I've come up to my parents condo up in Northern Michigan for 5 1/2 weeks to escape the heat in Austin, Texas and prepare for Ironman Wisconsin. I came up here for about 7 weeks last summer and I loved the training up here so much that as the mercury rose in Austin, I made arrangements to come up here so I can get in some quality training. My good buddy and training partner Richie Cunningham is planning on coming up here for about 3 weeks so we can both get in a quality training block. I'm really excited to be up here because the training is so good and I'm closer to my family and my childhood friends. Its tough because I'll be away from my girlfriend for so long, but we're working on seeing if we can get her up here for a bit. All in all, this is going to be a great block of training to get ready for Wisconsin. Check back to this page over the next 6 weeks or so and I'll be posting updates and pictures from up here.

July 30: I've been up here almost a week now and the first week of training has gone very well. New terrain and roads always helps the motivation factor. I've really upped the miles from the last couple months when I was training specifically for the half-Ironmans. I've got several weeks to get the higher volume into my body for the next race. The cycling's been great and I've been swimming mostly in the lake. I can tell that I'm much more comfortable in the lake this year than I was last year. With my swimming, for this week and next I'm focusing on volume and strength, then will have about a 3 week block with much more swim intensity. I'm enjoying the running here as well, but the terrain is much more hilly than where I normally run in Austin, so on my 21 miler the other day, I was really smashed for the last 7 miles or so when the hills caught up with me. It makes pace specific workouts more challenging, but strength-wise it's tough to beat. Between the track and a few flatter spot's I've found for speed and tempo workouts, the hillier terrain should help my run strength quite a bit. I haven't taken any pictures as of yet. Last year, because everything was new, I had my camera with me on every bike ride, but this week, I keep forgetting to take it with me. So far this first week has been really good and I'm happy to have the repeatability I need day after day up here.

Pat