMAZING. Not only do we share the same coach, I am fortunate to hang out and train with Michael on a daily basis. Check out this video from CBS news to find out more!

http://cbs4denver.com/video/?id=22283@kcnc.dayport.com

If you would like to learn more about what Michael has been up to, follow his progress, or make a donation, please visit his personal website below!

www.fightblindness.org/ironman

Michael - you are an ispiration to us all!

Happy Hump Day!

Haha. I have nothing else to write about and Wednesday is the official hump day of the week for all you 9-5ers out there so Happy Hump to you all :)

I, however, don't have any distinguishing factors that make certain days different than others, but like most, I do still have days where I just need to get through them - and today is one of them.

Had a brutally long, hard swim this morning and then a 2.5hr ride with 5x12min. LT efforts in it...yeah, I barely made it in the door and now I'm totally vegging at work trying to stay awake. If I manage to compose myself in the next hour or so, I'll head out for my easy 45min. run, but right now that's not looking so good!!! Oh well, not going to overdo it again...learned that lesson the hard way :(

What a blast!

Ahh, soooo good to see the family this weekend. It's been almost 4 whole months since I had seen everyone and it couldn't have been more perfect. It's crazy to think that you grow up with the same 3 people your entire life and once you to go away to college you only get to see them a few times a year! CRAZINESS. I miss them so much, but definitely love the feeling when you finally get to reunite :)

Well anyway, we all had a great time together just hanging out, touring Purdue's campus (which is totally awesome) and going to the football game! I am so proud of my brother and I think that he is in a perfect place. Yeah, it's no Colorado, but Purdue has so much to offer too! I can't believe my little brother is growing up so fast, but I also am super excited because that means we can start going out and partying together too (not that I do much of that, but hey)!

All together it was a short, sweet, and perfect weekend getaway! Thanks Mom, Dad and Jerry, I love you guys :)

NOT GOOD.

Until yesterday, I never thought I would be using the words 'saddle' and 'sore' back to back in the same sentence...especially when referring to the 2 large welts on my ass :(

Okay, I know, probably way more information that anyone needed to know, but if you're a cyclist, it's just life. Anway, it's a damn good thing I will be gone all weekend hanging out with my brother and the fam so my bum can rest up a bit. Because at this point, there is NO way I would be able to do any kind of long riding which is usually on the weekend agenda....whhewww.

Alright, I'll be back Sunday night with a full report of what it's like to be a student in the great state of Indiana at Purdue University!

P.S. Did I mention I have to be at the bus stop at 3:30am tomorrow to catch a 6am flight...wtf?

My dad is HILARIOUS

This is the email I got this afternoon from my father in response to the conversation I had with my mom this morning regarding spinach and the monthly boxes of goodies she sends me...my, how information travels fast among families. Anyway, what a kick...he totally made me fall out of my seat at working because I was laughing so damn hard!!! I love you Dad!

"Hi Hon,

Just talked to Mom and a few thoughts to relay:

1) There is NO FRICKING SPINACH IN THE UNITED STATES RIGHT NOW! It is all COVERED WITH ANIMAL POOP that does not set well with the human body! If you really need to eat something green just go grazing on somebody's lawn (but make sure they didn't just fertilize it with the same animal poop thatis on the spinach).

2) How dare you BARGAIN WITH THESE RIDICULOUS BOXES MOM STILL SENDS YOU AT22 YEARS OLD? Did you really try and trade one in for money for a bathingsuit cover-up? How low can you go??? That's like someone putting their own child up for trade! Why don't you come to your Dad with these kinds ofrequests - I'd love to answer one!

All in jest and just kidding - but couldn't resist!!!!

Love Dad"

How Ridiculous

What are the chances that the only food I eat on a daily basis and pretty much cannot live without gets affiliated with a life threatening disease!?!

I mean seriously, I can barely go a day without eating almost a bag of spinach. Now I can't even buy it because they've freakin' pulled it off the shelves of every grocery store...GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

How bad can E-coli be anyways? It makes you shit a lot, right? Isn't that what I'm trying to accomplish with my extreme coffee habit?!?! Okay, okay...I'm done, but I'm still pissed about the whole situation.

CRASH FREE!!!

Hell yeah!!! Completed my first criterium this morning without any problems...thank goodness! And might I add that it was freakin' AWESOME! Totally have no sprinting ability right now, but came in second on each of the prime laps and 4th overall! Definitely need to work on the gear shifting as I kinda forgot to shift down for each of the sprints, and well, you know what that feels like!

Anyway, great day and fabulous weekend. So glad I chose this event over the Harvest Moon Half Ironman I was planning on doing. It was barely 40 degrees at 7:30am this morning when the race started and there is no way I was going to bike 56 miles in a wet bathing suit in those frigid temps. Plus, I totally found something new and exciting to look forward to doing more of in the future! And to make things even better, I not only finished without any troubles, I also made some extra cash on the side...fun, fun!!!

How come triathlons don't have prize money like cycling?!?!

2 down 1 to go!!!

Yeahhhhhh...got through my very first road race this morning and had an absolute blast! Totally didn't know where the finish line was until about 20 meters before I went through it, but hey, who cares. I probably could have out-sprinted the 2 girls I was working with the entire race to get some extra points, but it's all good...now I know why they all of a sudden just randomly took off...duhhh!

VERY different from triathlon racing. Group riding is also very nerv-recking...especially when you start the race with the CAT 5 men and when you hit the first climb they all start falling back leaving you struggling for dear life trying to bridge the 2 girls who were lucky enough not to be behind those dudes. At any rate, I've never worked so hard together with other people during a race and it was super cool and a lot of fun too. Met some great girls from Denver and am definitely going to continue on this bike racing bandwagon :) Bet some of my friends are excited to hear that!

Sooo...crit tomorrow. Could be interesting. Hope I don't crash! Until then.

First Stage Down...

This morning I completed the Time Trial portion of the Parker Mainstreet Omnium. Placed 4th, but definitely wasn't too happy about it as I could have gone a lot harder...life goes on.

I haven't been doing any type of speed work and that's probably why I wasn't able to push as high of a gear up the hills as I would have liked, but that's okay. Also, the whole first half of the course was uphill into the wind and the last half downhill with a tailwind, how convenient...

So what really sucked was the fact that I almost crashed 5 times going about 30-40mph because the insane winds kept catching my disc wheel and flinging me off the road and practically pushing me sideways. Yeah, let me tell you how freaky it is going that fast in aerobars (no braking access) and getting thrown around like that. Unfortunately I did get a little too freaked out and had to stop pedaling a few times to get my composure back...which totally costed me a shitload of time on an 8 mile course.

Whatever, it's the first one and it was fun...couldn't have done it without Mr. Aaron Brown though. If it wasn't for him helping me drive down there, coaching me through a sweet warm up, pining my numbers on and totally supporting my ass, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do...thanks buddy!

No worries though, the road race is tomorrow and I'm ready to attack with avengence!!! Stay tuned.

What have I done!!!

Triathlon out, 3-day bike race in...That's right, I'm racing in my very first bike race this weekend.

Temperatures on Sunday morning are predicted to be in the 3os and only go up into the high 50s throughout the day. Getting out of the water and riding 56 miles in a wet bathing suit in 40 degree weather does NOT sound like a good way to come back from a major injury...the coach didn't think so either.

In that light, there just happened to be a 3 stage bike race in Denver this weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) consisting of a time-trial, road race and criterium. Had it not been for the fact that I have several friends who are pro cyclists who will be there to help my completely clueless-ass out, there is no way I would have even thought about it! However, they're gonna be there and I'm gonna do this thing; I just can't crash or my coach might seriously kill me...he's not too hyped on the idea!!!

Alright, more to come on the TT tomorrow morning...wish me luck!

P.S. Katie - thanks so much for the card! I love getting fun mail like that! Tell everyone I say hi; I miss you guys so much...

http://www.parkeromnium.com

Ouchy.

Finally got around to getting a lactate threshold test done on the bicycle yesterday. Not as bad as I thought, however, still need to keep training efficiently so I can boost that watts/kg ratio!!!

Anyway, they do a series of 8x4minutes at a harder output everytime and then prick your finger after each 4 min. effort to test your lactate levels...yes, that's 8 pricks in the same finger within a half an hour...grrr!

Needless to say, my finger hurts today.

Coffee Anyone?

Alright all you crazy coffee addicts out there...until about 3 months ago I wouldn't have been able to comprehend your ludicrous obsession. However, with the amount of coffee I have been drinking over the past month makes me think that I might have fallen into the 'coffee addiction trap' too!

I don't even like the taste of coffee, well at least not without a pound of sugar and cream in it, but you know what - the fact that it's a "mover" makes my day much more enjoyable. For those of you who know the stomach issues I face, it would only make perfect sense. I think that my new motto might just be as so...

...A cup of coffee a day takes the pain away!

Okay, okay, I'll stop there, but I think it's official. If I wake up craving coffee almost every morning, I think it's a pretty good sign that I'm not only hooked, but totally addicted!!! AHHHH, what have I done?!?!

What a day

For the first time in I can't even remember...maybe even a few years, I slept in until 11am!!! Oh my goodness did it feel AMAZING. Woke up, had some delicious coffee, a banana and an english muffin with peanut butter and strawberry honey, then proceeded to relax and work on sponsorship stuff all morning - it was soooo nice.

It rained all morning, but at 2pm when I finally got in gear to get out on the bike for my 3hr ride/75min run brick session, the sky had totally cleared and it was absolutely gorgeous. Had a fabulous ride and great run...randomly saw three people I knew on my run and almost ran over a snake crossing over some railroad tracks. I saw it in the last second before I stepped on it so I tried to leap over it. However, as I was mid-air, it was startled and moved as well. Needless to say, I was seriously about a millimeter from crushing it or being bitten. Haven't seen the 190s on the heart rate monitor in a while, but that definitely made me freak!

There's always gotta be something, right! Otherwise life would just be plain, simple and well, kinda boring!

AHHHH!!!!

Remind me to NEVER go into the locker room at FAC from 11:30-noon EVER again.

I'm usually out of there by 10:45am after swimming at 9, but I went for a 45 minute run right after swimming and needed to shower after my run so I had to go back into the locker room.

Okay, long story short, the women's water aerobics class ends at 11:30am and I have never in my life seen so many naked old women in a one place. I mean seriously, the last thing I want to deal with after a good training session is fat, flabby, old, wrinkly, and shriveled bodies EVERYWHERE...oh my god. It's a good thing I can shower in less than 2 minutes because I was seriously on the verge of freaking out.

Geez, I hope I never look like that...yikes!

Oh Baby

The words 'Get on the table, bitch' never sounded so good until last night...the massage table that is - geez, get those dirty thoughts out of your head!!!

So I didn't realize how spoiled I've been with Mercy giving me massages multiple times a week until she was gone for a whole 8 days! When she screamed at me from her room to get on the table last night, WOW, it was like heaven to my ears. After serious training, 60-90 minutes of massage at a time can honestly make such a huge difference in your recovery time. I'm not saying that the massage actually feels as good as I would like (as I almost fell off the table a few times last night it hurt so bad), but it's definitely a huge asset in preventing injury and relaxing super tight muscles.

So between a good massage and 'Strawberry Lite' Margarita at the Rio, couldn't have asked for a better night!

I Survived!!!

• 4K swim - HARD
• 4+hrs of climbing on the bike - LONG
• 1 hr tempo run - PAINFUL

Completing a 7 hour training day successfully and injury-free...PRICELESS

I have to say this...

For all you men out there who just don't happen to be as fast as some female cyclists, deal with it; it's part of life. I promise that your penis will NOT shrink if you get passed by a chick with a long braid coming out of the back of her helmet :)

Okay...I apologize for being vulgar or inappropriate, but I seriously almost snapped at some random cycling dude who wouldn't get off the back of my wheel. Yeah, it's nice to have someone to draft off of when there's a narly head wind, but it's completely defies all cycling rules to do so when you don't know the person whom you're drafting off of. Anyway, after I realized this moron was doing so, I slammed on my breaks to signal to him to get off my ass and then he went around me. He obviously needed that draft because I proceeded to pass him immediately after I let him go by. What do you know, the little shit was right back on my wheel. I dealt with it for about 4 miles and then finally just stopped peddling for a couple minutes, let him go by me and waited until he was about a half mile ahead of me to start actually putting pressure on the pedals again. Huh, you wouldn't think with all that distance between us that I would catch him again, but sure enough, I did. To make him feel better, I sat about 20 meters back and just cruised in behind him...what and IDIOT! I wanted to scream the inappropriate statement above at him sooooooooooo badly, but I refrained myself. I really should have though, it would have been a good story :)

P.S. I now have a power meter to prove that I was putting out a consistent effort the entire time, so that schmuck has no excuses!

Uh oh!

Yikes, it's been almost 4 days since I've updated this thing...nothing out of the ordinary going on, but definitely had a fun weekend.

Friday - met up with my good friend Jake (who has been traveling everywhere for his med school rotations). Went for a swim, had a great dinner at the Walnut, then we each downed a pint of Ben and Jerry's Ice cream (or at least I did; he finished his the next day)!!!

Saturday - did my first long bike/run brick out at the Aurora Reservoir where I might race in 2 weeks. Unfortunately it was about 50 degrees and cloudy (which we haven't seen here since about March) but still got in a solid 3 hour bike with a 45 minute run right off of it...amazingly I felt really strong on the run; if Jake was impressed, then I did good :)

Sunday - Ohh, slept in til 9am and then tried to go swimming...had a tummy ache so I got out early and came home to take a nap. Then went for a 75 minute run and still felt like shit so I just took it easy the rest of the day and worked on some accounting stuff for my new job!

Monday (today) - AWESOME weather...70, clear, calm and sunny!!! Had a great bike and swim and about to head out for a run! Livin' and lovin' it...