Chris Giordanelli - mild-mannered, multi-sport athlete: There's no place like Home

6/30/2008: Travel day…recovery day. Legs and back are a bit sore today. Those last few hills on the run were brutal for me.

6/29/2008: I competed in the Spirit of Morgantown Half Ironman today. I'll have a race report in my latest news section later this week.

6/28/2008: Rest and travel day. Got the bike prepped and drove the bike course.

6/27/2008: Continuing my trend for the past two days (short moderate run, short moderate ride…), I did a short, moderate swim this morning. I did about 1700 meters and just practiced a steady stroke. This week has been one of the easiest weeks I've ever done for a taper. Historically, just a couple of days rest is all I've ever taken and I'm still going pretty hard up until 3 days before the event. I figured with the way things have been going, that I might as well take a bit more of a rest.

After work, we drove halfway to the race site in West Virginia.

6/26/2008: Much like yesterday, I was just focusing on doing something easy to moderate since I have a half ironman race this weekend. So I hopped on my bike and did an 18-mile out and back ride. I rode really easy on the way out and did a moderate pace on the way back in.

6/25/2008: Did a 5-mile run this evening; mainly to double check the feel of my new Brooks shoes. I wanted to do something with a bit of effort without going too hard so I set myself on cruise control and ran a 6:40 pace.

6/24/2008: Another good swim this morning at my community pool with lots of kicking and breathing drills - about 2000 meters. My warmup 500 was as fast as my fastest 500 from a week ago. I'm not going to get overly encouraged by my swimming - I've done that before and then been disappointed. But it was definitely a good hard swim for me.

I wasn't able to ride to the Donaldson World Championships from work tonight because I had to carry stuff home from work, so I drove out there and just rode a couple of miles for warmup. Tonight was supposed to be the yearly 'uber-race' where we schedule a 10-lap (70 mile) near the longest day of the year. I was not aware of this and would not have wanted to go that far tonight but they opted to just ride the usual 6 laps since it was in the mid-90s. Our first few miles were even slower than usual and I sat in the back and chatted things up. Halfway through the first lap, a group was already off the front and eventually the group got stirred up to catch them so the pace picked up pretty good for a few miles and we caught the group at the start of the second lap on our way up golf course hill.

A mile later, a group at the front strung out a few gaps and my old teammate and friend Pat "LFB" McCallion (who turned 40 today!) and a Les Amis rider got off the front by a bit. There were a few guys pulling at the front of the group and I came around to take a pull but I noticed from my shadow that I only had one rider on my wheel so I casually picked up the pace harder and harder…still only one shadow. As we rounded a bend, I could see that we had a good gap and we were closing in on Pat and the other rider. We raced by them and after about another 30 seconds, I moved over and for the first time got to see who was with me. It was John James. Pat was also able to latch on as we went by so it looked like it was the three of us and that was good. But the good only lasted about one minute before John James blew a tire like a shotgun. Pat and I hestitated for just an instant and then went right back into TT mode.

Talk about déjà vu. Almost exactly 11 years ago I moved to town and did my first Donaldson race. On that day, myself and some no-name rider that was wearing a t-shirt left the pack, dropped all of our breakaway companions and lapped the 'B' group on our way to victory. That was me and Pat. Here we were 11 years later; it was like old times. In the next two and a half laps we rotated smoothly and efficiently like we've been doing this all our lives and brought our average speed up from just under 22 to 24.9 mph. We had lost sight of the pack pretty early on. Our gap was good enough during lap three that the police escort stopped and dropped back to wait for the field (better to protect a large group than just a couple of riders).

As we approached the end of lap 4, Pat advised me that he would be pulling out - something about feeding someone. I told him that was cool and that I had already gotten a great workout and that maybe I would get caught by a small group. I also made him pull me the last mile before he pulled out (standard protocol). I felt good so I kept riding hard but without another rider to give me an occassional break, I could see my pace drop a bit. After 5 laps, I still could not see anyone behind me. Halfway through the final lap, I saw the headlights of the police car behind me. He continued to close in as I approached the finish. He passed me with about a quarter-mile to go but when I looked back, I still could not see anyone coming. I crossed the line after spending four and a half laps away from the group; two of them on my own.

It felt good and I was extremely happy because I could see myself getting stronger again over the past month. I have been really working my legs in the gym and in the pool lately and it has been making my legs very tired but tonight I barely felt them. Most importantly, when I got home, my weight was where it should be. I had been losing way too much weight on my rides and runs lately and it looks like my metabolism is finally catching back up. Pat also looked like his fitness is taking huge leaps. Last week, we lost him out of our small break and this week, he had no problems keeping a steady hard pace with just the two of us. Chalk one up this week for the 40-year-olds kickin' it old-school. "We're getting' the band back together"…

6/23/2008: A good weightlifting session this morning and a nice evening off.

6/22/2008: I planned one of my infamous mega-brick days today. I haven't really done any of these this year mainly because they are really a tool I use to train for Ironman-distance events. But they work so well, I plan on using them a bit this Summer to get ready for my Fall events. Today, I started with a 40-minute swim. Dan and I met at our community pool and we each did our own program. I did a 500m warmup and then 2 x 500m straight swims and a 200m cooldown. Dan swears our pool is long - or at least just 'slow' (no lane ropes creates more of an open-water swim; especially with multiple people in the pool). It was a good swim for me at an 'upper-moderate' effort.

We left the pool and met back together 20 minutes later for the 2nd leg of our training day - a long bike ride. Dan had ridden pretty hard the day before and I had rested. He was looking to just get some long miles in at a decent pace. I was planning a hard run afterwards. I told Dan that the run was my focus and that I would adjust the distance based on how long and hard we rode. We averaged just over 20mph as we neared home and he turned off to add a few more miles on. I got home with 67 miles under my belt at pace that felt fairly easy on this particular day. Based on that, I decided my run would be 8-10 miles.

I had my transition set up in my garage so I was in and out in 5 minutes. I was about a mile and a half out when Dan passed me riding in. I swore I would not look at my pace until at least the first 3 miles in an attempt to let my body pick its own comfortable pace. The first time I looked at my Garmin was when I heard my watch beep at the 4-mile mark. It was comfortable and I was on a 6:23 pace. My course had several long-sloping gradients and I was happy to arrive back in my neighborhood at the 9-mile mark still holding a 6:24 pace. I backed off and jogged the last half-mile back to the house. I was extremely happy with this run and the day as a whole. Hopefully, this is a reflection on what I might expect at my half-ironman next weekend.

6/21/2008: Rest day!

6/20/2008: This week has been a perfect example of keeping fexibility in my training schedule - there are so many unplanned things that can happen and in the end, you have to listen to your body (although sometimes your body does its best to trick you into NOT working out). So, after skipping last night's time trial ride I made a schedule change - instead of taking off today and working out tomorrow, I thought it would be better to swim this morning, do my time trial tonight and take Saturday off. My morning swim was great. I've said it before but this time I really do think that I have a renewed sense of discipline towards my swimming and I've put more effort into my swims the past 2 weeks than I ever have. This morning, I had the Sports Club pool entirely to myself for an hour! Not another soul. I did both kick drills and pull drills and when I got to work, I felt more energetic than I have in a long time.

After work, I headed out to do my 20-mile time trial and that did not go as well as I had hoped. One of my slowest 'Summer' times (47:38 - 25.2 mph) but this week, I believe that was due to the unending wringer that I put my legs through…starting with a hard lift (which I had been skipping all too often) and continuing with a huge amount of kicking drills in the pool (something new for me - and these really zap my legs). So I was not really discouraged. The total ride was 35 miles.

6/19/2008: Well, I was amazed that I've managed to stick exactly to my workout schedule so far this week. Something that is actaully quite rare since I tend to create a 'perfect schedule' each Sunday and I rarely complete every session. Today, I was supposed to do a long run (13 mi) in the morning and my time trail after work. Much like yesterday, I decided to get a real good nights sleep in so I moved my long run to lunchtime. I really wanted to NOT do any clock watching - just pick a comfortable pace and run. Even though I did keep tabs on my pace, I did a great job of picking a comfortable pace. My first 3 miles were all within 2 seconds of each other (6:33 - 6:35). My next 4 miles were a little faster but also right around 6:30 pace. But then mile 8 my pace began to drop. At first, it didn't feel like I ws running any slower, but I was. I decided that I'd better head back to my office and this was a good idea since my pace took a geometric turn for the worse. I couldn't believe it - it was the same thing that had been happening to me a couple of weeks ago - a sudden loss of energy. I cut the run short and only finished 11 miles. My last 2 miles were 7:04 and 7:24. Based on this, I decided to relax tonight instead of riding.

6/18/2008: I was afraid that I would be too tired to get up and swim in the morning and I wanted to have a good swim, so I moved my swim to lunch and moved my lunch run to after work. That worked out great. I got in a very solid 35 minute swim (1500 meters) that again included a good amount of kick work as well as some 300m pulls. After work, I left from the house to do a 7-mile run with a 5-mile tempo. I wasn't sure how this would go with all the leg work I've been doing all week - including a hard lift, some hard swim kicking and a trianing bike race. I warmed up the first mile and decided to take off a little easier than usual. I was almost 2 miles into the run when it occurred to me that nearly the entire trip out was uphill. I thought I was doing very poorly but when I turned around at the 2.5-mile mark, the terrain helped to even things out a bit. My 6:08 pace was still not anything 'great' but I was happy to put in the effort with tired legs. Total run was 7 miles.

6/17/2008: I have a renewed energy towards swimming - and really all it took was someone to spend a few minutes talking about stroke and talking through some good workouts. Today, I had one of my hardest swim workouts ever. It's not that it would be considered hard to most other triathletes or swimmers but I've just never put the effort into it that I should. Anyway, I swam for about 50 minutes and did lots of structure. After only a couple of really focused swims, I was able to swim the entire session breathing bilaterally. I have NEVER been able to do that. I've been breathing every stroke since I started doing this stuff. Dan has suggested some heavy kicking workouts and they are really working my legs over.

I hit the Donaldson World Championships tonight. I rode out there - did the race - and then rode home with Dan. I sat in the back for the first lap, not sure how I felt. At the start of lap 2, I shot to the front on the way up golf course hill and just kept going. It was apparent that a small group was off the front because there were two guys on different teams sitting at the front riding a 'moderately easy' tempo (including Doug "Dougie Fresh" Pilat - who was playing the blocking card to a tee). I went around them - and with the help of one of the Columbian riders - we stretched the field out (Dan told me later that we actually split the field) and hammered until we caught the group. One of the riders in the break was my old friend Jeff "Gunny" Gunn. Gunny defines 'old school' and I was giving him a lot of hell about his circa 1970 Giro helmet before the ride. After we caught his group I told him that I chased him down because I just couldn't let a guy with that helmet beat me.

A few attempts at splitting the field were unsuccessful until a lap or so later. The field had stretched hard and all the 'players' were at the front - but it was this fact that kept the pack hanging by a shoestring. As it's happens so many times in my cycling life, the real break wasn't formed from a huge attack with guys flying everywhere. Instead, Rodney Dender simply rolled off the front up golf course hill with three laps to go. Pat McCallion and I stealthily(?) rolled up to him and away we started to go. We were joined shortly by a Land Rover rider and the 4 of us fell into a smooth pace line.

I was watching our average speed slowly creep higher whilst watching the pack behind us completely disappear. We lost Pat and with just under 2 laps to go, the Land Rover rider decided to drop off as well. At this point, we had been maintaining about a 25mph pace but with only 2 of us left, we decided to take it down a notch and let the chase group catch us (they appeared after we were away for almost a lap). Rodney was riding strong and smooth and we just put it on cruise control. It took a while, but we were finally caught just before starting the last lap. The group included Dan, Chris Gundling, two of the Columbian riders (including the rider who helped me out earlier in the race) and….that's right….Gunny. He may be old and decrepit ;-) but he's stil wiley.

Our pace the prior lapped dropped and now that we were caught, it actually dropped a bit more. Everyone seemed tired and not very concerned with keeping the pace up. A few of us still pulled at the front just to keep ups moving. I continued to put some effort into pulling because I was already happy with my ride and did not care much to try and win. I was actually pretty beat - which made it really funny when the group let me ride away with about a mile and a half to go. I was crawling and yet nobody was going to chase me. I had no effort left in me so I just rode. I was doing 18mph into the wind and I was just waiting for them to come sailing by. Three of them did - including…that's right…Gunny. I coasted across the line just moments before what was left of the main pack. We had slowed so much the last lap that the pack went from being completely out of sight to nearly catching us at the line. Anyway, I got a great workout and finally felt a bit stronger than I had been. Dan and I were both pretty tired on the ride home. I finished the day with 63 miles. I gotta give Gunny his kudos. He took 2nd - and beat me, even with his 1970 Giro helmet!