pentathlons:
holiday camp | march 3 | april 6
june 2 | nationals | philidelphia

guestbook: sign it, read it

Why "three to five"?

current training schedule

threetofive in translation
driebisfunf
troisacinq
tresacinco
tresacinque

august plans
6...bone scan rescheduled
12-27...housesitting
17...foot surgery consult
26...Boeing fencing tournament

links

2001 bug counter
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other journals
paul, jenni rookie triathletes
merill, oarswoman

lingo/legend
TPR = training personal record
PB = Portage Bay (run)
PR = Personal record
GL = Greenlake (run)
SA = San Antionio, USMPA home
Random Andy = stray shot
Red = new personal record
= pentathlon competition entry

August highlights: more ankle saga, Evergreen Classic, Macbeth by Moonlight, running with Ms. Emily, first running and fencing in a while, more Shakespeare, Boeing "Blood, Sweat and Tears"...

Wednesday, August 29. Running man.
From no running to lots of running, I must be crazy. I did a run around Greenlake last night as Susan did the Club Northwest workout. I hope to build back up to the CNW group, but for now, I'm going to continue to take it easy. The run actually felt pretty good, a few aches and pains here and there, but that will go away as I get back in shape.

Then...this morning I did another run...a 6:00am run of all things! I hooked up with Emily and Susan for another run through the blueberry fields or as Susan called it the "Mercer Slough". It was cool that Susan and Emily got to meet up...at least for me its always fun to run with the Olympic silver medallist from your sport. Emily, the Sydney Olympics women's pentathlon silver medallist, is still working on a project with Microsoft so comes out to Seattle every once in a while. We did a short (30min) steady run through the fields and bogs. There was a really neat mist over the area and a beautiful sunrise to boot.

If all goes well, I'll be doing a run with the Wednesday night Greenlake group tonight. Sheesh!

Tusday, August 28. Coach Sean, solo.
Laura and most of the Hilltop crowd are off at a show this week, so Susan and I decided to do the riding lesson on our own (with Laura's approval). Merlin was the horse of choice (the only horse left basically) so we tacked him up and went to it. Susan is definitely in the throws of having to deal with some things she got to skip over earlier since she seemed to snap into the right technique. Even more interesting is that she's having a lot of the previous athlete to rider issues that I had when I started up. I introduced the 1/4 line and leg yields so that she could to more than just go around in circles. Although we tried canter for a bit, we decided to come back down to trot to work on leg and foot technique since she was unintentionally getting a REALLY big canter out of Merlin from her leg and foot position.

Sunday, August 26. "Blood, Sweat and Tears".
No, I didn't crash and burn or anything. That's the name of the Boeing Tournament. Considering I hadn't really fenced in two months, I actually did pretty well in the tournament, coming in 7th or so. I think if I had changed weapons during the pools rather than midway through the direct eliminations I would have done even better since my first epee wasn't working too well. In the DE it became completely obvious that it wasn't recording touches, thank goodness I finally caught on.

I did have a major comeback in the first DE round against Glover. I was down 3-8 and came back to win 15-11. Winning unfortunately put me up against John Varney next who I just don't stand a chance against. I did fence very well, but lost the bout 5-15. Not too bad against Varney in tournament mode though.

Even more exiting...Susan partook of her first epee tournament and from what I understand from her event coach/epeeist on sabbatical/future pentathlete, Amy Bensinger, she did pretty well.

Saturday, August 25. Doing doubles.
I did first double workout in quite a while today. I did a run along Lk. Washington in the morning, just a short (30 minute) slow, steady state run to get back into the swin of things. My ankle felt a little wobbly at first, but wasn't a problem after five minutes or so.

After picking up my camera from the shop, grabbing a baby shower gift at Pike Place Market (a tiedie baby outfit for some Greadful Dead fans) and picking up our awewsome new USA Penathlon shirts that we had made, I finally made it to the pool. Didn't do any timed pieces, just a lot of swim/drill TI stuff. Althoug my sprints still aren't that great, I do feel that my slow transitions to medium speed drills is going well...I'm able to keep the TI technique, get good times and stay efficient.

Friday, August 24. Excuses, excuses.
Well, I don't have any good ones for my lack of training this week. Major rain spoiled my plans to start running again = major wimp. Lack of swim suit (lost it/left it somewhere) gave me one day off swimming. The Hilltop Stables crowd is gone to a show so no riding either.

But, I did finally make it back to the pool this afternoon. Always feels good to get back in the pool. OK times too, 34s for my 50yds. The Y pool closes on Sunday for two weeks so I'm back to Swim Seattle on Monday. Early morning swims...yuck.

Monday, August 20. Good swim, great fencing.
had a really good swim tonight, I'm back to my old best times and feeling much more effecient in doing so. Not completely exhausted at the end of the sprint stuff. This of course means I can start in the sprint stuff and regular workouts again. Should be back with Swim Seattle next week.

It was back to full on fencing tonight at Salle Auriol. My second time back on the strip and I ended up facing some of our best fencers. It actually went pretty well, its all starting to come back to me. A few lessons and I should be back on track. There's a big tournament at the Boeing Club this weekend so I think I'll try it out.

Little Jose showed up and kicked some Seattle butt. Like his riding, he looks so relaxed when fencing. But...I've never seen anybody spring into a flesch so quickly. Nice! He's going to do well. Also met up with another potential pentathlete. She's done all five events at some point in her life and is interested in putting them all together. She's like 6'4" or something so she's sure to do pretty well. That makes five pentathletes training in all five events!

Sunday, August 19. Swimming routine, first fencing in a while.
I've started getting back into a routine for my swim workout after about a month of just doing the TI swim/drills. Basically going back to my old workout which I plan to do twice a week and then hook up with a club two other days a week. I know I can swim efficiently, not its time to start working on being efficient at the faster paces. I plan to start back up with Swim Seattle next week when the YMCA pool closes. I'm also going to check out the locak 24 Hour Fitness that just opened downtown on Monday, that could make the whole time issue of swimming a lot easier.

After over two months off of regular fencing (I did take a few lessons and fence in Phili last month) I got back into action at the Sunday afternoon practice at Salle Auriol. I fenced a fellow named Joe from Vancouver, BC and George. I didn't do poorly, but it was very clear that I've lost a lot too. My hand tired out pretty quickly. I think the combination of the swim and then sweating a lot in my fencing stuff made me tire out overall pretty quickly. I may have to break out the peanut M&Ms again to keep me energized.

Saturday, August 18. Running on blueberry hill.
I met up with Emily this morning for a run on the eastside. Just down the street from her hotel was one of the old Bellevue blueberry farms which made for a great running course. We did a few loops and did our best to avoid hills. This was the first run I've done in a long time since my ankle has been giving me problems. I could feel things rolling around a bit when we started, but it quickly went away. Even better, it didn't swell up to grapefruit size afterwards. Doc's advice was just to manage the swelling and take it easy if there are problems until we get the surgery done. So looks like I get to do a little, running, fencing and riding here and there. We did brunch at Louisa's, a rower hangout on Eastlake, and then off to the EMP. E-musing has the full Saturday story...more Shakespeare und "Hedwig".

Thursday, August 16. Magaritas and many riders.
Started Thursday evening with Emily and her colleague Danielle for magaritas. Tasty ones too. Turned out Coho, one of the junior riders at Hilltop Stables that may be doing the pentathlon on September 30th was the hostess at the restaurant we went to. Crazy.

Emily and Danielle went off to dinner and I went off to watch Pam and Jose try out their jumping at Hilltop. They actually both did very well. Jose is a beautiful rider. Pam too once she relaxed and enjoyed it. Both have a lot of jumping experience so they were mainly just getting back into it after a long time away from it. Pretty exiting...we now have four pentathletes training in all five events.

Sunday, August 12. Weekend report...shooting, horse show, swimming and sneezing. Moonlight Macbeth.

The cold persists :-(

The weekend fun started on Friday when Jason (my polo buddy) and I went out to the Evergreen Classic hunter/jumper show to check things out. We arrived just in time for the 50's theme party. Horse crowds are always a fun bunch and this event was nto different. I met a lot of people and made some good pentathlon contacts as well.

On Saturday, I did the horse show for bit in the morning and then hooked up with Pam for some shooting at Kenmore. I got several 10s and lots of 8s and 9s. Pam's new gun is pretty sweet too. I think we'll definitely go with her model over the Daisies for future club purposes.

The swim afterwards went well, pounding head and all. Yep, my cold seems to be lingering. But I got my 45 minutes of swimming in so can at least claim that.

Sunday was all about the Evergreen Classic as it was the big $25,000 Grand Prix event. Pretty amazing stuff. The jumps were VERY large...I'm so glad we only jump 4' in pentathlon. I also made some good pentathlon contacts during the morning. Our little group of penathletes is expanding all the time.

Speaking of pentathletes, Emily deRiel, the Sydney silver medalist will be in town this week in association with her new job. Hopefully we'll get a chance to catch up with her and do a run or something. A fellow named Jose Antonio also lands in Seattle this week. He's moving up from Mexico and wants to get into pentathlon training pretty quickly. Getting pretty pentathlon-busy around these parts I'd say.

Macbeth e-musing entry.

Friday, August 10. The week in review...one good swim, one good coaching lesson, one major cold.
Started out the seek with a great swim on Tuesday. I pulled a 1:16 in my 100yd. I'll move back up to 200s next week to see how I'm doing at that distance.

Susan went up to canter on Tuesday night at her riding lesson. Pretty exciting, both for her and for the assistant coach (me). She's picking the whole thing up very quickly, which is awesome.

By Wednesday morning, a major cold set in...nasty soar throat and a major fever. IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER! I'm still feeling it today, Friday. Hopefully, I'll be back into swimming tomorrow.

A couple of other interesting tidbits...I bought all the stuff for the "portable air pistol range" I wanted to set up for using at the fencing salle. Turns out the sound board didn't do the trick at all, the pellet just went right through. When I put the piece of carpet mat over the board, it still went through. When I put a piece of plywood behind the sound board, the pellet ended up zinging past me on the rebound. Yikes! I'm think I'll send a quick note off to the shooting coach at USMPA to get his suggestions. Item #2...the Evergreen Classic is this weekend at Marymoor Park. A definite must see and an chance to hand out some NW Pentathlon flyers.

Sunday, August 5. Strong swim.
My swim felt really good today. Strong, smooth and relaxed. I did a 1:18 100yd at the end of my workout, which is about where I left off before the whole TI thing. I still don't want to build up too fast, since I still can't hold the technique well a the sprint pace.

Saturday, August 4. Back to shooting and swimming.
Susan and I met up for shooting today. I quickly discovered that my shooting arm was out of shape. No more lazy butt for me. Given that, I still did fairly well, with only a few random-andy shots. Susan got some good ones too, even though she was shooting my gun and having to put up with how my gun's sites were set.

On the way back to the pool for a swim I stopped in Bothel to check out the Northshore pool, a possible pentathlon competition site. Turns out its a 50m pool and there's a gym right next door. Hmm...maybe we could do the shoot, fence and swim here. sure would be nice since its only 5 minutes from the stables. Keep your fingers crossed.

The swim actually wen't pretty well even though its been TWO weeks since my last swim. My ankle did put up a fight for the first few laps, but quickly settled back down. About half way through the workout, which was made up of mostly TI swim/drills, I did a 200 to see how I was doing as far as being able to keep up the TI form when I got tired. Not bad, I have to really focus mentally on staying relaxed and in form though. Interestingly, after the swim, my ankle was looking better than I'd seen it in a long time...I coiuld actually see some tendons and veins for once, rather than just a swollen ring around my ankle...I like. It did swell up a bit later in the day when I walked to the grocery store, but went back down later in the evening. Yee haw!

Thursday, August 2. Training downs, pentathlon ups.
Yep, its been a while since my last entry...but there's a good reason. My ankle saga continues. If all goes well, by the end of the month I'll be healing up and ready to start training for the next pentathlon season. The latest news is that I'll be doing a bone scan on the 6th to find out exactly how much extra bone has built up around the 'pearl' in my ankle and check to see if there are any other bone hotspots down there so that when they go in, they can be sure they've got it all. For training this means no more major load-baring on my ankle that might add to the intrusion on the surounding cartilage and bone. So...no running or jumping (should be able to do flatwork) for sure, and maybe no swimming or fencing depending on how it feels. Swimming was the thing that really set me off. The kicking motion seems to really knock things around in my ankle I guess. I forgot my swim trunks in Phili anyway, so no swimming on that account either for right now (they are on their way back home though).

The good pentathlon news is that the "Fall Pentathlon" we're planning for late September is starting to come together. Susan's training seems to be going well too. She survived another Laura-Sean riding lesson on Tuesday and did a pretty nice job in the 3k in the Wednesday all-comers meet with a 9:55..."pentathlon powers - ACTIVATE".