Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Mini is heading south.


The mini is heading south.
Brenda and Lee are moving to Chattanooga TN.
We will get two Fall seasons this year. One in WI and another in TN!!

Monday, October 6, 2008

Italy trip

Rimini, Venice, Florence, and Bologna were all very cool. The ITU World Duathlon Championships was great. We both had good races and it was an honor representing Team USA.








Saturday, September 20, 2008



The days are getting shorter and the leaving are changing here in Two Rivers WI.

This is a picture of Brenda paddling near our house. We live in a town of 12k people. The river Brenda is paddling is called the East Twin River and it runs through our back yard!! Lake Michigan is about 1/2 mile down river.

We will leave for Rimini Italy for the World Duathlon Championships on September the 23rd. Brenda and I are both lucky enough to be racing. It seems like the racing season should be over with, but I think we can get motivated for one more race.

I will post a few pictures when we get back.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

World Triathlon Championships, Vancouver BC 2008

Crazy times at the Triathlon World Championships!
Brenda's swim wave was the next to the last to "get" to swim. Shortly after Brenda's wave they changed the race to a Duathlon.
In the third picture you can see the men have come back to the t/a and are getting ready for a 3k run/40k bike/10k run.
Brenda seemed to enjoy the swim even though the waves were so big that she looked DOWN onto the big yellow buoy markers a few times. The water temps was reported to me 49 degs, but that was not the issue. The big winds and waves were the reason for cancelling the swim.










Tuesday, May 20, 2008


My Cycle cross bike is the ultimate grocery store bike:')

Sunday, May 11, 2008


Check out the latest PRTriCoach newsletter.

Friday, April 18, 2008


PR Tri Coach's Lee Simril Interview with Ironman Triathlete Kathy Gibson on 4/15/2008 LS: Congratulations on finishing the 2008 Ironman Arizona. KG: Thank you very much! LS: How was your training leading up to the big day? KG: I knew all of the training for this race was going to be inside which was different for me, so I felt I needed some guidance with the workouts and some good advice with nutrition to make sure I was doing all the right things. I heard about PR Tri Coach through the Fox Cities Triathlon Club and heard from someone else who had hired you as a coach and thought this would be a good idea for me. Previously I had sort of followed a schedule found in a triathlon magazine and had done some reading. It was so nice to have the daily workouts written out for me and to have someone there to answer questions and give advice. With this race I felt so much more prepared, ready and confidant than before. Training with a heart rate monitor was new for me as well and I learned to appreciate this tool. LS: Please give me a run down of your nutrition for race day, beginning with the night before the race and ending at the finish line. KG: Night before the race: Spaghetti and meatballs, salad, two pieces of French bread, water. Race Morning: We got up at 0400. I had two pieces of toast with peanut butter and honey, ½ cup coffee, Gatorade, water, and my vitamins that I normally take. We left for the race at 0530 for a 0700 start and I took an Enduralyte tablet prior to the swim. During the Race: I had a gel and an enduralyte tablet every hour on the bike, alternated 20 0z water with 20 0z Gatorade every hour on the bike. I took a ½ banana a couple of times on the bike too. I thought I would be able to continue the gel every hour on the run, but my stomach said otherwise. I continued with one enduralyte tablet every hour on the run. I was able to eat one gel, pretzels occasionally, chicken broth and a bit of banana here and there. I drank coke and ice water at every aid station. LS: Please tell me your best moment of the race. KG: That would have to be the finish line! The roar of the crowd and the voice of ironman is just so exciting! LS: Please tell me your worst moment of the race. KG: Mile 3 on the run. I felt like I wanted to quit because of feeling so sick. I didn't know what to do. I carried my cell phone on the run, so I called my husband and started crying because I didn't feel I could go on. He told me to just get to the next aid station, sit down in the shade for 5 min., get cool sponges, drink coke etc. I did that and felt better and was able to press on. The run was truly a roller coaster of ups and downs in terms of my waves of nausea. Every time I took an enduralyte tablet, I felt better, along with the coke. I walked (sometimes at a very good clip and sometimes just mere baby steps to keep going) and I shuffled or jogged at times and towards the end was really able to run like I had wanted to run the entire race. I felt so good and so happy starting at about mile 22 and was able to finish strong. LS: Did you get to enjoy the post race party? KG: Yes, my sister and brother did this with me and when I finished my sister was there and I learned that she had dropped out at mile 11 of the run. We cried and talked about everything, had pizza and beer and then waited for my brother to finish. Listening to the music and the crowd and seeing others finish was so exciting. LS: What motivates you to compete in triathlons, as opposed to just exercising for the sake of fitness? KG: Good question! I like the challenge of trying to improve my times and seeing where I place in my age group. I think the races are so exciting and fun! It's fun to see people I know at races and be around people who like to do what I do. I love to see older people doing the races too. That inspires me. When I see a 79 year old doing an Ironman or hear about a 101 year old running a marathon, I am in awe and think how amazing it is that their bodies are physically able to do it. I would like to continue to compete for as long as I can. I would say I am addicted to exercising, so the training for racing just comes natural to me and it's just a hobby I guess. LS: What are your race plans for the rest of 2008? KG: I'm thinking about doing the Aurora High Cliff Tri and the Pewaukee Tri. I plan on running a half marathon in Sept. and the Minneapolis Marathon in October and my sister, husband and I might do the Silverman Triathlon (relay) in Nevada in November. We would love to get some other teams together to do this with us. It's an "iron distance" tri, but relays are allowed. Any takers? Thank you, Coach Lee. This race was definitely a PR for me!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Simril gets an assist!




Simril gets an assist!
My neighbors dog decides to go for a swim this morning, and then my neighbor follows. I grabbed my paddling rope and ran down to the river just in time for them to climb out onto the river bank. So I really did not assist that much, but I was ready if needed.

The ice on the river is melting, and so we will be paddling in the sun.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Fixing a Flat Tire




No one likes having a flat, but if you know how to fix the flat your ride will not be derailed.

When you flat:

Have a plan; do not let this be the first or second time you try to figure this out.
Be familiar with your saddle bag and how to get it on and off of your bike.
Have two tire levers, a tube, co2 and/or a pump.
Know how your co2 works!
Shift the chain to the smallest cog
Take the wheel off
Take one side of the tire off.....if you are good you usually will not need a tire lever.....but that is another story
ALWAYS try to find the reason for the flat. Did you pinch, run over glass, or did the rim strip slip.
If you get in a rush and do not find the reason for the flat you are likely to flat again.
Run your finger around the inside of the tire. Be careful here, if you have a bit of glass you can cut your finger.
Blow a bit of air into the new tube with your mouth.
Put the tube one the wheel and start to put the tire back on.
Work away from the valve.
NEVER use the tire levers to get the tire back on the wheel.
Make sure you do not have any of the tube pinched under the tire.
Double check to make sure that you are not pinching the tube!!
Pump or use your co2.
Put the wheel back on, tighten the skewer and go.
This whole process should not take more then 3-5 minutes, but can take much longer......


Friday, March 21, 2008

Overtraining

Overtraining

The term overtraining is complicated. Magazines like “Runners World” love to sell the “less is more” idea of training. Well, less is usually not more. Most of the time the athlete that trains the most wins. That is one of the beautiful things about endurance sports – the more you put into the sport, the more you get out of the sport.

I do not even like the term overtraining, because really, that’s what training is all about. You stress the system by pushing your body, then recover and then repeat.

That said, I want to give you a few tips on avoiding “overtraining”. Stress comes from all areas of life. Even the things we love to do can be stressful. Work, family, social life and training are all stressors. So the things that stress our system need to be accounted for and managed.

There are many ways to determine if you are over trained. I will talk about the one that I like best:

· This method is based off of heart rate (HR). In the morning after your alarm clock goes off take your HR while still lying down. It is important that you do not sit up in bed. You should turn off the alarm clock and relax for a moment (hopefully you do not fall back to sleep). The goal is to relax and get a true resting HR.
· Next, stand up and take your HR again. Simply stand next to your bed without walking around.

So now you have two HR’s: lying down and standing. Now, compare the two HR’s and clculate the difference. This is a test that you will need to perform consistently to find your normal spread between the two HR’s.

A typical spread might be 5 beats higher when standing, but that varies from person to person. The key is to find YOUR normal spread and watch for changes. If the number increases and stays that way for several days, you should back off of your training a little.
Backing off of training does not mean to stop working out, but to decrease intensity or duration or both. If you are in the middle of hard training your body will respond better to “active recovery” than complete rest. Active recovery can be any form of exercise that you enjoy and you feel better after completing.

Overtraining is not something that happens because of one training session. True overtraining takes weeks and is not that common. The nature of training is that some days you will feel beat up and in need of a recovery workout.

So, use your HR to give you a real measure of your training status.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

PRTriCoach heading to Curling World Championships


PRTriCoach Brian McWilliams will be working with the Women and Men's Curling World championships.
The Women's World Championships will be held in Vernon B.C., on March 22nd-30th http://seasonofchampions.ca/2008worlds/index.asp
The Men's World Championships will be held in Grand Forks N.D., on April the 5th to the 13th.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Reality Check

As an endurance athlete you are faced with long training days week after week and month after month. You often feel tired and can question the wisdom of another workout. Generally, more is better unless your body stops adapting to the stress. The question is, how do you know if you are adapting to the stress and if you are doing the correct type of training to make you faster?

One way to get feedback on your fitness is a time trial. Another way is a standard workout that you can compare to previous weeks. Here are a few samples that are tried and true:

Swim 10 x 100 yards
Bike 10 x 1 mile
Run 10 x 400 yards (typically on a track)

You should allow your heart rate to drop 110-120 bpm or your zone 1 before starting the next hard effort.

These are basic workouts that will serve as reality checks. Not only will they give you a true measure of your fitness, they will make you faster as well.

The main difference between racing and doing intervals is the added bonus that the workouts give you by increasing your speed. Often times races are too long and too hard to make you faster. Racing teaches your body to move at your current race pace, but what you want to do is teach your body to move faster than your current race pace. The end result is that you keep lowering your race PR.

A good example of this is an Olympic marathoner – he doesn’t race marathons to get faster at marathons; he races 5k’s and 10k’s. The same holds true at all distances.

Use these workouts to gauge your fitness and go faster!

Coach Lee
PRTriCoach.com

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Cross Training! Has anyone seen Brenda?

Sunday, February 3, 2008

50th Anniversary Ventura Beach






We had a blast and enjoyed the great weather. I know..........it rained a little, but it was warm:')

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Lactate Testing



Brenda loves Lactate Threshold (LT) testing (not really).
LT testing involves warming up and then increasing effort every 3-5 minutes until you pass your LT. Passing your LT is when you change from "saying the "S" word to the "F" word". Previous quote is attributed to Alan Cherkasky.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

ITU Triathlon World Championships!




What can I say our trip to Germany was really cool. Bikes everywhere!

Packers game

So we made it to our first Packers game!!

X-mas 05 High Point NC



Bunch of Simrils:')
Cables at Yosemite
Brenda's Mom at Yosemite 06






Brenda in Yosemite and Dick at A's game.
Summer of '06

Ironwood MI for X-mas




Here are a couple of pictures from out trip to ABR. We rented a cabin on the ski trails. ABR grooms the trails daily!!
Brenda tried to get me lost after dark. We were 1k from the cabin with 10 minutes of light, but no......she had to do one more trail.
I made you so tire all she could do afterwards was lay in bed a eat:')
Fortunately Mom Simril sent girl scout cookies!