Saturday, January 29, 2011

Quick Tip

Be sure to sign up for triathlons early!  Sprint distance and iron distance races tend to be the most popular and fill up very fast.  I talked about this in one of my previous posts but iron distance races will fill up a year in advance generally the day after the previous years race.  Sprint distance races take a bit longer but many of the popular ones will be fill by the end of January or February at the very latest.  My first year of triathlon I was only able to do two races because I waited to long to sign up for races.  So don't wait, sign up for your races today.

Things To Know About Signing Up For Your First Ironman


When most people think about triathlon they think about the Ironman. I would imagine because once a year in December the folks at NBC edit the nearly 17 hour race down into an hour and a half show that many years can bring you to tears. They show people who have overcome amazing hurdles just to be at the race and then they show the tear jerker moments of them crossing the finish line on Alli' drive to throngs of cheering fans. I will admit that it was the 2006 Ironman rebroadcast in June that led me to sign up for Ironman and subsequently become a triathlete. Pretty much anyone who is a triathlete or considering becoming a triathlete has Ironman dreams. So what things do you need to know when you are considering doing an Ironman?

1) Official United States Ironman events fill up fast. There are 8 Ironman events held every year in continental United States and the only ones that don't fill up within a matter of hours or at most a few days within the opening of registration are Ironman St. George and Ironman Louisville. If you want to be guaranteed a slot in any of the other events the best way is to be a volunteer on race day and then stand in line and sign up on site the day after the race. The reason volunteering is important is because the volunteers get to stand in a separate line and register before the non-volunteers do. While volunteering is not absolutely necessary because the events almost never fill up with the onsite registrants, it is a good opportunity to see the race from the inside and you seems to me there is no reason to risk it. I've had success using no volunteer onsite registration, volunteer onsite registration, and online registration. Given my proximity to Madison, Wisconsin, only 2.5 hours away, I tend to always use onsite registration but if I was doing some of the other events I would probably use online registration and use Ironman Louisville as my backup race if I didn't get in.

2) Don't let your friends, family, training partners, etc, talk you out of doing the race. To be honest other triathletes tend to be the biggest culprits when it comes to trying to talk you out of doing an Ironman. For some reason many experienced triathletes feel like beginners need to "earn the right" to do an Ironman by having a number races of all distances and racing seasons under their belt before they ever attempt an Iron distance race. My opinion is these people triathletes feel like it reflects poorly on them if someone does an Ironman before they did. Don't listen to them. Ironman is about training and having the will power to finish not about the number of races you have under your belt. Every time I've done Ironman there is always a few people there who are using it as their first triathlon, they suffer, but they do generally finish.

3) Get a hotel reservation the day you sign up for the race. Just like the races fill up fast the hotels fill up fast also. Using Wisconsin as example, if you don't get your hotel on registration morning there is no way to get a hotel downtown. I have never done an Ironman other then Wisconsin but I have to imagine it's the same at nearly every other race.

I'll put together a post later about other more race specific Ironman tips but these are a few things that I wish I would have known the first time I signed up for an Ironman. When I signed up the first time I drove up registration day, got in line at 9:00 when registration opened and was nearly the last person in line. I stood in line until nearly noon ended up being the 1800 person to sign up and they only took 2000 people so I was pretty close to not making it. Then I waited to get a hotel until that spring and had to stay a half hour away in a different city.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Today's Workout


With the triathlon season right around the corner and Ironman Louisville 215 days away I decided it's time to get back to training. In the past, I've done a 36-week training plan for Ironman but I've found this to be way too long to be in hardcore two-a-day training. I've decided to do something different this year and try out a 20 week Ironman training plan that overlaps with my 16 week half-Ironman training plan. What that really means is I don't have to start "officially" training until the end of February and my current training is "offseason" training. I'm not following an "offseason" plan, I'm really just spending an hour every weekday morning either biking or running and trying to avoid swimming like the plague ;). On the weekend days I'll do a longer bike/run brick and a longer run one day.


This morning was spent running for 45 minutes on the treadmill at 75% max heart rate followed by a short lifting workout. My lifting workout consists of doing push ups, crunches, and bicep curls. I try to do at least 100 push ups and 100 crunches everyday to keep my core strength up.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Welcome To Green Hair and Saddle Sores


Welcome to my new blog, Green Hair and Saddle Sores, that is dedicated to the beginner / intermediate triathlete. This blog really spawned out of the fact that there is a ton of information out there about triathlons, but nearly all of it is created by top age-groupers who are Kona regulars or pro's who have dedicated their whole life to the sport of triathlon. While I'm not trying to say the information they present isn't good and valuable information, some of it just isn't practical for your average middle-of-the-pack triathlete. For most of us, who consider ourselves triathetes, we have a family, full time job and many other responsibilities that mean we can't dedicate hours and hours a day to training, thousands of dollars to the latest hi-tech training gear and eat perfectly all-natural foods all the time. For those of you looking for in depth articles about increasing power output on the bike, ways to tweak your aero position and the latest information on diet you should probably look elsewhere, because I haven't done the sport long enough to be able to help. This blog is dedicated to those of us who do the sport for the challenge, to stay in shape and just get to that finish line, hopefully a bit faster than the last time we finished.


A little about the name, as it turns out "beginner" triathlete blogs are a really popular thing to start and never maintain. All the good triathlon blog names like, "Everyday Triathlete", "Fat Slow Triathlete", and "Triathlete Dad" were taken. I must have typed names in for 30 minutes trying to find a free name for my new blog. Every time I typed a name in that was taken I would then go visit that blog hoping to find a new blog to visit regularly and every time I would visit a blog I would find a blog with a nicely written welcome message, like this one, 2 or 3 more entries and then that was it. My promise to you is to actually keep my blog up to date with regular material. Anyway, back to the name, if you are a beginner you may not realize if you have light colored hair and swim often at the pool it can start to tint your hair green. Don't believe me? Google it. Of course anyone who has ever biked for any length of time will be familiar with the concept of saddle sores. Personally I've never really had to deal with either affliction. I have dark hair and while I chaff some on the bike I've never had holdover until the next day (knock on wood). I thought it was a clever name so I went with it.