Partner in crime

Well, I finally found someone else on whom to test my crazy theory.
Dave Madvig (on the right in the photo, with his wife Cathy) - a friend of mine for about the last 8 years or so, is a firefighter and new father living out in LA. He's really the perfect candidate: busy, crazy, stubborn, sufferaphile, (didn't i mention that i was a protologist?) and he has some familiarity with endurance events so that hopefully he'll be able to effectively translate the 'program' into results for much longer races.
We've tentatively agreed to run an ironman distance triathlon together in either july or september of 2010. we won't do an actual IRONMAN sanctioned event, mainly because they fill within 24 hours of registration being opened and they cost nearly 5 times as much! He's agreed to stick to 3 hours a week of training (or 6 every two weeks to be more accurate) and eventually will hopefully be following a specific program that i make up for him (in the meantime he's just trying to develop a base fitness). He'll keep track of his workouts for reference, and may even post occasionally on this blog, if he feels like he's got something interesting to add. Below i'll give you a little bit of background on Dave and I's history together.

Dave was a friend of my wife's first - they met at a yoga class at San Diego State University. I met him after my wife and I joined him and some friends on a climbing trip down in Baja. I immediately sensed he was a rare soul that could be talked into things and proceeded to do just that for a number of years. He was my partner of choice in the area and one of only 4 people that i would trust if i was headed out to do anything serious. He accompanied me on several big walls, including El Gran Giraffe - A4 (on Baja's El Trono Blanco) and another scary grade IV wall in Red Rocks, Nevada, on which i'd broken my ankle in a fall two years prior. In addition, he was talked into joining my brother and I for our first iron distance triathlon, the MXT, which also happened to be the first ever off road ironman. He ended up training almost exclusively indoors for the event, and did the race on a bike he borrowed the day before. It took him nearly 23 hours, and he escaped being pulled from the course by slipping into the night as he heard volunteers at an aid station radio in for a car to come get him ASAP. He threw up at least a dozen times on the course, but somehow still managed to finish. He also agreed, when i was unable to come up with a team for a 10 mile open water swim relay (1 mile laps) to enter the 'animal' division with me, in which participants do the whole 10 miles themselves (touching bottom or coming ashore amounted to a disqualification). He kicked my ass on that one - despite his lack of training. Perhaps he channeled his days as a college swimmer.
Dave shared a house with my wife and I in San Diego (things are expensive out there!) for two years and then even moved with us to New Zealand for 6 months. He helped me fill the birthing pool for our home birth and was the first person to know my son keegan. Since he left NZ we've only seen each other a handful of times. He's gotten married, gone to firefighter school (he was an electrician all those years we lived together), bought a house in the hills outside of LA, and is a new father.
I'm excited to be planning another adventure with him!