…It absolutely pours! Because for a while now I haven’t had a tremendous amount to chat about here on The Daily Grind – I mean really – what is there to talk about when one is smack-dab in the middle of their “recovery” period? The answer: not a whole lotta. But all of that’s about to change, real soon. And as the title suggests, as I draw nearer to the start-up of training again, there’s been a tremendous influx of “oh, I can’t wait to blog about this…” thoughts in my head.

First, the tease. Yeah, sorry to do that to all of you, but I need to have my fun too. In my last post, I gave you all an up-close look at my new race bike for the 2007 season. Yes. you’re right (if you’re a long time fan and have been scratching your head) that last year - right about this time in fact – I was building up the lightning fast Cervelo that carried me through the long-courses this year. But I made myself a promise that if I met or exceeded all of my season goals in 2006, I’d step it up one notch further for Ironman in 2007, and go all out on a new machine. The results, after much research and debate, was that I left the Cervelo name for Orbea. The decision – because I know inquiring tri-geeks want to know – was between the Cervelo P3 carbon, the Orbea Ordu, and the Litespeed Saber. Ultimately what secured my lust for the Orbea, was a combination between fit, and weight. The Orbea Ordu is the lightest of the three stallions, and the geometry was simply designed for me… Possibly only me. I managed to build it up quickly, and sneak in some quick rides on it (and a trainer session, eek, already!) and it’s just absolutely nothing short of the fastest bike I’ve ever ridden. And that’s without race wheels. For years I’ve trained on a carbon road bike, and to have a full-up carbon triathlon bike, that’s actually lighter than my road bike is just something special. MeLikes to GoFast. Already, 2007 is blazing.

Another major page in the goings-on chapter of this week was my swim analysis. After being postponed for a week, I was fortunate enough to reschedule my work with a local coach and get some seriously valuable feedback on where I am with my swim. The session was simple enough; I was to do a 500m time trial, he was to tape me using both underwater and above-water cameras. And though it’s remarkably cool to see yourself swim, the real value was in the analysis and the suggestions for tweaking the various aspects of my stroke in order to squeak out some free speed (umm, and in my case, there’s a whole 55–gallon drum of speed just waiting to be tapped – because I am not the fastest swimmer as it stands). In all, I was very pleased… The things that I thought would need work, actually don’t, and the little modifications I need to focus on working towards are just that: little. I think with what I have planned for the swim-focus of my off-season, I’ll be able to get right up there in the mix of things come 2007.

And I know you’re eager to see, but Google Video is being a little ornery tonight. So rest assured I’ll be posting video segments from my session in an upcoming post, along with the collective critique by me and the coach that helped me.

You know, it was almost a year ago to the day that I posted a similar blog entry to this one – basically apologizing for the lack of content over the past several weeks, but a promise towards the next chapter. Well, like I said before, here we are again. Sunday marks the last day of “2006” as far as training and racing goes, as well as the 36–weeks-to-Ironman mark. Going along with this analogy, New Years Day will be Monday, when training officially starts again. Between now and then, however, I’ll be posting the details of my swim analysis, a recap of the goals achieved and missed in 2006, lessons learned, and what the first block of training looks like in the near-term. Tomorrow, as it happens, I’ll be doing my first Power/LT test on the bike to baseline my fitness going into the off-season. Add to that the 1000m TT I did in the pool last week to get my baseline pacing, and the LT test I’ll do on the run next week, and it spells only one thing: G.O.T.I.M.E.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll stay tuned. There’s a lot coming up.