Greenlake T-30 seconds and honoring fencer George

Ran into Allan Evans, one of the Salle Auriol coaches, coming off the track when I arrived. He's starting to run again. I'm hoping Allan will be what I'm calling my "coach/coordinator" this fall for fencing. He's a great coach and seems to be engaged in the pentathlon in general. He's also a good friend of Mike Jones, one of my pentathlon mentors in Seattle. The fact that he's running and can do some cross-coaching makes him even better for me as a coach. He'll be great in pushing me and establishing a training plan.

Did a short erg warmup at the Greenlake shellhouse then took another 30 seconds off my Greenlake time tonight. I'm aiming to get down to under a 6:30 mile so still have a ways to go.

Tonight, Salle Auriol honored George Hall, who received an award from the USFA for lifetime achievement and contribution to the sport. George, who I fence in epee and still have challenges beating, received his first lifetime achievement award in 1978. He's still going strong and it certainly is an honor to know and to fence him.

After a little champagne and cake, the rest of the evening went well. I fenced two fencers and did relatively well on both scoring 5-3 and 15-13 in their favor both times. I was very pleased since both are excellent fencers. The first bout was especially sweet as I usually can't get any touches on this fellow.

That Greenlake groove, finally and fast fencing

Finally had a great Greenlake run. My feet and legs didn't get tired and my cardio felt really good as well. Even took two minutes of my time!

I started by going over the the Greenlake shellhouse to do a warm up on the ergometer (rowing machine). I happened to run into Matt Marshall, a rowing buddy who has started rowing at Greenlake recently. Looks like I may be able row a couple times week. Rowing will be great cross training and it will feel really good to get back on the water, even if Greenlake is only 1000m wide at its longest point.

The Greenlake group always has a little pre-workout meeting where they talk about upcoming races and any results from recent races. Mike Jones, one of my pentathlon mentors, just placed 5th in a duathlon (swimming and running) down in San Francisco. Great job! For running, I did my usual interval workout...2 minutes off, 1 minute on. As I already mentioned, it felt great. This was the first time that my feet and/or legs didn't fatigue and my cardio felt great the whole time.

At fencing tonight, I had some my ups and my downs, but one thing for sure...the fencing seems to be getting a lot faster, which means I need to get faster. There is one fencer that I just can't seem to get any points on, but I seem to be improving against most others. I scored 8 touches on a fencer that ranked 32 at Nationals, and 6 on one of our coaches (who was one of the fastest fencers that night). All in all, a great night fencing.

More footwork, no footwork

Started the morning by helping out the SYC women's crew team by riding in the launch and videotaping their workout. The SYC women's boat recently one their 50+ Opening Day race by half a second (and had better times than the 30+ and 40+ age groups!). It was a beautiful morning, sunny and Lake Washington was like glass. It made me really want to start rowing again. I may try to get some sculling in in the afternoons and even some sweep in on the days I don't have to work at 5:30am. I raced in the 1999 Opening Day races. We got 3rd place after a tough race with Sammamish so I appreciate the women's accomplishment this year.

Had some more work done on my feet this morning. More of the...plantar warts (remember...I'm trying not to spare the reader of any of the realities of athletic life). Had the final work done on both feet in order to get back on training track as soon as possible. The running felt so good and I've really been missing the fencing. I did go to fencing tonight, just to watch. I missed the footwork portion but did get to watch a few fencers. Also watched Leon give Bernard his epee lesson. They did some pretty amazing compound attack work. Can't wait till I'm back in play.

Erg = Yuck!

Went over to the Pocock Rowing Center to do an erg in order to slowly get back into rowing. YUCK! I did a 1000m warm up and then a 10 minute piece. I lost everything! I will certainly be able to look forward to improvement here. In the end, I do think rowing will be a great cross-training...its just getting back to where I was a year ago.