My upcoming schedule...It's game time!

Nationals is only 5 weeks away and world's is a mere 9 weeks out...this means it's crunch time and from here on out my workouts will be very specific with a mix of very intense efforts and easy, recovery days.
Since next weekend is a holiday weekend my buddy and coach, Reto Waeffler and I are heading up to the mountains for a serious high-altitude training camp. The camp will be focused on riding, which means we will be on our bikes a TON and will be climbing numerous mountain passes (as many times as physically possible!) These focused blocks of training make you very strong and I am hoping the few days in the mountains will bring my riding closer to the level it needs to be.
Once we get back from the camp it is only a few days until the Pacific Grove Triathlon, which is my hometown race that I look forward to every year.
After Pacific Grove I will have a couple weeks of very hard work before I rest up for nationals. The goal at nationals is to finish as 1st overall amateur. Truthfully, this will be tough to achieve b/c I don't exactly race well at altitude and I have put a much bigger focus on world's. I will be in good shape for nationals but I will be peaking for world's, which in my mind is the most important race of the season. This being said, I still have high expectations for a good performance at nationals. My biggest goal of the year is to become the 2007 Xterra Amateur World Champion. Last year I won the 25-29 age group and this year I want the overall amateur title. This is a lofty goal but I feel strongly that I can do it and I won't accept anything less.
So, the next 9 weeks will be filled with challenges both mentally and physically. I will push my body to its limit and take my rest days seriously so that I can be at my best for the hard days. Without rest all I will do is become stagnant and each workout will be average and average workouts will not help me achieve my goals.
Stay tuned to my adventures b/c I promise good stories and, hopefully, plenty of success!

Time for some rest...

After Snow Valley last weekend Will Kelsey (the pro that won the race) and his mom came to stay with us for a couple days. We had a blast training together and I think they both had fun checking out monterey. Will is doing some great things for the sport of triathlon...check out www.willkelsey.com

Starting on wednesday I started feeling really tierd and I began to realize that I just needed some down time. I have been going full-steam for a while now and it finally caught up with me. The good thing is that I had a recovery week scheduled so this next week will be very mellow. I will allow my body to fully recover from the stress that it has been under (from all sources but mainly training). I am looking forward to some down time b/c when I get back to it I will be completely recharged and ready to tackle a very tough training block as we near nationals and world's.

Hope all is well. Thanks for following my adventures!

Xterra Snow Valley

On saturday morning Jess and I headed to Snow Valley Ski Resort (Near lake Arrowhead and Big Bear) with two good friends, James and Tom. We got up there around noon to pre-ride the course...let's just say it was a little warm!
As usual, Jess served as the support crew and kindly read a book while the three of us cruised the course. The course is tough, a very hilly bike and an unbelievably hilly run. Plus, the start of the race is at over 7000 feet in elevation, which make for a tough day.

There were rumors floating around that the race would be a run/bike/run b/c the water level was so low. I must say that they should have done a run/bike/run b/c the swim was a joke. You could pretty much stand the entire swim and the water quality was very poor (unsafe is probably a better word!)

The race started at 9am sunday morning. The gun went off and after a pretty short and confusing swim I led out of the water and was first out onto the bike course. I was quickly passed by the two pro's in the field and was unable to respond and ride with them. I do struggle at altitude but so does everyone else that lives at sea level. So, I am pretty used to not having much power on the bike when racing so high up. I tried my best to settle in and it took me about half the bike to find my legs. Still, racing at altitude is tricky b/c you don't want to push so hard that you can't recover and, overall, you just can't go as hard as you can at sea level.

I came off the bike in third place and headed out onto the run.


I had heard the run is brutal but until you hit those hills you can't fully understand how hard the run really is. You literally run up and down the mountain and I can safely say that EVERYONE was walking at some stages. It was truly a death march and I was glad to finish it.

--This sums up the run!

I finished in third place overall, behind two pro's, which put me as 1st overall amateur and 1st in my age group. I am satisfied with my result since I haven't raced for 7 weeks, I took two weeks off from training after Richmond, I am training pretty hard and didn't rest for this race and it was at altitude. Plus, everything between now and nationals/world's is for training purposes only and I can say with certainty that I got in a very solid training day yesterday. Also, it was great hanging out with Jess and friends! You can't ask for more...tough racing, great people, beautiful scenery and perfect weather.

I hope you enjoy reading. Talk to you all soon.