As a member of the TTEndurance community, you'll be in great company - sharing your passion for cycling, triathlon and endurance training with other athletes from all over.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 09:35AM Congrats to TARGETRAINING head coach Eneas on his impressive win at 2011 Duathlon Age Group World Championships. Eneas had the fastest overall time and fastest bike split of the day!
CLICK HERE to read the article
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 12:28PM I started preparing for Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) last year. Having completed this 1200 kilometer (750 mile) ride in 1999, at a leisurely pace of over 88 hours, just under the limit of 90 hours, this year I wanted a challenge. The goal is to equal or best a time of 56h 40m, which is the time the first American Charly Miller finished the ride back in 1901. He got fifth overall, and rode the entire ride unsupported, unlike the other top riders, who had elaborate support for food, water, mechanics, pacers, etc. He endeared himself to many French, who admired his perseverance through many difficulties he encountered on the ride. Doing the ride in this time or better would get me into the "La Société Charly Miller." Americans with this qualifying time usually number around ten for each PBP. All the more special, since PBP is run only every four years.
After all my months of training and logistical technicalities, it was a few minutes to the start. I am lined up for the start in the first wave of riders, the fastest of who would finish in about 44 hours. The first finishers will invariably have some sort of support. I would only have what I was carrying in a rear seatbag, handlebar bag, and rear jersey pockets. I even opted out of an organized group bag drop at Loudeac and Tinteniac. I was going to use the official check-ins about every 50 miles to eat, drink, and catnap. I had memorized the stops, distances, and rough arrival time for each stop. My approximate finish time of 54 hours had a good buffer built in for contingencies to meet my Charly Miller goal.
After snaking though four different queues in over two hours, with half of that time being roasted in hot sun, I was lined up next to Brad, whom I have rode with on some of the qualifying rides. We have a similar pace, and has had three Charly Miller times under his belt. Emotional waves shot through me as we all clipped into our pedals and started rolling. The lead pack tooled along the forgettabble office park area around the start, then we finally got out to the countryside. I sat in the back and found some other chatty English speaking riders. Paul from the UK was looking to break 60 hours. I also met an Aussie Oliver, who has a 48h PBP time from '99. As we progressed to the first stop, we continously shelled riders through some brisk short climbs, at least four minor falls, and brutal crosswind tactics. Guys were guttering each other on the oncoming traffic lane to escape the crosswind from the right. The official motorcycles kept warning us to move "a droit," but to little avail. Between the crosswinds and the hot sun, I was taxed a bit. I desparately needed water as we pulled into first stop. I filled up the bottles quickly, got back onto the route with Paul, but the main group had already gone. Somehow Brad and I missed each other, but I figured he was up with the first group, and at some point we may meet down the road, around a sleep stop. We kept a good pace and had a few other riders join to help each other. My legs started cramping ominously about mile 110. I slowed up, guzzled most of an electroltye bottle. Five minutes later I felt much better, and the problem did not reappear for the rest of ride.
We get to next checkpoint at mile 137. There are about 60 riders ahead of us. Next leg to Fougeres was all in the dark. The second wave of first starters came up on us and we hopped on their train to conserve energy. My front light had become a little loose, it was tightened up at Fougeres. We had also picked up a German Steffen, so were a core group of three. We traded our goals, and discussed when would be the best sleep time. My plan was to sleep a few REM cycles at Tinteniac on the return, at about 3-4am Tuesday morning, which would be a about 2/3 of the ride, 36 hours on the bicycle. We all knew things could change, and we may want to stop earlier. We plowed along with various groups to the next stops in the early Monday morning. Riding in a group helped a lot. Out of Loudeac, the terrain got steeper, and we were drizzled upon. Next leg was to Brest. This included a huge climb, to a spectacular view of the Brittany country side. We chatted briefly with Ryan from Colorado, who was doing the ride on a three speed Sturney-Archer rear hub - very impressive. We dropped Ryan in the ascent, but would meet up and ride with him again later.
We got to Brest in sub 23 hours. We were halfway done, decided to rest for over an hour. The slog out back to Carhaix was hilly and Steffen was really mixing it up passing groups of other riders on hills. We decided for sure to stop at Tinteniac about 100 miles away. Loudeac was a zoo with riders from the later starts. Sleeping there would have been impractical. I did a quick check, and saw Brad was about two hours ahead of us, giving me hope we could catch him after sleeping. We all agreed on a quick 15 minute catnap to recharge what was likely to be a tough section. We left and immediately the skies went from light dizzle to deluge. We kept getting wetter and colder; just miserable. We saw the last of the earlier starters coming toward us. We wearily arrived at Tinteniac a little after 4am. I saw Brad's bike here; that was good, he was sleeping. I figured we would probably see him soon. We slept till 6am.
On the way to Fougeres we pick up Brad, Oliver, two French guys (one of them has a 46h PBP time,) and Jan, riding his shiny silver randonneuring bicycle. We get to Villains and I am feeling great. Paul and I leave together, and I announce we are going to try and catch "them," who I think is Brad and Oliver. We go on a complete tear, and pull up behind Oliver in about a half hour. We ask if he has seen Brad, but we start to realize he has probably stopped on the road, and is behind us. So we dial it back and eventually we are regrouped with Paul, Oliver, Ryan, the two French guys, Jan, and a few others. We get to Mortagne and again get mixed up departing late. Paul, Ryan, and myself again are chasing to catch our group. We have nice flat roads and a tailwind and we rip it up, going 25mph+ for a good 30 minutes. We eventually latch on to our core group and slow down. I briefly get into a time trial duel with a rider. We get to Dreux, 40 miles from the finish. We all leave together this time. Right out of town my front tire goes flat. Brad stops and helps with a CO2 cartridge. I am grateful he stopped even after I told him to keep going. Brad and I are now on a chase mission. We turn on the after burners for about 40 minutes and catch the main group, which includes a 20+ group of very organinized, very supported Germans. We had been leap frogging them a lot of the way back from Brest. Jan made a funny comment that he thought their technique of going slowly uphill and fast downhill was not working. We were a big group, less than 25 miles from the finish. One of the strongest Germans from the group attacked. My race instincts kicked in. Jan, Brad, and myself relentlessly counter attacked. Eventually we shook off everyone, but we could not drop the German. Jan called a truce about 20 minutes to the finish. We four finished together. My time was 53h 41m. I am now a very happy, new member, of La Société Charly Miller.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 02:43PM 
Me & my babies: Campbell, Evelyn & Calder
Last October I received the best news of my life. I was pregnant! My husband and I had been trying since the summer and were ecstatic with the news. It had been a bit of a tough road to get to that point though. My peak race of the season in 2010 had been in early May at the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. I had a great race and ended up finishing 5th place overall. Then it was a week of vacation in Napa. Perfect for baby making…right? Well, no. For a number of elite female athletes, trying to conceive can be a struggle. We put our bodies under a tremendous amount of stress that can lead to having trouble trying to conceive for a variety of reasons. So, after realizing that building a family was going to be trickier than I planned I went to the doctor to seek advice. Lighten up on the training and try to gain a few pounds was the advice I received. Ok, easy enough…I’ll just do sprint triathlons for the rest of the season, slack off and eat ice cream every night. Sounds easy enough.
A few months later, still no periods and no positive pregnancy test. So I went back to the doctor who suggested I see a specialist. Three months later I finally got my positive test! We were so excited! However, my first ultrasound revealed that I wasn’t just pregnant…I was really pregnant. I remember the doctor saying – “yep…here’s the heartbeat…oh…another heartbeat…twins! Oh…there’s a third. That hasn’t happened in seven years.” So in the span of about 10 seconds I went from being super-excited to scared-to-death. “WHAT?! What do you mean there are three? “ and then I just started bawling primarily from shock. My husband just kept saying ”Don’t worry, it’s OK.” Though I’m pretty sure he was in shock too.
As soon as I found out I was pregnant with triplets I was very careful about working out. I stuck primarily to swimming (about 3 times per week) riding a stationary bike (2 times per week) and walking (about 3 times per week). Everything was in Zone 1 – nice and easy. I had to stop biking at week 15 – my tummy just got too big and it became uncomfortable. Then at week 20 my doctor put my on home bed rest. This is just about the worst thing an athlete can hear. No activity at all…in fact you’re only supposed to get up to go to the bathroom. With the help of my family I pretty much stuck to this. It was tough though, after being so active to just sit on the couch all day and slowly get more and more uncomfortable. And by uncomfortable, I mean “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy” uncomfortable. Luckily I had projects to keep me busy and friends would often stop by to keep me company and keep my mind off the pain I was experiencing.
While I was excited about the babies I missed training and competing…especially while on bed rest. A lot of my teammates at TT were planning on participating at USAT Nationals and I figured the sprint race would give me a realistic goal post pregnancy. So I signed up with the goal of just having fun and finishing. It also gave me something to look forward to that was not baby related while cooped up at home.
The day before the C-section.
At 33 weeks I had to enter the hospital due to uncontrollable contractions, and at 33 weeks and 3 days I gave birth via scheduled C-section to three beautiful, healthy (though tiny) babies (1.5 weeks longer than the average gestation for triplets). After 2 weeks, my first baby was able to come home and I started walking with him every day, a week later, my other two babies came home and I started walking them every day around the neighborhood in our triple stroller.
Because of the C-section, I was only allowed to walk for the first six weeks post pregnancy. Also, because of the bed rest, I was terribly out of shape. So walking was actually a great way to ease back into fitness. After the doctor’s approval, I started regular exercise again, but started really slowly. Swimming 1,000 yards once or twice a week, running 5 to 15 minutes slowly 4 to 5 times a week and biking once or twice a week for about 45 minutes. I slowly increased the duration and intensity of my workouts over the course of the next 10 weeks leading up to USAT Nationals. About two weeks prior to the race I felt confident that I could finish and not make too much of a fool out of myself. The training helped with loosing some baby weight and more importantly provided me with a good non-baby outlet (with newborn triplets – it’s babies pretty much 24 hours a day). It was a nice mental escape to jog on the treadmill for 15 minutes or go for a 45-minute bike ride each day and the physical activity helped me feel rejuvenated for the babies.
Westport Tri 2011So, less than 15 weeks after giving birth, I competed in my first post triplet pregnancy triathlon at USAT Sprint Nationals. My only expectations were to have fun and finish – and that is exactly what I did. And as an added bonus I ended up doing well enough to qualify for World Championships in 2012! A few weeks later I followed this up with my first post pregnancy win at the fun Westport Minuteman Triathlon…and it was the first triathlon my babies got to experience too!
If you’d like more information on balancing babies and triathlon training or would like to discuss pregnancy and training please feel free to email me. I’d love to help.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 10:50AM
The people that motivate me are the people that may be overweight, that have been battling an unfortunate disease, recovering from an addiction, or just trading their couch and TV for a bike and a wetsuit. The men and women that athletics do not come easy to or had to make a very disciplined choice to get up and push/pull themselves out of physical and mental depths and places I could not imagine. The persons that train and dedicate time and effort levels outside the normal weekend warrior to accomplish a half-iron race. Some had this race or other races on their bucket list as a one-time event, others will continue to better themselves and their health by striving for internal growth, and in many situations using a measure of internal strength that in my opinion is a greater accomplishment than any other.
As I ran Toughman I could see this strength in the eyes of the plethora of participants. It was emotional and inspiring. The bands, cheerleaders, and volunteers were wonderful but to see the handicapped, the ex-smokers, the rebound dieters, and the ex-high school jocks that had life thrown at them over the years but now have chosen to stand up and take action to reach their health and fitness goals. That is what makes the triathlon community and the Targetraining members so special. That’s what makes you an Iron-man a Toughman!
TARGETRAINING congratulates everyone who participated in races this weekend! Great job to all - you continue to inspire and amaze us.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 08:27AM 
Congrats to Jordan Rapp on his 2011 IRONMAN Canada win. We are so proud of you!
Read Jordan's Awards Ceremony Speech HERE
