Well, it has been a busy couple of days here in lovely Boulder. Yesterday was an easy day (for training) but was super valuable. We had a 2 hour session at the track with Bobby McGee. Bobby is one of the most well respected run coaches in the world. He has coached many straight up runners, and many triathletes, including top ITU stars. He was a wealth of knowledge, and experience. I paid for a 30 minute personal session with Bobby. I had hung around the track for a while waiting for my turn, and he was not afraid to point out peoples run flaws. When it was my turn we talked about my shoes, running injuries, huge calves, and open running race times vs triathlon run splits. Then he watched me run, and I was surprised (shocked actually) when he said I had a good long course running style. He gave me some pointers on how to improve my style, and some great tips on how to change my training program to make me a faster runner overall, and how to change my training cycle to enhance my running. Lots of out of the box thinking and stuff that I have never heard or read. Totally awesome.
Next up was our Retul bike fit. We drove 30 minutes to Denver and had a fit with Todd Carver, the founder of Retul and the guy who has done most of the pro cyclist and triathlete fits in the USA. Good enough for Normann and Lance... Anyway Todd was fantastic. He made some major changes to my seat position, height, cleat position and Aerobars. I was surprised at how many tweaks he made to my position, but the end result was well worth it. This was my first ever real bike fit, and Todd is a true craftsman of bike fit. Todd tweaked Ian's position also, and I was happy that Todd used a hammer and a dremel tool to "tweak" Ian's bike stem and bar pads. The guys at camp like my position. There are two guys named Mike in camp. They call me the "Low Mike".
Today we did a 2km swim in the reservoir (one of 3 weekly supervised, life-guarded, measured 1km course swims per week here in Boulder). Following that we did a 105km bike ride, again up into the mountains. Today was the first time since we arrived that I felt like I could push some good watts. Everything went well up until 8000 feet when again it got much harder to hold the same power due to the thin air. On the descent we came down with Angela Naith, an up and coming triathlete pro. She can go uphill like the wind, but Ian and I dusted her on the downhill. We waited for her at the bottom of the hill, and we hammered the rolling hills back into town at 40kph. Later Angela said that she was surprised how fast guys like us can go. I wonder if she really meant how fast old guys like us can go... We think this girl had loads of talent, nobody at the camp can climb faster than her.
Well, thats all for tonight. Time to chill and relax. Bike and coached swim tomorrow, then Olympic Triathlon race on Saturday. I think that we are doing and Anti-Taper for that race, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. BTW that is Gordo in his speedo for all of you girls out there...
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