Long run, holiday style

I did my long run for the week on today, Christmas Day. This is always a leisurely day anyway, so the run fit in well. I basically did a tour around Steilacoom, my home town. My favorite part was running through old Ft. Steilacoom. It used to be the farm and orchard for Western State Hospital (a mental institution) but now is a public park. There are lots of tall slender alder trees along the trails and the hillside looks like a scene from Tuscany. Little lake Wahop is a nice little run, about 3/4 of a mile long. My shins did fatigue a little at first, but I loosened my laces and took a little stretch break about half way through my run and all was well. I also wonder if this happens when I'm not hydrated well, because it seems to be pretty random. I'll start keeping an eye on this.

Low key 5K

After sleeping in until almost 10:00am, I had a little breakfast, watched TV for about an hour and then went for a run on the 5K course I ran back in October for the Roman Meal Glove Run. I didn't feel like timing myself, so just had a nice low key run at around a 7 minute mile pace. It was nice running through Steilacoom again, the sites and smells familiar from my youth.

Armory with Allen and sport shopping

I took my weapons in to Salle for Allen to check out. I now have three weapons which makes me feel much more like an official fencer. Allen approved of my choices and show me how to get the correct bend in my blade. Afterward, I popped over to the Athletic Supply Co. store for a little shopping. I checked out the Adidas warmups that we may get for our NW pentathlon group and then picked up a wrist brace and a cold/hot compress.

Weapon repair and yoga leftovers

With my new epees having arrived on Thursday, I wanted to get them all set up and running ASAP. Two arrived all ready to go, but the 3rd I would have to put together as the blade had broken on my original weapon and just needed to be replaced. I went out and bought some PVC pipes to cover the bladed of the epees and also picked up a little snap box to carry around small parts and tools, as well as a mini screwdriver set.

At the Salle workbench, it took me quite a while to get it all put together correctly as it was my first attempt at doing this, but I did finally get it in working order...just in time to catch the last half hour of yoga. After yoga, it was margarita night with some of the foilists...good holiday cheer.

Crazy eights, equestrian style

Tonight Laura set up the fences in an elongated z shape so that we could do a jumps in a figure 8 pattern working our way up and down the fences. Although I was able to do all the fences and got some good practice at doing 12-15 jumps in a row, by techniques still needs a lot of help. I still tend to dip my shoulders into turns, like one does on motorcycle turns. This usually meant that I took turns very sharply, which is not such a great idea especially if there were to be fences straight ahead on a normal course. The problem was probably 60% me and 40% Pet Step though. He figured out that he could cut the corners and fell into the habit. But I let him fall into the habit. Felt good to get a lot of jumping in though. Still jumping 2'9 or so.

Hippy swim and centered shooting

After some holiday errands I finally made it to the pool around 4:00pm. With no nap (and still feeling a little under the weather) I could tell in my first lap that this wasn't going to be a high intensity workout. So I set out to practice some skills that I recently read about in the Total Immersion book I've been reading...namely hip rotation. Whoa! With a little hip twist I was able to get my strokes across the pool down to 12 strokes (I even hit 10 on one length), 14 strokes at full speed. Not bad considering I was generally doing it in 16-18 strokes. My time didn't improve at all, but I did the same time with 4 fewer strokes. Nice!

I did another 4 rounds of shooting in the evening. Did pretty average on the first two targets on the third I tried on of Bill's drills in which you cut the center out of the target and try to get all your shots through the whole. I got all but 4 shots through, which was pretty good, but even better was my next target. I got all but two shots in the black target area. WOOO HOOO! So my highest score is now 69. Still hoping to get into the 80's by the time I switch up to my Steyr.

Long nap, big dinner, squirly shooting, fencing parries, short run

I was feeling a little cold coming on throughout the morning and was really tired from staying up late fencing the night before, so I decided to take a short nap. Well, it turned into a three hour nap. But boy did it feel good. I ended up missing both an option to ride and an option to swim in the afternoon, but I figured I must have needed the rest. To follow up on the nap I had a big dinner for once. Went down to the local pub, Grady's, for a guacamole burger. Taaasty! With the cold and amount of training I'm doing, a big meal is probably a good idea once in a while to keep my winter immune system hardy. During dinner, I read a little more of Pam's (Pam is another pentathlete training in the area) Total Immersion book. The current chapter was discussing how power really comes form the torso, especially the hips. The author used several metaphors from baseball and tennis, but I also noticed how much some of the sports I've been training in both have to offer and learn from what I'm learning from this book. Rowing, boxing, fencing, jumping, etc. all seem to have similar applications of how performing an action, muscle memory, etc. have much more to do with your performance than what one might think.

After the big dinner I went down to my basement and started in on shooting. It was pretty cold down there, which I think made my eyes a bit watery (the excuse I'm using for poor shooting). I got a couple good shots in, but most were not all that good. Dropping to the lower right hand side again, which usually means I'm gripping the handle to hard or with too much of my hand. For the first time I wished I had the adjustable/molded grip that I will eventually get when I purchase my Steyr. Got 40 shots off, which is good enough to keep my shooting arm in practice.

Then it was off to my fencing lesson. Tonight we worked on parries: counter six, eight, eight with counter six and four. My problem is still that I am reacting rather than responding, although I'm getting much better at responding to what really is or isn't coming at me. Practice, practice, practice...although its really brain practice more than anything. Muscle memory certainly comes into play, but not like other sports. You have to think quickly between the muscle memory to get the right motion into gear. I will the Wednesday open fencing, but will plan on attending the Sunday session instead.

Long run, lots of fencing

I did my long run around Lake Union today since I wasn't able to fit it in over the weekend. I had a YMCA Board meeting so I got started later than I had hoped to in the afternoon. I did a bit of a warm up run over to Pocock Rowing Center, stopped in to say hello and then started on my way. I hadn't taken a nap, so I could feel that I was pretty tired. But the run went pretty well, just a nice slow, long run.

Fencing went long as well. I fenced seven bouts which is three more than I usually do. I did very well, winning 5 bouts...all except Greg and Nathaniel. Nathaniel Dirkson, an "A" level fencer who recently placed 66th in a national competition out of 160, was back home for the holidays and everybody wanted to fence him. I got nine touches on him and was pretty pleased since I missed several others that with my own weapon (I am still using a club weapon) I could have gotten. I noticed that Eli Bremer, the guy I stayed with in Sydney, got 52nd in the epee competition. I should be seeing both these guys in competition soon enough.

So close...to sub 20

Did my Portage Bay (PB) run again tonight and considering how I did on the last one, I was very pleased but yet, not completely satisfied. I came in at 20:09. I'm learning more and more that the every little bit counts. Surely I could have taken 10 seconds off my run time somewhere along the way. Looking back I see many places I could have done it. You really have to push the whole way through and small break - mental or physical - could be the difference in meeting a goal or having to try for it again later. I am still getting over a cold, so it was good to confirm that I can still train in such a situation, but its still now excuse for missing out on 10 seconds. 10 SECONDS! Ultimately, I want to take two more minutes of my PB time. When I get back from Oz, I will be doing more cross country, as well as adding in some hills and stairs.

Watching the Olympics makes me realize how much harder I will have to work short- and long-term. But its all possible. A great quote about Megan Quann from her brother tonight "She decides what she wants, then enforces it". I like it. I also have to say that I'm pretty inspired by Lenny Krayzelburg's story and accomplishments. Having traveled througout the Former Soviet Union and knowing many immigrants here in Seattle, I really appreciate his (and his family's) sacrifices and dedication. He's got a great attitude as well. You can never have to many people to look up to for motivation when training.

The Salmon Bay Sunday swim

I survived another Salmon Bay Sunday swim. These workouts are an hour and a half and I definitely feel it in my shoulders by the end of it. We had about a 20 minute workout followed by 10 minutes of on/off kicking that was pretty intense. The workout consisted of a series of 400s, 200s and 50 sprints. I do pretty well on the freestyle, but I still lag behind on the other strokes...a lot of room to improve here. Made tentative plans to meet up with Ed again this week for some coaching. Went home and took a long winter's nap.

Quick swim between holiday hoopla

Had a bunch of holiday shopping to do in the morning and the Tacoma Polo Club holiday party in the evening, so did a quick swim during the afternoon. The swim was OK, nothing all that great, but nothing bad either. My times were pretty consistent. I do need to bump up to a full hour soon though and switch my workout around, maybe add some more other strokes. We'll see what Ed has to say after my next private lesson. I also have to think about adding some time to my weekly schedule to do the small weights, biometrics and ab work that Ed wants me to do.

Full fencing

No swim or run today, I decided to take it easy on my back for a day since it was a little sore from pushing a little too hard on my run on Tuesday. That did give me the chance to go into fencing fresh though, which I haven't done in a long time...usually fencing follows two other workouts and I'm pretty tired out. I did really well beating two people that I've never beaten before. I tried out my flesch a couple times and had very good point control. The trick is going to be creating this feeling when I am tired out after other workouts. I certainly haven't done badly before, but if I could somehow reconstitute this kind of performance each time I'd do very well. I'm also doing very well with the strategy Allen set up for me.

Yoga time and first Friday swim with Salmon Bay

Did my Friday night yoga class at the fencing salle again. I'm starting to get a little better at everything...breathing, strength and flexibility. Still can't do the head or hand stands yet though.

The swim tonight with Salmon Bay went pretty well. I got a dehydration headache at one point, but I just sat out during a 200 and everything seemed to be OK after that. I'm still in lane 5 for now and usually lead the group in the sets. Probably be bumped up another lane soon though. We did a long warm up, 600 followed by a couple 100 descending sets. The workout was a 400, 300, 200, 100 freestyle with a kick in between each set starting with a 50 then 100, 150 and 200. Afterward, I went to a holiday party and had some tasty treats...swimming makes me even hungrier than rowing ever did.

Bouncing in a grid on Pet

Had my volunteer stint at UNICEF this afternoon so just had my jump lesson tonight. Laura set up a "grid" for us to jump through that consisted of two fences at "bounce" distance, a vertical a left turn and then another vertical. Pet and I did pretty well but I still have a lot of work to do. Watching Joan jump with Eli was probably the most useful thing for me. I finally got a good mental image on what was supposed to happen at the jump. My problem has been that I lean forward into the jumps rather than letting the horse come to me. I also had two great jumps doing all the right stuff, so with Joan's image and my two good jumps I should start improving my form. I'm still jumping 2'9" or so, another foot to go before my pentathlon height.

The Monday blues

I was all pumped up for the swim session today and didn't do that poorly. But, it certainly wasn't the great times that I saw about two weeks ago. I've decided that I wasn't to go back to the workout I was doing on my own, at least once a week. I was seeing progress and even though its good to deconstruct and look at my stroke in detail, I also want to keep some progress going.

The run later in the evening didn't go as well as I would have like either, but I think I know why considering the variables involved. I had eaten only an hour before, didn't stretch beforehand and hadn't run in quite a few days. I actually had to stop at one point for a bit and stretch my lower back. I really need to make sure I do a full stretch and warm up, even before these short runs.

Fencing too was acceptable, but my point control just wasn't there. I won two bouts and lost two bouts. I got some amazing shots, but missed a lot more of them. I'll be glad when I finally get all my new uniform and other equipment so I can focus in on making progress.

Faster swim, first treadmill

I did my 200yd about 10 seconds faster today which shows how much time I really have to make up...if you can take a full 10 seconds off your time, you've got a long way to go. The swim felt pretty good considering that I had just had a much of Mint Milano cookies after lunch.

The true test would come after swimming though. I did my first workout on a treadmill. It was really cold outside and I had wanted to try a treadmill for pace purposes anyway for a while now. The run itself went OK. I ran 20 minutes at a 7.5 mile pace. The treadmill control panel was pretty wet by the time I was done...I was sweating pretty hard. When I stepped off, I was a little dizzy, more from the end of the new motion than working too hard. My legs felt like they were 'buzzing' too, kind of like after you've used a power tool. I plan on doing a treadmill workout once a week, mainly to work on pace.

Good swim, FAST run and fencing beats

Nothing too spectacular about the swim today, other than I felt really good the whole way through, I was able to get my number of strokes across the pool down to 13 once, but still usually get 14 or 15.

The run, on the other hand, went really well. I ran Portage Bay and came in at 9:08...my fastest time ever (beat my previous time vy 20 seconds). I did have to push pretty hard and my legs got a little lactic towards the end, but I'm just psyched that I not only finished it, but finished it with a great time.

In Fencing tonight, we worked a lot with beat attacks. I still have a long way to go to get my bad habit of 'guessing' opponents moves. I need to work better on making assumptions and responding to what they do rather than just guessing. Allen has me doing some great drills that make me focus on this.

My first Salmon Bay Sunday swim

I did it! I finally made it to a Salmon Bay workout. I chose to start out in lane 2, the second slowest. In time I'm sure I'll move up a lane or two, but for now this was just right. I ended up being pretty fast for the lane in the freestyle, but behind on everything else so it worked out well. The warm up was 600yds freestyle with every fourth length being a stroke of your choice besides freestyle. The workout was a ladder fast up, slow down: 2 x 200yd swim, 3 x 100 yd swim, 4 x 50 kick then 4 x 50 swim, 3 x 100 swim 2 x 200 swim. After this we did 4 x 75 descending on the 2nd and 4th (descending refers to time, so faster...I kept messing up on this since in rowing it is the opposite, descending is slower). The whole workout lasted an hour and a half but seemed to go by very quickly. It actually reminded a lot of rowing, you just get in, do what your coach tells you to do and go. Kind of brainless compared to my YMCA workouts in which I'm always wondering what I'll do next. Overall, a good swim experience. I'll enjoy it for now, becuase I'm sure coach Ed will be pushing me up some lanes soon.

Saturday shoot, a super swim and a long slow run

After sleeping in until 11:00am (felt great!), I made my way to the Kenmore Range for my second shooting session at the range. I felt much more confident this time. My arm was a little stronger so my sights weren't moving all over the place and I felt more relaxed. Best of all, it showed in my shooting. My shots were more centered around the black area and I even got a 10 along with 2 nines. Going forward, I will be practicing shooting twice a week at home and shooting at the range on Saturdays. The air pistol league starts in April, so after a few months shooting with my Daisy, I hope to be up and running with Steyr by then.

I had a great swim this afternoon. I took another second off my 2 x 100yd times. I still haven't come close to my fastest time since I started getting coaching, but I'm happy to see the times coming down again. Once again, I kept my energy level up through the end of the workout. I'm feeling much more comfortable with the backstroke finally, which is good since I'm sure I'll need it for the practice tomorrow with Salmon Bay.

I did my long run around Lake Union this evening. It was a clear, cool night...perfect for a nice long, slow run. No problems at at all to report, my legs and feet felt great the whole time and I felt like I could go for another spin around the lake.

A little more swim

I added two more 200s to my swim today, trying to get up to the workout the Salmon Bay group is doing. Felt pretty good and I could have done more, but I wanted to stick with my original goal. The butterfly and backstroke are getting a little better too, but could still use a lot of coaching.

I went to a lecture on the International Snow Leopard Trust tonight, so didn't do my run or fencing tonight.

Fast swim, fast run, not so slow yoga

I had another great swim this afternoon. My times for the 100yd were pertty much the same, but my energy level stayed with me the whole workout. My pushoffs continue to improve as well.

In the run around Portage Bay, I bettered my time by 15 seconds. Still not my fastest time around Portage Bay, but I'm only 15 seconds away. Since my legs were a bit sore form riding which I hadn't done in a week and I had just finished swimming, I was pretty pleased with this time.

Finally, I went to the yoga for athletes class again tonight. I was much tighter starting off tonight that I usually am and many of my motions were faster than I would have liked. I seemed to be wanting to do the positions too much rather than just focusing on doing what I could do. But by the end of the class I did feel a little looser and more able to control my muscles.

Relax, ape arms and eyes on the shoulder

Tonight I attempted a seven jump course with Pet step. Although I finished the course several times, I never really got to the point of satisfying Laura...I still have a lot of detail work to do. In particular, I need to hold my hands/knuckles right - almost in an ape like position, hold my body right (not lean forward) and keep my shoulders back and up as if I had eyes on my shoulder looking over the jump. I also need to get used to keeping the horse under control in a two-point (butt off the saddle) by staying relaxed and trying to get 'responses' rather than 'reactions'. All that said, I felt pretty good about the whole thing. The jumping really highlights what I need to work on in my flat work. I also had a long talk with Laura after the lesson about pentathlon stuff. After the San Antonio camp, I would be able to come back with a training plan of the jumping...something I really need to put in place.

Faster swim, slower run, shorter fence

My swim today felt really great. I decreased my 100yd time by two seconds on two consecutive attempts. My push turns are feeling great and my backstroke continues to improve (at on the times that I have a free lane to do it, I'm still a little too chicken to try it with someone else in the lane).

I ran Portage Bay this evening. I came in under 20 minutes - which is good - but came in 20 seconds behind my fastest time - which isn't so good. But I was pretty pleased overall. My shoes were a little tight which stopped my from completely relaxing my feet. I still feel like I'm coming back from a week ago when my back was sore.

Had a short fencing night tonight. Most of the fencers were getting ready for a tournament in Ontario, CA. Since my weapon broke a last week I've been fencing with a club weapon which started having some problems tonight. With few fencers and a bum weapon, I decided to head home a little early. I did get in four good bouts though, so had a respectable night.

A swim, only a swim, but a faster swim

My legs were still a little tweaked from my long run yesterday and my fencing coach took the night off, so I only did a swim today. But it was a good swim. I was a little faster on my 100yd than my last couple efforts. I'm starting to get my turns down finally too. I even did two full laps of backstroke that actually felt pretty good.

Shooting setup, another long run and better fencing

This afternoon I spent sometime setting up a 'shooting range' at home in my basement. The range consists of a cardboard box filled with a stack of newspaper on end behind about 6 inches of crumpled up newspaper. I got the design from one of the pamphlets I got from Daisy. The home 'mini' range will be great because I can start doing a lot more practicing in the shooting event and be able to make mistakes in the comfort of my own garage.

After I set up I took 40 shots total (10 on each target). I was pleased that my are didn't fatigue at all this time and when I really visualized and focused I did pretty good. My best score is a 61 out of a 100, which is just fine for my first shooting. I'd like to get this up into the 80s before I by my next gun, a Steyr, in February.

I decided to go for a long run again this evening for a couple reasons: 1. for some reason, I felt that the Portage Bay was too short of a workout; 2. I wanted to see what running around Lake Union was like in the dark how well lit it is for example). I started again at the Pocock Rowing Center. The run felt really good and I did take some time off my last run, coming in at about 46 minutes this time. I think I will still keep the long runs down to one day a week. I have to keep in mind that I'm doing a sprint race and really need to work on this more than my long runs.

If I wasn't convinced that I only wanted to do long runs once a week, I was after fencing. Although I actually did very well in fencing tonight, my legs were pretty uncooperative for a while. I just put too much into the long run. Luckily, I was very relaxed and seemed to have good point control for once. I even got 9 touches on John Varney! I talked with Allen, my coach a little while after my bouts about ordering some new equipment. Looks like I'll have three weapons soon and a big bill to go with them.

Long run, quicker swim

I got my long run in for the week today, I ran around Lake Union which took about 45 minutes. It is about a 6 mile run, but I did about a 1.5 mile warm up running over to Pocock Rowing Center, my starting point for the run (and my old shell house). I did my 2 min off 1:30 on intervals. The run felt pretty good the whole way, my new shoes feel great. This will be a good bump up from my Portage Bay run and good training for running 5Ks. I had another good swim this afternoon. I still feel pretty tired out by the end of the workout, but at least my sprint times at the beginning of the workout are a little quicker. Not as quick as they need to be, but quicker. My backstroke is getting a little better, butterfly is still a mess though.

First shooting session and a good swim

With my new Daisy in hand I did my first full on shooting training session up at the Kenmore range. Bill, the range master that day, gave me a few pointers and I was on my way. I got about 15 of 40 shots in black area. Not very good at all, but not so bad for my first time either. My arm got tired pretty quickly, which was very evident in my last targets. But I has some really good shots as well. I made a couple corrections along the way, but really need to get some private lessons soon...probably after my San Antonio trip. The swim this afternoon went pretty well. I did my old workout, so it was nice to get back to something I was familiar and comfortable with. I did really try hard to do the push turns correctly though, which took a little time off my sprints. I'm still not back to my fastest times yet, but feeling much better about getting closer...at least until my next lesson when we do some more stroke deconstruction.

Catch up and first triple in a while

Whoops, its been a while since I updated my journal. With housesitting and all, I've been pretty busy.

I've had some OK workouts here and there over the past week or so, nothing spectacular. I just started back up running and swimming since my back had been giving me some problems for a while. Both fencing and swimming have been down a notch since I started in on lessons, but that was to be expected. Still not Daisy airgun yet. Finally, didn't do any riding during the Thanksgiving week. But now I'm back on track and focused as ever to try and get ready for the pentathlon clinic/camp I'll be attending in late December in San Antonio.

I did have my first triple in a while today. The swim actually felt pretty good...finally. I'm getting better at the turns Ed had me work on, just push turns for now. Getting a little better at the butterfly and back stroke too, but nothing to brag about yet. I hope to hook up with Ed once a week or so.

I did a little better in fencing tonight compared to most of last week. I do think it is mostly due to the club epee I'm using since my blade snapped last week. The club epee doesn't record my touches very well and the tip is bent in a weird way. I also discovered tonight that the blade is a lot more flexible than what I'm used to which is probably why my point control is not what it used to be.

Finally, I did a half hour interval run on the shores of Lk. Washington where I'm housesitting for the Robbins. Its has been a week or so since I did a full on run, so it will take a few runs to get back up to where I was before. But my new shoes feel pretty good so far.

First coached swim, new running shoes and fencing push

I finally hooked up with Ed from Salmon Bay swim club this afternoon. He liked my stroke overall - especially my hip motion - but started the long path of working on the details of my stroke and strategy. He corrected a small issue with my hand entry right away then we started work on my turns. We did push-offs at this point with the intent of getting the push right, then we'll start the flip turn later. By the end of the lesson I added about four feet to my push off and probably took about 4 seconds off my time. I still need to streamline a little better off the wall, but that's just a flexibility issue more than anything...getting my big rower's body to do really squeeze in off the wall. It will happen though.

After the swim I went up to the The Foot Zone to get my next running shoe. I think my eight month old shoes were part of the back and foot problems I've been having. The Foot Zone is one of the best places in Seattle to find outdoor and athletic shoes and clothing. I was really impressed with their video setup...they video tape you running on a machine to figure out which shoe is best for you depending on your running style. I got the Saucony Grid Web and some new active orthotics. It felt great, I can't wait to really put the new shoes to the test. Dick and Bonnie Robbins are sponsoring my running shoes, so a BIG thanks to them.

Finally, another fencing lesson. This time Allen had me work on pushing the blade. I still am trying to muscle the blade more than finesse it. By the end of the lesson I was doning OK, not overdoing it both in strength and motion, but it took a while to get there.

Fencing: new threads, new toy box

I slept through my swim time today...my alarm didn't go off. Whoops. But because I was home so late in the afternoon, I was around when my new fencing uniform arrived as well as the hard golf case in which I will put all my pentathlon stuff when I travel. My dentist, Dr. Cherberg, being an enthusiastic golfer and supporter, sponsored the golf case so a BIG thanks to him.

Fencing went pretty well tonight, I did very well against several people, not so well against others. Interestingly, I did better against the higher level people. I had great point control and did well with complex attacks too.

I just need get two new weapons (you have to have at least two working weapons for tournaments) and my name on my uniform and I'm ready to start competing!

A short but good swim

Finally made it back to the pool today after giving my back a rest for a few days. I don't think swimming would have bothered it that much, but I didn't want to take any chances. It felt really good to get in the water and get stretched out again. I only swam for about 45 minutes or so and did my old workout. I wasn't swimming as fast as would have liked, but it was good enough for now.

More yoga, more Salmon watching

My back still felt a little tweaked so, after a visit to the chiropractor, I decided not to do my long run this afternoon. Instead, I took a nap and looked forward to my yoga class tonight which would either prove difficult because of my back or feel really good...it felt really good. Breathing, opening up the rib cage, stretching, etc. all felt really great.

After yoga, I scooted over to the Queen Anne pool to hang out with the Salmon Bay swim club again. I'm still not swimming with them due to space-in-the-pool reasons, but I did get some more pointers and got the workout to do later. Once again, Ed gave me some really good pointers. We're going to try and meet up on Tuesday for my initial private lesson to get me started with the club.

Two nine and climbing

Pet and I had to spend a little time working on a bad habit of his...cutting corners. Once we got it worked out, we had a really great jumping lesson. I did a lot better with hands and body position and made it all the way up to 2'9" easily. I also did a lot more jumps from a canter which rally built up my confidence.

Running in circles and the best fencing lesson ever

Didn't do any horse riding today, with fall/winter upon us it was time to clip the horses so I spent the afternoon helping out with this.

I met up with a friend for dinner so didn't go to the Club Northwest training practice tonight. Instead, I wanted to try to run Portage Bay (PB) again since my run yesterday wasn't all that great. Had the same issue tonight though, my lower back fatigued very quickly. So rather than do intervals, I just did a steady state run around PB. I felt pretty good by the end of the run, but am still wondering why my back is giving me problems all of a sudden. Could it be new shoe time already?

Had a really great fencing lesson tonight. We worked on flesches, which is a skill I've been too chicken to try, always get hit with from my opponents and have always wanted to learn. Basically, its a pretty aggressive attack in which you jump/strike at your opponent and then run by them. I had to do a lot of slow motion attempts, but did get it eventually. Can't wait to try it in a real bout. Now I just need to learn how to defend against the crazy things.

Weekend report

It was a busy weekend for administrative pentathlon kind of stuff. A lecture on Crane conservation at the zoo on interrupted my evening training on Friday. I spent Saturday morning trying to organize my office at home and hoping that my Daisy airgun would arrive in time for a 2:00pm shoot time...it didn't. I did go to the range to meet up with Pam though. Turns out she was just doing a drive by as well as she and her husband were waiting for a tractor to be delivered at home. But I did get some pictures to post of Pam on our NW Pentathlon website.

We had a dinner/annual meeting/awards ceremony at Laura's house in Monroe. It was really great to finally gather all of Hilltop's students together. Rather than her usual beef bonanza, Laura put on a Pennsylvania Dutch dinner (the parents did most of the cooking this time). The dinner was fantastic! After dinner we talked about what was going on at the barn and Laura handed out her "awards" which were more gag gifts than awards, but it was fun. I also got a chance to meet up with Josh, a Pony Club member interested in pentathlon. I showed him my Australia pictures, talked about getting started up and made plans for me to hand off some of my old fencing equipment to him on Sunday.

I did my best to catch up with Salmon Bay swim club on Sunday, but neglected to read their website. Apparently there was a pool change and I was at a loss to find them. I tried Queen Anne pool, Ballard pool and Madison pool, their usual haunts. No luck. Found out the next day they were at the Metger Evans pool at Seattle University. I need to be more diligent about checking the site.

Met up with Josh at Hilltop to hand off my old fencing helmet and foils to get him started. I'm pretty excited to get him up and running, the more juniors the better.

Pet Step jumping

Had a great night jumping with Pet Step tonight. The trot and canter felt better than ever and the transitions went well too. We started jumping with crossrails, moved quickly to a vertical and finally graduated to an oxer. My real oxer jump! My only problem tonight was being confident and in control at the same time...I couldn't seem to get them both to happen together very often. This was primarily due to the fact that Pet was a little hot tonight, he had a little buck in him and he was very strong out of the fences. So, I spent a lot of time and energy keeping him under control, as soon as I did it was time to jump again and I felt a little unprepared...well at least not as prepared as I wanted to be. By the end of the night things were going smoothly though. With the right signals, Pet settled a bit and our last five jumps were picture perfect.

The Vesty challenge, more cross country and busy feet fencing

I had the usual problems riding Vesty this afternoon. He's a stinker at the start...he likes to over react to my commands and balance and just is an all around pill for the first 5-10 minutes or our ride. But with some confidence and a whip I think Vesty and I are starting to come to a better understanding. Generally, a tap with the whip will give him a little surge and get him out of his lazy funk. This time, I gave him a little more whip and from that point on he was perfect and I didn't have to use the whip again. Not only did the canter feel awesome, the canter transitions were the best I've had on Vesty.

I did pretty well at the cross country tonight. My times weren't all that incredible (my fastest mile being a 6:16) but I was pleased that I did do almost all of the workout that the full group did. That practice was 4 x 800 at tempo pace, 2 x 800 at 5k race pace and then 4 x 200 'strides' (building up to a full sprint over the distance). I did all but the two 800s at the 5k pace. Watching the other runners in the group fly by is inspiration for me to try harder and gives me constant visuals for where I need to get to.

Humbled again at fencing lessons. My main problem in these lessons continue to be that I'm doing too much. I want to keep moving my feet and arms and shoulders when it is not required of me. These things are great in bouts, but in the lessons, they are baggage. Its kind of like a horse doing dressage, you only need and should do what the coach asks of you. It took me a while to really focus enough to get rid of the extraneous motions, but I eventually did and seemed to break through a wall as far as finding, giving and taking openings. Alan's doing a great job of breaking down my bad habits and really making me focus at the task at hand.

Pam, another prospective pentathlete in training was there taking here fist foil lessons. We chatted a bit and made plans to meet up on Saturday to shoot new Daisy air pistols that will hopefully arrive in time.

Picking Daisies, PB pb stands and fencing zen

I ordered up my first gun today. No, not the fancy Steyr LP5 that I eventually want to get, rather a Daisy 747 air pistol. Yes Daisy, very likely the same company that made your first BB gun back when you were a kid. Although all of the pros have told me to go straight to the Steyr, I've noticed they all started with Daisies. Since the Daisy is about a tenth of the cost to get started, I decided to start just like everybody else. The Daisy will allow me to get the basics down, then move up to the Steyr in a few months when I will need and appreciate the fine tuning the Steyr offers. The Daisy has also won several competitions, so it won't be all that bad. And I figure it won't hurt having some extra airguns around for potential pentathletes that may just want to try it out. The gun should arrive on Thursday or Friday.

I hit the same time as last time for my Portage Bay run today. I'm happy with the time because I really wasn't warmed up all that well compared to last time when I had just come off a swim. I've bumped my 'on' interval up to a minute thirty seconds so should see times come down a little for the next month again.

At fencing tonight I really concentrated on stating relaxed and in the position Alan wants me to stay at, which is basically the en guarde or six position. I won two and lost two bouts. I did do very well against Clarke though when I stayed very relaxed and just let him come into me. I decided that I do want to get different uniform material though, my current Uhlmann doesn't have much stretch to it.

More Salmon watching, a wet run and another good swim

I started the day by watching another Salmon Bay swim practice. I wanted to catch up with Ed to set a time to get some private training, as well as get their workout so that I could try it later on. Hopefully Ed and I will meet up on Thursday and I put the workout into practice later this afternoon, but not before my long run.

I did my long run (which I was supposed to do on Friday) today right before lunch. Nothing too spectacular about the run, it was at a medium pace with the intent only to run for an hour. It did start pouring rain in the last ten minutes though. Yuk. I came in about a minute and a half before my full 60 minutes. I felt good the whole run so will probably start adding a little more time each run going forward. Back to speed workouts on Monday.

Had a really good swim today. I got almost all of the way through the Salmon Bay workout. The warm up was a 600 swim, a 3x 100 kick and a 4 x 75 IM. The IM was slow and pretty sloppy, but I did it (with the one handed version of the butterfly). The workout consisted of 10 x 200s, one as a pull, the next as a hard swim and so on. I did five of these. I think I could have done all ten, but I wanted to get to the shoe store in time to try on some shoes. Turned out they were already closed. Regardless, I was pretty happy with the swim. I even did a little better at the backstroke.

The good swim

I didn't end up swimming with Salmon Bay on Friday since I hadn't had a chance to meet up with Ed yet for some personal training, I wasn't in any rush to get in and make a fool of myself on the backstroke and butterfly. I did have a great swim today though. I was able to do about three quarters of the Salmon Bay workout...finally. Still working up to their full workout though. I did some attempts at butterfly that felt pretty good (just a one armed version with kick).

First shots fired and more jumping faster

Today, I took my first shots with an air pistol...a pretty major milestone. I was actually trying out a Steyr LP5 that belonged to a gentlemen I was referred to from Pilkington Competition Equipment. John is a great guy. Not only did he let me use his gun, he gave me lots of pointers for my first shots. I didn't do too bad, I got 4 out of 7 shots in the black circle. But it really made me want to get my shooting going. And now I know that eventually I will buy a Steyr for sure. I may end up going for a Daisy for a while. Remember the BB gun you had as a kid, it was probably made by Daisy. The Daisy air pistol is about a tenth of the cost of the Steyr I will buy, but at least the Daisy will get me started - and - I've been told that people have wond some competitions with the Daisy.

Had another good jumping night with Pet tonight. Had the same old issues of him being really strong out of the jumps, but overall had a really good session. I do need to work a lot on keeping my shoulders up during and after the jump, but Laura gave me a good visual for this so I should be able to correct it quickly. Pet seems to want to jump the fences higher than he needs to...maybe we need to raise the fence.

Better swim and caught 22

The swim felt a little better today. My technique felt a little better and I was able to set and reach some small goals in time and finishing the workout I intended. If all goes well, Friday is the big day for starting to swim with Salmon Bay.

The run at Greenlake went really well. I felt great through the whole run and ended up with a 21:36, my fastest time around Greenlake by 10 seconds. I still have a lot of time to chip away, but boy does if feel good to dig in on this one. The sub 22 has been eluding me since my return from Sydney, but I finally got it! Its amazing how accomplishing such small goals boosts your confidence...I'm ready to push for the next goal.

Very good Vesty, fist X-country mile and deconstructing fencing

Had a very good ride on Vesty this afternoon. His trot was the best I've ever felt and the canter transitions were really smooth. Hopefully, we're finally getting into a groove.

I ran my first cross country mile tonight at Greenlake. The workout was 5 x 1 mile on a course that went on grass, asphalt and trail. I only did three of the runs because 1. I had to save a little for fencing lesson later and 2. I went out on the first one a little too fast and was really tired after the 3rd one. I think I could have finished all 5, but my time would have dropped by quite a bit and fencing would have been no fun at all. I was pretty pleased with how I did though. Its the fastest consistent miles so far.

I was humbled once again at fencing lessons tonight. I seem to be trying way to hard, holding to strong and going too fast. But Allan is great with keeping me focused on the right things. This deconstruction phase, which will eventually replace my bad habits with good ones, is pretty humbling. You feel like you've lost all the skills that you've used up until now. Leeps backward for a small step forward. The same thing is happening in my swimming right now. I've survived it in my riding, so I'm sure I will make it through here.

Bonked the swim, blew the run out of the water

I did a scaled down version of the Salmon Bay workout I tried on Sunday. It still seemed a little out of my reach. I did add more backstroke laps and even tried a couple lengths of butterfly kick. I've found that mixing up the workout does tire me out much more quickly than sticking to a regular routine. Since the club will be doing more mixing than regular, I'd better get used to the mixing. Similar to my fencing, my swim performance has slid backwards in response to the 'deconstruction' phase I'm going through. Taking everything apart and really focusing on the details. My swim times are way down from my best times...I just hope this phase doesn't last too long.

Unlike the swim, tonight's run went really well. I beat my Portage Bay time by around 30 seconds. More importantly, not only did I break the 20 minute time that I've been aiming for for so long, I beat it by a full 30 seconds. Nice! And, the whole run felt great no muscle or cardio fatigue at all. Next month I move my 'on' interval time up to 1 minute 30 seconds, so times should get a little faster again.

Watching Salmon Bay, then doing

Started the morning by watching Salmon Bay. They had a pretty intense workout today. I wrote down both the warm up and workout so that I could try it in the afternoon in my swim. Ed said it was the kind of workout I would be doing two months from now, so I knew it would be quite a challenge.

The swim this afternoon was everything I expected...a challenge. I did the first two parts of the warm up OK - a 200 pull and a 200 kick. But after that it became very clear that I wouldn't be swimming with the big boys and girls for quite a while. I may have been able to pull off some fast times before, but it was evident that I didn't have speed AND endurance. I ended up doing half to three quarters of the workout the club did. I also did some kicking on my back and even tried a length of backstroke. The backstroke was really slow and I'm sure it looked horrible, but you have to start somewhere. I stuck with the workout for the full hour and a half that the club had practiced for earlier today, a half an hour more that I usually swim for. I was tired and hungry, but felt great. Looking forward to Friday at Salmon Bay.

Doing yoga, watching Salmon Bay

I helped my little sister, Steph, move in to a new place today nearer to the Art Institute, so didn't do my long run today. I did make it to a 'Yoga for Athletes' class tonight at Salle Auriol though. I was really looking forward to starting yoga back up, both for the mental and physical aspects, and was really interested in the 'for athletes' part. The class was great! Once again, I left a yoga class shaking. The positions, twists and yes even an attempted head stand, left me pretty tuckered out, but feeling great. I think the twists especially will be great for swimming.

Then it was off to watch Salmon Bay Swim Club again. Got a lot more pointers from Ed this time, including several drills to start working on. I should start swimming with them next Friday, November 3rd.

Jump jive

On Thursdays I only have my jump lessons...and boy what a great jump lesson it was! Tonight I learned a lot more detail about where my feet should be in a jump, how to prepare for the jump, and most importantly what to do with my butt. I was riding Pet tonight, the horse I will be doing most of my jumping on for a while. I had some difficulty in the drill portion of the lesson doing the right thing with my butt and shoulders, but when it was time for jumps, it all came together. I really had some great jumps that felt great and boosted my confidence. I have a lot more technique work to do, but I will be slowly inching towards the 3'9" high fences I will need to jump too.

Swim, run, fence...third triple

I took the swim a little easy today as my body was still recovering from the ride/run/fence combination yesterday. My inner thighs were pretty tight (I hadn't ridden in over a week) and my right thigh especially was tight (from the fencing lessons I took). And then of course my legs were recovering from the fast runs I did at the first running practice I did. My upper body seemed a little stiff too, not sure from what, maybe the fencing lessons. But the swim went OK. My 50yd times were :35, which isn't bad considering my state. Technique felt pretty good too.

The run tonight at Greenlake felt awesome, the best I felt in a long time. But the time wasn't all that great...five seconds slower than my last time. I'm hoping that its the heavy workouts that I've had over the past two days that explain this one because like I said, the run felt great.

Nothing spectacular out of fencing tonight. I beat a couple people and lost to others. Did five bouts all together. I did fair in most of them scoring up into the teens against my opponents, but they seemed to beat me in the end. But once again, after two days of heavy workouts, I was pretty pooped and so was pleased that I could put for the energy that I did.

Vesty and running and fencing firsts

I had my afternoon ride today on Vesty. Had the usual issues at the start, he likes to over-react to little things I do. But we soon got into it and kept a pretty good trot going. Had some great canter transitions though. Vesty did have a few good trips though, both in the front and back end. Its just something I've come to accept...Vesty trips a lot. He got a little fast towards the end of our session, but I think that he's not doing a lot of work right now. I'm going to look into joing a lesson Laura has at 4:00 on Tuesdays to see if I can start a second jump lesson a week.

I made it to the Club Northwest (CNW) run tonight. I thought I had missed it last week as I arrived at about 6:40pm. Turns out that they meet between 6:30 and 7:00 to warm up then do their workout at 7:00. So I was early last week, not late!

Training with CNW will no doubt push me in the run event. CNW is made up many of the areas elite cross-country runners. And boy do I have a long way to go. The workout was 4x1000m at 5K pace with a 1:30sec break in between, then a five minute rest, then 3x800m at 3k pace with 1:30sec rest. I did the last two 1000m and one of the 300m. I got a 4:03 and a 4:16 on my two 1000m and then a 3:07 on my 800. The 3:07 800m would equate to a 6:14 mile. Wow! Not bad. And I felt pretty good. This time is a minute faster than I ran in the 5k Glove Run on Saturday. I discoverd that my legs actually feel better when I run faster. I'm really looking forward to working with CNW, my runs should improve dramatically.

I had my first fencing lesson with Alan tonight. As I expected, I have a lot of things to work on. I was too fast, my positions were sloppy, I predicted his moves rather than waiting for the correct clues, etc. Alan slowed me way down and made me really focus on correct fencing. He also is in contact with Mike Jones, a former pentathlete in Seattle, a lot and is getting some good training plan advice from him.

Swim, run, fence

It my swim today, I got my 50 yd time down to :34. Actually I had done two laps at :35 and then did two at :34. I like. If I could do these as a 200yd, it would mean that I'm doing a 2:16, which I would be pretty happy with at this point in my training. I am taking about a minute and a half rest in between laps right now though, so I have a long way to go be actually do a 200 in 2:16. But I will slowly take my rest time down until I can do it all in a row.

I ran the track today for my running training. My legs felt a little wobbly from the hard swim, but in the end I did a 6:58 mile. Not my best time, but better than I've done lately.

Fencing was Ok tonight. I won some bouts, I lost some bouts, but for having already done a big swim and a run, I was pretty happy with my performance. I fizzled towards the end of my last bout, losing a little off my point control and missing a few shots. That's OK, they will come back with more experiences with triple workouts. I did confirm with Allan to start my fencing lessons on Tuesday. Yes!

Watching Salmon Bay swimmers, then doing

I went over to watch the Salmon Bay masters swim club this morning this morning at the Queen Anne pool. When I observed them a couple weeks ago it was at the Madison pool up north late on a Friday night, so there weren't many people. This time the pool was full so I could get a better feel for what to expect and where I would fit in. I talked with Ed, the coach for quite a while about swimming basics. I will be hooking up with him for the next month or so for some individual lessons.

I did my own swim in the afternoon to try out a few of the pointers Ed gave me. I did a different warm up for starts and then during 4 50yd sprints brought my time down to :36, which - if I could do the four laps contiguously - would mean I'm doing a 2:24 200yd. Not bad.

The Glove Run

I hadn't done any training for the two three days for various reasons: no riding on Thursday because I had to volunteer at a Nordstrom event, nothing on Friday as I was taking it easy for my first race since I started my pentathlon training...The Roman Meal Glove Run down in my hometown of Steilacoom. Our Steilacoom homecoming was the night before and since I am the alumni coordinator I was pretty busy for that. But the run would make this a special homecoming for me as this was the first race I ever ran, back when I was in middle school.

I was feeling pretty good the morning of the race, a little tight if anything. I can't say the race felt good or bad, but I definitely wasn't too pleased with my final time. For a 5k I ran a 22:42 which was about a 7:19 mile. Not my quickest time by far. I know I had some opportunities on the down hills, I slowed way down and several people passed me here. Not much else to say other than looking forward to my next 5k to see if I can better the time.

A good Greenlake and fencing - present and future

I had a good night at Greenlake. I didn't improve my time any but I could tell that wouldn't be the case during my warm up, my legs seem to still be a little out of it.

I started with a 5 minute erg piece on the rowing machine at the the GL rowing club. Not much, but I need to slowly build up my rowing again. It felt really good to be back in the rowing seat again though.

As I mentioned, I could tell in the warm up for the run that it wouldn't be my best time...and I was right. I felt like my body was wanting to go faster than my feet would take me. My lower legs, both shins and calves, fatigued about half way through the run, but by the end they were feeling a little better. My sprint at the end actually felt really good. I need to bring a bit of the finaly sprint into each of my sprint intervals.

Great night of fencing. I fenced five bouts and won 3, losing to Varney - by a lot - and to Brooks by only one point. Sometimes my point control was there, sometimes not, but I did get a lot of shots that I was really trying for which I'm pretty pleased with. Also talked to Alan about starting up my lessons. Can't wait!

An extra Greenlake run and late swim

I somehow missed the cross country group last night at Greenlake (GL). I think I joined up with the wrong group and then by the time I realized this the other group gathered at the track had already taken off. So, I just did my regular run around GL. I was doing it at about 80% mainly because I wasn't sure what to expect after my shins freaked out on me yesterday and it was dark and I had not run the lake in the dark before (you never know where the important dips and wholes might be). But I actually came in at the same time as my TPB so far. I was quite surprised and pleased.

So pleased that I decided to squeeze in a swim after my run since I had missed it in the afternoon due to a late nap. The swim actually felt pretty good as well. I didn't do any timed pieces, but could feel that I was swimming pretty efficiently.

A no-fun run and quiet fencing night.

I was looking forward to my track run today, even though it was very cold and pouring rain when it was time to do it. This hasn't been a problem in the past, but I'm hoping its at least part of the reason that I had a really bad run workout today. Timewise it wasn't so bad, it was only about 10 seconds slower than my last track run and considering how I felt, that's pretty good. For some reason, my shins just weren't in running mode today. They fatigued before I even finished the first lap and stayed really tight until the very end. No fun! I must have taken up some weird running technique in the rain or something. My feet were a little heavier since they were really wet, but this hasn't been a problem before. I couldn't figure out anything obvious with my technique but boy were my shins tight. I ran and walked a couple laps to settle them down afterwards, but hoped it wouldn't affect my fencing that night or happen again tomorrow when I join the cross country group for a run.

Fencing had a pretty rough start tonight. George and I were pretty equal during warm up, but he beat me in the actual bout, 5-4. Yeah, I was working on getting specific shots rather than going for whatever was open, but my point control was way and I missed some clear shots. I got some really good ones too, but not consistently. I then fenced a new fencer, did really well in our warm up and should have beat him in the bout, but didn't he was just way too big and out of control for me. Not please with that at all. I then fenced Helene who I did very well against then Craig Brooks, my fencing nemesis, who I also did well against. Finally, I fenced epee with one of the foilists in the club, Jan. Its always fun fencing foilists, they're much more active on their feet and just a lot more bravado with flicks and flesches and all that fancy stuff. Jan beet me 15-11 but I really had a good time fencing him and in the end it really showed where I needed to work on some things, especially that illusive foot touch.

A new run workout

Eventually, I will be swimming with Salmon Bay on Sunday mornings, but since that doesn't start until November, and I had major cabin fever, I decided to add a new running workout to my run training.

Boyer avenue that runs in front of my house has a very slow slop downhill. I've been told by many runners, that such a hill is great for speed training. The run is about 800m so its perfect for a sprint then walk/jog recovery. My time for the sprint was about 2:45. According to my calculations, I need to get this down to a 2:24. Doable, very doable, especially with some better shoes. I only did three sets this time, decreasing my time each set. I eventually will do 5 and maybe even 10 at some point.

I start training with a cross country group, Club Northwestt, on Tuesday. Really looking forward to it as I've never done cross country, yet this is what I will have to do for the pentathlon. I've also decided to run in the Roman Meal Glove Run back in my hometown, Steilacoom, on October 21st. This was the first run I entered...way back in elementary so it will be a great milestone for me to go back and do this race. Its also the day after our homecoming at Steilacoom. Since I'm the alumni coordinator for our high school, the race will make it quite a homecoming for me to be sure.

Slow, sore swim

I eventually will swim with Salmon Bay Swim Club on Fridays after boxing, but since I don't start it up until November I saved my swim for Saturday. It was a slow, sore swim for sure. The boxing left me with a lot of little sore muscles in my upper body. You know, the muscles you didn't know you had. Swimming seemed to hit all of them too. Overall, the swim felt good though.

The long run and back to boxing

I did an hour long run today to get back into the long run mode. My longest run has been an hour and a half, but I decided to go for an hour this time. Should have gone for the hour and a half! It felt like a walk in the park. I was going at a pretty slow pace, 7.5 minute mile or so. My legs felt awesome the whole way and my breathing barely increased at all. Next time I may throw in some intervals or do it at faster pace.

Turned out, I was glad I just did the hour run after all. I started up my boxing (its actually a "Boxfit" class...no really boxing) class again tonight and I needed every bit of energy I could muster. Boxing has helped a lot in my fencing, particularly with upper body speed and better footwork. It definitely gets you in shape too though. I sweat more in boxing than any other workout I do. I'll be doing the class once a week as crosstraining.

Riding young Dundee

My new training schedule has me doing just a ride on Thursdays, kind of a day off or at least a 'low-key' day in the middle of the week. I found it was pretty hard NOT to do something to fill my time, I almost did a swim but decided to stick to the schedule I've set up. I'm sure I'll come to really appreciate the down day later.

Tonight I rode a new horse, Dundee, who belongs to Julia. Dundee is a pretty young horse off the racetrack. According to Julia he can either be a little slow or quite rascal. The ride actually went really well though. Laura had just spread a shoe turf bail on the barn, so we weren't doing any jumping...we wanted to let the horses get used to the new feel for a while. But the flatwork on Dundee went really well. The trot was incredibly smooth, I felt really relaxed and in control. I didn't have to fight Dundee as much as I did with Pet, Howie and Vesty who were just strong horses that wanted to go fast. We did some straight line work, which Laura was really pleased with and then went into some canter work. The canter was fast to start but it soon settled and we had some great transitions as well. Laura and several other commented that I had a really good ride. Hopefully I can bring this into my rides with Pet and Vesty.

OK run, great fence and plans for escalating both

Did my Greenlake (GL) run tonight. Although it felt great as I was running, I was about 30 seconds behind my last GL time. This may have been because my right leg was still really sore from fencing on Monday. Regardless, I will be working on bringing this back down. I did get a chance to talk with Jesse, one of the Greenlake runners who coordinates the cross-country group which meets on Tuesday night. There are also a couple of cross-country events coming up that I can drop in to watch and get a feel for. I may even enter the second one on the 28th. We'll see. In any case, with structured coaching in both general running and cross-country, I should see my times start to drop more.

Fencing went really well tonight. I won 3 out of 4 bouts that I fenced, losing 15-14 to a visiting fencer who is a B level fencer from the east coast. My point control seems to be getting a lot better and I am much more relaxed and diverse with my attacks. After my bouts, I spoke a while with Alan Evans about starting a training plan. Alan is a great coach and is really into what he does. He also knows Mike, one of the former pentathletes in the Seattle area and knows a few of the other pentathletes from the fencing circuit. I'm really looking forward to starting up with him.

First triple: ride, swim, run

I had my first triple workout today starting with an afternoon ride, then a swim in the evening, followed by a run. I not only survived, I performed pretty well getting a training personal best (TPB) in swimming and very close to one in running. They are not competitive times yet, but getting closer.

I rode Vesty today for riding. Looks like I'll be riding Vesty for flat work and Pet for jumping for a while which is great because both will allow me to progress in the respective skills. I had the usual issues/games with Vesty starting up, had to get a whip even to really get him going well...didn't have to use it, just make sure he knew that I had it. We had some struggles when it came to getting his head down and keeping the rythem, but once we got past these issues and into the canter all was well. The canter transitions are still a little messy, but there getting there. Vesty is very good a predicting my moves so he's usually a little ahead of the actual commands which is why he wants to rush in to the transitions. By the end of the session though, we were as smooth as butta.

The swim went really well. I got my 50m time down to 36 seconds, etching ever closer to the target 30 seconds. My 100m was once again a 1:20 which needs to get down to a 1:00 or so. The rest of the swim felt great as well both in strength and technique. I'm looking forward to starting up with Salmon Bay...hopefully this Friday.

With two sports down, I went into the run not expecting much. My legs were sore from my first day back fencing on Monday, and riding and swimming certainly took their told as well. BUT...it felt great! I didn't fatigue at all ended up coming in at 20:04 which was 5 seconds faster than my last Portage Bay time! It is still not the sub 20 I was looking for, but closer.

Pretty pleased for my first triple. I should be able to do three events in the same order as the actual pentathlon...swim, ride, run. On Saturdays, I may even be able to pull off a full pentathlon practice.

The fast track and first fencing in a while

The pool was closed today due to heating/electrical problems so I went right to my track workout this afternoon. I took 20 seconds off my mile time and actually felt pretty good after the mile. I'll be keeping track of my 1/4 mile, mile and 3K times from now on to track my progress. I'll be starting to do some cross-country running soon too to get more experience in that. Should be able to do this with the Greenlake group on Wednesdays, but I will also enter some races as well.

Fencing tonight went well considering it was my first time fencing in about a month. I did the half hour footwork drills and then fenced three bouts, winning all three. I fenced one of the young whippersnapper foilists right off the bat. Foilists, especially very good young ones, have a very different style...they hop around a lot and like to wip a lot and this guy was a classic case. But I beat him in the end. Did pretty well against the the other fencers, but once again, George - one of our senior fencers - kept me humble. I beat him, but just barely at 13-15. Since I didn't want to push my lunging legs and arm too much on my first night back I just watched others fence for the rest of the night. We'll see how my legs feel tomorrow.

The good swim

Had a great swim today, it felt really good both in strength and technique. I'll be noting my 50m, 100m and 200m times now to see how I'm doing in the shorter sprints as well as the full 200m. I'll have my first swim with the Salmon Bay Club (SBC) on Friday but will try to get in some lessons with Ed, the SBC coach sometime soon.

Jump coach, jump!

Today I went down to watch my riding coach, Laura, compete in the show jumping portion of a three-day eventing competition. I still want to get as many visuals of riding as possible as I start to get into higher fences myself and technique gets more important. Laura did great and with a very low dressage score from the day before, she is in a good position going into the cross-country tomorrow.

Jet lag and Bay watching...Salmon Bay that is

I was feeling very jet lagged today so didn't get a run or swim in. I did make it to the master's swim club that I will be swimming with though, Salmon Bay Aquatics, just to check it out. There are several national level swimmers so should be able to improve my swim times just in our club competitions. I think I'll fit in pretty well. I need to get some lessons on some of the other strokes, backstroke, butterfly, etc., but I don't think I'll have any problems keeping up. I will be swimming with them twice a week...Fridays and Sundays.

First track run and Pet jumping

I planned on a swim this afternoon, but the fall schedule went into effect while I was in Australia so the time that I normally swim was now a family swim. So I decided to start my track runs, which I will do once a week, to see how I'm doing for both my mile time and my 3k time. There is a cinder track at a community center/park very near my house so it will be a perfect place to train for the 3k cross country that I will run in pentathlon. Both my mile time and my 3k time were longer than I expected, but this may be due to the fact that its been a while since my last run and I am still VERY jet lagged. Lots of room for improvement here but since I was taking about 30 seconds off each run before I left, it shouldn't be long before I'm getting times that I like.

At riding tonight, I was back on Pet...and back to jumping. I was really excited to start jumping again. For the jumping, we worked quite a bit on moving my hands up Pets neck and shooting my rear out of the saddle at the jumps. All went pretty well, I haven't lost too much since my last training session. I just need to remember to get into two point at the right time before the jump and to keep my knees bent. We got to about 2' tonight on the highest jump. I have another 2 to go for pentathlon height.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 11

I went down to the beach cafe to get my favorite chocolate muffin and fresh squeezed juice called the "triathlete" (orange, pineapple and melon) then it was off to the city to get my pictures developed and watch the athlete parade at noon. I ended up catching up with Heather, the pentathlon ticket queen. We went up the big tower in Sydney, had a bite for lunch then it was off to the parade. Afterward, we both went back to Coogie to hang out on the beach. Got my last shake from the Copenhagen ice cream shop then it was off to bed as I was leaving at 5:30am for my trip back to the states.

I've had a great time in Australia. Australia is kind of like a cross between souther California and Europe. Very hip, very laid back yet sporty. I look to coming back someday and checking out more of the country.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 10

With the pentathlon events - and the whole Olympics - over, I was looking forward to a little down time. I went for a final run in the morning along the beach all the way up to Bondi this time. I went into town for some gift shopping, then came back to just relax on Coogie Beach. Eli and Justen left at around 6:00pm so all was quiet for the night. Went to bed early for once.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 9 - Women's Pentathlon

My alarm was set for the wrong date, so I ended up missing the shooting portion of the women's event. But I arrived to find out one our US athletes, Emily, was in the lead after the shooting.

I did get to watch Emily and Mary Beth fence each other, once again the fencing starts by fencing your own teammate. Mary Beth one, she was pretty psyched. The men yelled a lot when they one, the women did to, but about two octaves higher. Yikes. And the women were just as intense as the men, maybe moreso.

Emily came was in first after the first two events, Mary Beth in 3rd. So now it was off to the pool. Both did pretty well, so remained in their places.

Both did well in the jumping as well so the run started with Emily in front and Mary Beth in 4th. But...Stephanie Cook of Great Britain was well known to be the best runner and was only staring off 27 seconds behind Emily, in 7th place. It turned out to be an incredible run with Stephanie slowly picking off the other runners. She finally caught Emily at about 400m from the finish line so Emily came in 2nd with another Brit coming in 3rd.

It was an incredible finish with Emily coming in 2nd. This was the first time the women's pentathlon has been in the Olympics and for a non-European to place was a pretty big deal. Also, Emily had introduced Stephanie, the winner, to the sport while attending Oxford...what a great story.

In the evening I hung out in Darling Harbour on my own to watch the closing ceremony fireworks. I bought a little dinner at a cafe just at the end of the pedestrian bridge at Darling Harbour and watched the closing ceremonies from there on a 13" TV. The fireworks after the ceremonies were synchronized in three locations thorghout the city and lasted for a half an hour. There were also fireworks going from building downtown buildings all over the place. Impressive and a great way to finish things off.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 8 - Men's Pentathlon

Today was the big day. We all got up at 4:30 to head out to the park to make sure we got good seats for the first two events, shooting and fencing, that would be held in one of the pavillions.

We met up with Chad Senior's parent's at the park and tried to find a place with coffee and breakfast snacks. Guess the Olympic organizers hadn't really planned for a competition to start at 6:45 in the morning because nothing was open. We survived without coffee for a while and got some great seats to watch the fencing (not much to watch in shooting that was taking place at one end of the pavilion so we wanted good seats for the fencing).

Chad and Velizar both did pretty well in the shooting, but not spectacular. Chad on the other hand, had an exceptional fencing event and came out in first place. Countries with two athletes start off by fencing each other. What a way to start...fencing your teamate. Velizar won the first bout over Chad. Pentathlon fencing is pretty fun to watch. Since it is one touch fencing, the athletes get pretty psyched when they get their touch. Some of the guys got really into it, jumping up and down and the like. In the end, it was Chad that came out on top.

We did OK in the swimming event, Chad came in second, putting him in 1st place overall going into the show-jumping event. Three events down, two to go.

Next, we were off to the baseball stadium for the last two events. Show jumping and then the run. The athletes start by walking the jump course, pacing off the distance between the fences to figure out how many strides their horse will take. Then, the draw for the horses...one of the wild cards in the pentathlon is that athletes ride unfamiliar horses. All the horses have ridden the course and the riders that rode them provide a summary of the ride as well as their comments on the horse. Chad got a horse named "Riverine". Turns out Riverine wasn't one of the best horses to draw. Chad knocked down four fences, which surprised a lot of the people that know him as he is a pretty good rider. Velizar did pretty well and ended up in the lead in a tie with another athlete, so both of them would start out first in the run.

It became pretty clear that Velizar wouldn't have his best run. We found out after the event that his legs started to spasm about halfway through. Chad didn't have a great run either. According to his family and friends, he did have it in him to get into a medal spot, even though he started off fifth. Well, it didn't happen. I was told later that Chad is one of those athletes that is going for the gold or nothing at all. Once again, to family and friends it was apparent that he wasn't giving the run his all.

It ended up that the Russian, who started the run in 7th place, came in first. It was quite an upset for Chad and the US. He was doing so well early on, only to lose the momentum in the ride.

It was back to New Balance for dinner, where things were pretty somber. We looked forward to the women's event the next day.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 7

This morning I set off early again to watch the men's platform diving preliminaries. Besides athletics, I figured diving is another one of those sports that you don't get a chance to see live very often so this would be a good Olympic viewing choice. The US did OK, but nothing too impressive. The Chinese really did some impressive dives. After diving it was back to New Balance, a little souvenir/gift shopping, then back to the hotel for a change of clothes before going out.

While waiting for the bus a good friend from Seattle, Mike, ran by during his evening jog. I knew Mike was in town, but didn't know how to get ahold of him. Pretty small world to run into him along Coogie. We made plans to catch up later at a bar where a bunch of the swimmers had turned up the night before. It was his brother's birthday, so I was to plan for a long night. Back to New Balance for dinner, then a little stroll around downtown before meeting up with Mike. As usual, Darling Harbour was full of people so I had a good time just people watching.

The bar I ended up catching up with Mike at happened to be one of the hottest drag queen clubs in Sydney. Surprise! Turns out that after the movie "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" that came out several years ago, Australia has become very proud of their drag queens. One of the drag queens in the movie happened to do her thing in this bar, so that's why it was so popular. That night we ran into more swimmers, a bunch of athletes from the French equestrian team and several of the Taekwando (sp?) teams, including the gold medalist. During the show, the drag queens really made a scene with Mike's brother since it was his birthday, as well as the gold medalist. My stomach hurt I was laughing so hard. Turns out, the Aussies are so proud of Priscilla and their drag queens that there will be a whole bunch of them in the closing ceremonies...should be quite a show.

I didn't stay out very late...had to get up at 4:30am to get out to Olympic park to get situated for the men's pentathlon.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 6

I got up extra early this morning to get to Olympic Stadium in time to watch all of the morning athletics. This time I was 26 rows back from where the decathletes were throwing discuss...more great seats. I also got to watch the qualifiers for the the women's high jump, as well as the women's 20k walk. One of the high points was an Aussie almost winning the women's 20k...until she was disqualified just outside of entering the stadium for bad walking form. Another high point...the WAVE around Olympic Stadium. Yes, I got to be part of a wave at the Olympics. I stayed to watch two pools of decathletes (one American was in each) and was then off the the Olympic Superstore. Took almost 45 minutes to get in! Once inside, it was quite a let down...they didn't have any sports specific stuff...well, at least not for pentathlon anyway. But I got some stuff and then headed back over to the New Balance center to update my webpage and have dinner. Planning on watching the fireworks along Darling Harbor tonight.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 5

Eli, Justen and I got up early to head out to Olympic Stadium to watch the morning 'athletics' (we call it track and field). It took us almost two hours to get there! But it was well worth it. This was my first visit out to the Olympic Park (aka Homebush). The entire park is huge and it was pretty breathtaking to walk up to Olympic Stadium after I'd seen so much of it on TV. And the day was beautiful after we had such lousy weather last night. Eli and Justen had seats way up in the bleachers which they had bought on the street the day before. I lucked out...the ticket I bought later the same day for less money was 23 rows up from the field right by the decathlon long jump. Pretty cool, I got some really great pictures of the men's 200, the decathlon long jump and various other events going on.

I had to leave the park early to catch a modern dance matinee at the Opera house. The route back to the trains that go to the city is about a mile walk. I got back to the new balance center just in time to have lunch and find out that we had been moved out of our cozy apartment right on Coogie Beach. I guess someone more important wanted. Bummer, but we're now right across the street in the Holiday Inn.

The matinee at the opera house was incredible. The performance was called "Skin" and included two individual dance pieces, the second included several artists that were in the opening night ceremonies. The first was nice, but didn't engage me. It was a troop of women dancing to half aborigine, half modern jazz music. The seconds was a troop of men and a small boy. It started with a native aborigine hanging himself then shifted in to dance and some singing dealing with some of the issues natives in Australia and New Zealand are dealing with today. The set was only a burned out car shell that was moved to many different positions for different acts. The final scenes were of one of the older performers sitting down and singing songs to his guitar. The last song was about how for a time, native children were taken from their real parents to be raised by white parents in hopes of civilizing them. Once again, I teared up at the end.

Then...back to the New Balance center for dinner. After that, I caught up with the cousins of one of my best friends Peter Barnes in Seattle. We went to the Lord Nelson pub in an area of town called The Rocks, the pub was just under the Sydney Harbor bridge. We had a great time and it was fun to be in a local pub when the Aussies cheer on their team.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 4

Eli and I headed into the city around 9:30 this morning. About half way in we figured out that our bus went right along where the women's bike race was going to be held so we decided to hop off and watch the start. We followed the helicopters and arrived at the start line just in time to see them take off. There was a big screen TV showing the race as they went through the course at the first turn, so we planted ourselves there and stuck around for several of the seven laps in the race. Pretty cool, definitely felt like I was at the Olympics. The riders were so close you could touch them. I'll be off to track and field tomorrow at the Olympic stadium to watch some of the decathlon events. The symphony tonight at the Opera House was fantastic. The arias were fantastic and the Maori dance/singing group that performed with the symphony were amazing. The men's parts were basically made up of a lot of shouting and stomping and it was pretty moving to see and hear this in concert with the symphony. The view from the opera house was spectacular as well, especially as there was a lightening storm as we left the building.

Sean Down Unda - First Sidney swim, first 50m pool...almost

I Stopped in to a pool just on the east side of Hyde Park for a swim that some people had mentioned yesterday when the other pool I tried was closed. Wow...this was a public pool. There were tons of people. There were ten lanes with at least 3-4 people in each doing laps...and this was midday! Unfortunately, they had split the 50m pool into two pools to 'accommodating' all the levels of swimmers that they would have with all the tourists. Bummer. In the other end of the pool they had some crazy show going for kids with a bunch of guys dressed up in the old style bathing suits (the ones with the black and white stripes) doing synchronized swimming. Didn't watch any of it myself. In another adjoining pool there was a big structure for children to play on. Lots of people around...it was kind of fun.

The workout went great with the exception of the hand-paddles. They wouldn't let me use them because the pool was too busy. The water was a little colder that what I'm used to as well so that was a new sensation

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 3

I started the day with a run with Eli, north from Coogee Beach where we're staying to almost Bondi Beach where the Olympic beach volleyball events are being held. The run along the beaches and cliffs lasted about 45 minutes and was incredible. See my pentathlon journal for more details.

Got my postcards down nice and early then headed over the the New Balance Pentathlon Center at the Maritime Museum for lunch. Getting meals free at the center is a great deal, especially since they are really tasty. The lunches have been incredible. After lunch I tried to update this website, but for some reason, I couldn't link up to MSN well. Gave up on that, came back down to meet up with Eli and his brother Justin. Amy showed up to let us know what tickets Heather, the ticket queen at the pentathlon center, had left. I was able to nab tickets to the men's diving prelims and track and field tickets later on in the week during which the decathlon will be starting up. Most of the tickets are really pricy...over $US100 which is out of my range. I also got a cheap ticket to track and field on Wednesday while Eli and Justen were waiting in line to get Equestrian tickets. They didn't get them, but did get some for weightlifting. They went off to weightlifting and I went off to go for a swim at a pool by the Royal Gardens. Along the way, I bought some really cool penthathlon pins (everyone's into trading pins here), a couple Sydney ones and a bunch of Russian ones.

The walk through the Royal Gardens was pretty neat. There are lots of birds mingling around, ibis in particular were pretty interesting. There was also a whole lane filled with flying foxes overhead. Really cool. I got lost for a bit in the succulent garden too, cactus, huge aloe vera plants and the like.

Turned out that the pool was closed. Bummer, no swim today, but I'll try another tomorrow. I then headed over to the opera house to check it out and hopefully buy some tickets. I'm not just satisfied with seeing the opera house...I want to see something in it. Tosca and la Traviata were playing, but I wanted to see something more, well native, Aussi. I ended up with at ticket to the New Zealand Sympathy with a mauri soprano that should be incredible, as well as a ticket to a performance called "skin" done by the same guy who did the aboriginal part of the Olympics opening ceremonies.

Then it was back to the New Balance center to catch up with Eli and Justen and grab dinner. The fish tonight was incredible, still don't know what it was though.

Finally, it was back to our apt. at the Coogie View. Long train and bus ride, it was very busy.

Sean Down Unda - Cliff run with Eli

Got up this morning and decided to head out for a run with Eli. I was a little nervous since he's much farther along in training that I am, but he wanted to just to a jog so it ended up that the rate felt pretty good. We headed north along Coogee Beach for a while, then along the cliffs that lead to Bondi Beach eventually, where the Olympic Beach Volleyball events are being held. The run was incredible...incredible views, incredible workout, incredible guy to run with. Can't really do justice to the views...cliffs, rocks, crashing waves, all of it. Even though it was cloudy, it was beautiful. The trail included pavement, dirt, grass, stairs, uphills, downhills...a little bit of everything. Once again, the run time was right at 45 minutes. Finally, Eli really is great guy. He's given me lots of pointers along the way and gave me many more during the run. I'm pretty lucky to be able to spend some time with him, get to know him and benefit from his pointers. He's only 22, but has a lot of wisdom.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 2

The Bremer boys didn't get in until 11:30pm last night, so I slept in until about 8:00am. Justen woke up first and we decided to go for a run. We eventually made our way into the New Balance/Pentathlon center for lunch and hooked up with Heather, the ticket queen, to figure out what events we would try to get into. I basically just bummed around for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to Coogie Beach to just hang out on the beach. Nice second day to settle in to Sydney.

Sean Down Unda - Beach run with Justen

I met up with Eli Bremer and his brother Justen on Saturday. They will be my roomates here in Sydney. Eli is training for the Pentathlon in Colorado Springs with several other pentathletes and his brother did them when he was younger too. This morning I went out running with Justen south along the cliffs, but since I had walked around Melbourne so much, my plantar fasciatis really started to bug me, so after we turned around to see what what was up north, I opted to stay on the beach and run bare-footed in the cold sand and water. The sand helped stretch out my ankle and the cold helped reduce the inflammation. I ended up running sprints on the beach with put me in for about a 45 minute run overall.

Sean Down Unda - Sydney Day 1

I arrived just fine to Sydney, but it went down hill from there...at least for a little while. I called the hotel for my free pick up to find out that the pentathlon organizers (UIPM) had overbooked. So I called the UIPM contact and was told to come out to the Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour where the UIPM and New Balance had a hospitality house, I would get further instructions there. The cab took about half an hour, then there I was...right in the middle of one of the main Sydney action centers, several of the venues are located here...boxing, fencing, volleyball, etc.

I was told that we'd be staying at the Coogie View, which was a ways out of town, but it was on the beach. I was a little nervous, had lunch, then left for my new home. WOW! It was an apartment right on the beach!!! Needless, to say, I was pretty happy. Since Eli (one of our up and coming pentathletes) and his brother - who I would be rooming with - were due to arrive in later, I did have to stay in to wait for their phone call, since as far as they knew, we were still at the original place. So I watched the Olympics...and the sunset. Not a bad way to start my Sidney stay at all.

Sean Down Unda - Melbourne Day 2

I started my day with a run around some of the sites around Melbourne. The Huge MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), which seats 105,000, along the Yarra River, by the rowing club houses, through Fitzroy Gardens, then back to Sibylle's. Then I had a quick breakfast at the George St. Cafe, just diagonal from Sibylle's place and finally set off for the city. I stopped in to the nearby Holiday Inn to check out tours down to see the penguins along the way. Hmmm, dilemma...the tours takes off at 1:30 and gets back at 11:30pm. It includes a stop at a sheep station and Koala Conservation Center, but I'm not sure if I want to be gone for the whole day and get back so late. After thinking about it in the gardens for a bit then walking around downtown, I met up with Sibylle to catch the view from the Shell building where she works...incredible, you could see all the way to the ocean. Then we had a quick lunch and I was off again. This time to look for some aboriginal artwork...that I could afford! I found a great little shop and bought a 5x7 of "flying ants dreaming". The aborigine style is a kind of large pointillism and the 'dreaming' genre reflect much of their spiritual and cultural heritage. The little painting, done by a 10 year old, is in reds and yellow, the original colors they aborigines used before westerners brought in many more dies and color schemes.

With my artwork purchase finished, I headed up to check out the university, walked through the Carlton district known for its Italian feel and finally back over to Fitzroy to have a spot of tea and cake before heading back to Sibylle's. She was having a dinner party with some friends from work. I took a quick nap and woke up to an incredible seafood paella smell. We ended up watching the Olympics most of the way through the dinner, including a show called "The Dream" which is two comedian-sportscasters that interpret the days Olympic happenings. Pretty funny stuff. I'll try to update on further The Dream shows later, it runs every night.

Sean Down Unda - Melbourne run

I bought this great book on runs in different cities around the world and decided to try the Melbourne one out. It took me around the Cricket Coliseum, which was HUGE, it holds 105,000 people. Then through the tennis center left over from the Melbourne Olympics, along the Yarra River where I saw many of the Rowing clubs (nobody around when I was there though) and finally across Fitzroy Gardens back to Sibylle's place. It took me about 45 minutes or so.

Sean Down Unda - Melbourne Day 1

I had a great flight over the Pacific. I actually slept much of the way so it seemed to go very quickly. The best part: the maps they show of the plains location. On this flight, they had several different GIS views including a very detailed local map so it was need to watch us approach Melbourne.

I arrived earlier than expected so surprised Sibylle, the person I was staying with. I met Sibylle in India three years ago on an Earthwatch study researching snow leopards, so was really looking forward to catching back up with her. She has a great little place near downtown. It reminded me a lot of the places you would find in New Orleans...one story, but lots of lattice work on the outside and very narrow but long living spaces. We had some coffee then I walked with her into the city as she had to work that day. We crossed the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens on the way and she told me the stories of how people pack into the park at night to feed the possums.

My first stop downtown was a bookstore that Sibylle said I'd find on Bourke St. I wanted to pick up a guide book for Melbourne. Well, in Melbourne they have Bourke St. and then Lt Bourke St. which stands for Little Bourke Street. Took me a while to figure out that Lt Bourke wasn't Bourke (they don't make it obviouse) bit I did make it. I walked all over downtown that day. One of the highlights was the Victoria Market. The "Vic" resemble any other open air market in the world, fruits and vegis, meats and of course all of the cheap leather, watches and other miscellanea that you find in places like this. What really made this market different was the overwhelming number of stuffed koalas and kangaroos at some of the booths, overwhelming...really.

After a quick visit back to the bookstore to pick up a book on good places to jog arond the world, I made my way to the Melbourne City Bathes which is really more like a gym in a very historic building. The building was quite beautiful. The swim felt great as well (Details in Pentathlon journal soon). One of the gals at the front desk notice my UW rowing shirt so I chatted with here for a while.

Fitzroy, a neighborhood in Melbourne, was next on the list. Sibylle said this is the Bohemian part of town. That it was. It reminded me a lot of Haight-Ashbury (sp?) in San Francisco. I sat and had cake for a while listening to an aborigine fellow play American standards on his guitar on a street corner. I can't remember his name at all, but I do recall it meant "little black kangaroo". He was a great singer, had a great smile and busted out quite a few jokes as well including "If Adam and Eve would have been aborigines, they would have just eaten the snake and we wouldn't have had any of these problems we do today".

Then had a great dinner with John and Sibylle at a Thai restaurant. John brought his own wine, an Australian red, it was fantastic. Then it was off to coffee (hot chocolate for me) along the Yarra River.

With jet lag, walking around all day, swim and a late night with dinner and coffee, I was really tired and slept really well that night.

Sean Down Unda - Melbourne swim

After touring around Melbourne most of the day, I stopped in to the Melbourne City Bathe for a swim. Its really a complete gym, but the historic building was all pools and spas when it was built in the early 1900's so it retains the name today.

I was a little tired out from the walk around town and jet lag, so I did about 3/4 of my usual swim workout. It felt great. I did get in at the wrong end of the pool that was very deep and had no where to hold on to, so putting on my goggles and later my hand paddles (which I had left at this end) was a little challenging. Remember the one armed runners and bikers from Seattle? Well, I saw a one legged swimmer today. Another good omen. I also ran into a rower a the front desk. She saw me in my UW crew shirt so we had a little chat about rowing in the area.

An acceptable swim

The swim was a bit sluggish today, perhaps because it was an early morning swim, perhaps because I still have the last muscle sluggishness from my cold or perhaps because I didn't get to bed last night until 1:00am after watching more Olympics. But the swim wasn't bad either, it actually felt great and I felt really good with my technique. Even had some nice flip turns at the end. Great workout before I'm off to Oz to be sure.

Long swim, new pool

My regular YMCA is closed for cleaning for through the 25th so I had to find another pool for today's long swim. The downtown Y worked out perfectly as I had a couple errands to run for the big trip. It was refreshing to go to another pool, new people, new sights, sounds, etc. The downtown Y pool also 25m, but not as wide across as the Meredith Mathews Y, the downtown Y only has three lanes. It is a much brighter pool though and a little colder since they don't do as many child and family programs...its more set up for lap swimmers.

The long swim went well. I did ten minutes of hand paddles in the middle just to mix things up a bit. Although I do enjoy the long swim over the long run, the long swim can get monotonous so I try to throw something in to keep me stimulated.

I'm still watching the Olympic swimming pretty intently. I'm a very visual person so its good to watch the swimmers in order to get a good visual image. I'm staying up way too late though, past midnight every night...but its worth it.

The long run, one armed athletes and more bugs

I didn't get my long run in on Friday (I wanted to watch the opening ceremonies), so the next best thing was today...which means I'll do the long swim tomorrow.

Before I start, I'll just say that I had my usual response to what I guess I'll call "triumph" during the Olympic opening ceremonies last night...I teared up on several occasions. The ceremonies were incredible and it was quite a motivator to see all of the athletes come in. I wanted to go out for a run afterward...that would have been a little after midnight. Instead, I went to bed, totally pumped and didn't actually fall asleep until about 1:30am. I'm actually watching the swimming finals while I write this. Yep, a few more "triumph" tears. Feels good though.

After a brief visit down to the parents' in Steilacoom to grab my sisters carry on and say goodbye to everybody, I zoomed home to start my long run in time to get it done and get back to watch the swimming finals.

My distance or "long" run as I call it is up to 90 minutes, which is as the longest I will go for now. Once again, I ran north along the Burke Gilman trail and, for you Seattlites out there, got pretty close to Bothell on this trip. Ninety minutes is about the time it will take me to run an half marathon (which I plan to do in November) and enough to improve my fitness level over time...in a way that the interval workouts wouldn't. The "long" run felt pretty good this time, although the last ten minutes I could really feel it in my knees and feet that I added the extra ten minutes. Along the way, I made a couple of interesting observations. I saw three athletes, two runners and a biker with only one arm. Don't get me wrong, I think its awesome that they are out training, great role models, it was just odd to see three of them. Some people find four-leaf clovers, some win the lottery. I saw three one-armed high level athletes in one day...I'll take this as a good omen.

One of the other things the long run is good for is learning you limits, or more...what your limits arent. You discover what you can push through, both physically and mentally in order to reach your goal. Little pains here, fatique and even mental baggage all CAN be overcome.

You'll also notice the bug counter is back. I swallowed two, got one in my nose and a large something in my ear for about five steps.

A lot of swim, no ride

Had another good swim this afternoon. Felt really strong and with good technique. Flip turns were a little better too. I do think I need to start doing more with my legs in the workout though. I've found recently that my legs tire out before my upperbody. But, as with the rest of my swim, I'm sure I will be working on all this when I get back and start the coaching.

Didn't have a riding lesson tonight as the barn roof was being worked on.

A lesson in priorities and big-picture ground rules

I believe I learned an important lesson in priorities during tonight's run, as well as the value in sticking to my big-picture ground rules. I decided to run around Portage Bay (PB) tonight instead of Greenlake 1. because I wanted to better my time around PB from last time, maybe even break the 20 minute mark and 2. I had a friends BBQ to go to at 7:00pm (I usually try to catch up with family friends before take a long trip such as the one to Australia). I was feeling pretty good at the start and actually probably went off a little too quickly. But...it became very clear to me at about the half way point that my legs just weren't wanting to perform. They were tight, a little wobbly and just wouldn't move as fast as I wanted them to during the interval on times. I am still a little under the weather from a brief cold I had, but not enough to affect my running. Since I was having major thoughts of stopping and just walking the rest of the way, I knew I had to do something to turn this into a positive experience. One of my big-picture ground rules has always been that I have to enjoy this process of training for the pentathlon...I have to push and challenge myself, but it must remain a pleasant experience or I'll dread the workouts rather than look forward to them. So I decided to stop the intervals and just jog it out for the rest of the PB course. Well...I did finish and actually speeded up a little at the end. Although I didn't accomplish the sub 20 minute goal I had, at least I didn't end in a failure either.

I think part of the problem may have been that I changed my priorities over this last week and a half. I was sick for a couple days - and didn't do anything - and then intentionally changed my priorities from training to spending some time with family and friends before I take off for my trip. I haven't fenced at all this month and haven't done as many runs or swims as I usually do either. When you're doing 2-3 workouts a day, its a little easier to stay focused. Its not that I can't or won't be able to spend the time with family and friends, I just have to recognize the effects and manage the time off a little better both physically and mentally.