checking out post.ly nice work @garrytan
Saving Lives One Mile at a Time | Fighting Leukemia and Lymphoma
My name is Jean-Paul Cozzatti. I'm training for the Marin Triathlon with Team in Training.
As a participant, I'm raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Sponsor me and help fight blood cancers by making a donation to Team in Training today!
Follow @triathlonious on twitter.
Running for my morning coffee
For my run workouts I'd run the 3 miles down the kuakini highway from our place in Kona Vistas to the local coffee shop drink a double macchiato and then head back up to the house. One of the days I ran the hill the Ironpeople were doing circuits on the kuakini highway so I was being constantly passed by men and women dressed up as bullets whizzing by on their carbon rocket ship bikes, pretty crazy stuff; simultaneously intimidating and inspiring.
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Swim Days in Kona
Tuesday and Thursday are swim workout days. In the morning I'd ride my bike the bike I rented from http://www.bikeworkskona.com/ 3 miles to the Kona Community Aquatic Center Pool. The ironman world championship http://ironman.com/worldchampionship is October 10th in Kona so everywhere I swim/ran/biked there were ironmen and ironwomen crushing it. When I think of triathletes these are the people I think about: Insanely ripped and fast men and women tearing it up. When I'd get to the pool, I'd get into the slower pool - note, not the slower lane, the slower pool. One pool was filled with Iron(men/ladies) pulling really fast in large numbers like pods of dolphins, leaving serious wakes behind them. My swim workouts vary between 45 minutes to an hour and up to 2800 yards, so to make sure I stayed out of the pro's way I swam in the slow pool.
I've been a runner for a number of years. I found my running groove my final year at UCSD running ever longer distances to Torrey Pines Beach and back. It's a great feeling to just be able to run without any effort, relaxing through miles. You may remember from a prior blog post that one of my goals of this season was to find my groove swimming, to swim for a mile and half without thinking about it. I'm glad to say that I finally did it while in Kona. One of my workouts was a 35 minute continuous swim after a 200 yard warm up. For the continuous swim, I simply started my stopwatch and started swimming. While in Kona my stroke and gliding had improved a lot. I found the minutes slipping away. I'd done it, I'd achieved my groove. It was really exciting to relax through 35 minutes of swimming.
I also had many chances to swim in amazing warm water at Hapuna and a few other local beaches on the big island.
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Our Hawaiian Vacation & Triathlon Training
We spent the last week vacationing in Kona-Kailua, Hawaii. Since I'm in the middle of training (the triathlon is only a month away) this meant I had to train while I was away. I actually love being highly active on vacation. It's great to spend a couple of hours a day training before hanging out on the beach. Luckily, this is exactly what I did. Typically, I woke up at 6:30 to either swim, bike or run. Read along as I take you through my workouts.
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Neighborhood Swim/Bike: 700ft of climbing, 7miles, 1mile swim
I've been waiting to do this workout since I started training.
The club pool is just up the hill from us, a 3 minute drive.
There are also literally miles of trails and backroads within a half mile of my front door, but between my front door and the trails is a steep mile of climbing. The workout I've been waiting to do is to bike to the club, swim a mile at the club, and then bike back.
So today, I did it! I'm stoked.
The climbing wasn't too bad and certainly better than the first time I tried cycling up the hill a month ago.
We've been having rain in the bay area, so the pool
was empty for most of the mile swim. Swimming alone allowed me to focus on my pulling and form.
I've been taking my workout sheet with me. The last two full workouts have been 2600 yards, about a mile and a half. By focussing on the individual drills I'm able to get through the workout without killing myself.
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1.5 Miles in the Pool
I did my first mile and half pool workout. A big part of swimming is developing an efficient gliding stroke. That is, for each stroke actually riding the glide. It's pretty exciting because I'm getting there. The 2600 yard workout isn't killing me either!
To see what a gliding stroke looks like, check out Michael Phelps' stroke. See how one arm is always out in front of him, lengthening his body, allowing him to glide.
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Labor Day training at Lake Tahoe
We spent the Labor Day holiday at Camp Jameson Beach in South Lake Tahoe with three other families from the neighborhood.
Lake Tahoe, while not as salty or rough as the San Francisco Bay, is cold enough to warrant a wet suit when swimming long distances. I loved swimming in the Lake. The water is clear with a coarse sandy bottom. Swimming in the wet-suit made me more buoyant, so with each pull/stroke I went a little farther, but the wetsuit also decreased my shoulder rotation, so I had to really focus on my form to make sure I didn't get sloppy and inefficient. This was my first mile swim in the open water this season and it was epic.
The roads around the lake were also pretty epic for road biking. From Camp Jameson, it was a 5 mile up hill ride to Emerald Bay. Again, the lack of granny-gear (a small chainring (gear)
that makes going up-hill easier) made this a real workout. Well worth it!
I've only got four weeks left to reach my fundraising goal and I'm only 35% of the way there.
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Swim Bike Run - the flyer
Here's the flyer I'm sending to all my friends and family who prefer snail mail to email.
Want to help? Feel free to download and print a version for yourself. Share it with a friend. Take it home.
Put it up at work, at your place of worship, your WFCaffe, on your car.
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Three Bears Ride - Orinda, California - 18 Miles on the Bike
Today we went out on the longest, most challenging ride thus far. It's a popular route just to the east of Oakland through the backroads of the east bay regional parks. I have the elevation profile below. It gives you a good idea of the workout. The first 2/3 of the ride weren't too bad. But then we hit the "3 bears". Mama bear wasn't too bad. I only have two gears in the front. I'm missing what is lovingly referred to as the granny gear, a gear that I have on my older bike. A gear I missed dearly when I met pappa-bear.
After scaling Mamma bear, tackling Pappa bear was a challenge. If you look below at the elevation profile pappa bear is only about 200 feet higher than mamma bear. But at that point I was 16 miles into the ride and already done a bit of climbing. Scaling pappa-bear took everything I had. At one point I actually thought I'd have to walk. Instead, I convinced myself to keep going, stood up in my clips and cranked my way up the hill. It was pretty crazy and my quads were killing me. It's been a while since I've pushed myself to the point where I consider stopping. Keep in mind, this is a nice Saturday ride for most of the cyclists of the East Bay. I think it's rated "intermediate" by cycling clubs. Little did I know that the best part of the ride was yet to come. Pappa bear was a bruiser on the front side, but by cranking up 1000 ft I'd earned some seriously fast down hill on pappa's backside. I don't have a speedometer, but I was seriously bombing. Some team members reported that they hit 37mph. Seriously fast. Well worth it. I've made it through the day without taking a nap. I should sleep like a rock.
The Elevation Profile of the Three Bears Ride 
Here's the early crew chilling out after the ride.
Jean-Paul
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Saturday Workout | Forty Minutes of Hills | 45 minute Swim | Stroke Analysis
Today was a Run/Swim Brick, but all in all a great workout. We ran two hill loops near Campolindo, ~ 20 minutes each. As always I started out creaky, but once I loosened up I could really enjoy the run. We swam yards upon yards waiting to be video-taped to analyze our stroke, swim technique. It was pretty sweet. Once I saw the video, I could pretty quickly note that I need to work on my body rotation, and not lift my head when I breathe.
Let's not forget why I'm doing this. I'm raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help fight blood cancers.
I'm only 13% of the way to my goal and have 6 weeks left! Please consider making a contribution to help.
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