Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Team Evotri's Newest Member!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have known for about a week now but have been sworn to secrecy. Today marks a huge accomplishment in my life. I become a member of Team Evotri! I have worked so hard not only the last month, creating an off the charts video in order to set myself up for success at the 2nd round phone interview, but over the past 23 years of my life to be able to surround myself with the right people and teams to have the credentials to become a member of such a great team.

Check out http://www.evotri.com/2012/01/meet-team-evotris-newest-member.html to see what the team thinks about me, hear my exciting reaction to the great news, meet the other members of the team, and check out the amazing sponsors the team has!

I am so excited for this opportunity, and cant wait to get to Chattanooga and meet the team face to face! Congratulations to all the other phone interview finalists, as well as anyone who submitted a video. Some of you may know that I was a 2nd year applicant. Last year I made it to the phone interview stage as well but my 21 year old immaturity prooved to one of the reasons the team did not see a spot for me on the team then. Well nearly 2 years later, I have grown and learned a lot! The bottom line is, dont be discouraged from not making it this year! Who knows, the team may just take another "5th Year Senior" as their next member.

For now, I am that "5th Year Senior" and im going to enjoy every second of it!

Thanks again Evotri! You guys are the best!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Ironman Video Footage

Found this video in my email today. Its pretty cool, one day a couple weeks after kona I got an email saying "here is your ironman world championship video footage. Turned out pretty sweet too short little 10 second clips from all around the course.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Winter Grand Prix Race 3

So last weekend was the 3rd race of 6 in the winter grand prix series, and the second of 2 cross country style races. I was really looking forward to putting the spikes back on and grinding it out. The weather leading up to the race had been rather shotty to say the least. Very warm and wet.

When the high schoolers and I got to the course saturday morning we had about an hour to warm up and stretch before the race started so we picked out a spot to drop our stuff and start running the course. Just as we expected, the course was a slop fest, very wet, squishy and muddy! I was really looking forward to this since it has been over 6 years now since i had been in a race with conditions like this, and you can bet that I missed it! The high schoolers were not too thrilled. They had all just got new spikes for the track season, all flashy and what not, and were pissed that they had to get them all muddy.

After a 2 mile warm up, we sat down and stretched in the dryest place we could find. The legs were feeling pretty good, and I was really stoked to toe up on the start line. With 2 straight races of taking down max (senior who ran 16:05) and zach (sophomore who ran 16:09) they were very distant thoughts in my rear view mirror. Drubbing them the previous weeks cemented in my minds as well as theirs that they were going to be seeing a lot of my back. I had my sights set on Johnathan (junior who ran 15:45 as a sophomore and 15:40 as a junior, being injured most of the season). He had been complaining that he was out all night the night before and saying how he didnt feel great. Just what I wanted to hear to be able to start playing my mind games with him :)

Beating someone when they arent at their best is never what you want by any means, but for someone to be that far out of your league, who constantly puts the beat down on you, youll take what you can get!

The race was off before we knew it, and within the first 400 there were 10 or so people jockeying for position up near the front. The series hadnt had this type of competition show up yet so i was excited to see how i would run.

We hit the first hill, and bounded up it strongly, even though it was very slippery and muddy. I was about 3/4 of the way up the hill when zach passed me on the right hand side effortlessly. This made me very nervous, for him to blow by me at this stage of the race so easily...could he be in my head???

as we crested the top of the hill, i was sitting right on zachs shoulder, and prepared for the quick decent following a 180 deg turn at the top. When we started to descend I thought to myself, i have way longer legs i should be able to get around him by the bottom of the hill and need to put him away on the flats before we hit the hill on lap 2. Zach is a very strong climber since he is such a small little guy.

Just as I had played it out in my mind, it happened in reality. I passed him on the downhill, put some time into him on the flat, and came through the mile at about 5:23. As I was passing the mile i realized I was running shoulder to shoulder with Johnathan! I was over the moon with this and just as we hit the hill for the second and final time, i got a boost of energy and made up it strongly. After descending i was still right on his shoulder, and we had a half mile to go. Could i really do this?!

Just inside a half mile i moved to the outside to make my pass, but was blocked, johnathan had swerved to the outside as well cutting me off. About 15 seconds later i tried the same move, again to be denied by a counter swerve. Irritated with this i settled right back into stride behind him, knowing now that the next quarter of the course was very technical (especially in the mud) and I would need a miracle coming down the final 300 to make the pass.

As we made the final turn and were heading down the home stretch i saw Johnathan look over his shoulder at me as if to measure where i was at to see what he had to do to hold me off. In my head i thought yes this was my chance he is hurting and is falling off the pace. But it ended up being that he did just the bare minimum to get to the finish line ahead of me :( being that he is a mid 15 min 5k runner, a 2 mile race at 10:30 even on your off day really wasnt too hard for him so he had plenty in the tank to shut me down. I held on strongly for a respectable 10:34 in the sloppy conditions.

Even if he did have an off day, I got in johnathans head that day, and will continue to make strides to close the gap and hope to pull off the upset by the end of the race series.

Zach and max came in about 15 seconds behind, both shoulder to shoulder. Post race trash talk commenced and will continue till the day one of them comes through with the W!

Next up a 2 mile road race on a fast flat course. Time to improve on the previous time.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Evotri Round 2!

So late last night I got an email from Robby B from Evotri informing me that I had made it to the next round in the making the team 2012 process. I made it to the final phone interview! I am super stoked about this right now! Thank you Iris Lessard for all the help with the video...i know you were very close to throwing me over the balcony near the end but all the hard work paid off :) Thank you so much I love you!

For those who didnt see the video yet, here is the product of iris's technological genius and my Shakespearean Eloquence:

VO2 Beer Mile



Crazy fun weekend full of exciting events!

Started off with the 3rd race of 6 in the 2 mile Winter Grand Prix Series (post to follow) Saturday morning bright and early, followed by a pancake breakfast with the high schoolers, a nice little nap, and then off to the track again for race #2 for the day! The BEER MILE

One of my triathlon training buddies, Gerry, invited me out to do the beer mile with his team. I hadnt done a beer mile in probably 3 years now and had been craving to do one recently so this worked out perfectly.

I showed up and was a little bit nervous because I hadnt done a beer mile in so long, so i was questioning my abilities, but i had nothing to worry about, and in fact even surprised myself quite a bit! Below is the full footage of the race full of bright commentary, terribly outrageous costumes, and one heck of a good time!


Overall, the race broke down better than I had expected, but being the athlete that I am, I am always striving for more! So I sat down for some film study and this is what I concluded. My splits were as follows:
  • :09 (First beer down)
  • 1:16 (First lap run)
  • :26 (Second beer down)
  • 1:23 (Second lap run)
  • :23 (Third beer down)
  • 1:24 (Third lap run)
  • :26 (Fourth beer down)
  • 1:13 (Fourth lap run)
  • 1:24 (Cumulative beer drinking time)
  • 5:16 (Cumulative run split)
  • 6:40 (Total cumulative time)
After seeing the splits and breaking down the film, I know there is a lot of room for improvement, and I have given myself the hefty goal of breaking 6 mins someday!

The first thing i noticed is that I can drink that first beer faster...for a dude to beat me drinking with a bottle shows there is time to be had there. Second, my run splits were quite slow. I went in with the mentality that I was going to focus solely on the drinking and run comfortably so that I could get the beers down quick. It worked for me here, but no doubt i can cut off 10-15 seconds running alone. Third thing i noticed was that I was taking too long to finish the beers. I need to get it down where I finish at least 3/4 of the beer on my initial chug so that I can catch my breath and get it down on the second chug and be out of there. I realized i burned at least 10-15 seconds catching my breath and waiting to finish the last 2 sips on a 3rd chug. NOT ACCEPTABLE! :) Finally, I need to bring the last lap home in under 70 seconds. I believe that running the race earlier in the day led to my legs not being as fresh as they could have been, but all excuses aside, I know im capable of more!

Well, after all that I set my own PR in the beer mile by 25 seconds (disputed by some who doubt my previous PR wasnt 7:05) posting up a 6:40. Gotta keep up the drinking and the running and i will be under 6 in the very near future :)



And more footage from the inside of the track!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

High School All Over Again

So I totally feel like I am back in high school again haha. Some of the guys on the team were asking me when they could meet my girlfriend (Iris) because, well they are high schoolers and are horn dogs. They told me they wanted to meet her and give me a run for my money on who she liked the most, and well being the competitive type, I told them "Bring it on!"

We all met up new years eve for a chill 5 mile run around the park and on the trails by the high school, and sure enough they were all there early and waiting for us, as to set the impression that they are always on time like studs.

They all got their shot chatting with her throughout the run, blabbing about their classes and funny pranks they had done over break, and being the nerd that Iris is, she was totally buying into it. Iris is student teaching at a school in Farmington this year and is a total science geek! she calls me daily telling me about all the labs and experiments they do, occasionally sending me pictures. And I though I was the weird one hanging out with high schoolers in my free time...

Long story short I was kind of nervous when they pulled out the science nerd cards as well. I thought I might have been going home empty handed that night!

After the run we all grouped up to stretch and chatted, and the guys spilled the beans...they said even though iris was super hot and funny and cool, she was a little bit too nerdy for their liking, so I could keep her. Sorry Iris ;)

As we were all finishing up stretching and heading to our cars, one of the guys said they needed to start getting people back into shape for the upcoming track season. The group that showed up is the more dedicated group on the team, and are consistently running year round. The youger guy (Zach) chimes in and says "We should run with Matt!" I was caught off guard but flattered. I knew they liked running and hanging out with me, but I didnt know they liked me that much. I told them i work from nearly 8-5 every day and just like during the xc season I wouldnt be able to make practice after school. They proceeded to ask me what times i could make, and before I knew it we had scheduled 3 runs during the week. The craziest part (and this makes me realize how much of an influence and a role model I am to them) is that they were willing to do 2 night runs a week and a Friday morning run before school!

These guys are the bomb! Sometimes I forget that I have a real job in the real world after all the time I spend with these guys, having childish high school conversations and what not, but I am very greatful that I synced up with this team when I moved out here last summer. My life would be boring and plain without them, Like Jim Carey in the Truman Show. Poor Truman, if he only knew.

Alter-G'd UP


WOW! I am lost for words after running on the Alter-G treadmill for the first time this week. I got a quick tutorial on how to use the treadmill Tuesday, and had about 5 mins to play on it before my session was up, so I just went to town. Set the treadmill as fast as it could go, set the body wt % as low as i could stand it (the pressure on the goods gets unbearable to a certain point) and I was off.

For those of you who have never heard of the Alter-G or have no idea what it is, let me fill you in. It is a super high tech advanced treadmill that allows you to run at a lighter weight. What you do is you put on these wader esq shorts that are similar to a wetsuit that doesnt go below your knees. After you have the shorts on, you step into the machine, zip your shorts to the outer chamber. The machine will calibrate the pressure to your weight and height, which takes about 10 seconds, and once it is ready, you are good to go. From this point on it is just like any treadmill you have ever run on, except for the fact that you can literally adjust your running body weight.


When I was testing it out the other night, I set it to 50% of my body weight and plugged in at 12 mph (5 min per mile pace) and was chugging along very comfortably. I couldnt believe it! The machine will allow you to run at 25% of your body weight, which is unreal! But i think it was designed for women, because anything past 50% just starts to feel like a vice between the legs because of the pressure. But seriously, If you ever get the opportunity to run on one of these things, do not pass it up...It is a life changing experience!

I just wanted to spread my excitement to my 3 followers before I hit the hay for the night! Cant wait to go back for a full session rather than 5 mins :)