Getting into Fights at work

Tuesday started out well. I am in San Diego with the squadron flying against Marine Corps F-18s and was scheduled to fly 1 vs. 1 against one of the Hornets. We met in the airspace and had fuel for 2 engagements. It’s good to fight something other than the standard student-flown F-16, and a combat qualified pilot flying an F-18 is a worthy adversary.

We started the fights nose-to-nose at 500mph each. This type of fighting is a great opportunity to know and practice tactics—to capitalize on your strengths and exploit the adversary’s weaknesses. The Hornet’s strength is slow speed fighting as it can move its nose around quite at will. My strength is to stay fast and use a different style of fighting. He who drives the fight toward his strength will win.

The fight went all over…9 Gs level, then into the vertical, then back to level, …. It was exciting to see the F-18 ‘across the circle,’ or canopy to canopy, him doing everything to take shots on me, me doing everything to take shots at him. Simulated missile shots were taken, but the engagement was only ended and a “kill” was called on a simulated gun hit. Trying to hit a jinking and jiving bandit at ¼ mile away is not the easiest thing to do.

But I won. Did you ever doubt? :)

I learned after the fight that the pilot I was fighting is prepping to head over to the Middle East. I know that no matter what is thrown at him, he’s capable and will handle it with success. Good luck Marine, and may God be with you.

Brian

GEC Elite Team

So far, the inaugural year of the Grasky Endurance Coaching Elite Team is shaping up well. With GEC, Zoot, Trisports.com, Cycleops, Genuine Innovations, and Rudy Project as sponsors, the Elite Team is set up well and flying fast in GEC colors.

The ultimate question, of course, is how are we doing?

Kathy Rakel is our short-course queen. She started out by winning a local trail race series, then won the TX Best of the US Championship and will be representing her second state in the BoUS National Championship this fall. After that she was top 5 in St Anthony’s in FL and qualified for her pro card a few weeks later at . Just last week, Kathy won her age group and qualified for Clearwater and the Ironman 70.3 World Championship at Buffalo Springs Lake Tri.



Brian Barrett is burning up the XTERRA circuit with an overall win at Deuces Wild and an age group 2nd at the West Cup in Las Vegas. He is sitting in 2nd in the 30-34 age group in XTERRA points, just one race out of first. In a rare road triathlon appearance, Brian finished 2nd overall. Not bad for a fat tire guy.

Brad Hendron has been solid. He was 6th overall at Tempe International as a ‘B’ race, then he finished 2nd overall at Deuces Wild Half Ironman. That qualified him for the HalkMax Championships. But that’s not good enough. He went on to finish 5th in his age group and qualify for Ironman 70.3 Worlds at Buffalo Springs Lake Tri. (He missed a Kona slot by only 5 minutes! Grr!)

I’m cycling now, and won the AZ State Road Race champs. It’s a different type of sport, that’s for sure!

These athletes each represent a different aspect of triathlon and sport and life in general. But what do these athletes have in common? Lots. An intense drive and desire for success (podium slots); a desire to inspire others to greatness; and fervor for life in their quests.

Thanks to all the sponsors and their wonderful help. Look for these and all the GEC athletes flying in Green and Black at the local races near you. They’ll be easy to spot…they’ll be on the ones on the podium.

Brian

Arizona State Road Race Championship Race Report

Now, I’m not a cyclist. Or, at least I wasn’t. My ankle’s been giving me fits ever since my injury and I’ve gone through every doc in the Tucson book with little love, so I’ve finally accepted that I need to lay off it for a while.

OK, so I’m a cyclist now. Let’s race.

Last weekend was the AZ State Road Race Championship in the garden spot of Globe, AZ. I fly over Globe weekly, and I know for a fact there’s not much down there. I mean not much at all. Good terrain for cycling, though. I decided at the last minute to race, and all (both) of the hotels in town were booked, so we drove up the morning of the race. It meant a 3am wakeup, but traffic was light!

The course was perfect! My ideal course involves some flat sections with rolling hills, and a 1500 foot climb either up to or just prior to the finish. This is going to be fun (and will hurt). There were a lot of Trisports.com teammates in the race. Triathletes in the road race…it was good to see. I’m feeling good on my 15lb Cannondale SuperSix and with this climb, I’m loving my Q-Rings. Bring it!

We start. We ride easy out for a while, then one of my Trisports.com teammates starts a tempo effort off the front to the bottom of the first climb. A little early, but we go. We drop the majority of the pack on the first climbs, but most of them catch back up on the descents. Some of the sprinters put in small attacks on the rollers, but no one gets away. This said, we arrive at the bottom of the last major climb in one big pack. Now it gets fun!

We pick up the pace a little and start pulling a few off the back of the pack. By about a mile up the pack is down to 12 and holding steady. I’m riding 3rd, then 2nd. As the leader pulls off, I attack. When I sit back down, we’re 8 or so. So off I go again. And then there were 6. So I go again. 5. Then 4 on the next attack. At what I assess as a mile from the summit, I put in a big attack, hoping to break the group (and trying to not break myself). It works. I pull ahead and ride as hard as I can for the last mile. Nope, it was 3 miles from the summit. Oops. “Owwie. Stay ahead. This hurts. Please let the summit be around the next corner.”

One guy caught me at the top, and it was a good thing so we could work together to stay ahead on the final descent and flat section. We even caught up to the Cat 4 guys who started 3 minutes in front. At the 1km mark, I find myself on Ryan’s wheel. And there I sit. Ryan goes into a sprint at about 600m, I stay with him, then give it everything I have left at 400m to go. It works.

I pull off after the line, stop the bike, and lay down ready to pass out, vomit, go into convulsions, and celebrate all at the same time. I congratulate Ryan and the rest of the guys, go grab some water, and begin to wonder how it is that a triathlete can win a road race. I still haven’t figured it out.

Thanks to Cannondale for the great SuperSix, Zipp for the 404s, Rotor Cranks for the Q-Rings, and Hammer Nutrition for keeping my energy up in training.

Brian

The people you meet

I'm sitting on the tailgate in Silver City NM. It's a nice day, Jill's riding, and I came back early from a tweaked knee. Up drives a beat up older car. A guy gets out with 2 blue heelers and proceeds up the trail for a hike. Nice guy. Says "hello, nice day out." I agree and wish him a good hike. He's limping quite a bit, not walking too comfortably. The dogs stay right at his heels.

A little bit later, the guy comes back down and sparks up small talk again. Jill says something about seeing him up on the trail, and i hear him say something about having a purple heart medal. I look up and walk over, interested in hearing his story.

This guy who is now hiking daily with a limp and rough gate has quite a history. He was a combat medic in Viet Nam. He was hit 19 times and was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded in action 5 times. He is credited for saving 119 lives in 11 months and 17 days. His job was not just to administer morphine and patch up a bulet hole. This HERO would walk Into the Mouth of the Cat when a brother soldier was wounded. He would run toward enemy fire, taking some himself, in order to save a life. I was humbled hearing his story.

It's days like this that I cherish life as an American and humbly thank all those who served to give me the opportunity to live where and how I do. My dad was one of those men, and I'll never be able to thank him enough.

And I hope those 119 families whose loved ones are here because of this man understand what price he paid to bring those guys back.

Brian

USAT All Americans

Congrats to all the GEC USAT All-Americans for 2008:

USA Triathlon awards points for all sanctioned races. The top 5% in their division are chosen as All_American. This year is GEC's best year for All-American athletes.

Brian Barrett #3 in Off Road,
Kathy Rakel #7,
and Brad Hendron, Mike Neighbors, Leo Carrillo.

Honorable Mentions: Dan Perkins.

Congrats all!

GEC's High Endurance Ironman Training Camp Wrapup

It's a wrap, friends. The 2nd Annual Grasky Endurance Coaching High Altitude Ironman Training Camp is in the books. We had a great group of 5 for this camp who got along and meshed well. They were very close to the same speed, but each progressed a bit differently during the camp. Luc was strong from the start, Shawn was a bit reserved but came on strong as the week went on, Polita showed everyone up on day 6, and Owen and Angie were steady from the gate. I think all of them will go home and (after a rest period) will realize the training this week will make their seasons shine.

Thanks to all the help from Coach Bill and from worker bee Jill. This camp would not have been possible without each of you. Bill took on the swimming and running sessions, and helped in the core strength and flexibility sessions, evening talks, and cycling. Jill cooked, cleaned, drove sag, ran errands, and took care of us while we played....er, I mean trained.

Thanks for the athletes. Awesome job to all of you!

Thanks to the sponsors:
- Hammer Nutrition
- Genuine Innovations CO2 and inflation
- Trisports.com
- Michelin Tires and Tubes
- Dr Hoys Pain Relief Gel


By the numbers:

Total Volume: 25 hrs

Swim: 4:00, 10,000 yds
Bike: 15:30, 300 miles (for those showing up a day early)
Run: 5:30, 40 miles

Rain: 1.5 inches

Flat tires: 1 (yes, only ONE!!)
Water Bottles: 25

Cans of Hammer Nutrition Product: 4
Hammer Gels: 24
Hammer Bars: 14


Some pics from the camp:













See you all next year!!! (Or in September...)

GEC's High Endurance Ironman Training Camp--Day 5 guest blogger Angie

Editor's note: Angie has been "steady Betty" all week long--solid on the rides, runs and swims, on time for everything, and always ready for whatever we handed out. She wins MVP today for being ready to go on all today's workouts. Congrats, Angie!

Day 5 by Angie...

Another cold and rainy day in Arizona. What’s up with that? I heard the rain all night drumming on the roof of our cabin. It did help make me sleep well, however, there was this prospect of swimming in the lake in the morning. Cold and wet, hmm, I only know that from the California 70.3. Certainly not from AZ.

So, sure enough, when we got started it was still raining. We drove to the lake, got into the wetsuits (which was actually nice as they were keeping as warm – at least for the moment) and then off into the lake. The water was definitely colder than Monday but still quite manageable.

I figured this wasn’t my day to drown in a lake so I opted out of the ~1.2 mile swim and instead worked on swimming straight for 30min. Felt pretty good. Once the others were done with their longer swim Owen and Bill decided to swim without wetsuits for a moment. Crazy Guys!

After that ”cool” swim session we made our way to Starbucks. Glorious warm coffee. So good!

The coffee was topped however by Bills’ excellent breakfast burritos that he decided to make for us once we were back at the cabin. Big thanks to Bill. Those were delicious.

Now, the last half day of camp will be tomorrow so after having all those culinary highlights we had to start packing. Wasn’t too hard for me as I did not have to take my bike apart. It fits very well into the Mini Cooper by just taking the front wheel off. So, I was done with that pretty quickly and hang out reading in my room waiting for our 2:00PM run to start. It had kinda stopped raining sometime between the swim and the burritos but sure enough it started just in time for the run again.

Bill, Luc and myself ran anyway to the Flagstaff Athletic Center . On the way there we encountered two vicious beasts. Well, actually, two Boxers not on a leash and the owner pretty far away. Fortunately, the dogs decided not to attack us after all but it was a bit sketchy there for a moment. The rest of the run was much more uneventful. Just a nice run, no issues.

We met the other guys at the gym to do our, get this, second swim workout of the day. This time in a pool. Let me just say, I enjoyed the run much more than the swim. Nice swim, no doubt, but, boy, I was hurting.

After the little swim session we got a short education in core and stability moves. Ok, so the last part of my body that wasn’t hurting yet, the abs, started burning as well. Nice job, coaches! No, seriously, very useful stuff. I’ll definitely change my core program now. First I have to get one of those funky balls, though.

Finally, we ended the day at Beaver Street Brewery for a delicious dinner. Well, not quite true. The rest of the gang is still at the Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. Hmm, think I’ll have that tomorrow after our final run.

That’s all folks. Gotta go hit the sack!

Angie

GEC's High Endurance Ironman Training Camp--Day 5

Guest Blogger: Shawn

After yesterday’s epic downpour, the campers were hoping for some better weather today. Since the lightning cut our big ride short yesterday, the call was to move a little extra bike volume today, rather than having it be a lighter day per the schedule. Unfortunately, the cool and cloudy weather was here to stay. The original plan was to swim early and ride from the swim venue, but the GEC staff made a game-time decision to ride early instead, in an attempt to beat the rain.

We loaded our bikes and run gear onto the truck and rolled out at 7. It was raining a bit and the temperature was about 50 degrees. That’s right, straight up Seattle weather, people. As we drove out of town, the temp continued to drop and the roads got wetter. Campers: skeptical.

Shortly we pulled into the visitor center at the Sunset Crater National Monument and got rolling. Within a mile of the parking lot, the roads were dry and the sky had lightened. The route was an out-and-back, approximately 30 miles each way. The ride started with some steep rollers by a moonscape of 1,000 year old lava flows (they didn’t look a day over 20, btw), then over 20 miles of steady decent down to the valley floor. A drop of well over 3,000 feet over that distance, but on almost perfectly smooth new blacktop and basically zero traffic.

Luc, Owen, and I knew not to pass this up and started rotating, doing well over 35mph for mile after mile down the shallow grade. Soon we discovered that Brian and Bill were attempting to catch us, which just wouldn’t do, so we picked it up a bit and kept our momentum. But each of us was thinking about what the return trip was going to be like after all that descending.

As always, Jill was out covering the route and picking just the right resupply points. We stopped to get more water and Brian and Bill linked up with us about 6 miles from the turn around. Polita rolled in shortly after as well, and Angie had turned back just a little before.

After 5 days of complaining about the altitude getting me down, I was starting to feel better today. One of the things Brian and Bill have been helping me work through is my ongoing saga of difficulty getting calories down on the bike. Bill had the good idea of lowering my sights a bit to 200 cals an hour to see how that went. Brian thought I should try to get more clean water down as well – versus just NUUN water from prior days. This was one of my big focuses today. So some adjustment to the altitude plus a better experience getting fuel in me really made a big difference in how I felt. The ride back up that grade was a lot of fun as we pacelined at 20-25mph into the wind, up a long hill. Awesome stuff, and the ride back went fast, with just one refuel stop.

Brian and I went off the front a bit in the last few miles, where the climbs got steeper. That guy can turn power out of the saddle for what seems like forever. Ouch. Not to be outdone, Luc managed to catch us just before the finish of the ride. What a machine that guy is.

We all made it back to the parking lot about the same time, and it was time to run. Jill had picked out a trail run for us that “started out uphill”. The plan was for an hour run. 25 minutes into it, we had gained 1000 feet on a road that had to be a 15-20% grade in some places, and run-walk was the only way to hold it together. Any energy we had left in us was left on that trail! So we headed back down and got the balance on the run out on the road. Mmmm, pavement.

A great workout and really great logistics on the part of the GEC staff on turning what could have been a rough day into an absolutely great training day in all aspects. Between training out to the Grand Canyon and today’s outstanding workout, we’ve had some great highlights.

This afternoon we went for a swim at the local pool. The pool ended up being an odd length 20ish yard pool, but we did a quick workout and then got a chance to have our swim videoed and analyzed by a truly top notch swimmer, which is a rare opportunity.

It was a great day in Flagstaff!

Shawn

GEC's High Endurance Ironman Training Camp--Day 4...guest blogger Polita

I was the lucky winner of the 'best in the face of adversity' title today, so I'm today's guest blogger. Hello web-o-sphere!

Tuesday night in the Grand Canyon ended roughly for me; I had an upset stomach that kept me from getting any food down at dinner, and my sleep was interrupted by chills and fever in turn. Wednesday didn't start much better; I was still nauseated but I got a few calories down at breakfast. The plan was to ride from the Grand Canyon back to Flagstaff, possibly with an extra climb up Mt. Humphries for the most hardy of us.

We stopped at the general store on the way out, and Shawn bought more Gatorade than he could carry, but Sherpa Owen helped out. We rolled out of the Grand Canyon together after a quick group shot at the rim. I wasn't sure how I was going to do without much food, but I wanted to try, so I hung at the back of the pack. Our first bike leg was nearly exactly 30 miles to the gas station, and I mentally committed to at least getting there before waving the white flag. It was mostly downhill with some short climbs, so how bad could it be? Twenty miles in, I had lost sight of everyone else in the group and was struggling to make the pedals go around, when Brian returned to help me get in. The company was nice, but I could hear his freewheel spinning when he coasted and figured it probably wasn't that much fun for him. Ten impossibly long miles later, I called it a day at the gas station and loaded my bike onto the Suburban. The whole group was there, and everyone else headed out for the long flat stretch before the climb over the mountains back to Flagstaff.

Jill and I leapfrogged the riders in the truck, with quick stops to get some action shots as they went by. The weather was turning colder, but the grey clouds with smears stretching down to the mountains in front of us were more foreboding. About 20 miles past the gas station, Angie called it a day and climbed in the truck. Owen, Luc, and Shawn were making great progress in their paceline. Brian and Bill looked like twins in their matching kits and were moving quickly, but not quite fast enough to catch the other three guys.

The rain started coming down, drizzling at first, then picking up. A few cracks of thunder and some distant lightning later, and we went to pick up Shawn, Owen, and Luc. As Shawn said "it doesn't seem that bad", thunder boomed above and convinced the Seattleites to climb in the truck. Luc wasn't as easily convinced, and he rode off into the greyness. Five of us in the Suburban headed back for Brian and Bill, who were thoroughly soaked by then. Bill and Brian didn't put up a fight and soon we were seven. We all worried about leaving Luc, the one camper riding a metal bike frame, to ride through the lightning storm.

As we drove on, rain turned to torrents. After driving what seemed like miles without seeing Luc, we had just about decided we must have missed him when we finally spotted him ahead. We parked the truck at the turnoff for Mt. Humphries, ostensibly to help Luc, but really to make sure he didn't make the turn to head up the mountain. Wow, Luc is tough. Brian gave him directions through Flagstaff, and we marvelled at the standing water in all the city streets and the rain that turned into sleet, then hail. Sure enough, Luc pulled into camp not long after we did, and made a beeline for the hot shower. We all have more respect for Luc tonight.

After showers, lunch, and naps (for some of us) and easy runs (for others of us), Jill made yummy soup for dinner. We talked about recovery after dinner and plans for tomorrow. I'm hoping for a solid stomach tomorrow to get through our swim, bike, and run, while everyone else is keeping their fingers crossed for better weather.

Polita

GEC's High Endurance Ironman Training Camp--Day 4

Today started out as a nice day--beautiful weather at the Grand Canyon made for a nice morning.



We took off toward Flagstaff, but the weather got worse as we got closer. Bill and I found ourselves playing catch up again (Ugh) but we worked well together. From the Grand Canyon, we drop 1000 feet, then climb 2000, before descending back to 7000. Lots of climbing makes for a tough day. Luc does a better job talking about the weather, so read his blog. Basically (except for Luc) this became our recovery day.

Overall, how are things going? Very well. We're having fun with a good group. Tomorrow will be a good day--we'll see how the weather holds, but we have some good stuff planned in all three sports.

Oh, the plugs...
- 6 people on PowerTaps in the rain...no problems.
- Zoot rain shell...awesome.
- GEC cycling gear...top notch.
- Cannondale System Six...fearless.
- Zipp 606...no problems with 200 miles in 3 days.
- Michelin Krylions...no flats.
- Dr Hoys pain relief gel...no sore muscles.
- Rudy Project Noyz and Actyum...solid.
Thanks!