Hi Hurt-ed Myself Today.

You guys guessed it! I'm down in Scottsdale, AZ training! Just a quick 3 day pain-fest and back home to Eugene and my family!

This has been an incredible trip! I got to have dinner with a really good friend on Wednesday night... which was probably the highlight of the entire trip! Seriously... even if the food WAS mediocre!

I also mentioned in my previous post that I was able to train with an elite age grouper while I was down here. Bryan Dunn took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to put together an incredible ride for us on Thursday morning! Bryan is the type of athlete that simply leaves you in awe. More importantly, he's an amazing guy... positive, kind, and a freakin beast on the bike! I want to publicly thank Bryan for being so supportive and encouraging of me and my goals. You dah MAN Bryan!

Today I headed out on my own. I decided to ride a portion of the IMAZ course! Let me tell you something... I have a new found respect for those athletes that take on that bike course. I started my ride a little later than expected... yes... I got lost... I'm a bonehead. Anyway, I started around 8:00 am at the point in the course where it heads into the desert... uphill... into a headwind. Yeah. B-RUTAL! It took me a good 45 minutes to get to the top and the turn-around at Shea... and then only 20 min to get back down! Coach Liz had me do 3 X 20 min hard efforts in the middle of the ride. This mixed it up and bit and made me realize how tired my legs were from yesterday... thanks Liz! The wind was relentless! At that point I headed back into town toward the swim exit and the start of the bike leg. The wind NEVER let up the entire time! Unbelievable! Got to the start and turned around. Headed back and started back up the freakin hill... into the wind... again. Hmmmm. I tell ya, the last hour of this ride was a mental and physical tour de tourture! Seriously, I've never felt that kind of pain in my quads. By the time I got back to my car, it was approximately 90 degrees... and I had a 25 min run to do. Quick transition, doused my head with water, and took off. The run was to be a 5 min Zone 1-2 warm-up and then directly into Zone 4 for 15 minutes and then cool down for 5 min. Because of the heat... my HR immediatly jumped into mid to upper Zone 3... so hitting Zone 4 was no problem. I HATED this run. I'm not exagerating. I was crawling along and suffering and calling myself names the entire time. I actually had to walk 2 of the last 5 minutes. But you know what? I did it. I made it happen and put together another really solid workout! Exhausted and happy!

After that I had some lunch then headed to the pool. Yeah, I know. 2,950 yards total. I felt like poop... but rallied and put in a solid swim!

I can't tell you how happy I am with this week's training so far. I've beaten the crap outta myself... and I've come thru it knowing that I'll exit stronger. NICE! It's been really hard. I've learned some things about myself. I have a much more firm grasp on my limitations and how I react when I come up against them... and that's probably one of the most important things I can take away from this week!

Hope you're all well and training smart! Thanks for reading!

Breathe...