It's Friday

Had a good run this morning. It was only 25 minutes and I incorporated my pushups and squats into the run. I went to the pool and swam a 1500 meter work out which felt pretty good as well. I made a chocolate whey, banana, blackberry, coconut milk, and natural peanut butter shake for my recovery.

We got a baby sitter tonight and went to the Blue Marlin for some yummy salmon, collard greens, and yes fried spinach. The latter was probably not the healthiest but we had to try it. We then went to a graduation party for a friend of ours and finished off the evening with a game of bowling. All in all a great night away from the kids and we really enjoyed it.

I just tried on my wetsuit that I got back from Xterra. I think this fits me a lot better. I hope to get in the water with it this weekend if I get a chance. Only 8 more days until the Lake Murray Sprint. I hope to stay injury free and do decent in this race.

Tomorrow I will go for a 40 minute push run so I need to start getting ready for bed.

Good Ride

I had a real good ride this morning on the trainer. I rode for a solid hour at about a 140 bpm heart rate. I hope to go for a quick push run and 1500 meter swim in the morning before work. I don't have a whole lot to say tonight but I am looking forward to a nice easy Sunday ride and a medium run on Saturday before heading out to the South Carolina baseball game.

Slowly But Surely

The training plan I am using called for 20 minutes of running and 1000 meters of swimming this morning. I ran at about a 145 bpm heart rate for approximately 2.3 miles. This felt pretty good and I have started to pay attention to my running style and making sure that I am not striking my heel. I have been looking into the pose method of running as well as maintaining a good running cadence. This is something that Coach Brett from Zen and the Art of Triathlon mentioned on one of his pod casts so I have been researching it.

My swim was nice. I did a 200 meter warm up, 10 X 50's with 10 seconds rest between and a 200 meter cool down. This is a great recovery week for me and I am glad to be back in the groove of things after my race.

I need to run Sheldon to school and get in to work so I will update you tomorrow...

The Monday After

Well, I actually feel like I did a little bit of work on Saturday. My abs are a little sore and my arms and legs are sore as well. It isn't painful but again, it feels good. I feel like I gave it good effort. Thinking back to the swim distance of the race I really like that distance. Granted I swam further than I was supposed to, but I really felt strong regardless.

I planned on getting up this morning for a lite bike and swim but it didn't take much effort to give myself another day off. I will go at it again in the morning hopefully. I am anxious to ease back into my training.

I made another green smoothie tonight to sip on tomorrow. It has kale, avacado, organic navel oranges, organic blackberries, Odwalla Superfood, bell pepper, Spirulina, coconut milk, ice, and water. These really give me a lot of energy and I think they are pretty tasty too.

I sent back my wetsuit today for a smaller size so I will have to try the new one out before the Lake Murray Sprint in a couple weeks. I look forward to updating you on some training tomorrow. Until then...

Langely Pond International April 24, 2010

Here I am with Sheldon just before the swim start. It was a nice morning and I got there in plenty of time. I was able to get in the water for just a few minutes to warm up and get my bearings on the swim course. Since I didn't do my homework on this swim course it proved costly to me. This was my biggest lesson learned in this triathlon.



Here I am in T1. My dad and Sheldon were a welcome site. My swim cap was harder to get off than my wetsuit. I thought the transition went fine. I will be sending my wetsuit back though. I need the next size smaller.

I don't have any pictures of the bike but I felt good on the bike. 24 miles is a lot different than 15 in a sprint distance but I felt I handled it well.



The run went about as well as I thought it would. I would have liked to been a little stronger but I was ok with it. I saw moderate signs of my stitch trying to break through during the first couple of miles but I had some water at a couple aid stations and it went away luckily.



Ahhh! This is what makes it all worth it. I don't know if you can tell but Sheldon was soaking wet with playground sand all over him. He had a wonderful time with his Paw Paw and took advantage of being 41/2 and playing in the rain. Thank goodness for the showers and extra clothes.

All in all this was a great race. It was very wet but I don't think that really bothered the spirit. I hope you enjoy the short podcast with my report. I am looking forward to getting back on a training plan with sites on Chattanooga in July. My next race is the Lake Murray Sprint triathlon May 9th. Check out the podcast for this event below.

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12:05:40 and Counting

Alright, what a day. I am just about ready to lay down in bed and try to get to sleep. I got up around 6 am and made it in to work a little before 7. Last night we noticed a pretty bad leak in our downstairs bathroom so of course that had to be take care of today.

I did make it out to the lake this morning with a group of guys from work and as they got used to the open water, I concentrated on polishing up my beach start and exit. I did step on some rather large stones as I was running in and bruised the underside of my left foot a bit. Hopefully that won't bother me tomorrow. I also practiced getting out of the wetsuit and learned a few things that will help me tomorrow.

I ended up leaving work at 2:30 to check on the two foot by about 3 foot chunk of ceiling that was removed to isolate the leak issue. Luckily it ended up being fixed with some caulk but with a 100 year old house you can never be too sure.

I am ready to lay down and get up early (4:30), eat a little oatmeal and get my son in the car. I will be going to pick up my dad and we will be heading out to Aiken for my big race. I am really excited as I have put a lot of time into training and it is going to be great to conquer the next step up distance wise in my triathlon journey. I hope to include a podcast for this race like I did for my first one. I will let you know how it goes. Start time 8:03:00...

3 More Days

It's getting real close. I am feeling pretty good today. I didn't have to wake up early because this is taper week and I feel very well rested. I got up and got Sheldon together for school and made it into work on time. Last night I whipped up another green smoothie that I have been sipping on throughout the morning. I topped it off at lunch and had a pb&j and some almonds.

It is hard to keep the race off of my mind but I am feeling very excited about it. We were supposed to go out to the lake at lunch today for a wet suit swim but it got cancelled because of a meeting. I will go out tomorrow during lunch and just practice my beach start and finish as well as getting out of the wetsuit. I won't spend too much time but it will help to get in the water one more time before the race.

I need to head back in so until next time...

4 More Days

I feel great! I got up around 4 am and made my way down to the trainer. I rode moderately for about an hour with an average heart rate of 122. This is a pretty low heart rate and I have found it difficult to raise it some mornings so early. I then proceeded to the pool. I walked in with the master's swim coach Bill Irwin and he gave me some interesting advice. I was telling him about trying out the wet suit and he told me I didn't need to kick. This makes a lot of sense to me because I found that I was so bouyant with the suit on that I had to modify my kicking to keep my feet in the water. I am going out to the lake tomorrow at lunch basically to practice getting out of my wet suit but I will swim a little with no kicking just to see how it feels. I swam 1500 meters this morning with 800 meters of it as the main set. It felt pretty good although I felt a little sluggish there too. I am going to do a strength work out and some stretching tonight hopefully and start getting things together for the race.

I made a chocolate whey, coconut milk, blueberrie, peanut butter, and banana smoothie for my post work out drink and I am going to sip on this and see if I can get Sheldon ready for school. Have a wonderful Wednesday...

Columbia Downtown Triathlon Podcast

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5 Days And Counting

Good Morning! I feel great this morning because I actually got up to do my exercising at 5 am like I was supposed to. This is actually pretty late for me to get up but I only had a 45 minute run this morning. I ran 5 miles in 45 minutes with an average heart rate of 144. It is interesting how the heart rate training works and I am very interested to see how I do in this race on Saturday with it. One very ironic thing is that I have trained by aerobic heart rate for 18 weeks and I won't have a monitor on in the race. I did pretty good in the sprint distance I ran 4 weeks ago and felt like I could have gone longer so I am very optimistic. I also incorporated 15 push ups and 10 squats at the beginning of the run, every 10 minutes, and at the end of the run for a total of 90 and 60 respectively. I drank some whey protein and had a bowl of raisin bran. I am looking forward to my green smoothie to enjoy today. It is time for me to get ready so I will catch up later.

6 Days And Counting

So I didn't quite make it up at 4 am. I often have these conversations with myself at 3:55 am when my alarm goes off. The ones where I argue the benefits of sleep versus exercise. Luckily nine times out of ten the exercise wins. Usually after a hard exercise the day before I sometimes get a couple more winks. Since it wasn't a total waste I was able to get up and get thirty minutes of the hour and fifteen I was supposed to on the bike trainer. I'll take it. I also made it to the pool this morning for my quick 1500 meters at the pool and made it back within an hour to work.

After work I met up with the family and we went to the chiropractor. Rebecca had to go a few weeks ago because of a serious problem that almost had her not able to walk. I went last year after a similar issue and now I go the Monday of race week which puts me at about once a month.

We then went to Sports Clips for a haircut and picked up Chinese take out for dinner. Yummy Chinese vegetables. Cedar (my youngest) had enough at the chiropractor and went absolutely crazy when they took me back to get my haircut. He's a cutie though so you can't help but love him. Sheldon did his usual at Sports Clips he talks to all of the adults about sports and tests their knowledge. I don't know where he gets it from but that kid breathes sports.

After dinner I made my green smoothie for tomorrow. I was turned on to these by "Coach Brett" from Zen and the Art of Triathlon. I hope he doesn't mind me advertising for him on here. I tried it with kale, coconut milk, lime, yellow bell pepper, carrots, cilantro, orange, strawberry, spirulina, banana, and grapes. Sheldon helped and thought it was yummy. Rebecca tried it and didn't love it as much as Sheldon but she tasted it at least.

So I don't know if I will worry about making up the bike ride I missed this morning, but tomorrow I will take it easy with a 45 minute run. I am really getting excited about the race I called my folks tonight to make sure they were still going. We will be leaving early Saturday morning (5:00 am) to make it there an hour before the start. They are going with me and taking Sheldon. Rebecca gets a break with Cedar at the library all day. I need to start heading to bed and hopefully I will blog tomorrow.

32 Miles Off The Trainer With Sites On Langely

Hello Again! Well since I am writing this you know I made it from the lake on my bike. This probably isn't that big a deal but it was pretty neat for me and I really enjoyed it. First of all I was supposed to ride 40 miles today but only rode 32. I will take it since I rode on more hills than I am accustomed to especially in my 3 X 5 room I usually ride on my trainer. I left out at 8 am and had a nice steady ride down highway 378 from the Lexington/Saluda County Line to my home in downtown Columbia. The weather was great and I thought I was going to be freezing in my tri-suit I wore but it was perfect. I was glad I kept my toe warmers on though. I rode right at 32.5 miles in 1:44:45 with an average heart rate of 139. I was pretty happy with this as I didn't push myself real hard due to my race next s
Saturday. When I finished the bike I threw on my running shoes and ran about a mile at a 7:41 pace to check my side stitch and it didn't show up. That is comforting to me and I think the Infinit nutrition had a lot to do with that. I will let you know after the race if this still stands true.

This week is a true taper as I will only be working out 3 days this week. I will be back on the trainer at 4 am for about an hour and a quarter and then at the pool at 5:30 am for a quick 1500 meter work out. This is all getting ready for my first olympic distance at Langely Pond in Aiken, SC on Saturday, April 24th. After 17 weeks of heartrate training I feel like I am definately able to complete this distance and I hope to do well. We went to Earth Fare today to get some grub for the week. I will fuel with mostly vegetable and fruit carbs this week getting ready for race day. I did however purchase some spinach and feta turkey burgers that I saw and couldn't pass up. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and until next time.....

Saturday Run

Goodmorning! I had a pretty good run this morning. This was my last long run before the big race next Saturday in Aiken. Still paying attention to heart rate I kept it right at a 145 bpm average which was decent. I ran about 6.2 miles in a little less than an hour. I also incorporated 15 pushups and 10 squats into the routine every 10 minutes. Post race nutrition was a chocolate whey, coconut milk, strawberry, and peanut butter smoothie. Yummy! I took a trip to Publix to get grub for the weekend at the lake and more importantly to get coffee filters. Guess what I forgot. But luckily I didn't make it out of the parking lot. I need to figure out how to put some audio files on here so I can share my race report from the Downtown Columbia Triathlon a couple of weeks ago. I am looking forward to heading out to the lake. Right now I am watching Raggs on PBS with Sheldon. These shows get stranger as time goes on it seems but hey the kids like it. I am sure my folks thought the same thing when I was growing up. Anyway tomorrow I am going to try to ride my bike from the lake to the city (32 miles) if time permits and then go for a quick run to test my Infinit Nutrition and see if I get the side stitch issue that has been plaguing my last two sprint triathlons. Until then, adios!

Getting Started

Today has been a pretty good day overall. It was interesting to have a day off of training. I haven't had one of those in the past 9 weeks. I did however make it to Lake Murray for my second open water wetsuit swim. I only swam about 800 meters but it felt pretty good. I am looking forward to my run tomorrow morning early and then heading to the lake house with the family. I am pretty excited about the whole blog thing and I hope to have enough time to update my posts.