I have wrote anything on my blog for a while. Okay, here it goes.

 

Our baby is doing awesome. She is sleeping through the night and is doing all sorts of cute things.

 

I'm getting back into training for triathlon. This has been hard with a new baby, but my wife supports me, and is helping me find time to keep training. She is awesome.

 

My foot is almost healed and I got orthotics and I'm about to start running again. Its been 3 months. I really miss running.

 

My key races will be Honu half ironman (in Kona), Lake Stevens 70.3 in July, and Ironman Canada. My swimming is strong, my biking is stronger than last year (I've added about 20 watts to my average on normal trianing rides), but my running sucks. Hopefully it will come around. I still have a lot of time.

 

I've been doing a lot of photography and video. Sharing this stuff across the internet sucks. Most of the ways to share are disconnected from how I manage this information on my computer. Someone should fix this :) I've been using Picassa web albums and phanfare.com (for video). they are the best solutions I've found yet.

 

I bought a Macbook core2duo and I'm running an RTM version of Vista. It works better than I expected. the Macbook is super fast, and the ATI card runs Vista perfectly.  I can't seem to get the iSight camera to work and sleep mode is flaky, but other than that, it rocks.

 

I saw that Apple annouced an iPhone today. Thats awesome!

 

I'm going to Hawaii for a month. We found a house on the beach. Thats awesome!

 

Well, thats it. Have fun.

He was one of the few remaining WWII vets in the country. He was a real hero...I'm named after him.

 

Steven S. F., 87, of Rapid City, died Sunday, Nov 13^th at Rapid City  Regional Hospital. Steven was born on November 2, 1919  in Vega, SD to Stephanie  and Vaclave F.   He was raised on a farm during the  great depression and attended a small country school.    He  enlisted in the  US Army in December of 1941.  Steve served with the 90^th Division, 357 Regiment,, Company F Infantry with the rank of Sergeant.  Dad was proud that he made the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June of 1944 on Utah Beach.  He was captured on June 19, 1944, when his outfit was overrun by a German tank battalion that saw his outfit suffer 44 killed and 73 wounded.  He was one of 14 from his company that was taken prisoner.

His experience as a prisoner of war in Stalag III C at Altdrewitz, Germany, changed his life. A few years ago Steve went back to Avon, SD, and ran into a friend who was in Stalag III C with him.  They got to talking about the time Steve had managed to save up a couple pieces of bread as food was hard to come by.  His friend broke down crying as he recalled how Steve had given him the bread that he had saved up. 

 

He and another soldier escaped in 1945, making their way through war torn Europe and all the was across Russia to Odessa, where they were able to finally ship home. The trip across Europe to Odessa Russia was a harrowing time.  Steve used to joke that they were not sure whether they would get shot by the Germans or the Russians first.  He was really bothered about the time they hid in cover outside a small town, the name he never knew, and watched as the Germans shot everybody.

She was actually born on her due date, which I was told only occurs about 5% of the time. She was born at 12:35PM. Tonja's water broke at 6pm the night before, so she had about a 19 hour labor. When we got to the hospital, she pretty much started having harder and harder contractions. The started getting quite painful about 10pm and then she went into the bath tub for some relief.

 

After that, she started experiencing severe back labor and things got very serious. He pain rating quickly went from a 3 out of 10 to a 6, then a 7, and then an 8. She felt like someone was breaking her back. She was only 2.5 CM dialated and couldn't take the pain anymore so she asked for an epidural. She felt like she gave up and was a wimp, but I told her who cares. Once the epidural started flowing, she was a new person again. He cherry attitude returned and we actually rested from about midnight to about 5am. After the epidural, she quickly went to 7CM and by 5am she was at the magic 10CM mark and the nurse said she was ready to start pushing.

 

I was half asleep at that point and when I heard she was ready to push, I got excited and was ready to go. Tonja was already ready. We both wanted to get this over with. Little did we know that we still had 7.5 hours of hell to get through (more hell for her than me). Anyways, Tonja started pushing during contractions at 5am. She tried all different kinds of positions. Things were moving along, but very very slow. Our nurse finally said that she could feel that babies head and could tell that she had a lot of hair. That got us very excited.

 

About 7:30AM, Tonja's OB, Dawn, arrived at work and came in for a visit. At this point, our new labor nurse, Kathy, had also arrived. Kathy immediately decided there was no way Tonja could deliver without a c-section, and Kathy's attitude really caused Tonja and I to hit a deep low. Tonja did not want a c-section and Kathy's attitude was not helping. When Dawn arrived, she examined Tonja and quickly told Tonja that she could absolutely deliver vaginally and Dawn had a quick argument with Kathy about the situation. It was a little awkward, but Dawn's confidence and encouragement really really lifted our moods.

 

From this point on, Tonja was convinced she could deliver vaginally, although, there were still many hours of hard labor and pushing ahead. Kathy continued to be a bad nurse. She ignored Tonja. Didn't help with pushing. Didn't tell tonja when she was having a contraction (Tonja couldn't feel some of them becuase of the epidural). Kathy flat out sucked, but Tonja was determined to deliver no matter what. Dawn made a few more appearences to see how things were progressing and each time she did, our spirits got lifted and Tonja was able to push harder and harder.

 

At about 11am, I was starting to give up on Tonja delivering vaginally. I didn't say anything to Tonja, other than she should give it one more hour and then make a decision. About 5 minutes later, Kathy started preparing the room for delivery. Kathy didn't say two words, but I knew that once they brought the baby warmer into the room and all the equipment, that Kathy had decided that Tonja was close enough to delivering that she better get things ready.

 

This is where I finally broke down into tears. I now knew that the end was near and that Tonja was going to do it. My breakdown caused tonja to breakdown and we quickly realized that this was not the time to breakdown since she couldn't push when she was crying. I pulled it together, and we got focused on pushing harder and harder, without Kathy's help of course.

 

Finally, Dawn came into the room in full delivery gear. I knew she was there to stay this time and this was awesome becuase Tonja and I were ready to kill Kathy. Dawn's confidence and encouragement and belief that Tonja could deliver vaginally was absolutely unbelievable. I'm quite certain that only Dawn and Tonja beleived that they could deliver without a c-section. I didnt' even beleive it. Anyways, once Dawn arrived, Tonja rolled onto her back, and the super serious, hard hard pushing started.

 

Tonja's epidural started to wear off at this point and now Tonja was feeling everything that had to do with pushing a 10.5 lb baby out of a small-framed woman. The pain that Tonja was experiencing was beyond belief. Her back labor started at this point. Tonja was begging for more drugs but Dawn said that she couldn't have them because it would totally stall labor at the most crucial point. It was a very delicate situation.

 

In between contractions, Tonja would be very close to giving up, but when a contraction start, she went into overdrive and did numerous hard pushing, sometimes up to 45 seconds. The nurses said that they had never seen a woman as strong as Tonja push as hard as she did. Kathy had worked at Evergreen for 28 years, and when she said this, I was quite impressed.

 

Annecy's head was finally starting to come out. Even at this point, it still took another 45 minutes to push Annecy out totally. Dawn was doing all types of tricks to stretch things out, even though it was very painful for Tonja. Dawn said that she might have to make a cut, but she never ended up doing it. The last 3 or 4 contractions were the hardest and most emotional. Tonja was starting to get mad a Kathy because Kathy wasn't holding Tonja's leg correctly. Tonja was also starting to yell at Dawn to just pull Annecy out.

 

Finally, before we knew it, Annecy was coming out. I didn't want to look. I knew that would scare me for life. I did however see a gush of fluid come out of my wife that looked like old faithful at Yellowstone. Dawn was covered in fluid. It was kind of funny. Once Annecy's head came out, the rest of her also came out very quickly. Even though Annecy was out, my wife still had her eyes closed and was pushing. I was yelling at her that Annecy was out, but my wife didnt' beleive it. She finally opened her eyes and realized that she was done. Then she totally broke down like I've never sene before. So did I.

 

Next, my enjoyment turned to fear. This was the point I most feared and my attention quickly turned from my wife to Annecy. Was Annecy ok, did she survive? Was there damage from being stuck for so long? The next few minutes were very scary. I didn't even get to cut the cord because they wisked Annecy up to a cart very fast to start examining her. She looked fine. She was crying, and even pooping already. She looked good, although a little purple. She had a full head of black hair. It was great.

 

Tonja delivered the placenta next, or I shoiuld say that Dawn yanked it out. Tonja got sewed up and started the long road to recovery. Annecy got the basic treatment and I got to hold her for the first time. It was awesome.

I did a stint last spring trading stocks. It was actually a ton of fun and incredibly challenging. It was also insanely stressful. I was actually very good at it, and somewhat convinced that I could make a living by doing it full time, but I just could not handle it along with work, triathlon, and a pregnant wife. Trading stocks did help me learn a ton about the markets. It is an interesting place and it is filled with people who want your money. I've since given up stock trading and have decided to invest solely in index funds and real estate. The web site http://www.ifa.com changed my life, as did many books about the scams that wall street plays and how the deck is stacked against the private investor. I'm now perfectly happy to buy the indexes and go the passive approach.

Its Saturday night, October 14th at 11:23PM. Tonja is feeling like she might go into labor. She is acting funny tonight and we are up kind of late. She is due October 16th. I wonder if we will have a baby soon.

Well, its officially the off-season. I back do doing my strength training program, which has been great. I'm having much less soreness this time around than when I did this program last January. This is a good sign as it means I'm stronger. The only injury I'm dealing with is some type of heal problem in my left foot. I need to get it checked. I've stopped swimming for a while, because it was just getting boring. I've kept up the biking at around 150 to 170 miles a week and I've been running about 17 to 20 miles a week, mostly on the treadmill to reduce the impact to my heel. As soon as the baby comes, I suspect I will back way off training for a couple of weeks, and then get back into it. I have no racing planned this winter, but I may do Ralphs again at the end of March, for the 5th straight year. After the baby, my goal is to get my foot healed up and then start base training. I want to build up a really strong run base over the winter. Nothing fast, just steady and frequent runs. My main goal next year will be to PR in Canada and go to Ironman Hawaii for the 3rd time. I want to take my wife and new baby out there for the first time.

I did my last triathlon of 2006 about 4 weeks ago. Finally decided to post an entry about it. I decided at the last minute to do it. Coming just 4 weeks after doing Ironman Canada, I was a little concerned that I hadn't trained much and trying to do a half ironman would be a disaster. I've done Black Diamond the last 3 years, so I wanted to keep the streak alive. It also helped that we had a perfect day, weather wise. Anyways, the race went really well. I had barely trained between Canada and Black Diamond, but I still had a great race. I came out of the water under 30 minutes, biked a 2:41 (62 miles), and ran a 1:37. I paced the bike leg really well by going out easy and then putting in some hard intervals midway through. My bike time would have been about 2:25 on a typical 56 mile half IM course, so that was great. I got 5th overall and 4th in my AG. The top guys were all very close, which made the run hard because I could see the people coming up on me from behind. I beat some of the guys I like to beat and almost caught a couple of guys ahead of me. It was really a fun race, but it really tuckered me out.

I ran up Mt. Si yesterday. I've been wanting to do this for a while due to a small seed in my head around ultra-running. I've become quite interested in trail running. The beauty and solitude are two things that I really enjoy. I've also been reading some ultra-running books lately and it sounds like a very interesting sport. Mt. Si is a tough climb of over 4 thousand feet in 4 miles. Its pretty brutal. I did Ironman Canada just one week ago, so this was a pretty tough challenge. I started the climb running pretty hard, and I went into oxygen debt almost immediately. I probably should have done some type of warm up. I ended up having to walk a ways after I started to get my heart rate under control and flush the lactic acide that had built up in my chest and lungs. After that I felt much better and ran / walked the rest of the ways. There are some steep sections and then some really steep sections. Absolutely no rest. I was going through .5 miles in about 6 minutes. I was fast, but I was steady. I got to the top in a little under an hour. I knew coming back down would be harder, and it was. I'm a really bad downhill runner. I think its mostly mental, but I tend to really put the breaks on coming downhill, which is probably harder on the legs. It took me an hour and 5 minutes to get down. I didn't realize how hard this was going to be. Today (the day after), I am beyond sore. I'm probably more sore than after IM Canada. I rode the bike 30 miles today to loosen up, but it didn't help. Anyways, it was a lot of fun, but kind of dumb.

 

 

I finished the race in 10:23, but this was well short of my goal time of sub 9:50. I had a great swim. I don't think anybody bumped me the whole way. I found great drafts and came out at 58:47. On the bike, I felt great for about the first 50 miles. I knew I was going too hard too early. My speedometer stopped working at about mile 5. That sucked. I also realized I didn't have my bag of salt pills with me. That was also a big bummer. Going up Richter pass (10km climb), I started to realize that I didn't have the normal pop in my legs as I started getting passed. I decided to slow down and take it easy. By mile 70, I was very tired. I was paying the price for going out too hard. The climb up Yellow Lake really sucked and I struggled with the climbs. I still had a solid bike time of 5:06:55. I came out of t2 feeling relatively good. The first mile went by in 8:11, which was my target pace. My HR was 150, which was also my target. The first 6 miles of the run went by quick and I felt good. By mile 8, I started sliding. I started stopping a little and walking some aid stations. I was starting to get very tired. The hills on the mid point of the run really hurt me and by mile 16 I was done. I just could not muster the motivation to keep pushing. I had a really bad cramp in my shoulder and my asthma was really acting up. I had a very congested and tight chest and could not get deep breaths down. I was a little worried that something bad was happening. Miles 16 through 22 were horrible. I just wasted so much time screwing around. I wish I would have just kept plodding along. I had lots of friends and company out on the course giving me encouragement, but it just didn't help. I had no reason to get myself going. Once I got to mile 22, I could sense the finish and I promised myself that I would run the last 4 miles without stopping, and that I did, although very slow. Anyways, I finished, and I recovered pretty fast. I even biked 10 miles the following day. Oh well, this race taught me two things: 1) I can't do IM with the time I want on low-volume / high-intensity training, and 2) I need to make it a goal to NOT stop on the IM run. That would have saved me 15 minutes in this race.

Our baby has started sticking her feet and hands out, hard. When she starts moving, my wife's entire belly starts shaking and you can see feet and hands moving across the inside of her belly. Its so cool, but it drives my wife nuts. Our baby is super active sometimes, she is also apparently going to be large. She is in the 90th percentile. My wife and I are both 5'11", so I suspect we are going to have a tall kid. Hopefully she gets my wifes looks, and my passion. We got the nursery all set up and we are ready for her arrival. I can't wait for the new challenge of raising a daugher. It should be fun.

 

I've had the best two weeks of training I've had my entire life. I've been up around 18 hours a week with about 9000 yards of swimming, 250 miles of biking and 28 miles of running both weeks. I ran 16 miles this morning in 1:58 and felt awesome. That was my last long run before Canada. I really feel great. I can't wait to race. I really feel like there is a possibility to have the best race of my life up there. I'm more healthy prior to an Ironman that I've ever been and my training has been perfect. I think something special could happen. I've been in search of that perfect Ironman for a while and maybe this will be it. My picture of a perfect Ironman is a nice easy, smooth swim, around an hour, a bike leg where I don't blow my wad in the first 50 miles. I need to keep it steady and relaxed and go faster the second 56 miles than the first. I should be right around 5 hours. Keep the heart rate low, like 145 the first half, then maybe 150 the second half. For this race, I desperately want to have a perfect run. The perfect run is hard to come by, but when its happening, its a beautiful thing. Its what makes up for the 50 other runs that all felt like shit. For my run in Canada, the perfect run would be, to take the first 6 miles easy, like 8:30 pace, then steadily pick it up until about mile 20, and then just hold a steady pace of something like 7:30/7:45 to the finish. Its not as much about pace though as it is about effort. Sometimes a 7:30 pace feels easy, other times it feels labored. I hope it feels easy and that I'm running balanced, head up, arch in the back, eyes forward, and pushing off with my toes. I know there will be pain, lots of pain the last 10 miles, but I swear, that I'm not going to let it affect me this time around. The race doesn't last forever, and the pain really only exists for the last 10 miles, so how hard can it be to push through this? I sometimes get mentally weak and pussy out when the pain comes. It isn't going to happen this time.

Well I got the news about Floyd and his B sample as my friend Chris Whyte and I were out Saturday morning on a 100 mile ride. I expected the B sample to be positive, as did everyone else. Its weird, but I find myself thinking about this doping situation A LOT. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm such a huge fan of cycling.

 

Here are some scenarios that could have happened. Which one is more likely?

 

1) Floyd did NOT dope and there is some flaw in the test.

2) Floyd did dope and the test was done correctly. He is guilty.

3) Flod did NOT dope, but the French lab is in some conspiracy to prevent Floyd from winning the TDF.

4) Floyd doesn't think he doped, but someone, somehow got synethic testosterone into his blood.

5) Jack Daniels causes you to test positive for synethic testosterone (I'll volunteer to be a case study :))

 

Which is most likely?

 

#1 - of course no test is perfect. All types things exist that could mean that a positive test doesn't mean that Floyd took drugs. Take the Rutger Beke example. He tested positive for EPO at the 2004 Hawaii Ironman, but successfully fought the case and won, and cleared his name. Apparently he proved that he had some genetic issue the confused the test. So, there is a precedent that the tests are not perfect. I would rate the chance of scenario #1 as fairly high, maybe 5%. The labs will of course argue that all tests are 100% accurate. Of course they would say this. If they didn't, they are basically saying their whole industry is a sham. the world anti-doping agency has to say that the tests are 100% accurate, or else the whole process will fall apart (hmmm, seems like things are already falling apart).

 

#2 - Lots of people ask why Floyd would dope, then go on to win, knowing full well that the winner would be tested, and he would be caught. Well, obviously, this would be totally stupid and you have to assume that there is more to #2. I personally beleive that the likely situation with #2 is that Floyd doped, but tried to take covering drugs towards the end of the stage to try to hide the synethic testerone. I've heard that these drugs exist when I was at the Tour in 2004 from an "insider". Again, I have no proof that these drugs exist, but if you assume that he had a drug to remove the synetic testosterone, then why not risk it? If these drugs exist, then I think #2 is the most likely scenario.

 

#3 - This one would play out well and maybe seem likely because everyone knows the French hate Americans, and likewise. I mean LanceA has not done a whole lot to improve our relationships with France. Shit, at the Espy's he said that the French Soccer team tested positive, for "Asshole". Nice Lance. Go back to Texas, and your new girlfriend, and your hollywood friends, and your fight with Greg Lemond.  Anyways, where was I, oh yeah, conspiracy theory #3. Well, I give this one a low possibility. Why would a French lab risk its entire business to strip Floyd of the TDF title. I know it sounds like a good plot to a book or something, but I just don't think that a large business and a country like France, would do something this stupid. I think it would be dumber than Floyd taking the drugs.

 

#4 - I actually think this is a high possibility. It could happen. It would only take one individual to do this. Maybe his directors did it without Floyd knowing, and then boosted his mental spirits and created the perfect combination for Floyd to win. Of course, his directors would only do this if they knew they could give Floyd drugs to cover and hid the synethic testy towards the end of the stage. The other culprit might be an enemy of Floyd's. I don't know if you can get this through creams or liquids, but maybe a fan on the road did it. We don't know how much synethic testosterone Floyd had in his blood. That would be useful to know, if its possible to know. Anyways, I think this Justin Gatlin defense is also not that likely. Why would you dope up your competitor, when he just blew the whole tour the day before and you are pretty certain that there is no way he would win the TDF. This scenario is really not likely.

 

#5 - not likely

 

 

I just got entry to Ironman Canada 2006. I can't beleive it. Thanks to the folks at Multisports.com for helping me out. They also got my friend Matthew Reynolds in. I'm pretty excited. I have felt as fit as I do right now in more than 2 years. I only have 4 weeks to get ready, but I think I'm fine. I'll probably try to get in 3 big bike rides / bricks, and 2 or 3 two hour runs. After that, I'll just recover. I'm really going to "go for it" at this Ironman becuase it might be my last for quite a while. I have a lot of experience in IM now and I know what it takes. I want to get sub-9:50. I should be able to swim 1 hour, bike 5:05, and run 3:30. This may be my last race of the year, so I have no reason to give it everything I've got. I won't take the Hawaii slot if I qualify since I will have a new baby girl in October.

What a shock and dissappointment! I'm waiting to hear the results of the B sample, but I honestly can't take this anymore. I'm tired of seeing my heros of cycling turn out to be fakes and cheats. I used to admire pro cyclists as superheros because they seemed superhuman. Now it seems to be turning out that they are not super in any type of way. Maybe you could actually take any person off the street, dope them up enough and maybe they could ride in the pro peleton. Maybe these athelets have no gift whatsoever. Its just sad.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=2532396#