05/06/08

       I sent out a suit and instructions for a sample GodSpeed suit today!  I am excited to see the results of all of my work!  Also exciting, a quote from cycling news..."Discovery Channel team captain Levi Leipheimer supposedly posted the lowest total drag figure ever recorded by a male athlete"(on a Trek TT bike)...the one I ride...yaaaa...TAKE THAT!!!....HATERS!!!  lol.  So, I'm home for Fl-Ga....riding in the morning, pumpkin run Sunday...gotta get some sleep! 

Godspeed,   -Willy-

10/22/07

       Just had an awesome weekend at Disney World with my girl friend!!!  Got in a good swim this morning, about 2500m of really good effort and some fluff to go with it.  I also got to chat with Ryan Woodruff today, whom I had mentioned earlier, and he gave me some good advice, and also put me in contact with the Director of Biomechanics for USA Swimming, which, needless to say, was most helpful!  I have a couple some-what final design sketches put together, and am searching for just the right materials that I need to make this happen.    Hopefully we will have a few functional surprises in store, and I can get a sample back relatively soon. 

Godspeed,   -WTK-

10/19/07

       So here's what's going down.  I talked to the manufacturer I intent to have make some suits for us.  Pretty much I need to send him my desired design, and I suit that I want to model it off of.  I pretty much have the design down, but I will probably change a few things for functional reasons.  I am in the process of talking with Ryan Woodruff, Head Coach of NC Aquatics Club, and former Head Coach of Gator Swim Club, in order to determine where I can get an advantage with these suits.  Ryan did extensive research on all types of racing swim suits with the best athletes in the world at the Olympic Training Center for his PhD.  If anyone can help me out a bit, it is going to be him.  After we get everything finalized, I will be sending it in to have a sample made, hopefully early next week.

...starting to swim so much better...

Godspeed,   -Kid-

10/15/07

       ...just wanna slide in here that I popped a 10.9 for a 25 free at the end of practice this morning...  My form is coming back, endurance should be hot on its heals... 

Also, just finished sketching out a rough logo I have been working on in literature class for GodSpeed.  I have also begun contacting manufacturers to try and get some products out there...

Godspeed,   -William-

10/14/07

       Base training is starting to heat up in Gainesville.  The foundation of fitness is being laid!  I have started year round swimming again with Gator Swim Club, which is more similar to the training I was getting at Bolles.  I am currently only doing mon-wed-fri mornings to get back used to the higher and more intense yardage, but I will be going full time in the next several weeks.  On the bike, I have been popping in four hour rides pretty consistently on the weekends, as well as several 40 mile-ish rides during the week.  Hopefully this trend will continue on upwards to where I need to be.  My run is finally starting to come back around.  I am really excited on this front.  I put in several hour+ runs this week, and just ran 10+ with Jeremy fairly easily at a nice pace.  ...I'm soo proud of Jeremy, BTW, he just got 12th at pre-nationals with a UF 8k record shattering time of 23.38 yesterday!!!  So, ya, everything seems to be on the right track right now.  I have some difficult decisions before me that I am going to need to face shortly, but they may potentially advance my training greatly.  For now, I only pray for wisdom that I will choose the best path.

Godspeed,   -WTK-

10/3/07

       Well, I just had an awesome birthday on the 30th!  I am now 20!!!  I also got some great new fitness gifts!  My lovely girlfriend got me a Rotor Chain ring, which is like an oval.  I got a chance to try it out and it is amazing!  Dad got me a sweet underwater MP3 player that like plays through your cheek bone, and I also got a new saddle for the TT bike made by Blackburn.  It is waaaay more comfortable than a traditional style saddle in my experience thus far.  As dreary as things were looking for the past couple months, they are looking as good or better now.  Hopefully I got all my injuries and illnesses out of the way.  I am back swimming year round with Gator Swim Club, which is awesomely hard, but great!  I have found a few good buddies to do a lot of base training with on the bike, and I'm slowly building the old run back up.  I have sent out a few transfer letter already, as I may seek a new school to run at after this year.  All in all, everything is going great right now, and I hope to be ready next year for the big races I'm gunning for!

Godspeed,   -Willy-

9/10/07

       Just went back to the doctor today and got some good news.  It looks like the Scaphoid is healing well, and I am now wearing a removable type of cast thing.  I've got pretty much full range of motion back without much pain, and rehabilitation of the muscles will begin soon.  I have been swimming regularly, and it is much easier with this splint than a real cast.  I am thinking of moving up to the Gator Swim Club senior group shortly.  My rides are limited to about 30 minute rides on the trainer, because if I tried to go longer I might lose my sanity.  On a brighter note, I am starting to run a lot better!  I am up to about 3 miles a day, and went 4 with Jeremy yesterday.  My hip feels better now that it has in months, and I am not even hyped up on Advil.  I have also started doing a lot of lower body and core weight training to try and substitute for missing a lot of time on the bike.  Also, my Gainesville tempo buddy Matt Greene brought to my attention that I am currently ranked #1 in Florida by USAT.  Although rankings are pretty silly, and I haven't even done any races in an attempt to get a high ranking, it is still encouraging.  Perhaps things are looking up once again.  Time to get fit!!!

Godspeed,   -Will-

8/30/07

       So it has been a little better than 2 weeks now, and as usual, we have the unexpected, both good and bad.  After going back to the doctor (I forget how many times it has been now), the bone scan showed that my hip bone seems to be pretty much healed up.  I have still been experiencing some pain, and I think the consensus is that the tendon is now the cause.  I have been hammering unhealthy doses of IB Profin for the past week, and it has actually seemed to really help this time around.  In fact, I ran a mile today with no pain at all, and still feel good.  This is pretty encouraging.  But, while the hip looked better on the bone scan, the wrist injury that I had pretty much written off seems to be a fairly serious one.  As it turns out, there is a break is the scaphoid bone in my wrist, most likely cause from my thumb getting stuck in the shifter, pulling my thumb back, and snapping my wrist.  I have broken that thumb several times before from soccer, so I'm sure that did not help the cause.  Well, with my luck over the past month, it turns out the scaphoid is a small bone that is quite difficult to repair, but neglecting the brake will cause the bone to die and prevent blood flow to the hand (bad).  So, I am stuck in a cast and have an appointment to see a hand surgeon tomorrow.    Also just lovely is that I am left handed, and using that is a nightmare.  Everything from writing to eating, getting dressed, typing this, and every other daily activity in between is complicated beyond belief.  At least I can more or less write with my right hand.  The doctor told me to stay off the bike, but I have ridden every day since I got this thing (with much, much pain I might add).  Being the ever optimist, if you are having trouble keeping your elbow high in the water, I would recommend a thumb spike cast.  It has really given me time to focus on my stroke (and strengthened my left shoulder).  Hopefully I will be a better man by the end.  Other than that, the move back to Gainesville has been good, I'm riding with my long lost buddies, back in the pool, albeit handicapped, and if I had to say so, I would guess that fitness is on a collision course with collegiate nationals.  Hopefully the winds will turn and my bad luck will be done for the year.

Godspeed,   -WTK-

8/13/07

       I took most of this week off.  I am all busted up and demoralized.  I've got road rash on my hip and shoulder, possibly a stress fracture in my hip, and perhaps a fracture in my wrist.  I have an MRI coming up, will know more then...

Godspeed,   -The Kid-

8/5/07

       Well, the frustration continues, and it reached my breaking point today.  Today was one of those days that just felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong.  It was really highlighted when I was doing some high speed crit drills in a parking lot before I started the main part of my ride.  Like an idiot, I forgot that I switched out my supple racing tires yesterday for hard case trainers, and started really pushing on the bike around corners at high speeds.  Well, I pretty much just pushed the tires beyond their lateral G capabilities and paid for it.  The bike completely slid out from underneath me in a corned I was really leaning into, I hit my shoulder and hip hard, suffering a good bit of road rash, I pinched my thumb somewhere, as there is a terrible looking blood blister on my thumb that I am confident would hurt spectacularly bad, except that I can't feel my thumb, and I have tweaked my wrist in someway that it is quite stiff and hurts very bad to bend.  I tore a brand new jersey, but at least my bike is fine.  I ran afterwards, and my hip, though much better, still hurt worse than the one I had fallen on just hours earlier.  This upset me even worse.  I am going to an orthopedic doctor tomorrow.  What a frustrating day.  I think I may take tomorrow off.

Godspeed,   -Willy-

8/3/07

       I've had kind of a frustrating week, workout wise.  Not running is wearing on me, I want to get back out there.  Speaking of which, the X-ray came back negative, which is good and bad news.  The good is obvious, the bad, well, I still don't know exactly what is wrong.  I have an appointment with one of the top doctors around, the former Jaguars' orthopedic surgeon, this coming Monday for one final check over (at least I hope).  Perhaps there will be some blood work this time around.  I also had the privilege of giving the Hammerheads a presentation about how to improve the run portion at their monthly meeting!  Anyways, I had to go back to Gainesville yesterday to move out of my old apartment into my new house with Jeremy, who had surgery yesterday :(  ...pray for him.  He should be fine though...  This trip caused me to miss out on Tempo Thursday though, which upsets me.  Went for a short ride today, and am going long with DD tomorrow.  Finally, I got my Polar software back up and running, so check the training section soon for details!!!  I also just picked up the Polar power meter to go with it, but the system seemed to be malfunctioning, so I sent it in for warranty.  Hopefully will have that worked out soon.

Godspeed,   -William-