HD TEST3

Untitled from Colt McElwaine on Vimeo.

HD TEST2

Untitled from Colt McElwaine on Vimeo.

HD TEST1

Untitled from Colt McElwaine on Vimeo.

test 2

testing

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Chapter 1: Hills

So I'm committed to keeping up on this thing but things don't seem as exciting to post about as they once did. To keep from going over a week empty I'll share today's workout.

Things started before breakfast with a little quiet time/ stretching. I have a long history of tight hamstrings and with today's run it was important to make sure everything was loose and ready to fire. The first session today was the last (RUN) race specific workout before the Xterra in Temecula (May18.) Drove out to Cutler park in Needham to do some Threshold/ Neuromuscular work on a hilly stretch of single track.

The warm up: 30 minutes steady on some nice and flat fireroads on the trails behind Wells Ave followed by some quick stretching, 5 minutes of form drills, and a handful of 15 sec. strides to get the turnover going. It was in the mid 70's and I was down to less than half a bottle by the end of the warm up. The main set: 7x3 minutes (Just under 1k) on 2 minutes jog. The course was an out and back starting with a gradual down hill into flat into a long/steep/loose uphill fallowed by two steep down hills, a medium up, and medium down. Then around the "cone" (a rock pyramid) and back to the start (or as far as you can make it.) The effort level is just a little quicker than 3k pace. The goal being to go past your previous finish spot each time. The effort is just long enough to bring your HR up to threshold but the main focus is on controlling your form on the hills and being as smooth as possible in changing from climbing pace, descending pace, and flat pace on the short hills. Total of 35 minutes with 21 minutes of quality. Cool down: 15 minutes easy jog, stretch, and a 20 oz. chocolate milk!

Second session today was a steady 1.5hr road ride in the P.M. Good for flushing out the legs from this morning and loosening up for tomorrow's workout on the MTB.

So that's it. Another Tuesday in the books. The 19th Tuesday of the year, to put it into perspective. If you like hearing about workouts I'll try and add one or two a week. In the meantime, I'll get out in the real world and try and find something a non leg-shaving race geek would care to read about. Happy training and racing 'till then.

One more tri

Here we go again. One last try at the infamous weblog. I figured that with the new season here and a new sport of sorts that an entirely new site was in order. IFcoltcouldfly will stay as is and live forever on the web as an archive to a time lost long ago. 2007 was a long year of opening new doors and closing old. After getting behind on the posts, I put it aside in hopes that things would slow down enough to collect my thoughts and share. Over a year later, it's pretty clear that there will be no slowing down. Life has it's foot pressed firmly on the accelerator and just seems to be building in intensity day by day.
To bring you all up to speed, I now live solo in Lowell, MA on the third floor of a converted Textile Mill. I have no TV or Internet but plenty of room for the bikes and an AM/FM radio regularly tuned to ESPN 890 (the only clear signal.) I have a spiral stare case and live off hardy servings of cold cereal and frozen dinners from the local Trader Joes. I am just about to finish my second year at Harvard, studying environmental management. I am as much a (off-road)tri geek now as I am mountain biker and I avoid my road bikes like the plague. I still ride five to six days a week only now it is often the second or third workout of the day. The running and swimming are coming along slowly but surly and it has been an exciting addition to the program. The last big change is the lady in my life. She's a freshman at Colby College in Maine and is as elite a runner as I am cyclist (not to drag her down to my level.) We met when I was 4 and she was 3, so as you could guess, it's a long story. Life is no less simple these days just a heck of a lot more exciting. I'll be doing my best to stay up to date here throughout the year. Once a week or so for starters. Coming up are some Xterra's in CA, AL, and VA followed by some NORBA's (what are they called these days?) And of course plenty of local action to fill the empty space in between. This is starting to look like something from Frank Mapel dot com so I'll wrap it up. (Do people still remember Frank Mapel? Have I really been out of it that long?) Oh boy, here we go again.