Hi there, welcome to the BLOG of my life as a Vagabiker. Beryl calls me a 'Free Spirit' my Grandpa a B.U.M. of no fixed address. Kelly says I'm 'off the wall'. I think that the Toad is closest saying I'm the Cat in the Hat it's fun to have fun—but you have to know how.

These are the stories of my unique, home-and-job-free Natness.

Naturally, quasi-legal events are fictional. Everything else is the unvarnished truth.

Archive for April, 2008

The Sean Bechtel Interview.

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
When Nat showed up in Tucson he hardly knew Sean Bechtel, and an hour later they were sharing a bed for the first of two weeks of their training session. There haven’t been many hours that they’ve spent apart. After 2 months training together the longest separation was 2h (2x 1h massage with Mona).
2 weeks later they upped that time to just over 3h (after Seans swim start until the start of Nat’s run) at Oceanside.
I have also learned that when Nat was out on a date last week he locked the keys in the car so that he had an excuse to call Sean so that there was excuse him (and his AAA card) to come over.

(more…)

Posted in pointless, random T.I.T.ing, time wasting | 4 Comments »

The swim deal (it’s a secret)

Monday, April 14th, 2008

oceanside bikeSo I have been spending a lot of time in the pool. From nothing, to 1km workouts being big, to 3km workouts being impossible…. I just stepped out of a 5km day in the pool. However for all the time in the pool over the past 2 months I’ve hardly made any improvements. My wetsuit makes me faster, but you already know that. I’ve been placing a lot of the blame on my technique, and though it’s not perfect, I don’t think it’s what is holding me back.

I was doing some hard pieces 3 days ago, and some goof (not Sean) in the lane next to me, who had awful technique, was keeping up. This bummed me out a bunch, but I realized the solution.

(more…)

Posted in random T.I.T.ing, swimming | No Comments »

I’m an addict

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

the targetsSo after my last post (Wed?) I found out that there is another local race here in Clermont… The 25th Great Clermont Triathlon. You can still enter, because I believe that I just did**. It took me a while to convince Coach Barrie to allow me to do this, but he just relented. Now instantly I’m quivering with nerves (literally) at the though of racing again. Any questions? I’m an tri addict. I’m sure I’ll be yapping again Mon/ Tues to tell ya how the race went.
Otherwise because of the travel costs associated with races and the fact that I have reached my primary early season goal… qualifying for Ironman. This is much ahead of my predicted schedule. So until October 11th I don’t have any big races I will taper for. (more…)

Posted in random T.I.T.ing, triathlon racing | 2 Comments »

1/2 Ironman Triathlon - Oceanside CA

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

So I have been slowly working up my training, secretly in August, and then I came out of the Triathlon closet in January to do full on training the. But this is the first of my 5 big races this season - and all those months of nerves…

I have been waking up at 5am, but not being able to fall asleep until midnight or later!
Let me sum up:

Race day 3 h sleep, a bowl of oatmeal, 2 meal replacements…. set up with 2000 other people in the dark, blast around for a bike warm up, in the dark. Short jog, watch the sunrise while Sean takes off in the Pro wave, one last long pee in TL’s wetsuit, and it’s Go-Time. (more…)

Posted in random T.I.T.ing, time wasting, triathlon racing | No Comments »