Well, we made it back to Texas in one piece, despite a pretty bumpy San Fran to Dallas leg. I've given myself one last day off to recover from jet lag, then we hit it hard again starting tomorrow with a Playtri Masters Swim in the morning.
What with getting sick and losing sleep due to travel, I am struggling a little bit with feelings of setback from the trip, but I also know that's just part of the job. I look forward to gaining back anything that was lost.
This weekend is the monthly Team Playtri Elite draft-legal training weekend - two 5 hour days of training for our youth and junior elite athletes, and two days of craziness for their coaches! The weekend is a lot of fun, though, and a great opportunity for our older kids to come together for some serious learning. I'll be squeezing in some workouts after camp both days, so stay tuned to hear how merciful (or not) my coach decides to be with those days...
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Hawaii Recap
Aloha blog followers!
Apologies for the gap between posts - turns out the internet is spotty at best at our condo here. However, camp is officially over and Mr. Read and myself have two and a half glorious days left here on the Big Island before we head home to the lone star state.
It was another fantastic Playtri camp (if I do say so myself), with great weather, a stellar group of campers, and of course the requisite soreness and unavoidable dehydration that come with a Kona training camp. A few of us spent a day or two down with a funky island bug, but rest and fluids work wonders and it by no means ruined the week. I got to do my annual 100-miler coaching our athletes out on the Kona bike course, and myself and some of the other Playtri coaches did the Mini Mango Sprint Triathlon Sunday before the camp. A great way to kick off the 2013 season. (Pictures are online in this Facebook Album).
Perhaps the most exciting part of the week, as it often is, was watching the whales breach and fluke off 180 on the way up to Hawi - they were especially active this year. Some of our regulars were missed, including Tricia and Al, Sohail, Lori, and of course Pat Stern, but we made up for their absence as much as we could with a fantastic group of newcomers.
Plans for the next few days include plenty of rest and recovery, as well as a snorkeling trip this evening to swim with the manta rays off the west coast here in Kona, and of course lots of beach time. Not foreseeing any time in the saddle the next two days!! (16 hours in one week is plenty for me). Ready to thoroughly enjoy the weekend before we head back to Dallas and regular training again.
Mahalo for reading and aloha!
Apologies for the gap between posts - turns out the internet is spotty at best at our condo here. However, camp is officially over and Mr. Read and myself have two and a half glorious days left here on the Big Island before we head home to the lone star state.
It was another fantastic Playtri camp (if I do say so myself), with great weather, a stellar group of campers, and of course the requisite soreness and unavoidable dehydration that come with a Kona training camp. A few of us spent a day or two down with a funky island bug, but rest and fluids work wonders and it by no means ruined the week. I got to do my annual 100-miler coaching our athletes out on the Kona bike course, and myself and some of the other Playtri coaches did the Mini Mango Sprint Triathlon Sunday before the camp. A great way to kick off the 2013 season. (Pictures are online in this Facebook Album).
Perhaps the most exciting part of the week, as it often is, was watching the whales breach and fluke off 180 on the way up to Hawi - they were especially active this year. Some of our regulars were missed, including Tricia and Al, Sohail, Lori, and of course Pat Stern, but we made up for their absence as much as we could with a fantastic group of newcomers.
Plans for the next few days include plenty of rest and recovery, as well as a snorkeling trip this evening to swim with the manta rays off the west coast here in Kona, and of course lots of beach time. Not foreseeing any time in the saddle the next two days!! (16 hours in one week is plenty for me). Ready to thoroughly enjoy the weekend before we head back to Dallas and regular training again.
Mahalo for reading and aloha!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
19 Hours and Counting
It's almost time to board that plane!
Only one day left at work before we head to paradise, and it's going to be a busy one. I'm fairly sore from weights and swimming yesterday (Vasa - so awesome, yet SO EVIL!), and I still have to run today (just training pace, though, no intervals at least). Of course on top of working out there's also just, you know, work. I'll be taking a last look through my athletes' updates on Training Peaks before I have limited access tomorrow due to flight time - I have four athletes starting Ironman training this year, and I'm very excited to see what they do with the coming months. I'm hoping I can send them some inspiration from the big island this week.
As for my own inspiration... I got some of that yesterday when I tried to actually register for the race in May (which is supposed to be for ages 20-25, barring special exceptions like myself), and the automated system came back and reminded me that I was TOO OLD TO RACE. (Palm to face). So I had to email the race director so that he could make sure I was specially cleared to register. A little discouraging, but also extremely motivating! No way I'm missing workouts - every time I start to feel a little lazy, I'll just have to picture those ultra-fit female collegiate athletes, and go ahead and drag my happy self to the pool/trainer/track.
Speaking of which, I feel a run coming on...
Check tomorrow evening for my next post - from Hawaii!!
Aloha!
Only one day left at work before we head to paradise, and it's going to be a busy one. I'm fairly sore from weights and swimming yesterday (Vasa - so awesome, yet SO EVIL!), and I still have to run today (just training pace, though, no intervals at least). Of course on top of working out there's also just, you know, work. I'll be taking a last look through my athletes' updates on Training Peaks before I have limited access tomorrow due to flight time - I have four athletes starting Ironman training this year, and I'm very excited to see what they do with the coming months. I'm hoping I can send them some inspiration from the big island this week.
As for my own inspiration... I got some of that yesterday when I tried to actually register for the race in May (which is supposed to be for ages 20-25, barring special exceptions like myself), and the automated system came back and reminded me that I was TOO OLD TO RACE. (Palm to face). So I had to email the race director so that he could make sure I was specially cleared to register. A little discouraging, but also extremely motivating! No way I'm missing workouts - every time I start to feel a little lazy, I'll just have to picture those ultra-fit female collegiate athletes, and go ahead and drag my happy self to the pool/trainer/track.
Speaking of which, I feel a run coming on...
Check tomorrow evening for my next post - from Hawaii!!
Aloha!
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Ready for the Islands
Part of being a Playtri Coach is coaching at the annual Playtri Hawaii Training Camp on the Kona Ironman World Championship course. It's a full week of beautiful scenery and serious hurt.
I leave with Read (he's my boyfriend, so you'll be hearing this name often) on Friday for 10 days away from the mainland - Read does the camp as an athlete while I coach. Our awesome bike mechanics have my bike all packed up and ready to go, so now I just have two more days of chilly temps before 82-83 degrees and 100% humidity!
While I'm looking forward to warmer weather and no snow, coaching a camp can be tricky when it comes to planning your own training. During training camps, we essentially forfeit our own training for the duration of the camp, because we spend a good deal of time swimming, biking and running with the campers as we coach them, and it would be unfair to them for us to exhaust ourselves with our own training ahead of time. That's just part of the job, but it's still a week's worth of junk miles when you look at it from the coach-as-athlete's perspective. So how do we manage this?
This best you can usually do is follow the "do no harm" mantra and UN-do as little work as possible. Accept the fact that you won't be making gains and try not to regress. This is done through a few means: lots of sleep, good hydration, good nutrition, and a lot of compression apparel. The better I recover DURING camp, the better I'll be able to pick up training once I return.
So, there are a lot of compression tights in my suitcase.
Today I'm getting in the pool (again...), and probably hitting the weights. We've got our youth and junior teams running and swimming at the "J" tonight, so I'll be headed that way once I get through workouts and private lessons this afternoon.
One more day until we board the plane to paradise - one more day to get some good load in before I get to focus on our amazing athlete clients for a week! It's hard to be sad about missing load when you're doing it to coach athletes on the most famous triathlon course of all time.
Happy Wednesday everybody!
I leave with Read (he's my boyfriend, so you'll be hearing this name often) on Friday for 10 days away from the mainland - Read does the camp as an athlete while I coach. Our awesome bike mechanics have my bike all packed up and ready to go, so now I just have two more days of chilly temps before 82-83 degrees and 100% humidity!
While I'm looking forward to warmer weather and no snow, coaching a camp can be tricky when it comes to planning your own training. During training camps, we essentially forfeit our own training for the duration of the camp, because we spend a good deal of time swimming, biking and running with the campers as we coach them, and it would be unfair to them for us to exhaust ourselves with our own training ahead of time. That's just part of the job, but it's still a week's worth of junk miles when you look at it from the coach-as-athlete's perspective. So how do we manage this?
This best you can usually do is follow the "do no harm" mantra and UN-do as little work as possible. Accept the fact that you won't be making gains and try not to regress. This is done through a few means: lots of sleep, good hydration, good nutrition, and a lot of compression apparel. The better I recover DURING camp, the better I'll be able to pick up training once I return.
So, there are a lot of compression tights in my suitcase.
Today I'm getting in the pool (again...), and probably hitting the weights. We've got our youth and junior teams running and swimming at the "J" tonight, so I'll be headed that way once I get through workouts and private lessons this afternoon.
One more day until we board the plane to paradise - one more day to get some good load in before I get to focus on our amazing athlete clients for a week! It's hard to be sad about missing load when you're doing it to coach athletes on the most famous triathlon course of all time.
Happy Wednesday everybody!
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Hi There
My name is Morgan, and I am a youth and junior elite coach at the Playtri Performance Center in Dallas, TX.
Six months ago I asked my coach if he thought I might be able to compete in a draft-legal triathlon in 2013 - his response: "It can't hurt to try!" (Lies, by the way, I've never been so sore). Well, after two months of incredibly hard work (and a lot of time on the Vasa), I've been accepted into the East Coast Triathlon Festival Women's Elite Development Race on May 5th, 2013 - which means I've got about four months left to finish prepping for the toughest short course race of my life. Oh, and by the way - I'll be the oldest one there by about three years.
So I'm very, very excited - and just a little bit terrified.
Why go elite? Well, if you look to the right here you'll see a photo of my USAT High Performance Team, Team Playtri Elite. These boys and girls (and their parents) have trusted me to help them reach their goals for the sport, and while 2012 was a fantastic first year for our team, as a coach I always have to be looking for new ways to connect and communicate with my athletes. What better way to be able to effectively walk them through the complexities of an elite short course race than by experiencing one (or hopefully more) myself? So, I'm going for it, and come May we'll see if all the hard work was worth it.
You can follow my journey here - I have a feeling there will be some really great days, and some really rough ones. Probably a lot of bizarre exercise and nutrition experiments, too, as I attempt to figure out how to make the most progress in the least amount of time possible. Today I'm doing Vo2 max+ power intervals on the bike (W23, for all of you Playtri-ers), then hitting the pool for the fourth day in a row. After my weights/swim intervals yesterday, we'll see how cooperative my lats are feeling when I hit the water.
I should be done just in time to start my afternoon/evening youth coaching sessions, beginning with a new athlete fitness assessment. Is it possible for an amateur athlete with no elite background to own a small business AND make the switch to elite racing? We're about to find out...
Six months ago I asked my coach if he thought I might be able to compete in a draft-legal triathlon in 2013 - his response: "It can't hurt to try!" (Lies, by the way, I've never been so sore). Well, after two months of incredibly hard work (and a lot of time on the Vasa), I've been accepted into the East Coast Triathlon Festival Women's Elite Development Race on May 5th, 2013 - which means I've got about four months left to finish prepping for the toughest short course race of my life. Oh, and by the way - I'll be the oldest one there by about three years.So I'm very, very excited - and just a little bit terrified.
Why go elite? Well, if you look to the right here you'll see a photo of my USAT High Performance Team, Team Playtri Elite. These boys and girls (and their parents) have trusted me to help them reach their goals for the sport, and while 2012 was a fantastic first year for our team, as a coach I always have to be looking for new ways to connect and communicate with my athletes. What better way to be able to effectively walk them through the complexities of an elite short course race than by experiencing one (or hopefully more) myself? So, I'm going for it, and come May we'll see if all the hard work was worth it.
You can follow my journey here - I have a feeling there will be some really great days, and some really rough ones. Probably a lot of bizarre exercise and nutrition experiments, too, as I attempt to figure out how to make the most progress in the least amount of time possible. Today I'm doing Vo2 max+ power intervals on the bike (W23, for all of you Playtri-ers), then hitting the pool for the fourth day in a row. After my weights/swim intervals yesterday, we'll see how cooperative my lats are feeling when I hit the water.
I should be done just in time to start my afternoon/evening youth coaching sessions, beginning with a new athlete fitness assessment. Is it possible for an amateur athlete with no elite background to own a small business AND make the switch to elite racing? We're about to find out...
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