Start of the 13 Week Training Program

We this week is the start of my training program for my first triathlon this year. I am again going to be doing a 13 week schedule leading up to the San Diego Internation sprint triathlon on June 28th. I am doing the whole thing and Sue is going to be dong the swim portion as a team. I am going to do a second triathlon this year and that one is the St. Paul Triathlon on August 23rd at Lake Phalen.

I have been swimming and doing some running so I won't be going from 0 to triathlon. I have decided to continue with the training schedule that is set for a person to go from couch potato to first triathlon. I have used this one in the past and liked it. I do modify it a little since I usually train swim heavy and I am a better swimmer than most novice training schedules are developed for.

So today (maybe instead of training) I cleaned up the chains on bikes for the upcoming season. To make this easier I made a bike repair stand out of 2x6 lumber, black steel pipe and a pipe clamp. It works great! I had looked at some bike stands and it seemed unless you shelled out $150+ they did not seem very good quality. I wanted my own stand for making repairs after taking my bike to a local bike shop for a tuneup and it was worse than when it went in. So this year I am going to do it myself. Now I just have to give it a tuneup and it will be ready for this years riding.

Sue's bike is the Bianchi and mine is the Gary Fisher.

Late March Weekend

This weekend was a fun weekend dominated by college hockey for me and a trip to Chicago for Sue. It of course started for me on Friday night with UMD vs. Princeton at Mariucci arena for the first round of the NCAA playoffs. UMD pulled out the amazing win to play Miami of Ohio on Saturday night. For more information on Bulldog hockey check out the Hockey HighHorse blog where I am a co-contributor with Andy Craig who does a great job for the blog. UMD fell short on Saturday night to the Redhawks 2-1, but it was a great season and playoff run.

On Saturday Sue went to Chicago for the American Beauty Show, which she attended today. I am currently waiting to pick her up from the airport. The flight out of Chicago was delayed about a half an hour likely due to the snow Chicago got during the day.

Since Sue was gone Sunday night I made diner for myself and thought I would make something nice. So, I thought I would try out a potato au gratin recipe. I decided to make an antelope and a venison roast with asparagus to go with the potato au gratin. Everything turned out great and I think the potatoes are definitely two thumbs up.

Great Waters Expo

Last weekend was the Minneapolis Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo and it was a great show. I worked the show Friday through Sunday in one of the three St. Paul fly Tiers booths. The SPFT had a big presence at the show, running the learn-to-tie area, the fly tying theatre and a membership table. We had some 15 different people volunteer helping out at the expo.

Our display for the theatre was great this time around. We didn't have any of the issues that we ran into while in Chicago. This time we had a better microphone that didn't get bumped by Kelly Galloup or Kevin Feenstra when they were demonstrating. We signed up three new members and lots of interested people. All in all it was a great success.

Now that the Wisconsin catch and release season is open, I need to get working on my flies for the year. Hopefully I will get out next weekend when the Club goes to the Kinnie.

Winter Storm Update

Well, it came and it snowed. We ended up with about 5-inches of the white stuff. The driving wass terrible on Thursday afternoon, but by Firday everything was alright. On Saturday I went to the UMD vs. UMTC hockey game. It was entertaining game with many ups and downs. In the end the Gopher came out on top, putting a 3 way tie for 5th in the WCHA standings.

On Sunday it was nice cool morning. Sue didn't feel up to cross country skiing at 6F in the morning, so I went out by myself. I went to Como and their was only a few epople there. The snow was great and the sun was warm, It felt like it was about 20F. The next few days are supposed to be warm which will be tough on the snow. I am hoping for one more time cross county skiing.