getting my ass kicked

I'm sorry I pretty much suck at blogging lately. I will offer as an excuse in my defense that my compuer is currently fried. It will be a bit before I can afford to get it repaired. I'm going to do it when I get my tax returns. But onto the tri stuff.

I have huge news. I officially have a coach! I'm super excited about it! It is David Warden from tri-talk. We spent a couple days early this week discussing my goals and setting a plan for this year. Basically it includes getting my ass kicked. A lot. We spent a lot of time talking about past results and extrapolating those to set goals for upcomming races. I'm not going to be doing a lot of racing this year but the races I do compete in will serve as markers to check how my fitness is improving for my run up to the ironman.

Here is my plan so far:
I'm running the eau claire half marathon in early may. I need to finish in under 1:45.(this is my easiest goal)
I'm racing the buffalo olympic tri. In june. I need to finish under 2:25
I'm racing the chisago half ironman in july. I need to finish in 5:00
And I'm racing the madison ironman with a goal time of under 11:00 (this is by far the hardest goal!)
Then I'm running twin cities marathon in october but don't have a goal time yet!

I can throw in a few more races as my budget and free tme permit.

In order to do that I'm basically going to get my ass kicked in workouts all summer. I'm actually really excited about that! I've never followed a training plan from start to finish. For my first ironman I followed my plan for 54 hours. That is acout 3 weeks. I wanted to get a coach so that I am accountable to someone if I don't do my workouts. I know that will keep me motivated and stop me from skipping workouts so I can sleep in.

I also need to stay injury free to meet my goals. I have had some itb problems in the past so david wants to impliment some preventative measures into my training plan. This includes strength training, stretching and a medieval torture device known as the foam roller. I've never used one before but purchased one yesterday on my lunch break. I gave it a shot last night and discovered how horrible this unassuming foam cylinder is. I'm sure this should be outlawed along with waterboarding and thumb screwes. I took a look at the product disclaimer that came with it and here is what it says in the very first paragraph: "The risk of injury from participation in....these exercises is significant, and includes the potential for catastrophic injury or death." WTF!? Well I used it anyway and it was indeed pure hell but I'm going to keep using it since I don't want to have problems. David swears it will get easier the more I use it. I hope so!

So that's it for now. I'm really excited for this year! I'm sure it will be my best race season ever!