What do you do when it snows and rains all day long?

The answer: Bike twice! I did a nice double bike today with some tempo in the morning and a high cadence ride in the PM. I shoveled twice, roof raked, and listened to a talk by Sara McLarty on open water swimming. Overall it was a nice day to be inside and not outside. I think today was the first day that it made it over freezing in probably about three weeks. I am finishing planning my training trip and it looks like it will involve some time in San Diego and some time in Clermont, FL. I am very excited to get out of this weather!

Tempo Tempo

Hanging out after a great tempo run with Ethan this morning. We made a 2 mile loop through the Bowker neighborhood in Sudbury. It was really nice to get out and do something at tempo pace again as the last thing I did was the 1/2 marathon. The past week I have had some great training, but am really getting excited to get to some warmer weather. In addition, I am working hard to on two projects: 1) The Marlborough Triathlon which will be July 26 and is part of the Commonwealth Triathlon Series and 2) The Maynard Road Race, which will be the second or third weekend in September.

More Snow!

After having three straight days of cold weather I was ready to enjoy running outside in temperatures over 10 degrees until we got word that we were getting a snowstorm. Of course they underestimated the snowstorm and said 4-6 inches, but we ended up getting closer to a foot of snow. Its pretty bleak right now and it makes training that much harder to mentally be prepared for. I am looking forward to the temperatures climbing a bit, but it seems that we are going to be stuck around 20-30 degrees. I have been doing lots of shoveling and working on my core.
On a better note I am finalizing my race schedule for this season and there will be lots of travel involved again. I am excited to go see some places that I have never been before (Singapore, Kitzbuehul, London) and go back to some places that I love (Ishigaki, Japan, Des Moines, Iowa and Tokyo). I also will be training in San Diego for the month of March and returning home to Boston to watch the Boston Marathon for the first time in a few years. I am really excited to see Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher run.

Its COLD

After a great week of training in Florida I am back in Maynard. The weather here is freezing cold, well actually its well below freezing. I am getting back into my routine of riding inside, bundling up for runs outside and generally being cold all the time. I am working on a big swim block right now while I let my legs recover for a few days after the 1/2 marathon.

Disney 1/2 Marathon

Yesterday I ran the Disney 1/2 Marathon for the 3rd consecutive year. In 2007 I ran it in 2:10:28 and won the race 2 days before my wedding. Last year I ran 1:11:55, finished 6th overall and felt awful after the 10km mark. This year I just decided to have fun and did a huge week of training in Florida leading into the race and ended up running my fastest time ever, 1:08:15. I felt great for the entire race and started off slower than last year running about 5:15-5:20s for the first 4 miles. After that I picked it up and ran 5:05-5:10s through the middle of the race. The last 3 miles were a bit tough as my lack of distance running base began to show and I started to feel the pounding in my legs.
I love running Disney as it provides me with a good hard effort to start off the season and a trip to Disney is always fun. There is no money in the race so it is entirely for fun and waking up at 3:40am is always tough as well. Overall it is a great experience to be done with a race before the sun rises.

Dancing Lights

So that is one of my videos of the Dancing Lights at Disney. I got to go with Marc and Amy and their kids Tristan and Liam and we had a great time watching the lights. Tristan was excited to see "snow" falling off the roof but I was more annoyed as I am trying to escape the snow for a week or so. Check this cool photo out, Alicia says she wants to do this on our lawn next year...

Warm Weather!

I am down in Florida for a short training trip and the weather here has been perfect so far, with temperatures in the mid 70s. I flew down Friday night and saw Sara McLarty while swimming on Saturday and she told me that she was doing a 4.5 hour ride on Sunday morning so I said sure I will join you. The ride was actually not that bad and we covered 77 miles including two parts while we were with the Windermere group ride. Overall it was a great ride and the longest I have done (probably ever, but I am not 100% sure about that). Anyways, it is really nice to get some warm weather training in right now and I get to hang out with my friends Marc and Amy. Last nigth we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios and watched the Osborne Family Light Spectacular which was pretty awesome.

Rookie Mistakes

I made two rookie mistakes yesterday. I woke up early to get a short ride in on the trainer before heading over to the pool to do stroke work with an athlete and then coach the Lincoln-Sudbury High School team and then swim myself. So as I was taking the bike off the trainer and moving it to pack it I got a nice big rookie mark on my right shin (a rookie mark is when you hit your leg on the chain or chainring and get a nice greasy line on your leg). So that was rookie mistake #1 but rookie mistake #2 was bigger. I was flying to Orlando at 8:30pm and was all ready to go and packed by 5pm, so Alicia and I decided to head to the airport early in hopes I might get on the 7:30pm flight. We had an uneventful drive except for one old lady who was going 20 in a 35 and as we pulled into terminal C at Logan I said "Oh no, I forgot my bag." Yeah so I forgot my bag which had my wallet, computer and books in it at my house. In all of my traveling I have never left a bag behind so this was a first, the good thing was that is was 6:25pm and my flight didn't leave for 2 hours. We quickly called my dad, had him pick it up, meet us about 10 minutes from our house and drive back in. I finally checked my bike box in at 7:35pm.
After that I had no problems and am in Florida right now staying with the Bonnet-Eymards. I ran on 5 mile road this morning and got in a nice easy swim at the NTC and will be heading out for an hour and a half bike ride. And to cap the day off I am going to go in with Marc, Amy, Tristan and Liam to check out the Light Spectacular at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

New Year and time for a new look. I have decided to use blogspot to create and easier to update daily (or weekly) blog. I also will have articles on active.com this year.
Today I went out for a great run in the snowpacked roads around our house in the 15 degree weather. I actually like running on snowpacked roads but only when they are fully packed and don't have loose snow on top of them, it feels like running on trails. I head down to Florida for a short training trip tomorrow night. I will get the chance to put in some bike miles on the road and race the Disney 1/2 Marathon for the 3rd year in a row.