VanderTri.com

This is my hill.  We have a complicated relationship, a complicated mix of love and hate.  I hate running up and down it over and over again but I love the result.

I'll run up and down over and over again, week after week as I'm building towards my key races of the season.  I swear at my hill some times, I praise it some times, I wish it wasn't so long some times and sometimes I just don't know if I can make it to the top but I do, over and over again. 

So go find your own hill.  Love it, hate it but do it and you'll find speed, power and strength you never knew you had.

My recovery from Ironman Coeur d'Alene is just about over and time to start getting back into something that resembles training again. 

It was nice not having to think about the workout after work every day, watching the World Cup, Wimbleton and the Tour.  Enjoying some good food and libations.  Spending time with family and friends watching fireworks, having beach camp fires, looking for shells, riding the ferries to the islands. 

Now it's time to get back to it, focus on the next 89 days.  Sounds like a long time but it's really not that long.  Coach and I have a strategy and a plan to continue to improve my weak spots and build on where I'm strong.   A race and event schedule has been put together and now I just need to go execute. 

I've got two key races between now and Kona.  A sprint  called Beaver Lake Tri which was my first triathlon 5 years ago (it was a comedy of errors).  It's a special race as Beaver Lake is the lake I grew up living on and living in and around so it's always a bit like coming home and has a familiar feel to it.  It also features a hill on the bike which is my nemesis.  It's less than 2 miles long but features a brutal false flat which looks like it's not more than 1% but in reality it's 5% and then it kicks up to around 10%, it just kills me, but I always look forward to riding it whether it's in training or racing.

The other race is the Grand Columbian Half Iron.  This was my second triathlon 5 years ago and I blew up on the run big time (you can prevent this by actually drinking on the bike).  It's a tough race with a bike that features nearly 5K of climbing on the bike and 1.2K of that come from mile 1.5 to 3.5 with a climb that has spots that hit nearly 20% grade.  Once you survive the bike then you get to run in the sauna below the Grand Coulee Dam.  I've yet to put it all together at this race and I'd like to this year.  It also usually draws many of the top triathletes from Washington and British Columbia.

I'm off to finish up some work at my day job so I can get out for my run this evening.