Crackers, slackers, Trakkers and awesome backers!

Last week, I felt like one of the slackers, laid up on my couch with chicken noodle soup and crackers (thank you super awesome husband for making this killer homemade concoction)!

After a lot of rest and taking it easy, I feel sooo much better this week after a super fantastic weekend!  Friday night we hit Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park with our friends.  The highlight of that night was one of the groups of people who were in there filming a video.  The one guy rolls up with a mullet wig on into the one jump line.  Clearly he could ride, but they were filming crashes.  This was commitment at its finest, as he said not to worry, he just had to go crash a couple more times; the last time, even over the handlebars.  This was all quite entertaining! 

Saturday morning, as usual, I hit Cleveland Triathlon Club’s east side indoor cycling.  This is typically a 2 hour sweat-fest filled with lots of drills and intervals, sure to make us stronger riders come spring.  I think sweating out the last of my germs, made me even grosser than usual.  But have no fear, after we rode, I hit the pool to get clean and the gang swam a nice 1750 yard workout together!  What a quality way to spend a winter Saturday morning!  I spent the better part of the afternoon relaxing and watched Ultra Marathon Man, featuring Dean Karnazes, which highlighted his journey of 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.  The banter in my running club is quite colorful when the topic of Karnazes comes up, but I can’t help but give credit where credit is due and that just seems like one heck of a feat.

Sunday morning I awoke for a final “long” taper run before next weekend’s Run for Regis 50K.   We ran a very gorgeous 11 mile trail run in some snowy footing in the sun and I felt great!  This was much to my liking as I am not sure if I am being paranoid or if I do need to back the running down a bit but it just seems like my leg has been tender randomly lately (similar to the way it felt last year when I had the tibia stress fracture).  It is strange, not really hurting when I run but somewhat dull and aching or feeling numb in the bone here and there.  Maybe it is me just being worrisome or maybe something more that I need to monitor carefully.  I donno.  Either way, I am trying to exercise the utmost caution to make sure everything stays on the up and up.  So that leaves me with a huge question mark for this weekend’s 50k race.  I do this one for fun, but I would be lying to say I am not competitive and want more.  It is not one of my 2 spring A races.  So if I feel good Sunday I will go for it.  If not, I will just have a nice easy half marathon trail run.  I am resolved to be ok with it either way as the only goal is to not be injured!

On the home front, I am excited again to be a part of Team Trakkers!  The 2011 roster has been set and the team is buzzing with lots of excitement!    Trakkers  is known for their real-time GPS device, designed by and for endurance athletes. Whether you’re training or racing, all of your essential information – location, performance, heart rate, and more – is transmitted to trakkersgps.com for instant viewing.  Other team backers include-

• REV 3 OF COURSE!  Last year I had the pleasure of doing the entire REV3 Series!  This year again REV 3 is back with more races including Costa Rica, Portland, South Carolina and even some adventure races!  Additionally, they just rolled out their AG Series which even includes nice prize money for us amateurs!  Needless to say, REV3 Cedar Point and maybe a couple other races will be on my calendar this year!  And as a PS, look for Cleveland Triathlon Club to again help put on some on the course training days in OH!

• Kestrel Bikes- Popular and much loved by lots of my teammates!

• First Endurance – I must say I brag about their products on a regular basis.  They made a world of difference to me in my training and I carried and used solely the FE products to get me through my first ever IM last year with no issues.  I am so thankful to have finally feel like I have got a decent nutrition plan nailed down and much of the credit here all goes to FE!  Plus I am soooo excited they now have a Berry Liquid Shot (not that I did not love my Vanilla…I am just a bit fruity!)

• TriSwim / SBR Sports – LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this stuff!  Another one of my favorite things to brag about so much so that I had to see that the Cleveland Tri Club got familiar with the product!  Lots of our members will get samples to try at our upcoming big CTC Swim Challenge and Clinic!

• All 3 Sports – Another go-to for me over 2010 for that bike seat I could just not find at the store and anything else I was searching for!

• Avia- New for 2011!  Now for some time, I have been a fan of the AVIA SKULL look.  I checked out its origin to find that the AVIA Skull stands for "Victory or Death" and has roots that run deep in Endurance Sports, just like AVIA.  I thought it was interesting to read in one of the press releases online that-

“World Champion, 4th place RAAM finisher, and eight-times National Duathlon Champion, AVIA athlete, Kenny Souza, arguably one of the best endurance racers of all time inspired us with passion for performance, endurance sports, and racing to win.

His inspiration stemmed from a "Victory or Death" mantra he focused on while racing, also tattooed on his left arm. "Victory or Death" is a mentality when racing, when training, it provides that extra push that is sometimes needed to dig a little deeper.” 

I LIKE IT...bring on some AVIA SKULL FOR ME IN 2011!   So heres to the new year, Trakkers and our awesome backers!!!