The Post Kona

Now this is the right way to do an off season. I woke up this morning to find that someone had taken up residence in my bike wheel. See, Brian? (my therapist), I am taking my rest seriously and definitely not training on an injury.Watching the Hawaii IM yesterday was a new experience for me, and it was cool to be out there on the course watching and learning. Chrissie and Crowie were awesome and truly earned their world titles. But, I was most impressed with Rebekah Keat. Keat is an amazing athlete in her own right, but she showed the world some serious sportsmanship when she handed Chrissie a cartridge after the race leader flatted at Hawi. Now that was impressive.

Once again Kona didn't disappoint. The were the egos and tempers, the victories and the disappointments. But, between Crowie's humble finish-line speech and Rebekah's generous act, this year's race was all about class.

Kona!!!!

Well it's tough being here in Kona and not racing but I am making the best of it :)

I have been swimming in the ocean every day here--taking full advantage of the warm water (actually any water, really, since we have just moved to the middle of the desert). Kona race week is really crazy--totally different to last year when I hid out and rested up for the big dance. Pre-race week is a lot more fun when you are able to attend all the sponsor events and parties! Of course tomorrow is race day, and that will be the toughest part - hearing the gun go off and still being on the sidelines. I am heading out on the course to be a spotter for the race, so I'll get to follow the leaders and watch the race up close. I figured if I was coming to Kona then I wanted to learn something in the process. I'll also be doing some commentating for Ironmanlive.com, so I'll be seeing a very different side of the event this year. It should be an awesome race : Macca and Chrissie look fit and ready to defend, but there are plenty of challengers that should make it pretty exciting. All I can say is that I can't wait to get back out there next year.

Sam

New Kicks!

Check out these sweet kicks that Zoot made up for me for Kona. Unfortunately, I will not be running in them. As some of you may have already heard, I have injured my achillies tendon and will not be racing in Kona this year. I have struggled with this injury on and off for the last year and a half, and it has come to the point where I simply cannot run a marathon on it right now. (Oh the irony of my injury being, literally, my achillies heel).

I am devastated not to be racing, but I am working with an amazing team to help me heal up and get back in action as soon as possible. In the meantime, I will be in Kona to watch and cheer from the sidelines. Thanks to everyone for their notes of support. I'll be back on the big island next year. It'll take more than a little tendinitis to keep this redhead down.

Tuscon!

As you may have guessed I am not that good at the whole "daily blog" entry thing. When there is nothing going on I've got time and nothing to write about; when lots of stuff is happening I have content but no time. What's a girl to do?

Anyways, August has been a busy month for the McGlone-English household. We moved to our new home in Tucson, AZ. We have loved training here for many winters so we decided to finally make it our full-time residence. It might be 100 degrees here now but I can't wait till January to call all our friends up in Canada and rub it in.

Here are some pics of the house. We absolutely love it and we feel like we are now officially "real people" (i.e. we finally ditched the brown velour couch from the student days) Now we have a pool and central air - crazy, what will they think of next ?

Training here is awesome – I roll out my door to one of the best/hardest group rides in the country - a 10 minute spin to the U of A campus, then 3 hours of lung searing hell through the desert with a hundred of my best friends every Saturday morning. There are great run trails right out the door and outdoor pools all over town (which is still a novelty for us Canadians…).

Now to complete this picture of domestic bliss we are thinking of getting a dog. It's a toss up between a beagle, a wheaton terrier or just a mutt from the pound. Anyone have any thoughts? Post them here!

Happy training!

Pikes Peak and Trails

It was another gorgeous summer day in Colorado Springs this Sunday - the perfect day for a 12 mile trail race straight up Pikes Peak. And when I say straight up, I really mean straight up. The race starts at 6400 ft and the turnaround is at 10,000ft so 3600 ft of climbing in 6 miles.

The Barr Trail race is one of those epic 'gotta do it once in your life' kind of races...all on trail, beautiful scenery and absolutely brutal. It attracts some pretty serious trail runners and I came second to a girl who was the 10k US Trail Running champion - fair enough. I managed to lead all the way up to the turnaround but of course what goes up, must come down. I got a lesson in downhill running as she schooled me on the rocky, technical decent. I was just shy of the course record of 1:51...for 12 MILES! It was awesome. The coolest part were the Primes (where the leader at certain points on the course gets a bonus, Tour de France style). They weren't announced beforehand so whenever we heard a whistle on the trail it meant that a prime was coming up - nothing like throwing down a few sprints at 10,000ft.

The top of the trail in the photo here is about 1/3 of the way up....

I'm gonna go bathe in a vat of ALCiS now (pain relief cream - it doesn't make you smell like a hospital and its the only thing that I have found that actually works on sore muscles).

Happy 4th of July!

Sitting here in the ice bath after a hard run. @$*! that is cold. It's not too bad once you get past the first 2 minutes and everything goes numb. There's some debate about the physiological benefit of ice baths but all I know is nothing feels better after a hard effort than sitting in a tub of ice.

It's been a hard week of training capped off with a couple of run races and a long brick this weekend. Being a full-time athlete means that "weekends" and "holidays" don't mean much, usually it's just another training day for me, so I figured I would take advantage of the glut of run races being held this weekend. I often find it hard to get in the high-end threshold training at altitude, so I like to use races to tap into that extra gear you can always find in a race (plus i am ultra-competitive so I need my fix). I headed up to Palmer Lake, CO on the 4th to run a 4 mile race on one of my favourite trails. It was point-to-point with a slight downhill the whole way (the fact that it was at 7000ft and on gravel trail kind of evens out any downhill advantage). I won the race and then turned around and ran back up to the start to get in some more mileage.

Cliff and I had a little fun too - we marked the 4th by having some friends around for the requisite 4th of July BBQ. (As Canadians living in the US, Cliff and I don't really have a reason to celebrate Independence Day, but also, being Canadians, we'll take any reason to drink beer and set off fireworks).

A six hour brick on Saturday, mainly spent trying to hold the wheel of a hammerhead cyclist friend of mine, then another trail race on Sunday. This one was a little tougher - 8 miles, with 1000ft of climbing on some pretty solid trails. Plus I ran an hour from our house over to the start in order to get in a 2 hour run total. The race was just my style - 4 miles up, 4 miles down. I think my legs are way more beat up from the fast downhill than from the rest of the weekend combined. I won the women's race in a new course record, and more importantly, toughened up the legs for the pounding they are going to get over the next couple of months.

Back in Colorado

I am back training in Colorado Springs for the summer. After 3 big races in a row I figured it was time to get back into some training. I love racing, but after a long stint on the road I can't quite decide if I am exhausted from all the racing or out-of-shape from all the taper and travel.

We triathletes are a neurotic lot.

So after an easy week of rest and hanging out with some old friends from home (and a couple of great bottles of wine...my current obsession is Papillion from Orin Swift in Napa -definitely check it out if you like big Reds) it's back to pounding the pavement for the 16 weeks till my Kona build up. Although now it is more like pounding the dirt since I like to do most of my training on trails when I am in Colorado. I have a love/hate relationship with the mountains; the altitude absolutely kills me but I LOVE the trails and scenery. Cliff (my coach/fiancee/training partner Cliff English) and I headed up into Rocky Mountain National Park for an epic cyclocross ride this weekend. The best part is we rode straight from our door into the complete wilderness. There is a great website, www.trails.com , that lists guides for trails all over the country so we found a route and packed some gear, and plenty of Powerbars, and set out from the Santa Fe trail north of CS up to Mount Herman Rd in Monument and up over Rampart Road to Woodland Park and back to the Springs. The trail was a little rough but manageable even with my limited cyclocross abilities and the views from 9000 ft were spectacular. A long run around Rampart Reservoir the next morning (15mile trail around the res at 9000ft...ouch) completed the weekend. If they ever make a trail Ironman I would definitely be in.