Friday, January 18, 2008

2003 - Pigman Half Ironman Distance Race - Race Report

*note* This is an older race report that I wanted to be included in my blog archive. It has been fun to go back and read my thoughts about this race, which was my first half-ironman distance race. And a very hot day that we still talk about with grand disillusions. (And good reason for people to write race reports.) *end note*

Pigman Half Ironman Distance Race, 2003
At the start of the 2003, I had two main goals:

one - to put out a solid marathon qualifying for Boston
two - to race a half-ironman and to race it well

You can read my Flying Pig report to analyze goal number one. (It was the year of the pigs.)

Pre-Race:
I didn't get much sleep the night before, but I felt rested. I had my normal breakfast:

* 2 cans of Purify (Kroger style Ensure)
* 1 bagel
* some Gatorade
* with 1 cliff bar 40 minutes before the race

Due to poor planning, I had to find an adapter for my CO2 cartridges right before the race. After a little running around, some borrowed cash and help from the guys at Gear West, I got the adapter a couple minutes before the pre-race meeting.

The Swim:
My strategy was to take the swim very, very easy. When my heat started, I saw everyone run into the water and dive. I jogged behind and kind of fell into the water. By doing this, I was able to make sure I didn’t lose my goggles. I also was able to make a point to myself that I wanted to take it easy.

The first buoy came after what felt like forever, but I wanted to stick to my game plan. I turned the corner and found someone swimming about the same pace so I dropped back and drafted for several minutes. At the last buoy I felt like I had yet to begin swimming so I picked up the effort just a bit during the last stretch.

Coming into the transition I saw my time was 38 minutes, which was about 5 minutes slower than I anticipated. I was a little disappointed but I knew the day would be long.

Analyzing the times after the race, I saw that all the times were a little slow. Even the better athletes that raced last year had times 3 minutes or more slower.

The Bike:
The biggest thing for me going into the bike was pacing and nutrition. I knew the climbs and demands of the course would not be too much because of the daily rides we do in central Kentucky. It was hard to hold back the first half hour but I kept repeating to myself that finishing strong meant more then starting fast. The pace allowed me to take in all the food and nutrition that I needed. I mixed the intake of water, Gatorade and GU’s just as I during training.

During the middle of the ride, I think I may have let my ego get to me? While going up hills I would ride by what felt like 10 to 15 riders, but on the flats there was a pelaton of 4 to 6 bikes that would fly by. My mind made a choice that my body should not have followed. I decided to step up the pace for the next 10 miles. I rode up the hills and pushed the flats. The pacing was not in line with my plan of easy riding the first half, pick it up during the middle and use the end of the ride only for preparation for the run.

Going into the second transition, I still felt really good! I spent the last 6 miles making sure I had every bit of liquid in me I could get. I had also planned on eating a cliff bar, but I couldn’t get it down. So I finished off my last gel. I finished the bike with a pace of 21.4 mph. This was exciting because I felt good and I had only anticipated a 20 - 20.5 mph pace.

The Run:
In one word - Miserable. I felt like I had prepared for everything correctly, used the proper nutrition, but I had not been subjected to that kind of heat in training. The temperature was in the low to mid 90’s by the time we were on the run. And one thing about running on the roads in Iowa, there is NO shade.

I knew immediately that I would not be running a sub 1:30, which is what I felt prepared to do. I quickly slowed my pace down to what felt very comfortable and decided that my goals were to:

a - not walk during the run
b - finish as close to 5 hours as possible

By the time I reached the 3 mile marker, I figured out that the run was going to be rough. There were a lot of people walking through the aid stations and for periods before, after and during. I was taking a glass of water, Gatorade and ice at every aid station (Although I missed ice at one aid station because I didn’t want to start walking).

At this point I believe that my dedication to the mental training during the summer paid dividends. Here is what I did:

* I focused on my foot cadence, upper body position and foot strike
* I moved my focus only to my breathing pattern
* I moved my mind to the mantras that I had been using in my practices and meditations

Psalm 23, for my meditations I had been spending a lot of time in this Psalm so I started repeating it twice

"I belong here, my body has done the training" - this is a phrase that I took from Gordo Byrn’s Book.

During my training runs I had practiced using this phrase as a guide for focus and imagery. I would repeat this to myself 4 or 5 times then I would go back to the Psalms

Finishing The Run:
I believe it was the 9 mile aid station that I decided that I needed to really be careful or I may not finish. I made the decision to walk through the remaining aid stations. It was a little disappointing but I knew it was necessary. I finished the run in 1:50:43, which was 20 minutes slower than I had hoped. My final time was 5:10:12. I had hoped to finish at or under 5 hours.

Post Race:
I felt great until we got in the van to leave. I had to make Eric, Beth and Jeff suffer through a couple stops so that I could deal with sickness. Motion sickness from the van or heat exhaustion, I do not know? But I bet a little of both.

Post Race Thoughts:
No excuses needed, I do feel a little disappointed. I have went back and forth about the heat and how I should react to that, but I think that my final analysis is that I do need to take into consideration the heat and should not have expected to be able to push myself the way I wanted. The bike pacing? Even though I felt good coming into T2, I know that I may have pushed it harder than I should have and trained for. I have second guessed myself a bit, thinking that if I would have stuck with the 20 mph pace I could have run better. I will never know! The final view is that it was a great experience. I now know that I have another couple years before I make it to the Ironman. I also know that I am still improving. And I still want to do more triathlons….!

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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

It is now a few days post Ironman Wisconsin and it is time to sit down and write my race thoughts down. I am going to break the race into a few different reports and reviews in order to keep them shorter and topic centered. The reviews I am going to write for now are:

1. Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience
2. Ironman Wisconsin - My race results and analysis
3. Ironman - What Next? (2008 thoughts on training and racing)

Links will be provided once the reports are complete.

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

Thursday - 9/6/07
Nikki and I finished our early morning training sessions and jumped into the car to drive to Wisconsin. The trip was pretty uneventful other than the terrible rains that forced us to drive 35 mph for way too long.

After getting into Madison, we went straight to our hotel to see Jeff, Eric and Beth who drove up on Wednesday. Soon after arriving, Eric looked at me with a concerned look and said, "Let's take a walk." Right away I thought that my bike had been destroyed because we all transported our bikes in a U-Haul that they pulled. The initial anxiety was an over reaction to what actually happened. The short story is that Nikki's bike wasn't secured well enough and her cassette ended up scratching my rims all up and destroying my tire. The solution was that I used Beth's wheels that she normally rides because she was going to use a set of race wheels anyway. Problem solved.

Friday - 9/7/07
We woke up early enough to make our way down to the Gatorade swim. The water was really choppy and made me a little nervous. Even though I had improved my swimming a lot over the last year, it was still my first Ironman experience and the idea of 2,300 athletes swimming together made me nervous. The choppy water didn't help.

The rest of the morning was spent at the convention center getting massages (I didn't but the others did), buying items at the store and getting my registration packet. One major lesson I learned was to not let your USAT membership expire. My number expired on 8/31 so I had to stand in line forever while Nikki by-passed at least 45 minutes of standing in line.

Upon returning to the hotel Eric spent time changing out wheels and cassettes for us. Thank goodness for his bike mechanic knowledge. I should learn a few more of the basics too. We went on a little ride from our hotel that afternoon to make sure the bikes worked properly. They did, but I still felt a little uneasy on new / different wheels. Looking back it was just something for my mind to grab ahold of and stress about.

The Ironman Hospitality
The rest of the weekend was really governed by the Ironman timeline. We went to the athlete dinner and meeting, we raced, we woke up Monday morning and went to the Ironman store, attended the awards banquet and then left. One thing is for certain, Ironman does fully support the athlete and they do a tremendous job building up the experience to be a one-of-a-kind event. I've always been a little anti-MDot because of the associated attitude. (The one that says your not "xx" if you haven't done Ironman or Kona, etc.) I can see the addiction to these events and I appreciate the place that these events have in triathlon. But I also appreciate the place that events like the Lake Barkley Race has too.

Why Triathlon is different than many sports.
One thing that continues to come up again and again for me is the line between the professional athletes and the age-group athletes. This maybe due to the fact that professional triathletes don't make big money or because they commonly come into the sport from positions that rarely include the limelight, I don't really know. Maybe triathletes are just level headed by nature (although I've seen some very unlevel headed age-groupers....).

After volunteering at the finish line of the Ironman Louisville race and talking to people that were also there, several people mentioned how nice Chris McDonald (the overall winner) was. At Ironman Wisconsin we sat down at the athletes' dinner and Jeff began talking to a kid sitting next to him. While in line, I realized that it might be Zach Ruble a younger professional. Jeff, Eric and Beth ended up talking to him throughout the dinner and I had a brief opportunity to also talk to him after the race. Once again an example of a professional that was generous with his time and not big-headed. How many sports can an average fan/athlete get that close to the professionals?

The Spectators and Volunteers at IMMOO
This is definately the best part of the Ironman race experience in Wisconsin. There were over 3,500 volunteers at the race! It is pretty amazing to have volunteers strip your wetsuit, find your transition bags, unrack your bike, chase you down with bottles of water, etc, etc.

The fan support for this race is also like no other event I've done, outside of the Chicago marathon. A few things that really stood out to me:

- Swim to Bike transition: heading up the helix and into the parking garage was amazing. Spectators stood two or three deep all the way up the helix, which made it hard not to run by-the-way. A very nice pick-me-up after swimming 2.4 miles.

- Verona: Beth and Eric had told me about the people in Verona, but it had to be experienced. Riding through town made me feel like a professional cyclist riding through a small town in France. The street was baracaded off, spectators were lining the street on both side cheering.

- Devil's Hill: If Verona made you feel like a professional cyclist, then this climb definately did. The spectators were line up on both sides again, but this time there were no baracades. It reminded me of some Tour de France climbs when you wonder if fans are going to get out of the way... in this case, out of my way. As we hit that hill, both times the cheering got me a little juiced and I killed the hill. I spun fast and past a lot of riders both times. (And noticed my heart rate in the 170's!)

Final Thought
The experience of doing an Ironman is worth the time, effort and money that it took. I always anticipated I would race Wisconsin in 2008, now I am certain I will be there again. While I was a little too dazed to hear my name called out "Gary Ditsch. You are an Ironman" I was told by several people that they saw it online.

Another amazing thought. People actually cared and were able to see me become an Ironman. The only thing that was able to make the day better, was that Nikki became an Ironman on the same day! The training and the race will be an experience we will be able to share together for a long time.

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ironman Wisconsin - Historical Results and Weather.

After spending time watching Iroman Wisconsin last year and seeing so many people struggle with the cold temperatures, I thought that I'd take a little journey through the historical weather records on race day in Madison.

I also wanted to see how the race may have been impacted by the type of weather they had. The best place that I have found to review race results and the historical results is, www.triresults.com

The TriResults site actually just put up an Ironman Wisconsin Events page that has a great listing of the historical data, including: the results listing, divisional top ten by year and Hawaii qualifiers by year.

Weather Data: taken from wunderground.com

Sept 10, 2006: Mean - 56F, Max - 59F, Min - 53F
Sept 11, 2005: Mean - 80F, Max - 91F, Min - 69F
Sept 12, 2004: Mean - 71F, Max - 85F, Min - 57F
Sept 7, 2003: Mean - 74F, Max - 89F, Min - 59F
Sept 15, 2002: Mean - 59F, Max - 71F, Min - 48F

Results Analysis:

Taking some data from the TriResults site, I wanted to see how the times changed year to year. To make things easy, primarily because the data was already put together, I took the 10th place finishing time (male 25-29) and the last Hawaii Qualifying time for each year.

I realize that those times are not a good snapshot of the field of triathletes racing on those days, not even a good snapshot of the male 25-29 year old age group, because to finish that high you are definately on the long tail of things. But the data was accessible and there may be a day I'll have the desire to search through and find the median number in the age group so that we can see where the exact middle finisher would finish.... maybe later. Here's what I do have:


2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
10th Place Finisher 10:25 10:50 10:37 10:32 10:21






Last Hawaii Qualifier 10:18 11:10 10:22 10:18 10:20






# of AG Participants 201 186 162 173 184


Final Thoughts:

So are there correlations that we can draw from this data? I think the one thing that becomes obvious is that the 2005 race was an outlier in terms of race performance (among the top 10 and Hawaii Qualifiers). When looking at the weather data, we also see that 2005 was the hottest year the race has been held. In 2005, the average temperature was 80F with a high of 91F. The high's in 2004 and 2003 were both in the 80's (2003 being 89F) but the averages were both down into the lower 70's.

The one fact that I find interesting was that in 2006 the times were not significantly different than the times in 2004, 2003 and 2002. I guess I expected them to be primarily because we saw so many people appearing to struggle with the cold. The best explanation that I have for this is that the results that we are looking at are people that are on the course for 10 to 10.5 hours. If we were able to look at the middle of the pack (mop) and back of the pack (bop) results, we might see something different. My hypothesis is that the weather becomes more of a factor the longer your day is, but it is just a hypothesis.

The last thought that I have is that the weather will impact the way I approach the event, especially if it is going to be a very hot day. But in the end, it is a variable that is out of my control and therefore something I should be prepared for, but should not be anxious about. It appears that most years athletes do a pretty good job of adapting to the conditions.

To view some Ironman Wisconsin 2006 Race Reports that I tagged on del.icio.us go here: Ironman Wisconsin Tags

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Friday, July 06, 2007

MedExpress Mountaineer Triathlon Race Report

The Mountaineer was my first triathlon of 2007 so I was a little anxious about taking the start line. I'll run through a few of the fears I had:

1. Swim - this is always a concern, but due to my fairly consistent swimming over the past 8 months it is becoming less and less of a concern. The positive talk about my swimming has also helped out the anxiety.

2. Very few brick workouts this year - I have been swimming, cycling and running more than any other time in my life, but I haven't added in too many brick (bike/run) workouts. This left me in a position of the unknown regarding how my legs would react to running once I was off the bike.

3. Very little to zero mid/upper intensity work. My primary training after the Derby Half Marathon has been long (sometimes very long) easy bike riding. The swimming and run workouts have all been easy too - my fear was that they had been too easy. The doubts were there because I hadn't seen a sub 7:45 mile on the run since the 1/2 marathon and I wasn't sure if all the 8:00 to 9:00 / mile easy runs were going to allow me to run well again? Join those doubts with the knowledge that my friends and training partners had been doing sub 7:00 min/mile runs regularly and my mind was in a period of high intensity self doubt.


The Race (brief)

The swim started without much issue. The in_the_water start was a very nice change for me. After a few minutes of swimming I felt fine and in a good place - that left midway through the course. I am not sure about the reason for my mid-swim change_of_heart, but I began to feel "slow". Nothing like feeling slow to mess with your mind. The swim continued on without issues other than my own mental battles, allowing myself to concede that even if I was slow - there was still the bike and run.

As I came out of the swim I stopped on the dock, sat down and pulled off my wetsuit, prior to running to the transition. While in route to the transition I looked at my watch to see where I was at, it said, "4:00". Apparently my Polar froze up a little bit into the swim. This meant I would have to reset it, which I didn't have time for. It also meant that I was "flying solo" for the day because I purposely didn't put a computer on my bike for this race. Riding with zero feedback was difficult when you are already anxious because all the bikes were off the rack when I got there.

My swim result - 32:00, 122 overall rank. Faster than 2 of the top 4 in our age group and 17 seconds behind the 1st place person in our age group. It looks like I didn't have as much to worry about as I thought!

The bike started out with anxiety (probably left over from the swim) too. As I got on my bike and took off, the bike was making a hideous "creaking" noise. It bothered me for about 15 miles, but I came to peace with it once I felt like it was just my Look cleats making the noise.

The bike route was a 2 loop course, therefore my strategy was to ride comfortable the first loop and work a little bit on the second loop, making sure I had the ability to run. Since my heart rate monitor was frozen, I had to continually remind myself that comfortable is probably "easy", especially knowing how worked up I was about being "behind". While the course was supposed to be challenging, it was not that challenging at all. There was some climbing but nothing significant or blow_your_legs_up hard.

My bike result - 2:45:12, 20.3mph, 78 overall rank. As it turns out, the bike is where I lost the majority of my "placing". Every person that placed ahead of me in our age group rode a faster bike split.

The run was highly uneventful four 11 miles and highly challenging for 2 miles. The majority of the course was an out and back leg on a bike trail, but there was 1 mile that was very hilly and difficult. (The run was a two lap course too.) The hills actually came as a nice relief as I found my legs struggling with the flat out and back portion more than in the hills. This is likely due to the speed that I was trying to maintain but hadn't run in some time.

I used the walk/run pattern that I used in the Derby Half Marathon, although it was a little modified because I didn't have a watch to check splits.

My run result - 1:37:13, 7:25pace, 36 overall rank. To be honest this was the most dissappointing of my splits. I was anticipating a sub 1:35 on that course, but I guess without doing any tempo, threshold or upper steady running it might be hard to expect that in the race.

Final Thoughts and "What Next?"

The race went as well as I could have expected. After all, I did have a personal best at the half iron-distance (4:58:56). I also knew that the bulk of my training over the past 18 months has not been focused on having half-iron speed, it has been focused on having Ironman endurance.

That being said, I realize that I am coming to a point in my training that will require me to include some steady, upper steady and tempo or threshold workouts. I am not completely sure how they will be inserted into my training yet - it will depend highly on my ability to recover from each workout.

The next two weeks (July 9 to July 22) are 9 and 8 weeks out from Ironman Wisconsin. They will also be my biggest weeks in terms of volume (hours) this year. After that I will use a lighter week (week 7) to recover and go into a 6 week specific preparation period.

I have been going over how to handle my specific preparation for IMMOO. If you have any suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them. (I may not act on them, but always ready to listen!)

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

How to pass the "suck threshold" in triathlon.

I read a great post on the Creating Passionate Users blog titled, "How to be an expert." The first line of the post reads,
"The only thing standing between you-as-amateur and you-as-expert is dedication."
At first this quote kind of pushed my thinking in the wrong direction. Why? Because while I consider myself dedicated to triathlon, I don't consider myself an expert. I especially don't consider myself an "expert" athlete. So I got this feeling that they might be (indirectly) suggesting that I wasn't dedicated enough. (We'll look at how much dedication is needed later.)

Before I mention anything more about the article, go and look at the article yourself - at least look at the graph they lead off with. It is really interesting to see the three different paths or choices they offer on their time vs. ability graph. The choices are:

a. "give up" - but if you can get past the frustrastion you may be able to make it past the "suck threshold"

b. "I'm ok, so I'll continue this way" - in which you remain an amateur as time passes on, never passing the "kicking ass threshold"

c. "push myself, because there is always a better way" - you may finally pass the "kicking ass threshold" and become an expert.

There were a few things that stood out to me about those who make the choice to continue working towards being an expert. Those people tend to do these things:

1. They find new ways to get better. There is always some way to get that little edge.

2. They work on their weaknesses, even if it isn't fun.

3. They are willing to pay the cost, whatever that cost might be in order to not suck.

So what does it take to pass the "suck threshold" in triathlon?

This is a very good question that I ask myself on a daily basis. This winter I made the decision to focus on Ironman Wisconsin and move away from a running focus in the spring and triathlon focus in the summer. This decision has meant that I have been swimming a lot more than normal (I am actually swimming) and getting ready to bike a lot until April. So maybe I'm on my way to passing the suck threshold by working on my weaknesses, but what about passing the kicking ass threshold. What do I have to do to get close to moving in that direction?

In Ironman competition there is one accomplishment that can show that you are getting close to the kicking ass threshold - qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. So to find out exactly what this threshold is for Ironman Wisconsin, I went to triresults.com and used the "reports" feature to find this information: (for my age group, male, 25-29)

2006: sub 10:18:19
2005: sub 11:10:09 (the slowest time of any IMMOO year)

This is great information, but one of the characteristics of those that don't suck was dedication. It is hard to extrapolate what amount of dedication someone has by seeing a finishing time. What if all those 25-29 year old males were just really gifted athletes?

A really good look at the amount of dedication a Kona qualifying athlete has was just presented by trigeek76 over on slowtwitch.com by conducting a survey of over 600 triathletes. You can check out the survey at http://www.triathlontrainingsurvey.net/results.html

In the second release of data interpretation he answers the question, "What will it take to get my Kona slot in '07?" You will have to fill out the survey to get all the data, but I'll share a couple things that point out the amount of committment or dedication that might be involved:

1. You need to train more! The average training volume for a 25-29 year old male was approximately 800 annual hours. It was around 840 annual hours across all age groups. (As a comparison, last year I trained 378 hours... yikes!)

2. You need to be consistent! The training was consistent throughout the prior year, even during the off season they would have their volumes at 20-40% of peak volumes. At six months out, their volumes were at 60% (bike) to 80% (swim and run) of peak volume.

A few training ideas came from this data that shows what those-that-don't-suck do for their training. The biggest one is that they have big bike volumes, especially within the 19 weeks leading up to the race. The second variable that correlated to race performance was run volume over the year. Even as these triathletes biked and ran a lot, guess what - they still swam! In other words, if you want to be a good triathlete that passes the suck threshold you need to bike a lot (especially the last 6 months), run a lot and don't forget to swim regularly.

So you want to kick ass! You want to be an expert.

What does it take to get to this level. To be honest, it is so far beyond my reality of my personal athletic experience that it is hard to explain. So what I did was find a few resources that I keep an eye on to help illustrate it for you. Get ready this is going to get ugly!

1. Sergio Marques - Sergio finished 19th at this years World Championships, putting in the fastest run leg of the day. What did it take for him to get there? (Keep in mind this is one year, but...) He recently analyzed his 2006 year compared to his 2005 year. Here are some things to think about:

- He had 803 workouts and put in 1,300:14 hours over the year. (Almost 1,000 more hours than me!)

- Swim: 387:6 (n=291), Bike: 646:23 (n=267), Run: 266:30 (n=245)

2. Zach Ruble - another pro triathlete I looked up after watching his IMMOO performance. You can go and search through his 2006 season starting right after IMAZ and going to IMMOO by reading his blog: Zach's Training Blog and he just started using workoutlog (yeah Zach) and sharing his log.

(Note: I think that Zach and Sergio are now coached by the same coach, which is new for Zach this season I beleive. If I read his blog correctly? They actually are using the same coach as our local pro Dave Kuendig.)

3. Epic camp discussion. One of the better discussions that I've heard discussing what it takes to not suck in triathlon was the recent podcast with Scott Molina and Gordo Byrn - Ironman Talk Podcast #40. Could I survive that kind of training? At this point in my develeopment I don't think I could. What is amazing is that some (if not most this time around) of these guys are age-groupers!

4. What it takes. I have not seen this documentry yet, but if you are not into all the x's and o's that are provided in the links above, maybe you can purchase this video and get motivated to start breaking through that kicking ass threshold.

So what are you going to do?

It looks like you got a few choices to make - give up, do the same ol' same ol' or push through and kick ass by becoming dedicated, working on your weaknesses, be consistent, find a new (better) way and then just pay your dues.

You know two of the coaches mentioned above have little "tag lines" that follow them around: "more is more" and "there is no easy way".... I guess the first one might be right and the second one is just a reality we'll have to face.

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Saturday, January 06, 2007

Shout out: Triathlon Blogger Network

Over the last few days I have been trying to get a Feedburner Network started for triathletes. With a little bit of explaining and emailing, I finally got the ok from Feedburner to go ahead and get it started. I'm still learning about the "networks" and how to manage the invitations, but we have a few members of the network signed up. I hope to continue to build the network into a solid group of people that are willing to explain and share their "triathlon life" with us.

Check out the network at this url: Triathlon Network

We currently have 5 members signed up. I thought that it might be nice to introduce the first few:

JT's Tri-spot - (a quick take from her "about me")
My mission: In a moment of grandeur and compulsivity I signed up for Ironman Coeur d'Alene having only completed a single sprint distance triathlon. The long journey to Ironman ends on June 24, 2007 and I seek to enjoy every minute of it. During the journey I will be raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society in support of a good friend who was just diagnosed with Lymphoma.
You can subscribe to her blog here.

Ironclm's Tri World - the byline of her blog is "mostly race reports, rides and other tri and cycling stuff..." You can subscribe to her blog here.

Ironbeach - My road to Kona 2009 (a quick take from his "about me")
I'm a 20-year-old triathlete from Finland. I'm a freshman student studying business at the University of Jyväskylä. I'm also working part-time for this great accounting company
You can subscribe to his blog here.

The other two blogs in the network are my blog and the Mideast Multisport Training Blog (which is maintained by myself and the other 4 coaches at Mideast Multisport). So there it is, I hope you head on over to the Triathlon Network and read what's new. To make it even easier on yourself subscribe to the network feed.

Location wise this is how it breaks down:

Kentucky (US) - 2
Ohio (US) - 1
California (US) -1
Finland - 1

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