The Super Fatlete

Real World Application of Triathlon Training

2011-11-08T09:52:00.000-05:00

High volume with the addition of speed work, tempo work, and bricks are the core of most triathlon program. Personally, I also spend a good deal of time, especially during my first season setting up transition and running through the costume changes I need to make. Once I had the hang of it I integrated it into every brick workout that I do.

Yesterday I was able to use these skills in a less than typical manner for the average triathlete. As a member SWAT I maintain proficiency with pistol, shotgun, and the M4 assault rifle. Yesterday was my monthly training day and the afternoon portion of the training was with the M4. We did a standard qualification course shooting 50 rounds into a silhouette from a variety of distances and positions. I scored 100% as did over 3/4ths of my team mates.

After this was completed we went on to another drill. For this drill we would be firing at a paper plate from fifty meters. A paper plate is usually used to practice keeping tight grouping or to simulate taking head shots. The distance adds even more difficulty to it. To add to the difficultly we were told that we would not be allowed to shoot until we returned from a 1/2 mile run, up a hilly gravel road and back. This is called a stress course. The purpose was to change our breathing and fatigue level similar to having to shoot when you are involved in a building entry or other line of duty incident. As some one who tracks escapees, it not improbable to have to take a shot after running through the woods after someone.

Everyone on the team became nervously anxious. This changes things. I drank the cool aid at first and was nervous too. I made a comment about I would be happy if I hit one. Then, just before the whistle sounded I thought about it. I need to run and then shoot; how is this any different from running my bike in and then sliding on shoes, visor, Garmin, and race number belt? With the exception of one involving a high power lethal weapon with a high capacity magazine they are basically the same. They both employee the use of fine motor skills while exhausted. With that realization I decided to just think of it like transition, focus and control my breathing.

I was in the last group to go. Prior to my group 48 others had shot and the high score was 12 out of 15. using my triathlon focus I shot a new high score of 14 out of 15. Making me happy to out shoot the hunters and the military vets in the group (who weren't as happy about it). These group have more experience than I, yet fundamental shooting and knowing how to manage stress turned out to be more valuable. Making it even better was the mocking the ensued. I never said a word about my score, the cadre pointed out to some of the more loud mouthed members of the team (you know those guys in every group) that they were out shot by the team medic!

Weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 of fitness revisions.

2011-10-19T08:55:00.000-04:00

I know I fell off a few months ago and its been worse over the month, with one post. It's been tough for the last few weeks but the lack of availability to blog is for the best (so it seems).

A month ago my job changed a little and I it has reduced my stress. New boss, less paperwork. With this change came a change of hours. I know work second shift two days a week- getting home so late has been annoying but I have time to swim in the mornings without having to get up extra early. On top of these work changes I now have been running my own martial arts studio. I have class two days a week in the afternoons, making two more late nights a week.

I am now on the go formally from 8 am until after 9 pm everyday. I am still spending Saturday mornings teaching karate for the non-profit. I spend Sundays, and the hour between bed and when I get home on Tuesdays and Thursdays doing freelance web design. I started with traditional html and css but have learned to do some very cool things in CSS. I have even now officially made money doing it. I got my first check in the mail. I also go duped out of a $500 job I did for someone else.

Staying so busy has led to mixed results with my diet, but I have hit EVERY workout- two per day with Sundays Off (and Thursdays soon)

Week 2 was a fail. I had the new boss, new work schedule and new stress that led me to living on fast food.

Week 3- Success. Good food choices all around.

Week 4 was another fail. This week was busy with PERT (SWAT) and we never pick anywhere healthy to eat when working,

Week 5 was by best success to date. Sunday morning I spent a few hour cooking and boxed lunches and snacks for the week. Eggbeaters for breakfast, boiled egg whites for am snack, grilled chicken and asparagus for lunch, and kale and steak for a pm snack.

In terms of fitness I have been following crossfit endurance strength and running training. In order to get my swim time improved I was advised to work on only 25m intervals. I have seen some improvement getting my 25m time to 24s now to hold that speed over 50m and then to hold it over 100m and so on. I have also increased my core strength, my bench press to 225, and my dead lift to 250.

I have been tracking various metrics with my body and have had interesting results. My weight has come down a few pounds since I started but is close to what it was at the end of the my tri season. Still need to lose about 20 pounds to my goal. On the other hand, I have lost about 2+ inches on my waist and about 2 percent body fat, and have more visible abs. To me these are interesting results.

As a last note I have a question for parents. My martial arts studio started out slow and has gotten worse. I went from two students to one student. The only student in my children's class is an autistic adult. This has lead to me paying the rent mostly out of my own pocket. I have been stepping up my marketing but am trying to get very focused. Parents: If I want to get ads to you about the classes we offer what is the best way?

Secondly: to get the kids to class I have to get parent's interested. What is the best "goal" to advertise- fitness, self defense, bully proofing, fun, discipline, character, or something else?

Week One of diet and fitness revisions

2011-09-12T16:04:00.000-04:00

Paleo Eating: The first week was a week of questions. I now am unsure of the difference in paleo and primal. Avoiding grains did not seem too hard, but I have eaten my weight in almonds. During the work week I cheated twice, one time I needed something to carry me through Karate class so I ate a handful of multi-grain cheerios and another time I ate some as a late-night snack. I tried to add more veggies in to the diet and found a few I added may not be part of the Paleo scheme- green beans and snap peas. At the start of the week I was 3 pounds over my shame weight and by the end of the first day I dropped 7 pounds, presumably just shedding the junk in my system, the next day I dropped another two and then I dropped small increments the rest of the week. Due to things going on for the weekend, I took an 80-20 aproach to the diet and ate free for the weekend. By the end of the weekend I put 3 pounds back on.

Crossfit Endurance: This has been the most interesting. Tuesday I started with my first official CF strength workout. It was tough, but not too hard. I am weak, but not too weak. After the first workout (with a total of 45 dead lifts with 150lbs plus other stuff) I tried the endurance WOD- a run. FAIL. The program calls for putting 3 hours between workouts but I didn't have the time. I quickly understood the requirement. The next day I was so sore I could barely walk. I couldn't bear a swim so I just did the strength workout. The next morning I couldn't walk or lift my arms and doing pull ups as I normally do when I pass my closet was out of the question. I ended up doing the strength workout Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Friday I couldn't move. I invite the new pain, pain from strength training. Saturday I rested and Sunday I got in my first endurance workout. I did a ten mile tt on the bike. I completed it in 23:22- A NEW PR!! I am very proud.

Life- My Kayak is sold and I am one step closer to my independence. I plan to start round two in the attic this week and am slowly but surely learning about running my own business, despite a hiccup (or possibly two) last week.

What's been up

2011-09-07T23:03:00.000-04:00

Knowing I have 30 minutes at work and knowing that I have hours of work in the que that needs to be done I have decided to write a post because I am feeling withdrawn lately.

Over the last four months or so my posts went from content back to status checks and then dropped off. I have had a lot going on but I miss the encouragement of my peers and well as reading about other's life. This is a great way to have relationships for an introvert and I value them highly, more than some of you inspire me more than you will ever realize.

LIFE

In May I started my 31 day freelance experiment. It has had decent results and led me have some "real work" and became a third job on top of my job at the prison and my Saturday morning job teaching karate for the non-profit at a rec center.

My web design freelancing has led to me updating some skills, but I am not where I want to be yet. I figured I would advertise some online and if I got enough bites to cover my cost of living I would just do this. It has not worked out quite that way. I got no referrals from online advertisement, in order to build word of mouth I offered a doctor friend of mine to build a site for free (pretty much free). It was something he had been shopping for anyway and I did not know it. This turned in to a chore as he didn't really know what he wanted and once we got going going he kept making revision after revision. He would sign off on a version as being good and as soon as I would make the changes he would change his mind and want something different. I have a contract I did not use with him since he is a friend, but it only allows for two revisions for most projects. Once we finally got it live he got a letter from another company's lawyer and as he did not trademark on his name, we had to redo a good bit of the site. Now its live again. I did this for the price of 2 hosting contracts and domain names before I thought it was going to be as complicated.

I also got a referral from a friend, they wanted a very basic store front site and a rush over a weekend, I completed the site and then got stiffed for $500 after dedicating over 20 hours over two days to it including logos, image editing, two revisions, and a bite more. The good new is there is a supposed referral from a different friend for an interior designer who wants a site. She has a budget between $250 and $300 so I should be able to do a simple site for her. I also realized web marketing is not how to get things done in my area and have started a targeted direct mail campaign to a some local businesses. I have abandoned the idea of living off this for the time being and any profits it nets I will put toward savings.

If you couldn't tell from a previous posts I am going through internal turmoil in terms of figuring out what I want to do. I put days and days of thought into not just finding a career I might enjoy, but following my dream business instead. A dream I can track on paper since at least 2004 is opening up my own martial arts school. I drew a very grand layout with my drafting board back then. It was my original intention when I move west (in NC) to live with my wife, but my agreement with the location did not pan out. I tried another option and realized I knew nothing about business and went back to work for the man.

Over the summer I became a lot more active pursuing this goal. I have written my first business plan with the help of SCORE (Thanks P!) and sought rental space. Unfortunately, the resources are not together to get my own space and the people who for years said they would back me- backed out, despite pushing me for two years because how good the numbers look.

I still wanted to purse this goal so went on the prowl again for existing dance studios and gymnastic gym's to see if any would sublet. I found one that would. She was very interested in adding martial arts to create a mutually beneficial relationship, she already had children's dance, Zumba, and yoga. This seemed great despite some other things....

I attended her open house and had 10 kids sign up. I held the first class on 09/01/11 and had ONE of those kids show up, this gave me a total of three students including my little sister-in-law and developmentally disabled adult who showed up at the wrong time. I was running a promotion for August that if you signed up you got reduced tuition and no registration, I learned the benefit of a registration fee. My bet is if there was a registration fee, parents would either not sign up unless they were serious and would come if they paid.

I have ordered some cards, placed an ad in a school directory, and have done a few other marketing things. With my two paid students I have not yet to make enough for my rent but I am still hopeful for the remainder of the month.

In order to fund the dream, as well as raise enough money to devote myself to this full time, I started a fundraising effort. For the first phase I found everything in my attic I was willing to sell. I put books on Amazon and everything else on ebay. What didn't sell after two rounds on ebay went to a yard sale. The total gave me about $600, and once I get my kayak sold I will gross about $1,000 to $1,100. However, I have used some of that to pay for business overhead (marketing, Thesis theme, misc. office stuff). Now that I have some momentum I am going to go through the attic again next week and see if there is anything else I can part with. Once I am out of stuff I can sell (or that CB will let me sell, because if it were up to me i'd sell everything in the house) I have another fundraiser scheme. Also, anything I make from web design will go directly to my saving for this purpose.

Hopefully, if I will find the right marketing recipe for my budget and my numbers will take care of the rest. I have long felt that part of the inability to monetize in martial arts is to lack of advertisement and with an increase in budget I hope to take care of that.

Training
Unfortunately with four jobs seven days a week, training and diet fell off. I had planned to take a free week after my last race but it turned to three weeks.

Over that time I have eaten more fast food than I can care to recall and put on 11 extra pounds. After reading a few article I decided to try 6 weeks on the paleo/primal kick and see if it renders any results. I have read about it several times over the past two years and always thought it was NUTS. However, I read a few articles in the past two weeks about the connection between those eating habit with heavy lifting for lean results. They intrigued me and I thought it to be worth a shot. I have been on it since Monday and realized that other than kicking out grains and trying to find non-processed meats, it isn't that different from the low carb diet I originally used to lose weight. Two days of clean eating left me feeling great and seven pounds of junk/water weight shed.

Feeling better got me back in the gym. I eluded a few weeks ago to trying a new training method for the off season. I started today what I meant to start three weeks ago- Crossfit Endurance. When they changed their format a few month back I started making a spreadsheet of all of the the workouts for the 12 week program. so that I could start it once I was ready. After putting hours and hours toward long rides and runs during my training season I am looking forward to using shorter, harder workouts. However, I do plan to work in periodic long workouts just to keep a base. If it makes me faster or have more power- great! If not, I will enjoy shorter workouts and it will keep me active. SEEMS win-win.

Today's Motivation

2011-08-30T08:43:00.002-04:00

Creative Help Needed

2011-08-16T13:20:00.000-04:00

Again using this medium as a springboard for figuring out life-

I need help giving my newest clsss a names. At this time I am calling it RUN.JUMP.KICK.

The class is a children's fitness class with a karate base. Think boot camp meets Aerobic Kickboxing. Push ups, sit ups, and a lot of bag and pad work. No traditional lining up and punching from horse stance.

If someone supplies a name I like better there may be a prize.

Thank you everyone for the help.

Sorting things out Volume I

2011-08-10T15:14:00.000-04:00

“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
-Tyler Durden

Have you ever had so many things on your mind you didn't know where to start? Or so many topics you don't know which to write about?

Than is how I feel today. I was thinking about fitness, sorting life out, figuring out how to plan, making that plan, a product review, and more.

I could not decide where to start and I feel like I have many meaningful things to say and I know that if I take one road and not another I will forget. I remembered that I had seen a quote yesterday (above) and saved it in blogger. I decided to start I would go back the the saved post and just go from there.

That quote is one of many from the movie Fight Club that resonates with me. I remember being raised with elementary teachers and my mom and other adults telling me I could be anything I want to be when I grow up. THAT SHIT IS A LIE!

There are several thing that never get said to young children or even older children.
1- You may pick a career you don't have the aptitude for.
2- You may pick a career you don't fully understand and once you pursue it and learn the ins and outs its a little harder to turn back and decide again.
3- You may pick a career that isn't suited for your personality.
4- Sometimes your life leads you down a road that prevent a career before you even know it.
5-You may pick a career that DOES work out with all of the above but by the time you are entering the "real world" we will have no idea about the economy so we don't know if that will be an option.

I will case study myself. Go figure. I remember when I was young I was aked by my mother what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember standing in the hallway outside of my room in the house where we lived at the time and telling her either a preacher, or a fighter pilot, or a cowboy.

I had a love for jets as a kid so I was probably thinking about one of my many toys when I gave that answer. The truth that no one would have told me at that age is that that is a highly competitive field because they aren't that many jobs available. Next, to be competitive you have to have a lot of things going right for you and many of those skills are learned when young. Honestly it was about that time that I went off track. I speak about this particular job with good understanding as one of my two best friends from high school and my high school girl friend both did puruse this job for the Air Force, they both did ALL of the right things. In the end neither of them got it. Kera is a navigator and Nick is a pilot but of a KC-130 not a F-15 as he had dreamed. They both love what they do, but no one told them of the possible limitations when they were young. Of course as they got older they knew about the obstacles, but luckily it wasn't too late.

I think I answered preacher because my mom would like that answer. That one would work for most of my listed prereq's except that I really don't like people, CB says I have no emotions, and by the time I was older I had some interesting beliefs about organized religion. I am still religious, but don't agree with a lot of what I see or get told. This would probably be a problem for seminary.

Last in terms of being a cowboy my life had placed me in an urban area so training for that career wasn't an option.

I think its odd that I was never told these intricate details about career paths. I understand that at six decisions will change so it may not be worth getting into the details too deeply, but I think you see my point.

I grew up wanting to be a helicopter pilot from 3rd or 4th grade on. On my own I did the research, I knew I would need a college degree to fly for the military. I knew my estranged grandfather was an engineer and was successful so I figured that I would be one too. I even took two engineering classes in high school. At the time it seemed to make sense. When I was a senior in high school I started struggling with math; not because it was hard, but because I got bored too easily. It got worse in college, I was diagnosed with ADHD (I have since been told I do not have ADHD, but something else). I knew the military did not like to accept people taking vitamin r, as they called it, so I decided not be medicated. Without medication the classes were too much so I changed my major to something with less math- Criminal Justice. I pursued this and did well in my classes, then the year before graduating I was told by a recruiter that because I had been diagnosed with asthma I could not join the military. This crashed everything down and I had to reevaluate.

This is an example of how effect being whatever you want to be. I could even go on from there to what led me to my current career location.

Next week I turn 28 and I still have no idea where I want to be and what I want to do when I grow up. I guess the next few steps will be trying to decide where I want to be and how to get there.

Any suggestion for finding new directions?

The Winds of Change

2011-08-10T07:30:00.000-04:00

This blog has gone through some changes over the last year . It started out as a place to for my to track my day to day battle with weight loss, to find support, and to have accountability.

After a few months it became my own personal beginner triathlete forum where I got support for racing and training. Over the last few months between my personal life and my training it has become sporadic posts with whats been up and monthly race reports.

I have been trying to make some changes in my life and career since May and the end of my "official" and planned season brings an increase in time to train the rest of my life. I enjoy my training. Exercise has always made me happy- before I was ever on the high school track team, before college summers spent running 10 milers, before now; I used to just go run when I was upset or overwhelmed. Today, my training in part still does that. When doing any other swim workout other than a long swim, I think about nothing but swimming. When I run my mind becomes cleared off all external stresses. When I am on long rides I often zone out and pray. The only problem with this is upon my return I am catapulted back into real life. Sometimes it feels like being slammed into a wall upon my return.

I have decided to put concentrated work into training the rest of my life. I am sure it is clear through some of my posts that I battle with depression from time to time, sometimes very deep. It is spawned by long term effects of events in my life. I am going to TRY to take charge of these things and make changes.

If I was able to take charge of my health and fitness I feel I should be able to take charge of this too. I am planning to begin using this blog as a medium for brainstorming and hopefully to get feedback from my fitness friends. I have no real friends here in my area as all I have done since moving here is go to work. My work tends toward being filled with people who want to have misery for their own company; I do not want to speak to them about many of these topics. I feel that having a Jedi council of the bloggers I have had some my longer relationships with will be of great help. I know that this direction will lose followers and also attract some negative feedback from those who do not understand what I have gone through or agree with the changes I want to make. I thank all of my true friends for the feedback in advance.

I realized that much of my personal turmoil stem from my career and the life style it forced. The truth is I hate working ~~for~~ with inmates and I loathe the criminal justice system. When I was in school all of the CSI shows made everything look so sexy. Truth is it is not, and it a very small percentage of people who get the really cool jobs and I have come to the conclusion most of the people in these positions probably had some combination of upper middle class up bringing, a special skill, political or family connections, and good credit. Unlike TV ex-strippers and ex-cons do not get these jobs.

I have been reading many lifestyle and business blogs lately, many of them very extreme, and am going to try my hand at some of their concepts. It is my goal to be content with 90% of my life.

Lake Logan International Distance Triathlon

2011-08-09T10:58:00.000-04:00

This was a great weekend and a great race. CB an I had plans to stay at a favorite hotel near our old alma mater. It would have been about an hour past the race site, but we though it would be worth it to stay in our favorite room. However, the good rooms were booked (why stay in a riverside hotel in western NC if you can only get a room with a parking lot view?) so Thursday I had the epiphany and started looking for a cabin rental closer to the race. This was a little daunting since it is summer vacation season, but none the less I found one and at got it reserved at the last minute. Quaint two bedroom cabin for $129 a night right on a creek. Having the kitchen really made pre and post race dieting even easier.

This being my second oly in a row I am really starting to enjoy this distance. Short enough to hammer, but long enough to enjoy my time on the course. I say this as opposed to a sprint where when I finish it seems like I just started. Plus a short sprint has 4 times the prep time (travel, warm up, set up, etc.) on race weekend than I actually spend racing. Olympic distance seems to have a better return on the time investment. What is even better is that this race was a great benchmark. Not only was it my largest race to date, but it was a serious step up in competition. Interesting enough was that it was not the normal competition for this serious, since this was a qualifier for US Age Group National Championships it brought out a higher level of athlete- I didn't see a single mountain bike or cruiser on this race. There were even several members of US Pro Tri and some other pros. The race winner finished in 1:50 just five minutes faster than Andy Potts at the Philadelphia Triathlon.

My overall time was 2:42:02. This is a 4 minute 20 second improvement on my first race and I feel this was a more difficult course.

The Swim 35:33 Grade A

AG 16 of 21

This was a large improvement over last time. The wetsuit helps, but I also think the improvement in form, as well as the confidence building and sighting practice from open water swim class made a great deal of difference. I swam crawl the entire way with the exception of four misplaced frog kicks. Sighting was great. I was directly on line the entire time. This is the only time I have second thought about racing. It is during the swim I consider why I am doing this or consider quitting. In fact it is during the swim I think about a lot of things, such as my rescue squad, past role models, the rest of the race, swim class; I have a lot of time on my hands. I enjoyed this swim much more, but it was still tough.

Once you grabbed the dock and hoisted yourself out of the water it was a long run to transition and then it was an equal distance to my rack. I started off in a jog, got my wetsuit half off, goggles and cap off then by the time I was actually in transition I had to walk because I was still gassed from the swim. This was my first time taking a wetsuit off in a race. This is not easy, but I didn't have any real problems. Once you leave transition there was a 50 meter gravel road you had to run to get to the mount line so I elected to put my shoes on in transition adding a little more time. They had set up a grass lane after we left for the swim, I might not have done that had I known.

Bike 1:13:09 Grade A-
AG 16 of 21

This course was not the flat course they advertised. It wasn't awful, but I wouldn't call it flat, maybe rolling except for a few serious climbs. I kept a 22 mph average speed until mile 17 where I started to bonk. I got it back up to 20 mph until mile 24 where the last climb slowed me to an average speed of 19 mph for the bike leg. Although I was going faster than my last oly, I was passed like I was sitting still several times. I got chicked a few times too :). As always the climbs were my strong point and this is where I passed. Even on the last climb that killed me I was still passing people. I was doing it while sitting and spinning and getting "eat shit and die" looks from the guys stand up mashing. Overall, I probably should have gone a little easier to save it for the run. This course also reminded me I want to change to a double from my triple.

T2
In and out, except I left my bike shoes on coming in thinking about the gravel road.

Run 50:25 Grade A-
AG 13 of 21
I realized on my way out I forgot my Garmin. I decided at this point to push, but have fun. I probably would have pushed harder had I had it. In the first mile me and another guy were almost next to each other so we decided to embrace it and run next to each other. We encouraged each other and cheer for others. We were both cussing the lie of a flat run course. It was three miles uphill and then three mile back down. In fact according to map my ride it was about 500 feet of elevation gain over the 3 miles to the turn around. My new partner and I decided once we hit the turn around we would hit the gas- and we did. Taking our 8:45 pace to closer to 7:30. Shortly after the turn around I noticed two blister one on top and one underneath my left foot- I kept pushing. At mile 5 I got a cramp and had to slow down till it passed. Once it was gone I hit the gas again and took down two guys in my age group I saw. I tried to push as hard as I could until the end. Sadly it wasn't hard enough for a pukie.

Overall, I was 15 of 21 in my age group, 149 overall of the 400 finishers (oddly this event was sold out at over 700, supposedly over 900 athletes with relay members, I don't know what happened to all of them ???). I thought I would fare better given the level of competition at previous races, but I did not do as well as I had hoped. I am still HAPPY and had a GREAT time!

Down to the short rows.

2011-08-03T11:38:00.000-04:00

Almost anyone raised in the rural south or a part of the south that was formerly rural knows this saying, however I am curious to know if the saying is known throughout other parts of the country.

It is hump day in the last week of my official tri season. This morning was another open water swim class and then a 3 mile recovery run. I had a short brake then some power work on the trainer for 4 minutes (tabata). Tomorrow will be my last official training day and then Saturday I will be racing at my region's USAT age group qualifier- Lake Logan International Distance Triathlon.

I have a funny feeling about this race. With nearly 1000 athletes it is my largest race to date. I feel under-trained and do not feel I will do as well as I would like. However, I am very relaxed and do not feel very competitive. I am looking forward to going out and enjoying the race and the weekend overall.

If I didn't feel under-trained maybe I would feel more competitive. For several weeks I have actually been leading the series field in points but was sadly dethroned this weekend. My series used the same formula as USAT for races and while I average about 7200 points on a sprint and 7500 on an oly, the guy who dethroned me is getting over 9000 a race on a sprint. He is much faster than me and clearly deserves top spot.

After this Saturday things will change. I am looking at changing my off season training. I will put a large amount of focus on my swim. I also am going to experiment with an unconventional training program and may resume terrible Tuesdays.

Except for one 5k the race calender is clear. I am looking at a few possible marathons and if possible may sneak in another tri from my series to see if I can up the points by getting a higher point race than my first one.

Open Water Masters Class

2011-07-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

After two failed attempts to make this class I did it and I am glad. After waking up shortly after four, I grabbed my pre-packed swim bag and headed out the door. Then i turned around and went back in to grab my towel and the wetsuit still sitting on the floor. I made the hour trip south to a house on a dead end road in Huntersville, NC. I was early so I sat in the car until someone else got there. I had no idea where I was going. It was so dark i could not even see any water around.

Almost in concert the rest of my classmates arrived and I followed them down the side of the drive way to a dock behind the house. Turns out the house was directly on the lake. I introduced myself to the 6 women who were my classmates as the instructor arrived. Then I introduced to myself to the instructor and we talked about why I am there. I noticed no other wetsuits so I asked about the water temp as i pointed to mine and they laughed.

We laid out pull buoys and paddles, then jumped in the 91 degree lake (I checked).

First off the instructor gave us a safety briefing that she was going to stay to our left in the kayak and then she pointed across the lake and said. "See that dock with the green roof swim to it as your warm up". My sighting sucked but I kept up with the group.

Then she said now scull to the dock with the black roof.

Once there she began explaining to us proper form at the beginning of the stroke and about aggressive hand entry- while making us tread water. Now swim back across the lake to the house with the red boat and practice the entry.

At this point I was getting very tired. I got there just in time to hear swim down three docks to where we started. I missed what we were working on I was so far behind.

Once we were back to the dock we tread water for a moment. I honestly can't remember what she talked about. We grabbed pull buoys and worked on our pull going back across the lake.

I was late again and just caught the directions. Use the pull buoy as a kick board and kick for thirty second, then place it between your legs and then pull 30 strokes without sighting, then repeat. I missed what the point was, but thought it was neat that until I got tired I was dead on without sighting. I also noticed that when kicking I got left behind, but when pulling I caught up and even passed part of the group.

Once back we put on paddles and then went across again, tread water, and returned. This was my first time with paddles and thought they are a little hard to use. I think they are more fatiguing than swimming without.

Once we took them off we swam out to the middle to practice our turning around the kayak. Then on to another dock. I stalled for a moment and she asked if I needed help getting the paddles off, I said no I needed to catch my breath. She responded by whispering to me "don't worry there's only 8 more minutes"

During the next short swim she pulled the kayak up to me to watch my stoke. As she told me she was watching me I swallowed water and stopped- go figure! At the turn around she stopped me and said "you are doing just what I thought you were, you have perfect form above the water but once you get halfway through your stoke your elbow collapses backwards. You also do not have an end to your stroke. You need to keep pushing until you get to your hips, right now you are just taking your hand out of the water"

I worked on this on the last turn for the day, and when I got there she told me that it was perfect. I honestly could feel more power on the end and was keeping up with the group.

When we got out she told me I had a very powerful pull and that will be my strength.

Overall I really enjoyed this, it was a great workout, the instructor gave me good feedback, and it was really fun to swim with a group. There was not time for socializing but it was nice to be around others for once.

Lesson Learned: Strong pull but it can be better. I think that if it is good enough to gain on swimmers who were 100 yards ahead of me, that once I get a solid kick too I will be doing very well. This class also did a lot for my general comfort level plus sighting became instinctual. I can't wait to try it again next week!

Live Happy

2011-07-27T12:44:00.000-04:00

Today I was going to write about my first open water masters swim class, however after my swim and run I was paged by the chief of my rescue team that an associate of the team had passed away yesterday evening so this changed my focus for the day.

We were not best friends, but he was a man I had a great deal of respect for.

He was placed in hospice yesterday and I made plan to go visit him Friday, but sadly I do not have the chance now.

It got me to thinking. He was not an old man at 50, I last saw him in October when he was in a class I was teaching, there were no visual health problems. We conducted a swim test and he did fine. We did some open water swimming and he had no problems.

Although I may wine, bitch, and celebrate when I write on this blog, but in really life I am generally stoic. I am not sad, I will not shed tears, but I will mourn respectfully with the belief when its your time, its just your time.

MOST IMPORTANTLY this has given me some inspiration for self reflection, I have thought about how my grandfather had a heart attack at 40. This reminds me that life is finite. This reminder leaves two thoughts resonating. First and most important in general, live a life that leaves a legacy. Secondly but more directed toward my current situations, do things that make you happy. I feel that I have done a lot, but will continue to do more, in the first area though rescue, ems, law enforcement, swat, church and more. However, in 10 years if I have a similar turn of fate to my grandfather, then it would be a shame that I lived the last 15 years of my life unhappy.

I hope anyone who reads this today will take a moment of self reflection and then hug a loved one.

From Beginner Triathlete

2011-07-26T12:08:00.002-04:00

"Beer is a plant-based beverage that offers anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Marathoners who drank 1 to 1.5 liters of non-alcoholic beer per day for three weeks prior to a marathon and two weeks after the marathon experienced less post-race inflammation and fewer colds. Non-alcoholic beer offers a wise way to enjoy the natural high of exercise along with positive health benefits"

Big Week

2011-07-25T09:08:00.001-04:00

In February I began talks with a coach to plan this season. I signed up for a 6 month training plan. During the 6 months I have had many a missed workouts because of work and other real lif issues. I have had the flue, had an injury, had surgery, raced two sprints, raced my first oly, dropped to three races from the schedule for different reasons, and learned a lot.

Today begin the last full week of training in 6 months. Next week is taper and then my last tri of the season. This week still holds hard workouts, but in typical fashion I will be making up yesterdays workout in addition today. I opted not to run 8 miles in a lightning storm. I am looking forward to a good week. That will make one swim, one long brick, one core workout, and one strength workout today. I plan to make every workout count this week!

I am already thinking about what to do with my time and where to take my training. I know nothing about maintenance, but i would like to put special attention into my swim, and a little extra love on the bike, a marathon might be nice too.

Just Checking In

2011-07-18T11:40:00.000-04:00

It has been almost a month since my last post, I am still out here.

I thought when having my surgery I would bounce right back and have some fun time off. In fact, the opposite happened and I had to take extra time off. I was out for a week, returned for one, day and was out 4 more days. Oddly, my doctor said I should have be fine. However, I was unable to eat anything solid for 11 days, and had pain so bad I was sent home from work for not having any focus. Once I had feeling in my face again, it felt like it was in a vise grip Very concerned, CB and I did some research and everything we read sounded just like nerve damage.

I went back to work last week and it was a rough week. I had to catch up on all the things that I was behind on. I still haven't finished.

Over the course of surgery recovery, my weight dropped to near 170. However last week since I had not been cleared to train yet, doc said not to get my core temp up, I spent my free time focused on two new business ventures (things are tough without help!) and CB was working late with a summer camp so we ate out everynight and my weight subsequently came back to 181 over a week.

Due to lack of training I did not race as schedule Saturday. I am glad because I swam for the first time yesterday and my jaw was killing me when I got out. Seems like the water pressure did a number on me. I think that would have made racing tough Saturday.

I now have 3 weeks to concentrate on my last race of the season- Lake Logan International Distance Triathlon. This is a qualifier for age group national championships.

Even though I spent many hours devoted to writing business plans, researching marketing, trying to put together a list of leads, etc. I was also thinking about fitness. I spent some time researchin swim workouts and am going to try to add some workouts from crossfit endurance to my training for a little boost. I also signed up for an open water masters class that runs through the summer on Wednesday mornings. I am looking forward to that. Hopefully that will at least get me accustomed to open water swimming and the extra workouts will get me faster :)

Last note- last night since my swim sucked. I went out for a 10 mile TT on the bike. I got it in 29:44 and 40% of the course was climbing. One more goal for the year checked off!

True Recovery Day

2011-06-30T23:23:00.000-04:00

After my surgery was scheduled for Tuesday, I was emailed my weekly schedule form my coach. It is time trial week. I have a time trial scheduled in every discipline. I was able to get in my swim TT in and two other normal workouts before surgery.

For the first time, i have been forced to take true recovery days. Often when I take a recovery day I still work, mow grass, or do an y number of activities. Even when I had the flu I tried to sneak in some workouts.

The last two days have been OFFICIAL recovery days. I have done nothing. I have laid in the bed, done web design, and slept. Oh, and taken my weight is Vicodin. I am sure that this break is good for my body in terms or training; i know the break is good for my body in terms of recovery from surgery, but it is killing my mind.

I am itching for two things- a cheese burger and a brick workout.

Does anyone else ever crave workouts when they are forced to rest?

Accountability 06/23/11

2011-06-24T11:59:00.001-04:00

06/20 Morning weight: 184
06/21 Morning weight: 182
06/22 Morning weight: 179.9
06/23 Morning weight: 177

Goal: AM swim (again) and PM 40 mile ride.

Results: Overslept again. Once I woke up I reported to the pain cave and did about 55 push ups. After work I needed to finish mowing the backyard and get in my 40 mile ride. I weighted my options and given I knew I would not have much time to mow Saturday before CB's bday party I decided to mow for an hour first and then go ride. An hour turned into an hour and a half. This meant I would be returning from my ride about 10pm. Since I intended to get up for a 200m swim I decided I should do a short workout on the bike instead. On the trainer I did a 10 minute warm up, 3 x 3 minutes trying to work to threshold (without any way of telling), tabata sprints in a hard gear, tabata right leg only, tabata left leg only, then tabata sprinting in an easy gear. I followed that with a few sets of core work (I can't remember what now), then 4 sets of 2 pull ups, 1 set of 3 pull ups (max), 1 set of 4 neutral grip pull ups, and last 3 back bridges for 15 seconds each. I cool down with stretching with a strap.

Diet: diet bar, grapes, steak, mushrooms, rice, water.

Accountability 06/22/11

2011-06-23T11:23:00.000-04:00

06/20 Morning weight: 184
06/21 Mornign weight: 182
06/22 Morning weight: 179.9

Goal: AM Swim and AM Track workout

Results: Wednesday is my 2nd shift day so theoretically if I get up at 05:15 I can fit more in my day. My body didn't agree. I overslept again and got up with 20 minutes to get ready. Since I only had 20 minutes I went to teh pain cave and did 60 bicycle oblique crunches and 20 full body crunches.

I planned to get my speedwork for my lunch, but I had a lot of work to do so my lunch kept getting pushed back until before I knew it it was 8 Pm and time to get home. Since I had brought my running clothes to work I made a decision to stick to my challenge and get it in. I changed at work and once I got back in town instead of going home I went straight to the track.

The workout was a ladder of 400, 800, 2x1200, 800, 400 at a 7:30 pace (10k). The first two went well. Durign the 400m I had to slow myself down. The first 1200 sucked because i could not hold the pace, the second 1200 was worse. I took a minute rest before the 800. The first half was good but I slowed dramatically. For the last 400 I started steady and sped up every 100m; I made a point to not check pace until I hit the finish line. At that point it was 6:23. 400's good- longer intervals still need work. 6 weeks to the next olympic distance race.

Diet: eggs, banana, grapes, hummus, carrots, lettuce, cucumber, grilled chicken, peanut butter, fluid recovery drink.

Accountability 06/21/11

2011-06-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

Goal: AM Swim, PM brick

Reality: I overslept through the alarm clock. Actually, I don't think it went off, but CB says it did. With oversleeping there was no swim, but with my quest for a morning workout I completed 55 push ups. After work I came hope and completed a brick. It sucked. I wanted to quit and my legs had no turnover. I averaged 10:30 miles- slowest in over a year- but I completed the workout.

Diet: Breakfast bar, grapes, carrots, hummus, banana, salad, grilled chicken, Fluid Muscle Recovery Drink.

Setbacks: 2 diet Mt. Dew and 1 Diet Dr. Pepper.

Accountability Check 06-20

2011-06-20T20:24:00.000-04:00

Goal: AM fat burning workout, Upper body weights, speed work swim.

Results: I was struggling with sleep so I did not get up as early as I would have liked. However, I stuck with my plan and did 20 minutes on the trainer. I did a warm up, followed by 10x 30 second on my third toughest gear, then some one foot spinning, and a cool down. At lunch I completed upper body weight per my training plan, plus day 2 of the 100 push up challenge, and 6 x 20 ab exercises. My last workout of the day from the training plan was a swim with 100m warm up, 200m, 3 x 400m, 200m, 100m cool. The plan was do it as soon as I got home from work, I was exhausted so I made myself a deal. I set a schedule. 5:40-6:00 sit in quiet and eat a snack, 6:00 vacuum and then take dogs out, 6:15 read, 6:30 make salad for dinner and change into swim trunks, 6:45 head to pool. I really wanted to skip this was workout, as of late I have not looked forward to swimming in general and even less to speed work. I think this has something to do with struggling at it so much. I promised myself I would not skip it. It has been two weeks since I have been in the pool and my lungs are hurting from allergies so I decided I would swim it with fins. This should be a confidence booster and since I am getting in extra workouts I will return one morning and get it in without the fins.

Diet: With the exception of a diet bar and a small bowl of cheerios as an afternoon snack everything else I ate was whole foods. The diet bar was because today is grocery day so we were low on lunch foods and the cheerios were because I felt like I was bonking and needed some carbs for the swim. The other foods of my day included grilled chicken, romaine lettuce, spinach, green peppers, red peppers, cucumber, green grapes, and a quarter of my first ever pear (not sure I like it)

Now I will go mow grass for 15 minutes (to split it up before the weekend), shower and be IN bed by 9pm.

Today's missions are accomplished- Tomorrow I intent to unpussify the mission!

Gut Check Time

2011-06-20T10:37:00.000-04:00

My Couch, Oversleeping, Oreos, Fried Chicken, Coke, McDonald's, Wendy's, Dairy Queen Blizzards, Mountain Dew, Doritos, Pizza, and Corn Dogs- These are the thing my Bachelor life was made of. These are the thing that got me a solid start on the road to being 300 pounds by 30.

I started last week exhausted because I spent the weekend pulling 20 hour shifts in my office, glued to the computer, drawing up website layouts for a project I have been hired (for free) to do. I returned to work tired. Slightly before the end of the day I was victim to some foul career sabotage. This sent me to a place similar to the mental exhaustion I have at the end of a work week, but on the first day. I shut down. I checked out. My mind reverted. It reverted back to bachelor life. After a year, apparently it is still my default behaviour. I filled my time at work and off work with different combinations of the my bachelor life. Despite slipping in a 16 mile run and two short brick workouts I arrived at the end of the week four pounds heavier and with the highest weight I have had in some months- 184.4 lbs. My goal has been to break the plateau of 180 and hit my next mile marker 175. This would put me 10 pounds from my goal- but I AM FAILING.

I hope my mental week off was enough, because it is time for my figurative as well as literal gut check. I am recommitting myself to accountability. I am three weeks out from my next race, but the race is not the concern. If I perform poorly it is my fault. I am committed this week to getting things back together. I am challenging myself this week to cleansing my diet- I will stick to primarily whole foods. I am challenging myself to getting up for morning workouts- regardless of how short. I am challenging myself to hitting every workout on my training schedule. I am challenging myself to do the research and figure out what help I need to start getting quality sleep again. I am challenging myself to remain accountable by posting my daily success and failure for all to read.

Anymore Challenges?

When annoyance turns into a learning experience

2011-06-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

When I began this blog last year I wrote several posts about my background. I wrote about how prior to starting to train in multi-sport the only "sport" I had been successful at was martial arts and how I have a natural ability to pick up techniques. I also wrote about how it is still a love of mine and I would like to continue my training and maybe compete again given the chance.

Last January I began teaching a children's karate class at a for disadvantaged kids at a near-by community center. The organization it is through started with the purpose of providing karate and cheer to children who may not be able to afford it. I use the income from teaching this class to pay for multi-sport expenses.

Last semester I had a child in my yellow belt class who routinely did his own thing, barely paid attention, and over exaggerated every technique to a ridiculous point. I was at a race for belt testing and the instructor who conducted the tests for me passed him to green belt.

My green belt class is my favorite class, they have high energy, they pick up things fast, and we have a lot of fun. I was already thinking about how having him in that class may change how the class ran. I decided that I would sit the class down and without pointing him out talk about focus and how starting this year there would be penalties for not being focused or doing your own thing.

I started the class and as we did warm-ups the kid acted like he couldn't do push up or sit up. He just laid there not trying. We then reviewed basic kicks and he kept falling down (he been doing these for a year, nothing new) so I told him some things to do at home to make it better. Later in the class we were doing sparring drills and I would demonstrate the drill and they would take turns doing the drill on the bag I was holding. When it was his turn he walked up and did something completely different. I then stopped him and was giving step by step directions for the drill. Half way through my instructions he would stop listening and do his own thing. I sent him to the back of the line when he stopped listening, it had been my intention to make him do push ups for not listening, but I wasn't ready to do this yet.

After the class, I discussed with his mom about what i told him to do to help his kicks. She then told me that was probably because of his Aspergers. I nodded my head and said ok, with a calm face. In my head I blew up, thinking to myself WTF!!!!!! WHY HAS THIS KID BEEN IN MY CLASS FOR 6 MONTHS AND YOU HAVE NEVER TOLD ME THIS!!!!!! I have been thinking it was ADD, laziness, and/or poor home training. Now I need to readjust because punishing him with push ups just doesn't seem fair to me.

I plan to take my lunch hour today to research Aspergers and Autism and see if there is a way for me to adjust my teaching methods. This completely blindsided me, but I think it is a good opportunity to learn and grow as an instructor.

Race Report: Kerr Lake International Distance Triathlon

2011-06-07T12:13:00.000-04:00

Usually when I write these I follow my day from beginning to end. This race report is a little different. I am starting with my overall thoughts, because for this race that is the most important part to me.

This is my longest race to date. My goal was to finish in under 3 hours, but I really wanted to be done in under 2:45. I finished in 2:46:22. I am VERY HAPPY with this. In fact, my REAL time may have been better as the RD was yelling at us when we got out of the lake that one of the buoys had drifted and we had probably swam even further. I think two of the buoys drifted, but more on that below. Also adding time included the pouring rain and stopping for extra fluids.

This race was a conquest. Simply completing was the goal. I could not be more happy. After I cooled down, I stretched and had a snack, then I checked the tentative results and was disappointed because I was 6 of 7 in my AG. This is when I decided to head back to camp to take everything down and pack up. CB was already starving and soaking wet from standing in the rain for several hours. After I got home I saw that the tentative results were only showing those who had finished at that time. I was actually 6 of 10 in my AG. This made me feel better.

I had been worried about my fitness compared to my peers going into this race. I had a hypothesis I based off of the first 10k I ran and I was hoping it would not be proven. When I ran my first 10k I had ran several 5k's and just a month earlier had an AG 2nd place at one. I did not plan to place at a 10k, but thought I would hold my own. I ran it and ran HARD. I got back to be the next to last non-walker to finish. I was happy having completed it, but learned that everyone runs 5k's- children, grandmothers in wheel chairs, pregnant women pushing double strollers, etc. To run a 10k fast took a SIGNIFICANT jump in fitness and not everyone is ready to make that jump so those who do make a more serious field of competition. I was afraid this would be similar.

I was scared this would be the same, but i don't think it was. Despite so many of my competitors sporting their mdot tattoos, wearing their 70.3 race shirts, and racing in Ironman tri suits, I still finished 68th overall and less than 30 minutes behind the average time for the top 10 men. I know what needs improvement. I take this race as a MAJOR VICTORY.

OK, my filabuster aside here is how the day went:

Pre-Race: Our campsite had the nosiest frogs I have ever hear. CB and I struggled to sleep because of how loud they were. At 04:50 thunder and lightning started. At 05:30 it began to monsoon. I finally fell asleep and was awoken by the alarm at 06:00. The rain had stopped, I got up, had two homemade whole wheat pancakes with peanut butter and honey, then I drove to the race site to drop my bike and claim a good spot on the rack. I returned to shower, dress, and get CB. The hot water was not working so I brushed my teeth, washed my face, dressed and got CB.

Got back over there with 30 minutes until transition closed. I had a little more work to do than usual since I usually rig some of my stuff before I leave home (or the hotel). I set up, had a half banana and a gel. Then went to the water to warm up. I swam a bit and it was glorious. the water temperature was beautiful. The water was dark but had enough visibility to see just in in front of your hand when it is fully extended. I got out soaking wet, hugged CB (she was SO mad), and hung out by the starting corral.

Swim- 41:39
Grade C
I will admit upfront that this is the hardest endurance thing I have done to date! THIS KILLED ME! I can do 1500 meters in a pool in 30 minutes (sometimes more, sometimes less). Wanting to avoid the meat grinder for my first open water swim I placed myself in the back right and slowly entered the water to let the heard thin. This was not the best as I ended up behind the guys who intended to swim breast stroke the entire way. It was hard to get past them. Once passed them I started into my groove. Unfortunately, I could not see the buoys and would swim breast stroke myself every time I needed to look for them. I also would get startled every time someone would run into me and swim breast stroke for a few and then transition back. Honestly, I swam over 50% of this race in breast stroke. Once I would get back to front crawl I was actually more relaxed, but I could feel me legs falling underneath me. At the halfway buoy lightning, thunder, pouring rain, and slight chop started. This continued to the end. The buoy at the first turn was off according to the race director, but when i made the final turn I noticed that I was not in line with the buoys leading to the swim finish. I think this one was off too. My garmin had a distance closer to 1.1. miles. I got out of the water and ran for tranistion, uphill a few hundred meters. I put my garmin on my wrist and my hear rate was 170.

I gave myself a pity C for this leg, similiar to when someone is failing a class but the teacher passes them because they tried hard and were active in class.

T1- 1:10
Grade- A-
Long for me, but good considering. I drank a quarter of a bottle of nuun, put my helmet on, drank another quarter, and left. Due to the rain I did not flying squirrel onto the bike, or so the kick-push mount. I simply ran out pulled to the side and got on. I was annoyed by the people who STOPPED at the mount line to mount. If you stop AT the mount line I am standing behind you waiting to pass the line so I can mount.

Bike- My HR was still 170 and I needed to ride the first half under 144. I concentrated on spinning to get it down. I also already felt hungry. I wanted to save my 360 calories for the last 20 minutes so I grabbed my emergency gu pack and had a quick snack. By mile 3, I was spinning slow, being passed, and my heart rate was still at 165. It wasn't coming down. There was a pack of about 30 riders who went out in front of me and they were breaking away. At this point I made a decision- FUCK IT- Go get 'em! I worked up momentum, hit the big ring and started taking them down. Shortly after I started my attack there was a spot on the road where someone had spray painted GO FAST!!!- I loved it. By mile 10 there were only three left in front of me, and there were times I was going over 30 mph. I was taking in HEED every ten minutes as planned, but with the inreased exertion level only had a few sips left. Then the clouds parted and the sun shined down on the asphalt in front of where it read H20 ahead! PERFECTION. I missed the first one, but got the second one. First hand off ever! in the last half I slowed down but I maintained my speed at or over my planned average of 18.3. The last few miles contained a long, low grade climb that killed my speed. I had my fuels as planned and felt good. I had an average speed of over 20 mph. This is faster than any sprint I have ridden and twice as long. A for effort, a minus for not following my plan.

T2- 45 seconds
Grade- A
My shoes had puddles in them, it made me laugh.

Run- 49:46
Grade- B
This was an out and back, two loop course. I liked it because I knew what was coming at every point. They had water, heed, and ice. Ice was great for pouring down my suit. The rest was great too. My planned pace was 7:30. Off the bat I was running at 08:30 and struggling and I had to pee BAD. I planned to just be comfortable for the first half and push the last half. The second half came and I was still struggling. I was keeping good form, arms pumping and standing up straight but it was labored. I was concentrating hard. I kept yelling at myself saying "this is a race, not a training run- PUSH! PUSH! PUSH" In the last mile I decided that every time my garmin pace alarm sounded, I would run fast for 10 strides. This worked to improve my average speed. At one point I ended up running next to another guy and he yelled at me for it, so I took off again. I dug deep for a final 50 meter charge. It was slow, but I think that my fast bike split MORE than made up for it (by my math)

Post-race: I grabbed a water and went to float int he lake. Had half a bagel and was disappointed, this race advertised for the best post race food in the series. WHAT A LIE!

Post-post-race: We stopped for cheese steaks when we were done. Delicious. We got home and Cb made pizza for dinner. I ate half and felt like a bottomless pit.

I had a good time, a great race, a fun learning experience, and plan to use it all for improvement. Sights are now set on August.

Back to duty

2011-06-05T20:29:00.000-04:00

Back from the race, unpacked, and the bike is sorta clean. No really, it was ridiculous how dirty it got from one race. Covered in sand and I am not even sure where the sand came from, plus it was covered in grease too. Grease in places that did not make sense, like the top tube and crank arms.

I will have a full race report Tuesday. I am now heading to bed (despite it only being 8 PM here) because I have to be at work at 0430 tomorrow. I get to play at the range with new assault rifles. YAY for blowing shit up with NATO 5.56 projectiles!

Today is the 365 day of existence of my blog. To celebrate I am going to host a contest and giveaway. I am going to be giving away a selection of home work out gear, to enter I want you to send me pictures of you home work space. More details to come, but as always with me- there will be twists.

Excited

2011-06-04T21:05:00.001-04:00

I am excited and I can't sit still, so I'm blogging. Thank you everyone for the kind words and support.

Fyi- I brought whole wheat with pb and honey, plus a banana for breakfast. A gel for before the race. I have heed calories and 360 calories in hammer gel in flasks with a few drops of water. I also have a bottle of nuun , but more on that later. I also have two montana huckleberry gels in a flask for the run.

A few hiccups on the ride here, but <b> no worries</b>. I realized I forgot to put a cage my bike so my aerobottle is it! My plan was to take nuun as soon as I got on the bike and then use that bottle to refill. I will now stop and drink BEFORE I leave t1. I also got here and found my pump (not bike pump) didn't fit my air mattress. I've had it for 4 years and never used it. I went back into town and got a pump, I needed to get some dinner anyhow. Got back in and hunted the race site. I wanted to find my rack and scout the buoys. My rack is the second into transition from the swim. Score. Buoys were not up yet, but I did see it was a 200m run up a large pine straw hill to transition. I may leave my flip-flops out at the end. I really wanted to see how far 1500 would be- oh well.

My coach emailed me to remind me this is just a dress rehearsal for the usat championship qualifier in august.

I have fire lit, cb is making fun of me for blogging, time for smores, uno and sleep.

Can't wait for tomorrow!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

IMG00151-20110604-1254.jpg

2011-06-04T13:15:00.000-04:00

Packed and waiting to leave for Kerr Lake.

Packing for an overnight race has proven interesting the last two times. This time is even worse. Normally for a weekend, its bike, race bag, and a bag of clothes/toiletries between us. Since I don't like taking my wheel off before a race it limits space even more than a bike in general.

For this race I have all my camp stuff in an action packer, plus regular pillows (instead of my normal stuff sack w/ clothes), plus linens in another bag (I'm bringing an air mattress since I'm not backpacking why rough it), then it becomes a question of how to fit everything. I don't like anything hard near my bike and I don't want to get anything girly on it (or cb doesn't want bike grease on her bags). I put everything in with great care, but it never fails I bumped my pedals and dropped my chain.

Had a great swim yesterday. 1000m plus a few extra w/ fins. The guard said the temp was 86+. My wet suit hasn't got here yet, but the race director posted the water was 82 this morning. Don't need the wet suit but so much for 2 days shipping.

Off to the race!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

My new non-fitness related venture

2011-06-02T20:28:00.000-04:00

For the third period in two years I have found myself playing with web design in my spare time. This time probably a little more in depth than the last two. I have been playing around with open source design software, searching for tutorials, getting deeper into coding, doing spec work and going through blogs and articles about freelancing.

While doing this I stumbled over a blog about how to become a freelancer in 31 days. I read over the site and started some notes in a notebook. I then decided I would treat it as an experiment and see where following the program gets me. As an experiment I decided to share my results of each step, much like a scientist with his findings.

I posted yesterday asking for tips on how to journal my work. Blogging came back as the answer. I took Mandy's tip and went with wordpress. I hated the dashboard and couldn't figure it out so I came back to blogger. I spent last night setting things up and writing my posts through the end of the week (can't work while I'm out of town to race). I looked ahead to next week's assignments and saw that several days are spent working on a wordpress portfolio, so today I worked on wordpress and got familiar. It seems some my issues were my theme. Personally, I find blogger more user friendly, but Wordpress more professional looking.

So before my wife even knows what I am up to, I unveil to you, my friends, The Freelance Experiment- Freelance or Failure.

I can't get the page tabs to change order, but the one entitled "The Experiment" explains the background some.

Since I am using open source web design programs, open source graphic design software, open source vector software and open source blogging, I enabled comments on wordpress so i could incorporate other's tweaks. It has the ability to be an open source business.

Note: this is not the project I was asking about mentoring for. That will hopefully come later.

Nervous Excitement, Peter Organics Winner

2011-06-02T11:35:00.001-04:00

Nervous excitement, that is what I have today. It has been brewing all week. I am sure it will build further tomorrow. I really should take the day off work just to be focused. I know that sounds odd or like I have poor work ethic, but honestly when I get excited before a race I can't focus at work. Being at home lets me work out in the yard and get my mind off things. Being here in the office lets me obsess about details.

Wait, why am I excited? Three weeks ago I decided to change my race schedule to try to find more Sunday races in my series. This lets me work my part time and be able to afford some of my races. This Sunday, with only three weeks of thought going into it I have my first Olympic!

This will be my longest race to date. This will also be my first open water swim in a race.

Can you see why I might have nervous excitement. This is a big weekend for me. The upside is that it is not just general nervousness, but excitement.

The swim will be my biggest challenge. I have only done one open water swim, it was 4x100 and is sucked. That swim should be warmer as that swim was about 68 degrees and I was in a tri suit. My Sponsors at Synergy Sport have given me a great deal on a new wetsuit. I look forward to getting it today or tomorrow. It has a 5mm front and a 2 or 3mm back. This should help the shock of cold water as well as some extra buoyancy. The downside is that as I wrote the temp. above, I realized I should check the current temp. of the lake I will be swimming in. Yesterday's temp. was 86. Not only is that above, the cut off for awards, this is above the cut off for swimming with a wetsuit at all. Hopefully it will drop by then or my new suit will be moot and I will wish I had ordered a skinsuit instead (I almost did).

The next big question then becomes nutrition. During my long brick last week I combined gel every 45 minutes (I think) and water every 10. I will do this again. However, we decided to camp at the race site, it is a state park, so I am not sure how to do breakfast. I usually have toast, except I have no electric at the campsite and no toaster. After reading Jeff's race report and Mandy's race plan I am considering some sort of substitute like Ensure, paired with a sandwich. I am also considering taking something like an uncrustable on the bike, just in case I need a little extra.

Funny story- I wanted to stay at the same campground as the race site. I had to reserve a campsite and was scouring over all the course and park maps trying to figure out where would be closest to the race. After an hour of this, it hit me- screw closest to the race, at 0dark:30 I want to be closest to the shower!

Clearly, I have some directed nervousness at this point, I want it to get to race day so I can get it done, I want to be able say I've done it, move on to training for the USAT qualifier and have more confidence in my ability to do a 70.3 once I have this down. I have been discussing possibly doing REV3 in South Carolina with Cb, but it's a question of how to afford it. We are still working out the details for REDMAN as that will be an ORDEAL.

In the end, wet suit in transit, registered for race, campsite reserved, tonight after my workotu and working on my new project I will go into the attic to grab the tent and stuff.
Without further adue the winner of the Peter Rabit Organics fruit is Laima ~~despite not letting me win her RoadID~~. Thank you everyone who entered.

I tallied the entries and assigned a number to each then I picked up the phone and called a coworker. Yelling into the phone I yeled quick, pick a number pbetween X and X, quick, fast now, now, now! She started crying because of my yelling and then picked a number. I then told her to HTFU and hung up. There you go- who needs a website for randomization!

Contact me at tucker_lr<@>yahoo.com so I can get your address to the company.

More Thinking.........

2011-06-01T14:53:00.001-04:00

I am once again reaching out to my peers for a suggestion. I am about to embark on a new project/experiment. It is completely non-fitness and dieting related.

I have been working on this project for the last two days and want to document and share my results. As it doesn't seem to fit here I don't want to use this space to document it.

Everything keeps coming back to starting another blog, but i want to avoid that as I have this one already, plus my other one I update once every 6 months (it was intended for once a week, hows that working for me?).

I searched around facebook thinking they might have a blog type feature and didn't find one. Any suggestions on how to do such a task via any venue?

Sadly, this experiment is creative in nature so i feel sheepish asking for brainstorming help as it seems paradoxical. How am I going to succeed on a creative project when i am not creative enough to figure out how to document it?

After thought: If I decide to go with a blog I then consider if i stay with blogger for this one or do i mix it up and move over to wordpress, just for the experience?

Out with the old, In with the new

2011-06-01T09:21:00.000-04:00

2010

2011

Dirty Words

2011-05-31T14:09:00.000-04:00

Today I had planned a post about my weekend and how I did sprints with a lawn mower this weekend, how I ran 15 miles and it SUCKED ASS, and how I swam outside for the first time this year and it was great.

However, as I scrolled down my reader a post popped out at me before all the others and I read it. LB wrote a post entitled Gray. It describes how she is feeling right now, she wrote that she wanted to share because these types of feeling aren't talked about enough. Depression is a dirty word. Her post inspired me to share. I want to make sure that she knows she is not alone. I thought about doing something similar after a post of Bryan Payne wrote after he returned from Kona last fall. I am going to go into some TMI details, but I am going to leave it all out here. I figure I will be judged by some, but I would rather take that gamble in order to support someone else.

If you read this blog often, and I figure of the 77 followers about 5 actually do (but again that's ok because this is for me), it is clear without me saying anything i go through ups and downs. Sometimes i drop off for a week. Sometimes I say I am in a funk and can't get motivated. These are often times I am going through something similar to depression.

I don't like to admit it because to me it is a dirty word. I have had coworkers call me bi-polar before but i don't feel that's what it is. I took multiple psychology classes in school and do a a bit more than light reading on the subject trying to self diagnose. If there was anything i would admit that is wrong with me I would call it a mood disorder. I would never call it depression because that is a dirty word.

The VERY few people who know both me and my family will tell you I am the most grounded person in my family. Many joke that unless you knew better you would have no idea I came from them. I am the first person to finish college (second to try), first person to go to grad school, and the first person to have a career (not just a job). There is little known about my family history since it has been a little dysfunctional and for the most part I can only track our tree to my maternal grandmother. This grandmother has alcohol abuse and mental health issues. Of her children, one of my uncles has sever mental illness (schizophrenia, I believe) and has been institutionalized several times, another uncle has chronic depression, and my mother has substance abuse and depression problems. My oldest sister is bi-bolar and has drug addiction problems.

Since I was younger I have always strived to be NORMAL. That's all I want. I wanted to go to college, have a career, have ONE marriage with 2.3 kids, and be sane. For that reason admitting when I am depressed is hard. I hold most emotions in and then shutdown completely when I get overloaded. A week or so ago i had a few days that after work all I wanted to do was go to sleep. Cb will tell me i am depressed, but I will argue with her, because as she knows i will never admit that. It's a dirty work to me.

To a degree I know what my triggers are. Mainly they are work, money, and marriage. YOU ALL KNOW I hate my job. I feel no sense of fulfilment. I dread going to work and having to wait on convicted murders who think they are entitled and are the center of my world. The only thing I enjoy is my SWAT work. I enjoy much of the training, but dislike the others on the team. I don't fit it. They are all mountain men with toughman complexes and I am not. As I have written before I hate money, or the lack there of, I hate struggling to pay bills, and eat, and have some sense of reward from going to the job i hate. Marriage is also tough. That sounds bad, but i am being honest. We have been together for almost 10 years, but only married and living together for 2 years.We are still getting used to each other's habits. I am anal retentive about clutter, she was raised by a hippie. I put money into fixing things in the house, she buys purses. I don't do dishes until the sink is full, she can't be in the kitchen unless the sink is empty. WE both get stressed out by money and our current economy makes it even worse with daily rumors of pay cuts and lay off. I think this part is no different than other newly weds, but it is just that- new.

Solutions to the problems would be better than treatment to me. If I could do anything in the world for a job I would work for myself. I tried to start up a back country guide service once but I realized I know trails and gear but not business. I also enjoy web design and have started building a freelance business for a little fun and money. I will reach out to my first potentioal clients this week. I am targeting small, local businesses. It has been a dream for a long time to teach karate for a living, I even have some ideas for creating a niche. I just have no financing at this time to start these endeavors. If had to work a nine to five I think the best fit for me would be a college professor or if i could go back to school i would try being a nurse. As far as the money is concerned having a job with better pay or being an err to a fortune my help. If both of those were solved i think not having work or money stress would probably make things easier on the marriage front. I also realize a stress free world is impossible- its life you just have to deal.

I have two natural treatments for illness and stress: sleep and exercise. These both work with this as well. The only problem is sleep makes me not think about what's wrong, but it doesn't change things. Exercise makes everything easier to deal with, increased endorphins I guess. However, sometimes 10 hours at work gets me to a low where I don't want to exercise. That becomes a problem. From a non-homeopathic standpoint I have never tried to medication because this would require admitting that I am depressed. I just can't do it. When I was younger my mom sent me to a psychologist for different reason, I enjoyed having someone to talk to. He eventually told me i was normal and that my family was jacked up. When it gets bad i like talking to a psychologist. For some reason talking to someone who is not related to my problems always feels good. I enjoy just getting things off my chest sometimes.

There it is- my TMI. It may be dribble to some but I hope for others they can see that they are not alone.

Peter Rabbit Organics Review and Giveaway

2011-05-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

Quick note: I was glad to read on BDD's blog this morning that the comment issue was not just my having issues. I have read some great posts this week that I could not comment on, I wish I had the time to go back and comment on them all.
___________________________________________________

A few months back I was my "local" REI and I was standing in line next to the snack section when a product caught my eye. Next to the snack bars were these funny little pouches with a rabbit and fruit on them. I picked one up and took a look. REI had them labelled as fruit snacks and in my mind I thought, as far as fruit snacks go what would be better- pureed, organic fruit or molded, processed fruit snacks. The answer was obvious to me. I was intrigued so I gave it some thought when I got home and deiced to contact the company via thier website to see if they would provide me a sample instead of me driving an hour back to REI.

Here is what the website says about the product:
"We make delicious, organic fruit snacks and veggie blends. Our fruit snacks are loved by all ages, and our veggie blends are gulped down by hungry little ones. We use the squeezy pouches to make eating healthy food easy and fun....

When we started Peter Rabbit Organics we made 3 promises: that everything we make would always be 100% organic, 100% healthy (no added sugar, no added salt and nothing artificial) and always taste 100% delicious."

At the end of April I got an unexpected package with several pouches and a chance to do a giveaway. Here are my thoughts and yes, FCC, the samples were provided free of charge but the thought are still my own:

The company provided me with 6 pouches, each a different flavor. They included Apple and Grape; Strawberry and Banana; Mango, Banana, and Orange; Carrot, Squash, and Apple; Sweet Potato, Corn and Apple, and lastly Pea, Spinach and Apple.

Initial Thought
These are some interesting flavor combinations. Some of them will be amazing, some of them scare me. I took a look at the back of the packages. Since I need to continue to add more fruits and veggies in my diet and expand the fruits and veggies I will try them. I think having these around will be nice. When the package came I was getting ready to walk out the door for a run, I looked forward to tying one as a post workout snack.

Strawberry and Banana- A+
This is the first one I tried. It is delicious. The consistency of the snack is thicker than juice, but thinner than gels. You can basically drink it down, but it does have a few small fruit pieces in it.

Mango, Banana, and Orange- A
This was another post workout snack. When I was out of town for training. I thought taking these prepacked snacks would a safe snack to take out in the woods for the two days we would be out. I honestly don't remember anything about this flavor, that is a good thing. That means I had no quarrels with it.

Sweet Potato, Corn and Apple- A+
Honestly, This one scared me a bit. i know I need to try new things but I don't like sweet potato and although i brought it to work to try I couldn't do it. I did however, get my coworker, Ms.B to try it. She was apprehensive at first, but I talked her into it and showed her the website. She said the consistency was similar to baby food, but she continued to eat it. A few minutes later she came back in my office mad- she was mad it was gone, she said it was good and she wasn't ready to be done yet. She then went and told another one of out coworkers about the product. That's a win.

Pea, Spinach and Apple- F-
I opened this one with an open mind since the last three had been great. It let me down. I took the first taste and was not impressed. i tried it again just to see and it was not good. I took it home and shared it with CB, she agreed.

Apple and Grape- A+
This one was great, hands down, no questions asked, and all the other cliches.

Carrot, Squash, and Apple- A
I carried this one for three days, but since I am not sure what squash tastes like I was hesitant. I then deciding to have another female guest taste tester. I got my coworker 'Becca to try it. She heard the combination and told me "be glad I like you". I handed it to her and she made a hesitant face, like a child getting a shot, as she took the first taste. She immediately perked up took a second shot and said "that's actually not bad, you can taste the squash.., it tastes like a different flavor apple sauce". She turned back to her computer and put it up to her lips again. That is also a win.

FINAL THOUGHTS- A
I like these! The ones I like are great, good afternoon snack, post workout snack, or on the go food. On top of everything else it is organic and there are no preservatives. WIN, WIN! The only bad side is that at my Local REI are $2 a piece. I think that is a little steep, but maybe as the product grows the price will come down.

-------------------NOW THE FUN PART-------------------

Inside the package was a letter offering to give 12 pouches to a follower if i wanted to do a giveaway. How cool is that?

If you want one dozen fruit and vegetable delights from Peter Rabit Organics you need to leave a comment for each or any of the following by the end of Tuesday 05/31/11-

1. Follow me (mandatory)
2.Tell me the most interesting fruit and vegetable combination you have ever had (optional).
3. Share with your followers. (optional)
4. Tweet something about this giveaway with @superfatlete in it (optional and one per day).
5. Generate some leads for freelance web design. (optional)
6. Find me a new job. (optional)
7. Solve the North Carolina state budget issues.(optional)

Thinking.....

2011-05-26T21:38:00.000-04:00

I been doing some thinking and am not sure how implement my ideas...

Does anyone know of any businesses or consultants that specialize in helping entrepreneurs implement business concepts?

OR if you have ever searched for one what would be the best search engine key words; I have tried several with no luck.

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!!

2011-05-25T13:35:00.000-04:00

Three days in a row, I am making an effort!

Yesterday's 30 mile ride/5 mile run brick was a partial fail. We had very odd weather yesterday, at 5:30 When I got home we were under both a thunderstorm and tornado watch. Despite that it was bright outside, oddly bright, except you couldn't see the sun. There was a thin layer of light grey clouds as far as the eye could see. It was thin enough that the sun was still piercing through. Despite it being 100 degrees, I had every intention of riding outside until I heard about the watch on the radio. I got dressed, tweeted, and debated. i finally decided that if I got 15 mile from the house and there was a tornado, it wouldn't be good. I set up the trainer and popped in a disk of the Big Bang Theory to watch for a 2 hours spin.

After an hour I started thinking about how much i hate the trainer without doing a guided workout like spinervals, and about the church dinner I was missing. I usually do not attend the church dinners as it is always the old people from the church and the food is always horrible and they run out. Of all the ones to go to the May dinner is the best because it is the done by the old men's sunday school. When the women's groups do the dinners it is covered dish, not good, and not enough. When the men do the dinner it's catered by a local chicken and bbq joint. I was miserable on the trainer and starving despite my first gel. I decided to call the hour on the trainer a bonus workout and do the workout today since I am working 2nd shift. I had a good time at the dinner; I played volleyball, dodge ball,and football with the kids. They like me because i will play with them.

I was up all night thinking about race strategy for my first olympic, because of this I overslept by an hour this morning. Despite that, i still got up and got my workout in, but I only left myself 15 minutes to drink my FLUID recovery drink, shower, dress, and feed the dogs.

This workout is my longest brick ever. It didn't kick my ass, but it was no walk in the park. I was looking at it as a good dress rehearsal for my race next weekend. Similar distance and similar weather. I wrote three key goals on and index card and put it in my bento box. One of these was to do the bike in Zone 2 for the first half and zone 3 for the second (source). I was using last winter's HR zones as I have not retested. I put a note on the fridge that I need to reassess. Giving these zones the goal was to stay under 144 for the first half and above 144 for the second half. My other goal on the bike was to drink 4 ounces of Heed every 10 minutes (source). Last night I got out a measuring cup and marked my aerobottle at 2oz intervals.

The bike went smooth and was very enjoyable, I rode comfortably for the first 15 miles and watched my HR for the second. I found it hard to keep my HR up at times. There were descents that no matter how hard I pedalled in my biggest gears, my HR continued to drop. It would go all the way to zone 1 over a matter of seconds. Not sure how to remedy this or if this needs a remedy.

After the bike I made a decent transition. I wore bibs to ride so I changed in the foyer and headed back out. My goal on this leg was advice from Andy Potts in one of the same pages as above. I gave myself three minutes to find my rhythm and then closed my mouth and tried to breathe through my nose. If I couldn't do it, I was going too fast. Considering i was running at near my 5k pace, i new it was too fast. At that moment is felt good, but i needed to remember to pace myself. After a mile I got to a good rhythm and the effects of the bike were gone. Even with my rhythm, hills still floored me- dropping me to a 10 minute pace. In the end I averaged an 08:45 pace and my coach had called for 9:03- I am happy.

Today's workout is 6 x 1:00 for speed. I may put this off until tomorrow AM in order to clean up the house. I still have a bike and clothes in the foyer, heed and gel wrapper in the kitchen, didn't make the bed, and I am hoping I make it home before CB tonight.

Any olympic distance race strategies to share?

Happy Tuesday

2011-05-24T10:52:00.000-04:00

Here I go again- force the positive attitude. I am feeling decent today although I do not care to be at work, I would rather be in the pool or somewhere else.

Got my bike back yesterday, I am happy, it looks great and clean, but I feel like a jerk.

Like I said yesterday I was distraught about my bike not being ready so I emailed the shop owner. Here is the basic outline of my email:

I. Love the shop and all the great things that they do for me.
II. Details of what happened when i dropped my bike off.
III. Details of (not) picking my bike up.
IV.How this effects my monetarily.
V. The implications that I am not as important as the big ticket customers.
VI. Not having my bike ready at the time you tell me to be there is like breaking your word.
VII. Past problems I have not said anything about because they have always taken care of them on the spot (as an example of how great they are).

About three hours after I emailed the shop owner, one of the guys (the same one I dealt with last week and weekend) called me at work to let me know that my bike was ready. He was very short and not very friendly. He and most of the others are usually very friendly even small talking before getting to business, not today.

About an hour later i got a call from the shop owner apologizing for the problem and telling my that it upset him tahat they even promised my bike to be ready over the weekend as they are not supposed to do that. He also said that without going into details that he did discuss ME and the problem with the guys. He said the guys described me as more of a friend than a regular customer and told him that they had already dropped the $50 charge for changing the bars and were only billing me for the tune up, bar tape, and bar tapping because of my relationship with them. I had no idea there was a $50 charge to change the bars to begin with. They must have already made the decision when they gave me the quote (I also though that was an absurd amount as I can change them and put the shifter back on in the same amount of time it takes me to type this thought).

After i got this email I realized why the guy had been short with me.

When I went to pick up the bike he was not as short, but not as friendly as usual and was clearly avoiding eye contact. In the end I spent $100 to get a tune up (sadly that was already ear marked for a wetsuit), make four trips to the shop, and apparently upset someone I value. I got my bike back squeaky clean but felt like an asshole. Not something I meant to do. I would never want to be on the wrong foot with my bike shop, it strikes me that no triathlete can really afford to not have a good LBS or mechanic in their pocket.

Despite the 90 minutes of driving back and forth to the bike shop i still made it home in time for some speed work in the pool. I felt hard which I LOVE. It also made it clear to me that i still need work as my time has not changed that much from my last time trial in February; I have a new time trial this week so i will have a definitive answer. Today is a 30 mile ride/5 mile run brick. I knew i had a brick today but was surprised when i saw the distance. Oddly now that I am preparing for an international distance event i have a workout of this length, but had none during HIM training. Oh Well.

What are your plans today?

HAPPY MONDAY!

2011-05-23T10:25:00.000-04:00

HAPPY MONDAY!!!! I am starting this week with a positive mental attitude. It is not coming naturally, but I am forcing it. I am actually in a sort of slump, but I am forcing myself to start positive. Despite my training being rough this week, my slump actually has has nothing to do with training and more to do with some stuff in the rest of my life. In reality, all I feel like doing is working out and sleeping.

My weekend was so-so. I started off by getting up early Saturday and going to registration for the karate class i teach on Saturdays. I also did some make up belt tests for kids who were sick on test day. This put me in a decent mood as I really love some of the kids. One of my favorites came by with her dad and after they registered the hung out for a few minutes. This child is 6 years old and just got her green belt (aka has completed two semesters) she is about knee high to me and I'm quite sure she could take on kids twice her age. It's not because she is tough, but she puts 100% effort behind everything she learns. Although, I hate having to get up early on a Saturday I am glad to be working with these kids and this is the spending money I get for racing.

Afterward, jonesing for a bike ride I headed over to a local trail with my mountain bike. Our local state park has 3 separate mountain bike loops totaling 18 miles. I rode an alternate version of one of the loops and totaled 8.5 miles in what seemed like a blink of an eye. The trails were different than I remembered, but they flowed well. It took me a few minutes to re-acclimate to riding the mtb, it felt like I was pedaling a bounce house. I did fall one time early in the ride. When I climb hills with roots I have a bad habit of death gripping the bars and leaning back or standing. I hit a large root, the front wheel bounced and since i was already pulling up the bike just kept coming. No biggie, I am well adjusted to falling on my mtb (not the road bike so much, however).

The trail ride was really just a ploy to kill time while waiting for the service on my road bike to be completed. When I dropped the bike off on Thursday for a tune up and to have my bars replaced, they asked me what time I wanted to pick it up and since i was going to be in town to teach karate that morning (my karate class and the bike shop are 30 minutes away). I told them lunch time would be great. The guy told me that it probably wouldn't be ready at noon due to the lunch time retail rush, but they could have it at three. When I arrived at 2:45 they told me they hadn't touched it yet. They might be able to have it done by the end of the day today or Sunday, but would most definitely by the end of the day Monday. This upset me a great bit, because that means that I wasted time today just milling around for 4 hours ( I still would have gone for the mtb ride, but it would have been on the way home), I will have to waste gas to come back, and in order to pick my bike up during their weekday shop hours I have to take off at least on hour early. Not to mention this messes with my training schedule. Although for some reason I felt I should be angry, i wasn't- it felt more like I had been hurt by a trusted friend. I told CB and she got angry- that's why I keep her around. I do plan to email the shop owner and let him know my concerns.

Sunday was kind of similar ups and downs. I had a good swim, but was nervous about my first long run (14 miles) since easter. My shoes are not built for long runs and ever since my knee injury long runs make me nervous. I still dedicated myself to it. I ended up doing a walk 30 second, run 3:30. Even with the walking I ended up keeping an 10:30 pace. This is slower than prescribed, but my pace dropped drastically in the last 30 minutes as my feet and hips got tired. Cold bath when I was done had me feeling good to go again. I was happy since I got in one way or another, the only tough thing about it was being bored out of my mind. This week the plans calls for a 15 miler and i am going to increase my run time and decrease my rest time, not exactly the real run walk training plan but I am just trying to get back to running 10+ non-stop again.

How was your weekend?

A New Low ????

2011-05-20T10:01:00.000-04:00

After going through seven levels of bullshit in order get my workout completed last night (YMCA customer service sucks) I was able to get to the pool. My workout called for a 1800m swim, but since I am still trying to work on my kick I planned to swim it with fins a kick board as I had been directed.

Once I got in the pool I had roughly 17 minutes to complete the workout. This put swimming with the kick board out of the plan, my second plan was to swim with no fins, but I knew I couldn't swim it in 17 minutes, so my safety plan was to swim the 1800 with fins. This made sense to me since the fins will work on building an ergonomically correct kick, and without the kick board it will take less effort and that way I could concentrate on my pull. Even swimming with fins 1800m in 17 minutes was going to be a challenge for me. I swam the first 50 solid but relaxed and with glide. After that I started cranking- no glide, hard kick, and pulling as fast as I could. At this time my dinner started playing with me and this is where it got complicated......

Earlier in the evening I had to take my bike to the shop, this requires a trip out of town. Across the street from the bike shop is Salsarita's. If you do not have one it is a chain tex-mex restaurant that is like a subway with mexican food. CB and I love their food and since I had to got he 38 miles to the bike shop I asked her if I should get us some nachos for dinner while I am out. I returned home smelling the delicious steak and chicken nachos. I was hungry and CB had been drooling since I first wrote Salsarita's in a text so we ate in in hurry and then headed to the gym.

After the first HARD 400 yards my stomach started to feel funny. I thought to myself, slow down a bit. I put in a little bit of glide and kept going, but the inevitable happened around 900 meters- A few strokes before I got to the far wall, my mouth filled with vomit. I have swam so hard I wanted to puke when I stopped, but never puked while I was going. I could taste the chip seasoning, steak, cheese, and jalapenos. Two thoughts went through my mind quickly. First and most importantly if I let this out of my mouth they are going to close the pool and I won't get to finish the workout. Secondly, I need to make the decision quickly as I was supposed to breath two strokes ago. With all of my might I swallowed what was in my mouth and opened my mouth to let in a little water while I rolled over for the breath. I gagged a little more when I swallowed, but no puke. I slowed to just faster than a catch-up drill pace for 25m, saw the clock and realized I needed to try to sprint to finish the workout on time. The sprinting led to a mouth full of puke one more time, but I instinctively swallowed it and kept going.

In the end I only got in 1600m before time was up, but the guards told me to go ahead and finish. I think they figured out they pissed me off. It was fun to learn today that my favorite nachos taste just as good coming up.

I'm at a seven

2011-05-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

Everyday when I come in tot he office, as well as sometimes at other parts of the day, a certain coworker asks me where I am. She is referencing my scale of contentedness v. disgruntleness. Recently i have been averaging around a 2.5 and I rarely break a 5. Today I came in at a 7.

I don't know if there is anything particularly great about today or if it that I worked hard yesterday and my workload today compared to what is has been recently seems manageable. This month has been crazy at work. I have been averaging one day in the office per week. The last week of April I worked in the office on Monday, but then had to go our annual in-service training for the rest of that week in order to keep my certification as a sworn officer. The following week I returned on Monday and spent the entire day catching up on email and paperwork regarding only one of my duties. Tuesday and Wednesday were normal, but on Wednesday Day I was told I needed to take the rest of the week off.

The North Carolina budget is way past it's normal deficit and we have been banned from having any over-time. My boss takes this directive very seriously and makes me take off any overtime from travelling to training, etc as soon as he realizes I have it. So he made me take the rest of that week off in order to clear our books of all of my time. The beginning of the following week started with going out of town for two days of tactical training. I returned on Wednesday to be told to take the rest of the week off in order to clear the books again. I returned this week to go to training on Monday and will be sent home one day this week.

It has been tough to complete a week's worth of work in only a day a week, but yesterday I was on the grind all day and got caught up on all of my paperwork and made a large dent int he counselling contacts i have to complete by the end of the month.

Training has not been as productive. I did not have time to workout due to leaving early and returning late on Monday, on Tuesday as much as I needed to workout I decided to take the day off from training as all the soreness of from the weekend finally set in.

Yesterday, I refocused and decided that what I would do is change my rest day from Saturday to Monday and pull an extra two-a-day sometime doing the week in order to make up for Tuesday's swim. Easy Peasy. I got home lat last night from work, given the limited time I was still motivated to get in SOMETHING. I started into the brick that had been planned for Monday. Knowing I did not have time to complete the entire thing, I decided to cut each leg in half but push harder.

Since my bike is slated for the shop, I had to ride on a trainer at the Y. The ride was only 7 miles, but I pushed myself into harder gears shooting to stay as close to 300 watts as I could while keeping rpm's over 95. The run was planned for 4 miles with a 2mile warm up and 2 miles at 10k pace, instead I ran the hilliest route I could find for 2.5 miles as fast as I could. Although it was short, I felt (and still feel amped) and am looking forward to lifting at lunch today and a swim this evening, with a speed work run a possibility if I have time.

I could of things are coming in the future: I got a new Hydrapak to test from Devon at Outside PR and will be doing a giveaway for Peter Rabbit Organics. Lastly, lately i have been watching my weight but not as much as I did last year- I have been more interested in watching my body fat percentage. It is at 17%. According to the chart I looked at that puts me in the fit bracket. I did not realize I had bypassed average and moved into to fit. This would be the first time in my life I have been in either of those categories. I am HAPPY! I would love to get down to the athlete bracket. Body fat percentage aside I would like to set my targets on losing my last 15 pounds. In fact, I will settle for 10 putting me at 170. Weight loss has been very slow going, but consistent, since the beginning of the year. Does anyone have any suggestions for breaking a weightloss plateau?

Also, a few other bloggers and my wife have suggested that i change the name of the blog. I will do this when my eight drops under 170 lbs. I have no idea what to rename it and would love to hear suggestions. I am thinking something with "or Die" in it as an homage to "manly" Chris, but I am not stuck to this rule. Maybe I can even talk someone in to doing a custom header for a new blog for me too so i can be just like him.... on second though maybe not.

Fun with Numbers

2011-05-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

It is that time again. Time to analyze the numbers like I enjoy doing after every race in order to see where I am in my training, where I can work more, and where I am compared to others.

Swim- I had a chip time of 6:00. This was my goal. My coach predicted my time as 06:02. I hit my garmin 1/3 of the way to transition and the Garmin read 5:55- this should actually put my time closer to 5:50. Regardless whether it was 5:50, 5:55: or 6:00 it is a new PR for 300m. Considering my coach has only had me doing short intervals twice so far this season, either I had an "on" day or the work with fins and kick boards I have added at the suggestion of both my college swimmer friend and my am lifeguard has paid off. I still think this is the area that needs my attention the most and I will continue to add in extra workouts where I can and look for more resources for improvement. Using the 6:00 official time a 2:00 100m is still 30 second away from my goal pace and once there that 30 seconds will add up on those longer swims. After thought- I am happy that this time is faster than my time from last month's rce and as this was metered pool it was actualy longer slightly.

With the 6:00 time I was 3rd in my AG, while the #1 rank in my AG was 5:30 (slower than my goal time). The overall winner in my AG was last with a 7:09, but he made up for it on the run. The person who beat me for the #2 AG spot out swam me by 9 seconds. My swim rank was 21 and compared to my 26th place overall finish my swim is usually below my overall place.

Bike- Ag 4th place by a minute and a half and 35th overall. I assume I had a total of 2 minutes lost either on the ground, putting my bike back together, or on the course making repairs. These cost me. If you subtract the two minutes from my time it would place me 29th overall which is more inline with my average bike rank. I will also continue to work in this area. I feel that some interval workouts would be of a great benefit to me, my coach had me do my first one about two weeks prior to the race and I loved it. I have been eyeing spinervals time trialpalooza. Anyone ever tried it?

Run- Not my best ever effort as I think I could have done better with better nutrition, however I am satisfied with it. I had the 11th best overall run. I recently heard someone say that for the age group triathlete it is all about the run- my AG affirmed this as our AG places mirrored our run ranking. The slow swimmer came back to dominate our division with a 20 minute 5k (2nd best run overall by the way).

Overall- I am satisfied with my overall performance although I did make some DUMB mistakes. Since busting my ass happened outside of transition and technically on the bike course I pride myself on having top 10 times in both transitions and T1 could have been faster had I not been dropping stuff. I was able to get my 3rd place finish by four seconds. What makes me even happier is that 4 seconds was ahead of the guy that beat me by 15 seconds in Wilmington. Had I not lost those 2 minutes my overall place would have been closer to 15th and I would have had AG #2. You live and you learn.

Series Scoring- Prior to the race I am in 12th place in series points from my first race. #11 in points is the guy who placed #4 in my AG. Although it has been about 5 days since the race they have not been updated and I am eagerly awaiting to see if the 4 seconds will push me ahead of him. Also, as we are the only two athletes that have completed two series races so far we will be #1 and #2 at this moment. I eagerly await the update.

Back to training hard!

Statesville Rotary Triathlon

2011-05-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

Statesville Rotary Triathlon- 05/14/11

Overall Time- 1:12:50

300m Swim- 6:00

11.6 Mile Bike 4:41:49

5k Run- 23:43 (11th Overall)

26th Place Overall

AG 3rd Place- That's not just a finisher medal!!

Pre-race- Walked to the venue, placed my bike on the rack at 06:00. Walked back home, ate my normal wheat toast with PB, honey, and bananas, showered and walked back to the venue to set up transition and warm up. It made me feel good to hear people trying to figure out how to set up transition and whispering "let's watch how he does it". I wanted to turn and help but I don't want to seem like I feel I know what I'm doing. You guys know better.

Swim- With a 6 minute flat time, I swam faster that I hoped I would because the 6 minutes includes getting out of the pool, leaving the Y, going down the stairs and running to transition. I was the first person in the third wave, following the elites in the first wave and the predicted race winners in the second. There was a two minute wait between me and the previous wave, this meant no one to draft behind, but no one to fight with for passing or and turns. The ~~kid~~ person behind me caught up with me at 200m, but I always reserve a sprint for the last 25-50m and passed him back as soon as I started the sprint.

T1- Embarrassing. I had T1 problems reminiscent of my first ever race last October. I ran in smoothly, right to my spot. I threw my goggles, swim cap, and garmin on the ground. DOH!!! Pick Garmin back up. Grab bike and go. Knock helmet off bike to the ground. DOH!!! Why is my helmet not on???? Pick up helmet while cussing, place on head, buckle, and go again.

Bike- Crash and collapse a few feet after the mount line, Get passed while down. Try to get up and realize it hurt. Try to get up again. Run to bike. Realize shoe has been thrown backward, go get it. While running back to bike see my Aerobottle is on the other side of the road ahead of my bike, got get it. Put bottle back on and put shoe on. Mount bike. Try to pedal- chain is off. Get back off bike and fix chain. get back on bike and go. I started spinning and made the first two quick turns. During the .35 miles between the second turn and the third I see a guy get hit by a truck. Get to the corner and pause for a moment for the ambulance. Somewhere around now I realize I still haven't put my other shoe on yet.

After I the first mile things start getting back to normal and I was thinking to myself that if I push hard can make up SOME of the ground I lost with my fiasco. I was planning my shifting like chess moves and thinking about the course ahead. Everything was going smoothly. Every time I felt I was mashing too hard I shifted and increased my cadence. I tried to keep telling myself to save my legs for the tough climbs and the run. At the second large descent the elites and race leaders passed me on their way back. Just past mile five I entered the longest climb on the course (1.5 miles), I was averaging 17 mph and since my coach's plan predicted 18 mph I need to push, then I spotted the person who passed me in transition. I kept pushing and passed him. After the next curve I saw 6 more people and caught up and passed each one as they struggled with the climb. One of them passed me back on the next descent. On the next climb, I passed that person again plus 2 more. A few miles later on the next to last climb I passed three more people.

Just after the last major hill I shifted to a better gear to for the last mile and lost my chain. I got off the bike to put the chain back on for the second time. Once I got back on I checked the Garmin and my average speed was 18 mph. I was happy considering that this avg includes the time I spent on the ground and the time I spent off the bike fixing the chain.

T2- In and out. BAM!

Run- Pushed as hard as I could. I was on pace for the first mile. Once I hit the large, half mile hill on the first lap I slowed dramatically. Dramatically for my planned pace, not too slow in general. I still managed to pass large groups of people going up the hill. The rest of that lap went smoothly. At the start of the same hill on the second lap I was holding an average pace faster than my planned pace when my stomach started to cramp. All of a sudden something felt like it was coming up my throat, I opened my mouth expecting to puke and let out the nastiest, wettest burp I have ever had in my life. The cramp went away immediately. As I pushed up the hill, the harder I pushed the more it came back. Three quarters of the way up the hill a guy came up next to me and started talking to me- first time on this run that someone came from behind me. He bitched about the course and it having too many hills. He said he has done "a few tri's and this has been the hilliest, its like racing in the Alps". I decided this was a perfect time for me to use him as a carrot and stick with him to the finish. I worked as hard as I could to keep up- he would get 6 inches past me and I would surge back. It looked like a drag race scene from a 1950's movie. The more I kept up with him the worse my nausea got and I started to feel something coming up again and decided to pull back a little- I decided I didn't want to finish with both blood and puke on my suit, one of the two is good enough :). This may be the closest I have ever come to a bonk. As I slowed I looked at my Garmin and was holding a 6:00 pace trying to keep up with the guy. As he pulled away I saw his age on his leg and bib number on his arm and realized he was one of the two guys in my AG, I reconned pre-race that I thought would be my biggest competition. Shortly after I slowed I started down the hill to the finishing chute, thunder clapped, it started raining, and I sprinted in to the finish. Great timing.

The results were just posted tonight and I have had my normal fun with numbers.

Shit Happens

2011-05-14T15:34:00.000-04:00

Today was not a bad day, my second race of the season.

However, it did not start very smoothly.

More on the race later, but I thought I would share the non-smooth part of my day.

After a decent swim, I came out of T1 and mounted my bike with wet feet. I ran just past the mount line put one foot on my left pedal and swung my right leg over (still moving at this point). Just before my foot hit the shoe my wet, left foot shot off and I did a cartwheel to my left side. I landed on the asphalt and my bike did the same about ten feet forward from me.

I shook it off, got it together and went on.

I now have a bruised heel, ankle, hip, left butt cheek,right hand and right knee. Plus road rash on my left hand and knee.

I heal, to me this is not as upsetting as the other damage.

My front wheel is either out of true of bent.(actually, not to bad in this view, but I could see some movement when I was riding). I am hoping out of true as that is easier to fix.

My shifter is very askew. All the plastic on both of them is shattered as well. I am hoping it is just rotated and not bent.

I think my front derailleur is also bent. After I ??crashed?? I had a hard time shifting. I dropped my chain twice and had to stop to put it back on.

Lastly, my rear break is screaming like a banshee.

This.Is.Aggrevating.

The good news is I still have half of the SRAM rival set I put together at Christmas, however I still need the crankset and cassette. That wont be cheap.

The bad news is that I contacted my local Specialized dealer and if the wheel is bent, Specialized does not offer the ability to purchase replacements.

If I have to buy new wheels, does anyone have a suggestion? I asked about upgrading wheels a few weeks back and I got a number of "don't do its". When I asked that I was looking for a lightweight set of race wheels, not the deep dish carbon types like Zipp or HED. I like the Bontrager Aero lites as an example. Any Suggestions?

Also, if I replace one should I replaced the rear so they match?

Lastly, can anyone tell me how to repair paint nicks? I googled it and came up with nothing.

Tri-ing to sleep

2011-05-13T22:30:00.000-04:00

8.5 hours until I have to be up for my second race of the season, I am struggling to sleep so I thought I would blog for a few minutes since I haven't been able to much this week.

Monday and Tuesday I spent training with the NC Prison Emergency Response Team. Once a year we go away as a team for a two days of 12 hours training plus after hours team building. No drinking allowed, so by this I mean fishing, campfire, and hanging out talking shit. I usually dread it, because although I like the time to be out of the office and have a physical components to my duties I generally don't like my team mates. With exception of me and one female office it is a group of type A, egotistical, hillbilly tough guys.
We had three classes total. The first class was search and rescue techniques for when we assist other agencies. This wasn't horrible but I have 13 years of being the other agency. Next we worked on slow and deliberate room clearing with our new Bushmaster M-4 assault rifles. The next day they set up a shoot house/course and we worked through in pairs with both out pistols and shotguns.
The situational shooting course consisted of a 200m run to get our heart rates up. Then we loaded into a van for our safety briefing. Once complete the whistle sounded and we dismounted the van and got our long guns. I was point and had to clear three targets 50m down and alley and then provide cover as my partner had to pull a downed officer (dummy) to the van. Once he was back, we proceeded down the alley, and then cleared the corner were two there were two more targets. We then moved to a close building for cover, the building had no door, just a door way and there were two targets when we got to it. Once go to the edge of the building we had to cover each other as we ran to the next building, on the way the instructors had a target wielding a knife rigged to charge you from around a corner. Once to the next building we had to breach it and clear two room before ending the scenario. Much better and more realistic course than last year.
Ever since I worked with our new assault rifle I have been very excited. I was loving practicing moving, room clearing, and transitioning between hands.
For the first time we are moving away from dynamic entry. Dynamic entry is the shock and awe way of entering a building in a stack as you see on TV. This is a very good method, but requires a lot of practice and requires working with the same people regularly so you can learn their rhythms. This method is silent, slow, and deliberate. This method makes it easier to work with different teams (as we often do) since it only requires that the individuals have their own competency. We did about a dozen scenarios and I was one of the rifleman as well as pointman/breacher/ team leader. i loved every second of it.
After training the first day I went for a 4x400m run with 1 mile warm and 1 mile cool. The run was tough, we were much higher up in the mountains than I am usually and the terrain was steep. I had to work hard to finish this one, it turned more to hill work than speed work. It was a nice gut check.
Many of my platoon mates said they would run with me, none of then did. Pussies.
When I got back to the office Wednesday my boss told me to take half the day Thursday and all of Friday off due to having too much overtime for the week already. This worked out well since I was taking Thursday morning off for Community service leave. In other words, Two days off and only having to spend 1 out of 5 days in the office.
Thursday I taught stranger avoidance to all the kindergarten classes in CB's school. I have refused to do this year for years, but am much less terrified of kids now.
Speaking of kids and karate, I am thinking of changing my race schedule to substitute Sunday races where I can. This way I don't have to take off from my part time job as it where i get my racing money. Once morning of teaching equals sprint/olympic race entry fees. Taking more Sunday races will mean dropping some easy, short, flat races and picking up some longer sprints with open water swims, and one more Oly.
My new tri shoes did not get here in time for tomorrow's race.
I hit everyone of my workouts this week, but not in the prescribed order. I even got in two extras.
I am trying a new method of mounting my bike. I have rubber banded my shoes on, but will slow down, place one foot on a shoe, push off and swing my leg over. I found this on an instructional video on youtube. I am working on the flying squirrel mount, but lose one of my shoes about half the time.
Tomorrow race is .15 miles from my house. After I get up I plan to put my toast int he toaster, walked my bag and bike to the rack, and then come back home to eat, poop, and shower. This way I get the spot I want since racks are assigned, but not spots.
We are in the middle of thunderstorm right now and it is called to keep going through the morning. The race plan is to change to a duathalon if the thunder keeps going. I feel if the swim is eliminated I have the upper hand with my increases in running and ~~over~~familiarity with the bike course.

New Direction

2011-05-09T12:33:00.000-04:00

My weekend plan was to start prepping the meal of pain I want to serve next saturday.

In the AM before going to my part time job I got up and did 45 minutes on the trainer. The main set was 10x1 minute in my hardest gear.

After I was done with my part time job, 6 hours of landscaping, and an early mothers day dinner I went home and went for a run. I went to the 1/2 mile hill that is the hardest section of the 5k. That should make it easier later.

Today and tomorrow I am away for tactical training, but brought my shoes with me to do some speed work. Maybe someone in my platoon will join me. On another note since I couldn't afford to travel last weekend (not an excuse by the way) I took my registration fee and bought some pearl izumi fly 2's. Look forward to having them this weekend.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Swirling Emotions and a New Plan

2011-05-06T09:53:00.000-04:00

For the last week I have had a lot of ups and downs and my emotions have been all over the map. This makes it sound like there have been major qualifying events (stole that the insurance industry) going on in my life. There haven't been. In fact, all of these feeling have been provoked by multisport. It was during this time that I also realized it has evolved from something to do to lose weight, to exercise, to a hobby, to the beginning a lifestyle (or obsession).

Here is the journey of my last week....

Thursday- The beginning of self-doubt
I do not know what I did this day all I remember is that this is the day I think I started to wonder if I could really do a 70.3. I remember dwelling on the fact that between work and illness, I have missed three long runs and 3 long rides since I started training. With that many miles missing from my base, I am just not sure I have the training to back my goal. In retrospect I now realized that although I had missed these workouts, I had hit both the longest workouts of the training schedule to this point- a 14 mile run and a 60 mile ride. I may have missed a 35 miler, but it did not dawn on me that I had accomplished much bigger rides.

Friday- Moving further down the spiral
Friday I was off work and planned to make up a long ride, plus do my scheduled swim. I also had yard work that needed to be done. Well, more garden work and landscaping, less yard work. I flip flopped between what order to do them in, I even tweeted for advice. thank you Jon for the advice of "swim, bike, yard work, beer, pie". That did sound fun. One of the biggest worries on my mind was the fear of the open water swim. This would be my first open water swim and my longest race swim to date. Not sure I liked the combo. What if I get tired, or a cramp, or forget to HTFU?

Before I could decide I found out my in-laws were going to visit their great aunt who lives on a lake in a private neighborhood. I decided this was my perfect chance to go swim and then I would just bike home (30-50 miles depending on my route.) Perfect timing. Cb was going to go shopping with her family after we went to her aunt's so we waited all day for them to be ready.

At 5pm they were finally ready, at this point I did not think there was enough daylight left for a safe ride home so we told them never mind and started the grill for dinner.

Saturday- Cycling up and then crashing even lower.
Overnight we concreted plan to go to Cb's aunt's house. The house is located in a private neighborhood on a cove 100-400m across (depending on the angle) and 150m from the end. Due to its location directly across from the yacht club, it is in a no-wake zone and seems to me like a good place to swim. We got out there and I swam two out and backs totaling 415m. It took 17 minutes. Why? I haven't the slightest clue. I was having the hardest time keeping my form together and I could not breathe! I got done. Despite the challenges i was not upset. I was looking forward to my bike ride.

I set out and was happy as a clam. I was averaging 20 mph for 45 minutes of the first hour and wasn't even trying. Then it happened. Have you ever been driving and the map and the road signs didn't agree? I mapped the route out before I left and it was a straight shot. At 15 miles a sign had the highway number and left arrow. I noticed it and quickly crossed three lanes and made the turn, despite my mapping showing no turns. I followed the road and got to a location I recognized, I knew this was not the right way. I turned around and climbed back up the hill thinking I must have misread the sign. I got back and it said exactly what I thought it said. I explored past it just to see if the road would continue to have the sign for the road I meant to be on. It didn't. I doubled back and took the turn.

It dumped me out into a 4/5 lane road that happens to be the busiest road in Mooreseville, NC on a normal day, let alone a day with two different festivals going on. I got to the three way intersection and there were no signs about which way to go to stay on or get to the road I was looking for. I knew if the road is there it would be east, so I went east. After a little bit I decided this traffic was too sketchy to be out exploring in. I pulled over and got my phone out to use the GPS. Blackberry maps would find the location and every time I would scroll in the direction I was heading the screen would go blank. I got fed up with the GPS and did not want to explore any further on the road. I called CB who happened to be 10 miles away, heading towards me and had her take a detour to come pick me up. ride failed.

On the way home I asked her to let me explore, and in fact the next major intersection was the road i was looking for. I thought about just getting back out but that would be messed up since she came to get me. We followed my planned route home, but not before I took her and her sister out for Mexican, I went to the store and got oreos, and rented a season of lost and a season of house. I sulked the rest of the day laying in my chair binging on oreos.

Sunday- Not as low, but not as high either
After i went to church that morning we were celebrating my Grandmother-In-Laws birthday at a local seafood restaurant (I refer to this particular restaurant as hillbilly heaven). I decided to help ease my frustrations i needed a non-training ride. I rode my bike to lunch and back. When I got home i decided to sit down and take a minutes before i would go to the pool. 5 hours later the pool had closed and i had not been able to talk myself into it.

Monday- Euphoria
I spent the day very busy at work, however at sometime one thought came to my mind- If not now when? i realized I would probably always feel under-trained and nervous. suck it up and do it. i went for a long swim after work and was going to time it to guage what my time should be. I felt good about my swim, I was not putting in a tempo effort but felt i was moving smoothly. I however was feeling bad as the three other lap swimmer were flying past me. I worked hard not to get lapped by the guy next to me. When I got done I stood up at the end of the lane and had a breather before I got out (by the way when i stood up out of the water, it was the first time i have ever remembered felling WARM after a swim). When I stopped the guy next to me stopped and as soon as he broke the surface of the water he looked at me and said, "you must be a triathlete are you racing White Lake this weekend?". He then proceeded to tell me that last July he did his first race on his 50th birthday and between then and the end of October he race 1 sprint, 1 Oly, and 1 HIM. He told me he hates the bike, doesn't hate running but doesn't like it, but he loves the swim. He then gave me a long list of open water swim tips (without asking). This seemed like fate.

Tuesday- Frustration
So I have decided to go for it. Now, a few of my travel plans have changed and I must re-budget. Now it turns out that with my purchases on the way home Saturday and for my yard on Friday that I could not afford travel. I could probably swing it, but would not have the money for my sprint the following weekend. I spent the afternoon scrambling trying to call friends to crash with and do the like. Nothing worked out. CB volunteered to drive and make it a 1 day trip but i didn't think leaving at 1am for he race would be a good idea.

Wednesday- Depression, Anger, and Bargaining
The close of registration was at 7:00 am with 129 spots left. One of those should have been mine. Although feeling like going back to bed I got up and went to the pool. The plan called for a 1000m tempo. I decided since I wasn't doing the race i would prep for my sprint and do 50's instead. After 250m I still hadn't found my rhythm and decided to give up. Sometimes I find swimming very relaxing however it is not something I am in love with. It is one area that i can easily quit if I am not feeling it, so I did. When i got out the life guard talked to me for a while. She said that she thought i had good form but needed to work on my inconsistent kick coming from the knees and said i would be waster if I learned flip turns (clearly this won't matter in open water). She explained to me that she feels about running the way I do with swimming.

Afterwards I planned to go for a 4 mile run and I was too angry to go. I was angry because I felt like I just wasted 20 weeks of training. Countless hours on like rides and runs. I was also angry because of three longer distance events I have planned two have now been crapped out because not being able to afford them, plus my February marathon being called off for injury purposes when my knee started hurting on my 20 miler. It made it worse that I chose this race in part because it was the cheapest 70.3 i was going to be able to find. As a non-multisport point of aggravation I have shared before. I get angry regularly, when CB and I have things that come up we can't afford. It makes me mad because having grown up on welfare, I put time and hard work into going to college- paying for it myself and working three jobs. Afterwards I went to grad school where I completed a two year program in one year, while working 50 hours a week while making $600 a month and being given a free apartment. After putting in a fair amount of work i have worked 5 years in an entry level position and still have a lower income than the guys on my city's trash truck- No really I have checked.

The other reason I chose this race was because it was a regional qualifier for the USAT long course championships and therefore 33% of every division gets to go. Even better, the championship race is just 4 hours away from me. I did my recent search and my 1.2 mile swim time, in a pool without a wetsuit, is neck and neck with last year's winner of the division i was going to race in. My run time of my last half mary was faster than the run leg of anyone in my division last year and i run faster now than I did then, in fact my last 14 mile LSD was only slightly slower than the winners pace. My average bike speed is slower, however my estimated total time per my coach was 15 minutes faster than the total time from the division winner last year. i felt confident I would be in that top 33% and therefore go to Halfmax. How cool would that be? Later this evening I started the bargaining process. I looked at the time requirements and realized that if i did a non-regional qualifier I would never make the time of 5:05 for my first 70.3. I then began looking at regional qualifiers. Sadly, there were several regional races that were within travel distance but they are the same day as this race. I realized my best chance is the special qualifier at REDMAN in Oklahoma. It takes the top 45% of each age group and is a mere 12 hour drive away. This will probably only happen if I get a raise and can do some serious saving, fundraisers, or get sponsorship to pay for it. All not very likely.

Thursday- Acceptance
I emailed my coach and let him know that I would not be racing. That stung a little as this distance is one of my goals for the year. He emailed me back his condolences but made the great point that although, not ideal as I could have spent more time focusing on short distance speed, however the long workouts were great base training for the rest of my year.

Now that I have accepted this set back, I am locked my sights on my sprint next weekend. I am going to put in some extra workouts this weekend just for fun. In the pool I will focus on my kick and intervals, on the bike I will work on speed, climbing, and getting even more intimate with the course, and on the run I am going to repeat the 1/2 mile hill that you must run twice during the course a couple of dozen times.

On the morning of 05/14/11 my race plan will be to prepare and serve a heaping portion of pain to anyone in my AG and for desert pain cupcakes. And anyone who I can't serve pain, the finish line and awards are a 1/2 mile away from transition, while they are getting their plaques and medals I will be slashing their tires and peeing on their handlebars.

Enough with weak emotions time to HTFU and GO TO WAR!

2011-05-02T15:19:00.000-04:00

A number of authors have suggested that mood disorders are an evolutionary adaptation. A low or depressed mood can increase an individual's ability to cope with situations in which the effort to pursue a major goal could result in danger, loss, or wasted effort. In such situations, low motivation may give an advantage by inhibiting certain actions. This theory helps to explain why mood disorders are so prevalent, and why they so often strike people during their peak reproductive years. These characteristics would be difficult to understand if depression were a dysfunction.

Nesse R (2000). "Is Depression an Adaptation?". Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 57 (1): 14–20

Product Review: Hydrapak Gel-Bot

2011-04-28T09:00:00.003-04:00

At the beginning of the month Outside PR provided me with a Hydrapak Gel-Bot to test and review. This is similar to a standard squeeze bottle but has a tube inside to provide gel as well. Hydrpak provides that bottle in both 20 oz and 24oz options. Before I get into it, here is what Hydrapak has to say about it:

"Summary: The Gel-Bot delivers two performance essentials, fuel and hydration, in one easy to use sport bottle. This patent-pending design lets you fuel or hydrate with just one hand. Perfect for racing or total gel addicts. All the Gel-Bot components can be taken apart and easily cleaned.

To USE:
1.Load the inner chamber with energy gel.
2.Fill the bottle with water/fluid.
3.When the nozzle is pulled open, you get water and water only.
4.With the nozzle pushed down, squeeze to get the gel out of the center valve."

First Thoughts:
When I first opened the package my first instinct was that it was one of the fancy filtering bottles that all of my partners carried in Guatemala. Once I picked it up and got a better look at it, I realized that it was a water bottle with an integrated gel flask inside. Since I carry both in sprint distance and shorter long runs I thought this would be a neat product.

Set Up:
To use you unscrew the lid like a normal squeeze bottle,

The gel tube is attached to the nozzle by a funnel type device.

To disconnect you just grab both pieces firmly and it kind of snaps free. I found the Gel-Bot to be ornery during the connecting and disconnecting, taking a good bit of determination.

You then fill the tube with your choice of gel. It holds 3.2 ounces of gel, but if you are putting less in it you can just push the green plunger up. You then connect the tube, add water, and then screw the lid back on. To drink it works just like a regulate water bottle. For gel, push the lid down in the closed position and suck.

The Test:

I tested the bottle four times, two run and two bike rides (one of which was my 60 mile distance PR!!!!) I used it as directed one time in each discipline. Since I am not a big fan of the consistency of gel, I usually add a few drops of water to thin it out.

Performance:

As interesting as I found the product, I am not as impressed with the results. I found the assembly easy, but more tedious then I care for. When solely filled with Gel, I was unable to get the last 1/2 inch of gel out. I feel that it is a waste. When it is a water and gel mixture, it fed too fast. The first time I unknowingly consumed the entire tube in two sips. Another problem is that if you are like me and consume a preset amount of gel, there is no way to measure your intake. Despite the problems I see, it could be very good for short triathlons as one stop source for fuel and hydration and could easily be placed in a aero bottle holder. It would also be good for hiking.

Grade- C

I am not going to give a grade of this nature without giving my opinion of how it can be improved. Although a good product, I think it could be better if it attached to the top a little easier, if I could get all the gel out, and if had some type of marker lines to measure how much is left.

The shopping dilema updated

2011-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago I posted about not being sure how to spend the gift card I won. Since I wanted Under Armour and the price has gone way up since I was in college and bought my last lot of it.

I calculated with our NC sales tax I had $69.44 I found no sales on Under Armour, Nike, or any other high end tech gear. However, Reebok which is cheaper was on sale. for 16.99 a piece I was able to get two pairs of shorts and two shirts. Reebok is generally heavier, but does the job. The total left me over a dollar to spare and since I wanted to get as close as possible I grabbed some of the gummy bears from the register. It ended up pushing me over to 75.16 but oh well.

Product Review: Pearl Izumi Elite In-R-Cool Tri Suit

2011-04-26T07:45:00.001-04:00

At the beginning of this month I was given the chance to review the Pearl Izumi Elite In-R-Cool thanks to Outside PR. I agreed to wear it in my first race of the season and review it for fit, comfort, and performance. I wore it in my April 3rd race, but wore it again for a run this weekend to put it through one last test.

Fit
I was hesitant at first about using a one piece suit, first there is the obvious and well known problem of the difficulty of using the bathroom. Second I wondered how it would work with someone who is not built with measurements of a pro triathlete. I have a 34 inch waist, a much bigger gut, and then only slightly bigger shoulders. Do I pick suit that fits my waist and shoulder and let it be tight around my stomach? Or vise versa and let it be baggy. I chose one based on my waist and shoulders. It fit great, I was worried it would be uncomfortable in the areas I am bigger in but it was not. Honestly, I almost felt naked it was so light and fit so well. The only thing unpleasant about the it was the zipper opening does not open quite wide enough for my shoulders. It is quite a squeeze to get my upper half though the small opening.

Comfort
This is what I think is a standout feature about the suit. It felt so natural. When it first arrived the first thing I wanted to check was how it was assembled. My favorite bibs have a seam directly down the center, unless I wear compression shorts underneath it chafes. This was the first thing I checked- for a race suit this was a go, no go feature (see below). The only thing I could say negative about comfort was that once full unzipped it pulls in an odd manner. Anything more than half zipped and it was uncomfortable across my shoulders. I did not have a place to change back out and it was comfortable enough to throw gym shorts and a tee over and wear home. I was just going to wear it home including to our planned stops at GAP and to get cheese steaks, but CB made me put the clothes over it.

Performance
During the swim I felt no noticeable drag. The chamois was a good thickness and a good shape. Once on the bike it provided good padding and the material dried within a few minutes. For it's performance on the run the comfort section sums up everything. As I stated above, this weekend I put it through one last test. My last race was a mild temperature and this suit is designed for hot weather. After several fails (rained out) attempts, Sunday I went for a 14 mile run wearing it in 83+ degree heat. The two things I wanted to test were how well the upper mesh wicked and if it the mesh was thick enough to prevent sunburn. The mesh does in fact keep you cool. In fact, I think it could be improved by increasing the mesh across the chest and maybe a little lower similar to the back. It was also thick enough to prevent sunburn.

What's the grade? A

I think it is great for performance and fit. I am so impressed that I want to know what improvements can be made that set the P.R.O. suit apart. At $130 it is more than I would probably care to spend on a suit, but I now reconsider as I believe it is worth the price. Great wicking, great compression, low drag, and saves major time in transition.

Thursday Delayed....or tri geek Christmas

2011-04-25T22:22:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post Thursday night but forgot to hit the publish button, I've have done this once or twice before, but this time it works out for the better. I am in training this week, and between working twelve hours days plus travel to and from the prison, and wanting to get my workouts in- I decided I would make some canned posts (scheduled posts). This week will be very retail centered with a a few reviews, an update,and something else in the same ballpark (I haven't decided yet).

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Today (Thursday) was one of the worst days I have had at work in a long time. I started the day off with a abnormally high workload and more things to do than I had time for. The problem is that I had a full week worth of work and training next week so I only have today and Monday to get it done. What complicated the issue is that I had more work dumped on me at lunch with no regard to being in training. It was bad enough that once the email came out with the new assignment came out that two of my coworkers came straight to my office to ask who I pissed off. We quickly tabulated the amount of work and it was near 45 hours of work and I had twelve hours to get it done (plus the lunch I was about to skip in order to work).

To make it worse, I asked for help and instead of having some of the work redirected or assigned to someone to help, I was told to work as late as needed and not to leave until all the high priority issues were resolved.

On top of that is what sets my job/workplace apart from others. I feel like a high workload and a rude customer, or not meeting productivity or sales goals make bad days for others. However for me, in one day there was an incident of one inmate getting jumped in his cell by two others, a one one one fight in one location simultaneously with a two on one stabbing in another location. Around 5pm there was a four on one fight in our dining hall.

It is hard to complete assessments and conduct counselling when you are running every few minutes to respond an emergency or when you can not access the inmates because they are locked in their cells in order to be searched for more weapons (and a few more were found).

Due to the combination of the all the factors I had to wing large portions of my work. By the time I worked over two and a half hours I had a headache so bad I could not think. I had to stop. i didn't bring food to stay this late, so i was not prepared.

I called CB and let her know that I was changing today to my recovery day because I just didn't feel like working out. I told her I would pick her up at church and we being go out to eat.

An hour later my day started to get better after a steak, two crab cakes, and two margaritas. This speaks volumes about my day. In the last year, I can count the number of drinks I have had on two hands. Most of my drinks happen on holidays or at cookouts.

The stress of the day was completely forgotten when I got home. We arrived at the house to see that the local Fed-Ex man had made a stop.

This was tri geek Christmas to me. the 10oz bottles for my fuel belt and the my tristryke saddle. If you read this, you know I have been wanting a new saddle since my first 25 mile ride on the new bike. I really was excited like a kid at Christmas I forgot all about the day.

Thinking...

2011-04-23T16:54:00.000-04:00

How is your weather today?

For the majority of the week we have had rain. This has resulted in me spending about 6 hours on the trainer, if not more. Today is beautiful but is my rest day. Despite working an eight hour shift already today, my bike (still nameless) and the sun are calling my names. I am currently staring out a window pondering whether or not to risk my legs for my 14 miler tomorrow to have some fun today........

Hope your Easter weekend is going great!!

Respect for Morning Workouts

2011-04-21T08:22:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to share with you my utmost respect for those who put in morning workouts, particularly long morning workouts all before going to work. With over a year of trying it is something I have not had much luck at.

Last Saturday I was able to mow three quarters of my lawn before it started raining. When I got done cutting trees I cam home and mowed half of the remaining quarter Monday but ran out of gas before i finished the entire section.

I know that I need to finish mowing as soon as possible this afternoon because I share a lawn mower with My father-in-law who commuted to Atlanta during the week. He is coming home this evening and I know he will need to mow his lawn. With this in mind I also knew that my workout schedule called for a brick with a 20 mile ride and 3 mile run. In order to get the lawn mowed I knew that I would need to do this before work.

I planned accordingly and got my work clothes ready, got my bike and accoutrements ready, set up a transition area, hung my (clean) workout clothes on the bed post near me, and set the alarm for 4:30 AM.

I was up and down every two hours anticipating my workout. I was awake at 4 Am thinking- I should just get up. I fell back asleep and when the alarm clock sounded I hit the snooze button. Or at least I thought I hit the snooze button, because it went off again at 6:20 AM. Entirely too late to workout since I needed to leave for work in 50 minutes.

So again, I have the utmost respect for the morning workout warriors!!

Numerical Oddities

2011-04-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

Ever since the Monday after my last race I have been pondering the results. I love numbers and both at the race and the next day when I saw the results, I noticed some interesting things and I learned a few lessons. This is also my check in with my 2011 goals.

My overall time was 1:09:08. I had the goal of finishing one sprint under 1:10 during 2011 so one goal is accomplished for the year. That time is 44 overall and 4th in my AG. The race was a time trial start by 100m swim pace, overall there were only 8 people who had slower swim time who finished higher than me overall. This makes me think that in terms of well-rounded progress I am doing well. Also I started out at #112 and finished at 44 so I think I can probably run and bike faster than the average person with my similar swim speed. If I had been in the 20-24 AG I would have won, if I had been in the 30-34 AG I would have been next to last, and in the 35-39 AG I would have been dead last by a large margin. Apparently I need much improvement before I can be competitive with the old guys :). Had I competed in the elite division I would have beet #3 by a full minute, but behind the #2 by 16 minutes. Apparently elite is somewhat ambiguous.

Seeding me at 112 for the swim, I looked around at gear of others with similar swim abilities and except for one carbon tri bike, we all had very similar equipment. This leads me to believe that I am where I need to be in my progress. Last year I took my training very serious, but at my last race I was seeded 406 by 100m swim time and in transition I was surrounded by relay teams of 300 pound men and women on beach cruisers. At that time it made me feel as if my results were not in the same place as my intensity. Overall I was 66 and I was 8 in my AG. This tells me this is the area that I need to work the most in, far cry or my 1:30 per 100m goal for the year.

On the bike I was 62 overall and 5 in my AG. I could have gone faster, but I don't feel I could have made my 10 mile TT goal for the year. These results indicate to me that I am faster than I think I am (on flat ground), but it is still an area that needs work. I think all the time in the saddle for HIM long rides has been a benefit.

While being 44 overall I was 32 on the run and #1 in my AG. I had a 2011 goal of a sub 24 minute 5k. With a time of 22:42 I hit that in the head. Oh, and per the garmin it was 5k dead on. My previous 5k PR was 26+. Crushed that. Apparently I got fast. I have reevaluated my goal and I now want to get in a 5k under 21 minutes by the end of the year. I was trying to make a 2 minute improvement to meet my original goal, I now need less than that to make my new goal.

I now have my marching orders- work on swim, bike, and then run. Now I just need a strategy.

Have you had to reassess your goals yet this year?

Cross Training???

2011-04-18T22:13:00.000-04:00

Last week was busy. It was another one of those where I time to work and train OR work and blog. You know where that always leads.

I was able to get in every workout until Friday. Friday I was scheduled for a long run, but the combination of the incoming storm and me over-napping squashed that, although I did have time to get in a make up run I missed from my Monday PERT call out.

Saturday was my scheduled off day and I took it, I thought about making up the long run, but that we were hit by the storm that large storm that came across the country. Sunday I was scheduled for a long ride, but I went to Raleigh to work with my rescue squad to help work with the storm's aftermath. Raleigh has had between 15-20 fatalities reported. MY training is important to me especially considering last week and this week are my build weeks before going into my HIM taper.

On the way home, I got a call from CB that her Grandmother had a few trees fall in the storm and she was very upset. CB's father works in Atlanta during the week, Cb's little brother sings opera and carries a purse, and that leaves me to be helpful in times like this. I went out and assessed the damages and collected what I needed to work today.

The largest problem at the house was large part of a cedar tree that had fallen. This section is 52 feet long, it broke away frm the rest of the trunk about 12 feet off the ground. It is only about 18 feet from the corner of the house, but luckily fell the opposite direction.

Although through my rescue technician training I am trained with all sorts of power tools including the jaws of life, and other really fun things. However, for this job the only thing anyone in my in-laws owned was a 16 inch, electric chain saw.

After 7 hours of work, I was able to saw the branches down, cut them into reasonable sizes, cut the trunk down to reasonable sizes, take 5 trips to dispose of the tree, and clean up the tools. After I was done I still had to go work on a few things at my own house.

My training plan called for a 10 mile ride and 6 mile half marathon pace run. This did not get done. I just finished working in the yard about 1 hour ago (9PM). This disappoints me since it is the third workout I have missed in a row during a very critical time. As frustrating as this may be, I am counting squatting, farmer carries, and log tossing as cross training. This is as good as weight training in my book. I am sure that some of these moves will translate into functional strength for endurance sports.

Now I just am considering how to take this week. I had today's brick, a time trial on Wednesday, and I was going to combine my Friday long run and Sunday long ride into one brick in order to test my nutrition. I realized over the weekend while doing some reading, that my training plan had no long brick similar to HIM. My longest ride before a run was 25 miles before a 3 mile run, the other is a 15 mile ride with 5 mile run. In my opinion neither of these seem suitable to test long course nutrition, considering on my weekly long ride and runs I have only been fueling for the given workout without consideration to multi-leg needs.

Thinking........

2011-04-12T14:13:00.000-04:00

I am not sure about everywhere, but in North Carolina the leader in fundraising for the Special Olympics is the North Carolin Law Enforcement Community. With this come 6 months of bakes sales, polar plunges, and a number of other events in order to raise money at my institution. In addition to this our Prison Emergency Response Team also does a fundraiser by participating in a plane pull competition against other law enforcement agencies.

In order to raise the entry fee we held a raffle this year and since our team is made up of staff from a dozen institutions we sold them at our respective units. Our tactical team raised almost $1000 and yesterday before we got underway with our "activities" the drawing was held. there were three prizes and I won the 2nd place prize- a $75 gift card to Dick's Sporting Good.

This I great! With the exception of my new trisuit and a few cycling items that I have bought this year, most of my workout clothing is 5 years old and entirely too big. A few items have lost their draw stings and do not stay up. I have a few pairs of compression shorts that have some almost see through panels. I have been trying to figure out how to get some new tech gear to workout in and this solves it.

The card is already burning a hole in my pocket and I can't use it until this weekend when i can leave town and go to the closet store. I was going to buy new Under Armour shirts and shorts but it appears the price has gone up. The compression shorts I used to pay $19 for are now $29 and $34. I if technical workout clothes are going to be outrageously priced I will continue wearing my too big items.

I am now thinking of buy just one shirt or one pair of shorts and buying a few other items these include:

hand paddle
extra goggles (maybe)
mesh bag for swim gear
Jammers (my first pair)

I am looking for suggestions for other items that would be good, I have two pairs of goggles (one I love and one that I deal with), fins, and kickboard.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I CONSIDER?

Just becasue

2011-04-12T10:16:00.000-04:00

I had a long day yesterday as our Prison Emergency Response Team was activated. 16 hours of fun and strip searching goodness on only 3 hours sleep. YAY!!! Hope to post one of the posts I have been intending later today, as long as I can get a little work done in the office, today's workouts, and maybe a make up workout for yesterday (one of two).

In the meantime I thought I would share this video. If it doesn't give you warm fuzzies you have no soul!

GOOD LUCK!!!

2011-04-09T10:12:00.001-04:00

All my thoughts and happy vibes go to Jon, Jeff, and Shannon at ~~Herman Memorial Iro.....~~ Galevston 70.3!!!

Be fast and safe!!

Oh Happy Day!

2011-04-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

Today was all-in-all a good day.

The North Carolina State Budget is not in a good place (not as bad as the fed), so there is no over time for anyone at my work. For this reason a number of us were sent home early today. I was sent home at 1:30 and was home shortly after 2. My training plan called for a 60 mile ride and I had been wondering how I would get that in after getting home at 5:30. Since I knew I would have limited time I sat all my stuff out last night.

It was a beautiful day, about 75 degrees with on and off clouds and breeze due to some thunderstorms that were moving in. I got home dressed, grabbed gels, and made two half sandwiches. I left feeling good- I feel like I look like a cyclist wearing my favorite jersey, my red and while Pearl Izumi jersey-

Ignore the broken/crooked mail box

It is my favorite jersey because it was the first name brand jersey I fit into. I bought and it was too small but I lost weight and it finally fit as I documented here- ****. Now it is baggy

I also was wearing the matching socks..

The first 10 miles I spent in the granny gear riding a few times around the meat of our local tri course. I figured the slow ride would get me warmed up and a some time getting extra aquainted with the course wouldn't hurt for next month. I also spent some time trying to figure out how to make this turn at speed.

I get over 30mph on this decent which makes the turn hard. Slowing down for it is hard, I often go too wide or I cut off the opposing lane. Also I don't want to come to a stop to turn because 200m after making the turn you start climbing for almost 2 miles. Keeping my momentum for the climb would be nice.

After my warm up I spent the next 15 mile or so building speed. I held 22mph or over for two separate, rolling 5 mile stretches. I found that if I stood and mashed for a few seconds then once the speed was up I could spin and keep it for long periods of time. I was proud of myself for making many climbs at 20 mph or over.

By 34 miles I was hurting, my butt, my legs, and my neck (neck hurts often on long rides, I can't figure it out), but i had no problems keeping going. This was also about the time I ran out of water, I took 60 ounces with me and it wasn't enough. I think I drink more now that I have an aero bottle.

At 54 miles I wanted to quit I was hurting so bad, but I think the lack of water was making it worse. I got home at 55 miles even but rode around the block a few times in order to round out 60. I was determined to hit 60 because this was my longest ride ever, and so no less.

After I was done I headed to the tub for a COLD soak while I had a recovery drink and then a hot shower. My sweat was burning. I am still trying to figure out how to best recover from the harder workouts so I thought I would mention it in case anyone has better suggestions.

Since I also asked about nutrition in a recent post, I thought I would share mine for this ride, 20 oz of water followed by 40 oz of nuun. I drink when thirsty but make sure to have something ever 15 minutes on the dot. I had a gel every 45 minutes and ate a half sandwich at 20 and again at 40 miles (while riding). Again, if you have any other suggestions please share.

The only time I stopped on this ride was to take the below picture. I stopped, but never got off the bike. I talk about being near the mountain, if you are familiar with the east coast, you have probably heard of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Only a n hour drive from my house to the parkway, but you could see them clearly on this ride since I was a but north of home.

Making up for my earlier post

2011-04-07T16:59:00.000-04:00

After talking with a friend/coworker who was a collegiate swimmer just a few years ago, he gave me some vidoes to watch- and said he'd be glad to come to the pool with me to help correct my form.

Venting

2011-04-07T10:36:00.000-04:00

This is not a true post, this is just a bitch session.

I have had a tough morning workout and aggravated and need to vent somewhere to that I can let it go.

I usually have my long swim on Wednesdays (my late day at work) and my long run or long ride on Sunday. This week in an effort to have be to a long brick at tempo/race pace after a scheduled day of rest (which won't happen), my coach moved my long run yesterday and my long swim today. Although I do workout int he morning sometimes, I prefer to workout after work when I have more time. That is not an option today so I was up at 5 am to eat and dress and get tot he pool by 5:30 when the doors opened.

The workout called for 2900 meters, my longest swim ever. It was also my worst swim ever. I was supposed to get it done in 1:06 but it took me 1:22. I usually get my swims done faster then expected, but at the worst a minute or two late. Today sucked.

It felt like I was swimming through jello a few times. I was tired after the first 300m and exhausted by the end of the first 500m. Someone once told be that a good technique for long distance swimming if you are feeling tired is to save energy by doing catch up freestyle. I did this until about 1000m. My knee, aggravated a little from yesterdays run, was even starting to hurt but I was determined to finish. The rest of the swim was a mix of breaststroke (about a third of the time), kicking drills, a few sprints and a little actual freestyle. I also had to rest a few times by walking for a few steps to reset my rhythm.

I am disgruntle, it gives my self doubt about my next race.

That is all, just needed to get that off my chest so i could concentrate on my work.

Also, here is a link to a decent article about nutrition I liked pages 3-19, I ignored all the branding. http://pacifichealthlabs.com/images/Performance_Nutrition_Handbook.pdf

Riddle me this......II

2011-04-06T17:59:00.000-04:00

At this moment I have several posts planned with things I want to commemorate like an analytical look at some numbers, a check in on my 2011 goals, a review of the race suit I used last weekend, and a look at my diet. However, I have had some questions on my mind I thought I would post here and hope that you- THE EXPERTS- would help me out.

I did this same thing in a post last year, Riddle Me This , and got some great help in understanding some of the basic concepts of multisport. I am going to do it again but with what I feel are some more intermediate questions (mostly bike focused). The more I train, the more I want to learn. I am also going to ask a few questions again because I have new followers and am curious about there answers.

How do you pick out a cassette?
I started collecting the pieces to change from 105 to Rival (or force mix) at Christmas. I am still short a cassette and cranks. I do not know how to pick out the right size cassette. Last year I had a 12-25 and it was a little tough climbing and too slow out in the open. Now I have a 11-26 but since I do spend so much time training on large climbs (to me) it would be nice to have something I can spin easier on and maybe get a little more speed coming back down. BTW- I don't know how they compare to other peoples rides but my three most notable climbs are 250ft in .4 mile, 100ft in .5 mile, 160ft in .5 mile, and 205ft in 1.5 miles. All but the shortest one are on the local tri course.

What is the difference between a double and a compact double?
I have read articles on this and do not exactly understand. My Rival shifters are double and they have two sized to choose from.

Nutrition wise, at the 70.3 distance what do you carry with you on the bike leg?
On a long training ride (+45 miles) I carry 40 ounces of water, an uncrustable, and one gel. depending on the weather sometimes the water isn't enough some time it is more than enough. I plan to use nuun when I race. I use the uncrustable as a carrot for my halfway point and the gel for near the end to tide me over.

Gear wise, what do you carry on the 70.3 bike leg?
I have been carrying 2 tire levers, a pump (now a co2 pump), and a tube. I used to carry a multitool but ditched it since I only ever used it to make adjustments and I never do that on the road. In fact, I typically don't stop on my long rides at all.

When do you start thinking about having two set of wheels? Where should a rookie start with a second set?
Coming out of last week with a new confidence (that will be squashed next month at my 70.3) I have started pondering things that will make me faster. An Carmichael/Armstrong book I read a while back said that the most fair racing is the pros, because they have equal playing field with equipment and it comes down to training and skill. This comment was being compared to age group racing where equipment can set you apart from your opponents. In fact, I saw a ton of people slower than be with carbon bikes, tri bikes, and aero helmets. I also had fun passing them (and thought about a comment Patrick left me a while ago). Since a tri bike or something carbon is not in my near future, as I am lucky to have gotten my current bike this year, I thought wheels may be something I could consider upgrading (I have carbon forks and seatpost).

Got any secret swimming tips or workout to help build speed?
Would like to get a swimming coach but can not afford it and there is no local masters class/team. Swimming is the area where i am making the least headway. When looking at my training logs it appears that my 100m time is not getting any faster, however my long distance time is. My last TT in the pool was 200m in minutes. I have had long swim with the same average pace. I have swam about 69,000 meters this year to date (about 75,000 yrds) but no significant gains and I do form drills at least once a weak and sometimes twice. I have considered going rogue on my training plan by adding more swimming, but why pay for something and not follow it?

What is your favorite distance to race?
I am racing spring, oly, and 70.3 this year I THINK I know what my favorite will be but we will see in the end.

Any suggestions for healthy sweets?

Favorite health food?

Favorite cheating food?

ANSWER ONE OR ANSWER THEM ALL- I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE ANSWERS!

Race Report: Wilmington Athletic Club Triathlon

2011-04-04T22:26:00.001-04:00

CB took over a 100 photos with a point and shoot, she likes this one.

Pre-Race: Woke up early, showered and shaved. Could not eat my traditional wheat toast with peanut butter, honey and banana slices. I forgot the honey and had no toaster. I choked down the bread with PB and ate the banana. Then I had to pack the car of all the weekend junk while CB checked us out.

Once at the race site body marking, chip, and set up transition. Warmed up with a half mile jog with 4 sets of strides at race pace, then a ride in a near by parking lot going through the gears and working on cornering, lastly, I swam 200 with a mix of some favorite drills.

steam coming off the pool

Swim: I had doubts going into the swim. It was a TT start and I thought I may have seeded myself too fast. I seeded myself at the pace I was hoping to have improved to not my planned pace. Apparently many people seed themselves faster than they should. At one turn I had to swim under a kid and on another length I had to go down the middle to pass a woman doing breast stroke. Just before 200m I felt someone on my toes so I stopped at the next turn let him pass. He was number 116 and I was 112 so he had been doing well. I passed him back at the end of the next 50m. I can't imagine what an open water swim must be like because the last 25m was a meat grinder with 4 of us abreast fighting to the end.

My swim time is not really my swim time since once you were out of the pool you had to make a left turn run out of the pool area and then make a 180 degree turn and run up the side walk, past the pool exit and into transition.

Wondering if my elbow is positon is getting better

last 50

Long run to transition

long run out of transition

Bike: Started out feeling great, averaging between 19 and 20 mph for most of the first lap. I was right on 18.9 for the remainder of the lap. During the second lap I felt myself slowing a little so I tried to push, but be conservative to have enough gas in the tank for the run. Much like the swim, I was passed once but got him back shortly. BTW- I say I was only passed once, I should note I was lapped by some of the super fast riders two or three times.

The course kind of sucked. It was mostly flat. One very small incline. I dropped a few people on it (thank you training in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains) I loved the fast flatness of it, but what sucks was the high number of turns and the general road conditions (torn the hell up). Although I am happy with how I did, i think I could have been faster under better conditions......but if ifs and buts were candy and nuts......

Cb likes this one too

Starting the second lap

coming into t2- shoes off!! Getting yelled at by the guy behind me for not going fast enough.

Run: Although the course condition to the bike course everything panned out. I don't remember anything memorable about the run, I just ran hard and kept moving. I got passed coming out of transition by #122 and stuck as close to his back as I could. Every time I would get close enough to draft on him he would pull away. I watched my Garmin, I was slowing down he was speeding up if I got close. I thanked him for being a carrot after the race.

Scouting the 300 degree turn to the chute thinking WTF???

IN THE END: I had a great time and was very happy with everything. I talked with CB the night before about how I felt I should be a little more tense, but wasn't. This translated into the race. Everything was smooth, no thinking.

Swim 300m-6:32

Bike: 11.5 miles-38:03

Run 5k-22:42

Overall: 01:09:08

Men's Overall Place 44

AG 4 of 10

Final Thoughts- My coach's predicted time without transitions was 1:14. This is the first time I have ever made the 1st page of the results- GO ME! In the AG I was 22 seconds behind #3 and 60 seconds behind #2. I was just over 4 minutes behind #1 in my AG who was an Army Ranger down for the day from Fort Bragg. That makes me feel good. This a far cry from last year.

I. COULDN'T. BE. HAPPIER!

Great Weekend, Great Race

2011-04-03T19:48:00.000-04:00

I am home. With happiness and sorrow. This was an amazing weekend.

After the stressful week and the trip down Saturday turned out GREAT.

On Saturday, after sleeping in until about 9:30 and then going to Sonic for breakfast we made our way to Wrightsville Beach. In 20 plus years living in NC I have been to multiple different beaches, but this is my favorite. There was a period if several years while my mom was between husbands when Johnny Mercer Pier at Wrightsville Beach is where we went. I would play in the surf, swim out as bar as I could, and fish from the pier all day long, no worries. CB got direction to the main strip in Wrightville and assumed we would find beach access from there. It was funny, we pulled onto the road before she could tell me where to go to find access I pulled into the pier. Without being here in 15 years I automatically knew where I was. we got out and I showed CB around. Oddly, I even knew where I was despite that the pier is completely different since it was destroyed by a hurricane years ago and had to be rebuilt.

We spent four hours on the beach and listening to the surf crash. It was wind 30-40mph gusts, but when you never get to the beach you take what you can get. We spent 3 hours of the time laying their. i forgot a book or music so I dug a hole with a seashell (yes I'm 4) while CB read one of those crappy twilight books, then we walked for an hour.

Afterwards we got lunch and made it to packet pick up at TrySports. I walked around and touched everything since I never get to go to real triathlon stores. CB found a tech tee she wanted so I bought it for her and since it was $40 bucks they through in a gel flask for me. Which was great since I realized I forgot mine.

We headed to the hotel, showered, napped, I packed my transition bag, we went to Olive Garden for dinner, down to Historic Downtown Wilmington to get ice cream at Kilwins and then back to the hotel for bed. CB said she likes race weekend because its the only time I eat "normal".

Woke up this morning, showered and was off to the race. GREAT.RACE. Review to come tomorrow.

We stuck around until they did awards for my age group and then started the ride home. CB let me stop for cheese steaks since the restaurant I love is primarily on the eastern part of the state. I was in and out of sleep.

I had a great ride home. I listened to CB singing the songs of our middle school years like Bush, Off Spring, Green Day, and a few others. She was so cute. I tried to tape it but she was afraid it would make it here (because it was going to) so she kept stopping. We aslo stopped at an outlet mall to do a little shopping. i still need new clothes from all the weight loss. I was wearing size 42 waist pants before I started training. I bought 38's in December of 2009, 36's this past December, and today was 34's. This weekend was also the first time I saw myself in a full length mirror, since we don't have on in the house. I had no idea how different I look.

Overall it was a great weekend. I had the most fun with CB. She was adorable, it reminded me how much i love her. It reminded me of the silly 18 year old I started dating 10 years ago. Amazing what happens when you remove the day to day stresses of life. i hope we can make it out of town again sometime this year.

checking in

2011-04-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

It has been a busy three days. Leaving no time for goofing off. Wednesday we had a. Bomb dropped on us at work leaving me working from the time I walked in until after 8pm. It left me so exhausted that I went straight home didn't eat and got in bed. unfortunately I didn't fall asleep until 3 am.

Despite the lack of sleep I still made it to swim in the morning. It was speed work and it was bad. the rest of the day was a blur. Half day at work and then home to do lawn work and other odds in ends to get ready for our trip.

Friday was more of the same. Up to get an oil change and new tire, and then finishing packing. Everything done and then in the car to make the cross state drive to Wilmington. We got here, I went to the race site for an easy, short brick and then dinner.

After three busy days all I plan to do is hang out on the beach and go to packet pick up. Rest today and race tomorrow.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Who is the boss of Social Media? or The World's Worst Post EVER!

2011-03-29T09:59:00.000-04:00

What is the purpose of social media? What is the purpose of facebook? What is the purpose of Twitter? What is the purpose blogging? What is the proper usage? Who is in charge of moderating them?

Yesterday I ~~listened to someone rant~~ had a conversation regarding how you should not tie up facebook with whining about personal issues because no one cares. And later there was a second ~~rant~~ conversation about how too many people are using twitter to post stupid details of their lives that no one needs to care about.

I kind of listen to people rant for a living so it doesn't phase me much. On the drive home it hit me- Why did this person keep saying "No offense Tucker" REPEATEDLY!

That made me think about if the real point of the rant was to infer that I post details that no one cares about and do too much whining. This got me thinking about social media as a whole and about what it's purpose is. I thought about how all three of my main social medias are voluntary. With twitter, blogger, and facebook other users CHOOSE to follow you. My message are not spammed to you.

If the comment were intended toward me I thought that while one person may not care some of the 120 face book friends that I trimmed down from 2,000, the 75 twitter followers, and 73 blog followers must give some credence to my inner thoughts. Not to mention those that read my articles on Examiner.com or Run Addicts, or the few companies that have agreed to sponsor my multi-sport life.

Just in case anyone was unsure, I thought I would share a few things:

This is the button to use to manage your reading list, click it, find my blog, and then follow directions to unfollow if you would like.

This is the unfollow button on twitter.

This is the remove friend icon on facebook.

With that little bit of aggravation out of the way, I though today I would post one of the most mundane things I could think of since no one cares..... a day in the life of me (typical Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday.)

05:15 Alarms goes off, might hit snooze. If it is cold outside or raining and I have a run or bike planned I go back to sleep. If it is a swim, I go.

05:17 Peeing, scratching, changing to swim suit and sweats.

05:25 Leave for Y.

05:26 Go back in house for towel.

05:27 Walk to Y

05:32 Swim (today)

06:05 - 06:30 Get home from Y, take dogs out, shower, dress, talk to CB, make whinnie noises while saying "Mom, I don't wanna go to school today", feed dogs, make and eat breakfast or if I am running late grab fat free yogurt and fruit.

07:10 -07:20 leave for work. On time is 07:10.

07:45 Get to work and undress to go through security. Be happy that the person working isn't the officerwho used to touch all of your lunch. (the airport doesn't phase me anymore)

08:00 Get to office, open work email and look for emergencies, open ~~real~~ personal email, open blogger. Eat breakfast if I was running late.

08:15 Call inmates to office for "correctional counselling", i.e. listening to them talk about they are innocent and their sentence is too long. Then I try to get them into substance abuse programs or GED. OR I might spend the morning assigning inmates to jobs like cook, clothes sorter, janitor, etc. OR I might inventory and order barber supplies.

10:00 Snack: Today it is apple and peanut butter and a diet soda (pop, if you will). Open four blogs. Try to read all four while I eat.

10:10 Take 2 at doing the work from above.

10:45 Start paperwork associated with the above tasks. If it isn't documented it didn't happen.

12:00 Eat Lunch- Today it is spinnach salad with grilled chicken.Read blogs while I eat. Today I will also go to the fitness center to lift weights.

1:00 Repeat 08:15

3:00 Eat snack. Today it is tuna with brown mustard. Try to read blogs of those who posted at lunch time.

3:10 Round two for the afternoon, similiar to 10:10.

3:45 paperwork.

4:45 start winding down.

5:00 Leave office, walk through prison, try not to get stopped by inmates in the dining hall, leave prison, walk to gatehouse, wait outside of gatehouse, get through gatehouse and find car.

5:12 Drive home.

5:45 Arrive home.

5:46 If I have a swim or bike planned, change and leave. If I have a run it can wait and I start dinner and take dogs out.

7:00 Eat dinner and talk to CB

8:00 try to wind down, odd and ends, bitch about the pain cave not being complete, do bills, etc.

9:30 Get in bed and wait for CB to get off the phone with mom, or to get done reading or to stop doing WHATEVER so I can go to sleep- All while I ponder the thought of separate bedrooms.

In a more perfect world, I would be hanging in a hammock on the uninhabited beach in the keys where me and my friends paddled out to and camped the summer after we finished high school.

Yoplait Giveaway Results, Volunteering

2011-03-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

I used the statistical regression that I learned in grad school known as eanie-meanie-miney-mo and the winner of the Yoplait prize pack giveaway was Katie from ~~super hot mom in a bikini~~ Run for the Bikini!. Send me a shipping address to tucker_lr (@)yahoo(.)com so I can get it over to Yoplait. By the way her post for today is titled "Quickie" and since I have the sense of humor of a 15 year old, the title gave me a chuckle.

Yesterday I volunteered at the Cool Breeze Triathlon in Huntersville, NC. My job was to greet, provide security, and assist in transition. When the transition area opened it was just a degree above freezing and the day only had a high of 47. You could watch some of the athletes turn blue as they raced. It took a lot of guts to race at those temps and with rain on and off. I was hoping to meet LB from My Reason to Run, but did not get the chance. According to the results, she did very well but I won't spoil it for her.

I talked to quite a few people and many came from far away to race. I spoke to one person who drove from Richmond, Virginia and I spoke to several men and women who were racing representing the U.S. Naval Academy Triathlon Team. I asked why so many people came so far for this race. They told me that coming this far is the only way to get races in this early in spring. This makes me glad to live here, although I'd rather be in SoCal or Florida- but the grass is always greener.

While working yesterday here are the top 5 reasons I came up with for volunteering-

5. Free T-Shirt,
4. Chance to spy on the elites and their equipment,
3. Encouraging and cheering for racers who may not have families with them,
2. Watching hot, wet chicks strip without a 2 drink minimum or the need for a stack of ones, and
1. Helping continue the sport by allowing others to race.

A Little bit of Everything.

2011-03-25T11:03:00.000-04:00

I am somewhat overwhelmed right now. I have several things going on that I almost think deserve their own posts, however that requires time to write separate posts and having to wait to get them out. Instead of waiting and doing separate posts I am going to attempt to touch on each one with the brevity of a journal article summary. Not sure where to start but here goes....

Build Period- This week and last week have had some tough workouts, I feel like I am earning my taper week.

Race Prep- The hardest thing about getting ready for my first race is mental preparation. Lately I have been feeling like I have lost my speed. In fact, I am probably faster than last year. I train very hard and am hitting speeds I couldn't touch last year. They take a lot out of me, making me think I am not doing as well I actually am. I went slower last year but didn't feel as gassed, now I work harder and go faster- I don't think my mind hasn't caught up yet. It's like the evil dimwit in the Jimmy Dean commercial going "you can't do it, you can't run that fast!" Oh....., but I can!

Two workouts remain for the week a long ride of 55 miles, today, and a super hard brick at race tempo on Sunday. That workout will be a confidence builder I am sure. Then it will be on to taper!

CB'S race prep- No CB is not racing, but she is very excited about our trip to the beach for this race. She has been sending me links and making itineraries daily. She has a folder where she is organizing the trip. She loves the beach and is happy to get out of town. I am focused on racing, she is focused on a fun trip. I am glad I have her to keep me balanced next weekend!

Long run- After last week being the first successful long run since my knee injury, yesterday was another long run with an increase in mileage from 8 to 9 miles. Ran some good hills, but around 8.5 miles my knee started to hurt. I stopped right there, walked home and stretched. No pain after the run. I am not going to risk it. I noticed that when I look over my shoulder to check traffic, etc I twist on my knee. I think that is part of this.

Diet- Three times this year so far I have said I was going to go back to my diet and start writing things down again because my weight loss was stalling. I like writing down what I eat for a few weeks because it gets me back on the right track. Since 3/14 I have stuck to it and had positive results-

Weight- I have had slow loss while sticking to my diet but I am happy. I do not count a new weight until I see it for three days in a row. The last three days have been 186, 186, 185. I HAVE ARRIVED! I may be fashionable late, but I have met my 2010 goal. I was hoping to be at 180 by this time in 2011, but I. AM. EXCITED.

Shooting- My 2011 goals included wanting to try out a few IDPA shooting tournaments. I have to keep a high degree of proficiency with firearms for my job so I have thought about doing these for a little extra training. With most of the big ticket items on my 2011 budget handled I am probably only a few months away from buying a quality pistol I can use for these tournaments. I am also looking at buying an entry level .22 to teach CB to shoot. She has always wanted me to take her to the range. This is something we can do together.

Acura- YES AGAIN!!!! You can still go here- http://cot.ag/hvgAuo, click on Lucas Tucker,and then click vote. I am holding fast at #15 of 1522 athletes, but need 1200 votes to pass the leader; I am not sure how to market to get those votes. Remember after you vote go to my 3/16 post and leave a comment for a chance to win a prize pack from Yoplait.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND RACING, TRAINING, AND SPENDING TIME WITH YOUR FAMILIES!!!

Acura Update

2011-03-22T16:37:00.001-04:00

As of this afternoon I have 58 votes putting me in 18th place. #1 is at 1151 votes.

2 more votes ties me for 17th, 3 more for 16th, and 7 more for 15th.

When I entered this I thought it would be easier considering my networks. I was counting contacts including high school friends, undergrad friends, grad school friends, random facebook friends, fraternity brothers, search and rescue team mates, coworkers, and bloggers. By far bloggers have the highest turnout and I thank you all for that.

I did some recon and the number 1 guy has 4,000 freinds to my 117. Maybe I shouldn't have cleaned house removing my random 1900 friends I didn't really know, two years ago.

Again thank you all and please continue to vote everday. http://cot.ag/hvgAuo

-Lucas Tucker

Sometimes other things are just more important

2011-03-22T07:00:00.002-04:00

Last night I was on the way home from work and since I knew that CB had a teacher workday I was hoping dinner would be ready and I could eat and get my brick out of the way early. As I neared home she called and let me know that her mom had invited us over for dinner and she had made taco salad in an order to keep me away from high carb foods.

Being that the family is dealing with the death of the oldest member, laid to rest this afternoon at 99 years old, I figured although I would have rather stayed at home the family would probably like to be together. Not to mention considering everything, CB probably didn't feel like making dinner anyhow.

Before leaving home we discussed our evening plans. She planned to convince her mom to go for a power walk with her and I would start my brick from their house. She drove over in about the same time it took me to ride my bike.

After dinner was said and done she tried to convince her mother and middle sister to walk wither her and had no positive results. She decided to go home and grab our dogs to walk with her instead. As she got ready to leave I threw on my bike shoes and headed out.

Once outside, Gracie, the youngest sister at 11, was outside riding circles on her knock off razor scooter int he drive way. I decided I would ask her if she would like to ride her bike with me since I had planned to just ride the mile loop in their neighborhood for my workout.

Gracie smiled and said "let me go put on some shorts!". She returned a few minutes later wearing gym shorts and the pink, skull covered skateboard helmet I got her for Christmas. CB tried to talk Grace out of riding with me momentarily telling her that I ride fast and was going to ride 15 miles. I explained I would ride back over with Grace as soon as she was tired and then get on with my workout. I decided instead of the 15 mile goal I would just ride for an hour then go home and transition.

Gracie rode three miles with me, death gripping her brakes and averaging 8 minutes per mile. After 3 miles she said her legs hurt and I rode back home with her. I made up for the slow miles by sprinting another 4 20+ mph miles and then took a long way home through the neighborhood trying to practice cornering at speed (I realized cornering is a weakness as I ride mostly rural roads and my first race is a tight, technical course).

Much like many of us, I get caught up on data, results, key workouts, and racing. However, tonight I decided that it was more important for me to not worry about "hitting my workout" as much as to encourage an 11 year old to play outside. It was more important to share my love of riding all types of bikes with another generation.

I have been riding a bike since I was 4 years old; I have had bmx, mountain, now a road bike, and I can't wait to turn my old bike into a fixie. As a kid I played outside until it was dark. If we lived near woods I walked all threw them, I built trails with a rake. I designed dirt tracks and jumps for bike racing. If we had trees I climbed them, ofter taking a backpack and other activities into the tree to play with. If we had a yard I dug holes in it (using kitchen utensils). I was always outside. My sibling and my in-law siblings which after 10 years feel like my own, are not like that. They mostly watch tv and play on the computer. That is why in this case I knew that my race day performance is not as important as sharing this with Grace. If shorting this workout costs me a minute on the course I will gladly take that minute knowing that Gracie had fun riding her bike with me.

Real life v. Triathlon life

2011-03-21T09:34:00.001-04:00

I work 5 days (at my full time job) per week. I look forward to my weekends. Since I work to live, not live to work, thinking about my weekend is what gets me through the week. I show up Monday expecting it to feel like a Monday. I show up Tuesday thinking "one day down". Wednesday is hump day and at the end of the day I revel in the fact the week is half over. Thursday I tell myself that Friday is pretty much the weekend, and on Friday I tell myself I am going to take it easy, because the weekends starts at 5.

The amount that some of train are equivalent to a second job. However, I do not typically workout all week counting down to my day off. I am not exactly sure but I think last week would be considered a build week in preparation for my April 3rd race. As the tough workouts of the week progressed I was looking forward to my recovery day, even more so when I realized I had a second brick on Friday. I knew I would need the recovery day between that brick and the long run on Sunday.

Ideally, in perfect triathlon world my recovery day would include sleeping in, wearing compression clothes all day, trips to get a massage, a few naps, a good soak, and other generally relaxing items on my itinerary. In my mind I think of laying on my deck while being fanned with palm leaves and fed grapes, I however am not sure of the connection to that and muscle recovery. That may be a mental health issue.

The biggest problem with this, other than not having the massage and spa available to me, is that sometime the worlds collide. Just because my triathlon life says its time to recover, doesn't mean that my real life agrees. For me Saturday, my recovery day, was spent more focused on real life than triathlon life. I woke up early to drive thirty minutes away to a rec center where I recently started teaching a kids karate class, then I returned home, had a snack, went to the in-laws to grab a few tools, returned home, mowed and edged the lawn, blew the remaining fall leaves and grass clippings, fired up the chain saw to cut down a tree, cleaned the deck, then went inside to clean the inside of the house. The only thing from my perfect triathlon vision that I did was wear recovery tights under my gi at karate.

The soreness I was feeling the night before was back. Yesterday I skipped church to sleep in a little and rest my legs. Then I went for my long run and went for speed work on the bike after a 45 minute recovery period. Today I woke up with legs still sore and it is swim drill day. I look forward to this day as partially a learning day and partially a good recovery day. However, since I think that my kick rhythm and leg position are slowing me down I did kick drills this morning. Needless to say my legs are still sore (and I have a brick tonight).

In the end, it would be nice if the two worlds lived in peaceful coexistence however sometimes I am faced to live with injury, illness, prison escapes, and chores. All I know right now is that unlike last year when i was anxious and trying to sneak in workouts during my taper, this time I am looking forward to it. i feel like I am earning it.

VOTE EVERYDAY!!! You no longer need to search for me just click Lucas Tucker on the front page :), Once you vote head over to Wednesday's post and enter to win a prize pack! If every follower (minus Dustin) votes today and gets two friends to vote I could be 1/3 the way to tied. http://cot.ag/hvgAuo

Week ??? of ??? training.

2011-03-20T20:47:00.001-04:00

After two weeks sick it feels great to be back training, and it's great to have completed a full week. Before, I was numbering the weeks of training toward my HIM but I was using a stock HIM plan. Now I am still working toward that race, but my plan also has workouts that are clearly targeted toward my next sprint 100. With that in mind I wasn't sure how to title this post. But with out much further adieu my week...

S: 4100.00 M, 1h 32m
B: 50.20 Mi, 3h 11m 06s
R: 17.62 Mi ,2h 40m 08s

Str: 30m

Swimming- I am enjoying the drill workout my coach has me doing every week. I recently read that swimmers have such an edge in triathlon because they are used to doing basics at every workout and once they begin training other areas they keep up this practice. For that reason I feel these drill workouts are essential. I have been working on the stroke gold drill as one of the weekly drills. I can now get across the pool in 5 strokes, it was 23 last season. I think this means I am getting a better understanding of body positioning and catch. I still need to work on kicking and not dropping my legs.

Bike- Total this week was shorter than my long ride this week. It was two bricks, tempo and longer (20 miles), and a speed workout. No long ride, but every ride had a purpose.

Run- Highlight of the week was today. Today was my long run. 8 miles at a 9:23 pace, I did it with a pace of 9:22 and 4 miles were on trail. I think this always slows me down. However, this pace was 37 seconds faster per mile than my last long successful long swim. After missing two runs to flu, one to bad pre-run fuel, and two or three to injury, it was nice to get my confidence up and get one in the bag. The down side was my brick Friday night. I am not sure if it was the 80 degrees, the fact I rode 20 miles, or only taking 20 ounces of water on the ride, but I took everything I had to run three miles at a 9:00 pace. I usually average a 8:15 training pace after a 11 mile ride.

Diet has gone great this weak. I have eaten mostly clean and my weight has been 187 for the last two days.

ACURA- As of this evening I was number 19 on the leader board with 43 votes. The leader has 1020. I can still catch up in 13 days if you all keep voting for me and I keep pushing my other networks. With 200 facebook friends, 72 followers, and 100,000 fraternity brothers I should be in lead by my math. VOTE EVERYDAY!!! You no longer need to search for me just click Lucas Tucker on the front page :), Once you vote head over to Wednesday's post and enter to win a prize pack! http://cot.ag/hvgAuo

Updates, Thoughts, and Junk.

2011-03-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

Update: As of this morning when I checked I had twenty votes to win the Acura TSX Wagon. I know a few people have messaged me since that they voted. If you haven't voted today or at all go vote http://cot.ag/hvgAuo .

Once you vote you can have an entry into yesterday's giveaway for some gym stuff. I am looking for prizes to do another giveaway the week after this one ends. Maybe some cooler stuff. At work I have resulted to promising taxi services should I win. This harassment will continue for 15 more days.
The good news is that with my 20 votes I was officially on the leader board, last but on it. The bad news is I was 788 votes from the leader. I was thinking that with 100,000 fraternity brothers I would get a little closer, no luck so far, maybe my 71 followers and your networks can help me :)

Thoughts: The other day I mentioned that my first race of the season is just two and a half weeks away. That kind of hit me upside the head the other day. I hadn't really thought about it much. I had thought about registering for races, watching caps to make sure I get in, getting training miles done, but never about the race. All of a sudden I am thinking about it a lot. I am analyzing my next two weeks of workouts about how they pertain to the race. I am thinking about it a lot but not obsessing...not at all like I was in the fall.

Although I am still not convinced that having a coach has been the best option for me, however I have been very thankful lately. In the past when a schedule change came up or I switched races I had to take the stock training plans and spend hours reorganizing them after soliciting advice here. It is good to not have to think about things like that, just follow the plan, if I change races call the coach. easy peasy.

I also found out today (not sure how I missed this) that my upcoming race will start in a heated OUTDOOR pool. I find this interesting. Not sure how I missed this in the details- adapt, overcome!

JUNK: The Wounded Warrior Project is one of my favorite charities and one of their partners for fund raising is the One Tough Mudder race, something else I would like to one day. I follow them on facebook where this video was posted, I thought it was funny so I decided to share!

Yoplait Yogurt Review and Giveaway

2011-03-17T11:36:00.001-04:00

Recently, through http://www.myblogspark.com/ I had the chance to take part in the Yoplait one million cup giveaway. Yoplait provided me with a voucher for a free cup of yoplait yogurt in hopes that I would try it and write a review. According to their spark here is the information they want you to know:

"Yoplait is committed to making it easier for women to add more calcium to their diet every day with the newly reformulated Yoplait Original style yogurt.

Now with two times the amount of calcium of the leading yogurt, that’s 50 percent of the Daily Value in one convenient 6-ounce cup, Yoplait Original yogurt provides women with an easy and delicious way to get the calcium they need. Yoplait Original also contains 50 percent of the Daily Value of vitamin D, which helps with the absorption of calcium. Yoplait is committed to women’s health and is proud to offer a product that has even more of the calcium and vitamin D they need for strong, healthy bodies.

Yoplait Original Style yogurt is available in 4-cup packs and easy-to-store 8-cup fridge packs in 23 delicious flavors including Strawberry, French Vanilla, Harvest Peach, and Blackberry Pomegranate."

I took the voaucher to my local supermarket and picked up a cup of Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt (if memory serves me corectly)

Here are my thoughts: I enjoy eating Yoplait, it is the yogurt I was raised on. There are more flavors than I can list that I enjoy. The only drawback that I find is that after cleaning up my diet during the last few year every style I try tastes a little too sweet and not very natural to me. Personally, I do still like to eat either with fruit as a breakfast when I running late or as a late night snack. I could eat worse for a desert but the sweetness of the yogurt serves me sweet tooth well.

Yoplait via MyBlogSpark have provided me with a prize pack with a gym bag and a few other gym accessories in order to giveaway. They suggested that I ask readers to leave a comment about how they are getting more calcium in thier diets, however I am throwing a curve ball. Here are the ways to enter this giveaway:

1)**MANDATORY** Go to Acura Compete Like a Pro- Facebook Page and enter my name -Lucas Tucker- and then click vote twice. You can repeat this everyday until the cutoff of this giveaway (below)

2) After you click the vote graphic on the above facebook page, click the share button to put a note on your own facebook wall.

3) Share this contest via your blog, facebook, or by tweeting "Win a Yoplait prize pack by helping @superfatlete win a new Acura http://tinyurl.com/46offln ".

4) Lastly, if you have done the others leave a comment about the importance of calcium in your diet.

Leave a comment for every entry you earn (14 total I think). This contest will run through March 27, 2011.

Note: Yoplait provided you with the free product, information, and giveaway through MyBlogSpark

Hello World

2011-03-16T18:45:00.000-04:00

First off and very important- for the next 17 days I will be trying to win a Acura TSX Wagon, competing against 1000 (if I recall the email correctly). To win I need my friends, family, followers, and coworkers to vote for me on the Acura Compete Like a Pro- Facebook Page. To vote do the following- (1)click contestant roster and (2) just above the first line is a search box where you can enter my name ***Lucas Tucker*** otherwise Kovas says I am on page 30. (3) click vote on the line by my name, (4) on the next page click the vote graphic. After this please click share and encourage anyone else you know to vote.

Yesterday there were people who only clicked on the vote line next to my name but not the vote graphic on the next page so the votes did not count. As of this afternoon I was about 500 votes behind the leader and not even on the leader board, but not far behind others on the leader board. I think I can pull this out if exploit all of my contacts. I have also started promising taxi service to my coworkers for voting.

Everyone can vote once per day. 17 more days left!! With your help we can make it happen!!!

In a comment yesterday one crazy pengiun said she wanted to hear some good news from me today, not sure if that was in reference to the Acura or not, but since she asked I will share some. If you watched the Ford Ironman World Championship broadcasts in December you may remember an add for a a Ford Ironman Challenge through DailyMile. Well, I entered one of the four challenges and it turns out I am one of the winners. I was contacted this afternoon and their PR firm is sending me a pair of K Swiss running shoes. If I get quality shoes I will be sure to share their performance with my friends.

Another piece of positive yet unsettling news is that my first race for 2011 is only about 16 days away. The Wilmington Athletic Club Sprint Triathlon on April 3rd. CB is looking forward to the time away at the beach, she is more excited than I am. USAT dues paid, registered for the race, hotel booked, dinner plan made. Have a few plans for the trip but I have plenty of time to post about those in the weeks to come. My 70.3 race is also less than 2 months away.

The first week I was sick I still got in a few workouts. I had a few bagged before I admitted I was sick and I snuck out of the house to do a few more (don't tell CB) after I admitted sickness. I was not able to do my long run or long ride, I took an L and admitted being sick. For the first week of march looked like this:

S: 2650.00 M, 1h 02m
B: 22.06 Mi, 1h 30m 54s
R: 2.00 Mi, 16m 54s
Str: 30m

The next week I was not able to start training until mid-week but probably should have waited longer. I worked hard and pushed it all together, even managing to keep my rest day. I did however, short my long run, coach had me doing tempo for part of it and I was not able to handle it. This was also my first week back doing lower body weight training, however it is limited to one set.

S: 3550.00 M, 1h 25m 35s
B: 77.00 Mi, 4h 53m 30s
R: 12.33 Mi, 42h 15m 30s
Str: 40m

So far do good this week, however I have not been able to hold tempo runs, the two weeks out with an injury and two weeks with the flu almost back to back don't help (in my opinion). My coach has my HM pace as 7:55, my fastest mile ever is 7:13. It is tough to hold onto the speed for too long, but hopefully by May 7th, I will have it with no problems.

More to come this week.

Back from the Dead

2011-03-15T08:52:00.001-04:00

After multiple doctors visits, a hospital visit, and ordered bed rest I have returned (and returned to training). I look forward to giving a longer post tommorow with an update and what's been up but in the mean time....

I am trying to win an Acura on faebook. In order to win I need your votes, voting is via facebook and you can vote everyday!!! Help me win a TSX Sport Wagon! Go to Acura's Facebook page and vote for me! http://cot.ag/hvgAuo

For those of you who do not know my real name, I am listed on the polls as Lucas Tucker.

Thank you everybody!!!!

NOTE: There should be a box at the top of page 1 of athletes where you can put in my name, avoiding going from page to page looking.

The day off..... by default

2011-03-02T20:06:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had something that you needed to do that you couldn't? I did today. Today it was sleep. On Monday and Tuesday I left work early because I was not feeling well, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Yesterday, I got home an hour early and planned to take a forty-five minute nap and ended up sleeping for two hours. Today I am home and can't fall asleep as hard as I try.

Having felt odd since Sunday night I woke up this morning with a tender throat, I went to the pool for a 200m swim and then came home to get ready for work. I debated if I should take the day off and rest but was hedging. I worried that my work and my wife would think I was just skipping for the sake of avoiding work. It is openly known by my wife and some of my coworkers that I do not enjoy work (those same coworkers detest the job as well).

I decided to go to the urgent care, partially to see if I was sick, but mostly to prove to my wife and work that I was not just calling out to avoid work. I was seen by a physician and assess. He then informed me that I am on the tail end of the flu and I have strep throat. He then told me I needed to take a few days off work.

After I left I called CB. She seemed stunned. She then explained that she was so shocked over how well I was handling it considering Sunday I went for a 47 mile ride followed by a recovery swim, Monday I went for a swim and lifted, and yesterday I did a brick. I explained to her that clearly this is the regular flu, not the man flu.

Today I rented The American and Salt. I recommended Salt for a good action movie. It didn't go the way I thought it would but it was good none the less. I found The American slow and anti-climactic. I have also almost watched half of the Sopranos box set.

I am looking forward to tomorrow off too.

Week 8 of HIM Training

2011-03-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

I can not believe it has already been two full months of training. It all seems to be running together at this point. My leg is feeling better so I am picking up distance on the run again. I am stretching my hamstrings and IT band twice a day.

FOR THE WEEK:
S: 2450.00 M, 56m 15s
B: 88.87 Mi, 6h 28m 35s
R: 5.01 Mi, 46m 12s
Str: 20m

Swim: This week I did my first long swim in three weeks. It felt awkward. My plan has me doing one to two short swim concentrating on drills and one long swim. This week it only had one short swim, during this swim I did drills for 350m. I alternated stroke golf and a face down kicking drill(as opposed to on my back or side). The 200m cool down I swam after the drills was the most fluid feeling swim I think I have ever had. I even worked up the nerve for my first flip turn during this. BTW, I also started working on flip turns this week.

Bike: One long ride, two trainer rides, and a very short ride as part of a brick. One of the trainer rides was an bonus that I threw in to make up for shorting a run. The long ride ended up longer than planned because I stopped my garmin at a stop light and forgot to turn it back on. I spent the first half of the long ride in aero. My parts that sit on the tip of the saddle hurt by the time I was half way through the ride, so I didn't spend much time in aero on the way home. By the time I was home my butt hurt. I say it every week but I need a new saddle. I also want a Profile Designs Fast Forward seatpost.

Run: The highlight of the week was my brick. On Tuesday I rode a short 8 miles and then a 2 mile run. I got a weird feeling when I started. It felt labored similar to the start of all of my brick runs, like it is taking a minute for my legs to change sports, but it also felt fast. I looked at my GPS and was in the 7:45 range. i made myself slow down to 9:00. I finished the first mile at 8:40. I made myself slow down again, but I ended up finishing the second mile in 8:30. The coolest part about this run was that it did not feel hard, I was not winded. A third mile at that pace would top my run leg of either of my races last year. It would almost top my 5k PR. It makes me feel like it is going to be a good year!

Working my mileage back up, my long run this week was to be 6 miles. Unfortunately I did not finish. It wasn't because of my knee or IT band it was because the whopper and onion rings I had eaten an hour earlier made me want to puke.

Weight: I hate to admit this but I am going to put it out here in an effort to remain accountable- my weight is back up to 195. That is a 5 pound gain in a week and a half. I had 5 consecutive days during that time frame when my nutrition was completely out off the reservation. As of today I am going back on the protein power diet. I plan to stick to it for at least 2 weeks in order to get my system back in check. I may stick to it until I hit my goal weight.

Random Stuff

Watched a movie for the first time while on the trainer. I watched SWAT and did a pyramid workout.

Finally bought new shoes. I bought the Saucony Mirage, I will post a review soon.

For V-day CB bought me the book "The Perfect Distance" I will also give you my thoughts on this soon.

I am looking for a good movie to rent, any suggestions? May even rent something today if I leave work early.

The Triathlon Spouse

2011-02-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

Last night my schedule called for a short 8 mile run, 2 mile run brick. The timing of my workouts of my workouts revolves changes constantly due to dinner plans, work schedules, and sun light. Yesterday since I needed to ride I would need to begin my workout as soon as I got home from work in order to take advantage of the little light that was left. This also means me leaving the house before my wife gets home from work.

When I got home from the bike leg I quickly entered the house and started my transition. As I was changing* CB yelled from the bedroom "Are you done with your workout?", I responded "No, I have a quick 2 mile run and then I'll be done". She then responded "I figured as much, I noticed you set up a transition area out there" and then I was back out the door.

As I ran I thought about how funny it was that she saw shirt*, shorts*, hat, and shoes and did not identify it as a mess I left on the floor, but as a transition area and then inferred I must be in mid-workout. This made me realize that although she is not involved in the sport, she is involved in the sport. She is not a fan of the sport, but a fan of me and therefore a natural supporter of triathlon. I should also note that she did watch and enjoy the Kona broadcast and thinks Macca is an ass; but I still can't get her to workout with me :)

When I got home, we headed out to meet her mom and lil' sister for dinner and had a good laugh about her noticing my "transition area". This got me thinking about how I have seen list like "you know you are dating a triathlete when..." but never have I seen a list about triathlon spouses.

This is something I would like to add as a tab on this blog. I would love to hear anecdotes from you seasoned vets about how to tell you are married to a triathlete. For example, although this is stolen from a "dating a triathlete" list it is still true for me..... You know you are married to a triathlete when he/she says I'm going to run to the store and he/she actually runs to the store.

I would love if anyone who reads this leaves a comment so we can come up with a list!

* I enjoy sharing the lessons I learn in training and in life. A month or two ago I purchased my first pair of bibs. I love them. I think they are great to ride in. Yesterday I put them on before my brick, and then when I grabbed my shoes and hat to stage I realized I was going to have a hard time running in the bibs. So then I grabbed a pair of shorts to change into. At this point I realized I would need to take off my jersey and vest to put on the shorts, so I might as well put on a running shirt so I grabbed one of those to stage too. Lesson Learned: On short brick days , just ride in running shorts or buy some tri shorts.

Week 7 of HIM

2011-02-21T12:40:00.000-05:00

This week was not as slow as last week, but not the high volume I had seen for the first 5 weeks.

S: 1800.00 M, 1h 05m
B: 11.00 Mi, 37m 28s
R: 3.00 Mi, 30m
Str: 50m

Swim: This week spent more time on drills than laps or speed. Always good to work on form, however when Sundays swim rolled around with 600-800m (my choice) I only did 600m because I could not find my rhythm.

Bike: Only one bike ride this week it was a time trial. Coach wanted Flat, but since I don't have that we used the local tri course. This is good since I have used it for all my time trials in my own training. I finished my 10 mile TT in under 25 minutes. This is the fastest ever for me. I finished the whole course in under 40 also a PR. I am very happy with this. I went hard without it feeling like I was going too hard. It almost feels wrong but it was Garmin timed. Either the rest, the spinervals (all two weeks worth), or the long rides have been paying off. My goal for the Statesville Rotary Tri would be 30 minutes on the bike leg. Just over 1mph more on my avg speed and I will be there. These kind of gains make me happy- I can almost touch a goal.

Run: Only 1 run this week. A recovery run on friday- 3 miles. I was told not to run any faster that 10 minute miles.It was perfect weather at 50+ and sunny at 09:00. I warmed up at a very low jog. I had a little pain on the outside and below my knee cap but after a half mile warm up it was gone. I did not push my pace, just enjoyed the weather. Even without pushing time flew by. I love when the weather is so nice.

Strength: One of the funny things to me is that last when I started training with Coach Chris he gave me the strength workout he wanted me doing and it was the same routine I have been doing since October. However, in the last few weeks I had fallen off out of time constraints. Now, he has it as part of my schedule which means I have the time. As a safety measure he had me do it without the lower body moves.

Weight: After two months I am still stuck at 190. Since I am still only 4 pounds from my 2010 goal it is starting to piss me off. Like I said before I started logging calories to make sure I was eating enough. This week I am going to start using the Active.com calculator for nutrients. If you know of a better website to figure out how many calories I need to lose weight and how to break down the nutrients please share. I feel so close, but although my weight hasn't changing I feel like I am getting father away. I also have the goal of below 180 by my first race. I want to buy the Racing Weight book but haven't got around to it as I have been buying gear instead.

Life: Work has been full of drama lately and this week has been a full load of duties. It has made me feel disconnected from my blog friends. For the last few weeks I have averaged 2 posts per week and only had about two days where I have been able to read others. I enjoy sharing and reading so I hope that I can up my free time sometime soon.

Book review: Four Months to a Four-hour Marathon

2011-02-15T13:37:00.000-05:00

About a month ago there was a snow storm here in the South. I spent two days off of work due to my road being covered in ice. In an effort to keep my sanity I decided to visit the local library. For a small city/medium town that is far from qualifying as a fit or metropolitan and more likely described a combination of a want-to-be gangland and the extras list from deliverance I was surprised how many running books they had. There were even a few triathlon books and when I got home I checked and there are even more cycling books.

I put together a stack of books and checked out; on the way home I almost completly finished one. If it was that easy a read and held my ADHD in check I thought it deserves a review.

Four Months to a Four-hour Marathon
by Dave Kuehls

This book is a concise reference for introductory running topics and training.

Pros: The book is very reader friendly, and it does not contain a gross amount of technical data. It is a quick read and contains all of the informationn on training, stretching, gear, and even race selection that a first time runner may need.

Cons: The book is slightly misleading in that the average first time runner may not be able to realistically run a sub four hour marathon, however for this reason it also has plans for four and a half and five hour marathons. In terms of running clothes and form it may be behind the times.

Overall: I think this is a great starting point for a runner who has bagged their first few 5k's and wants to run a marathon as a part of their bucket list. It would work best when paired with an experienced mentor.

Week 6 of HIM training

2011-02-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

Writing this feels odd since I just posted week 5 three days ago. There have been a lot of changes this week, I'll talk about the number, then the changes.

S: 700.00 M, 15m
B: 14.00 Mi, 1h 04m
R: 20.25 Mi, 4h 41m 45s
Str: 30m

The number feels very lite compared to what I have been putting up for the last few weeks, it almost looks like a recovery week. Except, my workouts were almost all hard, I did a lot of time trialing to set paces for future workouts.

Swim: One swim work a 200m time trial. I did it in 4 flat. This made me mad because I have done a few long workouts at a shorter pace. I may have gone out too fast on the first 100m; it felt like it was closer to me goal of 1:30. The second half was a struggle. I didn't like my results but I did feel like I was working at my threshold.

Bike: I did an hour on the trainer as part of a brick it was cake. It felt weird with no long ride for the week. I have gotten accustomed to it and except for needing a new saddle, I like the long rides. I had a time trial planned for Sunday but decided to pass in order to rest.

Run: The week started out well. My first workout for the week was a 1 mile time trial. I got it done in 7:13 setting a new PR for me by 42 seconds. Now if I can just string those together for 13.1 miles I will be in great shape. The rest of my runs were not so pleasant as described in my last post.

Long run thoughts: limping home sucks!!

Now for the changes: Last night I had a long talk with my coach, about 56 minutes actually. We discussed the pros and cons of a marathon. He was very encouraging to complete it just as a bucket item but to take it slow. Since I have run races from 5k to 15 miles I want go hard on this one. I want a sub 4 hour time. If I can't do it than I would rather put in more training and push it off until later. Since I am going to need some rest for my knee it will put my marathon training mileage down and he suggested I treat it like a training run. I really don't want to pay to do a training run. There is always the fall. After discussion we have decided that i am not going to do the marathon, however I may find something else shorter around the same time as a benchmark and a motivator. I may see if I can find a trail race.

With this decision I also made the request that if I am not working on building marathon endurance that it would be nice to work my half marathon speed.

He is also thinking this may be an IT band injury and gave me some stretches using a rolling pin to do at home.

I already knew I needed to replace my shoes. I looked at Kinvaras this past weekend but the sales people shooed me away from them due to the support level of my current shoes (Omni 9). They said it would n't make sense. Coach Chris brought up an excellent point, I was fitted for my shoes many pounds ago and and could use a shoe now with less heel padding because of this. Also, since we are trying to develop me into a forefoot runner, I should get a shoe that will encourage this as opposed to be current shoe that in a way encourages my to heel strike.

This week is going to be light with only one run in order to rest from the injury. We did discuss as we go from here also ramping up the cycling training. We feel I have the power to be a good cyclist I just need to get the training in to use it.

Although I was hurt last week, I am happy with the new outlook.

The Bad and The Ugly

2011-02-11T19:13:00.000-05:00

This is one my posts where I solicit the assistance of the expert runner and triathletes.

Tuesday my training plan had a 9 mile steady run. 6 miles in my right leg started to hurt around the knee and calf. I ran/walked the rest of the way home. I read up on common running injuries that night.

Wednesday I had a brick with a 3 mile steady run. My knee bothered me a little during this run but not as much as the night before. I read up on running knee pain a little more.

Thursday, I had a tempo run. I warmed up slowly and although my knee was sore as I started, the pain diminished. I ran 4 miles at my tempo pace. My knee slowed me down but just slightly. I iced my knee and took Tylenol when I got home.

Today was my 19 miler. I did the run/walk plan as described on Jeff Galloway's website. I started my first few rounds slow as a warm up. My knee was sore but went away as I went. About 5 miles into my run and on my slow run pace to the second when I came to an intersection where I had to wait for heavy traffic. As I took my next few steps I was in the worst pain. It felt like my knee cap was on the side of my leg. I tried to rest and run again with no luck and ended up waling 1.25 miles home. I am icing as I type this.

After a ton of research I have self diagnosed (because that's always accurate :/) that I have runner's knee.

After reading I am not sure what has caused it. All of my mileage increases have been under 10%, I have been running on and off including on a tack team since I was 15 and never had an injury, I also wear proper footwear. Of all the causes I found online, the only one I believe is likely is the fact that my shoes need to be replaced.

My first injury, of sorts, bothers me. It also made me aware that my priorities are out of order. Good biomechanics are important and being pain free is as well, but what bothers me most is that I have my first marathon a month away from tomorrow and this run is very important and I can't complete it. I want to be able to run a good marathon.

I was trying to decide what do to on my walk home. I thought that since I couldn't run anymore I should go home and ride the trainer. I decided against it in order to rest. Then I thought that I would rest tonight and try my long run again tomorrow. I don't think this is the best idea either. I thought maybe I would do some extra swimming but I don't want to do that either because it isn't on the plan and why pay for coaching if I am going to ad lib on it.

One of the most aggravating things to me is that it is going to be a pretty weekend in the upper 50's here and it would be great time to run, I was off early today so I could run in the nice weather. Not being able to get it done this weekend means I will have to do it in the dark and cold next week after work.

Here are my questions:

Have you ever had this injury?

I have read volumes on the topic now but want to know from other runners, not my nursing and EMT books, how long did it take you to get back running and what did you do that helped?

Any other tips?

Week 5 of HIM training.

2011-02-10T09:16:00.000-05:00

This has been open on my desk top since Sunday, I am going to post it despite the fact I will be posting again this Sunday.

S: 5950.00 M, 2h 29m

B: 63.50 Mi, 4h 00m

R: 22.50 Mi, 3h 45m

Swim- Now that I am kicking consistently I am feeling better about the swim. For the first time I finished a workout faster than the prescribed time. I am usually 5-15 minutes over. I did short my swim meters about 400m for the week. I was running out of time before work so I shorted a cool down.

Bike- I have been bidding on trainers since Christmas and lose consistently. I won two on Monday. Yes, TWO! I won a Blackburn Trakstand and a Kinetics (not Kurt Kinetic) wind trainer. I am trying to resell the wind trainer and no one is buying. The Trakstand came on Friday and since I had an hour ride planned I did the spinervals that I won the week before. FUN TIMES. On Sunday it was 20 degrees so I rode on the trainer for 2.5 hours while watching CSI on DVD. WORST RIDE EVER. I am definitely looking for a new saddle.

I also won Aero bars this week. Can't wait for them to arrive.

Run- Short runs were cake. I did my long run via the Run/Walk as Chris K suggested. Since my HR strap wasn't working I ran by feel. I ran comfortable/slow and running this way I managed to average 9:59 miles. Much faster than normal and amazing considering I walked every fourth minute. The normal soreness I get during long runs didn't start until after 15 and it NEVER got bad. However, after I was done I was sore like never before. That maybe because of the first time at this distance. I also still need new shoes and can't get them until I sell the trainer.

Long Run Thoughts- Swimming. Boredom. I want to try a freestyle snorkel.

Next week I will stop using the BT.com plan and start using a coach. This may be interesting. Not sure what the plan is for next week but he mentioned time trials.

HUNGRY

2011-02-01T15:27:00.001-05:00

My life is full of a constant hunger, a hunger for knowledge (not just endurance related), hunger for opportunities to better myself, hunger for chances challenge myself, hunger to prove myself.

However, recently I have been just regular ol' hungry. Yesterday and last Monday (both involved long swims) I have eaten all day and never been full. I have only experienced this four other times recently- the days of my two sprints, the day of my 10k and 5k combo, and the day of my 15 mile MTC run. All of these day left me with the same feeling. After each one of those races I ate all day and was never full.

As I wrote the other day I have been pondering calorie counting again, but this time to make sure I am eating enough. I plan 3 decent meals and 3-5 snacks everyday. I always have a snack at 10 am and another at 3 pm, the other two typically depend on workout length and meal times. Yesterday I was on my normal (new normal-I'll discuss later) schedule and had my snack at work and before dinner- but I even snacked in between my snacks. Just to list a few things for the day I had yogurt, apple, banana, grapes, salad, grilled chicken breast, ribeye steak, rice snack cakes, cheerios, potato chips, and more.

When I totalled it up on the BT.com nutrition screen I had close to 3,000 calories. This is a ton from me. This rivals my days of 3 trips to Wendy's in a day. The funny thing is I never remember being full and even think I was hungry when I went to bed.

I enjoy looking at this calorie count in a retrospective manner. I went from 3,000-5,000 calories of crap a day, to 1,300 low carb calories a day; then I lost a bit of weight, started working out more and tried to stay under 2,000 with no carb counting (just being smart); and now I have days like yesterday when I eat ALL day, but mostly smart foods, and total 3,000 calories. It is really interesting for me to see things come full circle, in a way.

Just in case anyone is reading this thinking i am having a down-on-myself moment, I am not. I do not think I over ate, I think I could have eaten more. AND BT.com agrees because even with everything I was at a 500 calorie deficit for the day.

Oddly, I just ate lunch an hour ago and ate my afternoon snack with it. I am already hungry again and I have a hour ride and 30 minute run tonight so I am planning to eat a bowl of cheerios first. Maybe with honey.

Has anyone else gone through this when they made an increase to longer training sessions?

Small World

2011-01-31T12:10:00.000-05:00

CB showed me a picture similiar to the one on the left this morning. This is Tracy Morgan and his date to the SAG Awards last night (I captured this photo from a video on Hulu). On the right is a pciture of me and the same young women, from almost ten years ago, taken at a fraternity/sorority event. She is one of the niciest people I have ever met in my life and think it is cool someone I once considered a friend is on the red carpet!!

Week 4 of HIM training

2011-01-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

S: 7000.00 M, 2h 44m 40s

B: 58.75 Mi, 3h 36m 12s

R: 20.06 Mi, 3h 40m

Overall: WOW! This is time consuming and tiring, but I feel great. I had two different life guards tell me they didn't recognize me because of weight loss. However, I am still at 190. No weight loss since December, I thought that I would see a faster loss now than when I started training last year. hmm..... I hope the weight starts to drop soon. I was 186 after my long run but 190 the rest of the week. I want to start counting calories again, partly to make sure I am not OVER-carbing, but more so because I want to make sure I am getting enough calories. Never thought I would have to make that distinction in my life.

Swim: 7000 meters! That may be more than I swam all of last year. Thursday was my long swim and was 2750 total. Monday was speed work and the first time I have ever wanted to puke while swimming. Not do to the speed, but I didn't eat first and my tank was empty. In the past my long run was the only workout I made an effort to fuel before, TO ME it is a cool place to be where I have to start thinking about things like that. I have come a long way from last year. My shortest workout this week was longer than my long workout last year (3x300m).

Bike: Took my long ride at a business park that people rave about as a great training site. I see how it could be great for interval work. I did like that I saw about 50 other cyclists and probably over 50 runners and walkers, however 2 hours going around a 2 mile loop to tedious. About an hour into it I rolled up on a group ride that was going much slower than me, I pulled up and talked to the clean up rider and asked if i could Cling on for a few. I rode with them for about 15 minutes and as their group started to spread out I pulled off and left them. It was nice to have the company.

My mileage was a little short for the week. My two non-long rides didn't yield the miles they should have. I did a power test for one,riding harder for short intervals then resting always leaves me short, and on the other I planned to ride a local loop for an hour then turned it into a time trial after 2 miles. The good news is I made a new PR by 16 seconds. However, I thought when I finally time trialed on it I would do better with the lighter bike and improved fitness. OH WELL A PR IS A PR!!

Run: Although it was not my first time running a 15 miler, it was the first one I ever had pain for. I am going to take the advice of Chris K and try the Jeff Galloway run-walk method on the next long run and see how I feel. My shoes also crossed over 400 miles on that run. That is when I typically replace them.

At the end of my first month, although some of my workouts take longer than the plan says they should, I am HAPPY with the fact that I can completed them. In the next month I hope to pick up a new saddle, aero bars, trainer, and start working with a coach.

Numbers for the month FYI-

S: 25175.00 M - 10h 33m 55s

B: 257.61 Mi - 16h 18m 12s

R: 71.08 Mi - 12h 41m 55s

Str: 1h 23m

Is triathlete synonymous with masochist?

2011-01-29T11:30:00.001-05:00

I guess this could be said about all endurance athletes.

After work Thursday, I came home and commenced my long run. As I have been working toward a March Marathon this was my 15 miler. This is the third time I have run this distance, but it is the farthest distance I have run.

This was not a good run, it may because it was after work not first thing on a weekend, it maybe because I mixed my gel wrong, because I need new shoes, or I may have been having an off day…it happens.

I felt decent until I was around my 11th mile. It went downhill from their. By the time I was done my teeth hurt (weird), my low back hurt, my stomach was ready for a break, every muscle in my legs hurt, and my arches were killing me. Halfway through my fourteenth mile I took a walking break. It wasn’t so much that I was tired and needed to walk, it was more that my legs made a decision on their own to stop. I have never taken a walking break on a long run before.

Once I got home I had a few minutes with the toilet, took a cold shower in lieu of an ice bath (no ice), slipped on my compression sleeves, stretched my arms, legs, hips, and back and then drank a recovery drink.

With the exception of a resting heart rate of 100 I felt good and it only been 30 minutes. Not only did I feel good, I felt refreshed. I felt like I could have slipped my shoes back on and logged some more miles. I am sure I could not have, but I felt like I could have.

At this point I had a few minutes of deep thought regarding how interesting it is that we can endure so many varied levels of pain, and still enjoy training. Not to mention how we force pain upon ourselves in order for better performance on race day and the satisfaction that comes with that.

Product Review: Cheerios MultiGrain Cereal

2011-01-26T10:35:00.001-05:00

Within the mass of emails I get everyday that I end up deleting (not your comments I mean the junk from stores, etc.) I had an email from Myblogspark.com looking for consumers to review MultiGrain Cheerios, since I love cereal I jumped at the chance.

Tuesday evening I had a package on my front stoop and was very surprised when I opened it and found a box of cereal. It makes me just that much happier that the cereal was sent to me as that requires me to do less work.

Since I was just home from work and starving, plus getting ready to change for an hour on the bike and a thirty minute run, I tore the box open and had a snack. Let me also reiterated that when I say I like cereal, I really really like cereal. I love to sit on the floor, eat cereal and watch cartoons, or eat dry cereal out of the box laying on the couch.

As I poured my bowl I ate a few handfuls dry. I noticed that it was sweet so I checked the box and noticed the titles does say lightly sweetened. As a dry snack, this is delicious.

Once milk was added the cereal was still good but it no longer tasted sweet to me, it tasted like Cheerios. This didn't stop me from eating another bowl.

The next morning I added honey and banana and it was again delicious.

The box also came with a code to use The Biggest Loser at Home interface for seven days. Unfortunately my code didn't work, but according to MyBlogspark.com it would have provided me these tools:

A Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator to gauge how much weight you may need to lose or gain to be considered healthy and not at risk for serious health problems
An exclusive 7 Day Plan that pairs daily meal plans with cardio and strength-training routines
15 tasty recipes that will give your body the fuel it needs to get through the day
Daily workouts that couple cardio with mobility and resistance exercises to hit major muscle groups

Coming from my former fat boy, low carb diet I was alarmed that one bowl of this cereal has 20 net carbs, then I thought about how I am no longer restricting my carbs to that degree because i need them for training. With that in mind I think this could be a healthy breakfast or recovery snack.

Note: This product was given to me free of charge to review by myblogspark.com; however, all opinion are my own and I did in fact eat the entire box in one day.

If you had any resolutions this year what have you done to keep them thus far? Leave a comment and one may be chosen at random for a MultiGrain Cheerios Prize Pack.

Week 3 of HIM Training

2011-01-23T17:31:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it has only been three weeks. I completed week 5 of my training plan this week, which is the first week of the build phase.

The numbers for the week were:

S: 5475.00 M, 2h 23m 30s
B: 64.45 Mi, 4h 17m
R: 15.96 Mi, 2h 50m

Swim- I am short about 800m (or it might be 400m) I was running short of time on my long swim day so I dropped the warm up and cool down and went right into the main set- 1x2000. This is my longest non-stop swim ever. Didn't even get tiring until the last 300m or so, I think it became more mentally draining than physical. To me that is great. I would rather feel that way now and work through it then feel that way 4 weeks out and wonder if I can make it. It will also be cool when I get to me first sprint and the 400m swim will be like a warm up set compared to my normal schedule.

Run- Running was interesting this week. Of the three runs, two were 30 minute recovery runs (one for the long swim and the other after the long run). I like when the plan calls for short runs because then i can take Holly to run with me, she needs it! The long run is still only an hour per plan, but I bumped it to 13 miles as part of my marathon training. unfortunately, my route planning was off and I only got in 11. I am not worried.

Bike- As I posted early this week I got my first chance to HTFU on Monday. My hard workout for the week was hill work, but due to rain I took it inside to the Y's trainer. It was not the one with the wattage meter. The workout called for 4 minute intervals at 50-60 rpms, I maxed out the resistance on the bike and was still slightly over spinning. On my short ride, I did 2:30 intervals to keep it interesting. Max wattage was 311 on the last set, AVG was 120. I felt good about the increased average until I found a ride from 3 weeks ago where my average for a ride the same distance was 130 (it was 115 in December). However, I was doing constant workload at the first one and intervals with rest on the one this week. Anyone know what the cheapest power meter available is? How about the cheapest magnetic trainer (don't like wind trainers, the noise makes my dogs bark)?

Did my long ride today and had cold feet but the rest of me was fine. I am still learning what to wear for winter riding.

Strength- no workouts all together this week. I had the hardest time getting out of bed. Some days it was the cold, some days I had not gotten any sleep, and some days I opted out because I was just plain sore and decided I needed rest.

Long run thoughts- I didn't have any weird thoughts to note this week. However, I did note that down town still has lights up on the trees and it looks very pretty. I also noted that I hate getting passed by drivers who are smoking (tobacco or marijuana).

Recovery Day; Blog Award

2011-01-22T18:32:00.001-05:00

This weeks workout plan calls for today, Saturday, to be my recovery day. This is one of the hardest things for me to do. Sit still. I have such a high desire to achieve greatness that it is hard to not train, to take a day off. Last week, according to my training calender I also took a recovery day. I don't remember a workout, but I don't remember the day off either. I had planned to do some hiking today but I decided not to spend the gas on the trip to the trails I wanted to visit. A flatout rest day is probably best.

Today I slept in as long as CB would let me, made a sensible breakfast, and had the idea to see what was playing at the $2.00 theater. Nothing good was playing and CB said I should check the regular theater. There was a movie I wanted to see playing in 30 minutes and CB decided we should get up and go. This was very out of character for her, she never does anything spur of the moment.

I grew up hanging out at the movie theater and I don't require a movie schedule to decide to go. It has not been uncommon for me to just show up see what the next movie playing is and buy a ticket. It could be a cartoon, a western, or an action movie- makes no difference. Now that the movie is over, we will head to her parent's for veggie burgers and no one will realize that in my head I am just counting down until my long ride tomorrow. The plan is for a two hour ride, this will be my longest non-stop ride ever. I have ridden a half century but I got off the bike at the aid station. If I could pull 28-30 miles at a slow pace I think I will be on track to a good time at my HIM.

___________________________________________________________________________________

This week like many of the bloggers I follow I was given a stylish blogger award. I got mine from Moving Mertle at Diets and Sweat. I feel that blog awards of this nature (as opposed to blog awards from say everymantri.com) are similar to the chain mail or herpes of the blogoshpere. In case you don't know- glitter is the herpes of craft supplies. Anyway, I do not mind sharing and I kind of like passing them on because I enjoy reading about history of other bloggers. You know- the really interesting stuff that makes us who were are, the stuff that has nothign to do with our training.

Post and link back to the person who awarded you this award

Share 7 things about yourself

Award 5 bloggers who have "Stylish" blogs

Since I have already linked back to Moving Mertle I will share seven things about myself and then tap 5 more people who can share if they wish.

1. I have been obsessed about cycling power for the last three months. Several times a week I scour the internet to find articles explaining power testing and power training. I have found a ton of stuff to pay for and little for free. I may have found one good blog, after I examine it a little more I will share if it is good. For the last year I have hear people talking about power training. two or three guys in my group ride (can't wait for it to start again) ride with them. None of this got me interested. The stationary bike at the Y has a power meter and I have been monitoring my average wattage. Now that I have some figures I want to find out how to do a proper power test and figure out what typical power output is for an age grouper. Yesterday I averaged 120 watts over a 30 minute interval workout. My best (and last interval) was 2:30 minutes holding 311 watts. I also want to know how wattage on this trainer would translate to a proper cycling power meter. I would like to assume I could do better because with cycling shoes and proper pedals as opposed to the flats on this bike.

2. I recently applied for and was given the position of Greater Charlotte Triathlon Examiner. You may be asking yourself how is a novice in his second season going to write about triathlon. I pitched the position based on writing as a beginner. As I discover new shops, clubs, training sites, I will write about them. Hopefully, this will generate a little income for an extra hour or so of work.

3. My biggest fear in life is failure. I am not a fan of public speaking and don't want to walk around carrying spiders, but failure is the thing that leaves me sleepless most of the time. Most of my obsessing about work, triathlon, and many other things leads back to fear of failure.

4. I love the UK. I love London. I studied in London twice. Once in undergrad, and once in grad school. I love the history of the city and the buildings. I love the culture. I love that I never felt crowded like the videos of the streets of NYC. We spent the lost week of my grad program there in Paris. Paris was cool but i felt very isolated due to the language barrier.

5. I love games. I collect Monopoly. I have an all black board, a board based on London (standard board int he UK, I think), a board base on Berlin, and I have tried to win one written in arabic on eBay. My second favorite game is called crack the case. As far as video games go I didn't grow up with any so I never got one until college. CB bought me a PS2 just to help me make friends when I was a junior, I have probably only logged 100 hours on it in 7 years.

6. My Freshmen year of college I pledge into (no wait that's illegal)- I joined Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. A Phi A in the nations oldest historically african-american, inter-collegiate fraternity. Founded December 4th, 1906 on the campus of Cornell University in Ithica NY (14853). The Nu Zeta Chapter was founded in 1977 and I was the first caucasion brother to join. Before me the closest was a Dominican and a Puerto Rican brother in the 1980's. When I wanted to join some of the brothers contested strongly. I pledged anyways, some of those same brothers tried to make me quit, eventually an older brother told to lay off me and treat me like any other aspirant after he observed my mental toughness for weeks. Despite the initial opposition, I eventually became the chapter president. Only having sister i wanted to build male bonds in college, so I knew I wanted to be greek. I did not fit in with the indigenous mountain boy student population (have you seen deliverance?) so I felt more at home with other men who had more urban upbringings like myself. I learned a few lessons that i hope my brothers learned as well, like being a minority doesn't make you diverse, multi-cultural or not-racist and that just being a minority doesn't make your upbringing more dysfunctional (or harder) that some one who is not a minority. Two of my brothers had that latter belief, just because they were minorities life was harder. Both of them were raised in nuclear families with chief of police fathers; while I was raised on welfare in a single parent home and am the spawn of an addict and a coke dealer. Stereotypes are a bitch!!!

7. Lastly, I hate people. That is why CB thinks that me blogging and tell her about my "friends" posts is interesting. I do consider many of you friends, many of you I would love to sit down to a meal with in real life. Away from blogging and outside of work (I tend to be outspoken at work) I am the most bashful person you would ever meet. My school teachers thought I was depressed because I was so withdrawn. Actually, I lack the social skills needed to build spontaneous relationships and small talk annoys me. In school I avoided the cafeteria and mall food courts make me anxious due to the number of people. I have never hit on an unknown female or gotten a phone number, All of my relationships come from activity based organizations or things of that nature. Some home blogging lets me connect with people without that spontaneous interaction.

I now tap

Patrick M. the doer of things- so stylish he has his own social network

BDD because his blog layout is BAD ASS

Mandy @ Caratunk Girl because I think she is stylish for a town with 60 people

Joel at Trimadness despite the fact he went to Appalachian State; and,

Mrs. Tucker because she is standing over my shoulder and nagging me that she wants to do it.

She is rushing me off to dinner so I will come back and link back to everyone's pages later as well as do the notifications. If you find this on your own before that time wow you are a great follower and have too much free time. OR both.

Frugal Friday- Identifying Income

2011-01-21T10:38:00.001-05:00

If you recall last week, in order to structure my triathlon spending I prioritized my needs and made two budgets: a practical budget and a minimalist budget. The minimalist budget is more or less affordable with the allowance out of MY paycheck the CB graciously lets me keep.

On the other hand, my practical budget is more than my allowance. This means that either I need to supplement my income or I will not get everything on my list. Luckily, I prioritized my list and don't NEED everything on it. For instance, the rental wheels would be nice for my HIM, but I could do it just fine on my stock wheels.

With my needs and wants identified and my allowance identified I know I need to come up with some extra income. Below are a few ways to acquire extra income-

1. Gifts- Many people may consider asking for retail items for Christmas, Hanukkah, Valentine's, and birthdays but if you are someone who has the possibility of getting tri gifts from a loved one there is more you can ask for than just retail items. Although it was a fail, this year I asked for pre-payed races and my USAT membership as gifts. My local sprint races typically do not cost more that $60 and I would rather have one of those as a gift that a brand name dress shirt that is around the same price.

Two non-multisport examples- My good friend Aaron is an avid boater and is working toward his USCG Captains Licence. Spending as much time on the water as he does safety is very important and for that he has a membership to an organization similar to AAA but for boats. They will tow him in, bring him fuel, etc. He typically asks for his membership dues as a Christmas present.

Another example is a friend of my wife's who got married a few years back. Instead of asking for housewares for wedding gifts they itemized their honeymoon. Friends and family could pay for nights at the hotel, meals, airfare and much more. They ending up spending very little on their own honeymoon. To me it seems that many out of town races require similar logistics. Since most people volunteered at and registered for Ironman races a year in advance, come gift giving holidays you should have a good handle on your housing, travel, and nutrition needs. You could always itemize needs and ask for them as gifts. One website for doing this is http://www.tripgiftregistry.com/ .

2. Donations- With this I do not mean getting people to donate equipment to you. All but one of my local sprints has a charity benefactor. They range from animal shelters, diabetes research, soup kitchens and even some national cancer organizations. Some people may be able to acquire donation toward their race fees since they are for charity.

3. Secondary employment- This area may be beneficial for others. This could be as simple as freelance writing or getting paid to blog. Or in my case I have applied for 52 (no really 52) service related positions such as grocery store bagger, gas station clerk, fry cook etc. Unfortunately, I keep getting turned down for being "over qualified". I still have the ability to do private martial arts lessons and have been arranging a side business for the last year teaching and leading outdoor trips. I am also always on the lookout for community college teaching positions for criminal justice or political science.There maybe more opportunities out there than I know about, if you know of any please share. The downside here is the more time consuming the secondary employment, the more time it will take away from training and recovery.

4. Selling assets- You can always have more available income for triathlon by selling your house or car. Just Kidding. I have/had many hobbies as an adult. In December I used eBay and Craigslist to sell a few things I haven't used in a while. For instance I sold some old camping equipment that I have upgraded, a few pieces of sound equipment and microphones, and old MTB shoes, helmet, and pedals. This got me about $125 that I was able to put towards my tri purchases. I also listed by Bass guitar but no one wanted to pay over $50 for it, which is ridiculous for a $250 guitar with a $50 foot pedal and more.

5. Fundraising- Maybe you can not make tiem for a second job, have no upcoming gift giving occasions, and have nothing to sell. There is always fundraising. Maybe you sold grapefruit or candy bars for a field trip when you were young, or maybe your kids have sold some for school to raise money for Ipads (times have changed). Website like this one- http://www.fundraiserinsight.org/ideas/- have a slew of ideas for fundraising. Personally, in December I made and sold dog treats. It cost me $5 and one hour, while it grossed $36. The down side is I am not the best pusher of wares. I am a doer, not a seller. If I could harness this outlet I could stand to make more.

6. Odds and ends- A few others include becoming a professional athlete, becoming a movie star, marrying into money, or knocking off a spouse for an inheritance.

On a side note, in December when I decided to do this I had about 5 posts already on my mind. If there is a topic you would like to see please let me know and I will add it to my list if it isn't already there.

Nirvana

2011-01-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today was a great day.

My job and day to day schedule does not lend itself to me having many days I am simply in love with. The three most likely combinations to cause me to be euphoric are the occasional fast food and movies in bed with CB day, an outdoor sports day (kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, or backpacking), or a training day.

A few months ago I was looking at ITU races and started wondering about how Olympic triathletes train. I found an article (have not been able to find it again) interviewing a handful of Olympic triathletes and asking about their daily schedule. Most all of them said that most days are two workouts, either two easy or one hard and one easy, separated by a half a day or so. Most of them also said that one of their mid-day habits was a nap, whether on the couch with the dogs, in the bed, in a lawn chair in the sun etc. Since reading this article I have structured close to a dozen of my vacation or personal leave days in this fashion (only days when I am off and CB is working); this is what I referred to above as a training day. I have found that it leaves me in a great place mentally.

I slept in this morning until 9:30 and any day not having to wake up and jump up in a hurry is a good way to start the day. I woke up slowly watching both the end of the local news and the beginning of the national news. Both broadcasts had a stories about the MLK memorial in DC set to open in August. This was a good start to the day for me. Not only are civil rights, human rights, and equality important to me (in ways I can not even put to words) but this project is too. Although I clearly was not around for the civil rights movement or to ever to be in the same place as MLK, I am proud that he was my fraternity brother. His works are one of the motivation factors for me choosing my fraternity (as well as Thurgood Marshal's works). With this relationship with MLK, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (my fraternity) spearheaded the fundraising and project management for the memorial. I have personally worked toward the fundraising for this memorial as well as donated toward it (actually my donation was mandatory, but the fundraising wasn't). It was cool to see it on the news after I started working on the project 9 years ago.

After my warm fuzzy moment was over, I headed to a pool for a swim. Today was my long day-2,475 meters. This was my longest swim ever. It was tough but I got it done.

After getting finishing I headed to the house where I pet the pooches, vacuumed and laid down for a nap.

After the hour nap I regrouped and set out for a 90 minute ride. This workout was not scheduled, I did it as a make up for a missed ride from before I got the bike and also for the fun of it. I decided I would just ride laps around the neighborhood for the 90 minutes. After 30 minutes I was cold and felt like another nap so pulled over at the house when it I passed it. I gave serious thought to quiting, but thought this would be a great time to HTFU. I ran inside and grabbed a water bottle and instead of setting back out on the neighborhood I rode the local tri course in my small ring. It felt so slow, but I wanted it to be easy. I was also freezing. I picked up toe covers this weekend and although they worked out for yesterday's workout fine, they left my toes cold again.

Once home I showered, extra long to warm back up, then lounged and read while watching my favourite show on dvd (entourage) until dinner. A dinner of wheat spaghetti to aid with recovery.

A perfect day. Hopefully this will let me cruise into work tomorrow still riding my high.

I hope everyone else has had just a great day and can have a week as good as my day was.

Week 2 of HIM Training

2011-01-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

I completed my second week of training and here are the numbers:

S: 6300.00 M, 2h 24m 45s
B: 66.50 Mi, 4h 15m
R: 12.15 Mi, 2h 10m
Str: 30m

Scheduling was bit hairy with the weather. The Y opened late early and closed late Monday, didn't open Tuesday, and on Friday I got to there to find that they allowed the high school teams come in for some unscheduled swim practice since they were out of school due to the weather.

The above numbers are actually a little too large on the swim. This is because when the Y decided to close early, they made the decision while I was in the pool and came to get me and asked me to leave. I repeated and completed the workout two days later when they reopened.

Next week I am going to jump to week 16 in order to hit my race timed correctly. Swim meterage will increase about 400m in the first workout. Although, I felt overwhelmed at first by the long swims, I am comfortable now. Oddly, when I do long sets (500m) my pace is pretty much the same as my 50m and 100m sprints. I feel speed will come as I continue, if I get some form coaching that will help too I bet.

Cycling will be the area I need to work the hardest on. I was looking at the stats from my October triathlon and although I was near 200 overall, I was only 12:00 behind the 30th ranked athlete. In comparison I was only 30 seconds slower on the swim, 1:30 slower on the run, but 10 minutes slower on the bike. This 10 minutes would have also gave me a top 3 spot in my AG. I need to make the change from riding like I am on just out for fun and riding with speed.

Running this week still feels light after the volume I have been putting in for the last week, I am sure that will change soon.

As always I thought of a few things I found odd during my long run including how come only certain parts of my body are cold during my run, how come the parts changes throughout my run, I think I am bending at the waist when I run since I sometimes have pain where my back meets my hips, I still need to write part 2 of things I've learned post, I have been almost hit more since I've had a road ID than before, I thought about my friend and old classmate/carpool buddy Dustin Wilson, the fact that Dustin is my first friend with a kid on the way, and the fact that I hope Dustin's child doesn't grow up to look like a hippy (like Dustin).

Frugal Friday- Setting a budget

2011-01-14T20:41:00.000-05:00

Last year I found triathlon, I also found that it is not cheap. As a meager public servant I do not have much extra income to spend on my new found ~~love of my life~~ hobby. With this in mind, I am trying to do the most this year with the least amount of my paycheck possible. So this post will begin my documenting this endeavor. Before I go into searching for deals and acquiring my triathlon needs, I figure I should lay some ground work.

My first step for saving money in all arenas of my life is setting a budget. Since my minimum net income rarely waivers, I always know how much money I will have for gas and how much for allowance. It is more or less always the same amount. Notice I said allowance, that is because 85% of my income goes to CB who then pays bills (and buys purses!?!). My gas and allowance aren't are only budget we have, since CB and I get paid the same day (the last day of the month (except December)) we sit down the night before and compile our menu for the entire month. We then add what we need for lunches and toiletries and know exactly what we need at the store. Nothing more, nothing less.

My triathlon budget will comes out of my allowance. When setting my budget I took all of those things that I would love to have like the Quintana Roo CD0.1 (literally have dreams about this bike-in yellow), carbon cycling shoes, cool aero helmet I saw on a interbike video, 2XU project X wetsuit, zoot racing shoes, a 5 WTC race season with presidential suite accommodations and push it all to the side. In a perfect world, I would be genetically incline to sports, run a 2:10 marathon, have gills unnoticeable to the naked eye and be fully sponsored, but that is only in my dreams so I must budget.

Although I set my own budget without doing any research, before writing this post I did a little research regarding budget setting tips. Common tips include identify your income, identify what costs are fixed versus variable, calculate your expenses, calculate how much income is expendable, prioritize and eliminate as needed, build in an emergency fund, and track and review your budget periodically. For more information on setting budget there many sites you can visit such as http://www.about.com/.

When I created my first budget I did not really take into account my income, I just made a list of things that were essentials for my season as well as a few helpful items. I did not include any items I thought were pure luxury. I then prioritized them and set a price. Some prices are the price I found the item at various stores, some are the max I will pay, and some are discount prices I have worked out. Here is the budget that I have at this time (same one I posted for a separate post).

As I wrote before I did this with no regard to my budget, but tired to keep it more realistic than my dream sheet.

I also created a more realistic budget, shown below.

I feel this budget is more essential than the first. I cut out all of the extra goodies like a tri suit, etc. I raced just fine last year with bike jerseys and baggy swim trunks. I also cut the coach, trainer, etc, because I can get free training plans online. I cut my races to four because that is all that is required for the series I wound to race in (for series points that is). I kept the USAT membership because it would save in extra race fees. For anything more than two races I would pay more in extra fees for not having it. Running shoes are non-optional. Lastly, the bike flask is on the list because I used a regular flask last year, and had a hard time not losing it when removing it from my pocket.

I am sure that my real budget will come in somewhere between the two. I am sure there are non-essential items that I will get and some that maybe on my 2012 budget again. Also, I have already had to create separate lists for training clothes I am going to have to buy (like winter running and cycling stuff) and for bike maintenance.

In the end, I think the most important thing is to decide what is most important to you and not over extend one's self unless you are the verge of going pro.