Big Announcement: Tri4Him Elite Team and Coaching Staff

I am super excited to announce that I have joined the Tri4Him Elite Triathlon Team and Coaching Staff!

Tri4Him is a Christian Triathlon organization that offers a full range of coaching services and will soon be offering camps and clinics as well.  In addition, Tri4Him has an Elite Triathlon Team and Age-Group Elite Team.  Read about the mission of Tri4Him here.

Tri4Him serves a variety of ages and abilities.  With youth and junior teams, community groups, Elite and amateur teams, and a host of individual members, Tri4Him offers two types of membership: "Community" and "Performance".

Community membership is essentially a Club membership, complete with sponsor discounts, online training support, training tools/tips, and access to local groups (depending on area).  Community membership is for those looking to join a USAT-recognized Club, that want to be part of a team with access to various team benefits and discounts.

Performance membership is available for those desiring a customized training program, coaching, or both, in addition to a greater sponsor discount, and more expansive online training tools/support than what you'll find with Community Membership.  My coaching services are available at both the Silver ($198) and Gold ($248) levels of Performance Membership. In addition, the Platinum level is also available (pricing TBD).

All Tri4Him coaches utilize the TriDot Training System to coach our athletes.  The TriDot system is a unique way of quantifying training intensities and helps us create a unique training program to develop your personal weaknesses and build upon your strengths.  I've worked under a variety of coaches utilizing a variety of methods, and I can honestly say the TriDot system is the most effective I've experienced, because of its ability to target precise training intensities and bring about desired training effects.  You will be able to watch your fitness grow as your performance test times and race times drop.

You'll be hard-pressed to find greater value than what our Gold Performance Membership offers.  Huge sponsor discounts, online training tools, community support, the TriDot Training System, and a talented, experienced coaching staff.........we are here to serve you!

Why the change?
Joining Tri4Him is truly an answered prayer for me.  I absolutely love coaching and I absolutely love training and racing.  What I don't love is the substantial amount of administrative work associated with operating a "one-man-show" coaching business.  The extra administrative work each week put a squeeze on available training time, recovery time, and more importantly, time with my family and time with God.
By joining the Tri4Him coaching staff, I can focus my time/energy/efforts on what I do best -- coaching.  It also affords me some extra time each week to invest in my training/recovery, wife Charity and daughter Selah, and my relationship with Jesus.

Furthermore, Tri4Him shares my faith and values, and provides additional support and encouragement for living out my faith through my coaching and racing career.

What about TriKirk Racing/Coaching/Camps?
All of my triathlon endeavors will now be done under the Tri4Him brand.
That includes my racing, coaching, and any clinics/camps I am a part of.

All of my personal racing/life adventures will be posted at my personal site, www.kirknelson.net.  Any Tri4Him camps I am a part of will be posted at kirknelson.net as well as the Tri4Him site, www.tri4him.com

Thanks for your support over the years of TriKirk Racing, Coaching, and Camps. Please consider joining me as I transition to the Tri4Him Elite Team and Coaching Staff.

Running for HIM!
Kirk

TriKirk Athlete shout-out

We've had a lot of athletes in action racing their "A" race of the year over the past several weeks and this post is devoted to those athletes.  I swear I get just as excited race weekend COACHING these athletes as they do RACING the event!

Ursula Bowling -- IM Lake Placid.  Not far off her IM PR-time, but probably her strongest/best IM effort on this tough course! -- 14:40

Jake Cooley -- IM 70.3 World Championships @ Las Vegas.  Solid day for Jake in just his second season of racing!  5:00:26

Laura Coyle -- Boulder Divas Sprint Triathlon and Oktoberfest Sprint Triathlon -- 1:31:12

Chris Wolff -- Seattle Triathlon. Between Sprint/Olympic Distance.  18th Overall -- 1:13

Derek Garcia -- Coeur d'Alene Olympic Triathlon -- 1st Overall and 3rd overall win of the season.  Upper Northwest Region Sprint/Olympic 2011 Champion!

Matt Tigchelaar -- IM Canada.  First-Ever Ironman, solid finish on a hot day! -- 10:43:56 

Andy Bohart -- Big Kahuna Half Iron.  First-Ever Half Iron.  2nd Clydesdale and super fast time of 5:18:43!

So proud of you guys!  Most of our athletes are done racing for the 2011 season, with the exception of Derek racing Kona October 8 for the 2nd consecutive year.

Coach

Know when to say when

Over the past 6 or so weeks I've been training specifically for my next race, Rev3 Full (140.6) Cedar Point, September 11.  Prior to training "specifically" for this race, I was most concerned with getting my L achilles completely healed, and spending the extra energy on particular weaknesses of my swimming and biking (namely threshold).

I had a little bit of a late start (mid-July) getting into ironman-type volume, so I've really tried my best to make the past 6-7 weeks count.  And by "count" I mean getting in bigger volume, maintaining some quality, all while building my long runs and bikes to 2:15 and 6:00, respectively.

Anyone that's ever trained for an ironman, or even half for that matter, and has other things going on in life (wife, kids, work, etc.) knows that training does not always go to plan.  Nor does sleep, eating, resting, etc., etc.

That's where I pick up the title of this post, "knowing when to say when."
Ironman training is about consistency over the long haul.  A solid amount of volume sprinkled with quality, day after day, week after week, month after month.  The temptation to go out and "kill" it in one heroic training session is trumped by stringing together a series of solid workouts day in and day out.

Matt Tigchelaar Loveland L2L RR

First triathlon done in CO... and Wow!!  Turns out this race was the regional qualifier for the US National Age Group olympic distance championship in August, so not only did a ton of CO talent show up, but from other states as well.  900+ signed up, 800+ finished.  I stayed with my coach the night before, and we were on the road to the race at 4:40 the next morning.  Ugh!

SWIM - water temps were good, water was clear, first race since late Sept so a little apprehensive about the swim, since it is my weakness.  My wave was the very last of 6 waves and waves went off every 4 minutes, so aside from fighting people in MY wave, we had all the slow swimmers in the waves in front of us to go around.  Started to get tired with about 500 meters to go, but kept a decent pace for me, and was out of the water in 25:50 ish.  Good for 160-something place. Then the long run to T1...

BIKE - the Parlee was looking and feeling fast with the new Firecrest Zipps.  Felt very good early (which was encouraging as I had dead legs all week).  1500+ft of climbing during the 30 mile ride.  Tons of people to pass.  Got passed by only one guy the whole way.  Climbed well, descended well.  Didn't quite know how to pace myself since I didn't know the whole course, but was shooting for 1:20 or under as my coach said that would be a really good time on this course.  Had plenty left in my legs when the end of the bike came, time 1:22, good for 21.9+ mph over a pretty hilly course. 

RUN - quick transition and on to the run. Was feeling fleet footed and was not keeping track of my mile pace so just let it go.  Still passing a lot of M40-44.  Ended up with 12th fastest run overall and only 1.5 minutes slower than my coach and another famous pro, time 37:43 for 10k or 6:05 pace.  

Total time 2:29:30 something, good enough for 40th place overall... can't believe it wasn't higher, but there were just some serious fast dudes here, and I gave up 2-4 minutes on the swim to a lot of them, and that alone would move me up 15-20 spots.  All in all happy with it, as my goal time was to break 2:30.

My coach was second overall, just 20 secs behind another pro who has won several Ironman races.  Good stuff, fun race, lots of lean bodies and hard core athletes, and a few slow ones too!

Matt

Camp Coeur d'Alene - 5 spots remaining!

We are putting the final touches on the 2011 TriKirk Camp Coeur d'Alene 5/19 - 5/22.

As of today, 5/5, there are 5 spots remaining -- Cost for this 4-day camp is $550.

See all the details including registration at www.trikirkcamps.com

It's sure to be an awesome, fun-filled, informative and challenging camp so come join us!

Kirk