The classic is “I run and ride with some friends but we just run and ride along.” Time to put some emphasis on your “friend workouts” and get everyone in gear. There are several types of workouts: recovery, aerobic, anaerobic, strength to name a few. Your “ride and run along” workouts should be considered a “recovery” workout.

Then the next time you ride or run with your friends make it a strength day, for example, bring them along for a hill repeat workout say 5-10 X 3 min lower cadence, rest 2 minutes. Every level can do it together because it is a more controlled environment, each person can pick their number of repeats that is good for them and then all meet at the end and ride home together.

Mix it up; each day should have some sort of focus even if it is recovery and always remember to schedule that day off

So here is the deal, I just went to the gym this morning for my strength session and I wore my COMPRESSRx Knicker and I have to tell you this: THESE ARE AMAZING!!

The snug, compression fit is like nothing else I have ever worn. The “wrap” feeling on my muscles kept my muscles warm and ultra supportive that I felt like I was able to “push” harder than workouts where I just wear shorts or basic kickers.

I have been having some groin issues since this last pregnancy and I can already tell these are going to play a major role in my training as I strengthen my muscles and as well my endurance system. Check them out at www.zootsports.com.

I am still hitting the weight room 3-4 times a week and I have seen some good results. Right now, money is pretty tight and we are having to keep the kids home more which is keeping me from getting out as much as I would like. The gym has become a priority workout; I am working all aspects of my body trying to work in all the different planes.

Right now, each week I am increasing my bike and run and I just started to structure a focus bike week and a focus run week. I know I am capable of 2 hard quality workouts in each discipline so it is just a matter of making the right juggle and getting the right rest.

I just started bringing in the intensity last week, it is awesome, I brought on smokers cough as well as double cramping in both quads-BRING IT; I like to say. I am planning on WF as my first race; it has been 5-6 years since I have been there, wow, should be a good time.

I am on Twitter if you want to follow my day to day training; trying to show the balance of it all. Whew, who new life was going to be so busy; I need to blog the mental banter I have in my head sometimes-I think it would make a great book .

Let it go,
Gina

I am happy to announce that although the past few months I have been struggling with left over Ironman pain, I am happy to finally say all systems are go. For a while I was a bit nervous because every time I worked out I was getting this groin pain that I was not able to knock. After a MRI and bone scan it looks like everything is clear and what my issue comes down to is function. During both my pregnancies I was put in the category of AMA (Advanced Maternal Age). It really would piss me off because with my first pregnancy I was only 35 and I turned 36 a month after she was born. With baby number 2, I was 38-clearly putting me in the category. Well, now that I am approaching the big 40 in September and after seeing I was one of the “oldest” on the professional start list at Ironman in 08, I have put myself in the AAA category of sports (Advanced Athletic Age). I have come to accept this phase of my life and actually I am really enjoying it. See, I did all the long, overtraining type of training years ago, so now I am learning that I need to focus on strength. That is what the results of all my test came to; “you need to hit the gym”, is what I was told by my ortho. I started triathlon in 1995 and have never done a strength program, who has the time right? For 13 years I just did the same stuff, I would get aches and pains, I would get a massage and it would go away. In the off season I would do nothing physically, literally nothing. Then I would go from being sedentary for 8-10 weeks to swimming, biking and running, no weights. I know, I know, I know, I look super strong. It is a facade unfortunately. The more lean I would get my muscles just showed more but they didn’t really do much. So, now at the age of 39.5, I am hitting the gym. That is my focus workout 3-4 times a week. And you know what, it is working. I still have the groin pain here and there but it has improved a TON and all my other work outs seem to be better. I can’t help but now understand what Dara Torres was doing with her training as she prepared for trials and the games last summer; focusing on strength. If I had the pocket book that she did I would do the same thing, really take the gym to another level and lay a bit lower on the other training. For now, I will just keep doing what I am doing, hitting the gym and then getting to the swim, bike and run part of my program. As I said a little bit ago, I love the AAA part of my life; makes training more fun and interesting.

let it go,
Gina

Early December I was able to get in a few weeks of training. My body was still feeling IM and both kids were sick and I just wasn’t feeling that great; so I pulled the training plug and enjoyed the holidays. After the holidays I started getting on it with the training again, which for me was WAY ahead of schedule (heck-I already had 2 weeks in under my belt which was CRAZY) but the body was still not digging what I was doing. Lucky for me I had my new winter ZOOT gear-so I was super warm therefore making me happy even though my body was not . After several weeks of not feeling right I thought it appropriate to focus on weights and let my body recover from the training and childbirth that I put on it last year. I think 8 months post baby was a bit much for my body to handle. The rest seems to be helping and the weights have been great-I am not a lean mean machine right now, more of a muscle machine but that is cool.

Other than that we are plugging along. The economy issue that is out there is effecting us a bit; my real estate is not as “easy” as it use to be so we are having to keep the kids home more making it a bit harder to juggle all the stuff-but we are riding the wave and looking forward to the “groove” that I know will be here at some point. I hate to admit I am struggling a bit with the balance as it is one of my niches-but it is true-I know I will get that balance back, it is just another adjustment.

Hope everyone out there is getting ready for a great year and I look forward to seeing you at the races!

Let it go,
Gina Kehr

Cool Hand Blaisen

Family b-day photo

The third Act of Gina Kehr’s professional career as a triathlete has begun. Kehr was at the top of the triathlon world in 2003 when she crossed the finish line at the Ironman Hawaii World Championship as the first U.S. Female finisher for the second consecutive year (7th overall). But then everything changed. Kehr suffered a terrible crash on the bike in 2004 that left her career in question. Although the time away from the sport in 2004 and 2005 enabled Kehr and her husband to celebrate the birth of their first child, Gabriella, the reality was that Kehr had not raced nor trained for two years.

After a stunning return to the world stage with a 4th place finish at the 2006 Hawaii Ironman, Kehr made some changes in the off-season and decided it was time to go all-in for 2007 and beyond.

“I always had a lot of confidence in my own ability and my results showed it, but if I wanted to make a run at being the best in the world, I was going to have to add a few pieces to the puzzle, said Kehr from her Redwood City, California home.

With a revamped attitude and an entirely new respect from the triathlon community, Kehr hired a new agent, and recruited one of the top exercise physiologists in the world to join forces with her longtime coach and 2-time Ironman Canada Champion Michael McCormack (www.triathloncoach.com). In addition, she surrounded herself with a team of sponsors that all shared one major goal – to make Gina Kehr as fast as possible.

At 37, Kehr is a wife, a mother, a part-time realtor, and one of the fastest female triathletes in the world. She speaks to an audience that reaches far beyond the world of triathlon and her sponsors recognized that. Kehr added Zoot Sports as the final piece of the puzzle and immediately won her first race of the year as a Zoot athlete, racing in the Zenith wetsuit and an ULTRA race day kit.

“I might be the only Zoot Athlete that has never lost a race,” Kehr joked when asked about her debut win in 2007. “Zoot is in a tremendous growth phase and there was a great symbolic fit between the two of us. I plan to take the next step in my career just as Zoot has huge plans for the next couple of years. The Ultra line is awesome and is what I will race in throughout the year.”

“We are so happy to have Gina as part of the Zoot family,” commented Eli Carlson, Director of Marketing for Zoot Sports. “Gina’s incredible talent, strong-willed character and most important, her aggressive drive to win perfectly parallel with Zoot’s strategy to be a premier global multisports brand. We look forward to continuing our success with Gina and will be cheering her on at this weekend’s Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon.”

United States Olympian Victor Plata followed in the footsteps of some of triathlon’s greatest long course personalities with his comeback victory in yesterday’s World’s Toughest Half in Auburn, CA, part of a weekend endurance extravaganza featuring a race distance and format for everyone. After competing in triathlon for eight years, in which he climbed to the highest level of competition, earning the third and final qualifying position on the three member 2004 US men’s Olympic triathlon squad in Athens, Plata hung up his Aegis bike frame and Swedish goggles in order to venture back into the world of academia as a fulltime law student.

As a present to himself for completing his second year of classes, Plata signed up for Sunday’s half-iron race, not exactly sure what the challenging and unforgiving course would throw his way. Exiting the 1.2-mile swim at Rattlesnake Bar Lake, the termination of the North Fork River, in 22:46, Plata started the bike to find his rear disc wheel was skewed.

“It sounded like a near-dead, moaning cat,” explained Plata following the race. “I apologized for the awful noise to each of the five or six racers who passed me during the bike portion.”

He figured out after the race, his wheel was not broken, but in fact was heavily underused as a result of his nine-month hiatus from the sport, and could be restored to good use again with the proper tuning and some lubrication. As a result of his minor oversight during his pre-race preparations, Plata finished the 56-mile bike featuring 5,000-feet of elevation gain, 12-minutes behind the race leader, and author of this article, Lars Finanger.

Fortunately for the Olympian, Finanger’s foot-speed over the 13.1-miles of trail and pavement would not match his race leading 2:45:48 bike split. Plata moved into the lead at the 11-mile mark at the top of the lung-sapping Cardiac Bypass hill, one of two dramatic hills on the course over one mile in length and contributing to the 1,325-feet of overall elevation gain.

Plata crossed the finish line in 4:51:03 after the day’s best 1:27:45 half-marathon split, only slower than a handful of predecessors including Tim Deboom and Clas Bjorling, over the challenging course that pits athletes against technical single-track, drawn-out climbs, and occasional obstacles like sun-bathing snakes and fresh horse patties.

Photo Credit: Lars Finanger.

Fourth-place Ironman Hawaii finisher Gina Kehr used the international race as a pre season tuner.

While 2006 Ironman Hawaii fourth place finisher Gina Kehr traveled from her Redwood City, CA home for the international event, Diana Hassel from Fort Collins biked away from her competition to win the half-iron event. The equine emergency surgeon and tenured track faculty member at Colorado State University, soldiered through the run with blisters lining the bottoms of her feet.”I made the mistake of forgetting to tighten my shoe strings,” exclaimed Hassel, pointing to her loosely tied kicks.

Hassel is no newcomer to this area having graduated from Vet School at University of California at Davis and completed a temporary stint on their faculty board. A former Ironman Hawaii age group world champion, Hassel has finished the World’s Toughest Half four times and volunteered on the course one time.

“I love the grassroots feel and I love Brad Kearns,” stated Hassel who won yesterday’s race in 5:33:52, over ten minutes ahead of her nearest competitor.

There is nothing easy about The World’s Toughest Tri. For starters, the name lends a maniacal ring even to the most cerebral and sane multisport athletes. Much like the host city of Auburn, the epicenter of the mid-1800’s gold rush, the multisport event has a mystical aura about it. While athletes can chose between an international, half-iron, or duathlon format, each race is difficult and features Auburn’s unparalleled network of hill climbs on both the cycling and running legs.

City officials passed a proclamation in 2003 naming Auburn as the “Endurance Capital of the World.” It would be difficult to argue otherwise. This tiny town of 12,000, ironically the same size it was in the years after miner Claude Chana first struck gold in 1848, is nestled at 1,300-feet in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains and sandwiched between the snowcapped peaks near Lake Tahoe 65 miles to the east and Sacramento 30 miles to the west. The town is home to no less than a 24-hour mountain bike festival, the finishing point of ultra-running’s World Series the Western States 100, the 100-mile Tevis Cup horse race, and for the last five years the World’s Toughest Half.

What the race lacks in total participant numbers (650 total participants this year), it makes up for field talent and athlete accommodation. In it’s current incarnation, the World’s Toughest Half has lured in the likes of two-time Ironman Hawaii world champion Tim Deboom, his equally talented wife Nicole, Swedish powerhouse Clas Bjorling, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Simon Whitfield, Xterra star Josiah Middaugh, 2002 Ultraman champion Gordo Byrn, and Frenchman Cyrille Neveu who lives on top of the famed Tour de France mountain Alpe D’Huez.

Owner of Bradventures.com and the World’s Toughest Half, former top-level pro triathlete Brad Kearns knows how to deliver an epic grassroots event. Kearns brings to race organization the same precision he applied to his own training in the 90’s, when he would often challenge and beat the world’s best multisport athletes like Mark Allen and Kenny Souza. While he no longer competes himself, Kearns now devotes his time to his own multisport business, along with directing a kids running program at local elementary schools (see www.runningschool.org), writing books like How Lance Does It, a look on how you can apply the seven-time Tour de France winners attitude to set and accomplish your own goals (see www.bradventures.com), and working on improving his high jumping skills. That’s right, Kearns has cleared 5′3 ½ and is ranked 17^th nationally in his master’s category.

Kearns likes the grassroots feel of his event and is committed to keeping athletes’ needs as his foremost concern.

“When I was racing, I was self-absorbed, but now I take tremendous pride in accommodating racers of all abilities, incomes, and walks of life,” admits Kearns.

This can be noted on Kearns’ website where he awards discounts to athletes who have competed in past World’s Toughest events, collegiate competitors and full time students, and any athlete who might have beaten him during his own professional racing career. And while this offer might seem generous, remember Kearns’ track record as one of the premier racers of his era.

For complete results from the Auburn International Triathlon, World’s Toughest Half, and World’s Toughest Duathlon, visit www.auburntriathlon.com.