Good Run in Des Moines

I joined the family in Des Moines for my mother's birthday party. It was another great Iowa weekend. The weather was warmer, I got a great run in on Saturday, and saw some good friends, and enjoyed great family time.

Here was the run:


I took off from my parents house and took the back roads down to the old location of Raccoon Valley Little League. This is where I played 12 summers worth of baseball. It has since been moved because it was in the middle of a flood zone and didn't make it back after the floods in 1993. It's now part of water works park and they have a nice little disc golf course there. It was strange running through there as I couldn't even place where the different fields where.

The whole run was enjoyable. I enjoyed the expanded bike path and was pleasantly surprised by all the flowers on the route.

• Quick note: Tomorrow is Patriot Day. I am looking forward to seeing how my good buddy Ryan Hall does in the Boston Marathon.
  

Catch Up Post

Well we had a great weekend in Iowa. I survived the Drake Relays on the Road Half Marathon. I will give it proper attention in a full write up later in the week.  There are a lot of other stories I needed to follow up on. I apologize I am so far behind.

Lance and Mike in Boston

The Boston Marathon was a few weeks ago. You may remember my joking about Lance Armstrong becoming an Ironman competitor a while back. It seemed to make sense to me as he is obviously strong in the bike, and his marathon times keep creeping down. That along with the fact he actually started his career in tri’s before moving to a full time professional cyclist.

He finished race just over 2:50 minutes. I am pretty certain that is his PR, but not quite as good as he had hoped to do (I think he was hoping for something in the low 2:40s). Still for Boston, which is a fairly hilly race, that is a great job. I will be interested to see how he does in NYC this fall.

Also running in Boston was former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. His day did not end so well as he had to drop out of the race with runners knee (an IT band issue). I guess he needs to spend more time running, less time running for president. A problem we all run into from time to time.

Liz Rocked St. Anthony's
Last week I wished my friend and classmate at ND Liz Berls good luck on her first tri. She did very well (Swim: 25:38, Bike 1:33:49, Run: 59:22, Total: 3:07:43!). Yes, Liz is a very good swimmer. What I wouldn’t do to get out of the water in 25 minutes.

She wrote a cool summery of her weekend. I will steal a little bit of it for those of you who are thinking about doing a tri, or more importantly thinking of doing an endurance event for a charity.

"This was truly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and am proud that I not only completed this physical and mental challenge but also surpassed my fund raising goal by raising more than $5600 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society."

Yep, that is over $1000 more than her goal. Great job Liz. I have done a few events for charity, it really adds to the experience. I cannot say enough good things about Team in Training (the endurance sport training wing of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). Not only is my father in remission from lymphoma, but my good friend in Kansas City Emily runs one of the Team in Training groups. They really do a great job raising important research dollars and getting people trained for triathlons, marathons, and century rides. If you have never done one of these events and are thinking about it, look up Team in Training.

For those of you who didn’t donate to Liz’s fund, here is your last chance. Click here.

Sharks
Very sad story out of California.  I man was training for a triathlon lost his life to a shark attack.  I must admit this has always been a slight fear of mine.  I am not a good swimmer. I have enough to thinking about while swimming. I have a small fear of the ocean to start with… now we are hearing about more shark attacks. This story is tragic, but according to the experts, you have a better chance of dying via car accident on the way to the beach than you do by shark attack.

In other news, while there may be cougars roaming Chicago, there are no reports of great white sharks in Lake Michigan.  So I am safe for now.

Hy-Vee Tri Looking Better All the Time
It is a rare occasion when a law is passed that completely make sense, one where you want to call your local representative and say “Thank you.” Well that happened in Iowa recently. The state senate made an exception to the rule disallowing acholhol served on the state capital grounds at any time. And the one acception… the finish line for the Hy-Vee Triathlon.

Oh, we going to booze it up! Margarittas with the Govenor Culver! Would you like another martini Lt Gov Judge? I can only assume that they will have beer instead of Gatorade at the water stops right?

Wrong, but it will be fun to have a little bubbly if I make it to the finish line.

Payout for Des Moines?
Lastly, I thought I would bring some attention to this article from Tuscaloosa, which discusses how much money they brought in for having the tri there. Hopefully there will be a similar revenue flow headed Des Moines way for hosting the Hy-Vee Triathlon in June. I am a big fan of the Hy-Vee event, and I hope it continues to grow it as the years pass.

Hoops Team Report
My rec basketball team won our second game on Monday. It was the first win in which I was in town to play. I knocked down a bunch of free throws at the end of the game to seal it, apparently earning my new nickname “Ice Cold.” [I would really like to put an Outkast song in here now, but despite the use of the phase “ice cold” I don’t think the rest of the song would impress many of the readers.]

Workout Report
Last night was a killer one at the Chicago Blue Dolphins practice. We were in the long 50 m pool, where I worked out with the “transition” group. Believe me, I was fine with that. The Group 1 was doing repeat 300, which was just a little too aggressive for me. I was just fine doing my repeat 150, which might as well been repeat miles for me.

Swim:
1700 M, 1.5 Hours

Big Weekend in US Endurance Sports

US Olympic Trials in the Triathlon
This is a BIG weekend in US endurance sports events. First, tomorrow we have the second of three Olympic Trials for the US Triathlon team in Tuscaloosa, AL. Here is a good story in Inside Triathlon that explains the qualifying and the favorites.

The third and last of the Olympic qualifying races is the Hy-Vee Triathlon in Des Moines, June 22. I will be there, although only racing against the other age-group competitors (they keep us well separated from the pros).

Patriot's Day in Boston
Then of course Monday is the third Monday in April, which in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is Patriot's Day. It is the celebration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the Revolutionary War. Traditionally the Boston Red Sox play a home game at Fenway Park and the granddaddy of all running races, the Boston Marathon, is run. I will get to the marathon in a minute, but of note with the Red Sox... every year since 1960 they have scheduled the game so that it ends about the time the runners are running through the area (so the fans can leave and cheer on the runners in Kenmore Square). Sounds like both the coolest thing ever for the runners, and a logistical nightmare.

The Boston Globe has a great overview of this weekends events, with include the 112th running of the marathon on Monday AND the US Olympic Trials for the women on Sunday. You might remember they ran the men's Olympic trials in the marathon in November the day before the NYC Marathon.

Very exciting stuff.

Here from the Boston Globe is a story of marathon runner who runs and incredible amount of races, at a very good pace. His name is Michael Wardian and he runs a sub 2:30 marathon, but he does it almost every week! Makes you wonder if this guy learned how to train for a specific race, just how fast he could be. On the other side of it, it is pretty cool that he just likes to go out and race. He will be lining up next to my fellow blogger Donald at the Western States.

So enjoy the weekend, it is a good one for endurance sports fans. Between watching some of these event on tv I am looking forward to a rainy Cubs game tomorrow here in Chicago. Hopefully they will bounce back from a tough loss yesterday. Go Cubs!