How About a 17 Hour Training Day?

May has flown by! Even though the group did not spend a lot of time together this month the time has still gone by quickly. All the team members rode the double epic loop since our last meeting. Anthony posted a personal best in the Lincoln Half Marathon. Steve hit Florida 70.3 and had a good race with some opportunities. Sonja ran a trail marathon outside of Grand Junction and dealt with no so perfect situations and came out the other side with some valuable lessons and a smile. And Andrea ran the Greenland 50K two days after the double epic loop and felt great except for a gnarly sunburn that threw her to the lions. Some important lessons learned this month:

1. Just like skiers have different wax for their skis for different conditions we could possibly need different nutritional choices available for different conditions or situations.
   
2. Be self sufficient even when there are aid stations. Being able to run past an aid station can save a lot of time. But being able to grab a couple extra things in an aid station and take them with you can be critical sometimes. Andrea has experienced more than once aid stations running out of items because she is behind the main pack, but on loop courses you have more athletes on the course at the same time and aid stations can run out of items early on. If you can grab a couple of things to take with you it might just save you in the end! Also, Sonja learned that just because a race advertises they are going to have certain things at their aid stations does not guarantee they will have those items. Being self sufficient can be the difference of having water only for a 4.5 hour workout or having everything you need.
3. When you are promoting yourself you are always in the spot light. Even when you forget you are. We are ambassadors for our sport and we need to always behave in a way that represents our sport and ourselves in the best light possible. Disappointment happens and that is alright, but we have chosen to put ourselves in the spotlight so we are going to remember to take challenges and face them with a sense of adventure and get the smile back on our face and remember how lucky we truly are. The ultimate goal is not to win, but to be the best we can be on any particular day and to take what is thrown at us in stride. Winning is a by-product of being our best, the real reward is when we grow and learn and become better human beings.
   

It will be nice coming back together in June for some key training events and for some future planning of our 17 hour training day. After sharing our personal stories from the month we put our heads together to come up with some resources and ideas for next month’s training goals.

The meeting started at 8pm after the attempted 9k swim. We got going in the pond right at 4:30 to try to get as much time in the water as we could to get as close to 9000 meters as possible. Steve and Anthony got 4 laps in (7200), Sonja got 3 (5400) laps in, and Andrea had to leave an hour before the rest but was able to get a fast, solid 2 laps (3600) in! Everyone did great and was happy with the result of the swim. Andrea and Sonja are a little short on their distances swam so the two are going to have to do a little make up work to get an 8000 in. With a late start we decided to stay focused and keep it short and simple so we could all get to bed! In a nutshell, here is what we came up with for June:

June Itinerary:

• Kansas 70.3
• Loveland Lake to Lake
• Planning and riding a bike course to simulate Canada course
• Start spending lots of time in the aero position on the bike
• More Planning for the 17 hour training day in July

Stay tuned for our June report, as it will have our results from racing Kansas 70.3 and our results from Loveland Lake to Lake 6 days after Kansas. We will also have everything together for our grand finale-training event… the 17 hour training day. Thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters. Our successes are not only ours but yours as well.