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Carmen Monks
Belmont Massachusetts
38, financial advisor, father, known as Big Daddy in Team Pyscho training quarters
Carmen and I have worked together since 1995....a scary thought!
19th place overall; obviously a strong athlete, Carmen put on a balanced performance
that culminated with a 3hr11min marathon on a tough course and under absurd 
conditions, and qualified him for Kona....again.  
Carried 1 year old Benevuta, my 2yr old son Jimmy's Walden Pond swimming partner,
across the finish line; Ironman week was different this time 'round for BD!

Run Training about 25-35m/week
Bike Training; 2 quality computrainer sessions, one easy CT session, weekend ride
Winter training; brutal winter in Boston which precluded outdoor riding, adhered
to M2's Upside Down Training Pyramid Principle and kept indoor sessions to generally
1hr duration, letting other misguided souls ride for leg-deadening useless hours and 
hours indoors building proverbial "base".  See Rethinking Base Training article
for more on this.

Walter Bird
45 years old, computer analyst from Marcellus, NY; began working with Walter
6 months ago.  Walter confessed to being an overtrainer and having been consistently
exhausted while training for his IM effort 2 years back, and which not 
surprisingly resulted in a less than inspiring result.

Consider this result:
Overall a 57 minute improvement over my last IM under brutal conditions. Even more 
remarkable considering I'm not getting any younger, and my training averaged at least
2-3 hours less each week with you than I was doing before. Running mileage was 
10-20 miles less each week. 

Exerpts from Walter's race report are as follows:
"Went into this race feeling very confident. I knew I was fitter than I 
have ever been, and I knew I could finish the distance....
Ended up 11:23 overall, 18/154 AG and 290/1850 overall. Smashed my slow goal
of 12 hours, missed my "good day" goal of 11. If not for the winds I know
I would have had that. What really hurt was missing the Kona roll-down to a
guy that beat me by 1'39". I could have easily made that up in T2 and by not 
flagging down every race official I saw as I tried to explain my missing 
timing chip.
 
Overall a 57 minute improvement over my last IM under brutal conditions. Even more 
remarkable considering I'm not getting any younger, and my training averaged at least
2-3 hours less each week with you than I was doing before. Running mileage was 
10-20 miles less each week. I experienced none of the knee pain I had during 
my first IM. Managed a 15 minute improvement on the run even wothout eating.
I would say my training for this race was a success. I know I will never 
go beck to my old way of training.
 
Now I must decide what my next challenge will be." 

Sue Foster
41 years old from Kingfield Maine
Cross-country ski background
Qualified for Hawaii
Fastest bike split in her age-group
Sue is a strong athlete with a background in XC skiing that translates well to
cycling.  We began working together only 12 weeks out, and primary focus
was establishing useful HR training zones by performing a several tests both 
biking and running; subtracting age from 180 is a useless formula for purposeful 
training---see Tall Tales on HR Training.

Given our limited time, we focused on the windtrainer by doing 1-2 threshold
sessions each week, and one neural activation workout of simply moving a big gear
for 45-60 seconds at high cadence.  Sue had done little outdoor riding so we
built her long ride ride up to 2 weeks before IMUSA.  Longest ride was 
about 100m, a little shy of what I would have liked, but the terrain and 
conditions were challenging.

We also incorporated what I call an efficiency ride, sandwiched between her
quality sessions, where Sue would ride from 2.5-3.5hrs with a very tight cadence
range, optimal gearing, and steady power output where intial HR would be 35 below
LT and rise to as high as 20 beats below for same effort.  Important to have
respected both the gearing and the intensity lest Sue compromise her more
important quality session the next day.

Run training was sadly almost non-existent due to an injury that occurred when
Sue twisted her ankle stepping on a tool by her windtrainer.  Hmm.  

Sue and I look forward to working together again next year with a healthy
foot and a neater bike area.  In my opinion, a healthy status and a more relaxed
training build-up will make Sue untouchable in her age-group.