Weekend Update

This weekend, I biked about 35 miles and ran about 16.5 miles. I was also going to swim, but after my 11 mile, 90 minute run today, I was on the verge of bonking and it was freaking cold outside so I just went home. Now, I feel like total crap. Headache, I can't warm up, really, really tired. I feel like crap.

I'm getting hardcore about training again. On Friday, I swam when it was about 50 degrees outside. Saturady, I cycled when it was 39ish. I hate the cold so when I train in the cold, it's a big deal.

Things are coming along well with my training. I'm not getting that much faster, but I'm able to go longer and keep up my pace.

Man, this is going to be short because I feel like crap.

187!

My weight is down to 187! After battling the holidays, drinking, medications, and other negative outside influences, I've lost 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks. Hopefully, I can keep this up and be well under 185 by New Year's.

I've been sick the last few days. I'm still training, but not as much as I want to be training. I'm feeling better now and I did do 8.5 miles on the trails yesterday and 30 miles on the roads on Saturday. Tomorrow, I should be back to normal.

Over the hump!

I know my body decently well. Whenever I'm out of shape and I'm trying to get back into shape, the first month or so is difficult and painful. I'm not motivated and when I work out, it just hurts. It takes me awhile to get over the hump. Usually, to get over the hump, I have to just hammer it out, wear myself out, and make myself hurt. This past week, my friend Lauren came into town from Miami. On Wednesday, we rode 42 miles. Thursday, we got in 45 miles. Friday was a day of running 8.2 miles. I felt great and I needed it. It's a great feeling once you know that you can do anything physically. It feels good to be over the hump.

Monday (yes!) & Tuesday (no!)

Monday, I ran during lunch. 15min easy, 15min strong, 15min easy again. I also slightly dislocated my left patella again. I stepped on an acorn or something wrong and I felt my knee cap slide out of socket ever so slightly. This is the same knee where I've had two major dislocations before. Not fun. I also swam about 1200yds that night when I was completely lacking motivation.

Tuesday, I didn't do shit. I was tired from this past weekend so I went out, had a beer, came home and slept 9.5 hours. It was well needed.

I'm also not doing any weight lifting or physical therapy exercise per my coach and my physical therapist. I'm lazy. Not really, but I'm busy. I'm trying to get back into the total training mindset, but the house stuff is keeping me busy.

1600 yds

Swam 1600 yds today on a 8x200 interval with 30s rest. I was pushing myself a bit, but not too hard. Once again, I felt like I'm way out of shape. I may be hurting a little bit tomorrow, but that's a good thing.

Legs hurt!

Today's workout consisted of 90min on the spin bike and then a 20 minute run after that. I'm getting old because it seems to take me forever to get warmed up and willing to work out. My legs felt heavy. Today's bike workout had 3x10min intervals of a big gear followed by 5min spin between each interval. Man, those intervals were tough. I didn't even turn up the resistance that much and it felt like a lot. I ran afterwards and I kept having to stop because I felt exhausted. I checked my heart rate and it was under 160. I guess it's because I'm still not in that great of shape but I'm improving. It hurts though.

And my tendonitis in my foot is acting up again as well. Fun!

Core

I really need to work on core strength. I went for a run this morning and my body felt all wobbly. My back was hurting a bit as well. All of these are signs of a weakened core. I haven't been going to yoga or any core or PT exercises so this isn't a surprise. Starting today, more core exercises are in my routine from now on.

It's official, I'm crazy (IMFL 2006)

I'm in for Ironman Florida in 2006. I have roughly 364 days to get ready for this. It's going to kick my ass, but it is going to be awesome.

Stranded (or how I'm a dumbass)

I went for my usual Saturday taco ride with the ATC guys. I ended up riding with my friend Mark instead of the usual Dam Loop so we split off from the main group. We went riding for a bit and it was time for me to turn around. I wasn't going to ride with Mark the entire time because he was going for a 5 hour ride and all I needed was a 90 minute ride. I split off from Mark and went riding by myself.

After a few minutes, I realized that once again I've forgotten my blowout bag (this is an example of foreshadowing). I keep riding and I venture onto Manchaca. I'm flying because I'm catching a good tailwind. I take a left onto Slaughter because I want to head back to the ATC shop to get my car. I'm riding along and I see some glass in the road. I try to miss it but I can't. Immediately, I hear some hissing. I pull over and my back tire is going flat. No biggie. I forgot my blowout bag, but I'll just pull out my cell phone and call someone. Shit! No cell phone! Damnit! Well, I'm screwed now.

Well, the only thing that I can do now is to start walking and believe in the kindness of strangers. Luckily, I didn't have to wait for long. I started walking towards a gas station to try to bum a ride off of someone in a truck. I got to the gas station and fortunately I didn't have to wait long, but it wasn't a truck. A couple in an Acura came by and asked me for directions to some park. I told them that I didn't know where the park was, but I told them my story. They offered to take me to my house so that I could change my tire. I loaded up my bike in their trunk. I finally got home and changed my tire. Then, another dumbass thing happened. I was ready to head back to the ATC shop and I was getting on the bike. I fell over. I put my right cleat in first instead left as usual. I completely fell over. The second time that I've ever fallen over on my bike. Embarrassing.

I learned my lesson. Don't forget both my blowout bag and my cell phone when I go on bike rides.

188.5

So, that's my weight as of 3 minutes ago: 188.5. I want to be under 180 by Thanksgiving (impossible) and I want a permanent weight of about 170. I think the best case scenario is that I get below 180 by Christmas. I'll keep trying though. I'm about to drastically cut back no my alcohol even more than I've done right now and that should help.

IronStar Race Report: DNF

My first triathlon was the St. Anthony's Triathlon back in April. During my training, my coach, Matt, thought that I had made enough progress and that I could be ready for a half Ironman with the right training by the end of the year. Well, this got my thinking that I could actually do this. Matt has a coaching program on the side so after St. Anthony's, I decided to join Matt's coaching program for the half Ironman.

Then, there was a problem. After St. A's, I developed peroneal tendonitis in my right leg. Not fun. Because of the tendonitis, I had my first DNF at the CapTexTri in Austin in May. I did the swim, did the bike, came out of T2, and turned in my chip. It wasn't worth trying to run on it since every time I ran, it started to hurt. I started physical therapy in June for my tendonitis and kept at it until last week.

I started running again and I did the Dilloman sprint tri here in Austin and I actually won my age group with minimal running. My PT had correct a lot of stuff in my running form and I was much more efficient and faster with little training.

About the time that I started my PT was also about the time that I started my HIM training. It was going well, except for the fact that I couldn't run. If I'm healthy, I follow a training regiment pretty strictly, but since I was hurt, I half assed a lot of the training. I also had other things come up in my life. Work picked up and I was working 60 hours a week for a few weeks. I bought a house and moved into it. I got sick 4 times in 4 weeks. I travelled a lot and had people visit me in Austin. All of this happened between June when I started training and October when my race was going to happen. Between all of this, I had minimal training. I averaged working out 3 times a week over the last 4 months. Pathetic. Towards the last 3-4 weeks before the race, I got serious about training again and just did some LSD to keep my aerobic base up. Training had gone out the window, so I was in a mode to just do anything to get ready for the race. The longest that I had run since I was injured was 6 miles and the longest bike ride was about 30. Swimming was at most 2000 yards.

Right before the race, I wasn't worried about the swim or the bike. I've done that kind of mileage before and it wasn't an issue. However, I had never run 13.1 miles before, especially after being injured for so long. I had enough of an aerobic base to attempt the race without any problems, except for the run.

I went to the race with a bunch of my friends who've started a small training group called the Austin Tri Chicks. They are basically a bunch of TNT alumna that still are friends and compete in triathlons together. Most of them were doing relays this weekend, but I was going to attempt the full race and so was an ATC chick. All weekend, it was me and 7 girls. It was interesting. They were getting worried about saying stuff that would embarrass me because I know these girls pretty well and they can get pretty vulgar. Most guys would be freaked out and looking for a manly place like a sports bar when they hear comments like "How come my period always knows when I'm about to race","These shorts chafe my cooter", and "Hey, I can see your areola through your tri top!" For some reason, I prefer being around outspoken and vulgar chicks so this stuff didn't phase me at all.

I was really relaxed for this race. I hadn't been training for it well and I had no expectations for it. I was just going to do it and see what happened. I still carb loaded like a mofo though. I hate carb loading. I like to eat, but eating 5000 calories a day of healthy good is just ridiculous. I was sick of eating. And carb loading upsets my stomach a bit since my body has to process so much food. I was hydrating well except for the night before the race. We went to a friend's parents house to have pasta dinner and I ended up having almost an entire bottle of wine by myself. Yep, that is how seriously I was taking this race.

The morning of the race I wasn't that nervous, but my stomach was. I had 4 RP's that morning which is typical. I could never been without line of sight of a portapotty because of my stomach. It would just hit me and then I would have to run over uncomfortably and do my business. The problem with race morning was that it was cold. Freaking cold. I wore my race shoes that morning to the transition area and once the T-area closed, I had about 30 minutes before my wave went off. It was cold, the grass was wet, and I didn't bring a wetsuit; I was kinda freezing.

I was in the last wave of 4 that morning. I watched the first 2 waves go off and then I went into the water. It was warmer than the air outside and I didn't want to get out. I peed and then reluctantly got out to get ready for my wave. I saw some of the Austin Tri Chicks and they were loud and obnoxious cheering on everyone they knew. Those girls are awesome. I got in the back of my wave because I was just going to go slow and pace myself. The gun went off and I was so glad to be back into the warm water. I just swam my race. Nothing special. I swallowed a lot of water, but I just took it nice and easy. The swim wasn't that rough and I've come a long way since the near panic attack that I had at St. Anthony's. I averaged about 1:50/100m which isn't bad since I didn't have a wetsuit and and it was slightly faster than my pace at St. Anthony's. I'm capable of a lot better (only a 35:38 on race day), but training sucked. The only funny thing was the water level was really low and at one point in the middle of the lake, you could get up, stand, and actually run through the water. I did that for a needed rest.

Came out of the water and sprinted to T1. A lot of other people take a leisurely pace through the transition areas. Not me. I passed several people on the run from the beach to the T-area. Since I didn't have a wetsuit, no need in taking one off so my T1 time was really fast. About 1:23. My goal this weekend was to have some really fast transition times. For T1, I had the second fastest time out of 35 in my age group. I'm happy. I could shave even more time off if I could do the rubber band pedal trick and if I didn't have to shove a water bottle and Gu's into my tritop pockets. Also, if I race, I always wear my tritop with or without a wetsuit. That way, I don't have to worry about putting on a jersey on a wet body which saves a ton of time. Came out of T1 with my bike and once again, I passed a couple of people.

I got on the bike and this was my favorite part of the event: the bike. I love the bike. Running is a bigger stress relief for me, but cycling is much, much more fun. Mainly because I'm better at it and I like going fast. Problem this time was that I was wet and the air temp was maybe 60 degrees. I froze for the first 45 minutes of the bike. At one point, I offered a girl to trade a Gu for her arm warmers. She said no. I got on the bike and was going pretty fast. Most of the pavement on the first half of the bike was nice, smooth, and fast. I was moving at a pretty good pace. My heart rate was really high, but once I settled in, it lowered after about 15 minutes. My goal was to keep my heart rate on the flats in the 145-150 range which is Zone 1 for me. I did it most of the way, too. The scenery was great. We went through a national forest so it was shaded, not windy, and very pretty. I saw Kerri first and talked to her a bit and then kept going. I was pushing a cadence of around 95 at first which was using some muscles from my legs, but I felt good. I really tried to not push myself so hard since I knew and still had 50ish miles to go and an attempt at a 13.1 mile run.

The bike ride was fun. I was talking to people. I was thanking the volunteers. The scenery was awesome. A great ride. I was tucked away in my aero position. Gu eating and Gatorade drinking were going as roughly planned. I was feeling good except for my hip flexors and my left back muscles. I had to stretch out my hip flexors and my back every 20-30 minutes because they were hurting. I have never had my hip flexors hurt that much before. Weird. About 1:20 into my ride, I caught up to Christina. We chatted a bit and then we went through the first bottle exchange together. Now, here is one thing I wish this race and all races would do. They give you about 200 yard warning for the bottle exchange. I really, really wish they gave about a 1 mile warning so that you had time to finish up what's left in your aero bottle, empty your normal water bottle into your aero bottle, and do all that other stuff and be ready to toss the empties and collect new bottles. Just a note to all the race directors out there.

I left Christina once I got her singing "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Lepperd and continued my race. About 10 minutes later, I ran into Helen and talked to her for a bit as well. Both of her computers weren't working so she had no clue as to how far she had gone or how fast her pace was. I left her and kept going. At this point, I was starting to get tired. The course was a bunch of rolling hills and I like rollers. I like flats and rollers with short hills. This course was the latter. I usually attack hills, but since I'm a bigger guy, if I attack a long hill, it can destroy me. These hills were long enough so that I could feel satisfied by attacking hills, but they wouldn't wipe me out. There were a few hills that wiped me out, but not many. I was keeping an eye on my cadence and my heart rate very closely and I was regulating them well. I would actually rest my legs by going faster on the downhills by putting my bike in a very large gear and drop my cadence to about 80. I would be going faster, but resting my legs since I didn't have such a high cadence. It came to a point though that my legs were getting tired, though. To account for this, I had to up my cadence and not hammer on the pedals so much. I upped my cadence to over 100 and I was in the small chainring a lot of times. I still would attack on the hills, mainly to stretch out my hip flexors and to get out of the saddle, but I would do it in the small chainring. Even doing this, I was still flying by people. I finally caught up to Michael and Chris and I chatted with both of them for a bit.

I was nearing the end of the bike course and I had to take an assessment of how I felt. I felt fine. Well, mostly fine. Maybe I pushed myself a little too hard on the bike (2:48:16), but I knew my run was shot whether I took the bike slow or fast so I took it fast. My left hamstring, both my hip flexors, my left back, and my right knee were bothering me at this point. My knee concerned me the most because I've had a minor, but nagging injury in that knee for over 1.5 years now. I came into the resort and got my feet out of my shoes. I cruised into T2 and had another quick transition. This time, I was 3rd fastest, but I don't think I could have done much better. The most amount of time was spent putting my socks and shoes on. Not much I could change there. I was out of T2 in 1:13 and on the run course.

I felt fine, but I decided to walk a bit to calm down and really assess how I felt. Walking was fine and none of the problems on the bike were hurting now. However, my right calf was hurting. Guess what, it was my peroneal muscles. I walked a bit and tried running. As I ran, my calf got tighter and tighter. I stopped and stretched. Walked. Stretched. Ran. Calf tightens. Walked. Stretched. You get the picture. I was debating on what I should do. I wanted to run next week and this was going to be really, really tough for me to attempt 13.1 with so little run training. I made it about a mile and a half doing the stretch/walk/run/tighten thing over and over before I decided to end my race. I turned around and walked the 20 minutes back to the transition area. I saw Tiffany, Michael, Alexis, and Helen running out as I was walking in and I wished each of them good luck and to run for me since I couldn't run. I'll usually cheer people on, but I didn't say much to anyone walking back. I was extremely disappointed that I had to drop out. I knew it was the right decision considering my peroneals were hurting and I knew how much trouble I went through not being able to run before, but I wanted to run today. Luckily, I could look further than today, but it doesn't make it any easier.

I went back and hung out with a bunch of the Austin Tri Chicks and told them my story. I was really grumpy and didn't say much. It took me a couple of hours (and a few beers) before I was feeling chipper again. Then, I started looking on the bright side. Everyone else had a great race and Helen actually completed the entire thing. Christina, my semi-regular training partner, had an awesome bike and I knew she would do great, but she was really concerned about it. She was afraid Tiffany was going to kill her after Christina pulls in with a 4+ hour bike ride, but that team actually got 3rd place for the women's relay. Christina and I have been training together for a few months now and I've noticed that she has gotten a lot stronger on the bike during those months. She did great. Tiffany had a great run. Chris and Michael both said they had bad days, but they actually got to finish the race. My highlights were pretty good. I had a comfortable swim and a great bike considering how little that I trained for this. I kicked ass at transitions, 2nd and 3rd for T1 and T2 respectively, and I've come a long way on my transitions lately. I had fun all weekend and I enjoyed being out in the sun all day long.

Now that I'm writing this the next day, I'm not feeling that sore. I had some new and interesting and painful chafing in my crotch area, but that is expected. My peroneal tendonitis was throbbing this morning, but not bad. I think it should be fine. I'm still disappointed that I had to DNF my first half Ironman-distance race, but it was the smart decision. This just makes me that much more focused for Ironman Florida in 2006. I have 1 year and 2 weeks to get ready. In that time, I have to manange work, a new house, PT prereqs, and hopefully dating while starting a new training program that will probably take up 20+ hours of my time per week. It's crazy, but not everyone is willing to do crazy things and expects to succeed.

My bike is 1 year old!

One year ago, I bought my beautiful 2004 Cervelo Dual. This bke has done me well. I've put only 2000 miles on it in a year, but I like it. I do a lot of my training on spin bikes which makes the logistics of a bike workout much, much easier to deal with. Now that I'm in shape and I have a decent base, hopefully I can put in some longer rides on the weekends to rack up that mileage even more.

Also, I ran for about 49 minutes yesterday. At the pace I was going at, I was somewhere in the 5.5-6 mile range. That is the longest that I've run since I did St. Anthony's. Wow. I felt good though. It was at an easy pace and I wasn't pushing myself too hard. Hopefully this half Ironman in 13 days won't kill me.

4 RP's and 1st Place!

I have this thing before a race where I get really nervous. I mean, I eat a lot of fiber so I'm used to going #2 a lot, but race mornings are out of control. My stomach gets nervous and I have to empty the gas tank often. This morning for the Dilloman triathlon, I have 4 RP's (race poos). My record is 5 before the Cap Tex triathlon, but 4 is a usual number.

So, today's race was interesting. I was expecting to finish in 5th-10th place compared to last year's results. I had a lot of stuff going against me. I didn't get much sleep the night before the race or even the entire week before the race since I was moving. I've been drinking beer and eating like crap all week. I was tired from moving and I hadn't worked out in a week. I've been injured and I'm currently running only 4 miles at a Zone 1 pace since I got hurt in April. I was out drinking the night before the race and I loaded up on fish and chips.

I won my age group.

It was awesome. I had a decent swim and I passed a lot of people. Whenever I sighted, I didn't see many people in front of me. I came out of the water and went into T1 at a fairly leisurely pace. I got on the bike and it wasn't pretty. It started sprinkling all morning and by the time I was 5 minutes into the bike, it was hard to see. I kept going and I was actually very kamikaze. I figured that the chances of me crashing riding cautiously were still pretty high, so I just went nuts. I was going fast but still staying careful. I kept my heart rate up as well. The roads were really wet, but they weren't that slick. The first lap had few people on the course, but the second lap had a lot more people. I was getting tired so I was slower plus I was slower with people in the way as well. I went into T2 feeling like I had a good bike. I went through T2 and I heard that there were only 8 men and 1 woman on the run leg already. I was the 9th man. I went out on the run and I felt like crap. The usual post bike feeling. It took me about 6-7 minutes before I started feeling better. I passed the 1 Mile marker and checked my time. I was on a 7:45 pace! I was shocked. Considering my fitness levels and my injury status, I was flying! I kept going and at Mile 2, I was still on the same pace. At one water station, the people said there were only 6 guys ahead of us. I was running with this one guy and we were going back and forth a bit, but he finally pulled ahead. That put me in 8th place. I walked a few times during the race. I just had to stop and get my heart rate down. At one point, I had to pee, but I didn't want to stop. There was no one around so I just whipped it out, kept walking, and peed. At Mile 3, I was still on pace for 7:45 miles. There was no one behind me and the people in front were too far away so I didn't have to battle for any spots at the moment. I went ahead and sprinted to the end. I crossed the line with a time of 1:19:06.

After that, I was pretty sure that I was the 8th person to finish. I kept looking around and all I kept seeing were guys in other age groups. There was no one else in my age group. That was when I realized that I might have won my age group. I grabbed a few beers and some food and talked to people. About 60 minutes later, the unofficial results were posted and I had come in first in my age group! I couldn't believe it. I stuck around to get my award which was a stuffed armadillo. The weather was nasty since it was at least sprinkling pretty much all day and it was almost an outright downpour a couple of times.

Now, I'm back at home and eating pizza as my reward. I'm tired and I'm going to take a shower and then go to bed.

Recent Update

Well, here is an update over the last few weeks. I'm not training nearly as much as I should. Life is getting in the way. Work is up and down. I just bought a house which is taking up a lot of time. I went to Atlanta this past weekend and travelling always throws off my schedule for a few days.

I rode yesterday and today. Yesterday was the first day that I rode in almost 2 weeks. I just got my bike back from my LBS and had a tuneup done on it. It was shifting like butter. It was great. Today, I dropped from my group to go water the bushes. After I finished, I got on my horse to catch up with my riding group. I was hammering with my head down when I hit something in the road. Nothing happened, but after about a minute, I heard a hiss. Damnit, I flatted. I pulled over and changed the flat. I had my bike upright resting on the end of the fork. Some cars drove by and blew my bike over. After I got the flat changed, I started riding and my derailleur was fucked up. Goddamnit. I've had a freshly tuned up bike for less than 2 days and now my derailleur is out of whack. Fuck.

I also jacked up my shoulder in my sleep the other night. We'll see how that is swimming tomorrow.

Swimming, peeing, and flatting

So, recently I perfected the art of peeing while swimming. Note, I didn't say peeing in the water, but actually peeing while taking strokes to propel myself through the water. It was weird because you have to relax and let go while still concentrating on not sinking. Difficult, but doable.

I went riding yesterday and towards the end of the ride, I had my first flat ever on a ride. Took me 10 months, but I had my first one. Luckily, it was a very, very slow leak and I was less than half a mile from the car so I just gingerly rode to the car. I still had some air left when I got to the car, but not much.

I'm back, kinda!

Last Thursday: My first day training again. I went on a slower ride that lasted about an hour. I got rained on towards the end, but it wasn't a bad ride. Slow and easy to ease back into training.

Last Friday: Swam about 2000 yds at Deep Eddy. The water was green and nasty and I was having major goggle malfunctions. I felt tired.

Saturday: I was still trying to ease back into training so I went out and did a 60 mile ride. Total time was about 3:25 which isn't bad. I wasn't trying to push myself, but I did spike my heart rate quite a few times because I was fairly out of shape. It was a good ride though. I went home and had Chinese food and ice cream.

Sunday: Did a 40min ride followed by 28min of aquajogging.

Monday: Did an early morning swim workout of about 2500 yds at Stacy Pool. It was my first time at Stacy and it is a decent pool. I started having sinus problems later in the day, though. I think I might have got something from either Barton Springs on Sunday or Stacy on Monday.

Tuesday: I did some intervals and hill stuff on the spin bike at the gym. It's such a good feeling to have ridden over 15 miles on the bike by 8am. It was about 45min total and it hurt. I'm having worse sinus problems today, but as long as it stays above my neck, I should be fine. Tomorrow is a rest day so I will try to get 9 hours of sleep tonight. I may do yoga today and do some more aquajogging, but we'll see how my schedule works out today.

I'm sick

I've been sick for awhile now. I've actually been resting on doctor's orders and I'm going for my first exercise session in over 2 weeks tonight. We'll see how I feel. I'm pissed that I have had to be off this long. I don't like taking time off from working out because I get fat and lazy. Well not anymore!

That's crap!

So, this weekend was crap for me. I did a great hard ride with Texas Iron on Thursday. After Thursday, I didn't do crap all weekend long and now I feel fat and lazy. This weekend was really, really hot and I had a lot of other stuff going on as well. I was suppose to get a couple of long workouts in and I didn't get anything done more than physical therapy. I volunteered for the Subaru Urban Assault Race which was fun, but it was hot as well.

I had a crappy training weekend so I thought that I would get a good swim in before work today. That didn't happen. I just couldn't get comfortable during the swim. My googles kept sucking in water and fogging up. It just wasn't fun so my 1.5 mile workout was cut down to 5/8 of a mile because I was having a crappy swim.

This is a good way to start off the week.

I'm an angel!

Today, I volunteered for the Danskin Triathlon which is an all-female triathlon series across the nation. I volunteered to be a "swim angel" which is someone who is out in the water with a noodle or two. If a race participant is having problems, I give them the noodle so they can rest or they can swim with it if they want to. I would much, much rather be doing this than being on the bike course or guarding the transition area. So, I was a swim angle.

Man, it was a blast, but it kicked my ass. The course was only 750m, but I ended up swimming it 3 times. The first time, I was beat. I had 4 people that I was watching and I kept swimming between them making sure that they were OK. Back and forth. Back and forth. After that lap, I went back to the start and did another lap. This time, it went much quicker and I wasn't as tired. One problem was that one of the turn buoys started to wander off so it made that leg of the swim a little longer before they captured the buoy again. The third leg was really tiring as well, but it was good. I enjoyed it.

Chris who is the husband of one of my TNT teammates was out there with me. Both of us didn't expend how hard this would be. We are both decent swimmers and are used to swimming fairly fast. We are not used to treading water for 2 and a half hours. Luckily, I wore my wetsuit so I had some buoyancy. If I got tired, I flipped on my back and stayed there for a bit. One thing I noticed though was how strong my kick is getting. It was good practicing Tarzan swimming and doing some sighting as well. It was really different being out there and not participating and encouraging others to do well. I should be much, much more calm when I race again.

So, I had a really good time today.

Also, my toenail is coming off so I will get some pictures of it soon and post those. They should be yummy.

That hurt and was a first!

I was swimming with my TNT team yesterday in the pool. I was in a lane by myself minding my own business. I felt something on the back of my head (I wasn't wearing a swim cap). It hurt worse. It got worse and worse. Now, it really freaking hurt. What the hell! I actually had to get out of the pool because it bothered me that much. Apparently, I was stung by a bee or wasp on the back of my freaking head while swimming. That sucked. Now, I have a small, itchy spot on the back of my head. Well, that's a first for me.

Shiner Bash Race Report Posted

I finally posted my race report from the Shiner Bash. Here it is:

http://erichollins.net/2005shiner_bash.php

It was a good ride and I felt good when I really pushed myself the last 20 miles or so. I will have my race report from the CapTexTri soon.

Today's ride

Well, I rode today. Not really. I got on a spin bike and went at it for about 70 minutes. It was shorter than my planned workout because I went out drinking last night, went to bed late, and got up late this morning. Oh well. I feel so much better throughout the day when I work out in the mornings. I have to start doing it more ofter. Screw coming into work early!

Race report

BTW, here is my race report from St. Anthony's.

Thanks.

St. Anthony's Race Report

I still can't describe how this event was for me.

Another 50+ mile ride & foot problems

Yesterday, I rode another 50+ mile ride. I was chaffed at the end. It sucked. I need to find some better cycling shorts because my tri shorts with the thin little pad are much more comfortable than my cycling shorts.

For my ride, I was hungover, sleepy, dehydrated, and malnurished. I still rode 52 miles. I was feeling pretty crappy at one point and Matt and I stopped at a gas station. We got some fluid and I got some calories in the form of a rice crispy treat and I felt a lot better afterwards. So, I need to bring more calories on longer rides and not drink the night before. The ride was fine. For the 3 hours that we rode, my heart rate averaged 129bpm. It wasn't a hard workout by any means; I just wanted to get some distance in.

I am having foot problems. I have an inflammed peroneus tendon in my foot and I can't run and I have to walk with a boot. This sucks since I have a race in 3 weeks. I have been trying to keep up with my training since St. Anthony's, but it's been tough. I have been pretty good with the swim and the bike, but on days when I'm suppose to run, I don't. I need to fix that and hopefully I will do that this week.

50+ miles and 50+ mph

Today was a good day. I rode for the first time since my triathlon last Sunday. There were two memorable things today. I rode over 50 miles. My cycling computer was acting funny and it didn't start working until we were about 50 minutes into the ride. After that, we had ridden about 40 miles. So, overall, we rode over 50 miles. Also, I send a new personal speed record. I hit 50.5mph going down a hill today. It was freaking scary as hell yet exhilarating at the same time. My last speed record was 43.2mph so this is quite a jump. I don't know if I ever want to do it again.

On a side note, I hurt my foot. I don't know whether it was from my triathlon with a time of 2:24:56 or the fact that I went drunken dancing for 7 hours that night, I hurt my foot. It appears that I have an inflamed peroneus tendon in my foot. I'm in a boot which won't be off for about 2 weeks. We will see if I can run for America's triathlon in 4 weeks.

2:24:56

My goal: 2:30:00
My official time: 2:24:56

Results:
Swim: 28:32 (42nd, 1:54min/100m pace)
T1: 1:54
Bike: 1:04:50 (17th, 23mph pace)
T2: 1:29
Run: 48:13 (55th, 7:47min/mile pace)

I finished 27th out of 134 in my age group and 346th overall out of about 3500 participants.

Overall, I had a great race. I freaked out during the swim, but I ended up not having that bad of a swim. I kicked ass on the bike and I did better than expected on the run. A full race report will be on my website shortly.

2 days, 23 hours, 32 minutes

I have that much time until my swim wave starts for my race, St. Anthony's Triathlon. I can't wait, except for the fact that I have had major sleep problems all week long. That's fun!

7 More Days

I have 7 days until my race. Actually, I have roughly 6 days, 12 hours, and 50 minutes from this posting before my swim wave starts. I'll just round up to 7.

I swam this morning at Barton Springs in my tri suit and wetsuit. It was my final wetsuit test before St. Anthony's. Man, my swimming has improved a lot recently. I was able to swim a mile in 28:27 today. My previous best was about 31:25. A 28:27 swim time will put in at about 26:30 for a 1500m swim, but we will see if I'm capable of going that fast in the ocean in a pack of people.

I went riding yesterday. My bike skills when cornering improved dramatically yesterday. I kept getting coaching about how to take my turns more aggressively. I was told to keep my inside arm straight and my outside arm bent and that my bike will be at a steep angle. Also, to keep pedaling through the turn. Well, I did all of this and I kept finding the cornering clearance of either my shoes or my pedals. So, I guess I was doing it right. On the ride, I averaged about 21mph for almost an hour. I was really slowed down because I had to slow and stop for traffic lights and stop signs. I also had a couple of hills which Florida doesn't have. I keep hearing that the race course at St. Anthony's is flat and fast, but has some turns. I am hoping to keep an average speed of 22-23mph. I like going fast, but let's see if I have legs to run afterwards.

I Will Post One Of These Someday

Now, this is an awesome race report. I hope to post one of these from an IM
distance event someday. Hopefully, more than one of them. I will be
posting my race report for St. Anthony's shortly after my race in 11 days.

7:40 & Yoga

My workout today was suppose to be 10M Z1, 45M race pace, and 5M Z1. I stuck to it pretty closely, except that I had an 8M cooldown instead of 5M. Well, I ended up pushing myself really hard. Over the course of 1:02:57, I ran 8.2 miles which is two loops around Town Lake. Over the entire distance, I averaged 7:40min/mile. For the first 4.1 miles, I averaged 7:25min/mile which is faster than my college best pace of 7:31min/mile. In college, my heart rate for that run was 180+ for the last 5 minutes. Now, my heart rate didn't get over 170 except for the hills. I am now running faster than I did in college and my heart rate is lower. I'm not fast compared to fast runners, but this is freaking fast for me. Hopefully I can pull out sub-8:00min/mile times for St. Anthony's.

After running today, I went to yoga. As usual, yoga rocked and I feel much, much more relaxed and loose now. But it had it's price. Doing yoga after running today was especially painful since I hurt from running. My knees were sore, but I feel better now.

Overall, I considered that I had a freaking great workout today.

Bricks hurt!

Went out for a 90min ride today with my TNT group. Then we did about a 20 minute brick (a brick is a workout where you ride a bike and then immediately start running) after that. It was fun, but it hurt. We did some good hills and I rode on virgin (to me) roads which is always cool. Great scenery. Great hills. I feel so freaking good after working out. Makes the rest of my day. I can't wait until after my triathlon so that I can start doing some 50+ mile bike rides.

Swimming in the abyss

So, yesterday I got up at 5am to be swimming in Barton Springs at 5:30am. It was totally dark at that time of the morning. I started swimming. It was weird swimming when it was dark. I would look up to site where I was going and I couldn't see anything. I would swim and look down and I couldn't see anything. It felt like I was swimming in the abyss of outer space. Really weird.

I rode on the spin bikes at the gym for a bit on Tuesday. My quads are always on fire when I start biking. I hate that feeling.

I went for a good run today. I thought I was running really fast, but I don't know for sure because I lost track of the laps. If I ran 5 laps, I ran an average of 7:05min/mile. If I ran 4 laps, I ran an average of 8:35min/mile. I think 7:05 might have been a little fast.

How to spend $2000: new bike or Doug Stern

So, I am now saving up for a house among paying down credit card bills and the such. Now, I am interesting in putting my money towards something else that I don't really need, but is a good thing for me as an athlete. A want either a new road bike such as a Felt F2C or a training vacation to Curacao, Netherland Antilles in January 2006 with Doug Stern. I want the road bike so that I can race in road cycling races and go on longer rides, but I just bought a 2004 Cervelo Dual 6 months ago which isn't exactly cheap. I could also get a used high end road bike and be perfectly happy with it.

However, if I go on the training vacation, I have the potential to greatly improve my performance as an athlete. This would be great since I am preparing to complete my first Ironman at the end of 2006. It would also make me insane. Most people's idea of an ideal vacation is sitting on the beach sitting mai tais for a week doing nothing. My idea of an ideal vacation is going to the beach and not sipping mai tais, but instead going on a 2-mile open water swim in the ocean and 60-mile bike rides in the same day.

Am I crazy?

Practice Tri

For my Team In Training practice yesterday, we had a practice triathlon. It was even shorter than a sprint distance, but it was just practice to get us used to transitions and stuff like that. It was freaking awesome. I feel really comfortable in open water now. My mom has a fear of water when she can't touch the bottom and I developed that fear slightly when I found out that Mommy is also afraid of it when I was 5 years old. Now, I have no problems with open water swimming.

My T1 transition went pretty smoothly, I felt. I could get better at getting the wetsuit off, but I am not bad at it. I don't do the cool thing of having my cycling shoes attached to the pedals, but I may try it out next weekend. I also think I hurt my shoulder when I tried to get out of my wetsuit. I'm a dumbass. My T2 completely sucked, though. When I went to dismount from the bike, I took my shoes off instead of taking my feet out of the shoes. Then, I had trouble getting my socks on my wet feet. The bunched up and if I tried to run with them like that, it was going to cause major problems. So, I decided to take a few extra seconds to fix my socks by sitting on the ground. Well, my calf cramped up. Twice. That really blew. I started the run with a cramping calf, but it finally worked itself out. My calf is sore today. Also, I had cramps in other places. Sometimes I get a stitch in my right side when I run really fast. Yesterday, I had cramps in my lower right side, my left side, as well as my calf. I was in bad shape.

Overall, it went well. I felt like I was going to puke afterwards, but I was fine 30 seconds later.

Today, I rode for about 90 minutes with Helen and Spencer. It was a great day outside. I didn't get to ride as fast as I wanted to, but I tried to get sprints in whenever I could. It's difficult being at a level completely above your training group.

Weekly Update

On Tuesday, I went for a short ride. I organized a weekly riding group at work and this was our maiden ride. I set a new personal land speed record of 42.3mph on my bike. That was fun, but my workout wasn't long enough.

Swam on Wednesday. Nothing special.

I was suppose to run on Thursday, but work has been getting in the way of fun stuff like biking on Tuesday and running on Thursday. It was a nice long, fast workout and I missed it. Damnit.

Today, I weighed in at 177.5lbs. I am dropping, but slowly. On 16 APR, that will be the day that I weigh in before my race and see how much weight that I have dropped since I began triathlon training. I want to see if I am still losing fat while putting on muscle.

I am a little over 3 weeks away from my race. I think I am prepared, but I am not sure. Work has become really stressful lately and because of that, I am putting in longer hours and getting less sleep. In a perfect world, this wouldn't be the case so I am trying to adapt. We will see how I do in 3 weeks.

Tuesday Update

On Sunday, when for a nice bike ride. I was out for about 1:40 and I got in about 27 miles. Nice and easy. It was really windy and I now hate the wind. My tri bike is like a sailboat in the crosswinds.

On Monday, I had a swimming practice. I was swimming 4x200yds on a 3:40 interval. It isn't that fast, but it is fast for me. I swam the first two in about 3:15 with 25 seconds rest and the last two in 3:20 with 20 seconds rest. I was working, too. I figured that it is about 50 seconds for 50 yds, but that is nothing compared to Fred Bousque.

Today, I weighed in at 178 again. So, my official weight is now below 180. Hoorah!

First post!

So, the purpose of this blog is to track the progress of my training. I will now highlight the last few days:

Saturday (today) - I got up today and weighed in at 175.5 pounds. If that is accurate, I have lost 4.5 pounds in about 8 days. I suspect something fishy is up, but I feel fine. I have had huge calorie deficits even after eating 2500+ calories per day. The intensity of my training for my triathlon has gone up recently and that may have triggered the weightloss.

Also, I was really lazy this morning. I got up early to bike with a group ride put on by my LBS, but as soon as I stepped out my front door, it started sprinkling. I went back inside. After 10 minutes, the rain stopped and it has been fine since then. Damnit, I wanted to ride.

Friday: I ran. A lot. And hard. I ran for about 80 minutes. I had to do a speed workout. I was getting my heart rate over 170 consistently. Usually at 170bpm, I start getting tired quickly. Not yesterday. I was running at 175bpm and about 7min/mile pace and I felt great. It was hot, too and I am finally getting used to the heat again.

Wednedsday: I had a good run during lunch. I ran 6.4 miles in about 51 minutes so that is about an average of 7:30 miles. Not bad. That night, I had a breakthrough in the swim. I noticed a few weeks ago that when I breathed, the next catch was a really crappy one. I was propelling myself, but it didn't feel natural. So, I started concentrating on having a nice, clean catch when I breathed. Then, it just hit me on Wednesday. My catches felt a lot better. It felt like I was grabbing much, much more water and I was going a lot faster compared to the effort that I was putting in. It was awesome. I just felt fast.