spin / second sole multisport team

In the original SSSMST goes to Lake Placid post, I promised two things.  To talk about BIG SUNDAY workouts, and to finish introducing the teammates who will be training and racing together. 

First, the Big Sundays.  I think these sort of happened by accident this year.  Rob Reddy has had a swimming program for triathletes at Oberlin College for several years now (i.e., swim practice where it’s more common to use open turns and to only know freestyle).  I literally credit this class in getting me to be able to sign up for Ironman – my first triathlon (actually, my first several triathlons) was not pretty and I probably shouldn’t mentioned that I’ve gotten myself nervous-to-tears more than once prepping for a swim… but that’s another story.  Anyway, SSSMST used to host a trainer series on Thursday nights where people could bring their bikes and trainers and ride for two hours during the winter, and it looked like the series would be in jeopardy for the 2011 pre-season.  So, Rob put together an Indoor Cycling session for Sundays at Oberlin, to follow our swim practices.  Now we swim for 90 minutes and transition to 120 minutes on the bike.  BIG SUNDAYs indeed!  That’s three-and-a-half hours of working out in JANUARY.  Crazy!!

And second – who else from SSSMST is going to Lake Placid this year?  (to participate, not to watch – I’ve heard rumors that a LOT of people will be coming!)  The other two team members who will be helping me train (er, I mean, racing at Lake Placid) are Paul Lentini and Tim Walsh. 

This will be Paul’s third Ironman (like Brian).  Having completed IMMOO in ’08 and IMLOU in ’09 in perfect weather, he’s hoping for the same at IMUSA (me too Paul, me too).  He also figures that as a native New Yorker, this is as close as it gets to a Home Town race.  For him, the best part of training has been and always will be EPIC FRIDAYS (more info on those certainly to come later in training)!!!  They train you both physically and mentally.  He says, “If you can survive the “camaraderie” of an EF then you can survive IM.”

As for Tim, he certainly caught the Ironman bug after Wisconsin in ’08 as this will be his FIFTH Ironman.  Tim’s motivation is simple: training for Ironman allows him to eat all the Mike & Ikes and all the meatloaf he wants, all summer long.  He really looks forward to getting to race with close to 20 good buds from “the Cleve” on race day.  But, he’s disappointed that one of those buds won’t be Aussie Rob (who is watching rather than racing) because Tim was really looking forward to beating him. 

And there you have it.  Five SSSMST members training and racing IMLP this year.  So you can now look forward to commentary from the five of us as we get ready for this monster of a race.

Filed under: 2011, SSSMST goes to Lake Placid |