Mike Schubert

In previous years, the Atlanta Track Club has hosted a 5k / 10k "Resolution Run" at high noon on New Years Day. It was a no-frills event where you walked up, paid $5, registered, got a t-shirt, and ran. That's it. This has changed for the 2010 event.

For 2010, you will be required to register before 11:59 pm on December 29th. And it will no longer be $5, but between $22 - 25 depending on when you sign up. Long sleeve technical shirts will be given out this year instead of the cotton ones from years past. Rumor has it that it will be chip timed using those D-tags, though I can't find anything to back that up at the moment. I'll gladly pay $25 for a chip timed 10k. 

Here are the links to the Resolution Run event information page and the event registration page.

Here is another video I found that has helped me visualize the GFT race course. Enjoy!

Earlier today I wrote about visualizing race day and posted a video that contained a montage of photos and video clips from the 2008 Great Floridian triathlon. Later today I found this video of people on the Sugarloaf Mtn climb. If you can put up with the shaky camera work, and incessant chatter about her battery dying, you'll get a good perspective on what to expect when you turn onto Sugarloaf Mountain Rd.

The dude in the video rides down the mountain and back up in the span of the 4 minute video. I'm not going to attack the thing when I ride it on Saturday, but through this video I have now validated that it is no worse than anywhere that I have trained this year.

I am busy preparing for my upcoming iron distance race and thought I'd share one of my tips for dealing with a course you have not seen. Generally there are race maps available online, and you can get a general idea of the elevation profile. But this doesn't show you what the place actually LOOKS like. One thing I do is to check out You Tube to see what videos people have shot in the area.

Below you will see a YouTube video that shows some video, as well as a bunch of stills, from last year's incarnation of my upcoming event. While the bike course has changed this year, the imagery from the race site probably has not. Over the next few days, I will continue to scour multimedia sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr to find more images from the swim, bike and run courses. All of these inputs will add reality to the two dimensional maps I am looking at in the area.

Why do this? So you won't be surprised on race day. My philosophy is that you should train on conditions that are more difficult than the race course itself. Seeing real life images will help you construct a plan to accomplish just that.

Yesterday I promised more big news and today I'm here to deliver it.

I have signed up for the 2009 Ford Ironman Wisconsin. The feeling is not weighing nearly as heavy on me as when I signed up to do Lake Placid last year. It's not that I am over confident - I just now know what it takes. Now it's time to learn what it takes to do it better and faster.

I am excited. Really excited. The next 371 days are going to be a lot of fun.