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.
Monday, June 23, 2008 at 08:47AM *New* official results in this morning...they didn't help my placement (still 3rd master, 26th amateur, 44th overall out of a field of 1843, almost twice what it was 3 years ago), but the time is better: 2:09:39, with a swim now officially 1:30 faster than 2007. The drills worked!
Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 04:51PM Though I felt guilty about not participating in the festivities in Shelton (congrats, teams!), I wanted to defend my master's title in Philadelphia. This is an Olympic distance race, and I was anxious to complete a WHOLE triathlon after the debacle in Vancouver 2 weeks ago.
Race day was overcast early with sun coming out late in the race but tolerable. I was in the 7th wave of the day, and I jumped into the bathtub-temp Schuykill River (75 degrees) at 7:30 am. Good news: a 1 minute improvement (officially...my watch had me a bunch faster) over last year's swim. The training paid off! Unfortunately, I had to put socks on in T1 because (1) I'd ripped a small hole in my foot swimming in the Sound on Friday and (2) the Rube Goldberg bandage contraption I'd created fell off in the water.
Off on the bike, and I felt like I was FLYING. First of two laps in under 32 minutes, was on target for what I thought would be a 62-63 minute bike. However, it was a bit windy and there was traffic on the 2nd loop, and I must have slowed a bit...the bike ended up as 1:04:24, about 30 seconds faster than 2007. T2 was OK.
Off on the run...felt very good, though a slight nag from achilles. Felt fast, but saw 6:10 at first mile. Also saw a guy up ahead I thought was in my age group. Finally caught him at 4 miles, but it turned out he was 20. Ended up running 38:14, a minute slower than last year. THAT needs a bit of work.
Offical time (after yet another socring SNAFU in which my result wasn't posted to the board) was 1:10:09, about a minute ahead of 2007. However, I ended up 3rd Master (the score the first 3 for everyone over 40) this year. Let's start the count down for 45-49 (one more year)!
Next week: Stamford
Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 08:44PM TARGETRAINING competed in two Connecticut State Championships and completed the Tour of Ohio this Saturday. Unfortunately, the story teller was not on hand to compete or even observe, so this is living vicariously through second hand tales and results yet to be officially published.
The quick: TARGETRAINING won the final stage in the Tour of Ohio. The team perfectly set up Justin Lindine for a solo breakaway. The race was shortened due to hail, high wind and lightning. However, during that time, Justin moved up to 4th in the general classification. Congrats to Ben Z. , Will N., Nate W., Adam St. G., Craig L, Lee R. and Josh J. for racing exceedingly well. Kyle we hope will shortly publish a more colorful and insightful view of what transpired.
TARGETRAINING won the Elite Men's Connecticut Criterium Championship (Eneas Freyre got 3rd in the New Britain P123 race today but finished ahead of his breakaway companions including TARGETRAINING traveling coach and ex-teammate Chris Jones) as well as the 30+ Connecticut Criterium Championship (courtesy of Stephen aka "Stephan" Badger). That makes both of these men double champions this year.
TARGETRAINING made a great showing in the Shelton-based Connecticut Olympic Distance Club championship. While TARGETRAINING was outnumbered, it almost made up for its lack of numbers with excellent results and finished 3rd overall in the club championships. Maybe next year! With the pros on the sideline (Dom and Tyler were still wiped out from two weekends of travel to Alabama and then Virginia for pro XTERRA championship races), the amateur team stepped up. Greg Stewart, Mitch West, Valentin Lopes, Allie Lawler and Michelle Faurot were helped by Lynn McCabe, Michael Driscoll, Cornelia Parchment-Horn, Robert LaBanca, Paul Sllet and Joe Bogdan, showed strongly. Greg got 5th overall and won his age group. Mitch got 11th overall and 3rd in his age group (Mitch is just coming back from an injury and is not yet at full strength). Valentin got 7th overall and won his age group. Michelle got 3rd overall in the women's race and Allie finished right behind her in 4th (and won her age group)! Rob L. got 7th in his age group, Lyn got 3rd in her age group, Joe got 16th in his age group, Paul and Michael got 21st, and Cornelia got 10th! Wow for our first club championship.
Congratulations all around by all the participants in all the venues today. Great stuff!
Plus there was a fairly large group that rode in the two morning training rides today. So we've had a busy first day of the weekend already.
Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 10:12PM Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/fashion/19fitness.html.
There are some small inaccuracies/inconsistencies in the article. 1 -- Christian Vande Velde, who is a great American cyclist, only led the Giro D'Italia for a short span of the entire race. 2 -- Jonathan Vaughters suggests that a $1500-$2000 bike is incrementally different than an $8000 bike. Yet, the article emphasizes using power meters, which themselves cost $800-$3000. The lesson: take your time making equipment choices. What you do with your equipment is more important than the equipment you have -- that's the simple truth.
Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 08:16PM 
