6 weeks away!

6 weeks is a long time before the event gets here. But looking a my last training plan it doesn't seem far at all. Not that I have been slacking, but I have to make these 6 weeks count. I'm not worried about the fittness because I have seen and notice plenty of gain. I have dropped from 176lbs to 163lbs, and on yesterday shop ride I lead the pack for a very good distance at 35.6mph and the running is getting easier. Ya, I know CRAZY! But again, it's becoming real with everyone making plans to head over to HI. And comments like, "it's getting close now. Are you going to be ready?". What!?! Of course I'll be ready, ready as anyone can be. A nice thing that recently happened, is I have switched over mentally to enter the race to finish it while HAVING FUN!

I cam off the horrorible Texas State Time Champoinship with a DNF because of a broken saddle. A event next to the Ironman in which I really cared about. But it just goes to show that anything can happen. And in a 11 hour+ Ironman, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. It's my first one and I have time goals in my mind, which I will keep to myself. And I will be just happy to finish it. But of course here comes the outside stress of life right before the event. Murphys Law I guess? My goal is to just stay health till HI, and the Kagan water is helping extremly well, thanks Bob! And I have made a bike change at the last minute as well. More to come on that if and when I get it in.

Sorry for the short to little to no info. But I am just keeping my head down and doing what I need to do, to get it done. I'll get back with you very soon. THANKS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT!

8/8/2010 BridgeLand Sprint Tri

Already tired of the slow and steady workouts I have been doing, I decided to mix it up alittle and race the BridgeLand Sprint Tri. Not the best distance since I have been training for something 10 times as long. But it would be a nice change of pace for me to keep me going till Oct. So I went in to this race just to have a good time and try some new things. The Tri was in Cypress TX 30min northwest of Houston, which Mer's sister lives. So Mer and I kicked one of our nieces out of her room and sleep over. This gave me a extra 45mins of sleep the morning over. YA.

I drive myself and go through the check in. Very simple with no hassles, so I head over to the swim start where surprisingly no one is. I swim about 1/4 of the course get warmed up. Man, love those master planned community man made lakes, stale. I am in the third wave after the Elite class and the 25-29age groupers. And I have a sold out field of 100 guys. I do something I have never done before, I move to the front of the group. After the 25-29er are about half way through the swim we start our race. I find that being in the front leaves me less bothered by other swimmers. But the stronger guys catch me very soon and put a good gap on me. I feel a little tired but I'm not fading to fast. I catch some of the slower 25-29 guys and some of the guys in my age group that ran out of gas. I come out of the water in 30th place with a 11minute flat swim. Not bad, but not my best, I think I could cut 1 minute off it easy. But not worried about it I had a drama free swim, which is rare.

I jog into transition and sit down in front of my bike. The rest of the guys are looking at me like I'm crazy! But I have decide to just race at a comfortable pace and focus on one thing at a time. I throw my shoes, glasses, tt helmet on and head out of transition. Now we are on the part I love, but again I have decided to hold back a little and drink plenty of fluids. One of my customers passes me at a good speed. Have a few hundred yards I notice he has stopped making forward progress and is holding his speed. So I decide to bridge up to him and buzz him a little bit. I close the gap and pass him with a thumbs up. We trade spots 3 or 4 times through the bike. We pass a large amount of people on the ride, holding a average of 24.6mhp. The only person to pass us is the "Dutchmen" who is a pro road racer. His wife does tri and they will enter the relay with him doing the bike section. Once in transition my customer tells me that is the fastest he has gone in a long time and his speed was 4mph faster then last year. I fell great and really feel I could of gone alot harder. Hope I didn't temp him to go faster and hurt his run time. I ended up placing 5th in the bike with the winner only averaging 25.1mhp. So a very tightly packed group of the top 5. I am very happy with that, because I know I could of ridden much harder and placed higher.

Now for the run, great! I don't feel bad or tired which is a good sign. But not really moving that fast. And here it comes the same amount of people I passed on the bike are now passing me on the run. I slow from about a 8.5 to a 10 minute mile. Not fast at all in a Sprint tri, but not to bummed out cause I have been training for that long distance. I push through the run never stopping and holding that same pace the entire time. But BAM it hits me, 98th place on the run. Wow, during the event I was really thinking that after the ironman I might be able to focus on sprints and really try to win one. But no way in HELL I will be winning anything with that run time. Anyway, all n all I had a great time and really enjoyed the "break" from long distance training. This coming weekend I get to finally race the Texas State Time Trail Championship. Coming off a very hard week of training I don't know how I will do. But looking forward to it very much. So till then, thanks for keeping up.

Staying Focused

Lubbock is behind me, thank god! After nights of crying on my pillow, I finally chalked it up to just having a bad day and going out to hard from the start. Lessoned learned and applying it to my training. Ahhh, training, training and more training, it never ends. I don't know if I am physically ready for the ironman yet, but I am mentally. Training every day is not a new thing to me. From road racing moving into cross season and ending with the winter mountain bike events. These two-a-days have been wearing me thin. Staying focused is getting harder and harder. My run is coming along and I am seeing big improvements. The bike pace is starting to dial itself in and running some distance afterward is getting much easier. The swim is great and really look forward to adding that into my training even after the ironman is done.

So what have I really drawn on for support and for that "poke in the chest" at 5am in the morning. MY FIENDS!!! That’s right its props time; My wife Meredith has been the biggest and best supporter by far. "Well that goes without saying", no not really. Mer has always backed me up in everything I've done since we have known each other. She is a very realistic person and keeps me in check quit a bit. With the Ironman she has spearheaded the support and reminding me to stay focused more then anyone. And that means everything to me, when I look back on this event I will think of her and for me that’s what it is all about. Second my parents, although not very aware of the endurance world, have gone out of their way to make it their own and keep propping me up along the way. As always my folks have backed me in whatever I have done. Third, there is our friend Martha Long, who in a way is responsible for getting myself into this "mess". Martha is the awesome athlete that I "supported" when she raced HI Ironman in '07 and '08. After that I caught the bug and tried to get into HI WC ever since. So she has been a huge source of information! I pick her brain at least once a week on what gear to use, or am I over thinking something, or trying to keep up with her on a Sunday run. And there really are so many other people who I will name and thank by the end of this all, but for now THANK YOU to everyone! I have 2 solid months to go, and I know it will be here VERY soon.

This Sunday I turn 30 and race my last sprint tri for the year. I'll let you know how everything goes. Just using it for training and to stay fresh regarding racing events. And after that I finally get to race the Texas State Time Trail Championship. This will also be great training on the bike and I will add a 40 min run afterward, not looking forward to that!

THANKS EVERYONE!