BQ at the New Orleans Marathon

Sydney Bush Foster runs 3:36, for a BQ and a PR by 5 minutes. Husband Matt ran the half marathon in 1:56.

Frostbite Marathon Feb 13

Jennifer from Music City Runners sent me this:

The winner finished in 1 hour 10 minutes. He was moving to stay warm since he was in shorts. BRRR! The Music City Runners put in good times as well.

Catherine Fleming 1:52:46

Jennifer McClellan 2:11:15

Suzanne Demirjian 2:41:09

Leon Covington 3:23:00

Wayman Ransom 3:23:02

Not too shabby for coming back from the off-season without much running.

9 year old Lilly at Big Spin

Lilly rode next to her awesome mom Becky yesterday at Big Spin. She did not do every aspect of the "Darwin-Nietzsche" workout, but she did keep spinning the whole time. She even jumped into the pool to do a little swim transition. I was on the pool deck and noticed she was the only one doing the butterfly stroke during the swim transition.

One thing that is very interesting is that she is on her own, new road bike. Finding road bikes for smaller riders that are both affordable and well-fitting are a challenge. She is riding a Fuji model that is carried at ACME Multisports.

Lilly will not be happy that I said she was 9 years old, because her birthday is today. Happy birthday Lilly.

Hara PR's at Mercedes Marathon

Hara completed the Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham, AL today. She finished with a 3:49, which is ~22 minute personal best time.

So close to that 3:45:59 BQ time..."maybe next time," says Hara. Really big goals take systematic persistence and lots of hard work. Fortunately Hara is stoked with this result. Keep up the great work HH!

BIG SPIN OUT OF CONTROL!

OK, I'm just saying, Stephen Taylor's Big Spin ROCKS! Excellent workout not just for triathletes, but anyone, especially cyclists, both recreational and competitive. Most of the class time on the bike with complimentary off-bike cross-training thrown in just to mix it up and keep it interesting and fun.

—Les Wooldridge, VP Harpeth Bike Club and Member Harpeth Bicycle Race Team (and he's a REAL cyclist)

These pictures were taken last week during big spin, during a cross training strength segment of the 3 hour class. As you can see, testosterone and estrogen were flowing freely.

Special Forces--Selection Success

Jonathan Schmidt sent me a brief text message: "I made it through selection hoo yah"

J trained with me for about a year in preparation to enter Air Force Special Forces. Originally he planned to apply for Pararescue Jumper, but he ultimately decided to apply in Combat Control.

Congrats Jonathan!

Photo: In addition to lots of swimming, running, and strength training, I knew some additional mental toughness would be required to get these guys ready. Here Jonathan (left) is doing sit-ups with a rock on his chest in the river. Nick (right) is in the PJ pipeline having currently completed 1 1/2 of 2 years training.

Photo: Unconventional strength training.

Music City Runners First Run

Big turnout last night for the first group run of the year. When we did an "icebreaker" (an MCR tradition,) it was in the LITERAL sense. Everyone did a "cheer" and introduced themselves, then we set off on the 1-mile loop in Centennial park.

36 runners was the magic number last night. By the time we were done it looked like this out:

And this:

That's right: cold, snow, and dark. It wasn't that bad once you got started, but we are all looking forward to sunny, warm, and dry.

Land Between the Lakes Training Run....in Snow

It is winter and there aren't a lot of races....so this is the results of a training run. An Epic training run. We had been planning this adventure run for a few weeks, which inadvertently fell during the Great Southern Blizzard of 2010.

With plenty of defectors and a few flip-floppers, the few adventuresome souls were:


Clockwise from top left: Kona George, Boston-bound Stacy and Charles, Ron, myself, and Mashly Dewberry (aka Captain Flip-Flop.)


We weren't even the first ones to hit the snow-covered trails...there were bike tracks in the snow.



The scenery at Land Between the Lakes, Canal Loop Trail is breathtaking. You are running on a large island at the juncture of two powerful bodies of water.





We started at a comfortable social, pace but that didn't last long. Ron let the pace-setting duties mess with his head, and soon Ashly and Ron were long gone.







In the meantime I had a nice run with Kona George, Stacy, and Charles....who coincidentally all had Boston Marathon coats on. Stacy and Charles are entered in the 2010 Boston, whereas George prefers to do races that start with the word "Iron" and end with the word "Hawaii."







We saw some bald eagles.

And I executed a 4th quarter smackdown the last 5 miles.

Approximate distance covered:

Ashly 24

ST 22
Ron 16

Charles 14

Stacy 14

George 11