Want to loan me $25,000?

We all know that Lance Armstrong is one of the best in the business when it comes to raising money for charities.  On top of being one of the best athletes of all time, he seems to be able to raise money at an incredible rate.  And this summer, he has presented another opportunity to donate your funds.

Mr. Armstrong, along with the current Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander, Dave Scott, Greg Welch, Jimmy Riccitello, and Chrissie Wellington are teaming up to host one of the coolest training weekends ever.  It is going to take place on May 26-28 of this year, and be Kailua-Kona.  During this little training weekend, you'll have the opportunity to train, talk with, get tips from, and stalk some of triathlon's greatest athletes.

Since this is a charity event, with the proceeds going to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Hawaii, there is a small price to pay in order to attend this shindig.  And keep in mind, this event is meant to be a "personal" event, so they are only allowing 50 people to attend.  The price tag?  A mere $25,000.

If you are interested, you have to send in a brief expression of interest prior to April 15th, so you better get on it!  This event is called "Swim Bike Run with Lance and Friends", and sounds absolutely amazing.  Unfortunately, it's just a couple thousand dollars outside of my budget, so I don't think I'll be able to attend this time.  Just think, at $25k a pop, and 50 people attending, that's $1.25 mil that Lance will be raising for a weekend of training.  Wow.

IM CdA Training - Week 11

Yes!  I made it to week 11!  It's crazy to think that I'm almost half way through my training plan...which means I'm almost half way to Ironman Coeur d'Alene.  Enough of this thinking stuff.  On with the training plan!

Monday - REST

Tuesday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 45 minute bike.

Wednesday - 1 hour 15 minute swim.  56 minute run.

Thursday - BRICK workout: 1 hour 30 minute bike followed by 30 minute run.

Friday - 1 hour swim.  2 hour bike.

Saturday - 4 hour 30 minute bike.  35 minute run.

Sunday - 1 hour swim.  2 hour run.

I can already tell you that I'm doing great this week!  Since I'm writing this on Monday, I'm making sure to really attack today's training with all I have...which means I'm sitting on the couch resting!  I hope everyone else that is training for a race this season is doing well!  Thanks for reading!

IM CdA Training - Week 10

Ok, so this post is a bit late.  I am finding myself pretty strapped for time these days, and unfortunately, that means this super awesome blog gets pushed to the side.  I know, it's blaspheme.  Anyway, here's what week 10 was supposed to look like:

Monday - REST

Tuesday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 30 minute bike.

Wednesday - 1 hour swim.  44 minute run.

Thursday - 1 hour 45 minute bike.  1 hour run.

Friday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 55 minute bike.

Saturday - BRICK workout: 1 hour 45 minute bike followed by 45 minute run.

Sunday - 1 hour 15 minute swim.  1 hour run.

Week 10 has come and gone, so go head and read up on week 11!

IM CdA Training - Week 9

Well week 8 was a well needed recovery week.  But there's no time to reminisce on recovery.  It's time to get back after it with the first "build" week of my training plan.  In fact, for the next 8 weeks I will be in this "build" phase, with the main difference between the last 8 weeks and this 8 weeks being that there is now some different intensity workouts built into each workout.  Enough of the mumbo jumbo.  Here's the plan:

Monday - Rest (I love Mondays!)

Tuesday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 30 minute bike.

Wednesday - 1 hour swim.  45 minute run.

Thursday - 1 hour 15 minute bike with 30 minute BRICK run.

Friday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 15 minute bike.

Saturday - 4 hour bike.  35 minute recovery run.

Sunday - 1 hour swim.  1 hour 50 minute run.

Now THAT is a lot of training!  I'm still trying to figure out how, exactly, I'm going to fit all of that into my week.  Maybe I just need to quit my day job so I have more time for training, right?

IM CdA Training - Week 8

This last week was a bit of a crazy one.  Not in the sense of training, I was just busy as crap!  Add to my busy schedule a 3 year old daughter with a double ear infection and my week wasn't looking too good.  Oh, and I wasn't feeling all that great myself!

I ended week 7 by waking up feeling a bit nauseous on Saturday morning.  I needed to get in my long run on Saturday, so I went ahead an still hammered out 10 miles, not feeling great at any point during that run.  Immediately upon completion of this run, I rushed home and get changed for the Great Urban Race.  I expected this event to be a giant scavenger hunt, and not too much more.  Well, it was a bit more than I expected.

Yep, that's a scorpion on my tongue, which ended up in my belly.

After it was all said and done, we ran/walked somewhere between six and eight miles during that scavenger hunt.  Definitely not what I expected.  And to top it off, I still wasn't feeling great, so I had avoided eat any food throughout the day.  Probably a bad idea.  All together, I put in about 16 or so miles on Saturday.

Sunday brought a 3 hour and 45 minute bike ride.  I still wasn't feeling too good, but I had plans to meet up with my Couer d'Alene competition for this bike ride, so there was no backing out.  It ended up being a pretty good ride, except for the flat tire I got at the end of the ride.  And, due to poor planning on my part, the ride had to be cut about 15 minutes short.  One quick tip, be sure that your tube valve stems are long enough for your rims...

The rest of Sunday I spent trying to recover, but never really quite got there.  This was good and bad.  Good, because it was the end of a hard week, and I knew that I had no training planned for Monday, and the upcoming week was going to be a recovery week.  The bad was that I had probably pushed through something when I should have rested a bit and would probably pay a price.  Well, I did end up paying a price in the form of needed to take a few extra days off from training.  Here's what my week 8 training ended up looking like:

Monday - rest

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - 1 hour 30 minute bike ride

Friday - 1 hour 15 minute bike with 20 minute BRICK run

Saturday - 1 hour 5 minute ride.

Sunday - 55 minute run.  1 hour swim.

I actually just finished the swim, and I felt pretty good, which makes sense since I took a few extra days off.  The good news is that I don't think I lost too much swim fitness, even though I only got in one swim workout this week.  And I only did one run outside, and felt great.  I ran just under 7 miles and averaged about 7:20/mile during that run.  Not too bad!

So, my recovery week was just that...a recovery week.  I did a little more "resting" than I would have liked, but it was necessary.  Up next, week 9!